What Do Men Went?

I can quote tons of literature where the question of "What do Women Want?" is the key and none of them can agree upon the answer and is supposed to be one of those mysteries even beyond divination of gods and what not..

My problem is this: Does that mean Men have already figured out what they want? Is it a solved problem and the answer is known and it is so boring that no one wants to deal with it by insulting us in literary forms and stuff? Dont know. Cant seem to find too many people agonizing over the details. I am most certain that the answer is "Women" and hence so much attention to what women want (if they wanted men the problem would have been resolved but apparently they dont and if they do only when a blue moon occurs on the seventh tide of an island in pacific thats intersecting both Indian and atlantic oceans while submerging occassionally).

Damn! That hurts..(It hurts because Ignorance does not count as a point of view) and I cannot do anything about it.Probably just roll with the punches.

Sneak Peek at eBay Checkout

A very few places these days where you can find a product thats better than Google's offering and this is one. I am posting it because I know the PM personally and this makes a great video for some of the folks reading this as they know this person as well..Rock On Vamsee!

Reunion

A while ago I wrote about how I missed re-reading my fave poem of Toru Dutt's. Now I got it.
Read it for yourself and see what you think of it..

Three happy children in a darkened room!
What do they gaze on with wide open eyes?
A dense,dense forest,where no sunbeam pries,
And in its centre a cleared spot. - There bloom
Gigantic flowers on creepers that embrace
Tall trees;there,in a quiet lucid lake
The white swans glide;

There, "whirring from the brake," the peacock springs;

There,herds of wild deer race;
There,patches gleam with yellow waving grain;
There,blue smoke from strange altar rises light,
there,dwells in peace, the poet-anchorite.
But who is this fair lady? Not in vain
She weeps,--for lo! at every tear she sheds
Tears from three pairs of young eyes fall amain,
And bowed in sorrow are the three young heads,
It is an old,old story and the lay
Which has evoked sad Sita from the past
Is by a mother sung....'Tis hushed at last
And melts the picture from their sight away,
Yet shall they dream of it until the day!
When shall those children by their mother's side
Gather,ah me! as erst at eventide?

A Beautiful Short Story

This one is a quick witty but very nicely done short story

Hers was a remarkably plain face, and it appeared quite somber most of the time, but during the party he saw her smile twice and frown once; at those moments, her entire countenance assumed the expression as if it had never known another. Carl had been caught by surprise: he could recognize a face that smiled regularly, or a face that frowned regularly, even if it were unlined. He was curious as to how her face had developed such a close familiarity with so many expressions, and yet normally revealed nothing.

Arrow

Gentlemen seeking stripes should know where to draw the line...

does the 'gita' tell them where to draw the line??

This is what I call Cricket

A Brilliant Essay by PG

Its an old one but perfectly strikes the chord. I just came across it today and would like to preserve it
--------------------------

What Drives Bloggers? by Paul Graham on 19 Apr 2006
In a comment on the last post, brlewis wrote

Your blogging experiment is not going to work anyway. Aside from the conspicuous absence of a cat, your problem is that a "normal" blogger's experience is a struggle to gain celebrity....

Is that really what drives bloggers? I'd guess not. I think what most bloggers are doing is thinking out loud. It's a little misleading to talk of "putting things into words," because that implies the ideas come first. In fact, expressing thoughts creates them. And especially expressing thoughts to other people, even people you don't know. So I think the reason many people like blogging is that they like the thinking it causes.

The alternative is to have the days fly by in a blur. I hate that feeling. Who wouldn't? Next stop: death.

Plato quotes Socrates as saying "the unexamined life is not worth living." What he meant was that the proper role of humans is to think, just as the proper role of anteaters is to poke their noses into anthills. In modern terms, it's what we're adapted for.A lot of ancient philosophy had that quality: the quality-- and I don't
mean this in an insulting way-- of the kind of conversations freshmen have late
at night in common rooms:

Here we are. So what is our purpose here? Well, we humans are as conspicuously different from other animals as the anteater. In our case the distinguishing feature is the ability to reason. So obviously that is what we should be doing, and a human who doesn't is doing a bad job of being human-- is no better than an animal.

Now we'd give a different answer. At least, someone Socrates's age would. We'd ask why we even suppose we have a "purpose" in life. We may have some things we're adapted for and others we're not; we may be happier doing things we're adapted to; but why assume purpose?

The history of ideas since people first started writing them down is a history of gradually discarding the assumption that it's all about us. No, it turns, out, the earth is not the center of the universe-- not even the center of the solar system. No, it turns out, humans are not created by God in his own image; they're just one species among many, descended not merely from apes, but from microorganisms. Even the concept of "me" turns out to be fuzzy around the edges if you examine it closely. The idea that we're the center of things is difficult to discard. So difficult that there is probably room to discard more.

Richard Dawkins made another step in that direction only in the last several
decades, with the idea of the selfish gene. No, it turns out, we are not even the protagonists: we are just the latest model vehicle our genes have constructed to travel around in. And having kids is our genes heading for the lifeboats. Reading that book snapped my brain out of its previous way of thinking the way Darwin's must have when it first appeared.
(Few people can experience now what Darwin's contemporaries did when The Origin of Species was first published, because everyone now is raised either to take evolution for granted, or to regard it as a heresy. No one encounters the idea of natural selection for the first time as an adult.)

So if you want to discover things that have been overlooked till now, one really good place to look is in our blind spot: in our natural, naive belief that it's all about us. And expect to encounter ferocious opposition if you do.Conversely, if you have to choose between two theories, prefer the one that doesn't center on you.This principle isn't only for big ideas. It works in everyday life, too. For example, suppose you're saving a piece of cake in the fridge, and you come home one day to find your housemate has eaten it. Two possible theories:
a) Your housemate did it deliberately to upset you. He knew you were saving that piece of cake.
b) Your housemate was hungry.
I say pick b. No one knows who said "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence," but it is a powerful idea. Its more general version
is our answer to the Greeks:

Don't see purpose where there isn't.

Or better still, the positive version:

See randomness.

But we've got into deeper waters than I intended. Believe it or not, this is where the first version of this post went (starting over at "thinking out loud"):I just looked at Kottke's site to see what he writes about, and his last post was, of all things, about what he had for lunch.I think the problem is more that I'm not going to be able to master the light touch required for blogging. Everything with me turns into speculations about how the world works, and that sort of thing is not good when it's dashed off quickly.

Thats an awesome metapost, I think.

Tech Food

Today I met a foodie at lunch and it was a nice one too. When I come home I crave for something like the following posts by an exceptionally creative plus technically gifted programmer

Appetizer
Main Course

Its like having your favorite dish whose recipe was lost when your grandmother dies and suddenly rediscovering that someone else also knows to serve the same with much higher class. Thats exactly what I felt reading those 2 posts. Now if you excuse me I need to find betel nuts and the likes to finish this lovely appetite of the evening

Aim of a Vacation

is to have a nice time, go to nice places and meet nice people.Thats what a vacation is all about.Period.

Cali..

Sometimes I wonder how much the character of a city has got to do with forging relationships. Some cities are very conducive and some less so. I grew up in a city where it was all possible to bond with varied sections of the society with much thanks to the democratic nature of an irani tea shops which served as a brooding ground for many of my generation. First ingredient for a city to make possible is to give a standard fixture distributed throughout the place where one can more importantly sit and chat rather than simply with the aim of having tea/coffee and leave.

In better words of Sahir here's what Hyderabad equally stands for (%s/Lucknow/Hyderabad and %s/Avadh/Deccan to get what I mean)

Ye Laknau Ki Sar-zameen ...
Ye Laknau Ki Sar-zameen
Ye Rang-roop Ka Chaman
Ye Husn-o-ishq Ka Vatan
Yahi To Vo Muqaam Hai
Jahaan Avadh Ki Shaam Hai
Javaan-javaan Haseen-haseen
Ye Laknau Ki Sar-zameen

Shabaab-o-sher Ka Ye Ghar
Ye Ahl-e-ilm Ka Nagar
Hai Manzilon Ki God Mein
Yahaan Har Ek Rah-guzar
Ye Shahar Laaladaar Hai
Yahaan Dilon Mein Pyaar Hai
Jidhar Nazar Uthaaiye
Bahaar Hi Bahaar Hai
Kali-kali Hai Naazaneen
Ye Laknau Ki Sar-zameen

Yahaan Ki Sab Ravaayaten
Adab Ki Shaahakaar Hain
Ameer Ahl-e-dil Yahaan
Gareeb Jaan-nisaar Hain
Har Ek Shaak Par Yahaan
Hain Bulbulon Ki Chah-chahen
Gali-gali Mein Zindagi
Kadam-kadam Pe Kah-kahen
Har Ik Nazaara Hai Dilnasheen
Ye Laknau Ki Sar-zameen
Ye Laknau Ki Sar-zameen ...

Nibhaayi Apani Aan Bhi
Badhaayi Dil Ki Shaan Bhi
Hain Aise Maharabaan Bhi

Happiness

A very good pal of mine just got married on August 31 thus leaving me all alone as the only single guy in our group. While I wanted to visit India for this and all that jazz, things happened in a way that I wasnt expecting. Here's something written by Lamartine that should echo in your heart.

On these white pages,
where my verses unfold
May oft a souvenir,
perchance your heart recall
Your life also only pure white pages behold
With one word,happiness,
I would cover them all
But the book of life is a volume all sublime
That we cannot open, or close just at our time
On the page where one loves,
one would wish to linger
Yet the page where one dies,
hides beneath the finger

All the Best Murali! You know what I wish...More on that later