Wednesday, November 18, 2009

To do or not to do...

Sometimes I feel I have an ambition deficit. Now that's bad yes. Ambition is probably one of the things that drive a person. I have, often, empty thoughts. Momentary bursts of purpose. This drives me to feel I am going to accomplish something. But for how long?

I am lazy as many have branded me. I've been told I've got "stuff" and I should use it well. There's a kind who don't work hard but work smart. But, I. I must have been just lucky to survive so far. Now I feel an overload of the deficit. I feel am not doing anything special. Something extra.

I have a good paying job (touch wood). There are good prospects ahead. My career seems stable. What else can I ask for, you think. Am not asking for riches. But I desperately need some inspiration. Look at Pranav Mistry. He's about my age. Don't need to look that far - I can look at my friend's circle. Prashanth a friend from college seems to be doing a lot for his age - and he's having a super learning curve I bet. I can name so many more. There are lots of people who've gone great lengths in their early twenties - and continue to grow. That's what I want. That's what I need!

Of course, the initiative has to be mine. Trust me, am trying something these days. But it seems to be an effort not something that makes me jump out of bed as soon as I wake up. If self-motivation were a hormone, I'd like to inject myself some! This post was supposed to be an exploration a search for what I am missing. It hasn't shown itself so far. I often blame our education system for not pushing the students to pursue something. For not inculcating the habit of researching. Why should only IITians (and the like) be the ones to get encouraged and not other 'lower' institutes? Are only such people capable of doing great things? Not always. But the small percentage of people who, are motivated right from the beginning, who are 'destined' to do great things, bring glory to their land have always shown the edge. Right from kindergarten. That sucks for people like me who have had sudden 'illuminations' after they reached college. By the time I took my education seriously, lethargy was well practised. The extra effort didn't bring any excitement or encouragement. And that is like a soft cushion bed to sleep in....so I slept.

I wonder if its part of being a younger sibling where everything is easy, available and ready for you to consume. Back in college, atleast, I thought, "I want to contribute in a big way to open source projects". Open source was something that I romanticized blindly without ever fully realizing its potential or pitfalls. It was almost quixotic. And M$ hatred and the "Send/Don't Send" messages was great fuel.

This post has been long pending in my drafts. And the only things I'd typed were the first 2 lines and the PS!

I think what I need now is focus. I need to understand clearly what I want to do next and vaguely what I aim to do in the future. Focus should help. Now that I say it, I've been trying juggle too many balls at a time and ended up dropping everything.

Ah! Atleast I feel a bit better now. Blogging after so long has helped. Lets out some energy...

So that's it guys. Focus...focus...focus...focus....

PS: This blog is kind of a sequel to A look in the mirror and Gaah
PPS: This is mostly self talk and might seem dry to you. Sorry you weren't warned.
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Misplaced Sole?

How many times has it been that you lost your slippers outside a temple and forced to walk bare footed back home (or the less noble ones, on someone else's shoes)? Did you think it was someone who was lazy to locate his (or her) own slippers that took yours instead? Or was it you indeed who was lazy to look for your own and took someone elses? Ever realized this is a vicious circle? If everyone took someone else's footwear because theirs was missing, who's would the last folks wear? (This is a bit like Agar Roopa ki baniyan pehnoge toh...Roopa kya pehnegi!!)

I've thought much about this and found no answer. However, I woke up to an interesting conversation between my parents. I don't know if its really true but it seems quite probable - what if it weren't humans who (directly) took your slippers?

It seems like its dogs. Dogs which seem stray. What they got to do with slippers you may ask. But do not underestimate the lengths loyalty like a canine's can take you.

These best friends of man are trained - to steal footwear (mostly slippers) that are left unattended. We have a pair of slippers lying in our backyard which we use when we need to go to the garden. We've lost them brand new, twice. I guess its the cobblers who'd benefit most from such acts! So next time you see a stray dog entering your compound, make sure you chase it away before its spots a useful item to grab.

PS: Am not sure if its the dogs at the temple. It could be cats!
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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Save Power!

Quick Post! Kunal and myself are trying to run a campaign at Photon to encourage energy saving (at work and elsewhere). Its right now only on Twitter and you can find it here (hey, that rhymes!).

It has just started.. We decided on going to twitter mainly because people can throw ideas from their seats. Do drop by, you might be surprised how a trivial idea can make a lot of difference. You are of course, encouraged to start similar 'movements' at your work place or college or even your home. Please do! We have an anti-patent on this which asks: 'please copy us'!

Thanks for all your suggestions! We do hope we are able to change certain habits of people and certain practices in our company; and we ain't complaining if it leaks out.

For a better tomorrow,
~LVS

PS: If you thought I was going to give ideas on how to save power, am sorry but you can always check the Twitter page above.
PPS: Borrowed from Kunal: People who waste electricity deserve to be electrocuted! :P
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A twitter clone?

Sure, there are lots of twitter like websites and services available on the net. But you surely wouldn't have expected this. I came across an email where someone typo-ed gmail.com as gmail.net - I was laughing at it for sometime. But after a while, inspiration stuck and I thought lets try out http://gmail.net and see what happens. I wouldn't have been surprised if I had got some cheap search engine or 'this domain is for sale'. However, I was expecting a redirection to gmail.com (unlike airtel.in used to redirect to vodafone UK). Surprise. What I got was "What are 'you' doing?" in the header. They've even got versions it seems for says in the page 'Live Comments 3.0.4'
You have a field for name, email (both optional) and a comment field where you can type upto 255 characters. Twitter without accounts? Only am not sure how I can follow someone....Try it! Wonder why Gmail didn't buy it though.

~LVS

PS: A bit more exploring reveals that it is some geeks attempt at trying some AJAX...scroll to the end of the page
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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Inflation...or is it?

I know I've been out of action here for a long time now. And I can feel that you missed me! So here I am! Source of idea: chance realization of the truth. I've had this habit of keeping an account of all by expenses. Been doing it since a few days before I entered the corporate world. I joined Photon Infotech, on Jun 13, 2007. A few days before that, my folks gave me some cash to keep and do some "shopping". That I counted as my first income and I started keeping accounts ie. income and expenditure. Later of course, the accounting got more organized and I could tell how much am spending monthly on food, travel, gifts etc etc. Anyway, I opened my old accounts "book" to see how much I spent on a shoe I had then bought. I was pleased with myself to see that I had made a single entry for some clothes and the shoe I'd bought and yet I could know the what each item cost. I digress. The thing is, I got a bit nostalgic and decided to scroll down to see what else I'd spent on in the first few weeks of my employment; esp after my first salary.

Time for a bit of history, we were around 90 people then - the bunch of freshers who had joined on the same date. Human nature as it is, we formed groups within ourselves - mostly by geographical proximity - which in itself was by educational history. We celebrated everyone's birthday, India's IPL victory, Independence day - we just needed an excuse. I must thank my company's environment which allowed for this. I digress again. So, I noticed for the Independence day celebration, we cut a cake - everyone contributed for buying it. Rs.10. That was my share. That's what most of us (in our bunch) would've given.

Rupees ten. The habit of cake cutting has continued till date. That's great really. Two years on and we don't think "its getting boring". However, things have changed a lot. The Rs.10 has become Rs.30. The vanilla has become chocolate truffle (thanks to Kunal for this particular observation). The 180 bucks per Kg has thus become 400. And the 18 to 20 have become 7 to 10. (Kunal, chose to call them 'old days' and 'modern days' for some reason). But I think there is a lesson here. Of course, gifts are non-optional social convention (http://twitter.com/lvshankar/statuses/2322419871). Yet, I have a feeling its not just the economic inflation that's causing this difference. Inflated egos perhaps? I don't know. But I still think there's a lesson here. Leave comments...

~LVS
PS: I need to get new shoes, wonder how much that has changed..lets see!
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Friday, April 17, 2009

A Silent Confession

Its been on for nearly two years now. This is the end. I've lost her. She's never going to come back to me. I must confess, I haven't treated her good. In fact, I have used her. Misused her. She gave me everything she could. Devoted herself to me. Never questioned me.

To start from the beginning, it wasn't really a love-at-first-sight kind of thing. I'd seen her before. Though I hadn't noticed, I first saw her on a loose sheet of newspaper. Then when I met her again, got to knew what she was, I became more interested. Then one fine beautiful August evening I knew I had got her. Just like that. (Though I had to run to the ATM just before) and I brought her home that very day. Mom was the usual "Am happy if you are happy" and Dad (when she wasn't around) said "Good choice son. She's very cute. Now you know why I said your previous choice wouldn't be right. Am glad you got this one instead. Anyway, not good to talk about the past..." and so on.

A few months later, the 'previous choice' came into my life again. My brother got her. (It happens people. Hope you understand). Though, it never created a problem, I must say I was like "Damn, I missed my chance". Yet, I never had second thoughts about my choice.

The first few months were great, I was showing her off to a lot of my friends. Many said, "Nice da". Some said "hey...semma cute da!". What else can a guy ask? I loved to look at her. I loved to hold her tight. Am pretty sure she enjoyed the warmth too. She too, did get warm and happy when I talked a lot (which I rarely do). Oh! How I loved fondling her!

And then, I started treating her real bad. From the days where I used to put something soft where she sat, I had come to not caring where she was lying. I started venting my anger on her. Pushed her to the floor a lot. But she took it all without a protest. Never once did she complain. A few more months passed and she started showing physical signs of my behaviour. Scratches and bruises on her face and body and more.

I didn't bother. Once I was so hard on her she cracked her head. Then a few nights later, not being able to take anymore of it, decided to leave me. Suicide. She didn't even leave a bedside note. One morning I woke up and found her lying on the floor beside my bed, in two parts. She had died peacefully in my sleep. I should've taken extra care of her in those last days, but I didn't.

And now she's gone forever. She's not much worth even in an exchange. She's left me in a confused state; I don't know what phone to buy next. Damn it!
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Monday, March 30, 2009

Predicting Death

Death - comes to all. Nobody is spared. What if, you know the day you will die? What if you knew how? Would you take efforts to avoid it? Chances are high that you'd end up doing more harm. OK, am not talking about the movie 'Final Destination' or something. But knowing our future has always been interesting. Many of those who say astrology (Indian or Greek) is a waste of time, can't wait to read the weekly predictions for their zodiac in the local paper. Its because we are all cowards. We want to know in advance what the future holds for us. We aren't ready to face the challenges that lie ahead.

Yamraj, death

Wait, I didn't mean this post to be philosophical. Just wanted to share with you an online death predictor.

Try it. Its fun!
Here are some of the results myself and my friends got:

"Vidhya Shankar: At age 35 you will become lost during a road trip and wind up living out the movie 'Wrong Turn'. Sorry for ya."

Kalyan*: At age 40 you will die fighting the Interplanetary War on Terrorism on Camp Harmony, Venus.

Ambika*: At age 47 a group of children will text message you continuously for three years, eventually distracting you while driving and causing a fatal wreck; your fatal wreck. (SMS a mixed blessing?!)

Kunal*: At age 72 you will fall into a vat of neutral shoe polish, and your body will never be recovered

Aparna*: At age 69 you will have a heart attack while eating a deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, Elvis style.

Vishal*: At age 70 you will participate in the newest reality game show. Contestants battle each other in an arena with swords and spears. You will have a good run (12+ victories) but eventually be killed, much to the audience's dismay. Go Maximus!

* Names changed to protect privacy

Give it a try and tell me what you got.

PS: If you want a more serious prediction try this

Special thanks to Kunal and Ambika
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Friday, March 27, 2009

The Lost Cosmonaut

Yuri Gagarin. The first man in space. Or was he?
During the 1950s and 60s, following the Cold war, there was a battle between the West (US) and the East (USSR) to establish leadership in space exploration. With the launch of Sputnik I in 1957, the USSR gave a blow to US. Pretty soon, in 1961, when they put the "first man in space" they surged even ahead of US. But there has been some speculation that Yuri wasn't really the first person to be out there. Who was it then? If its true, why hasn't the first person shown himself up? Why would USSR pose someone else as the first when s/he wasn't? After all, space tourism wasn't famous until Dennis Tito.

It turns out that, between 1957 and 1961, USSR had not been quite as they might have seemed. In 1960, two Italian brothers Achille and Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia and their team using a home made satellite dish were 'listening' to signals from passing satellites etc and they recorded some astonishing messages. On November 28th, to be precise, they got a signal which read in Morse code "SOS to the entire world". They got this signal thrice. A few days later, the Russians only admitted that there was failed launch but said nothing about the SOS from space. In early February, there were sounds of a "wildly beating human heart" and "laboured breathing"! And then a few more days later, a female voice saying "Conditions growing worse; why don't you answer? . . . we are going slower . . . the world will never know about us.", Russian. There is even a recording of these available online at http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/ but its in Italian. Russia back then denied all such reports. They even went to the extent of removing any evidence of people who were 'lost' in space. The Italian brothers also suggested that the signals appeared to move away from the Earth; that is the spacecraft was deliberately made to escape gravity!

The Straight Dope, states that there's a lot more that Russia has wrapped up regarding their space programs. Although, most of the deaths relating to cosmonauts were proven not unusual the Russian space people did take some enormous risks with their lifes.

I wonder why the US didn't hype this up and put it all over the Internet. Especially, while there was so much FUD about their Apollo 11 moon mission!

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Linux and the Tasmanian Devil

[This ain't a geeky post!] Everyone heard of Linux? Good. You know its mascot? Its a penguin, right. Know what its called? Tux, it is. Tux has always been the mascot for Linux and nobody even thought of replacing it. The penguin was Linus' (the creator) choice and now he has again decided to change it, temporarily. With the latest [kernel] version of Linux, Tuz the Tasmanian Devil was announced as the mascot for Linux. Though temporarily. Its for a cause. This switcheroo is to support the 'Save the Tasmanian Devil' campaign which aims to protect species from extinction.

Tux has now given way for Tuz. Note, that it is Tuz and not Taz as in the looney toons. Here's an image to help you understand the difference!

tux tuz taz


For me its sad that Tux won't be around for sometime. Besides, Tuz looks horrible! ech! I do hope things are back to normal soon.

Sigh-ing off,
LVS


PS: Will the 'Save the Tasmanian Devil' campaign use Tux for sometime? Because Linux is pretty endangered too :P

Image sources: Wikimedia, The Register, Toons Town
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Friday, March 20, 2009

Undo sending an email

No. This can't be true. Its too good to be true. But it is now possible! Thanks to gmail I can now not resend an email for forgetting an attachment - not slap my forehead for missing an important line in the mail - not regret sending the mail to the wrong person - and so on and so forth. How many time was it that you've felt any of the above? (yes yes. nod nod. many a times) Trust Google to come up with useful features. They've done it again. Now you can actually 'Undo' sending an email that wasn't supposed to be sent the way it was. Don't believe me? Read Gmail offical blog : Undo Send.

How does google accomplish this? Once an email is sent, you can't do much to it. There's no post(wo)man to bribe. Well its simple. Actually that's the limitation to this feature, but its a very fair trade off. When you hit Send, Gmail actually doesn't send it for 5 seconds. Meanwhile, it shows you the following message:


You don't click it in five seconds or you aren't able to because your net connection suddenly went poof, Gmail will send the mail. Neat. But then here's the catch. You have to be bright enough to realize you've goofed up something - within 5 seconds! :P

This can be a problem actually. Say when you have to send a really really ultra urgent email to someone, you're effectively losing 5 seconds! :D So if you need to do that often, you might as well turn it off. Or you can spend 30* seconds going to Settings and turning off the feature! You get to pick it! Perhaps The Gmail Team can add a 'Send now' button. Easy.


Cool,
LVS

PS: Am going to try sending some hate mail and then hit Undo. Gives some temporary satisfaction doesn't it?


*Dependent on your Internet connection speed and your agility with the mouse.

Update: I tried sending a mail to myself and hit undo. However, just before that the new mail actually reflected in my inbox!! :-o
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Thursday, March 19, 2009

For the love of surveys

The other day I was filling up a survey for employee satisfaction in IT companies. Its really nice to know someone out there cares what IT professionals feel about their working environment and how its influences their lives. Though for unaltruistic reasons, am sure people would love a(nother) channel where they can express what they really feel about their bosses and/or subordinates. Agreed, the survey ain't going to change their lives overnight. But it gives the satisfaction of being true to oneself, once in a while. Don't we all love reading stuff on magazines and newspapers (they aren't just news anymore, anyway) which talk about the sad state of IT employees? Especially statements which go "a recent survey suggested that IT employees are...blah blah..". It is something even non-IT people can relate to, because its what everyone talks about!

Personally, am glad that the survey was anonymous. Not that I had complained too much, am pretty happy with my job, so there. Anyway, what makes me glad is that several of my answers are just random. I couldn't help it. The questions seemed so redundant to me but thinking it ought to have a different meaning than the previous but being unable to comprehend it I settle for a random answer. Take a look at some of the questions and you'll know what I mean. (all of the below are yes/no questions)
  • my life has a clear sense of purpose
  • I have discovered a satisfying life purpose
  • I have a good sense of what makes my life purposeful
Another set,
  • I feel I can chose the way I live my life
  • I have the freedom to chose my lifestyle
  • I feel I is my right to pick my lifestyle
You get the idea? I didn't. That's why I was scared to answer them. What if the questions were there to check my sincerity in taking the survey? Not that I care. Randomness helps. Just be wary next time you take a survey!

Bored,
~LVS

PS: Still not made a decision on the move.
PPS: Kunal will never buy a PC in 2009. He's just putting vetti scene! :P
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Blogger to Wordpress - Changing loyalty

If you took a look at my previous post and the comments there, you'd know I have been considering to shift from Blogger to Wordpress.Chill guys, I have not yet made the decision to move. But I might. The purpose of the this very post is to warn you in advance. One fine day you might find a page from blogger asking your permission to redirect to my WP page. You have been warned. (Or you might have seen that already, in that case apologies). So, why now. Why not before?
Now, because they say WP is a lot better (Blogger, so sorry to say this on _your_ pages, but as you say, its _my_ site) It seems I've been having a WP page since more than a year ago, might as well use it. Why not before? I didn't know and I was afraid of losing my page rank, my posts and mainly the user comments. But then I figured, my page rank ain't so great. And WP provides for importing all my posts _and_ my comments. Wow, big deal?! Nah..RSS. Old technology. So anyway, so be it. Thathasthu! See you on WP soon. Might. We just might meet there.

~LVS

PS: Many thanks for Ambika for the idea. And many more thanks to Kunal for helping me change my password :P
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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Where are my readers?

Long long ago, I had enabled a beautiful tool, called Google Analytics for my blog. And I had forgotten about it. Today, I thought I'd use GA to track visitors, page clicks etc etc and realised what I already quoted in the first line. This being my second attempt (first here) at statistics for my blog, wasn't as cheerful to look at.
Here are a few things GA measured for me (and I pick the ones which were relatively the best)
  • Visitor loyalty - how many times an individual user returned to read my blog
  • Visitor recency - how soon did the returning user come back
  • Bounce rate - how many just came to the home page and then went away without looking at other pages
  • Length of each visit
  • Number of unique users
  • Page views
  • and more...
And I scored abysmally on all of the above! 70% of the people visiting my blog, turn away after reading(?) the stuff on the first page, and playing with the fish too perhaps. Unique visitors is about 200. Average time on site is 2 mins. Average number of visits per day is around 4 :-( :-( :-(

So I thought it was time for some action. I guess you now realise that I have enabled summaries (which is not an _available_ feature in blogger). Number of posts per page have been increased. GA also tells me, 64% of the visitors are new and more than 50% come from referring sites. I've decided to make the biggest draw even bigger. Backlinks everywhere! My IM status will almost always say "Blog update" henceforth and things like that...More ideas for blog promotion are welcome. Yes, am on directories like IndiBlogger and Technorati.

Also, I need to make sure the visits spike on the day of a post is not too much higher than on other days. Any ideas for that?

OK, I made this post just to tell you people that some changes on this blog (visible/otherwise). A change of template didn't work. Someone suggest one?

Thanks and keep coming back for more! :D

Update: 'ravukalam' and 'i am an idiot latin translation' are keywords that show my blog as the first result on google search! :P yay!
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Sunday, March 01, 2009

Random thoughts

A lot of things have been going on in my mind recently, well it always is. I thought it'll be good to pour all that here. OK, Kunal, I flicked that idea from you. Go ahead, sue me.

So, what have I been upto?
We are a group called Sit and am trying to develop a new website for ourselves. Am learning a bit of drupal for that. If you look at the current one, you won't ask why. Also, we're planning a big event in the city. Its top secret, I can't tell you!

I am currently working on a POP3 mail client based on PHP. (at work)

Apart from the geek stuff, am trying to sell my old PC. There are 3-4 prospective buyers none of whom are committed or have said no. To add to the confusion, am being advised to not sell it and use of for 'experiments'.

Last saturday, on the way to my friend's house, I noticed a hoarding saying "Women's shopping festival...blah blah". Wait. Women's shopping, that's alright. Why do they need a festival? Do they even need a reason to go shopping?

Indiainfoline, a financial services company who's motto is "Its all about money, honey". It seems to me they are now saying "I don't have any money, honey".

Rukmani, often puns on her blog and sometimes I give her tips which she twists so much I can't claim copyright. I often thinking of doing a just-for-pun post on my blog, thinking up stuff to write (mostly while driving/riding) and then forget it altogether.

I have gone slack on my daily accounting again, and this time I'm missing 85 25 bucks.

I am totally broke, and my last month's salary is 125 rupees less than it should be.

Last month's internet usage is 2 MB less than the maximum limit, phew!

Does anybody know why email attachments have to be scanned everytime you open them?

My 4+ year old bike gives a mileage of 72+ Kmpl.

I get nearly 4 stray wi-fi signals at my place, only one of which I was able to use (that too just once)

Its funny how Microsoft and Mark Shuttleworth (who is a founder of a Linux distribution [Ubuntu]) have the same abbreviated form

I am wondering why I did this totally pointless blog...do you even care?
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Friday, February 27, 2009

Welcome or Farewell?

We all know how it is these days; ya I mean IT too.
Bankruptcies, closures, layoffs, salary cuts, delayed call letters and all that.

Yet, every company makes an effort to retain employees. They put them into a different stream, train them for that and what not.

Mine too, has always been committed in keeping the good ones. Recently, in order to bring out the 'best of the employees' innate potential they are to launch a programme shortly, which is called U-Turn. As I write this blog, the total structure of the programme is not known fully, but it concentrate on areas like leadership, etiquette (oh yes, that's needed), public speaking etc.

We hadn't a clue about this thing until a few days back. Till then, it was only posters everywhere saying "U-Turn (with a u-shaped arrow) X days to go" and such things. They were even put up at the main entrance. That was pretty confusing for a lot; and scary too! Just imagine, with the situation in the IT industry, a sign that says "u-turn" is read "stop. turn around. go back home"!
Today morning for instance, it was all the more pronounced, with the ominous symbol amidst a lot of balloons, festive garlands etc. I was like, "are they welcoming me, or giving a farewell?!".
Quite an ambiguous sign, I must say!

But then the charming smile from the receptionist was quite a welcome sign :D

Cheers!
~LVS
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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Happy New Year!

I know its a bit late to say Happy new year, but there you have it.
A(nother) year has passed by. A new set of sheets on the wall.
What have we achieved over the past 365 days, what we vow to achieve over the next, resolutions, commitments, dreams what not. We feel quite a lot has happened over the past 'year' and some sigh there are more of them to come.

You'd have read about how insignificant we are in this vast universe. How we are a tiny speck in the starry chaos of space. Everything is relative. So if a multi story building appears so large to us but our Earth itself is a dot in space, what about a 'year' long year? It is.

Brahma, the Creator according to Hinduism lives a 100 years of His own time. And He is the 1st Day of his 51st year. His daily routine? Create the world at dawn. Destroy it at night. Pretty boring uh? Not that we know how to 'create' things. I guess विरिन्चि amuses Himself watching us go about our years as His time passes in trutis.

Lets have a closer look at His 'day', known as a Kalpa.
A kalpa is 4.32 billion years. It consists of 1000 mahayugas.
A kalpa is followed by a pralaya or the Night of Brahma which is of equal length.
A mahayuga consists of the four yugas as many of us have learnt; The Kreta (or Satya), Treta, Dwapara and the Kali. The naming is quite meaningful in that the first syllable in them are from the main syllable of Chatur, Threya, Dwa and Eka. The ratios of the yugas are also 4:3:2:1. This ration denotes the length of the yugas in charanas.; i.e Kali is 1 charana long and Satya is 4 charanas long. These yugas are like seasons, where the mix of good and evil changes as time passes. One way to look at it is to say, in the earliest time people are either 100% good or 100% bad, as time progresses you get a mix! Also, people or earlier times are said to be so close to God that they didn't need temples.

A Day of Brahma is also divided into 14 manvantare or manvantaras. In all there are 14*71 (=994) mahayugas in a Day. Each of this 14 is followed by a Sandhi Kala, and the Day starts with a Adi Sandhi, both of which are equal in length to the length of 4 charanas. Hence, 4*15 charanas = 60 = 6*10 = 6 mahayugas. Thus, a Kalpa is 10,000 charanas!

Each manvantara has a designated Manu king (his lifetime is equal to the length of this period); he is also responsible in writing the laws thus applicable called Manu Smriti. the Saptarishis, Indra. As always the case with Hinduism, these Days and 1/14s have names too! We are currenly in the Svetavaraha Kalpa and the Vaivaswatha Manu (7th) and the 28th mahayuga of the current manu. The lifetime of Brahma is 100 years (365 kalpas). Since half of it has gone by, the second half is called Dvitheeya parardha.

The purpose of the manu rajas is to sustain the cycle of creation (Srishti). Time, according to Hindu philosophy is an endless cycle of creation and destruction. Why? Nobody knows. Perhaps there is no destination. As they say, the journey is the reward. Is this true? Could be. Often has Hinduism surprised the scientific world. Does the 100 years of Brahma denote his lifetime or his service time, is not clear. However, after 100 years of His, there is a period of identical length where nothing exists! What a life! I guess this cycle is the bigger version of our own lives where we see quite a lot of cycles both in nature and in the artificial world.

We can continue to wish Brahma "belated happy birthday" everyday and we will be just a 'day' late. I think we should be excused given the fact we weren't there on his last birthday.

Happy living!

PS: I wonder what He had for breakfast...
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