"Ding dong bell
Prince is in the well..
Who put him in?
God only knows...
Who pulled him out?
Even a dog in India knows.."

Seriously,what was all that media coverage for 2 days about a 'Prince' getting rescued out of a 50 feet pit?I still cannot believe that it made to the front pages of all news websites and newspapers.By the way,can't the bloody media clarify that he was not a prince or heir to some old Kingdom?It took a while for me to understand that the kid was not some prince but had the word 'Prince' as part of his name!Not that it makes a difference if it was 'Prince Charles' or this 'Prince'.Its good that he escaped without much pain and the army definitely deserves a lot of kudos for their act.

It was really a sad thing that a small kid had to endure such an agonising 2 days of loneliness,darkness and an almost macabre experience,but it does not really qualify for being shown on Indian TVs as a case of so-called 'reality TV' coverage.
The CM has announced 2 Lakh Rs as compensation to the family of 'Prince'.What the hell?What was the basis for that piece of compensation?Now,will the media stop with this or will it cover the kid's 15th birthday or his graduation as a special program in 2015 or 2020,with an hr of recap of what happened last week?

Few bad things that this incident in Indian social life might create in future :
1)The poor farmers in Andhra may think of voluntarily pushing their kids or wife into some pit or well and hope for the CM to intervene.
2)The kids who watched TV last week might feel that the 'Faujiii' uncle will be there always to rescue them from any problem and might dare to take risky steps while playing.
3)Media companies will have this as an excellent case study for capturing the minds of the masses and would be ready to pounce upon any silly happening just to gain attention.
4)The people who saw this and got irritated might start giving lesser attention and help to other incidents warranting support and attention from the masses.
5)Prince,who would have grown up to be a good student in his village or a good farmer like his dad has all chances of getting wasted due to the sudden money and attention that he got from this.


-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

Top 10 lies about Microprocessors.

That was pretty informative and in simple layman terms!
-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

A brief overview of current semiconductor companies and their products.Very informative.

-Rajesh

Posted by rajesh |

Oflate,I havent been regularly blogging.The initial enthusiasm to scribble stuff is slowly starting to die down.I could notice the same element of non-chalance among other bloggers too.This whole blogging phenomenon definitely seems to be a huge bubble which will burst one fine day and go into oblivion.I could envision it happening within the next few months.Only the die-hard bloggers who are hell bent in honing their communication skills/writing style would continue to chip in some interesting stuff on a regular basis.

I also pondered as to why suddenly every tom,dick and harry got interested in blogging.The ones who maintained a very low profile at school/college and the ones who never dared to speak a single sentence in English, are very boldly writing huge essays and trying to prove their worth through their blogs.The one obvious reason was the anonymity that could be maintained with the internet media.It is the same as the yahoo and msn messengers.But for the anonymity aspect in these net related activities none of the low profile keepers would come out of their shells.

Although this medium exposes many such people and brings in a lot of new information and varied ideas,I feel there is an immeasurable amount of junk that has started clogging the entire webspace.The bandwidth of unnecessary,trivial writing is beyond any control.The journalists and hardcore article writers have been kind of displaced from their roles.Any recent occurrence such as a release of a movie or even a day today event such as a accident/terror attack,there is this huge amount of stuff written by the blogging junta,most of which do not have any authenticity associated with them .What I mean to say is,the quantity of all these articles on the web has increased while the quality of their views are fastly deteriorating.

Every bloody moron(which includes me too) assumes himself to be conversant with any topic ranging from astronomy to gastronomy and gives his opinion which is worth not even a rat's ass even to a rat.The absence of a medium with any kind of moderation or supervision has given rise to arrogant despotic writers who write very uncouththly and irrelevantly,sometimes even indulging in direct unwarranted slander!
Blogging seems to be yet another necessary menace in the current net crazy world!
-raapi

An addition to the above mentioned stuff..

This was very coincidental.A few minutes after publishing the write-up above,I was browsing through rediff and found this piece of news : Are Internet Service Providers blocking blogs? . Quite contrary to the reaction of the blogosphere junta,I feel this is a welcome change.
The article goes on to say "Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism."

I definitely agree to whats been said above!100% true!Some kind of moderation is definitely necessary.All those questions about 'freedom of speech' make no sense.

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

It feels very bad to find one's country make the headlines in all websites,not for some pleasant stuff but for a disgraceful act of extremism,that seems to have become quite regular since a few years.The feel of being helpless to contribute in anyway and the uneasiness lingering for atleast a day thinking of fellow citizens and their miserable plight - its all become quite common for any NRI.

The websites pouring regular updates,70% of which are what the bloody politicians feel about the mishap,without realizing the gravity of the situation.How many times have we seen such incidents and the irresponsible comments that the political party heads carelessly send across through the media.Wonder if they would react the same way had they lost their son or daughter in the tragedy.

Such a spineless display from the government and a puppet Prime Minister who made a namesake address to the nation,probably after getting approval from his party head,who took pride in making an inspection of the blast site in a cavalcade of cars,disrupting all relief efforts and closing traffic..All this could happen only in India.I wonder if it would be the same kind of reaction had it transpired in any other country,say the U.S or its so called ally against terrorism - Pakistan.

Every website has this comment about Mumbaikars being very friendly and resilient to any kind of attack.I wonder if this is in itself basis and invitation for such attacks and tragedies?The Govt never gives a shit about the people's safety and never takes steps towards quick reaction and crisis management after the occurrences of disasters as it knows the public will handle the situation better.The political parties,namely the bloody Sena,Congress and the BJP are all busy fighting over some bloody statue desecration and religion,with the thought in the back of their minds that 'Mumbaikars' dont need them as they can handle everything themselves.I feel its time for the people to raise against the local and central Govt demanding some kind of explanation and assurances for steps to be taken in the immediate future to avoid such fiascos.

Such stuff,wherever they happen,whoever gets to suffer,it brings a very sad feeling of helplessness and gloom that subtly ends up hampering all activities in the daily routine.I dont feel like writing much due to this helpless feeling.I just wish that such things never happen in future.My heart goes out for the innocent ones who lost their lives for no mistake of theirs.

What a mess have we forced ourselves in, in India!
-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |

A hot saturday afternoon..
A 45 minutes drive down I-35 north...
listening to oft-heard numbers from Ilayaraja...
wondering if Ilayaraja belonged to the ages of Thiruvalluvar/Kamban as all his songs seem to have been composed ages ago..
Sipping the hot de-aerated diet coke at regular intervals...
A sudden dose of lively feeling as A.R.Rehman adds some beats and his soulful voice..
And at last the destination is reached..

The good old temple..
Fleet of desi driven Toyotas and Hondas welcome us..
A feel of India engulfs as the saree clad tamil Maamis and kurtha clad Gulete uncles smile at us.
Children playing around not minding the scorching sun..
The clever Desi thought of leaving behind the chappals in the car backfiring almost instantly as it starts to burn the feet outside on the tar roads...
Entering the premises to find the Koil Poojari specially uttering slogams and doing archanai to one set of preferred devotees.
Sneaking in between the group to get a glimpse of the God and somehow reaching out the hands to get a pinch of Vibuudhi,kumkum.
Pujaari giving a glaring look which seemed to indicate..."whats the urgency dude?Can't you wait for the general round of deebaaraadhana for all the non-archanais devotees?"
Then going around all the deities and finding oneself done with the task of worshipping while all others accompanying ,still deeply engrossed with the first deity.
Starting to look around to see what everyone else is doing and try if it could be emulated.Few of them looking at the gods with eyes unabted,a few others uttering shlokams which is visible from their lips wavering fastly.
The only thing doable is the meditation part.Sitting with folded legs and going to that ever enjoyable world of dreams and trance amidst the smell of prasadham coming from the adjescent halls.

Suddenly being shaken awake by someone from the party and following them to the dining hall.Heading to the part of the temple trip thats always entertaining - The food.Entering the hall crowded with a million maamas n maamis.
Slowly sneaking to the bench where all the food has been laid.
Feeling odd to find no customary 'Hundi' near the table to place the money for the food.
Still going ahead and helping oneself with 1 or 2 helpings of all the items on the table.
!!!!! Suddenly realising that that food was not for the general devotees but for the private function going on in the temple !!!!!
Unable to hide the embarassment,smiling at the mama gaurding the food and gulping down the paayasam and pongal that had already been snagged from the table.

Then at last finding the thayir saadham and not-so-grand food meant for the general junta ..
Now,no one has U.S 1 dollar bills to buy the food.One friend coming up with a bright idea of dropping Canadian dollar bills that he has left from his Canada trip..
After all the follies,leaving the room in a hurry as if the cops are after us..

Yet another dull Saturday culminates with a memorable event,keeping us laughing all the way back to our homes.
The look on one of us upon realising the folly and the complimenting look on one of the food-incharge mamas still remaining fresh in our memories..

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |