Category: Chronicles

Of telling people to leave

Another first for SANIsoft – an employee was fired yesterday!! Feels bad, but I can not live with compromises – I will not tolerate anyone going against the ethics on which my organisation stands, and top it up with insubordination. People at SANIsoft are my family, and I will let no harm come to my family.

Leisure

While discussing poetry with Aasim today, I recalled and told him my all time favourite, Leisure, by W H Davies.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Nothing By Chance

Dear Swati,

I wanted to buy you a piggy bank to save money but I couldn’t get one, then I thought of a music cassette, couldn’t find an appropriate one.
Thought of Virtue of Selfishness, couldn’t find a copy. So I got this book -let me warn you, its “Nothing by chance” in this life. May be you need this book

Tarique
2/3/91.

You gave this book to me on my 23rd Birthday. On your 40th, I give it back to you. Its been a long and happy ride together, but we have an even longer ride awaiting us. Its been one hell of a ride, full of ups and downs, twists and turns; lets brace ourselves for the next lap.

May be we need this book -again.

The dot com bubble

The next dot com bubble (some call it web2.0) – is it about to burst ?

When does a bubble burst – In a very simplistic way, one can say, a business bubble bursts when common people start loosing money investing in an industry. The last dot com bubble burst when a lot of venture capitalists lost a lot of badly invested money resulting into a south facing profit graph and low stock prices.

Look at the scene as it was 15 days back, the tech stocks seemed to be climbing and on NASDAQ while today they look as if they are going to loose the footing on Nasdaq and as its reaction on Nikkei. BSE and NSE too was affected by the sluggish international markets – BSE and NSE indexes are not tech heavy indexes so, one really cant say anything about collective performance of tech scrips however, a cursory glance on todays market figures shows them dipping south.

While that was a pessimistic scenario, from a more picturesque optimistic scenario, and looking at things from a broader perspective – The stock prices rise and fall marginally all the time -the trend more or less still looks upwards.

People are still not loosing money – the profit graphs of tech companies have not started plunging yet. The investors big and small VCs and banks included, still seem to be interested in putting money albeit in good technologies and capable technologists. More and more brick and mortar business are expanding their realm of business to the net, resulting into an increased bottom lines on a comparatively smaller investment.
Now thats gives a pleasing a pretty picture.

I am no business analyst, but by simply pitting the negative against the positive, I would like to believe that this bubble will not burst, at least not in very near future, and the longer it takes for it to burst, the less harmful it will be.

Passing of an era

He still lives. He is ageless. His melodies are timeless. His name is synonymous with Shehnai , an instrument traditionally played during Indian weddings and in temples. He brought it to the forefront and presented it to the world.

I have heard him often but I met Ustad Bismillah Khan just once, I was almost 6 months pregnant at that time. Needless to say I was swayed away by his charm. The way he plays and the way he talks. I still remember that night as if it was yesterday. Shimmering moonlight, he sat by the pond side at Telenkhedi Gardens and played under a Shamiyana. We all were in awe, he looked frail but he had the physical strength that showed through his rendition. There were very few listeners but to him it did not matter. Most people around were just not interested, for, they were there to attend the wedding of a politician and newspaper owners child. Yes, Ustadji was called to play during a wedding ceremony. But like all great people for him too, it did not matter where he played the Shehnai. However for me and people who really cared for his work, it was an opportunity to sit within 4 feet of him and listen to the magic he created. That one moment of touching his feet and taking his blessings will last a life time for me.

Brindabani Sarang

Rag Sarang or vrindavani (Brindabani) Sarang is also the sweetest of all Sarangs. Since I am in the process of learning this rag (instrumental – on sitar), through out my waking hours, it keeps playing inside my mind, I have not learnt many ragas (Started learning about an year and half ago) but Des and Brindabani sarang are going in “my favourite” bunch I am sure.

Brindabani Sarang, as the name suggests, originated in Mathura region and is the flagship rag of the Sarang family. It is an early afternoon raga of rainy season and today, when I sat for my class, the time and weather was perfect.

On a high

So it has happened, I am on anti lipid drugs. After 5 years of fighting to keep my triglyceride levels in check with diet and exercises alone, my endocrinologist told me they are going over the roof now and I should be put on medication. During the annual health check up in March 06, the levels were 229 (normal is 200), a repeat lipid profile on 15th June 2006 shows that triglyceride level have happily glided up to 568 and VLDL from 46 to 113 -enough for the alarm bells to ring. I don’t like to live on medicines, but there is no escaping reality. I am glad though that I don’t have diabetes currently.

Sunday was spent lazing around watching “Antarmahal” a Bengali movie directed by Rituparna Ghosh. To repeat myself, I love the way this man handles characters and their relationship. Playing with the light and dark shades of people he makes them all so real that it gives goose pimples. Bongs indeed are sensitive and creative people.