Confused Soul

Since last few days, I saw a lot of worries and discussions regarding tax calculations among my colleagues and today was the last day of all this. The reason was simple that the last date of filing IT return was today. But if you have deposited all your tax, or your due taxes have been deducted by your employer or you are not claiming a major amount as refund, you need not rush to the income tax office. In fact, if you have no losses to be carried forward too, you need not worry about meeting the July 31 deadline. You have the option to file your returns by March 31, 2009, without any penalty. Unfortunately many aren’t aware of this.

But there is a drawback also, if the return is filed by July 31, 2008, then you can revise the return by March 31, 2010. but such revision is not possible if you file after July 31.

Now a days, what I love most on the TV is FEAR FACTOR on COLORS. The show is a true reality show that doesn't eliminate its contestants on the count of SMS (votes). The only factor that counts in elimination is the performance. This show was started with 13 female celebrities of glamor world of India and in every subsequent episode celebrity is being eliminated. Each episode contains two dares, first one is for immunity and second one is for elimination. The dares are really horrible sometimes (especially when it include some wild creatures).

Yesterday in it's 14th dare, Yana Gupta has been eliminated. From the beginning of the show, she was awesome and performing each and every task brilliantly. She always used to come forward to take initiative in every dare and offered herself to do it first. There is a certain advantage if you are not first to do any dare. Because you can learn from other's mistakes (attempts) and make your strategies. But She had this advantage rarely. Also if you see the stunt she performed yesterday (in which, she was eliminated), she did that brilliant. Tana was very confident and did that superb and better as compared to all other contestants. But she just missed the target which doesn't scale your Fear Factor, the theme of the show. I am sharing the videos and now you decide yourself.

Again as the task demanded, 3 contestants were failed to qualify but Yana was named as failure :(. Yana was always my first choice to win this show but as she is out now, I hope on Aditi and Anita to win the show.

Today, I saw the live traffic map for my blog and was glad to see that there were so many locations in the world, where my blog has reached. I am sharing a screen shot with the country-wise percentage of the readers of my blog.

Courtesy: Postsecret

13th May 2008: 7 serial blasts in Jaipur
25th June 2008: 8 serial blasts in Bangalore
26th June 2008: 17 serial blasts in Ahmadabad with one live bomb diffused
27th July 2008: 2 bombs diffused in Surat


What all these figures are telling us? These figures are telling that India is once again in the custody of terrorists. The blasts are very similar in terms of method of execution and in the terms of intensity. The blasts targeted crowded, economically important and communally volatile areas. In all the three cities, the explosions took place within a short span of time and within a radius of less than 10 km, perhaps to minimize reaction time. And also look at the guts of these bloody terrorists that they sent an e-mail to Gujrat Police just before the blast. The mail read, “We the Indian Mujahideen have carried out attacks and will continue to do so. Stop us if you can.”

One more thing to notice is that these terrorist attacks are targeted to BJP ruled states only. Also Jagadguru Sankaracharya received a letter from terrorists. The letter read “This is just a trailer; we will show the complete movie. The scenes will the same in every city of India.” So we can’t neglect the possibility that the aim of attacks is much more than to just cause some deaths and panic. It may also result in communal riots all over the country, which may be the main aim of terrorists. If they are successful in their aim then it will hollow the main strength of the country (UNITY).

Below is a picture, which shows the major terrorist attack in India in recent time.


Let’s promise ourselves not to panic and take any step, which these terrorist want. We need to remain unite as ever and reply to these terrorists that whatever you do, you can never divide us. Let’s show them that we are a country which respects all the religions and no anti-social power can divide us.

Look at this video and think if social media is encouraging vulgarity or providing new ways to protest. I am purposely not embedding this video in this blog ( you will come to know why after watching it). This video is nothing but a slap: a slap on the face of Indian culture, a slap on the image IIM-C and a slap on social media. If these girls are thinking that they are bold and did a great job by doing this and after the uploading this on youtube increased in their boldness then these poor girls are in a big mistake. They not only spoiled their image but also raised many questions. If you can not see this video on youtube (in case deleted) have a look here with a discussion.

I came to know about this video while reading webyantra. You decide whether this is the right manner or the most shameful manner you have ever seen to show rivalry.

It has been more than a month since the launch of firefox3 and I have been using firefox3 since then. I am explaining my experiences with firefox3 (FF3). The things I liked most about FF3 and the things I disliked about FF3.

Things I liked:

1) Smart Keywords: This is an amazing feature. Using this, you can assign a key to each of your search engines and then whenever you want to search something in a particular search engine just type the key corresponding to that search engine and the text you want to search in location bar. I love this feature the most and believe me that I hardly type anything in search engine field in FF3. Example: Say I assign 'G' to google so now if I want to search 'akash' in google, I just need to type "G akash" in my location bar.

2) Find: The find feature appears in a keystroke. Search for a word or phrase on an open Web page. Highlight text before using the feature and finder opens pre-filled with your selection. See all instances of your search at once, or scroll backwards and forwards through the appearances of the word on the page.

3) Multi-location copy: Now you can copy text from multiple location in your new FF3 browser. What all you need to do is to hold the Ctrl key whenever you want to select text from a new location.

4) Smart Location Bar: A quick way to get to the sites you love—even the ones with addresses you only vaguely remember. The new Firefox 3 location bar learns as you use it. Over time, it adapts to your preferences and offers better fitting matches.

There are many more new features, which make your life easier. It's not possible to explain everything here. Please find it here.

Things I disliked:

1) One-Click Bookmarking: There is nothing to dislike about but I didn't like it. May be because, even if I bookmark a site by single-click on the star icon in the location bar, I never get it in bookmarks. Though the site is bookmarked and always show as bookmarked, I am not able to find it in my bookmarks.

2) Download Manager: Now you can pause and resume your downloads and this feature means there’s no need to wait for a download to finish before you disconnect. They claim that the resume function also works if your system crashes or is forced to restart. But unfortunately it doesn't work even in single session and always gives error like following even if I pause and play.

3) Flash support Issue: I love browsing youtube and watch video over there. Unfortunately, Since the time I upgraded to FF3 from FF2, I have to open IE for watching youtube videos as FF3 never shows them properly. Either it takes too much time to render and or it doesn't provide any voice in them. It always hangs with a video or I should say any good heavy flash object. The issue with flash is a major issue with FF3.

4) Favicon Issue: Though it may seem a very small issue, it is an issue with FF3. FF3 plays with the favicons especially with those favicons which you have bookmarked. For example I have bookmarked gmail.com and it shows google favicon. But whenever I open any new site with another favicon, bookmark gmail.com starts showing this new favicon until I open gmail again.

5) Add-ons: I upgraded to FF3 on the cost of all those cool add-ons, I used frequently with FF2. Though they all will come sooner with FF3 but till then I need to live without them, which is not a good idea for me.

We are hoping to establish a world record (NOT official Guinness) by assembling the world's largest jigsaw puzzle in record time. The puzzle is called "Life - The Greatest Challenge", has 24,000 pieces and measures 14'x5'.

The record, we want to go for, is the least time to assemble (including sorting) by a group. The target initially is a very aggressive 24 hrs. To this end, We have formed a team of hardcore jigsaw enthusiasts who are interested in this quest. These individuals are prepared to work through the entire 24 hrs, with minimal time for sleep/food/phone/other diversions. If we succeed, we will be the first documented group to complete the puzzle from India as well as the fastest group to complete worldwide. Prior documented efforts have all been a few weeks at best to many months.

We are deliberately not aiming for a Guinness record (due to their stringent requirements), but we'll definitely secure a place in the hall of fame. See more about the puzzle and check out the hall of fame at http://www.worldslargestpuzzle.com.

Here is a sample puzzle if you guys are interested...

I stumbled upon the video below while browsing and thought of sharing it with you guys. Have a look at it and learn new ways to use your mobile...

This the second copy-paste post for my blog. You can find the first one here. Generally bloggers are not supposed to copy-paste stuff on their blog but whenever I feel something too good to share with others, I put it here. Here, I present the inaugural speech by Chetan Bhagat for the new batch at the Symbiosis BBA program 2008. You might already read it somewhere else but for those who didn't read it earlier, it's a must read...

Chetan Bhagat's Speech:
Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college, leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is one of them. When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers be like, who are my new classmates - there is so much to be curious about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the time.

Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year old twin boys have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park. A story from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for birthday party several months in advance just for the day they will cut their own birthday cake.

I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark?

Imagine the spark to be a lamp's flame. The first aspect is nurturing – to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms.

To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn't any external measure - a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.

Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement.

But it isn't the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won't be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday? They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.

Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that.

I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

You must have read some quotes - Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school. Where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.

One last thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said - don't be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.

I've told you three things - reasonable goals, balance and not taking it too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose.

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don't go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you.

But it's life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember - if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that's where you want to be.

Disappointment's cousin is frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don't know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release.

Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life - friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.

Unfairness - this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it not just in Bollywood, but everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India, so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you.

In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand this speech in English means you are pretty darn lucky by Indian standards. Let's be grateful for what we have and get the strength to accept what we don't. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don't get literary praise. It's ok. I don't look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who think I am more beautiful than her. It's ok. Don't let unfairness kill your spark.

Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others.

There you go. I've told you the four thunderstorms - disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.

I welcome you again to the most wonderful years of your life. If someone gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But I also hope that ten years later as well, you eyes will shine the same way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends. And I hope not just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool about saying – I come from the land of a billion sparks.

Thank You.

Like my last post, this post is again going to contain some videos. This is not regarding commercials but stand-up comedies. I found some amazing clips of "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge" and "Comedy Circus". All these episodes feature Kuldeep Dubay and after watching these videos, I am sure that you will start appreciating his talent. He is basically a mimicry actor with a great sense of humor. Though Mimicry artists always have an upper hand in stand-up comedy shows but Kuldeep Dubay is just awesome. Have a look at the below videos and enjoy.

PS: You are supposed to know Hindi and also a little about Bollywood personalities in first video.

The Great Indian Laughter Challenge clips:

Rastriya Shadi (National Marriage):


Bubba Ali:


Comedy Circus clips: This clips is a very good spoof of those programs, which are dubbed from English to Hindi. Simply hilarious...

These days, I'm spending a lot of time watching TV. Whenever I watch TV, good commercials attract me more than the crap they show in daily soaps or reality shows. Movies attract me but every time I switch to any movie channel, I stumble upon an already seen movie. I enjoy those stand-up comedy shows a lot and second comes good commercial.

Out of all these commercials, telco always have an upper hand on most of other companies. Be it Airtel or Vodafone or even the new player Virgin Mobile, they always offer some quality stuff on Indian television to see. Though some telco like BSNL and Tata Indicom also offering commercial which are nothing more than a crap but still telecom majors make commercial worth watching. Since last few months, I noticed that Vodafone is showing some very good commercials. Especially their value added serviced advertisements as well as customer care commercials. In addition to new funny and enjoyable commercial Vodafone is cashing the publicity of old recognized pug of Hutch in their commercials.

I am embedding some nice Vodafone commercial in past few months. Hope you will also enjoy that a lot.

VAS (value added services) commercials:















Customer care commercials (cashing pug row):



General feel good Commercials:





Yesterday I saw a new MPTY (multi-party) call commercial, that too amused me a lot. Other than this, I liked a floaters commercial which features old Indian song "Aaj kal paon Zameen par nahi padte mere". The ad is so beautifully composed that I can't resist myself from praising it. But unfortunately, I couldn't get a video for these two commercials on Youtube or somewhere else.

Smashingmagazine.com always brings the best articles about useful and innovative information for designers and web-developers. It makes us aware about the latest trends and techniques in web-development - clearly, precisely and regularly. This time Smashing Magazine brings a competition for everyone called "Guest Author Contest". What all you need to do is to write a small guest article for Smashing Magazine and win one of dozens of attractive prizes waiting for you. Actually their aim is to find the writers who can work with them even after competition and get properly paid for their work.

There are mainly two categories they are looking for:

1. A short discussion article
2. Useful and beautiful top-10-lists

The guidelines are as follows:

1. A short discussion article:

• it should have between 450 and 1200 characters (yes, characters, not words; space characters and HTML are not included in 450-1200 characters),
• it may be controversial and subjective, but it should not be boring,
• it may present some idea, approach or remark about recent developments, but you need to argue well and explain your position properly,
• it should have a valid HTML-markup.

2. Useful and beautiful top-10-lists

• an exciting and eye-catching headline,
• a quick yet attractive introduction (usually 2-4 sentences),
• 10 list items with a brief description (usually 1-2 sentences) and with links if necessary,
• at least 2 images or screenshots (if it is impossible to make screenshots or find images for your topic ignore this condition),
• it should have a valid HTML-markup.

And now it is the time of prizes on the stack. The best guest post will be determined by the editorial team and will be awarded with Apple MacBook Air. Apart from that the places 2-5 will be awarded with attractive designer laptop sleeves and bags. And the places 6-10 will be awarded with design and web-development related books.

Last date for submitting entries is 5th of August 2008. So if you are crazy about the latest trends in graphic designs and know something that can add to other's skill, it's the time to cash your knowledge. Come on and tell the world about your secrets and knowledge.

Last week I saw "Kung Fu Panda" and want to say that I loved it. I have already seen it twice... Hats off to Dreamworks Animation for this amazing creation. The amazing use of 3D graphics amazed me and I bet that anyone who adores animation will love this a lot. After this I watched "Shrek II" as I was threatened for life for not watching it. But honestly, I couldn't appreciate Shrek as much I did Panda. "Kung Fu Panda" includes voices from best of Hollywood celebrities like Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and many others.

It was the perfect blend of comedy, heart, and action, all necessary elements in a successful and great animation film. The voice of Randall for Master Oogway gave an perfect touch to the character. Also I liked the characters of Shifu, Po and Tai Lung the most. The plot of the story is not so new and seems like an old Chinese story based on Kung Fu but graphics and voices did a near perfect job. No doubt that this is the best animation flick of 2008 or should I say best animation flick till date.

Yesterday, I retouched my old created site on tripod after ages. Though the content is almost same, what all I did is to give a new look to it. This site may give you a look like an immature one but it is supposed to be because I created it long time back. I uploaded some photos and other stuff and tried to give it a new look but I couldn't do what I wanted exactly. It didn't come out as I wanted it to be because tripod doesn't give you full freedom of choosing the layout of your choice or customizing the layout completely. May be it does but I need to search for it. Also tripod's own advertisements on the site make the look worse and gives you a bad feeling. On the top of it it provides you only 20 MB of free space and you need to upload all your images in that space unless you upload images on web and give a link to that by creating your own HTML. Again you need to work on web only because neither it provides you support of WEBDAV nor like any FTP or something. So I could not connect it through Adobe Contribute and was bound to work on net is slow and frustrating. I will work on it in future when I will get more free time and will give it new refershing look with updated content. Till then please walk thorugh this old stuff...

If you are not happy with specific search results on Google but like the results on Yahoo or MSN or the other way round then SCOUR is for you. It is built on the top of Google, Yahoo and MSN and shows the best of all these search engines. What it does is that that it fetches search results from Google, Yahoo and MSN and shows them on a single page. Scour doesn't only combine results from all these search engines but also tell you the page rank on particular search engine. Also, you can sort results on the basis of search engine.

There are some more things Scour is offering other than combining results from Google, Yahoo and MSN. It allows users to comment on search results and to rate results (thumbs up and thumbs down). See this DEMO for more information. Now, if above all doesn't create enough incentive for you then there are reward points which you can redeem as VISA gift cards. You can also increase your social network by interacting with other Scour users having the same interest. Not only this but you will also get reward points if you refer your friends to Scour. You will get 25% of your referral's points.

You earn the following number of points for each action:

• 1 = Search
• 2 = Vote
• 3 = Comment

and these points will be cashed as:

• 25,000 = $100
• 12,500 = $50
• 6,500 = $25
  

But there are some drawbacks also as image search is not as good as in Google or in other search engines. Also you don't have all the above features in case of image and video search. So If you are searching for images or videos, count on your old search engine but for all text searches Scour is here. So what are you waiting for...GO SOCIAL, GO SCOUR...

The very first thing you will notice about this book will be its cover. An excellent design, which is a trademark of Penguin publication. The book is written by none other but Manohar Shyam Joshi, the famous creator of some landmark Hindi serials like "HUM LOG", "BUNIYAAD" and "MUNGERI LAL KE HASEEN SAPNE". The actual book is in Hindi but brilliantly translated by Ira Pande, daughter of famous Hindi writer Shivani.

Going through pages of the book and you will get to know that this is an excerpt from author own life. It's a tale of the time when author was a teacher in a village called Sunaulidhar. The story revolves around a thin, short man with illusions of grandeur, Khashtivallabh Pant, DUBBAL MA (Double MA), a school teacher in Sunaulidhar village, where he is mockingly referred to as T’ta Professor. A great admirer of the Englishman’s attire, T’ta is also deeply in awe of the white man’s language. He always carries a notebook to jot down English words that he hears for the first time, acknowledging a word as acceptable only after he has consulted his Oxford Dictionary. His vanity makes him a terrific target for lampooning but the author who is second protagonist and narrator of the story was never able to cash this opportunity. The first half of the book is totally comic and you might burst into laughter at some places. The way people made pranks on T'ta and the author took advantage of rivalry between T'ta and school principal makes the book more comic. T'ta was the main source of all the fun for villagers, narrator and other colleagues at school and for everyone else. Also the author portrayed himself as the smartest man in the community as he always took advantage of the situation crafted cleverly or created accidentally.

But as you will move forward and come to another half you will feel that you are reading not a great work but an erotic and tragicomic prose. Mainly the stories narrated by T'ta make the first claim stronger. But overall that develop sympathy as well as agony for T'ta and T’ta turns from a ridiculous comic character into a pathetic pervert. When T'ta narrated his life history to the author and the occasions when he got the MAIN POINT, it gave me a feel of worst Hindi erotic prose. Our author wove several short stories in his mind inspired from T'ta stories but those never turned down on paper and thus never got life.

Finally, this is not a bad read. Beware; your muscles need to work a lot while reading the book: smiling muscles in first half and frowning muscles in another half. I also want to pay thanks to Ira because without her excellent translation this book couldn't turn into the one what it has become. If you want to translate a good Hindi book in English and expect the same response then translation matters a lot. This book is an example of excellent translation and that's why Ira deserves the same Kudos and Joshi.

Firstly I'm sorry for posting after a long time (8 days gap, which isn’t my habit). This post is about my experience at Dr. Batra’s clinic. Actually, I am suffering from hair loss and my parents and friends comments made it more severe for me… Furthermore I’m not doing anything to prevent it. I have been asked again and again regarding precautionary measures to prevent hair loss and this does nothing but adds to my frustration as if I’m a hair loss expert and know everything to prevent it. Also some well-wishers asked me to visit doctor (especially Dr. Batra’s, who is considered as specialist in this case) to take care of it but I never gave my ears to them as I don't like to visit doctors.

When after multiple efforts of these well-wishers, I didn’t end up going to any doctor; one of my school friends, who is also suffering from same problem, referred me to Dr. Batra’s as he was already taking some treatment from there. This was the time when it all started, Dr. Batra’s guys were after my life as if they were CBI and I am a CRIMINAL. Last Tuesday, I got first call from their clinic that Mr. Rohit has recommended you to us and you will get an initial consultation absolutely free. Though I refused, they called again and again and finally I was ready to visit them Thursday evening. But as I mentioned that I am more than reluctant of going such places so I didn’t go there. I thought that it was over but on very next day, I got another call from them and was asked my reason for not being there, I throw an excuse and then I was offered another date. Even after my refusal, I got another call on Saturday and that also when I was out of the city (attending calls on roaming is the last thing I want to do). So I promised them to meet a doctor on Monday. I landed at Dr. Batra’s Noida clinic on Monday and waited for around 30 mins. Generally I don’t like to wait but I was ready for this because it happens at clinics and hospitals. There also I noticed the funny things like a doctor coming out of his cabin and requesting/forcing the receptionist to give his patient as much discount as possible. I suddenly started seeing a sales season in a doctor's attire. Later I came to know that they used to give discount to everyone who comes to them. This is a very nice funda now days, first overprice the thing (treatment in this case) and then show your generosity by giving discount.

Finally I entered doctor’s cabin and stunned to see the same doctor who was requesting/forcing the receptionist to give his patient as much discount as possible. I warmly shook hands which was responded equally. Now just after asking that how long I am facing this problem and how many hairs fall in a day (which I had no account), he declared that I am having the problem of excessive DHT and explained me the entire plan. I was listening to him as reluctantly as I could and just after he finished I was asked if I wanted to take the plan (they call treatment as plan), which include some medicines some laser test and other tests. I simply said,” Not right now, I will think on this and will let you know” and his face was worth seeing. I left the cabin right then and again offered my hand for a hand shake but this time I got a loose hand in return.

So this wasn’t the end of the story, I got call from some doctor there yesterday and asked about the feedback. When I gave him not an encouraging feedback, he offered me to have a talk with some senior doctor and get some test absolutely free of cost. But this time I was cautious and say a clear NO and I already had the feedback of Dr. Batra’s from many people.
For all those who are suffering from hair loss, here are some tips (I don’t follow any of these :D). Actually another well wisher forwarded me a mail which has been circulated in his company having more than 2000 people and contained a consolidated feedback of people regarding hair loss treatment.

Allopathic:

• Minoxidil 5%, aka Mintop: It's an FDA approved medicine and can be applied on the hair every day.
• Finastride - a tab which can be used to curb hair loss.

Homoeopathy:

• Dr. Batra's hasn't worked for anybody! When it comes to hair-loss treatments, I'm convinced it's a scam.
• Dr Rudresh from Bangalore was a recommendation and scalp-tone tabs were recommended.

Other things that worked for people:

• Get head shaved a couple of times, use onion, lemon, ginger and garlic on the scalp
• An oil from VLCC worked well for one respondent who says it's worked for other people he knows too.
• Brihan's Jas Red available at a Health & Glow outlet. Also apply white onion extracts on scalp for 20 mins.
• Follicles clinic has been recommended. It's near Panjagutta, phone number 23415737

Life style:

• High protein diet
• Exercise
• Less stress at work
• Less work!

Diet and other specific tips:

• Increase green vege intake and avoid coffee.
• Avoid smoking if you smoke
• Don't wear helmets directly if you drive a bike.

Etc, etc.

I have submitted my entry in "Slideshare world best presentation contest 2008". I am embedding my entry below. If you like it, please go to this link and vote "THUMBS UP"...

The story behind this presentation is as follows:

A man found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved daughter’s slain body in his arms to earn more n more tears.

Please VOTE and ask others also to vote... To vote, you need to create an account, which is just 2 minute process...

Thanks for all the your time in viewing this presentation and votes...

Look, within ONE hour of posting, it became the "SLIDESHOW OF THE DAY"...


Above is a screen shot of slideshare, look at the RED circles... And below is the mail from slideshare team...

Last Saturday, Mom n Dad completed their 28 years of togetherness. They came over to Noida to celebrate their 28th anniversary and it was just great. Recalling all those happy moments of past 28 years always brings a smile on our faces. Here are some pics and more you can see at Picasa.PS: One things that is great for these elderly B'days and anniversaries that in place of giving presents you get gifts :)

Half an hour back, our family was stuck with TV as RAMAYAN was being telecasted on NDTV-Imagine. Since Mom n Dad are in town so we all were in front of TV that time. Though I say that I don't watch TV serials and all, it felt good to see those religious serial after a long time. I can easily remember that when I was a kid, there was a lull on streets, markets and everywhere in the city on Sunday morning between 9-10 AM as RAMAYAN or MAHABAHARAT were being telecasted. families were stuck with their television sets and nobody wanted to miss that. Seriously, that was a good time coz everyone shared a moment of togetherness and happiness. Now a days, there are very few moments that too on special occasions, when all the family members can sit together.

That was not the point of this post. Actually today the scene, which was there on the TV, was that Sugreev's brother Baali killed Dundubhi ((son of Maya Daanav, and brother of Mandodaree) in Matang Muni's Aashram, that is why he gave a SHRAAP to Baali that he and his monkeys could not enter his Aashram. And that is why Sugreev used to hide there with his four ministers. In all this, I noticed that though we always get teachings from our elders to be calm and cool but if we look at these old Hindu Mythology gurus they were never calm and cool in their doings. A smallest possible notorious element was enough to turn them red. There are a lot of other instances in Hindu Mythology when these gurus have lost their calm.

We can take the examples of Muni Durvasa (our angry young Muni), Shringi Rishi, Bhrigu rishi and many others. Even lord Hanuman is not an exception of being cursed by these Rishis. Though these old epics and other mythological literature teach us a lot of good things, that also teach us that becoming angry is not bad.

Today, when I came to work, one of my friend pinged me on Gtalk and send me a link. I wonder to see that it was of a blog created by him, which he is using to post comments for this particular blog of mine.

If you visit there, you will find an article exactly with same name as here and that was used to put comments on this blog.

Thanks Vikas, it really feels good when someone does these things :)

Again an unusual an unexpected title; Why in the world I am patting Pakistan? Certainly not for winning today’s match against India, then why? The answer is its effort and initiative regarding energy saving. How??? Please follow to know the answer...

Usually, if there is any cricket match in office time, I follow the scores on Cricinfo. Today also I was following the score of India-Pakistan match in Asia Cup. I was wondering from the beginning of Asia Cup that why in Pakistan Day-Night matches are being started so late(1600 hrs) of local time and this thing continued till today. Thanks to Cricinfo commentators, who told us that this is because Pakistan is the first nation in South Asia to adopt daylight saving time, pushing clocks forward by one hour. It means that actual time is 1500 hrs, which is shown as 1600 hrs due to "Daylight Saving". This is reason, I want to thank Pakistan to use daylight saving time(DST) to save energy during the peak summer season.

Daylight Saving Time (or summertime as it is called in many countries) is a way of getting more light out of the day by advancing clocks by one hour during the summer. During Daylight Saving Time, the sun appears to rise one hour later in the morning, when people are usually asleep anyway, and sets one hour later in the evening, seeming to stretch the day longer. The reason DST works is because its saves energy due to less artificial light needed during the evening hours - clocks are set one hour ahead during the spring, and one hour back to standard time in the autumn. Many countries observe DST, and many do not.

Benjamin Franklin first suggested Daylight Saving Time in 1784, but it was not adopted until World War I, in 1916, when it was adopted by several counties in Europe that initially rejected the idea.

There are some obvious drawbacks like moving clocks back and forth and in computing but still I would say that DST is an amazing way to save energy worldwide and every country must follow it to reap its advantages.

Here you can find a list of countries and locations to see DST in 2008.

Hmm, interesting title, isn't it??? Now days, I'm busy in collecting luck from every possible way. But still feeling unlucky :-( Reason?...Actually no reason but the feeling of being lucky isn't coming its way.


Look at the picture of the 10 rupee note above; did you notice anything special in this? If you didn't, please read the serial number once again and consider last 3 digits..."786"...but what's the big deal in this. Actually, some days back, I was in the market to have some snacks and gave this note to the seller. To my surprise that person asked me if I want to keep this note with me and showed me the number on this. Though I don't believe on all this but there is never a harm in keeping this note with me.

Many of you might know that 786 have a religious significance in Islaam. On googling, I found that what is special with this number and various articles stating that. Many of those saying that this number have a certain respect in Islaam and believe that 786 stands for BISMILLAAHIR RAHMAANIR RAHEEM b'coz adding the corresponding Arabic numbers for each letter in first verse of the Quraan gives a result as 786. Many others think that it doesn't add up to 786 but 787.

In Hindu mythology, '786' is an aggregation of the numbers of Hindu 'Lord Hari Krishna'. Mathematically, 786 might be the largest n for which the value of the central binomial coefficient 2n(C)n is not divisible by an odd prime squared.

Though, in many movies this number has been cashed on religious values, does it have any significance in actual. Also, if it has that significance, why it is only for this number? We can form millions of numbers by adding corresponding digits in any religious name or verse.

Below are some links, I found while googling which may be good for further reading:

The Myth of 786

What is 786?

Meaning of 786