992.

I clicked on my name on Facebook and looked at the left side of the webpage. 992 ‘friends’. Just 8 away from 1,000.

One thousand friends…

Holy crap!

I have a lot of friends who have more than a thousand friends on facebook. But seriously…think about it. I’m the kind of guy who’d be pretty open about myself, but I wouldn’t call every second person my friend. In fact, I think I’m more the kind of guy who has very few close friends, and with the rest, I’m friendly and approachable. To be completely honest, a lot of times, I think I’m a bit of a loner, a bit of a shut-in. I don’t particularly desire company, except occasionally. A thousand friends? I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.

But don’t put me into that broad category of people who hate Facebook. While I think that most things about Facebook are ridiculous, I am certainly impressed by quite a few things about it.

To begin with, Facebook is here to stay. Unlike Orkut, Myspace and Hi5, Facebook is not a fad, and its popularity is not limited only to certain geographical areas. And with the advent of the “Like” button, Facebook has cemented its place on the Internet. Most websites now have a “Like” button that is linked to your Facebook account. “Like” something, and you’re instantly connecting it to your friends. You know which of your friends have been to this particular website and liked this particular content. More importantly, you are showing off to your friends your likes and dislikes. It’s ridiculous and superficial, but it’s genius.

Like it or not, it really is ingenious

To me, though, Facebook is much more useful as a means of keeping in touch and finding old friends. With its help, I’ve found friends from way back, like the time I lived in Kenya (more than 15 years ago, when we were still kids and didn’t care enough to keep in contact). It’s also a much easier way to keep in touch with people you don’t meet very frequently. Like someone’s picture or comment on their status, and you’re instantly back in touch with that person.

The only other aspect of Facebook worth mentioning (I’ve just had Red Bull and my brain’s racing) is the utter lack of privacy. The moment you “like” something, your full name is displayed for all your “friends” (and friends of friends) to see. You upload a photograph, and a friend of a friend of a friend can see it. Of course, everyone’s aware of all this, and you can throw the privacy settings at me. But that doesn’t prevent Facebook from being a privacy hazard. It’s like saying, “You know the dangers of smoking, and if you want to be careful, then don’t inhale the smoke all the way”, but that doesn’t prevent you from being susceptible to lung cancer or any of the other problems associated with smoking (or passive smoking).

Ok, enough Red Bull induced rambling for one day.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Here’s what I do with my MP3s:

1. Step 1 is to run all new music files I acquire through MP3Gain, which normalizes the volume of all my audio files to 93dB. This ensures 2 things:
   • I don’t have to reach for the volume control all the time because a track comes up which is suddenly way louder than the previous one.
   • At 93 DB (after some amount of testing), my audio files don’t clip. Clipping of files occurs when their volume is too high, and in certain parts of the song, you hear crackling and sound distortion.
2. I arrange the files in the right folder. My entire music collection is ordered neatly as:
   English (or Hindi) >> Artist (or Movie) >> Album Name >> (Track #). (Track Title)
3. I download the album cover and save it as “folder.jpg” so that Windows uses the album cover as the display icon.
4. I ensure that all the tags are properly written, and that the album cover image is inserted into each MP3.
5. Lately, I’ve come to realise that quite a bit of my collection is 128 kbps or less. I’ll need to re-encode these albums to a quality of 192 kbps or higher.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Thank you for sharing your weaknesses with us, because it makes us feel more secure about ourselves. Thank you for your honest, foul-mouthed rant about things that are wrong with the world and annoy everyone. It gives us much relief to read it, even if we’ll never post such stuff in the public eye. Thank you for calling an idiot just what he is. At least now he knows what everyone thinks of him, and he might annoy us a little less. Thank you, we honestly appreciate you.

But that’s all we’ll do. As for us, we’re content to let you do the dirty work. We’re here for you when you need a shoulder, but we can’t let you see our insecurities and weaknesses, quite simply because that’d make us look bad. We can’t afford to annoy the system, so we’ll never openly criticise it. We’ll suffer silently, plotting against it, cheering your posts and slapping your back from the comfort of the shadows. And no matter how big a pain in the ass someone else, we’re just going to wait until someone else lets him know. God forbid that PITA actually becomes someone in life…we may need to suck up to him then.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you very much. For saying what every one of us needs to say, but no one actually does; for doing what every one of us should, but no one does.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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But over the last few days, I’ve been really been wondering about this. With the popularity of Photoshop and other image-editing tools increasing, I’ve been finding myself questioning whether the essence of a picture is lost in the special effects. In my opinion, it’s like cheating. Even if you capture a dull photograph, you can make it much prettier by playing around with the depth of the colours. At the most basic level, we appreciate pictures which capture colours very well. The more colourful an image, the more we tend to appreciate it. (That’s not to say that we don’t appreciate black and white pictures, or sepia pictures…because we certainly do.) But it is this characteristic of a picture itself that is so easy to manipulate. So, this makes me wonder (and this post is nothing but me wondering aloud):

• Is it fair to blame the Photoshop culture? Camera lens filters have been being used for the longest time to capture some colours in greater depth than others, particularly for sunrises and sunsets.
• With so much Photoshoppery, is the line between digital art and traditional photography not being blurred too much?
• Should we care?

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I normally tend to stay away from “controversial” subjects like religion on my blog, but I reckon this post has been coming for some time now.

I just had a very entertaining (let’s put it that way) “conversation” with a batch-mate here at XLRI who was adamant that all Sikhs are Punjabis and vice versa. For the record, Sikhism is a religion and Punjab is a state. Let this debate come to rest once and for all. Anyone hailing from Punjab, who speaks Punjabi (probably) has a right to be called Punjabi (this was a point on which we differed), and Sikhs who do not hail from Punjab, who have lived in other places in India (like me and the last few generations of my family) have no need to call ourselves Punjabi. In fact, South Indian Sikhs (hailing from the Deccan area) are often called Dakhni Sikhs, hailing from the Southern Indian Deccan area.

It is therefore disheartening that Sikhs who do not speak Punjabi are treated as second-class citizens by our own brethren. It’s also sad that people have common misconceptions and absolutely refuse to budge from their stand. It reminds me of how the whole world once believed in the geocentric theory…of course, just because they believed in it did not make it true. Similarly, objectively stating the facts, one does not need to know Punjabi to be a Sikh. Technically, having been baptised, all one needs to be a practising Sikh is to follow the Five Ks. I rest my case.

While I’m on the topic of Sikhism, however, let me add a few more thoughts. Sikhism was, in its time, among the most practical of all religions. We were not expected to give up our worldly ways. Instead, we were to moderate our greed, pride and other ills while still remaining practical. Our religion was founded on the principle of protecting the oppressed, of giving voice to the helpless and of being protectors to those who could not protect themselves. It breaks my heart, when I see now, that instead of following the philosophy of Sikhism, we are now so adamant on following the rituals, something all our Sikh Gurus abhorred from the beginning. In fact, this is the basis on which Sikhism differed from the Hinduism of old.

I hear a lot about the young firebrand Sikhs, who love their religion. In my opinion, they don’t even understand it. Instead of accepting, like we should, each others’ differences, they actively seek to force Sikhs to fall in line. Instead of convincing those on the fence to learn about the philosophy and spirit of the religion, they force them to learn the behaviours and characteristics that are expected. Like in every other religion, interpretation of the rules varies subjectively. However, this active castigation is likely to lead not towards the growth of the religion in the hearts and minds of youngsters, but more towards active desertion of the faith. This is, after all, how rebellion works in our mind. Force something down our throats, and we will puke it out and reject it, irrespective of whether it’s good for us or not.

PS: If you really want to complicate things, Sikhism is not a religion, it’s a philosophy. The “religion” (as embodied by the command to have the Five Ks, etc.) is known as Khalsa.

PPS: If you intend to argue with me, please note that any arguments you make that are contrary to what I have written, whether backed up by fact, research or ordnance, will be deemed null, void and stupid. Basically, come what may, I am right and you are wrong. Thanks, and have a nice day!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Then, a close friend of mine who is a complete Looney Toon (I think this has become the criteria for becoming a close friend of mine) one day, completely out of the blue, without any provocation of any kind, says to me, “Dude, let’s start a blogging club!”

I sputtered and choked for a while (ok, not really), and I said to him, “Well, wow! I’ve been thinking of the same thing, kinda…been thinking about making a Writers’ Club”. And so, we started. Or rather, he started. I, being I, kept saying, “Hold it, take it easy, let’s think things over…let’s plan it out.” And he, being he, said, “Shut up, mofo, and let’s get it done. What name can you think of?”

And that’s how Writers Inkorporated (WINK) came to be—a name derived from an idea another close friend (who is definitely a Looney Toon, if ever there was one!) once had for his website. The first step was to get some credible people involved, because well…you know…we’re both cartoons. We needed people to take us seriously. So we went and spoke to a couple of professors.

They were really supportive. The first one said he’s been waiting for students to start such “hobby clubs” in XLRI for a long time. Both the profs promised to support us with publicity and contributions and for judging contests and the like. With their blessings, we sent a spreadsheet to gauge interest in the batch. Out of 120 students, more than 50 applied. We called a meeting to give a short presentation. A grand total of 20 (:P) students attended that one, but more people contributed later through email. So we decided to just limit ourselves to mails.

After some time, we had an idea—let’s get people to send us their creative writing and compile it in an e-zine and send it to everyone. And then, we indulged in some wishful thinking (“Dude, if it’s really good, we can get it published! We have quite a few XLers as published authors…they can definitely help us out!”). And thus, the seeds for the WINK Anthology were sowed. It took about a month to get contributions. We didn’t really shortlist the best, choosing instead to publish everything we got. But we did decide not to publish more than 2 entries per author.

And then started the horror known simply as Term IV and Term V. What we had expected to be considerably “light” terms were anything but. And even in these terms, a couple more entries trickled in and some older entries got updated and replaced. Finally, Term VI came around. I wiped my white board clean, made a new to-do list, and wrote “WINK” all over it, leaving no space for anything else on the whole board. And then, we completed it, formatted and all, by December 15.

You can get yourself a copy from Scribd, or just download it here.

Gratitude and Congratulations to Varun (Mangoman), Prof Madhukar Shukla and Prof Uday Damodaran. And also, of course, to every single person who contributed with his/her writing or in any other way to support WINK. Cheers. Here’s to a successful Vol 2!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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• Day 1: Spent in Calcutta
• Days 2-5: Spent in Sikkim (Gangtok, Lachen and Lachung)
• Day 6: Back to XLRI

And now, the log:

Day 1:

Reached Calcutta without major incident. Took ferry across the river, saw the Howrah Bridge (beautiful). Went to Park Street, ate beef steak (really tasty) at shady place – “Olypub”. Walked around for a bit. Went to South City Mall. Watched a movie – Chronicles of Narnia in 3D (pretty good). Went for dinner to a Chinese place – “Kimli”. Got to station with plenty of time to spare. Slept.

Day 2:

Reached NJP (New Jalpaiguri). Started negotiating for cab and tour (to take us to Gangtok and beyond). After a lot of negotiating, talks break down. All travel agencies running a scam forcing tourists to take cab and packaged deal together. Finally found a cab driven by a total lunatic called “Anil Kapoor”. Drive to Gangtok mostly without incident. Ate raw Wai-Wai noodles on the way on Anupam’s recommendation. Reached Gangtok, checked into hotel – fairly comfortable. Shower and momos (veg and pork). Went to MG Marg – very pretty place. Bought gloves and a muffler (nice!). Dinner at Cafe Live & Loud – live band and free wifi! Bit of booze for everyone. Back to hotel. Sleep.

Day 3:

Woke up, showered, had breakfast, left for Lachen. Stopped at “Seven Sisters” Waterfalls. Gupta lost his shoe, almost. Met Mohsin, Rajiv and Sid (who was well-packed in warm clothes) (other XLers) at the falls. Stopped for lunch shortly after. Restarted journey and reached Lachen around 7 pm. Pretty cold. Had drinks to warm up. Ate dinner. Sleeping early to wake up early, have to leave at 3.30 am. Sleeping in MULTIPLE layers of clothing. Dinner and lunch were both sort of home-made-food-like. Good night.

Day 4:

Woke up hell early (3 am). Left for Gurudongmar Lake (Frozen Lake) at around 4. Pitch dark outside. Did not take Avomine. Spotted ice on the way on the side of the road. Got to a small village for breakfast. FREAKING COLD! Toes were between hellish pain and numbness. Breakfast was tea and soft, fresh bread. Bought second pair of gloves and thick socks. Restarted journey. Had a bit of an obstruction at slushy (icy) road. Gupta and Adwaith have a small military adventure. Finally reached lake. Height 17100 feet. Had gurudwara too. Thin air made breathing difficult. Felt sick and had headache all the way back. Got back to hotel, had a late lunch. Left for Lachung. Ride to Lachung mostly without incident. Reached hotel/guesthouse. Cute little rooms with wooden panelling. Scheduled to leave tomorrow again at 5.30 am. Today’s recurring theme: diesel exhaust fumes from vehicles all around us, all along the way.

Day 5:

Woke up early again to go to Yumthang Valley. Relatively short ride. Valley was beautiful. Area near the river VERY cold. Got sort of Adam-teased (:P). Had hot, soft bread with butter and marmalade (yum!) for breakfast. Plus Maggi. Started for Gangtok almost immediately after return from Yumthang. Ride to Gangtok rather uneventful. Back to same old hotel. Showered with very lukewarm water. Went out for shopping and had authentic Tibetan food for dinner. Was awesome (and heavy). Sleeping kinda early to wake early to go to Rumtek Monastery.

Day 6:

Woke early, got ready early. Went to Rumtek Monastery. Quite a pretty place, kinda peaceful. Lots of armed guards around. Others found it too commercialised. Had questionable breakfast – weird (but kinda tasty) cooked Wai-Wai and pretty horrible “chowmin”. Left for Gangtok immediately after. Faced couple of long traffic jams on the way. Reached NJP with couple of hours to spare. Had lunch at the station food court. “Teesta-Torsa Express” delayed by 45 mins already (NJP being second stop)! Finally, train arrived…got in, exchanged seats (all 7 of us in same coupe). Finally underway. Realised by nightfall that train is running about 2.5 hours late. Would miss Janshatabdi from Howrah to Jampot at this rate. Made a new plan. Get down at Bandel (2 stops before Sealdah, which was the actual destination). Take local to Howrah. Race against time to catch Janshatabdi from Howrah. Slept fitfully.

Day 6:

Woke up at 3.30 am to figure out train’s running pattern – approx 1.5 hours late. Decide to disembark at Bandel. Do so at around 4.50 am. Run to other platform to catch 5.09 am local to Howrah (scheduled to arrive at Howrah at 6.10 am). Our train (Janshatabdi) scheduled to depart from Howrah at 6.20 am. New plan: get off local at Howrah, run like madmen from the “old station” (for local trains, i.e. platforms 1-6) to “new station” (for out-of-city trains, i.e. platforms 16-22 or so), and somehow get into Janshatabdi before it leaves. Mentally prepared for the dash. Local train sort of running on schedule. Arrives outside Howrah station by 6.05 am. Everything going according to plan. Then…horror! Train gets red signal. Stands outside Howrah station for next 10 minutes. Finally pulls in to Howrah at 6.20 am on Platform 1. We realise Janshatabdi’s on Platform 21. Get off the train while impatient idiots are trying to get INTO the train. Run. Run. Run like madmen. Run like life depends on it. Run from platform 1 to platform 21 with luggage in hands. Run through crowded platforms. Run over narrow overbridges. Run into people, ram into luggage boxes, apologise, keep running, panting. Finally, out of breath, sweat-covered, reach platform 21 at 6.26 am. Heartbreak: no train on platform. Missed by 5 minutes. Recover. Get tickets and get into general compartment of Ispat Express. Leave Howrah at 7 am (scheduled departure: 6.55 am…just our luck: wrong train left 5 minutes late). Pile luggage against one of the doors. Sit on the floor, buy a book, have breakfast, pass time somehow. Finally reach Tatanagar (Jampot) at 10.40 am. Traffic jam outside station (some drivers = pure idiots). Reach XLRI (hallowed portals). Get out of auto, get into elevator. See sticker “137″ on the door. Home, sweet home.

* * *

Awesome trip. Thank you to Anupam Agarwal, Aditya Gadre, Aditya Gupta, Abhishek Joshi, Adwaith Naimpally and Soumya De for making this an awesome experience. Let’s do it again!

And to end the post, I’d just like to mention (like I have many, many times before) that I love my speakers.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Gangtok, Sikkim.

According to schedule, we’ll be there on 6 December, in time for lunch. Sounds like fun, a hell of a lot of fun!

Also sounds intimidating, particularly when you see the following screenshot:

This may not look particularly scary, but in the morning when I checked, it was -7°C. And if that’s not intimidating enough, then have a look at the last few days’ observed Maximum and Minimum temperatures:

That’s -12°C (lowest temperature) for the last 3 days straight!

Sounds like it’s going to be one heck of a trip!

@Gadre, Gupta, Joshi, Anupam, Adwaith and Soumya: bring it on, yeah!

PS: Posted with permission from Ms G.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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But that’s not quite what this post is about.

Today’s the last day of my fifth term at XLRI (excluding the end-term exams which begin tomorrow, of course). In this term, I think I’ve changed more than in any other term. Part of it has been because of the course PEL, I guess. At least, that’s where I picked up the whole idea about positive psychology and how to apply it.

So, for the last couple of days, I’ve been really upbeat. A major reason is probably because night before yesterday, I had to sleep early (stomach cramps or something), and I got a good 6+ hours of sleep (the MBA equivalent of paradise, especially in this hellish term). I’ve successfully worked on a fairly complicated assignment yesterday (and today), and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve almost completed a couple of reports which are due by the last exam date, and as I said earlier, I’m feeling good about tomorrow’s exams. I also scored unexpectedly well in one of my tests (the marks of which were announced today). To top it off, it just rained…very unexpectedly, because the sky didn’t give any hints that it would cry tonight.

Maybe today’s just one of those days. I think all my guardian angels are high tonight or something. I don’t know how long this will last, but I’m just going to enjoy it while it does.

PS: Just got a mail that the deadline for the assignment for which I worked my ass off last night (was up till 3.30 am) has been pushed back to December 18 (it was originally December 2). HA! Well, that’s life, I suppose.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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And in this subset of days, there will be some days when you spend an entire day working, working, working, but at the end of the day, you sit back and you feel like you’ve achieved nothing…like you’ve spend the entire day grinding the stone, but what you’ve accomplished is so very insignificant compared to what’s left to be achieved still. It’s like going running for a long time, and ultimately finding that you’ve covered no ground, like being on a treadmill.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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