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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Lucky in Life, Unlucky in Love


Hi Readers,

When I came across the old adage, "Lucky in Life, Unlucky in Love", I was awestruck with its symmetry and symbolic implications. Another adage, "Love is Life", if we combine with the former, teams up to be more thought provoking.

Who is termed to be lucky in life? The person, who is generally lucky in one's life, on being asked to enumerate the previous hardships faced and existing nagging troubles in life, will not be able to compose an answer, may be even if given a few minutes of time. Luck, here is not referred in a sense where the person is driven by luck in her/his actions and counts it as a factor in the final result of it. Luck, if taken over a period of time, like the teenage stage or a duration of 5 to 10 years, one can look back and conclude, yes, I have been lucky in my life. That is the luck, we are talking about. You had taken a few risks here and there, a few bold steps, walked the path where few have trodden and had come out just fine and unscratched. Such persons can say, yes  they are lucky in life. Luck is of course no substitute for hard-smart-working and bold and fearless attitude.

Love is Life, one quips. And, yes there is nothing so simple and humbling than this. Live and let live. Love and let love. Love, here can be between two persons; a person and the pet animal; a person and an object of great value which is cherished as a possession; or a person and her/his love for nature, a hobby or an art. Out of these, love between two persons is the most satisfying and rewarding than others. It is because receiving love from another person, brings validity of one's existence, assurance of one's usefulness in other's life and the capability of being loved by a other and faith in humanity.

Who is termed to be unlucky in love? The person, who encountered many times in her/his journey of life, people, who were worthy and suitable for the love she/he showered upon but alas, did not get the same in return. Those worthy people never gave a place for her/him in their heart and did not become a part of the life, they dreamt of. Or even if the love sustained, it was cut short soon enough. Love was lost, she/he was torn apart from loved ones. The person suffered many heart-breaks, painful farewells and never found a companion when she/he need it the most.

Success can be achieved through constant perseverance, hard-work and never-say-die spirit. But when it comes to Love, no concoction works.

Lucky in Life, Unlucky in Love, is for those who could become what they wanted to be, but could not be with whom they wanted to be. Are you one of them?

Orkut Beware!

Hello Orkut Users,

I hope your endeavours for the goal of Social Networking are going on just fine! I composed this article just to give a wake up call to you as an user of Orkut and the Google-Orkut Developers for some of the threats both are facing or already are vulnerable to.

We are using the Orkut social-networking website from the past many years. During all these years we have shared our precious thoughts, lovely snaps, informative web page links, cute scraps which either you sent to your friends and they sent to you asking your whereabouts and how you all felt about a day or event in life, joined various related communities of your interest and hobbies and created a few too, and sent quick-hush messages to our various friends. So today your profile is a sum total and a gold mine of all the personal details, quotes, innovative and creative ideas as well as the capture of joyful and emotional moments in terms of galleries of pictures. Nice and cosy feelings right ha?

You are sure that these matter in the same way to your friends and are therefore only available to them. And you thought you can never be wrong about it! You have all those nifty privacy setting in your command so how can one whom you don't know and have never even heard of or seen in your life know so much about you and that too via your Orkut Profile which you cherish the most and think of it like a digital fortress of a kind!

How will you respond if I tell you that this can be done and that too without any ethical or unethical hacking? So let me tell you first, how can one who just one fine day thought to target you, by only knowing your name and no other information, can know all about you in a matter of 20 minutes or less depending upon the Internet access speed. Here you go, starting with 00:00 in {mm:ss} format on the time-line:

1. {00:00}The person creates a dummy GMail account and through it, a dummy profile in Orkut which provides such details which separates one from any relation with it. (Let this profile be called PX.) This is done since, once PX visits a profile, it shows up in the "recent visitors" section of the home page of the user. A dummy GMail account is created because, if one uses the personal email address to create PX, then as the target can search users with e-mail address in Orkut, PX reveals itself in a case of hit and trial search by e-mail id.

2. {05:00}PX uses the Orkut-user_search to search your profile (henceforth, PU). Many profiles are returned as there may be many with the same name (homonym). As PX knows your country, present location, sex, a few of your friends and their names, zeroes in to PU in a jiffy!

3. {07:30}PX, even though not in the PU's friend list, can suck all the information from PU in the next 12 and a half minutes. This is how it works!!

4. {07:31} Fact_1: The testimonial section of a Orkut_User is public and visible to all the Orkut users. A privacy setting to control its visibility is absent.
PX accesses PU's testimonial section and copies and creates a map of users (henceforth, TUM) who submitted the testimonial and the text content of the same in a local file. It is done for all the testimonials present in PU. Now the TUM is a very important data as testimonials are only submitted by very close and important persons in PU's life. The user profiles in TUM are visited on the basis of the testimonial text and all the data present in their profile is also copied in the Map.The data received is used to cross-refer details about PU.

5. {09:30} Fact_2: The community section of a Orkut_User is public and visible to all the Orkut users. A privacy setting to control its visibility is absent.
PX accesses PU's community section and opens the community page and copies and creates a map of community (henceforth, CM) and what it stands for, in a local file. It is done for all the communities present in PU. Now the CM is a very important data as PU joins only those communities which fall in the following category:
  1. PU's education: various Schools, Graduation and Post-graduation College, Stream specific, Courses joined, Certifications undertaken communities.
  2. PU's Hobbies and interests: Sport, Sport persons, Iconic personalities, I love ..., Competitive examinations, academic subjects and other related communities.
  3. PU's medical details: Blood group, Hair colour, Eye colour.
  4. PU's Time-Geographic info like the School Batch (year of pass out, location of school), College Batch (year of pass out, location of college), Location of Residence (Name of the city, town), Location of the company working in (Company community for the joiners of a particular year usually for the joining straight after college).
  5. PU's Birth details: Birth place, Birth date, Birth month, Birth year, Birth Zodiac sign communities.
  6. PU's Caste and Community details: Family name, caste, community, regional belonging, state, mother-tongue.
  7. PU's work details: Present working company, previous companies, special corporate groups, Technology working in, Field working in and various other communities.
6. {15:00} Fact_3: The friends section of a Orkut_User is public and visible to all the Orkut users. A privacy setting to control its visibility is absent.
If PU has very less or almost no information in the testimonial and community section, the PX uses the more difficult but challenging approach and puts analytical skills into use. This is how! From the PU's friend list, 10-20 random users are chosen and a map (FUM) is created. Now community information from each entry in the FUM is parsed and an appropriate weightage is assigned to the communities joined by them, grouping them, according the categories in #5. This is done for all the entries in FUM. After the completion of the iteration, from each categories of communities, the community of highest weightage is chosen and from it PU's information given in #5 is inferred. This has a viable success rate of getting the correct information. For example, under the educational school communities, if a particular school community gets the highest weight then that must be the school attended my PU. Similar logic for College, Company working in and others.

7. {18:30} Fact_4: The updates section of a Orkut_User in the new User Interface is public over the time range from the time of creation of the Orkut account till the date the individual visibility setting for each update and scrap was activated and are visible to all the Orkut users. A privacy setting to control its visibility is absent.
This is the most easy way to get to know all the details of the user. PX while humming the favourite song, copies and creates a map (UUM) of the updates and the other user involved in the update, whether it be a scrap, a greeting, a friendship acceptance, everything with a precise timestamp. Well done!!! {20:00}

Now you can be sure that, there are many, or at least PX, who knows about you more than your best friend!!

Now, how to safeguard yourself from such attacks!! This is how!!! Follow these simple steps to safety!

1. First and foremost the most dangerous part of the profile page is the communities section. As there is no way to hide the community list from the non-friend members, visit the community pages which you think can provide personal information given above and unjoin them.

2. The next revealing section is the "Testimonials" section. Remove all the testimonials, however much you cherish them. If you want to store the text, do that in a text file and save with date and name of the person, but do not leave it public on the profile page.

3. The next most vulnerable section is the "my updates" section. Visit that section and look for a tiny image telling whether a particular update is a public or friends only or private. If it is public, immediately remove the update if you think it reveals personal data or personal conversation or a recent friend addition. A recent friend addition can give away the information of your current company, location and other analytical information.

4. Next is the photo section. Check that all the galleries containing the personal photos are updated as friends only or selected friends only!  


Happy Orkutting!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Love and Arranged Marriages

Hi Readers,

It is often said that Marriages are made in Heaven. True! But many of us do not understand the deep seeded meaning in this saying. Many generally comprehend it as a different flavour of the intended meaning that Marriages are pious and they are related to the religious and traditional aspects of the persons involved in it. But the intended meaning is that the establishment of the bond of Marriage between two persons is beyond human control and decision. What ever is beyond the comprehension and control of humans, generally it is put in the hands of the Almighty. True it is, as two persons who had never met each other before are now to spend the entirety of their life with each other, as a couple, taking part in each others happiness and sadness equally. Bearing a child, becoming parents and then seeing them getting married and find a new life. It is a full circle.

Right from the time when my mind had started to think logically and debating was one of the media for a full scale discussion to place the pros and cons of two sides of a topic, the debate of - "Which one is better, Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage" has been on the top. Now, we as teenagers used to jump at this exciting opportunity and Love being a strange and forbidden fruit, used to take the side of the same in terms of Marriage. There were a few under the "Arranged" Category, generally treated as the orthodox types. We used to cite the reasoning like Love marriage is the best as it brings two people in love and ready to accept each other for the rest of the life,  it can be the only way one should be married, and other naive ones. Little we knew as 13-14 year teenagers, what really is a marriage and how marriage been it had resulted by Love or Arrangement, has nothing to do with the life after. Somethings are to be understood with age. So thought we. We never did.

How Love Marriage happens? You are at the right place at the right time doing the right things. Then and there, you meet a person. You like the look and feel of that person. Someone initiates, you talk. You like that. Then you converse. Time goes on. First friendship and then soon sparks fly in the air between you both. You feel love and if the other person reciprocates the same feelings and behaviour, you both fall in love. So, till now what were the factors involved here: personal attributes, spoken items and time spent together in public domain. In the entire matter, there certainly is a factor of opportunity, chance, fate and ultimately destiny. Now if everything goes on fine in a complex society like we have here, it results in a Marriage.

How Arrange Marriage happens? You reach an appropriate age. Your parents start looking for alliances for a suitable groom or bride keeping in mind certain parameters like religion, caste, sub-caste, gotra, age, height, weight, education, family, parent's occupation, location, dowry(I strongly and publicly denounce this practice, but had to mention as it is one of the factors) etc.. You look for profiles via various media channels, Internet, newspapers and ,last but not the least, word of mouth. After a long haul you shortlist few of the profiles. You start communicating with the point of contacts. If everything goes fine a date is fixed for the engagement and then the marriage.

The dissimilarities end here.

In both the cases, the life after marriage traverses the same path. Living together after Marriage is a completely different ball game. Love generated between the couple, before or after the marriage has the same value and effect. Understanding, co-operation, compromises, standing by each other's decisions, tuning one's ego according to the spouse, sacrifices for the greater good for the life together, life's tough decisions: All these can only be encountered and experienced after the couple starts a new life and start living and sharing together. So a love which resulted in a marriage gives no guarantee of enduring all the above challenges better than the arrangement which caused two different people to combine as a couple. Also it can be said without contest that couples in a love marriage get a head start of a significant amount, as they knew and understood each other well before the marriage. But after a time span of cohabitation, couples belonging to both the kinds of Marriage reach a level ground.

There is a message for all the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes out there. If you have any inhibitions against a kind of Marriage, lose them! If you are confused as your mind and heart is biased towards a kind of marriage, then you must know that Marriage is something you can only know about when you are in it. For all those out there who were blessed by the Almighty and were destined to meet their love before their marriage, challenges and joys are in store for them in the married life to come. If you did not find your love, or you were not loved before Marriage, be confident, you will find the same joys and challenges with the person you will be arranged to get married with. The only thing which can lead you to happiness after marriage is the confidence and faith in your spouse, you generate.

I wish all the folks out there, getting married, in the process of getting married or already married, the best for the life to come!!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Marvellous Marriage Melody

Hi Readers,

I am saddened and fed up of the crass, demoralizing and degrading jokes and one liners about Marriage and the life after. It's high time we stop them. It's one of those things which everybody likes to laugh about as if it is a hilarious subject to joke around, without any base or truth in it.

Image. Image building. Perspective about Marriage. Presumptions about the married life. All these are being created and impacted by the negativity and the cruel vilification of the concept of Marriage, consciously by those who could not make their Marriage a success or unconsciously by those who just want to be a stand up comedian and get acceptance among the bunch of guys from the office and in society by quoting a few jokes about how can one get going ruining one's life by getting married. Is it necessary to do so?!

On the other side, the couples who are leading a happy and content life after marriage, will never come out and give speeches of their success stories in the public. They are not meant to do so. But the disgruntled ones will never stop spreading the venom. Even when there is nothing to gain in doing so.

The most popular and unfortunately the most cherished thought about Marriage is that it is such a event in a person's life which introduces complexities, stress, unhappiness, boundedness and compromises in both, day to day life and one's dreams and gives a few happy moments in return. The more saddening fact is that people believe in it without any doubt in mind about its validity. It's because it is very simple to put a stamp on a thing, as difficult and not worthy, which demands commitment and compromise in life.

One need to understand that when one has to walk the path of Marriage and hopes to get the best deal out of it then why to propagate and participate in such negative image building. Yes, true, life changes dimensions after Marriage, nobody will deny! Yes, there are compromises to be made, nobody will deny! But then just like anything else there are cycles of happiness and other things! Invest your best in your thoughts and get the same in action. You will reap what you shall sow!

On raising the topic of marriage in a discussion, all one gets in return is, negative and derogatory comments and observations from all corners. What is the reason? It is because, even though we were born and brought up in a society which marks Marriage as a mandatory and important event, it is mired and submerged in malpractices like the practice of dowry and casteism or the emotional separation of the bride from one's parents and home or the indifferent and under treatment of the bride or the immaturity on the spouse's part, where one allows pre-marriage love relationships to interfere in the marriage.

There has been an observation made. Nowadays, Marriage is attached with the additional and sudden burden of the establishment of resources like, house, vehicle, adequate movable and immovable property and other expectations from both the quarters of the bride and the groom alike. Why target marriage as the final point of growth in one's life? Why burden marriage with financial and material goals which can be accomplished in a phased and planned manner way before or after marriage? Why not view marriage as an enabler of the couple's advancement as a joint force, rather than attaching pounding expectations to it?

Whoever thinks that Marriage is a conversion process of making a person mature, is partially  incorrect. Marriage is for the mature. As two persons coming together for a duration of one's lifetime requires an unimaginable amount of planning, understanding and maturity on one's part.

Today, there are so many cooked up stories about Marriage and many a recipes for a successful one. The person yet to be married is in a delusion of a sort where one thinks that one is equipped with all the knowledge one may require to lead a happy married life. One forgets the fact that just as every person is different, there are as many different ways to make it a enjoyable journey.

You want to know the secret for a happy and successful marriage. Open the doors of mind. Look out. Unconditional Love, understanding, tuning one's ego to a healthy level and caring and pampering the spouse is one of the few things to start with. Invest in marriage with your commitment and of course one need to compromise for the greater good one will be bestowed upon.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Pyaar Ka Panchanaama

Hi Readers,

"Pyaar ka Panchanama" is a sentence in the Hindi Language, which means Postmortem of Love. As in the process of postmortem, a dead body is investigated for the cause of the death, similarly, the intention of this article therefore, is to capture the causes of the death of Love i.e a horrible ending to a love story.

Also to make this article more specific, let me categorize and then point out the specific branch of Love. There are three broad categories of Love:

1. Love for the Elders:
The best example of this type of Love, is the love for your Parents, Grandparents, Aunties and Uncles. It can also be felt for an elder or a senior citizen. Also, love, respect and dedication towards one's Mentor also comes under this category.

2. Love for the Coeval:
This is love for the persons of nearly the same age, give or take, 5 year elder or younger. This type of love falls into 2 sub-types:
   a. Love for the reason of friendship:
      This can be best portrayed between friends and colleagues you like to work      with.
   b. Love for the reason of companionship:
      This is between two persons who share the intention of sharing their life together.

3. Love for the Younger:
The best example of this type of Love, is the love for your child, your nephew and niece. The same can be felt for the person of an age relatively lesser than yours and who either seek your protection and guidance or look upon yourself as an elder.

Before I begin my elaborations, I would like to mention a few universal laws of Love:

1. Law of Conservation of Love (Applicable to all the categories):
According to this Law, Love can neither be created nor be destroyed. It is present in all the places and at all times. It can only be focused from one person to another.
Usage: This is useful to understand the importance and significance of love in one's life irrespective of the number of people involved.

2. Law of Love singularity (applicable to only 2.b category):
At a given moment of time, a person can focus the majority of the Love only for one single other person. There may be incidence of multiple focus points but one can only focus the Love to a single other person whose intensity will be greater than all the others. In this situation, the person can be said to be in Love with that other person ONLY.
Usage: This law is used to resolve the issues of multiple love interests in one's life leading to chaos and conflicts and decision making.

3. Law of Love Quantum (Applicable to all the categories):
The quantity of Love and the ability of Loving others by oneself is directly proportionate to the amount of Love desired by one, in addition to the the amount of Love ever focused on the same person by others and was received consciously by the same.
Usage: This law is used to judge the behaviour of a person with regards to the person's compassion levels and needs of the person.


Main Article:

Please note that this article is on the Love of the type 2.b. I would like to begin with the quote:

"Maybe … giving someone all your love 
is never an assurance that they will
love you back. Don't expect love in
return; just wait for it to grow in
their heart; but, if it doesn't, be
content that it grew in yours."

This quote brings the most soothing of feelings for those, who faced many a situations where either they could not convey their love to the other person or the persons involved were not in congruence for the continuance of the relationship, the reason for which can be infinite. We are not going to focus on the reasons not for the continuance of the love!

I hope you have gone through the laws mentioned above.

When we are in love with a person, that moment we are focusing the majority of the love energy upon him/her (Law I). We invest time, attention, devotion, care and money for the same person in the same proportion. We try our best to improve, innovate and project the best of ourselves in the process. We change tracks as well as tune our day to day life to accommodate more time with the loved one.

Alas, many a times the relationship breaks, shatters or diffuses. The reason can be infinite and scale from insignificant incompatibility traits to significant factors which could have caused huge problems in the future for the parties involved. The persons involved develop sadness and gloom. They wail and scream. They are shocked at this abrupt shattering of the dreams and the future, woven with the threads of companionship with the loved one. They blame the other person and back-talk, try to hurt, whom they loved. Sometimes they resort to the weapon of jealousy and imitation of false pretentious feelings and create discomfort for the other.

Now, if we read the lovely quotation mentioned above, it dissolves and washes away all the stains and blemishes resulted from the breakage of the relationship. During the shock stage of the event, it is natural to be swayed with the erupted emotions. At the same time we shudder in sadness at the loss of the all the investment of time, attention, devotion, care, money and love. But Behold, the Love by its nature is indestructible and imperishable. If you disassociate the Love from the person upon whom earlier it was focused and nurture it in your heart, this Love will enable you to Love another person with better mindset, equipped with more reasoning and stability boosters. Love never dies. We just diminish its effect in our heart and focus on the feelings of anger, betrayal and sadness. If we diminish it to a critical extent, it convolves with suspicion and mistrust in future relations.

The best way out of a broken relationship is a 3 step process:
1. Work towards the disassociation of the Love energy with the person in question. And then focus and distribute the same to other aspects of your day to day life.
2. Conserve the positive and constructive values resulted from the relationship which includes the learning about inner self and your strengths and weaknesses which came to light during the relationship.
3. Just as one, who suffers from stage-fright, gains confidence after speaking in front of a crowd, in the same way this Lovely relationship, though broken now, if handled properly will enable you to establish future relationships with more maturity and confidence.

I wish you all the very best.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Night Sky

Hi Readers,

Since how many days you have not seen the night sky in complete darkness? Have you observed the stars and the constellations they are in? Have you pointed at one of them and wondered that how mesmerizing they look, and pondered upon the thought that this planet is nothing but a tiny speck comparable to a dust particle here. Then think what are we?

Recently I had visited the Birla Planetarium. When I reached there, I was not as excited as the group of children surrounding us. Also I had once, in my childhood visited one such place. We took our places and the doors were closed. There was complete darkness. And then the projector started and there it was. The Night Sky glittering with stars on the dome of the planetarium. Of course one could not make out that it was not the real one. There was a involuntary sigh from the mouth of all the children there. Ohhhwoooow. I too joined them. They were thrilled and so was I.

Till that time I did not know that the serene scene of the night sky will bring my mind to the ecstatic levels. My mind became calm and thoughtless. I stared at the dome which, now, was pitch black with the tiny stars spread across it.

Then the tears started to flow. I realized something so huge that my mind was overwhelmed by that. The tears found their way to the inner curve of the ear lobes and started to get collected in them as the seats were inclined to at least 150 degrees. The great thought which came to my mind was that: as compared to the Universe, I, a human being on this planet, sitting here right now, just will not fit any scale. We being so minuscule in the Universe, carry so much of worries and stress on our shoulders. We think of the future and worry about it. We think as if we the most important of all and the centre of all the things.

It has been a long while to have watched the night sky without the interference of the artificial light sources around you! Opportunities do come though. Whenever a major blackout occurs, we can still witness the awesome view of the starry night sky. Best, when the Moon is not in the view. But alas this situation does not occur as there is always a power cut in localized area in the city and the towns. Light sources even at a distance of few kilometers robs the view of its awesomeness and serenity. Most of the stars lose their sheen and twinkle in such conditions and therefore are not visible. Also the pollution levels of cities and nowadays, towns combined with natural conditions such as clouds, dusty winds and rain hinders the view.

Lucky are those who can still just look above at night and find the stars twinkling in their eyes.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,
How I wonder what you are?
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Dowry Quotes

Hi Readers!

Owning the "War On Dowry" campaign, I have created a few quotes for it:


DOWRY = Death Of Wedding Responsible You


If you are Man
Enough for Her,
Stop right there,
Say No to D.O.W.R.Y!


You know right, Bro?
"First Impression is the last Impression"
Then Don't make D.O.W.R.Y one!! ok!


Disobey your Parents,
When it comes to Dowry and
Be an example of a Good Son!




Always thought of social work?
Why not start at home?
Stop Dowry, for your own!
Live a happily married life after!




Don't choose to be a Criminal,
Of Murder of a girl cold blooded and brutal.
Stopping DOWRY is the key,
Neither ask nor give,
Set her free.




Going to Marry,
Set an example.
Been Married,
Create examples.
Mother India needs you.
This is least you can do.
Neither ask nor give Dowry.
Her Daughters will be,
Proud of you!