R.I.P. Jagjit Singh

So the voice of Ghazal in India is dead. The Facebook walls are flooded with messages about how saddened one is due to this great loss. You feel classy when you mention that you love Ghazals. Newspapers are publishing "Top 10 Ghazals by Jagjit Singh" and similar posts are on the Facebook. What I noticed instantly was almost all lists involve "तुमको देखा तो ये खयाल आया". while that is a nice song and I personally like that a lot, it is not a Ghazal at all. Other "नज्म" like "वो कागज कि कश्ती" or "बात निकलेगी तो फिर" are also listed there.

Ghazal has some very hard rules. Terms like "Beher", "Radif", "Kaafiyaa" and rules like a "Matla" should have "Radif" in both the lines. etc. must be considered. So the above mentioned songs are not Ghazals and the so called Ghazal lovers are not knowing this fact at all.

On the other side does these technicalities really matter to enjoy the soothing voice of Jagjit? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Ghazal or not Jagjit's songs remain most popular non-filmy music. So why do I get this urge to nitpicking? Am I stroking my ego about my own classiness?

A kid pointing at a rhino and calling it a hippo is OK. The kid will be equally amused about the magnificence of the animal. But it doesnt go well with me when a so called wildlife conservationist with a "Go Green" T-shirt does the same mistake.

Tell me what would you do...

Consider a hypothetical situation where you have enough money to maintain your existing lifestyle for next 50 years (even after considering the inflation). So now you do not have to trade your time to earn money (your current job). Tell me what would you do with the time that is now available with you. You can just leave a comment here on the blog .

Remember, you do not have infinite money. So you cannot just say that you would go on the world tour 3 times a year. You have money sufficient to sustain your current lifestyle for next 50 years. There is no additional money for investment.

Also assume that you do not have any liabilities (like child education, marriage etc.) if that would make thinking more easier for you.

The goal of life

Q. What is the goal of life? (mine and/or everybody's)
A. To be happy. To be satisfied.

Q. What is Happiness?
A. That's a tough one, but let me try.

• It is highly subjective and means different things to different people.
• The law of "Diminishing Marginal Utility" is applicable to Happiness as well.
  
• This also means Happiness is a journey and not a destination.

Q. How to be Happy?
A. Well that's even tougher.

• There are certain things which make you feel better. One needs to identify them.
• You need to utilize the available time for what you "Want" to do. Things which will make you feel better.
  
• you need to manage your time to improve
  

1. Your Physical Health
2. Your Financial Wealth
3. Your Relationships with others (Wife, Parents, Kids, Other relatives, Friends, colleagues and strangers)
   
4. Your Spirituality (Mental Health?)
5. The activities of your interest which do not fall in any of the above category
   

• The degree of each constituent mentioned above will be different for each person.
  
• The thing which makes you happy NOW not make you happy again or some other time. So you need variation in life. A routine monotonous life could be boring.
  
• The key is to identify your minimum requirements of health, wealth and so on and work towards achieving them.
  

I am back

After a long gap of 3 years, I am back to blogging.
When I look back I can see that I was quite regular at blogging back in 2005.
I hope to write some good posts in 2009 to.

I don't expect many people to read this blog.
For now this a sand box for me to play around with my writing instincts.
It would be easier for me to share the writings whenever I have to get others' feedback.

So if you happen to follow this blog, thank you and would like to know your comments.

A look at 2005

This was one of the finest years in my life. I took some bold decisions this year, which I believe, would impact my future significantly.

One of the boldest decisions was to refuse the post of onsite coordinator at Paris after waiting for it for around 6 months. The posting was supposed to be for around 1 year in duration. Though not a decision taken in 2005 this started the chain of other decisions.

The next one was to leave L&T Infotech and join Capgemini in March 2005. This decision turned out to be a better one than what I had anticipated. Even though I missed the nice people at L&T Infotech my life now was much better. The traveling to and from the office was way easier. Also my project in Capgemini allowed me to leave for home at exactly 6:00 pm each day. So I was now able to spend more time with my family. At times I also had some spare time in the office which I used to read a lot on the net. Especially the discussions on slashdot and articles on wikipedia had significant impact on the way I think. It prompted me to think about any issue in 360 degrees. This was helpful for me in my daily work as well. I believe I could handle some of the issues quickly here in Capgemini, thanks to the improved thinking process.

I decided that this extra time at hand should be put to some constructive use. So I joined MBA course from ICFAI in June 05. I am very happy I made this decision. Though initially I was skeptical about whether I would like to study subjects which are not technical or related to IT/Software/Computers. I am thoroughly enjoying studying for MBA.

This mention of technology reminds me of a no so bold decision I took immediately after I joined Capgemini. Most of the time of my professional career, I have worked on C/C++/Unix technology. And I have fully enjoyed working with it to the extent that I thought I might not like "other" technologies at all. The people around me also seem to support this view. I think Capgemini do not have many projects which require a skill set of C/C++/Unix. So I had to be on bench for the first week after I joined Capgemini. I decided not to stick with the technology I love and joined a project on Java technology. This decision also paid off better than what I bargained for. This project was less challenging than the projects I handled in L&T Infotech. But that meant I performed much better than the expectations of my superiors and was able to solve some long pending issues quickly even though the technology was totally new to me. This was well appreciate by my manager and I got the best rating in both mid-year and end-year performance appraisals. Now I am eagerly waiting for the increment letter that would be handed to me soon :-)

But the most significant decision was to go for another child. Initially I was of the opinion that the Indian population is already very high. So one should restrict himself/herself to a single child. But my wife challenged my views and we had some long discussions. We finally decided to go for another child so that the kids have company of each other and do not feel lonely. Both me and my wife were brought up with siblings which we thought induced a feeling of care and sharing with others. In our view it is very difficult to keep single kids from spoiling due to extra pampering they get. So now we are waiting for the baby to arrive in the coming year.

I am eager to face the new year. With the arrival of my baby and more demanding study schedule (4 subject to study each quarter as compared to 2 subjects we study currently) and most probably with some another project, I am anticipating it to be more eventful than 2005