Vedic chintan

Dharam doesn't mean religion

Dharam doesn't translates to religion as understood by Westerners. e.g. Mahabharat is supposed to be a Dharam-yudh. But it wasn't a war to save Hinduism or its Gods - but it was a war for Justice. So a more plausible definition is Justice or Righteousness. Consequently, Vedas focus more on meditation than prayers.

Moksha is not freedom from life and birth

Moksha is enlightenment - the knowledge that there's nothing else but the Absolute. The cycle of life and birth is eternal as is the Absolute itself.

Artha is the origin of Dharam

Artha (or economy) is the origin of Dharam (or Justice). This is what Socrates also preached much later.

Sukha (or happiness) originates form Dharam (or virtuous conduct). Dharam originates from Artha. Artha originates from Rajya (or republic). Rajya originates from Raja (or King).

King is only a wage earning servant of the republic. The King who doesn't take care of the people has no moral authority to rule.

Vedas proclaim the existence of only Absolute

Satya is The Absolute

Satya is derived from root "sat" meaning forever. It essentially points to the Absolute which has no beginning or an end - from which everything else originated. Everything else is Maya or illusion.

Gods are only aspects of the Absolute

Brahma(creative), Vishnu (sustaining) and Mahesh (destroying) are only aspects of the Absolute. It's foolishness to imagine them as humans and then take one of them to be greater than other.

Prosperity is different from wealth

Wealth is tangible whereas prosperity is intangible. Wealth can buy you goods but can't ensure prosperity. Only he is prosperous whose needs are cheapest.

Vedas focus on prosperity as the end of economic activities and not wealth.

Interbank Mobile Payment service (IMPS)

Though this service made a public debut on Nov. 2010, I came to know about it recently. After the initial hurdles of getting myself an MMID, the money transfer process was a breeze. Hope you'll find it useful.

IMPS offers an instant, 24X7, interbank electronic fund transfer service through mobile phones. IMPS facilitate customers to use mobile instruments as a channel for accessing their bank accounts and put high interbank fund transfers in a secured manner with immediate confirmation features.

Airtel pre-paid blackout in Noida

Few days back, I started my phone and I didn't get any signal. I tried the SIM in another phone - it didn't work either. I reported the incident to Airtel helpline (paid troubleshooting) and the guy at the other end said the SIM is active and he can't help much. I received an SMS from Airtel asking my feedback on the call. I replied - not satisfied. I got another call from Airtel asking why wasn't I satisfied. I explained. The lady said I'd have to get a NEW SIM and NEW number.

Reluctantly, I went to Airtel center to get a new SIM. That's when I realised I wasn't alone facing this issue. In the 10min I was at the center, I saw atleast 10 people complaining about the same. Can so many SIMs go kaput at the same time requiring a replacement?

Now all the affected would have to get a new SIM which will arrive only on 13th Jan. Till then I'm out of reach :(

Night Life

"Bangalore lacks night life!! Mumbai is so much better."

I have heard people cribbing like this so very often. Prod them a little more about what exactly is that they are looking for and most draw a blank face. Some throw the old complaint - we can't go to any place after 11.
"So where exactly do you wanna go?"
"Shopping, clubbing...."
"Why do you wanna shop in the middle of the night?"
"I might wanna just walk around the road"
"So who's stopping you from doing that?"
"I might wanna have fun with friends."
"Do that at your home? Why do you have to create a ruckus and disturb the people around?"

So far I haven't come across a logical rationale of wanting a night life. People don't live through the day and suddenly realise late at night they missed out on life.


PS: Paris has a great night life!! If you define night by clock that is. In summer, there is sunlight till 10:30 PM (I dozed off after that!). So it's rather long day revelry. In winter, everything is closed by 9 apart from the bars!

Truth about New Bangalore International Airport (BIAL)

There have been reports about new BIAL airport - some good, some bad. Good is understandable. Bad is surprising - either these people have never been to this airport or are cynics by nature who can never see anything good in this world. I have listed down the common complaints and my observation on the same.

• It's cramped - Not by any stretch of imagination. Unless, of course, one intends to play football with 22 players on the ground. Everything is beautifully laid out and movement is without any obstruction. There are enough chairs laid out at the boarding gate. So you can sit and relax after you are tired of window shopping in the retail outlets.
  
• Number of counters is less - 4-5 check-in counters per airline is not less considering the number of people travelling out of Bangalore. It's at par with Mumbai and much better than Delhi. However, BIAL could do with some self-check-in kiosks.
• There's not enough eateries - On the ground floor that is. But once you cross the security gate, you have 3-4 eateries to choose from.
  

Day light cheating

I was shell shocked when the gas station attendant presented me a bill for 43 litres of petrol!! He was wrong on many counts.
- Honda city has a tank capacity of 42 litres!! There's no way you can fill up more than that.
- I drove the car to the station - so obviously it wasn't empty. Actually it wasn't even running in reserve petrol which is a capacity of 7 litres - but just for the sake of argument.

Thankfully I had asked for a bill or else I would never know about this daylight robbery. And luckily he had made a bill for 43 litres - else I couldn't even argue. As it is, we trust the attendant and don't monitor the meter - sometimes because of our laziness, sometimes because the car is positioned so ahead of the meter that you can't actually see it. However, I have learnt my lessons now.

This happened at the Devidas gas station near Mount Carmel college and I would suggest anyone reading this blog to avoid the same.

Go Live - What a show!!

Go live events can be magnum opus!! My previous post about Go live gives a glimpse of what is to come. In its silent way, it paints some bright colors on a grand canvas which can turn into a visual delight. It promises of thrilling roadblocks and the adventure of overcoming them all. Stories of countless sleepless nights. Visions of bleary eyed geeks continuously churning out code at the speed of characters dropping in rain making hot fixes and patches. Noises of people talking over phone sounding alerts, dissipating anxiety and clamouring to make the delivery on time. Possibility of overshooting deadline and last minute chances of a rollback. It's not for no reason that people have a plan B ready for an exigency. One never knows what might go wrong!

Alas, nothing of that sort happened!!!

Sorry readers, but my first Go live event as an onsite co-ordinator is hardly an interesting story. We have always been conservative in our estimates - sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly (are we fortunate??). Not quite surprising given that we are working with a French client.