Happiness

A few days back came across this article in TOI. Its beautiful. Just pasting it over here.

There is a difference between happiness and what we describe as joy and pleasure. On a warm day what a glass of cold lemon juice gives you is pleasure for it is momentary and sensory. Happiness, on the other hand, is experienced in the mind and is therefore infinitely more powerful.
Are we happier today than we were a hundred years ago? If we’re not, isn’t it amazing that technological aids have not been able to add to our happiness?
What could we do to feel happy or happier?
1. Identify what makes you happy: I have met very few people who are clear about what makes them happy. Since they are unclear about their objectives, they live a perennially unhappy life. List down what will make you happy. Generate goals that are specific, achievable but challenging.
2. Compete with yourself: A study conducted at Harvard demonstrated that people are happier when they are relatively more prosperous than their compatriots. Respondents chose between two situations: a) Your annual salary is $1,00,000 while your compatriot gets $75,000; b) Your annual salary is $1,50,000 while your compatriot gets $1,75,000. Though the salary was more in the (b) situation, respondents overwhelmingly preferred (a). Why not compete with oneself instead of grieving over others’ achievements?
3. Don’t expect everyone to agree with you: We usually equate disagreement with enmity in spite of knowing that intelligent people rarely agree on anything; every individual has a perspective that’s unique. So try and persuade the other person but don’t be unhappy if you fail.
4. Live life according to your beliefs: Intellectual independence must follow financial independence. Implement your beliefs without inconveniencing others and be happy.
5. Live in the present: The past is dead and gone. Peep into it only to learn from mistakes. Dream of the future but remember you can’t enjoy it until it becomes your present. So don’t postpone what you can do today.
6. Increase the sources of your happiness: Gardening, singing, playing an instrument, exercising, meditating...The more the merrier.
7. Limit your desires: We get caught in that vicious spiral of infinite wants. The happiness you derive from moving from one product to another — bigger, better, more expensive — is at best short-lived. Try to figure out what you can do without. Incremental benefits as you climb up the value chain of materialism are fewer than the incremental costs that you might incur.
8. Forgive and forget: Forgiving your opponents who played dirty may not make you a winner but it would surely make you happier. Jealousy and prolonged anger are agents of death.
9. Keep your curiosity alive: People who vigorously retain the childlike habit of questioning are happy on two counts. They enjoy getting to know the answers and their curiosity keeps their mind alive and kicking.
10. Shun hypocrisy: We worship women as goddesses but don’t respect them at home, workplace or any other situation. We keep our courtyards clean by dumping garbage in the neighbour’s compound or on the street. Double standards don’t contribute to happiness.
11. Spend time with the young: Their happiness is infectious and costs nothing.
12. Give liberally: Share your smile, advice, cheer, money, help or just company. Giving should reduce your assets but giving happiness actually increases your own inventory — just try it out!

My favorite Rock songs

Here's a list of my favorite Rock songs. These are in no particular order. They have been chosen from different sub genres of Rock and Metal.If you do not find a song in this list which you feel should have been there, kindly post a comment mentioning the song. I may not have heard it. This list may differ from those published by different magazines and Music channels, coz those lists are based on polls and experts' opinions. This one's based on purely my choice.


1. Shine on you crazy diamond 1-5 ==> Pink Floyd
2. Stairway to heaven ==> Led Zeppelin
3. Fade to black ==> Metallica
4. Master of puppets ==> Metallica
5. Hallowed be thy name ==> Iron Maiden
6. Fear of the dark ==> Iron Maiden
7. High hopes ==> Pink Floyd
8. One ==> Metallica
9. Peace sells ==> Megadeth
10. Paranoid ==> Megadeth cover
11. NIB ==> Black Sabbath
12. Light my fire ==> The Doors
13. Beat it ==> Michael Jackson
14. Summer of 69 ==> Bryan Adams
15. Making love out of nothing at all ==> Air Supply
16. Behind blue eyes ==> The Who
17. Christmas in July ==> Zero
18. Lightbulb sun ==> Porcupine Tree
19. Rock you like a hurricane ==> Scorpions
20. Freebird ==> Lynyrd Skynyrd
21. November rain ==> Guns n Roses
22. Ace of spades ==> Motorhead
23. Paint it black ==> Rolling Stones
24. Purple haze ==> Jimi Hendrix
25. Summer song ==> Joe Satriani
26. Beyond the realms of death ==> Judas Priest
27. Hard day's night ==> The Beates
28. Come as you are ==> Nirvana
29. Whole lotta love ==> Led Zeppelin
30. Anesthetize ==> Porcupine Tree
31. One ==> Metallica
32. I cant get no satisfaction ==> Rolling Stones
33. Joker and the thief ==> Wolfmother
34. I dont wanna miss a thing ==> Aerosmith
35. Smells like teen spirit ==> Nirvana
36. Lithium ==> Nirvana
37. Kashmir ==> Led Zeppelin
38. But it rained ==> Parikrama
39. Symphony of destruction ==> Megadeth
40. Sweet child o' mine ==> Guns n Roses

FIRST REAL WEEKEND

Started with my job at accenture, mumbai this monday. It is my first job n it was one hell of a week for me as i'm not habituated to attending classes from 9 to 5. During college days rarely the lecturers would come to d classroom. So every day ending in "y" was like a weekend. I dont say dat weekends r not fun but wen every day becomes a weekend....d real weekends r no more special.

This week was rather different compared to d college life. The induction program fr d first two days, then d training fr d next three days, rising early in d morning n going early to bed everyday, travelling by local trains, being a part of d Mumbai crowd, concentrating in d classrum (which i hv hardly done in d past 4 years)...It has been a hectic week over all.

But i'm relishing d holiday after facing d heat fr d entire week. There's a sweet feeling aftr al d hard wrk. I was unaware of this feeling al these years...They say college life is fun...i agree...but mebbe corporate life wil b fun too...not on d weekdays but d weekends atleast..!!!

Do we need more IITs and IIMs

Our govt has come up with an ambitious project of setting up 8 IIT's and 7 IIM's. The govt supports its decision by saying that currently only a miniscule number of students get the privilege of studying in these institutes.

So simple. To fight scarcity, production needs to be increased.

The govt also has a view that why should only a few states in the country have such institutes. Why deprive others.

Uske state mein IIT hai toh mere bhi state mein chahiye.

Does this move of the govt make sense ? The already existing IIT's face a shortage of faculty and infrastructure. From where are they going to bring faculty for 15 more institutes. Also setting up each IIT will cost the govt Rs. 750 crores and each IIM Rs. 250 crores. Does our country need more engineering colleges ? The situation of some of the engineering and management institutes in the country is so bad that even a student just clearing the passing marks in the exams can get admission. A large number of seats in these institutes remain vacant. Then why set up more institutes ? It will only lead to brand dilution of the premier institutes. How will it look like when every 4th engineer in the country will be an IITian ?

Instead of setting up more IITs why not use these hundreds of crores of rupees for the improvement of the already existing colleges like RECs and try to bring them to the level of IITs. This will solve the govt's problem of providing quality education to more students and also prevent the brand dilution.

Blog...but WHAT ???

Today, while having dinner i was just thinking that it has been more than 20 days since i have not blogged. Initially i created the blog page with a lot of enthusiasm, posted a couple of articles and then...everything over. No activity since then. I knew dat this is going to happen. Kya karu...koi achcha topic hi nahi milta likhne ke liye.

Came back to the room after dinner. Logged on to orkut. The thought came back again....started thinking of a good topic to write...gave it some thought....back to orkut.

1 hour passed...was reading the newspaper...The thought came back again...Again started thinking of a good topic...gave it some thought....back to the newspaper

another hour passed....still reading the paper...this time the urge to write something was stronger...started the Pc....connected the internet and started reading friends' blogs so as to get an idea...read a few blogs...still not getting any idea...frustrated with myself. Why cant i conjure ideas as so many other people do? Why am i the dumbest of them all? Why do i have such a poor imagination? searching for answers to so many questions in my mind..urgghh.it feels so creepy. Said to myself "Forget it. Blogging is not my cup of tea."

Put on some music...Shine on you crazy diamond (part 1-5)...i guess listening to this instrumental is one of the best ways to waste 13:30 minutes of life....still hunting for a topic...lost all hope of getting one

Feeling drowsy...my mind is not responding...lets keep the thinking for some other day...!

Gilly deserves more

After all the furore surrounding it, the Tri-series has finally come to an end. Although it was a long series, Dhoni and his men shortened it by a match.
This series was filled with some significant events like the "Bhajji-Symonds row", Tendulkar scoring his first ODI century down under, India winning an ODI series on Australian soil after a hiatus of more than 20 years.
But the most memorable one for me will always be Adam Gilchrist's retirement from the game.

Gilly is one of the greatest (if not the greatest) players world cricket has seen. He is the one who revolutionized test cricket, started a trend of scoring at a run rate of 4 plus in test cricket. Everyone knows the statistics and Gilly's strike rate in different forms of the game which truly reflect his greatness. Unfortunately, his farewell from ODI's was a low-key affair. After the final ball had been bowled I sat glued to the PC waiting for the presentation ceremony expecting a grand good-bye for the best wicket keeper. But no such thing happened. Just a short speech by Gilly, that's it. Even today morning i opened TOI with hope of spotting at least 2-3 articles by former cricketers, but TOI (as usual) disappointed me. Not even a single line related to his retirement had been included.

Such a small adios for somebody who has been voted as the "World's Scariest Batsman" in a poll of international bowlers !

Some things are good, some not so good

The time has come. Its hardly 40-50 days more in VJTI hostel. what next ? another place, maybe in mumbai or maybe some another city. But life wont be the same again. Life was never the same 4 years back when i came to this place. I vaguely remember the first speech by kaka (read Prof. Nakhare) in Saraswati Vachanalaya. I remember him referring to hostel as "home away from home". I dont know how many times i have laughed thinking about this phrase. Can there be any place as good as home ?

Looking into the retrospect, these 4 years of hostel life have flown just like the cold wind. Cold wind which feels so good during the summers and stings bitterly during winters. Sometimes you miss it and at other times you hate it. Hostel life has not been much different. I'm still in the hostel, there is still some more time to be spent in this place but i have already started missing it.
For the past 4 years i have been bitching about the poor maintenance of the rooms, bad infrastructure (absence of or broken beds/tables/chairs in some rooms), pathetic condition of the bathrooms and toilets, no proper electricity boards and switches in most of the rooms, the yelling watchmen, the irascible clerk and the rectors, the mess food, and i cant remember how many more things.

On the other hand there are a lot of things this place has taught me;living away from home, living with people from diverse backgrounds, making own decisions, the value of money, sharing your room with people who are as different from you as Bhajji from Symonds, dodging the watchmen after late night movie shows, etc.

There are things about the hostel i'm gonna miss in future, things which i wont get the experience of anywhere else in the world. There are memories which will remind me of the friends i made in hostel, the late night marathon chat sessions, birthday bumps at 12 in the night, the walks on the cricket ground after dinner, the sunday dinners, watching cricket matches in the jam-packed TV room, watching movies together on the PC, one night stands during exams, the non-working ceiling fan above my head...

These are priceless memories which will stay with me forever...bring a smile on my face...a tear in my eye !!!