“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” Ralph Waldo Emerson


I really do believe this is true. Well, I should elaborate - I used to believe this at a more magical level... recently, the magical thing around this has gone completely missing for me and I see logical elements of that phenomenon (how sad, right? ;) )


Why do I think this?


Well, okay. To explain that I have to first introduce you to Ms. danah boyd (yep, no caps :)) or zephoria. She is one of the most coolest social media expert around. Or well, at least thats how I've always thought of her and the  information she tweets/buzzes about. Lately, I've seen that I see a lot of concepts around education(which is my most relevant to me right now) that seem to be coming from her and a whole bunch of other people I follow/read/watch etc. This sudden increase in the information coming my way reminded me of that quote... the one that says that the world will conspire to make it happen for you. All of this information that I am seeing is so highly relevant to me right now that i feel like there is this healthy conspiracy going to lead me in the right direction (a phenomenon also called Pronoia). So here's my little twist on what Emerson said - once you make a decision, the world of information conspires to make the connections for you and get you closer to your goal. Its not that the entire world has suddenly realized that I needed this information around learning/education and supplying me with it but its just me who is looking at all of this information from the angle that is influenced by my present state of mind. And I think thats really what it is.. and there is really no serendipitous or magical element to it (did i just ruin something for you?)


Well the good news is, if you believe this theory is true then real world also to a large extent makes sense. When you are focused a lot on a certain thing/object/concept you start to see a lot of things in your life that are in some way connected to this desired object. The world isn't especially conspiring, its always been on your side... its just that you've never noticed it :)


Wish there was a similar explanation for Murphy's law though ;)

back of a bus in Andhra Pradesh that an 'artist' used as canvas to display his feelings towards the political leader KCR
a Telangana lover in Hyderabad changes his bike's number to depict that he is in Telangana (as opposed to being in AP)

Me: Hello
Telemarketer 1: ~pause~ Hello Ma'm
Me: Who is this?
TM1: Hello Ma'm
Me: Yes, tell me. who is this?
TM1: Mam we are calling to offer you a flat in ..
Me: Sorry wait, how did you get my number?
TM1: Mam?
Me: My number, how did you get it?
TM1: Serial wise only I am calling ma'm
Me: Excuse me
TM1: I am calling serial wise.. like 740, 741, 742
Me: Oh so you are randomly calling people and asking them if they want a flat? (in my most non-sarcastic tone)
TM1: *hangs up*
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Me: Hello(this time on my landline number)
TM2: Hello, I'm calling from ING vysya bank, we are offering a home loan..
Me: I'm sorry, who do you need speak to?
TM2: Hello mam'm
Me: Yes, who do you need to speak to, there are four people in this house. Who do you need to speak to?
TM2: Are you a user of this phone?
Me: Yes
TM2: Then I can speak to you
Me: Eh? you don't care if i'm unemployed or employed or a psychotic killer on the prowl.. you'll offer me a home loan nonetheless?
TM2: My management has given me this number and I am calling ma'm
Me: Well you can be assured that we don't need a home loan. Now if you will please be kind enough to take our number off your datab...
TM2: *hangs up*

I think I am on a hat-trick here. If I manage to make one more telemarketer hang up on me I'll take that as a personal victory :)

                   

Anindyee Dhar - a student from Pune lost her life at the German bakery blast
Yadiah - a student from Nagarm Andhra pradesh, immolated himself at the OU campus for "Telangana"

Two students. An entire lifetime ahead of them. Charred to death.

One lost her life to the evil plans of a terrorist organization while the other gave up his life for the false hopes and instigations made by selfish politicians. I can't decide which is worse.

We all have enough problems in our life. Enough things that threaten our existence - including terrorism, incurable diseases and natural disasters. Despite all of these, if you think killing yourself is going to achieve something  - well then you probably don't deserve that life anyway. You don't respect it enough to so carelessly throw it away.

Its disgusting when media tries to show Yadiah's death as some sort of a sacrifice. If anything, its a sad event that a 19 year old was made to believe that setting himself ablaze was going to make him a martyr.

The media scene in Andhra Pradesh, especially Hyderabad is any geeky media student's wet dream. The series of 'unfortunate' events in AP is as follows:

2nd September 2009: Helicopter crash of YS Rajasekhar Reddy, the chief minister of CM:
3rd September '09: K Rosiah swears in as the (temp)CM
- Is followed by hue and cry of many many YS Jagan(late CM's son) supporters to make Jagan the CM. Rosiah's appointment as the permanent CM of AP is followed by many a Jagan followers resigning their MLA positions.
- Rest and peace restored until K. Chandrasekhar Rao, former leader of Telangana Rashtra Smithi starts to make some very interesting comments which the media starts to paints a comic color to.

9th December 2009: KCR starts-stops-starts to fast for a separate Telangana state which ends on with a rather 'vague' statement from the central government .
This is followed by 165 MLAs(of 250 MLAs) resigning and expressing their demand for Samaikhyandhra - united Andhra state.

20th December 2009: Lagadapati Rajgopal - an MP and united AP protestor disappears from a Vijayawada hospital.

21st December: L Rajgopal reappears in NIMS - the same hospital in Hyderabad where KCR fasted.

23rd December, 2009: The Central government asks the MLAs consensus is needed before going ahead with the formalities of forming a separate state.

25th December, 2009: Meanwhile, ND Tiwari, the 87 year old governor of Andhra Pradesh is caught in a sex scandal

28th December, 2009: Government accepts ND Tiwari's resignation on 'health grounds' and appoints ESL Narasimhan as AP's governor.

8th January, 2010: Fans of YSR attack Reliance stores in the city based on a news report by a Telugu TV channel that claimed that Ambani plotted the crash.


5 years ago, about the same time now - I picked the topic '20 years of AP's politics' as my topic for presentation at my graduation in Political Science. I would love to be a naive BA student right now, trying to choose between so many exciting diverse topics from AP politics! Alas, the age of innocence and ignorance is long gone.. now it is time to sit in front of TV and watch three knucklehead politicians all talk at the same frikkin time and none of them making any sense anyway.

If you don't remember my passwords, who will?

"Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated"

"Customer service is the new advertising."

Then what was the old advertising? Word-of-mouth, I think. Which in turn was dependent on just the usefulness of the product.

What happened before that, you ask?

I absolutely absoluely love these!







and oh, still have some 18 wave invites, let me know if you need 'em :)

I remember watching the trailer for this one and being all excited. Forgot about it until @vemana reminded me last week about it. It is such a good watch, I can't recommend it enough to all those who are interested in design and design thinking even in the most remotest way.Personally, the overwhelming message seemed... design needs to be subtle. The SVP of design at Apple says how they don't want their users to think about the design of a product as struggles that designers and engineers would have had to go through. Design should just be a calm and considered solution and you should only wonder about how to use it better. Karim Rashid, a designer from NY asks why the shape of the digital camera is the way it is. It takes on the archetype of the film camera. And the film camera looked the way it did because of the film that went into it but we don;t have to stick to that shape in digital. A very valid point. I'd like my digi camera to have a touch screen where I can adjust exposure and focus on things I want too, choose flash etc.. instead of having to move through buttons and knobs :) many many more things that i liked about it.. but maybe later :)

Ok so the producers of 2012 can stop worrying about marketing their movie in Andhra Pradesh, India. The TV channels here have clearly take it upon themselves to scare the living shit out of people here by constantly showing the low quality trailers of the movie they ripped off of the internet.

Host of the show goes 'the world is going to end in 2102, there will be a tsunami - a bigger one! a wave that will make the entire world go underwater.... but why ? ......details after the break'

because of course listnening to what the advertiser has to say about his latest product that is going to make your skin glow is and has been  the purpose of universe. world destruction can wait..

media and its stupid methods of keeping people constantly afraid... 'If swine flu didn't kill you.. 2012 will!.. what is it you say? 2 deaths?  every three minutes? in India? TB? yea of course darlin, but that's old news.. we want to give our audience adventure.. spicin' it up you see!"

How I wish, I could slap some sense into the guy who comes on tv everynight trying to tell his viewers a scary story... dude! Halloween's over, cut the act!

twitter and facebook decide to make me their beta tester in one day, to what do I owe the privilege... not quite sure

You'd think they'd be a closed group... that they wouldn't let you in. you'd think they wouldn't want to be bothered... that they don't need you you'd even think they are not worth your time... that you are better off spending your time with a friend. But.. They are so open, free-spirited, and full of soul.. every word they utter comes from the heart they need you.. a hand that'll ruffle their hair and an eye that appreciates their little art they will take your sorrows away and bury them in the same place they buried theirs they are the little people with no roots, no family, no home but just a smile sometimes they make you wonder if they're angels.... people call them orphans...

Yes, we are sad he's gone.... Yes, we do miss him... but! this is not a kingdom that his son can just take over.

So it turns out during Mondays, struck with the blues, women (dare I generalize) tend to make quick (sometimes stupid) decisions (that turn into interesting experiences). (Tell me later, if you read that sentence with/without the parentheses, ok.) After a friend and I decided to go watch The Hangover and reached the theater only 20 minutes after the show started we realized our seats were at two different corners of the hall. We figured we'd make puppy eyes at strangers and manage to get good seats. Turns out the hall was full and the puppy eyes strategy had a flaw (its usually dark in theaters?). And so we ended up sitting in two different corners. The first half, I spent watching the movie from one corner of the theater that seemed to be occupied mainly by males. The second half, me and the friend decided to swap seats and I ended up sitting on the corner of the theater that was female and couple dominant. So it was easy to distinguish how these two groups react to the same movie. While the guys made discrete signals to each other during a completely A rated scene, women tend to just say 'eww' or 'how stupid.' the couples just giggled. At slapstick comic scenes the former group would just laugh and leave it at that while the later group would say something like 'why don't they just leave the tiger alone!' (oops, did i mention spoiler alert? :D ) or other such 'helpful' comments. (For all you people who are thinking of the G word, no I am not generalizing, I am only putting down what I saw) Also, I saw that I reacted differently to the movie in these different settings too. I realized that I was laughing oh so softly (and almost forbidden-ly) and watched the movie tapered to my side of the wall as far away I could from strange men who seemed to be loving the 'dirty jokes.' While my tolerance levels of the 'dirty jokes'  seemed to have gone up when I was watching the movie with a bunch of girls who found the humor to be 'ewww'. Experiences such as these teach you a lot about mob behavior; gender differences in enjoying entertainment - sensible thinking Vs. mindless watching  and not to mention decision making on Mondays :P

Our path-breaking Minister of Human Resource Development has taken same 'bold' steps in fixing India's completely out-of-fashion education system. If you haven't already heard, Sibal saab is proposing to do away with the 10th boards and have the 12th board examinations only. Boy, when I look back, 10th was the only period in time of my life that I struggled the Most! Anyway, so if a kid can now have the most grueling 12th year of his or her education instead of the 10th, so be it. Right now, I'm on a different case altogether.

think again :D

I wrote about how creativity should be for free in this post  a while ago. I know it sounds preposterous (and selfish) to ask artists to distribute their work for free but just hear me out. Over the last few weeks I've been exposed to some very interesting, heart-touching and goosebumpy music experiences over the internet. They are all connected by two things: copyright and creative commons and they brought me back to that short little post I made a while ago. Let me explain to you what these were. Jason Mraz Mr. A-Z, as he is sometimes referred to, is an artist I've been following a long time before he got famous on the mainstream pop scene. I love his music for his brilliant lyrics and of course his guitar. Anyway, a friend of mine passed these virals that Jason Mraz produced on the streets of Paris as a part of promoting his upcoming European tour Its beautiful to see the two musicians (with two completely different histories) to just sit there and play their respective instruments. So what Jason Mraz did was - a live impromptu show on the street, recorded it, enjoyed it thoroughly and put it online. Equals promotion. Some more diggin up led me to La Blogotheque production. Their concept  seems pretty interesting to me. Of course not all the videos on their site are giveaways but the fact that some are open to having one of their impromptu jamming sessions be downloaded for free is pretty cool. I mean if you are only jamming on the street and not really "performing" at abig stage or a costly studio, you might as well give it away for free right. The audience will promote you, for you.  Check out the other artists they have on their site who've done more such "take-away shows." Sean Fournier and Coldplay To listen to one of your favorite artists do an impromtu performance on their piano broadcast live, while you are at your desk, is indescribable. So, as I see it, in case you're not comfortable putting your work under creative commons, giving an album or a free live session of your band jamming once in a while, shouldn't hurt. Thoughts? Update: Sean Fournier talks about this post. Thanks for agreeing with me Sean! :)