Should I pop a Tablet?

I have been ogling at tablet PCs for quite some time. Though iPad always seemed out of reach, the launch of Samsung Tab looked like the arrival of a affordable option. But my experience with touch-screen android phones was not very good (details in further post). So I kept weighing my options of owning a tablet - should it be the only computing device I have, should I sell of the laptop and buy a tablet, what would be the best combination? And I never came to a clear conclusion. Something always pushed me away from a tablet.
A few weeks ago in a casual conversation with a uncle, the answer emerged. A tablet computer was a consumer device. It gives a brilliant content consumption experience. Watching movies, reading blogs posts, playing games is awesome. But when it comes to creation, its a pain in the ass. My uncle owns a iPad2, supposedly the best tablet device of our time. But even he complained that a task as simple as responding to an email was laborious as compared to a laptop. Writing a blog post is far off the question. And this is exactly what pushed me away from a tablet.
If I can own a net-book for a fraction of a price, while having the capability to create as well as consume, why would I opt for a tablet? I totally agree that the consumer experience is to die for, but at what price? I hope someday I have enough disposable income (or friends with enough disposable income) to spend such an amount on a lifestyle product purely for content consumption. Till then the click of the keyboard is my favourite music!

Maternal Grandparents

As I write this post, at 4 in the morning, my father in law is desperately trying to put our 3 month old daughter to sleep. He is the only other man in her life right now; other than me of course. Sometimes, she is more comfortable with him than with me. Similarly, she is comfortable with my mother in law. This got me thinking about my childhood. How was it with me? My maternal grandfather wasn't alive when I was born, so I don't have any memories of him. But I definitely remember my mother's mother. Then I realised that especially in India, most people have more attachment towards their maternal grandparents than the other set of grandparents. This is mostly true in case of nuclear families where grandparents are not staying with you.
In my opinion this has it's roots in the tradition where an Indian lady stays with her parents during the delivery. Not only does the child hear the mother's parents while in the womb, but is handled by them right after birth. Most of the time the maternal grandparents even accompany their daughter to her home to help her get accustomed. Those sleepless nights, those oil massages, the bathing sessions and all the play and laughter creates a life long bond between the maternal grandparents and the child. The father's parents can trump this only in a joint family by being with you for the rest of your life.

Being a father - I

Yesterday I completed 3 months as a father and I decided to write on this right away. For those of you who haven't had a child, let me try to put it how it is. It's like having a new person enter your life, without any personality or baggage. You don't know the personality that will enter your life, you are going to make that person who s/he is. So obviously, it is different from marriage. Is it a responsibility? Hell yes! But then so is zipping your pants. Why did I wait three months? It took me that long to figure out what was happening. So here goes...
I always wanted a daughter. Everyone guessed from Shveta's looks, eating habits and what not that we would have a baby boy. But I deeply wanted a girl. Because I think girls are more balanced. Besides, a girl can do what a guy cannot but the vice a versa is not. Also, I wanted to bring up our daughter in a manner that would be unique with lots of freedom and adventure packed into her life. With a boy that would be given.
So, on 11th October 2011 [11/10/11], God heard me and blessed us with a beautiful girl child. I have been always been unsure when it comes to holding infants. Give me a year old kid and I will be her favourite uncle in under 15 minutes. But an infant with a wobbling head is a nightmare. I always ran away from holding any of my nieces or nephews. But when this 3.25 Kg bundle arrived, I was sure of myself. I knew I would hold her and hold her securely. She just felt right in my arms. She was too ...too...how do  I put it....too young to recognize me. We had hardly spent any time together! So on the day she was born, there wan no feeling of something spectacular happening. It all went normal and went home and slept well.
The person who felt the real pains of our daughter's birth was Shveta. She is one woman of steel. And not just her. Let me put it in black and white here - men know shit about pain. Going through a labour without passing off is the worst form of pain one can have. Period.
The feeling started slowly sinking in day by day. More on that coming up. :-)

'Chrome'atic life

I personally own a laptop and a desktop. The desktop is a windows machine and the laptop is a Ubuntu machine. A tried to keep the desktop as closely rooted to Microsoft as possible while the laptop is everything that is free in this world. But thanks to Shveta's increasing inclination and familiarity to Google Chrome (the browser thingy), this browser found it's way to both the machines.
Let me admit it at the onset, that it is one hack of an application. Kickass is the word! It can most efficiently take care of all your entertainment, information and communication needs. YOU DON'T NEED NO OTHER THING. Period.
But as the usage increased over time, I found my desktop getting slower. It took a lot of time to open applications other than Chrome. A coffee time conversation with friends, little Googling (ironic!) and some deep diving revealed that the culprit was Chrome itself. The browser is very much hungry - both for processor and  memory. Hence, the desktop lost it's chrome as it had more ulterior tasks to do - like Photoshop, NFS etc. :-)
The laptop however retains it's chrome, an old version I gather - some 9.x me thinks. While, I type this post from my mother's laptop (a Windows 7 machine that is light years ahead of my laptop in hardware sizing), I realize it has a more recent version of Chrome - some 16.x. And it has something they call Chrome Web store. This store has hordes of things. Little web applications in various categories like education, games, shopping, entertainment etc. I tried my hand at a couple of things and I immediately realised what this is - a computer on a computer. All those things that you earlier installed on your machine are now a part of the browser. So Google has the rendering services, the storage on the cloud and now even the last mile - the applications.
This makes the other desktop applications redundant. They simply eat into your hardware. While chrome, on the other hand, starts bulging like a Hulk with every new app you install on it. Both put together substantially reduce thee performance of your machine and you begin to wonder why.
In my opinion, the best way to circumvent this is by uninstalling all your desktop applications. Have only the bare minimums and use Chrome for the rest of the stuff. I think I will try this out on my desktop soon. Keep watching this space for the results!

Hyderabad to Goa-by Road

Yesterday (23/12/2011) I came from Hyderabad to Goa by our car (Ford Figo Diesel).
I took the following route:
Gacchibowli (Hyderabad)-->; Gulbarga --> Bijapur -->Athani --> Chikodi -->Belgaum -->Anamod --> Ponda (Goa)

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The drive till Bijapur is really smooth. The original route on my mind was Via Jamkhandi--Yargatti after Bijapur to get to Belgaim. However, locals advised me that Athani-Chikodi route is shorter and the road condition is better. Well, they are so wrong!
The worst part about getting from Bijapur to Belgaum via Athani is that there is loads of Sugarcane traffic. So in no time you are coming from 100 Kmph to 20 Kmph, very frequently!
I did the total distance of about 700 Kms in 12 hours 45 minutes. I left Gacchibowli in Hyderabad at 12:00 Noon on 23rd and was at my home in Ponda, Goa at 00:45 hours of 24th. There were 2 major (30 minute) breaks, one each at Bijapur and Belgaum. And there were 2 more 'butt breaks' of about 5 minutes each.
I had done the first 600 Kms in 9.5 hours and it took me 3 hours to get from Belgaum to Ponda. This is one of the most dangerous roads I have driven on in the southern ghats. The road condition (especially on the Karnataka side) is pathetic and add to it a ghat section with a drop in elevation of 2600m in 20 Kms road distance - that is definitely not for the faint hearted!

What are you - sail or anchor?

In one of my earlier posts, I wrote on how I saw 2 ways of doing something. Today, I write about two kinds of people in the world. You will see these kinds of people everywhere - at work, in a family, in sport teams, art circles...everywhere!
One kind of people are the sail. They propel the entire ship forward. They are the reason things happen. They are the engine that drive the circumstances. They are always energized, raring to go and are mostly the stars of the gang; unless some thing goes wrong.
When things go awry, the anchor people are the ones who are in control. They keep things rooted. The sailor guys has been bragging a bit too much and has taken the ship on the wrong course. The crew is lost now and needs time to get back on course without being lost any further. The anchor people are your saviors in such situations.
So, who are you?

Eat Pray Love

I have an unpublished post in inbox that I wanted to complete and publish today. It was about using death in reality TV. But then I saw this film - Eat Pray Love. And filled me with positivity.
The film starts with a lady's divorce thoughts. She is impatient, always seeking something and somehow not at peace with herself. She decides to take an year off and visit Italy, India and Bali. In each of these places through an array of people she runs into, she learns to Eat, Pray and Love. I cannot exactly write in words what the film is about. And that, I think, is the success of the film because it has conveyed something so unique to me that I cannot transfer the experience to you. You will have to feel it for yourself.
This film has definitely definitely shown me a new way in life. Highly recommended!

Gadar - Ek Khamosh Paani

In a short span, I have seen two partition related movies.
The first one was Khamosh Paani. The movie set in the late 70's deals with the scars of Hindustan - Pakistan partition. The silent suffering of women left on the hostile side of border are aptly depicted by the amazingly talented Kirron Kher. It's a film that is loaded with subtext. Notably, the film stars only 2 Hindu actors, Kirron and Shilpa Shukla. This film has in fact been so well directed that it left me haunted for almost a week. The director, without being too much 'in your face' leaves a lot to the viewer's imagination. There are so many moments that compel you for a thought process that completes the image on the screen. The cinematography has also played a major part in the narrative. The camera has very realistically captured the arid landscape of Pakistani Punjab. There are some locations that are very peculiar, like a barber's shop or the bazaars. Scenes that are shot in such public locations give a different dimension to the film. They make the socio-political carnage more realistic.

The other movie is 'Gadar - Ek Prem Katha'. Many of you may smile or LoL at the mention of this film. The film has been butt of many jokes at many comedy shows. This was a major commercial hit 10 years ago. Even today, it is one of the top grosser Hindi films. The film is set in just around and after the year 1947.The film elaborates (for 3 hours mind it!) what happened during partition and the effect of these events on the life of two people deeply in love. The film is extremely melodramatic and is the exact opposite of Khamosh Paani. But still this film struck a chord with me. In my opinion, these acting in this movie is excellent. Yes. I will stick by that. There is a scene when Sunny Deol says " agar tumne is ladaki ki aur ek kadam bhi badhaya to rab di sau, gardan ukhad ke rakh dunga". When he says that with a roar in his voice, goddamit it feels like he means it. The film takes it's time in setting up the stage and dramatically unfolding the life of Tara Singh & Sakeena. When I saw the movie for the first time a couple of days ago, these were three hours very well spent. What I liked about the movie was that the sequence of events did not seem unnatural. The characters, both major and minor, were very well cast. You can't have a better Jat than Sunny and Amisha looks every bit of her character (for a change). What most people object to in the movie is the melodrama. But I found it quite normal and tastefully done. Then there are a few scenes like this one...
But, but, but, I cannot imagine any other actor doing this so convincingly. They say Cinema is an art of 'make believe'. And this and some more scenes like this may seem unrealistic to many, but to me, I was totally a part of them!
Any comment on Gadar would be incomplete without mention of Uttam Singh's music. The man composed about 8 songs, 4 of which were different renditions of the same lyrics.The melodious music was again a huge hit at the time.
While I started writing about 2 films to begin with, I have written more about Gadar than about Khamosh Paani. This kind of sums up the basic genre of  both the films. Gadar has a of explicit expression through melodrama, music and action sequence. On the other hand, Khamosh Paani is more subtle and leaves a lot to the imagination of the viewer. But in my eyes, both movies are very impressive provided you watch them from the right vantage point.