Of Points and Lines

Way back in 1997, I was waiting on a friend at a computer institute in Hyderabad and since I cannot live without yapping, started some random chat with the receptionist (it helped that she was pretty to look at) . SOmehow we meandered through the conversation to Julius Caesar.

She said : "I know Julius and I know Caesar, but what/who the heck is Julius Caesar?"

**My jaw fell open 3 inches**

I was like "Okay..Hmm..Roman Emperor/Cleopatra/Calendar/Veni Vidi Vici?/Ides of March"

Anyways the point was that if you have 2 dots and if you join them it becomes a line and the dots themselves arent that isolated and their identities changed (BTW julius and caesar she was mentioning were the names of her neighbors' dogs). If you build a interstate in a country you have to run over a few things just so that you create a big line segment connecting various dots. Who makes the decision that the connection is worth more than the dots being alone all by themselves?

I was wondering about this because from tommorow morning onwards something of which I gave myself to will become a part of something bigger. The dots being connected I am not sure how to handle the situation but handle I definitely will.

ps: The last 2 weeks were one of the worst ever I had to deal given the situation. As they say misfortunes never come alone, but these are the situation where you know a lot about yourself.They told me I got old and wasnt as agile as I used to be. They told me that I can have fun over the weekend by going to places as far as LA just to be myself (its a very strange pleasure, being youself that is..). I think its high time I do something different else I will be one of them..

Healthy Ways of Maintaining Insanity

1.At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

3.Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.

4.Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."

5.Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

6.In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write " For Smuggling Diamonds"

7.Finish All Your sentences with "In Accordance With The Prophecy."

8. Don't use any punctuation
9.As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10.Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.

11.Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13.Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why Don't The Poems Rhyme?

14.Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play tropical Sounds All Day.

15.Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In The Mood.

16.Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

17.When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won!, I Won!"

18.When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling "Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go."

Therapy

The song of the day is "Rozana". Check it out and lemme know whaddya think of it.(particularly the arahona of the scale between the sayings "kuch khone pe yaad aate ho" and "kuch paaon to yaad aate ho"). The reason I know of its existence is because I measure the time elapsed between meeting a particular friend in between songs like this (another friend measures the same in specifics only to AR Rahman tracks)

While I have been real busy at work integrating and stuff, I took a weekend off to meet an old friend. Just like old wine, this guy is full of surprise, maturity and spice. It was after I met him this time that I needed no therapy except meeting people like him. Till I meet my old folks, I feel I am in a midlife/quarterlife crises and what not. The moment I meet up and see the light in their eyes that I am exactly wherever I wanted to be, it is very reassuring and more comfortable than anything else..

I stormed into his sis's house where he was staying like the storm katrina., Their peace shattered, yet my peace made. While they try to figure out, we make sure each of us havent changed. Something like "we are just 2 lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" happens in the background non-verbally. I dont need words to mask my gravity as levity (he knows that already) but nevertheless entertains the rest of the crowd. He can be in 2 places at the same time. If not anything else a smile on someone else's face in the middle of night is worth something of a pass to present to St.Peter at the gates..

I feel rejuvenated, relived and refreshed at this meeting. Taking over the world (or world domination as some call it) is next in order. I am ready to do that because of meeting him among other things. Here I go, shutting my shop in CA and finishing the string LAVACA..MA

The Quiz Show Quatrain

Just finished watching the movie "Quiz Show" by Robert Redford (I like his moved for being reflective of whats truly american) and it reminds me of the following verse from Rumi

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

Joke of the Day!

Math Teacher: Now suppose the number of sheep is x. . . .
Student: Yes sir, but what happens if the number of sheep
is not x?

Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu hustle is a english version of the smash hit Kung Fu . As a kid in India, most of us liked to watch Bruce Lee movies and this one is a special tribute to him. But thats not why you should watch this movie, you should watch it because it kinda potpourri of all known plots in the movie and lovely parodies of some well known movies. All in all, its a very worthwhile exercise of your time watching it. I cannot wait for the sequel to be released sometime this year.

Long Tails Again

I believe most of you know of the "long tail" article by Chris Anderson which shows a power distribution of sorts for a frequency versus rank (like items sold versus their popularity), etc

Consider the following graph for top selling books of 2005 and you see half a dozen books garnered something like 70% of the market share.


While long tails can be applied to any industry from entertainment to user-attention as follows, It just struck me that instead of the niche market if you aim to be one of the popularly ranked companies, then you automatically get business. Let me put it this way:If you plot the number of companies in a given sector (like books in the adjacent example) then the revenues of the companies would follow a long tail (atleast internet based service firms) . So in essence 80% of all spending in a given sector always ends up filling the coffers of the top5 or 6 companies in that. Whatever may be your sector, if you are one of these, you are done! In my sector it means, you gotta be a billion dollar company :)

Top Five Secrets

I always disliked anything that contained top 10, top 5 but then when someone asks you a question saying what are your top 3 priorities/progressions/problems (my boss does that to me every week) suddenly you squeeze in whatever little you have and still fall short of it. Then slowly you realize there arent any more top X..enough of this drivel.

San Tomas tagged me to come up with my top 5 secrets. I am not the one to wash my dirty linen in public but here to regurgitate what my friends knew.

• I cried after the serial Giant Robot ended
• I havent gotten laid, yet!
  
• I was photographed smooching a co worker by my HR (still uses it for blackmailing) but then I got another incriminating photo of hers' so we neutralize our bets and perpetually stand in this Mexican standoff
  
• I still wish well for a friend with whom I had to split because of a girl who is his wife now
  
• I drunk and drove home many a time despite this being very bad.Once I didnt even know in the morning as to how I got home
  

There..I not only spilled my beans but also deep fried them..

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was an era of ignorance; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

-Charles Dickens opening his "A Tale of Two Cities"

Thats exactly how I felt today waking up this morning and reading my email at 7:12 am.My company just got into a definitive agreement with our long standing competitor to be merged. We had the technology and they had scale. We had some smarts and they had lots of money. While we toiled day and night to get things done they simply took a hit on their margins to win accounts. Despite all these, I fought some battles where we beat them inspite of them offering their services for free. These were some of my most vibrant moments of 2006 where I really really felt alive. Now, we are one company (45 days from now, of course) and then there will be no competition. There is not a fella in sight who could beat the combined prowess of we joining hands together and no more shall my adrenalin rise nor do I need to have benders or sleepless nights chasing accounts for that moment of "Eureka" which seals those deals.

The last 18 months, I literally poured my blood, sweat and tears into this company. No, its not a firm. It was my baby in the sense that I have as much ownership over this entity as the founders/senior management did. I imbued it with my own DNA and my own attitude to diffuse through its blood-veins so that when I am working it is nothing but an expression of my own self in it. Now, my baby has grown up and it should be let go as any other grown up would be. Its got wings and its flying to the nest of the cuckoo which laid its egg in this beautiful crow's nest. Yet, my melody that I sang here shall be immortal...

Evolution

I used to drive a car called "Manduka". Now, my friend and mentor needed one and I gave it to him. So, naturally that drove me to buy a new car and I got a 1996 Audi A4 Quattro 2.8L V6 thats pearlescent in color. I named this blog after my car and keeping in with the tradition I named my new car "Suparna" which means beautiful wings. Now, the car has changed so should my blog title in much of a vein like how birds evolved from reptiles. This fulfills the "american dream" of having more cars than the number of people living in a house.

By the end of this month I shall also be signing up for another mortgage for a house in Bangalore. That particular signature will fulfill the "indian dream" of having more than house in your name. I tell you, all this is stretching myself a bit but then if I only could afford the Evo...