The World We Live In!

I wish you a very happy new year 2014. I watched Sholay 3D today, and decided to write my first post of 2014 about this movie. We all know Sholay! We have been knowing Sholay since its release or since we came to senses, whichever is later. Nothing new can be written about Sholay. We have been watching it, reading about it, discussing it, saying it all these years! I don’t think we can even remember how many times we have seen this movie. So, what would I write in a review of this movie? Just one line: GO AND RELIVE THE MAGIC OF SHOLAY IN THEATERS… AGAIN!!!!

L K Advani, the leader who once was biggest name, and symbol of BJP, has been sidelined by his own party, to cater to a leader, who according to BJP, will ensure victory in next election.  Advani is a victim here, but not many people see him that way, and it may be projected as he is greedy of his own ambition of becoming Prime Minister of India. We have to understand, that when it was time, when destiny called him to declare himself the leader of World’s largest democracy, in 1995, he himself nominated Atal Behari Vajpayee as party’s PM candidate. He was the preferred choice of the nation at that time, and the party wanted his leadership, like they are now after Narendra Modi. But, his inner voice, discipline, respect for seniority of Atalji, made him defer to Vajpayee, his political senior. At that time, many people told him, that he is throwing away possibly the only shot at the top chair of country. He may not get such chance again, and once Vajpayee becomes PM, Advani...

Out of hours working banned by German labor ministry Germany's employment ministry has banned its managers from calling or emailing staff out of hours except in emergencies, under new guidelines intended to prevent employees from burning out. This news further says that as per new guidelines, employees should not be penalized for switching off their mobiles and not reading their mails/messages post office hours. This was long overdue, and good that Germany has taken an official stand on this issue. I hope rest of the world notice and follow suite. I work in Application Support, and fully understand the risk of critical resources not available during any major incident. But I also appreciate the fact that we have an on-call rota system, which ensures that someone is available to manage such incidents during out of hours. We have the process in place, but still I have seen, and sometimes myself done, calling someone who is not on rota, but we are comfortable with that per...

Desperate times need desperate measures, we need to lock away so called juvenile rapists and killers. He raped her, tortured her, killed her, and he will get away with it due to his age? Such underage monsters should be taken as mentally unstable and unfit for society. This will ensure they will never be able to walk free on road. If we need to bend some rules, let’s do that for the sake of our women and daughters!

There are many stories, mix with Mythology, faith and history, for Diwali celebration. But the real celebration is not only for these stories, it’s the symbolic meaning of these tales. We celebrate the festival of light, on the dark moonless night. The light represent truth and justice, to eliminate injustice and evils of darkness. We not just fill our surroundings with truthful light, but using firecrackers we fill the skies with light of truth as well. So, go ahead and celebrate this festival, but remember, the real celebration is not in lighting Diyas or firecrackers, its in helping someone in need, doing some good work today, and everyday. When you see the light of happiness on someone’s face, that’s more than 100 Diya's light. When you hear the sound of happiness in their voice, that sound is more than 100 firecrackers to fill your heart with joy. If you find joy and happiness by this, it will be the perfect festival for you! Wishing you all a Very Happy Deepavali!

Happy Independence Day to all my Indian friends across the world! And there are two different greetings I would like to give, to the two different set of Indians across the globe. Indians living abroad, in developed countries like UK, USA, Singapore etc, enjoy this day, have party, show some patriotism by wearing tri-colour dress, host Indian flag, play some patriotic songs, dance and have a good time today. Indians still forced or choose to stuck here in India, please stay safe, have a quiet time today, and pray to god that the day pass by without any terror attack on our country, basically, be safe today. 

Why am I writing about this digital graphic novel? Two reasons, the first one is to let everyone knows about this gorgeously illustrated web comic, and the second is about my association with it. Daniel wanted if anyone can translate it in their language, to get in touch with him. I contacted him about translating it in Hindi, and got immediate go ahead from him.  I really liked the way he has managed this translation part, where various people across the world are working to translate this into their language, Daniel has created an Google Doc Spreadsheet, with first column in English, and assigned one column to each of us, for filling our language translation of that column’s caption. This is a great way of collaboration effort, using free web! Nice idea Daniel!