To be an Indian…

I am an Indian. And I saw 64^th Independence Day celebrations today. The spirit and elation are aptly visible as you step out of your home to see the tricolour flags waving, that are fitted in some corners of the neighbourhood doors, cabs, auto-rickshaws, buses and kids with cycles. Although there’s this I-day fervour felt among the common man but the angry young youth is definitely not happy. Not just the rebellious youth but the educated intelligentsia who see that their country is not truly independent yet. For we are still ruled by round-headed despots who are concerned about plundering the wealth that the common man accumulates, who seldom realize what they are capable of and why they had been elected in a Democracy. But I believe it’s We-The-People who have the authority and not them. We have elected one among us. We can dethrone and we can change ourselves. We can fight for our independence by being a good citizen and a good human being.

Having said that, there are few things we still need freedom from, in this country. Because today we are a global citizen and we must pledge to act and believe truly what it really means to be a nation where Indus Valley Civilization and Harappa Culture were born. We need to understand what it really means to be an Indian. So being an Indian means:

–          To give up the lethargy of not going to the polling booth just because it is hot and sunny or there’s a huge queue out there. There’s no point in watching or making huge debates/discussions by flipping news channels in AC rooms and complaining about our politicians.

–          To stop worshiping false gods, following inane celebrities, conferring “youth icons” to false politicians & giving needless hype to useless people who‘re in the news time n again.

–          To shun the caste bigotry and jeer at every person who carries the caste supremacy and follows the caste system. If they’re your parents, you must have the courage to bring about a change in their irrational set of minds!

–          To not follow media or any source blindly, for media is prejudiced and is also bought!

–          To not stare at a woman’s bosom right when she’s looking at your face or try to be touchy-touchy in that “opportunist-crowded-bus”. It’s vulgar despo and downright unethical! (Can someone remind these set of people that, there are a similar set who’re also staring at their sisters?)

–          To not repeat the Guwahati incident, rather have some courage and BE A REAL MAN to protect the one who’s being molested, just like we would have come to the rescue of our own siblings.

–          To not throw garbage in an open area just because others are! Rather to throw it inside the bin, than just aiming at it.

–          To maintain the decorum of every queue and respect the people ahead of you and not be violent or have “getting-late” alibis just to break it.

–          To join the person who’s being a rebel against someone (even if that ‘someone’ has the physique of Tiger Ali) violating the rules deliberately because in my country laws are formulated but seldom followed.

–          To not break the traffic rules and drive on the pavements (Man! They’re made for pedestrians). But to stop your vehicles to save petrol, save environment & do a favour to the common public’s left over hairs on the bald head.

–          To not pee & salt your neighbour’s wall but shoo the ones who you see peeing in a public place in broad daylight!

I love my nation. Am happy to be an Indian. Unfortunately there’s no reason today, I can take pride on Independence Day when we’re ruled & the Nation’s flag is being hoisted by those who’re at the helm of corruption n inefficiency!!

It takes much more to be an Indian. But it doesn’t take much to be a good citizen. And it’s even easier being a good human being.

Jai Hind. Happy 64^th Independence Day. 

Ways to identify a Photographer

 

She: Hey, Vish is a photographer.
He: Oh really! Which camera do you use?
Me: I just click pictures. Do I qualify now??

It’s practically pointless to showcase your work to someone or to introduce your passion to someone whose 1^st question would be which gear you use for Photography. That itself is an insult to the photograph and the owner. There are some who may as well, uninvited, ask you the same after seeing a nice picture about the kind of camera you use, as if once you hand it over to them, they would beat the shit out of you with some of the best award-winning Nat-geo pictures clicked from their magical hands!!

So here you have them as photographers. Now that they have the basic knowledge of what I carry i.e. a Nikon/Canon and a photo-editing software, you have some of the best ignored talents now surfacing as photographers. Not even budding, but pure professional photographers, who use SLRs only to click pictures. Every soul on earth knows D is for Digital. Have you ever tried asking them the full form of SLR? If not, try right away.

Since it is a fashion these days to be an SLR Photographer but may not necessarily mean Photography, here are few ways how you could identify them:

1. Profile Pictures: Be it Facebook profile or a page, a DP with your D-SLR is a must! And your pose is the mundane “focusing through a view finder” with enormous attention that even scientists wouldn’t be sharing with electron microscopes. Poor Point-n-Shoot owners must be feeling left out.

2. Watermarks: I always believed watermarks are required to establish the identity against theft or plagiarism of your authentic work. But what I do not understand is the usage of watermarks with HUGE BOLD/ITALIC fonts (XYZ Photography) in the mid of the picture or everywhere (minimum 3 places) in your picture that at times one wonders whether the font is the SUBJECT or the picture beneath the font is the subject! Again, they are Fotugraphers, you see.

3. Borders: The look and feel of your pictures does get enhanced with borders, but what’s up with Black-Thick-White-Slim-Grey-Fat layers of border!!! I guess I need a magnifying glass now to actually see the content of your photo.

4. Facebook FanPage: Oh dear! This was the only missing link so far. An FB page is free of cost. Let’s create one, make use of ‘Invite Friends’ & FB messages and spam all our friends and friends-of-friends until they LIKE it! Now, on your FB feeds Vishy likes Sissy’s Photography. Some no-brainer who loves liking all pages will go ahead and like it for sure. Voila! You have so many fans!!! But none have seen your pictures yet. You’re confident and go to pub to boast in front of that chick how awesome you’re at clicking and that she should be ready to pose for some (on bed).

5. Facebook Albums: Your albums are named “Himalayas rock”, “Corbett National Park” etc but neither you see mountains, nor animals in them. Just humans with thick fat lenses posing with tripods, concentrating as if they are about to kill a lion. Longer the lens, better is the flaunting(acting). Okay! Where’s the content yaar?

IDENTITY CRISIS STILL?

So, these were the sure shot ways to identify the photographers around you. Yes, I own an SLR but I don’t consider myself as a photographer yet, for I do not qualify any of the above 5 criteria. I just love clicking. That’s my passion.

The truth behind Photography, however, is that the best and most creative pictures in almost all realms of life are anonymous.

P.S. The picture you see is a mock. I just couldn’t tamper more than that. In reality, the ones am talking about are worse than the above.

6 reasons why the new Facebook profile sucks.

So, you got this ridiculous Coming Soon intimation on your homepage as if you were really looking forward to the new profile! The fact that you did not migrate to the new profile till this point was essentially because you were more than contented with your old profile layout already.

Love it or hate it, you have to accept all the shit that they offer. And then there are no choices to choose a better shit or worse. My story is different; I was misled by their “What’s new” video and got migrated into the latest ASAP. The very next day I thought of coming up with this blog-post on how and why it was no more a social-network but an online market but then I thought perhaps I would get accustomed to it in a little time. It’s been months and not only me, but also my friends, young and old, despise it. I do not think any person apart from those who have their “Sponsored Ads” up and running in those panels would have welcomed this in true sense.

Here are 6 reasons (OMG, I could really find 6 reasons!!) why it really sucks:

1. Personal Profile page font: We did not really like the  home-page font size diminished. So, we asked Facebook to get back the old layout; they offered us the same shit on our personal profiles! So, my pages are always on a Ctrl+, thanks to the browser font size variation property.

2. Links Archive: You had a good reason to make Facebook as a bookmark organizer of your singled-out links, but now you have to break your head to find the archive of your links. And worse, your friend’s link, shared a couple of days back, instantly, unlike old profile Links tab. But the basics do not change. So if you wish to run through your previous links, take a look at this previous blog-post of mine.

3. No Info (sidebar) box for your blog traffic: You are a blogger. You shared your blog URL. And that was your identity how your voiced your opinion. Plus that set you apart from a ‘fake’ profile. But now with these inane big icons of Movies, Music, Inspirational People hitting your eyes instantly on click of Info tab, anyone would hardly care to get to your website info. present at the nadir of  your personal info. Hence, no traffic from outsiders on your blog via Facebook.

4. Sponsored Ads: The primary reason behind the whole idea of coming up with the latest changes to Personal Profile was to eat up your personal space in the left panel and transfer them to the right for Sponsored Ads. So more clicks, more Like-hits and more moolah for MZ.

5. Status Messages Archive: Well, he should understand that my profile is full of Farmville, Anita’s predictions and 101 new apps that spam your Time Line every new day that I cannot really scroll through and keep hiding them when I wake up in the morning to go through what my friends had written when I was offline. Here’s what I am talking about. Now that is extinct. (This is a part of homepage layout but was introduced in the same period as new FB Profile)

UPDATE: This feature is now available underneath the Most Recent link.

6. Networked blogs tab killed: The no links-tab feature almost killed Networked Blogs where you could follow others’ blog, have your profile and get traffic onto your blogs too. Again, a setback for bloggers.

Last but not the least, the most notable change in the new profile had been tagged photos appearing in your profile. I wonder who would like to see YourTaggedPals photos, or flowers, cakes, cartoons etc. So, the only good reason I figured out to make use of that feature is to display –>

than keep myself tagging inanely over n over again.

10 reasons why I love Football, FIFA vs Cricket

 

FIFA – Football Is Freakin’ Awesome!

So, we’re in FIFA season now. A time I await for 4 long years. For most Indians, it’s cricket that takes priority, better say – the most popular sport in the country. But a large mass has been following FIFA too as evident from their posts and updates on Social Networks.

As far as Social Media universe is concerned, Copa Mundial 2010 will be the 1st to be played out in the Facebook/Twitter era!

So, here are top 10 reasons why I am fond of Football than Cricket.

• Game Duration: Each football game lasts for 90 mins (max to 4 mins extra on certain cases) as against 4 hours of a 20/20  or 8 hours of an ODI Cricket match. Even in a single 20/20 match duration, 2.5 FIFA matches would have been over!

• NO Adverts/Commercials: The best thing about this game is you get seamless viewership and unlike cricket where the feeling is like seeing the Match within the Ads & not the other way round. You see them to the extent that lest you missed a wicket fall, you have to catch the replay- only after the ad!! Worse, you may even miss the 1st ball of bowler’s forthcoming over. But in case of football, even during the breaks, you get to hear from John Dykes & see Mayanti Langer & not the fashion-faux-pas hit Mandira Bedi!!

• Players don’t laze around: Now, this is a game where not a single player, out of 11, gets bored like the fielders at the boundaries/gullies and at times the ball never reaches them even after a couple of overs. Every single player, right from the Defender, Mid-fielder, Striker keep running from pillar to post. Even the goalie keeps jumping as to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep. (Like Portugal’s goalie in FIFA World Cup 2010 where #POR pumped 7:0 vs #PRK)

• Referee/Umpire: Have you ever seen a big-bellied referee in a football match who’s emotionally challenged due to his obesity? Forget referee, even the linesman needs fitness more than the players.

• Commentators: Just one commentator. And simply gives you an adrenaline rush. Unlike cricket where you have multiple commentators (now Field Umpires/Players too :O) who at times go to chat about their housewives or the cricketer’s latest crush (let’s keep Harsha Bhogle out of this)

• Crowd/Fans: If you have seen a FIFA or any football match per se, it would be needless to explain the 300+ million fan following across the entire globe. And my my, the fanciful face-paintings, the craze, the beauty, the mass singing/dancing/jumping/tub-thumping, roars (be it the deafening Vuvuzela =====<() )…even after so much to be offered from the game, we still stick to the game! Not to mention the footballers who don’t leave themselves behind when it comes to fashion with all the fanciful tattoos and hairdo.

• Conduct: Cricket is relatively a game with gentlemanly conduct until we see more of Sreesanth(s), on & off the field. But football does have frequent spats, verbal hurls, faking fouls against the opponents et al. Not to forget the perfect Zidane head-butt and the recent Kaka Red card vs Ivory Coast.

• Nations Count: Out of 400 football playing nations, around 208 nations are FIFA national soccer teams. Out of these, only 32 make it to the World Cup! Whereas, you have only 10 major cricket playing nations (alongside Holland/Afghanistan/Kenya) out of which 4 are already playing FIFA WC 2010!

• Ease of game: I can even make my mum understand it without much worrying about explaining her the intricate Duck-worth Lewis methods & other cricketing jargons from the bowler’s/fielder’s/batsman’s and umpire’s end! However, the irony is she says, she understands cricket but fails to understand football. So, all I told her that two teams run with the ball to put in the opponent’s post! That’s it. Done. 🙂

• Match seldom stops: The tenth and one of my best reason is that a football match never stops even if it rains! Nobody runs with a huge thick polymer sheet to cover the turf! Rather the soccer players look all the more wildly sexy with their wet look and muscles flexed visible through the drenched jerseys (No, thanks I am straight). The match still goes on and on until the ball floats.

I do not like FIFA World Cup. I simply love it. 🙂

N.B. My personal opinion, agreements (from Soccer fans) n disagreements (from hard-core Cricket fans) are most welcome! 😀

10 reasons why I hate Facebook!

I am addicted!!! And I hate it. And have been hating it since a year almost!

My friends who never chat or call me, ping me on Fb chat asking if I was at office or home/which office?/if am working for Fb/if I was a Social Media & Communities guy?? Now I think this post would be good enough to have answers to all their questions.

So, here are the top 10 reasons why I hate Facebook aka FB the most:

1. My relationship/friendship(s) is/are on rocks!  I am accused for giving more time to Fb than my crushes or my crusher  😐

2. My productivity has hit all time low. Now my boss and HR are on talks to get this site banned from my system IP.  😦

3. My reading habit, be it newspapers/magazines/fiction has been badly screwed up. For I rely on Fb’s live/news feeds for everything!!!

4. I have stopped watching/downloading educational porn. Cuz U see the red icon popping up to notify me steals my attention more than the former flicks  😐

5.  I sleep less, rather insomniac thinking about the posts/links/notes/issues & await the sunrise to see what people have opined!!!

6. Colleagues mock me that I am working on a Facebook project rather than CRM platform’s.

7. My higher studies notions look very distant. If only I could get my eyes away from the laptop screen. 😦

8. I am way too distracted thinking what would be my life after marriage, that if, my wife might just file a divorce against me with this kinda addiction to Fb.

9. My kids would brand me as a bad father for not taking them to the roller-coaster rides rather asking them to go through the live updates and give their views on my posts!! :O

10. Enjoying my job but still thinking if I could be recruited for Facebook and be a part of the development team ( now that I have already done some good R & D on it & written blog-posts/tips) but scared about my social involvement to reduce to none at the same time??

Last but not the least. It’s April 1st. And I would confess that whatever it is, I LOVE FACEBOOK and come what may will stick to it and continue to have a “Relationship status changed from Single to In an Open Relationship“ with FB. 🙂

Addicted to Facebook.

UPDATE – 07/07/2011

Now I really hate it. And more reasons in the below video