A Password to Remember

Monday morning, the worst day of the week was here. The alarm went off at 7:30 am. Half-asleep, I snoozed the alarm, and went back to my dreams. And then, again, the alarm went off at 9:30am, which threw me out of my bed. I was completely drenched with sweat and was shaken. I had a nightmare of my lifetime. The first thing I did was to look around my room, searching for my laptop. It was right there in-front of my eyes. I booted it up, and was waiting anxiously for the login screen to come up. It felt like an hour had passed before I finally saw the screen, asking me to enter my password. And, then looked up towards the ceiling, concentrating on a fly trapped in the cob-webs, tried hard to remember my password. I remembered one, and started hitting the keys, after checking the CAPS LOCK, one by one, as slowly as I could. And then, I looked at the "Enter" key for a few seconds, closed my eyes, and finally tapped it. And after a few seconds, I could here the Windows Login Sound, a bliss. I pinched myself on my cheeks, and it hurt. But I was smiling.

"Thank GOD", I murmured. I picked up my alarm clock and started kissing it like I would have kissed Sonali Bendre if she were beside me that day. But I felt bad for the fly and felt like killing that spider. But, I dropped that idea when I saw that it was gone. I was happy. I was relieved that it was just a dream. I still remember all my "PASSWORDS".

I now understand, how important those passwords really are. About the nightmare, well, I don't quite remember it very clearly, but I think, it was something like this.

"I woke up one day to realize that I had a complete memory loss. But somehow, I remembered the alphabets, and all my family members and friends. Problem started when somebody asked to make a fund transfer to his account from my bank. Then I started realizing that, though I remembered everything else, I had lost that part of my brain where all my passwords were stored, just like that. What a world to be in!!!!

But now, everything is fine. I remember all my passwords, and I am back in the real world. But what if such a thing did happen to us someday. How will it be like? Every bit of our life is locked up behind a password. So many passwords to remember, so many restrictions on choosing a password, what a WORLD!!!!!

Try Us - Bangalore Autorickshaws

Bangalore has been a home for me for that last two years. But I still don't possess a bike or a car and not even a bicycle. So, the only option for me to do all my traveling is either by BMTC buses or the Autorickshaws. Well, my office is not very far, I normally walk to and from the office (a total of 4kms of walking daily). Any Bangalorian would agree with me, that for short distances (<4kms), walking is the best option. You can save time, money, energy and most importantly your mental peace.

But, what if, in Bangalore, you want to travel to a place which is more than 4kms? Which would be the best option for you then? Buses!!!! Naaaah!!!!! They are over-crowded.

What about autorickshaws??? Well, they are plentily available everywhere, all the year round, 24hrs a day waiting for people like us, who don't want to sweat or get wet in the slight drizzles, or just want to reach home as soon as possible.

Here are some of the conversations that I have had with the Autowalas of Bangalore during my stay here. The conversations are mostly in Hindi, since I don't know the local language very well. "Kanada Gothilla".

Act 1 Scene 1 -
Me : Bhaiya, MG Jaoge??
Autowala : Nahi.
Me : Kahan jaoge??

Act 1 Scene 2 -
Me : Bhaiya, Kormangala jaoge?
Autowala : Saab, One and a half meter lagega. (At noon ????)
Me : Bahiya....Half meter me chaloge to bolo.

Act 1 Scene 3 -
Me : Bhaiya, Airport chaloge?
Autowala : Kaunse raste se jaana hai?
Me : Aapko rasta nahi maalum?
Autowala : Malum hai, 200 rs lagenge.
Me : Kyun, Airport to 10 km hai, to 70 ke aas pass lagne chahiye.
Autowala : Saab, wahan se koi aata nahi wapas . (Incoming band hai kya!!!!!!!!!)

Act 1 Scene 4 -
Me : Bhaiya, Marathalli chaloge?
Autowala : Meter pe 20 rs extra lagenge.
Me : Kyun?
Autowala : Saab, baaki sabka analog meters hain, unke meter me har km ke 50 paisa kam lagta hai, mera digital meter hai, ekdum perfect reading deta hai.

Act 1 Scene 5 -
Me : Bhaiya, Kitna hua?
Autowala : 45 rs.
Me : Par meter me to 42 dikha raha hai.
Autowala : Saab, itna traffic tha.

Act 1 Scene 6 -
Me : Bhaiya, Brigade jaoge?
Autowala : Meter pe 30 rs extra.
Me : Kyun? Abhi to 10 bhi nahi baje.
Autowala : Kya saab, aap to itna kamate ho. 30 rs aapke liye kya hai.

Act 1 Scene 7 -
Me : Bhaiya, Commercial chaloge?
Autowala : Baithiye saab.
Me : Kitna loge?
Autowala : Meter pe saab.
In scenes like this, I always make it a point to tip the autowala. And I enjoy my ride as well, without cursing the traffice, the autowalas, the government, the people but instead, looking forward to meet the friend who is waiting for me at Commercial Street.

Some facts -
1. Banglore autos charge the most, Rs 7 per km.
2. The rates become One-half of the meter after 10pm(Officially).
3. The autowalas don't accept 50 paises. Most importantly, we don't have them.
4. Pre-paid autos are costlier, though most people think otherwise.

I am planning to buy a bike very soon. Even though it would add to the traffic, increase pollution, add to the green house gases, increase India's carbon-footprint, raise the temperature of the earth or just to tease those autowalas who took advantage of me not having a bike. What about petrol prices?? Lets see. If riding a bike will be a costly affair, those autowalas won't go anywhere, I can always switch back.

On Bench

The first week on bench was really a bliss. No more waking up early in the morning, no more getting stuck in the traffic, no more managers to report to, and the best part, no WORK!!!!

And the second week, I got the news of my promotion. Though I did not get a substantial hike in my pay, but it was more than what I was expecting. So I was happy, and spent the whole week restructuring my finances, as to where should I spent that little extra amount.

I applied for leave for the whole of the third week, and getting it approved was not much of a problem. Any lame excuse would have worked, since I was basically not doing anything. The whole week, I slept and slept and slept, and did some studying, which was the basic purpose for which I had planned this 5-day off. Studying 10 hours a day is not a child's play.

And now, its the fourth week, and I am writing this. It is Tuesday, and I don't know what I will be doing for the rest of the week. 15th (Friday) is a national holiday, great!!!! Some more hours of sleep will not harm anyone. I just have to see off these 2 and a half days, and then the Weekend will finally wake me up.

Great Election Campaigns

What kind of an advertisement is this? Is the Government doing favours when it devises policies for the welfare of people? This ad appeared in The Times of India. I was really shocked as to how the Government is portraying and publicizing their work. Is this their "Gift" to us?

I am not a supporter of any specific political party, but it really pains me to see such ads appearing everywhere. Every party has the right to do bring out campaigns for the upcoming elections, but don't they need to be careful. In another article published in a well known newspaper, there was a photograph of yet another leader distrbuting food to children, and a long write-up mentioning how kind the Government is. Is this how the Government wants its votes?

Yahoo Chat's BOTs

I don't remember when was the last time I had logged into Yahoo Messenger.

Recently, I deleted my Orkut account. Duh....Feel so bad about it, but anyway, had to do what I had to do. I can feel the difference in my life without Orkut.
"When I open up my browser, I now always have to think for 2 minutes, which site I should go for. LOL....It had always been Orkut, but now, I don't want to give the Googlers, no more "Ad-Revenues". "

Well, isn't "Blogger", a trap by Google to earn more money just from "Ads". And what about "Gmail", "iGoogle", etc, everything associated with Google also has those unwanted and un-friendly ads coming up before you.

But Google is flourishing, and so is its "Ads" business. And I am not against Google's strategies or its sources of income. What I wanted to talk about actually was about "Yahoo Chat Rooms". All these things about Google just surfaced inside my brain, and I thought I would club these thoughts with this post, thus reducing the number of blogs I write, and thus reducing Google's revenue. LOL

Ok...Now about Yahoo Chat Rooms. Today, each and every chat room is contaminated with "BOTS" and only "BOTS". What a place it used to be some 5 years ago. A perfect place for "Netizens" for perfect Time Pass.

A perfect place of anonymity: for youngsters who wanted to make new friends, video chat, voice chat and so on. I also tried all these for a few days, but it didn't interest me much. But, there were lots of my friends who were completely addicted to these things. But when I logged into one of the rooms, I was horrified at what I was looking at. BOTs everywhere!!!.....It took me around one hour and lots of different rooms to find just 1 real person there....What a pity....Yahoo has lost this unique place on the NET to these damn BOTs.

With the “captcha” stunt also, Yahoo still hasn’t been able to fend off even a single BOT.

Please don’t log onto Yahoo chat rooms. If you ever happen to enter those rooms, just for a break, I would suggest you should stop looking for real people there. Rather, I found it quite funny and interesting to have a chat with BOTs. And if you want to make it a playground, just try separating the BOTs from the REALs based on your chat conversations with them. And if you happen to find a REAL one at-last, you will definitely feel ecstatic.

But what about Google? Google doesn’t have a chat room. Well, that is one of the things which Google doesn’t have and Yahoo does. Shouldn’t Yahoo try to make these chat rooms more “REAL” and keep its users before Google comes up something like this. Please Yahoo, try hard, before Google reads this post.