Neutral, Tense, Anxious, OverWrought, Depressed, Wrecked.

Neutral, Tense, Anxious, OverWrought, Depressed, Wrecked.

Different stages a person goes through when nothing goes right for him/her. Not a original formulation. It's from the game "Fahrenheit".
Why is it here?

Games.

Sorry for not posting for a while. I know , it's bad for my writing career.:)
I have been occupied with enough things. Coming to my work, nothing seems to be happening smoothly. No problem, I remain an optimist as I had always been and because it's the only way to live. :)
I have been playing some games I mntioned in my previous blog. I didn't like King Kong (PS2) , so stopped playing it. I liked to some extent Call Of Duty-2. Wy only some extent. Yeah, graphics are good, action is good...blah,blah,blah. But it's still gaming on rails. You have a predetermined path. Kill somebody, plant some bombs, ..but it always follows a fixed path. You just want to look around. You are prevented by artifical barriers. It's the same for 99% of games. Yeah, a free roaming world isn't possible. But atleast an illusion will do.
Some games do offer you multiple routes to achieve the same objectives. Still better, if you can have multiple endings. And the whole experience must be immersive. Atleast give me a great story.
I don't want to just shoot, shoot and shoot. I am talking about FPS games here. The formula for FPS game is
Have a good environment. (Forest, Industrial Corridors, Deserted landscapes)
3 or 4 categories of enemies. (Each of them dumb to varying degrees)
4 or 5 Fancy looking weapons with same functionality. (Plase don't mention gravity gun, it was fun only for a while)
4 or 5 Boss creatures.
Why is it that, we have only 4 or 5 enemies at most on screen at any point in the game? I am told, because systems cannot handle more than 4 or 5 characters will all new graphic effects. When you know there is going to be a alien around he corner, I will be obviously ready. And people keep talking about fancy lighting effects. But unless you have a story than can involve the gamer, graphics don't amount to much. Atleast not for me.
Ok , enough ranting. I have started playin Fahrenheit /Indigo Prophecy. (PS2) I must have completed 30% of game. And I liked what I saw till now. How do I desribe this game? A guy commits murder at a restaurent inspite of himself. He escapes from that place. An investigation starts. You can control the main character & investigatng officers. Hmm, it sounds like adventure. It offers you pseudo choices at many points. The story part is good. If the rest of game maintains the momentum, I will have no problem recommending this game to anybody.
And I do that for very few games.
Trivia. 2 top games of all time on my list. Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid.
More Later.

Thanksgiving

I don't know what Thanksgiving day is , it's origins, significance. I imagine (probably rightly) that it is a day where we thank all people who are responsible for what we are.
Let me try to do that for fun.
I thank my parents, life partner, friends, kids, relatives, teachers, colleagues, enemies, game developers, TV producers, sportsmen,... basically everybody for making my life a semi ineresting affair.:)

Video Games.

For the past few months, I didn't play video games. Now I am back with vengeance. I have installed Call Of Duty, Farenheit, Ultimate Spider Man, Fear, Singles-2,AOE-3..on PC and bought King Kong, Gun, Shadow of Colossus ,..for PS2 and coupleof games for Xbox.
I know that, it will take few months to complete all these games. Mylust for video games never ends. now I am thinking about acquiring The movies, Civ-4, Kinetic:Eye Toy (ps2).:)
Xbox 360. I will wait till the price drops and modchips appear. :) This disregard for intellectual property will come back to me when I become prime minister of my country. ;)
I am eagerly waiting to see how PS3 turns out ot be.
Reviews about games will start appearing soon. Later.

(Some) Bengalis.

I am ready for all hate comments that may follow. How does one explain Ganguly's return to Indian squad? A batting allrounder!!! Yeah 25 wickets in 84 tests or something like that. As some journo pointed out, Zaheer Khan who bowled out Ganguly twice for duck in recent match couldn't get a place because of Ganguly.
Wo's responsbile for this blunder? Kiran More, the chairman of selectors sounded practical yesterday and unconvincing today. Is it Jagmohan Dalmia, that bloody manipulator from Bengal, or is so called fans of Bengal that include some minister, few cinema stars...
If some idiots from every state act like these idiots from bengal, then cricket team must have atleast 25 players.
And Ganguly says "My record speaks for itself. I have scored century aganiest Zimbabwe recently and in Duleep Trophy, and I got some wickets..." Come on Ganguly, you cannot stoop down more. Instead as well, you can beg and look more dignified. A century againest Zimbabwe to boast of..
Bengal has poduced so many intellectuals, great bollywood personalities and som boring directors and lot of bad communists (That is redundant, right).I hope majority bengalies don't support tamasha that's happening in favour of Ganguly.

I had to do this.

Normally I don't post from my office. I am compelled now because of this.

" 'Bomb Jazeera' memo: Media warned

Thursday, November 24, 2005 Posted: 0106 GMT (0906 HKT)

story.newsroom.ap.jpg
Al-Jazeera's newsroom in Doha, Qatar.


LONDON, England (CNN) -- The British government has warned news organizations against publishing details of a secret memo which one London tabloid newspaper said recounted discussions between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush about bombing the headquarters of the Arabic news network Al-Jazeera.

The Daily Mirror reported Tuesday that Blair talked Bush out of launching an air strike against Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar -- a U.S. ally -- during an April 16, 2004 meeting at the White House. "

"The Arabic-language network has been a frequent target of U.S. criticism, and its facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq have been hit by U.S. bombs.

If true, the Mirror report "would cast serious doubts" on U.S. statements that those strikes were accidental, the network said."

I remember similar accidental bombing of chinese embassy in Serbia or somewhere around that. Americans are reprehensible at times. They invoke God to do all sorts of stuff. They have god given right to spy on anybody (remember spy plane incident over chinese territory), bomb anybody with whom they don't agree...yet they can sermonise on human rights, axis of evil, war on terror...

I moan the fact that we live in such a false world.

I am corrupt.

I have a problem with corruption everywhere. But am I different from what I blame? Unfortunately the answer is no. I am not corrupt by design. That's the way I justify my present approach towards life. Whenever I have to bribe somebody, it's because I have to and not because I want to.
But then, every corrupt person justifies his life that way. :( Let me not take this reasoning to extreme and deny that, there exists differences between different types of corrupt people. Some have no option, some do it as a conscious decision, some remain victims, some become perpatrators to compensate for the unreasonable losses somewhere else, ...
I wish I did less mistakes. But then, as I read somewhere, one who does no mistake is somebody who does nothing.
As always, there is a scope for improvement. I will try to be more and more honest to my beliefs.
Useless post, I guess.:)

That stupid, barking Dog, Sitaram Yechury.

For those who don't know who he is, he is spokesperson and a parliament (Rajya Sabha) member from CPI(M).
This idiot is from Andhra Pradesh. He is a pseudo intellectual with an opinion on everything, anything and nothing. He is what one calls armchiar intellectual. Intellectual might be a very wrong word. Calling him a dog might be an insult to dog.
Why am I speaking like this? Do I have any personal grudge againest that person? None that I am aware of. :)
Let me give some reasons for this attack.

1) Yesterday he was saying, that fracture of secular vote due to Ram Vilas Paswan had ensured victory of communal forces in Bihar. Yeah, until you look at numbers. Paswan had scored less of votes than previous time. Then how did RJD & it's allies lose more seats? And this dishonest idiot talks about unity among secular forces when they can't bond with their fellow communist party CPI in the same state. Oh, how many seats did CPI(M) win in Bihar? 1 out of 243. Those who ask his opinion must be fired out of their jobs for wasting their time.

2) He got elected from Bengal. What's the problem with that? CPI(M) had a policy that Rajya Sabha members should come from same state they wish to get elected. And this guy is from Andhra, where CPI(M) cannot hope to win a Rajya Sabha seat on their own in next 100 yrs. And here I blame Mr. Prakash Karat & Brinda Karat too. I see not enough reasons for Brinda Karat to get elected. CPI(M) in this aspect acted like a bourgeois party.

3) This guy spoke in Hindi when he shared dias with PM in a public gathering at Hyderabad. His reason. He wanted Prime minister to understand what he wanted to convey. Oh, yeah. Mr Yechury, this is a public gathering where you are to be understood by public first. And if Prime minister feels that your speech is important enough to be understood, he will put in some effort towards the same or you can provide a copy of your speech.

4)For these CPI(M) idiots, corruption is never an issue. All they want is to stop communal forces from coming to power. For that, they will sleep with anybody. Hmm, probably I shouldn't complain on this aspect. It is others who have to think twice about sleeping with these untouchables.

I have problems with communists. I hate BJP more (For record). All those millions (or billions) of communists could not produce another Karl Marx. How long we have to rely on handful of books? Das Kapital ,Long March, Dialectical Materialism, ...Why don't we proceed from here? Why do we want to get stuck up in the past all the time? And communist leaders never behave like communists. They deny all the benefits they enjoy to common man. Enough, I can go a long distance, but I don't want to.
If somebody who knows Sitaram Yechury stubles upon this blog, please inform him, that somewhere, there is a guy who hates him with all hatred he is capable of.

The Google Story. Review.

I finished reading "The Google Story". It's about 300 pages. I skipped about 50 pages dealing with issues like how people all over world are googling, how Gmail launch could have been better,..and such boring stuff.
What's that I learnt from book? Larry and Page were very brilliant, had similar backgrounds, stumbled upon idea as part of their Phd work, were in right plce at right time, tried to be as pure as possible (No ads approach for quite a while), made Google a great place to work, recruited best minds all along, their actions coincided with major happenings in Online Space, made lot of money, but still interested more in solving problems than making money, motto is "Do No Evil" (by their yardstick), microsoft started taking serious note of things, involved in genetics and molecular biology research apart from many other things,...
Nothing exceptional if you are a tech news junkie.
Book didn't leave me with any sort of emotion. The whole thing sounds like a chronicle, diary of events.
If you are rich and curious and have enough time , go buy this book. Or else, you'll not lose much.

Sorry.

I was not in a mood to update. Frustration creeping in. Ok, the dark clouds have started drifting.:) Kid is going to be discharged tomorrow.
Let me not talk about my work which is in a state of mess as on today.
I have started reading "The Google Story" by David Vise. It is one of those books which inspire you for a day or two to have a purpose in life.:)
Having fun with my kids.
Parenting Tip: Kids don't distinguish between 3000 rs "Thomas & Friends train" and 100 rs cast metal tiny cars.:)
Parenting Tip-2 : Trips to parks museum cost a lot less than shopping trips with almost similar results. :)
More Later.

Update.

Kid is almost fine. I know giving percentages is absurd, but still, he is 95% fine. It had been 10 days since I have been to office, my home.....
Good that I have a laptop.:)
Coming to positive aspects of this forced holiday. I have been spending a lot of time with kids. Taking them to parks, shopping malls, hotels, playing video games,...
I have realised few other things from this experience. Healthcare outside big cities in India is pathetic. And logically good health care is out of reach to poor/ geographically distant.
Why does everything cost so much? A small plastic tube costs 50 times it's material value. I can understand terms like value addition, margins, recouping R&D..etc. But what's there is syringe, a tube and other such basic stuff to warrant such high prices.
And coming to price of some medicines, the only rationale behind pricing seems to be
"your need and hence sell your assets". Are you people aware of AIDS prescrpition pricing before advent of Indian companies.
I am all for medical piracy. I mean cheap clones of all these costly stuff. Yeah, I know about intellectual rights.
I am almost always worried about this nation. So many people who don't have access to basics. Education, health, awareness,.. I don't want to balme anybody for the present state. Am I sounding bombastic? Whatever, I am worried about future. Where do we go from here? And how do we go there?
All we educated people, what is that we want from our lives? Apart from watching 10-12 hrs of TV a week, bing in a shitty job and breeding. (I took that line from somewhere else)
We want to be physically and mentally active. We want to be entertained. We want our own personal library. We want a park for our jogging, exercise,..
How do we ensure that everybody else too gets the same standard of life. I feel, we will have to blame everybody.
10 days ago, I had complained to a govt official about some potholes on road which appeared due to rains. His reply was "Is it just your road? there are many like that. We will rectify the situation when we can. We are not slaves to anybody. We know our duty. You need not inform us. .."
And I had complained to another official about stagnated water on a piece of private land. The concerned municipal official acted to drain water and when I asked him 'Why don't you issue notice to land owner and take some action?" His reply was " Atmost a penalty of 50 rs can be imposed on account of stagnated water being a publich hazard. And in turn the land owner can book case on us for tresspassing." :(
What happned to potholes on road? When I lost my patience, I blasted that guy (over phone) and by next morning the road got repaired temporarily. The concerned official and municipal guy acted not because, they are inherently duty bound, but because I can influence their positions. Sad, but true.
When and how are we go to become more aware? I am including myself on the culprits side. I believe we are all not doing enough to make situation around us better.
For now, I will start thinking about setting up a cildren's hospital or atleast contributing to existing infrastructure facilities of children healthcare facilities.

Almost ok.

Kid is shifted from ICU to regular room. Probably 2 more days before we land in our sweet home again.
My respect for Doctors had increased by a degree after this experience. Detailed report soon. My mood is getting better. I was never sad/tense..I was just restless/ clueless..
Later.

Progress (or lack of it)

My son is still in need of medication. Nothing seriously wrong on surface. Few irritants with no clear cut causes or effects. More diagnosis required. More anxiety remains.Later.

Update.

I am either sleepy or uninterested. The kid is doing ok. It's taking more time than expected.I am away from work for the past 4 days. And it isn't making any difference. :(
This is medium sized private hospital for children. Main guys i.e.. senior doctors are good. But the decay starts from the next level below.
There is a clear discrimination between rich patients and poor patients, though both are charged the same. Nurses shout, sleep , recieve private calls during their work time in ICU. They don't care to get the basics right. Attending to crying children, cleaning equipment, adminstering medicine,...
And junior doctors, ask them something and don't expect anything part from either generic answers or stupid, alarming answers.
Their answers include "It's normal for this condition, we need to go for blood transfusion, we will take a X-Ray tomorrow, arteries may burst under pressure,.."
They disappear around 1:00am to magically appear around 5:00am.
Yeah, they must have seen pretty much everything that's left to be seen. That doesn't mean, they should behave so insensitively towards kids, their parents,..
Coming to other aspects, few sad stories I have seen in past 4 days go like this.
A 6 month old girl is born with congenital heart disease and collapsed lungs. She has large, active eyes though. She is frail, probably due to lack of supply of blood. She isn't named yet, because their parents know that she is going to die anyway. She is the only child born after 15 yrs of marriage. :(
A 5 yr old kid with failed kidney.
A 8 yr old kid with burn injuries.
A 4 yr old girl operated upon for some intestinal issues. He father asks me " I have bought a bottle of blood for 850 Rs. And it wasn't used during the operation. Can I resell that, so that I can recover atleast 700 rs"?
Kids crying when being injected medicine, under pain, asthama,...I am lucky, I didn't see any deaths yet.
Meanwhile an acquaintance who likes our family for reasons best known to him keeps getting food for us at regular intervals thus obviating the need for search of hotels.
He is a Jain, and I keep discussing with various aspects of that fascinating religion. Hmm, perhaps my curiosity makes him like me.:)
Whatever, I want this to be over soon. I want to go back to comfort of my home.

Pneumonia Update.

Son is still in hospital. May have to be there for atleast couple of days more. I have been spending my time too in hospital for past 3 days. At one stage, the condition was said to be 'critical'.
I have seen worse cases all around. Hole in heart, collapsed lungs, burn injuries, failed kidney.....poor people who wonder if they should return unsed blood bag...
That's for some other time. Later.

Penumonia.

My youngest son is down with pneumonia. He is in hospital inhaling oxygen and imbibing saline. He doesn't seem to be suffering except when pierced with needles.
He is the first one in family to spend a night at hospital. It seems he contracted this from his bro. Hopefully he will be alright by tomorrow morning.
It's sad to see small children suffering. Hospitals in India need lot of improvement. Ofcourse it's about money. If we had money, we will have better hospitals.
Recent rains and deteriotion of public health standards only increase the burden on poor health infrastructure of this country.
I wonder how many kids in India can afford costly medicines, overnight stay at hospital,...
Many parents still go for some genric medicine and still worse some alternative medicine.
How can we expect tribal kids to get decent access to medical care?
Something needs to be done and done fast. Just because we have too many people around us doesn't mean, we should be fatalist in our attitude.
One important thing that's missing from shining India is lack of growth in civil infrastructure. Nobody cares about parks, libraries, hospitals, schools, colleges...
It's only about IT, commercial education, Real estate, new vehicles, more entertainment,...
Even Govts these days talk about recovering their investment on health and education. We see more and more self funded courses in Govt uniersities and users charges at Govt hospitals and sale of vacant lands to Real estate developers. When govt acts like a corporate body, there is little hope for public. I know , I know the usual arguements about utilising all these proceeds towards public welfare.
Why rob people first and then donate to them? If govt cannot afford to increase investments in health and education why is it collecting taxes? Customs, Central Excise, Education Surcharge, Gulf war surcharge, Cess for national highway building, ...what not?
Apart from all these we are supposed to contribute to PM relief fund, CM relief fund..If you think about it, my donation job is over the moment I pay my taxes.
We should all act. Either we should force govt to utilise our contributions in a transperent and positive manner or we should start evading taxes and behave like local Robin Hood'.
I prefer the second route.