Sudipta's Life

The earliest memory I have of him is from one evening in our old home. We had to collect potable water from a nearby tap in the township, since the well in our yard wasn't always so clean. I had just returned from the playground, and had mentioned on the way back as I hung on to his hand that I was thirsty. He had gone out right afterwards to fetch water with a bucket in hand. In the dark summer evening when the electricity was out, I saw him entering through the door with a towel wrapped around his waist, hauling a solid iron bucket of water and ignoring the sweltering stillness of the humid evening. I was probably two or three years old at the moment. I walked up to him and said, "Baba, I am very thirsty". That seemed to put a special speed into his step. He nodded his head and assured me, "Right away"; filled water into a large filter jug and poured out a glass for me. That sort of served as the model he set as a human being. My mom would say, "I neve...

Dear cousins, colleagues, and ex-classmates who want to send me "forward"s - please don't ask for my Whatsapp number. We are already friends on Facebook - let's keep talking there. I will avoid giving you my number at all costs, even sometimes by breaking down lines of communication. Let me explain why. You see, every morning when I wake up due to a "ding" notification from Facebook, and I open my messages to find this, I am not very pleased. Thank you for wishing me a wonderful day. I hope you have one too. But poor grammar, generous number of periods and random capitalization of letters are not the way to make my morning any better. Things like this make me want to throw up!! My heart bleeds and my brain farts every time I see things like this. You need relations? Try Tindr, Shaadi.com or some such thing! Puhleeaz don't bug me for relationships - I have my share already! And congratulations, by the way, on discovering the concept ...

When I was growing up, Parker pens were a big deal. Those special pens were expensive and given as gifts on special occasions. Think of your sacred thread ceremony (পৈতে), the birthday where you also happened to top your class final exams, or the special uncle who visited after five years and had to prove that he was well off - that is when you received one. Almost as a rule, we would stash those away. Possibly to give away as gifts to other kids on special occasions, or to be opened when the "time was right". I revered these pens, of course, and any time I heard of a professor or someone who wrote with one of those, it immediately elevated them into a haloed status for me. It either symbolized wealth, or erudition, or both. On that day, we were about to go to a sacred thread ceremony of some social acquaintance. I was tasked with finding a good pen set from our cupboard where these were stored. I started going through these one by one. For those of you unfamiliar with ...

It feels strange to be writing this, but perhaps every man on earth should say this at least once in their lifetime. To all the women in the world, "Thank you"! Thank you for sticking around with us, thank you for keeping us sane and for keeping us from killing each other. One fine morning, if a spaceship appeared on the horizon and you had the option of leaving all men behind for even a day, I am certain we'll probably go extinct as a species. If you decide to stick around, however, it will be your greatness, and just sheer dumb luck on our part. I stand horrified at all of the things that my brethren have meted out to you over the years. Incidents that happen day in and day out that are no less than medieval torture. The ones we get to know are few: be it the rape of the young student in Delhi past December, or the cut up body of the rape victim that was recently returned in Bengal. What were the last few hours like, of those victims who had so much to see and e...

Like a soul lost without its body, I drift across the wide seas. I know not, when this shall end. But whoever said "distance makes the heart grow fonder", lied. It does not. Distance tears the heart apart. It makes you roam around in helpless rage, in a frustration of inexplicable sadness. I looked up at the flights leaving the airport runway each evening... the engines gunning, the sound of the airplane cutting through air, the soft dimming of the roar as soon as the plane lifts off, and then you can see the flight soaring into the distance, hurtling through thin air towards the one you love. It is a horrible experience, to wake up each morning into an unfamiliar room. Then the memory comes rushing back to me. Why am I here? What am I doing? How will this day turn out? Will I be able to go back today? It is a weird feeling to be in - a day when you look forward to the weekdays, since the rest of the world works on these days. You live in a society, remember? Others need t...

To have what isn't yours: is it stealing or sheer good luck? To most people, the moral compass swings depending on the manner in which you came across the object in question. For example, if you found a hundred rupee note while you were taking your morning stroll, most people would think it is just their luck and would pick up the money. However, if you just saw that the note dropped off someone's pocket in front of you, will you still silently pocket the money or will you call the man and let him know? Like I mentioned, the "manner" of acquisition of the object matters most when deciding if it is morally self-permissible to have it. What you do with it is a completely different question: some would donate it to a beggar or charity nearby, others would just add it to their wallet. Let us not digress there for now. Guilt-free rationalization of being the beneficiary of an error is an art to be learned. Allow me to explain. Shoplifting and clerical errors are part ...

Growing up in India, all of us have become accustomed to having someone like a maid or a nurse/caretaker as part of our everyday life. I have had my own share of experiences as well - some of them definitely worth writing about some other day. Right from learning about social faux pas and the political correctness of terms, to being in their position and seeing what it feels like to be treated as one. From almost motherly figures to the stereotypical villains  - tales will be told as the time comes. For now, though, I wish to tell you about one particular incident. As with most housemaids, it takes a while to build trust and rapport and to not notice a little "shortage" of stuff around the house. From the time she joined our household, we never noticed anything significantly missing. I use the word "significantly" here because we suspected there might be some amount of human error in calculations on our part - the tin of rice which used to last 20 days maybe was ...

My wife and I recently had the "privilege" of riding with an acquaintance in her car. While I am happy to report that the two of us survived the ride, I thought it would be prudent to let everyone else know that such a driver is out on the roads. Also, it is important to have these tips handy so that you don't die of heart attack while you are riding inside the car with her. So, brace yourself (and you must do this literally too) and read on... You might be proud of yourself that you have driven cars in India and you can deal with any kind of traffic - nothing scares you. But my dear tough guy, trust me when I say that you will desperately hang on to that seatbelt of yours. See, in India, you try to save yourself and maneuver around "stuff". In this case, you belong to the stuff. And what scares you is that the rest of the people on the road haven't driven a car in India. First things first: she will put on her seatbelt, eventually, but after about 5 ...

If you are helping your parents, relatives or grandparents at home with any kind of pc/laptop issues (since you are a computer person), here is how it generally goes: But even then, once in a while, you get a different problem - your parents got a new laptop, and a good internet connection, and now you want to install Skype properly on the laptop so that you can see one another. Here is what I did recently to get this done: Download TeamViewer on the target laptop : If you have a chat program open, paste this link there and ask them to click on it. http://www.teamviewer.com/download/TeamViewer_Setup_en.exe . Yup, I know - don't ask them to go and visit the website and download from there: you and they don't share the same screen and it is difficult to locate where the exact content is. In my case, my screen size was bigger than theirs and we spent some time figuring out why they couldn't see the "Download" button, until I f...

So I picked up the task of blogging for 30 days straight . As you might know, I have tried to follow the letter of the law: I have posted some regular write-ups during the course of this time. I have put in some placefillers as videos, and even put in some "nothing" posts just to make a post for the day. I have also slipped in my schedule during the end of this stretch - even back-dated posts and videos were not posted. Overall: blogged 24 times out of the scheduled 30. 11 of these 24 posts were placefillers, and 13 were regular posts. I do plan on adding 6 other videos or songs on to the list to make up for the lost days. What good has come of this, you may ask. Well, if nothing else - it has broken off my writers block! I think that was the real intent of this exercise: to get you started on whatever you wish to be doing. And this worked for me! Similar to the Star Trek commander training exercise where the purpose of the test is not to be able to defeat the system but t...

 I always wonder about the things left unsaid at social gatherings. The benign condescending smile, the fake laugh, the artificial excitement of meeting your "friend" after a while - I almost feel it is a minefield of social faux pas out there when you walk into a gathering! And the trouble is that I don't get most of it.It almost makes me feel like I want both lemon and cream in my tea . I have noticed the following three ways where you can definitely be sure you have said the wrong thing or taken the wrong side: 1. When, following your "expression of doubt" at a person's statement, she asks what your problem in life is. :D This question is usually accompanied by a half smile, glancing away from you and seeking others who might join in the smile, taking a dramatic sip of extremely hot tea which in itself leads to a further curled lip while executing the smile. You might want to take a mental note at this time of what a balloon looks like just when you...

In general, they say, a problem of plenty is a good problem to have. For example, if you have too many mangoes in your garden, then you could possibly sell some of them off for money or give away some of them for social "points" - even letting them rot isn't going to harm you at all (except the stench and the missed opportunity, perhaps). The above presents a manageable problem. You have some trees, they grow and produce fruits on their own, and then you simply have to pick some fruits and sell them off, or you can even outsource this. Basically, then, you don't have any capital expenses (you didn't buy the trees), you don't have too much operational expenses (you don't need to water them daily), but you incur some cost while picking the fruit and marketing, which, even after outsourcing, is still a positive source of revenue for you. ( My apologies for the business-speak - but these phrases are very succinct and capture the essence of what I wish to co...

I wish life worked the way I want it to. I wish everyone was transparent, honest, and open about their shortcomings. I wish two people collaborating would work towards a single goal with unified vision and passion, not hankering over who gets what piece. I wish business and collaboration did not mean shams, or overpricing yourself and your value. I wish word of mouth meant an agreement set in stone, where people feel responsible for what they have promised. I wish that people should acknowledge the work others have done before plagiarizing. That recognition for work done should not mean beating one's drum at all times regardless of who actually did the work. I wish people will not hold on to critical information just to create their own value. I want people to open up, and help people with all and everything at their disposal with nothing but a singular vision of success in mind. I don't like false pretenses. I don't like subtle hints and innuendos that are meant to e...

A pretty long video, but very interesting! Make sure you give me a commission when you negotiate your next salary raise :)

I keep getting ideas from time to time. These little moments of inspiration usually occur out of nowhere. Sometimes, the idea that pops into the head is related to something I am working on, such as: "Oh perhaps if this screwdriver had a magnetic tip, it would be easier to use". Most of the times, though, these are just random ideas which pop up during absolutely irrelevant times. For example, when working on one software project, I am reminded of the exact configuration on some totally unrelated machine that would solve someone else's problem. The point being: they come aplenty, and they are not necessarily related to the task at hand. Now, such ideas are of two kinds. One kind are improvement ideas, or "feature enhancements" in software engineering lingo. The others are quick fixes to problems that I might have been pondering about for a while. The third set of ideas (which, although I began the paragraph with "two kinds" still makes sense), is th...

 Each one of us needs a hero. An idol, a point of reference, a larger brand identity about which we feel proud to call ourselves fanatics. You get to choose some of these for yourself. Like your favourite song, or your favourite author. For some things, however, the idol or larger identity is thrust upon us. Your religion, your nation, your sect, your football team - you don't really have a choice in these: you inherit them. And, unless you are fiercely independent in thought and had the conviction of your beliefs even during your adolescence, you have also picked up cultural icons simply because your peers believed in them. In a sum total therefore, we all have some larger identities who we simply "belong" to, or our lots are thrust in with them no matter what.  Any such idea or identity whose inception happened within us is usually a stronghold. We do not seek reassurances from outside that indeed our choice is good. Consider your favourite trip you have had so far in...

One way of looking at marriage is to think that you are moving in with a room-mate of the opposite sex. The way we speak, the content, the choice of words, the topics - all of them are novel and unique and are fascinating to understand and observe. "Understand" may be an overstatement here, though. We mortals merely seek to understand the quirks of the opposite sexes' mind. In corporate lingo, "strategic alignment of priorities and cohesive engagement in synergy of visions" needs to happen. To paraphrase, the two must see things in the same light. Take, for example, the concept of a dress. Or rather, what to wear. In spite of all the evidence you may cite, as a general rule, guys don't care about what they wear as much as women do. Yes there are carefully careless girls out there and so are smart and well-groomed men, but we are talking averages here. More importantly, guys do not notice what other guys are wearing. Actually it is more like something not e...

I was returning home after some tuition classes one day. This was when I was in class 11-12, (for my readers in the US, this is your "high school"). In a more or less crowded mini-bus, a stranger with a stubble of a beard and a "knowing" smile came and sat beside me. He was about 45 years of age. Lungi clad, unshaven for a couple of days maybe, with a "jhola" in hand from which two or three plastic bags and vegetables were peeping out: this person seemed very friendly and simple. We exchanged pleasantries and he commented on the school bag I was carrying. Out of courtesy, I told him that I was a student at that time and I was returning back from some tuitions, preparing for my JEE and Higher Secondary exam and stuff like that. - "Where do you study?" I answered. The next question took me by surprise, though: - "Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?" -"About what?" -"Oh nothing big... just about some stuff yo...

 When I was a kid, one of my uncles was visiting India in search of a wife (yeah... the arranged marriages in those days). He visited quite a few homes and met some girls along with their families. I did not go along with them at any time, of course, but one day when he came back, I heard my mother and he discussing their day. The girl had asked him, "So, what is your idea of the ideal woman?". I don't remember what his answer was at that time, but the question certainly stirred me. When I set out to find the One for me, I needed to know what exactly I wanted in the person I would marry. Would I even want to marry the perfect woman? How do I make a list of things which I want to see in a potential wife? What is the final signal that seals the deal? Lots of questions, I know... but I arrived at some answers which I wish to share here. The first thing I noticed when I pondered over the question was that I had a much better idea of what I did not want in a spo...

I know that the actual word is " shaadi ". But as anyone who has had some experience with matrimonial websites will attest to, the word shady is a pretty accurate description of some of the people you find there. You'll find profile names like "New_Seduction", or the same person will have five different profiles. And you can easily tell which one was created by the parents ("My daughter is a homely nice convent-educated cultured girl") and which one is by the daughter herself ("I am an easy-going fun girl who loves watching cricket with friends"). This post, as you can already guess, is going to be about my experiences with people I met there. I actually had to open an account on these websites because I was asked to review others' profiles. No, not girls' profiles for me, but profiles of other guys and girls who my friends were considering. The reason being, after you have looked at 3-4 profiles, the website doesn't let you see...