On being a winner

Do you remember this? The ghosts of the past have been put to rest. I came second in a mini hackathon at work, which involved coming up with a mobile app on a certain theme in less than a week. While we lost out on the first place, people were blown away by the idea and the demo. I've been awarded several awards on performance and like in the past and I have always felt guilty that I perhaps did not deserve those. Turns, out I am not good at winning either. But this win feels so good. Pure unadulterated joy, something that comes from doing things you love. And this is just the beginning, now to turn this app into an actual product....

PS: The only place I can shamelessly brag about this is on this blog!
PPS : This time too I teamed up with a friend and one person who doesn't know us professionally said, 'oh two women developers winning, not bad'.  Argh.

Disclaimer

If you were to read my last two posts or my blog in general you might think I am this manic depressive, whiny person. Truth is I am quite the opposite, am almost always cheerful, I smile too much (way too much in fact), laugh heartily and am a 'nice' person overall.

Just saying. 

2013

What a crazy start it has been to the new year, crazy in a good way!

2012, professionally the year was just great! I feel happy and proud and exhilarated looking back at all that was achieved.

Personally, unfortunately all my goals have fallen flat, I've been restless and worst of all very very bitter. I resolved to fix it this year but half way through January, I seem to be getting only worse. But there's always hope, gotto try harder. Happy new year, sankranti and all that! Have a good one folks!

...

The world likes dreamers. And it likes people who live their dreams. Long vacations. Beach holidays. Adventures. Backpacking trips. Quitting jobs. Chasing passions. It is a good thing dreaming. 

And then there are the the others. Boring, dull, ordinary. Worrying. Bills. Home loans. Babies, Medical bills. Saving. Hoping.


We may not like non dreamers but the world certainly needs them.

Hey

Every year this day, for the last few years, I'd send out a mail to a friend, wishing him on his birthday. The next day, he would reply back wishing me on my birthday. This one time I was going through a particularly bad phase, I decided not to send the mail, what is the point, I thought. The next day, he wished me all the same. I felt terrible. This tradition continued, the same message, same reply....until I married him. We used to think it was cool to have birthdays on consecutive days, he still thinks so, but I am bit jealous the attention is off me, August is now about 'our' birthdays rather than just mine. But then it is nice to have someone turn old along with you at the same time.

Anyway, around the time we got married, he stopped reading my blog (he stopped reading all blogs), so I had email notification set up to send my posts to his inbox. This message is for him -> Happy Birthday! Have fun!

To be a kid again..

After I read the most depressing book* ever I decided to read children's books and books for young adults, all those books that I missed out reading as a kid.

After some research, online shopping and browsing through scores of dusty books at Blossoms I bought a few. While I enjoyed most of them it was very difficult to get rid of my cynicism when reading them. Perils of being a grown up.

Anyway here is the list
1. Divorce express - Paula Danzinger - Was looking for some other book by the same author but found only this. Adolescence, boys, school...you know the works.
2. Are you there God? It's me Margaret by Judy Blume - Again, one of those growing up books. Cute.
3. Julie of the wolves by Jean Craighead George- This one is heart warming and sad and somewhat hard to believe, life of a little girl in alaska.
4. Lemony Snicket's A series of unfortunate events Book 1  - The bad guy leaves a baby in a cage hanging from a tower. . Uggh.
5. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - Loved this book the best, reminded me of the many stargirls I've known.
6. Charlie and the chocolate factory by Roald Dahl - I haven't seen the movie, this is one book that made me hungry all the time. I even stocked my fridge with chocolates when reading this. But I couldn't help feeling sorry for the other four kids, I mean wonder why they didn't sue Willy Wonka.

Also discovered that I no longer have the patience to read Enid Blyton :(. (at least the mysteries, I still love Mallory Towers)

*The most depressing book ever was Rohinton Mistry's - A fine Balance. It is a book of genius no doubt but it just has too much misery packed into one book. I'd still recommend it but with the warning that it will make you sad. Very very sad. 

Aamir and his show

The man.
I have been a fan of Aamir khan for as long as I can remember and he is the only actor I have ever worshiped. I loved lagaan, DCH and I loved TZP. But something changed around that time. On screen, his acting became strained (3 idiots has to be his worst movie ever). Off screen he seemed to turn cocky, a ‘Mr. Know it all’. I couldn’t stand his Incredible India ads, when did he turn so self-righteous? Even in the satyameva jayathe song (which is brilliant btw) where he travels all over India meeting people, he seems so fake! He is intelligent, well read, versatile and talented no doubt, I don’t mean to offend his fans, just that I stopped being one.

His show.
I turned off the TV once when they started showing visuals of a harassed wife. I turned it on again soon but after an hour I switched off for good. I had to dry my clothes.
The show is not ground breaking by any means. Have you never seen Oprah? (I like Oprah better because she gives away goodies to the audience). Like Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted 'Satyamev Jayate very good: Zindagi live, Real Heroes, India Positive, Citizen Journalist with Aamir as anchor! What more can one ask for!'. Plenty of such shows, except no body watches them. I like the fact that it is aired on DD and in all languages. Like they say, it has its 'heart' in the right place.
It is interesting however to see all the reactions on twitter and facebook, opinions and people outraging over these opinions…

You must be a cynical, worthless citizen if you don’t like the show – yeah right!

Aamir vs Amitabh/SRK/Salman, they did meaningless game shows, while he is talking about social issues – why belittle the work of other actors?

He married twice so he is a bad human, hence we must not watch his show – Err, why bring his personal life here?

We are bringers of change because we send sms and solve issues – Reminds me of the Anna Hazare movement where people patted themselves on their backs for forming human chains while they conveniently continued to bribe cops, cheat with taxes etc.

Aamir is minting money – what's wrong about that?


I hope there is no outrage about this post. In any case how does it matter? Female foeticide is a serious issue. The facts and statistics shown were depressing. There will be more such issues, issues we always knew existed. What can we do about it, what has changed now? Will I watch the show again? Maybe, maybe not.