Random musings

About dreamers and naysayers

What prompted this blog entry was the following post from a friend on facebook and a subsequent comment by another friend.

Now this really riled me up. Why? Call me a doomsmonger or whatever but i believe that negativity like this is contagious and it spreads around. So many people i have talked to recently say things like "i dont believe in love the way i did anymore" or "love causes more damage then it does good" or you know "I would love to do this thing but its just not viable or practical". I want to cry out to them "No, don't stop believing" , but that would be way too theatrical even for me. Mostly i just mumble something and then shut up. But i guess now is a good time as any to get things off my chest.

Let's talk about love first. You know people go through heartbreaks and every heartbreak has a different story - a crappy boyfriend, long distance etc. Sometimes no matter what you do, the other person just doesn't love you.  And its painful. Sometimes its a throbbing , searing pain and sometimes its a dull pain that just wouldn't go away. And then people cave in, they decide; all right, i have had enough. Only a masochist would enjoy inflicting so much pain upon themselves, so they shut up shop and decide the passion that they once had was just not worth it.

Now i am hardly an expert on anything, let alone love. But i have had my heartbreaks and you know similar thoughts entered my head too. It just seemed easier to give up. But then i realised that most of the best moments of my life were the time when i was in love. And while i may forget a lot, i will remember and cherish those moments. As the lyrics from this song go:

"Livin' is a gamble, baby ,Lovin's much the same "

Maybe i was dealt a bad hand. More probably i totally blew my play. As galib says

"हमको तो दुनिया में कोई बेवफा ना मिला, कमी जो पाई तो अपनी मोहोब्बत में पाई|"

But does that mean i would stop playing. No, i won't. I have tasted that sweet nectar and i will keep coming back for more.

Now as far as dreams go, I am not sure if the quote meant dreams literally or figuratively. Anyways i am going to assume it was figurative. You might have read this in a lot of places, as a child we believe we can be whoever we want to be, but as we grow up , we learn to play it safe. When dreams are shattered , it hurts and so we go into shells and "live lives of quite desperation".Why? , because safe is easy and doesn't require much effort

But you know what, safe doesn't get you a lot of places, does it? Comfort is a huge price to pay for mediocrity. You have got to stick your neck out, you have got to risk getting absolutely pummelled if you want to leave your mark on the world.

"Messenger Boy: The Thesselonian you're fighting... he's the biggest man i've ever seen. I wouldn't want to fight him.
Achilles: Thats why no-one will remember your name." - Troy

There are umpteen examples of this. Every entepreneur who decide to start something, every writer who had a story to tell, every stand up comedian who got up on stage fearing what if no-one laughs. Chances are you will fall on your chin and fail miserably. So what? As Kurt Cobain said "remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away". Don't fade away.

I believe the friend in question is not a cynic, he's just a frustrated romantic. Like a lot of people out there. This post is a plea to you.

You may say, i am a dreamer, but i am not the only one.

Pursuit

Oh, The places I have gone looking for you.

I looked for you in crowded streets,

I looked for you in empty lanes.

I looked so see if you would come,

if I stand still and wait.

I have also run after you.

I looked to see if you’ll come,

When I was not looking.

I have also looked at every nook and cranny

Hoping to find you.

I went down forbidden roads and came back,

None the better, much the worse.

I have looked for you in joyous laughter,

I have looked for you in lonely tears.

I looked for you on the inside

In defense and praise of Solitude

Confession: I have always been in awe of such people, the people who can spend days alone without the need for any human contact. It seemed to me like they had some secret potion which i did not. There was this girl i knew once who not only enjoyed solitude but actually craved for it. The fool that i was at that time, i tried my best to fill up her time. I didn’t know then what i know now, we needed to be away as much as we needed to be together.

You see, the most intense of emotions that you go through are essentially deeply personal moments. Even though you might be with someone at that particular instant but the moment - your memory of it and how it felt was essentially different from what the other person felt. This used to piss me off a lot. I would tell some story and would feel so helpless while telling it that, why can't i make the others feel the way i did. I have realized now that what i was trying to achieve was just not possible. While we all sigh when we think of our first love or our first kiss, what it invokes in each and every one of us is different and deeply personal. If you try to find company or empathy for that, you would be sorely disappointed.

So why as a society, do we assume that someone who is lonely must be sad or lonely. We easily pre-judge and misjudge with the comfort that there will be few people who will dispute our allegations. We bookmark them and classify them. We are scared of them because they are an unknown and we are always scared of the unknown. Complicit in our little arrangement of silos and boundaries we choose to debunk the single man, even to the extent of maligning them sometimes or passing comments as my friend in the first paragraph did. Maybe they find all the company they need they find in their books, their movies, their music or even themselves. Maybe the company of people often comes a distant second to their solitude. But we feel the urge to domesticate them, get them married and institutionalise them or compartmentalize them.

Over the past few months, i have tried to discover this mysterious, magical fruit of being happy alone, in my own company. It was difficult at first and i felt miserable a lot of the times. But then i discovered the little joys- laughing out loudly without inhibitions when i read or saw something funny, looking around at people or just sitting alone outside a barista, drinking coffee, writing something with Simon and Garfunkel playing "A most peculiar man".  You don’t hang out with people anymore because you are scared of being alone; instead you hang out with people because you enjoy their company. You re-discover this beautiful place in your city where you went two years ago, but didn’t go again as you had no-one to go with. You eat at a fancy restaurant alone with people staring at you and you smile from within while still feeling a little uncomfortable.

While on a trip to ladakh, I met this guy from USA who was backpacking across India alone. I was awed and amazed. Here he was in a strange land surrounded by people speaking an unknown language and he was relishing the experience without visibly feeling the need to share it with someone.

“No man is an island” – they say. The single man is and like most islands, to me he represents the most beautiful of sights.

Dilemma

If I fell in love with you, it could be wonderful,

Each day a pleasure, each moment beautiful.

When the day has set and the spirit is weary

We could hold hands and take a walk.

Safely ensconsed in each other's arms,

We could watch old movies or listen to the beatles

And lament the loss of timelessness.

In crowded streets, amidst bustling people,

We could even steal a kiss.

When sleep deserts me at night,

I could watch your serene face as you sleep

And be the sole audience to your breath's symphony.

On clear days we could wonder,

What funny shapes the clouds make.

And on those nights when it rains

We could make love to the sounds of pitter patter,

We could be travellers to strange new lands,

Safe in the familiarity of each other's touch

Oh how wonderful life will be with you.

Except when it won't

The world is a twisted place full of turns

And we could lose each other around the corner,

Walking the roads we chose for ourselves

We could easily drift apart.

We could be seduced by the grandeur ,

The novelty of the new and shiny

For when the glow of new love fades

We could see each other in a different light

A light which brings our flaws to the fore

The fountain of conversation that we consider eternal,

What if it dries up and we are left with awkward silence

When overcome by ennui, will we forget,

Our love was a declaration against the mundane

This glass heart of mine could easily break

And your hands might be too delicate,

To handle the shards

Because when we welcome with arms open,

The gift of true love, we also open ourselves

To be exposed to true pain.

When I am not the man you thought I was,

Would you set sail for the shore

Or, Will you stay the course.

However if I now dither, the road not taken

Will haunt me forever.

An easy way to avoid the"equals" comparison error

if(var = 10)

//do something

There is a problem with the above code. While the intention is to compare the variable var with the integer 10, it ends up assigning the value 10 to the var and the "do something" part of your code is executed every time.

A easy way to avoid this is to use the constant on the left hand side when you are trying to compare a variable with a constant. Something to the effect of:

if(10 == var)

This way when you compile your code and erronneously write an "=" instead of a "==" your compiler will throw an error.

Pretty simple and handy tip picked up from Joel on Software's guerrilla guide to intervieweing.Pretty nice read.

Customer Care in India: Startups vs Bigshots

I think as Indians we are hardwired not to expect good customer service or even customer service. I am irritated that they even use the word customer care because the last thing they care about is the customer. I have had some bad experiences regarding this but i am sure you have had worse. The funny thing is sometimes its so difficult to even become a customer for some of these companies. I had applied for an hdfc credit card and in spite of being in the top bracket of the users i haven't heard back from them in over two weeks. I called up their customer service twice and got their favorite response "I am sorry for your inconvenience". They told me they will get back to me but they haven't. Twice.I mean this is insane. How do you grow as a company if you behave like this ? A customer is coming to your door and you are turning him away. I am definite you have had similar experiences. With an airtel or a reliance or an ICICI. India has a lot of  united airlines which breaks guitars but not a single zappos which sends you flowers.

Compare that experience to this one. I recently joined a website called khojguru.com. It basically is a search engine for local businesses while also offering discounts on some deals. The discounts you take come in terms of coupons which you get in exchange of points. These points you can earn by inviting your friends, writing reviews on the site etc. So anyways you get the point. I took a coupon for a deal on Croma and turned out it did not work on the product i was buying. Lazily a day after this i wrote a review narrating my experience and moaning about how i lost points even though i was not able to use the coupon.  I got aa mail within half an hour from the khojguru people. It was an apology and they also re-imbursed my points. Not only that, they actually posted my review. A negative review in which it could have been argued that the customer i.e me was at fault but they did not. You see the difference.

Now i am not much, but i will be pimping khojguru every opportunity i get, to anyone i meet.I will tell this story to anyone who cares. Thats how a juggernaut starts. From something small , but it all adds up.
To all the big shots i just want to say, you are not irreplaceable. When someone comes along who offers us a better service we will switch.In droves. You dont build a loyal customer base by creating cute ads about customer service, you create that by giving them stories and great experiences. Stop making all that noise about how nicely you treat your customers and actually treat them nicely. They will create the noise for you.

Khojguru(read startups), dont become like them when you are all grown up. Create a culture of customer care. You can be our next zappos.Your personal care was why we first started loving you and telling stories about you. Dont sell out when you become big. Dont just become another brick in the wall.

Why i still love facebook ?

I am not a expert on morality. I am not a privacy expert.I am not even a blogger or an Internet guru who can shape the perception of his readers. I am just a user who loves cool stuff on the Internet and i love facebook. There have been lot of rants about privacy since Facebook announced its new social plug ins in the recent f8 conference. If you want a detailed list about the various articles written against facebook read this article by Jason Calacanis. But in spite of the plethora of allegations against facebook i still love it, both as a social networking site and as a company. I admire what they have done till now and what they are continuing to do.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” — Henry Ford
Facebook believes that the web is increasingly become public and the era of privacy is over. Mark zuckerberg said so in an interview with Michael Arrington. What they are building is just a reflection of that vision. You can criticize it or not like it, but they are just doing what they believe in. That is never the wrong thing to do. After the f8 conference i was in awe of what they are doing. Here are a group of motivated people setting out to conquer the final frontier. The World Wide Web. I was fascinated and still am. Before you dismiss this as fanboy stuff i will say what i love about facebook.
Isnt it awesome that instead of typing a long username and password to login into any site all i have to do is to click the FBConnect Button. When i go into a site and see some of my friends liking something and if i trust their decision, doesnt it give me peer approval. It allows me to control the feed of the countless games on facebook which for some reason a lot of people find necessary to publish on their profiles and onto my news feed. I may find those games meaningless but isnt it a way to kill time and have some fun for some people. Facebook has constantly revamped their site, constantly seeked improvement and added new things, sometimes inspite of a lot of opposition from lot of its users. And they have survived. I like what facebook has done for me. My blogs are being read by more of my friends because i import my blogs as notes. Simple small things but they all add up. They have simplified and enriched my life, For all that twitter has done i still discover a lot of interesting links from my friends on facebook.That it has been vetted by my friends is an added advantage. The news feed and the live feed was again an awesome addition to facebook. One which i didnt know i needed.

There is a lot of stuff also being said about the character and integrity of Mark Zuckerberg. Apparently he called his early users "dumb fucks". Even considering that this is true, he was 19 at that time. At 19 i was doing lot of stupid stuff. So i assume in all probability were you. How would you feel if someone stopped you from getting a raise saying that at 19 he was doing some seriously stupid shit? How silly does this argument sound now. There is even a movie being made about facebook which does some serious slandering of Mark Zuckerberg.People object to facebook say that you cant trust 20 somethings with questionable integrity with your private data. To all the arguments against Mark Zuckerberg this quote from Dominique fancon in The Fountainhead is my only counter.
"Let us say that we are moles and we object to mountain peaks…" -

To facebook and mark zuckerberg i want to say is go ahead, dont retract on what you believe in. I believe in you and one day when this witch-hunt is over and you would have survived it while building according to your vision, you can just say to people - I told you so.

How to get an interview, Maintenance Panda and Jerks in your area

The guys at ycombinator come up with awesome links if you are into technology, startups and other cool stuff on the Internet. If you are on twitter do follow them. If you are not on twitter, then join twitter.
So here is what i read and liked today.

Jerks in your area
A funny website which compiles posts on the internet which are sometimes funny, sometimes outrageous and always weird.

The google experiment
Shows how an advertising creative got interviews from the top agencies in his city by paying $6 for Google Adwords. His was the first link that Google showed up when the agency directors googled themselves.

Be glad they took your ideas
When you see people passing off your ideas as their own, dont get angry, be glad. Your idea was worth something. Well thats at least what this article says.

Bringing down facebook
A group of four geeks are raising money to build a site called Diaspora where the user owns the data. But as Dave Winer says for all the money being raised, they havent shown any code.

Why Worst Case thinking is not always good ?
A good article and a kinda rant on why our obsession with securing ourselves against the worst-case scenario creates an environment of fear. As it mentions in the article, you can be too careful.

Cool site-for-maintenance page
Reminds me of what i read somewhere. Always tell stories, it keeps people interested.

Failing,Facebook, IPad and Jupiter loses a stripe

Starting today i will be sharing all the articles/links/videos that i read today and found either informative funny entertaining or inspiring. Generally i share these via twitter or facebook but i have found that i eventually lose track of them and if i want to look up some link i had shared long ago most times i am unable to find it. Hopefully with blog posts this will be easier. Also maybe some of you will like what i am reading and suggest something similar which i may like. Maybe i can even become your chosen content curator. So here goes :

The first article i read this morning was on Failing Gracefully. The article was basically on while nobody likes failing ,if we learn how to fail gracefully and learning from our failures we will win when it matters.

I am big fan of facebook and zuckerberg, particularly how a 20 something is well on his way to owning the web and ever since facebook announced its social graphs, the web is alive with criticisms of facebook and their apparent total disregard for privacy. This article by jason calacanis is a good compilation of all these criticisms as well as a good argument as to why facebook is evil and we should not trust our privacy to a 25 year old with supposedly questionable ethics.  As of now i am ok with facebook and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because well i like facebook.
Not withstanding the criticism levelled again, the facebook bandwagon is rolling on. Facebook's new Social Plugins have crossed 100,000 installs. Read this article from techcrunch.

Another idea which has been lauded and deplored equally strongly is the IPad. Though i dont have one and for some time cant even dream of having one, it was good reading this article from Intridea about the IPad experiences of a Programmer, Designer and QA expert.

If you are distracted easily or want to be more productive, here's a 11 word tip from lifehack. Its simple : "One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now."

I also watched this interview with sachin bansal of flipkart.com fame and oh yes Jupiter lost a stripe.

Do you believe in God?

“Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know. What do you mean? Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life. Why? Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.”

From “We the Living” by Ayn Rand.