On freedom & imprisonement ...

There's just one kinda of imprisonement & that's imprisonement of the SOUL.
One can be confined by four walls and yet be a free man, while those roaming outside might be the one's imprisoned. Imprisoned by thoughts, culture, family & your myopic visions.
So do give me freedom but freedom that is soulful. Freedom that no one can take away from me on a whim. Freedom to express all my humanity in all it's varied forms. Then I'd consider myself to be a free man. I guess that's what I work for at the deepest level.

Indian travel sites ...

Price of booking a round trip ticket b/w Bangalore and Delhi on the Airline website -Rs 6349.
Price of booking the same round trip ticket on makemytrip.com a so called premium travel portal in India - Rs 7388.

Who are these people trying to fool ?

Ruby On Rails Core Team ...

How would you like to be a part of this team ?
Especially interesting was the profile Marcel Molina Jr. who happened to transition from being a expert on Natural languages to an expert on Machine language ;-) Some transition that !!

Good Libertarian site ...

Here's an interesing site highlighting the libertarian philosophy/approach towards life. Click on the below image to enter ..



Especially liked the articles by Fred Reed and Douglas Herman .

Cool Website ..

This has to be coolest website I have seen for sometime now. Dick Masterson runs Men are Better than Women and got to admit he's got a great sense of humour coupled with a healthy dose of reality thrown into all his articles !!! Good job pal !!

Europe Experiences ...

Finally got some time to post some stuff related to my Europe travel.

Germany
- I am standing at a busy railway intersection about 50 miles from Frankfurt. There are freight trains whizzing past this intersection every 10 minutes carrying all sorts of industrial merchandize. It's rather hard to cross this intersection quickly due to the frequency of the trains. For a moment you really feel like being in midst of the 3rd largest economy in the world. Germany is booming ,contrary to what is being reported in the press.
- I am chatting with the client sales manager (who is German) before the start of the day's discussions. Tells me his wife loves Bollywood movies and likes Shah Rukh Khan in particular. Pretty amusing I must say. Can you picture a German Sales Manager and his wife eating that hard German bread along with a glass of beer/wine and watching a Shah Rukh flick ? Perhaps this is what makes life interesting I guess.

Belgium
- Standing outside my Hotel @ 7 AM for my cab and see a whole bunch of 14-15 year old school kids. Surprised to find that almost everyone had a cigarette lit up. Hard to believe that in-spite of everything that's been done to spread awareness about the dangers of smoking, so many of these young kids are addicted to it. (Almost 80% of the school kids I saw smoked & this is across genders.)
- Belgium is a small country. Probably 1/4th the size of Karnataka as a whole. However I believe American investment in Belgium is greater than the American Investment in India as a whole. Pretty interesting statistic I think.

Italy
- Never seen a bunch of people who take fashion and trendiness so seriously. Even your average street side restaurant looks ornate. All the men look like models who could walk the ramp with ease.
- Crime is a big problem in Rome. All the attractions in Rome have police presence due to tourists and visitors being routinely mugged.
- Rome has an awesome Metro like most European cities. You can go to most places in the city including the Vatican once you've figured out the different Metro lines.

France
- Paris easily has to be most Romantic city I have ever seen. It truelly has an international feel to it unlike Rome. Couldn't see much of Paris due to just a day's stay there. Easily requires 3-4 days to explore the whole city I guess.

Overall I just felt Europe has so much more elegance and class as compared to the US. There's just so much natural beauty here that you probably require a lifetime to explore the continent. Even the work culture doesn't seem to be as aggressive as the US. (Mind you...they still get a lot of work done.) Add the romanticism of exploring Europe by rail to all this and you have a killer combination. Overall a very positive trip and I can't wait to get back there and explore the places I missed out. So Helsinki, Vienna, Prague, Oslo , we shall catch up shortly.

New Music System

Proud Owner of a Bose Wave Music System from this week on. It really does sound amazing. Check out a review here.

Trouble with Indian Cricket, the same as trouble with Indian Corporates

Yeah...I mean that. The trouble with Indian cricket is with the Senior players who take their place in the team for granted, leaving no room for some talented youngsters to come in. I am sure these guys contributed a lot to the game and scored prolifically at one time but that isn't reason enough to stay in the team forever right ? Look at how the Australians treat players who are past their prime ? Give them their farewell test and that's it - end of story. Not sure why it should be any different out here in India ?
Let's look at the corporate world where a similar scenario exists. Some guy has an experience of 15 years & he is automatically treated as GOD even though he might be doing the same thing year after year for the past 15 years. Ever see someone with
4-5 years experience heading something substantative in any of the Indian IT companies or MNC's ? No way, it's always got to be somebody with tons and tons of experience although he might have done the same thing year after year. So in a sense it's really a flat world out there unless you work for an Indian IT company (then it somehow becomes a hierarchial world.)
It all seems to boil down to protecting their respective turfs irrespective of the collective outcome achieved. Seems to be pretty much the same story whether it's Indian Cricket or an Indian Corporate.