kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

Sorry guys for not being in touch these few days. I was seriously unwell. Bam! Just like that! But these days have been exciting.

First of all let me explain to you the topography of my room – in my room there is a big window with a ledge outside it. In the initial room design, there were only the window-doors on this window and I was practically wasting the ledge space. Pigeons used this space to shit and make their nests, which was very unhygienic. So, in a flash of inspiration – the decision was taken to cover up the whole ledge space with a grill. Now, as luck might have it – there was, perhaps, a nest of pigeons on my AC. For 2 days after setting up the grill (yesterday morning), my mom and I noticed a baby pigeon inside the window.

Now we all were concerned of the pigeon-ling. Its care and nourishment. The biggest dilemma was how to ensure its safety and how to re-unit it with its mother. For we saw the mother coming to the window sill every other hour and the son (by the way, how do you check if its a male pigeon or a female one?) running towards her, both sharing some moments together and then the mother flying away and the son left stranded. We felt so sorry for the poor thing that mom and I decided that we should nurture it. I placed some rice grains and some water near it, and left it in peace. This was around 11.

I checked again around 3 and found him trying to hide behind the glass panes in the window-door due to the sun. His little cage must have been burning. The best I could do at that moment was to create a make-shift home for him using a carton box. He likes that shelter very much. It was then that we decided naming it and I came up with the name ‘Tunnu‘ – cheesy! I know! Yet all nicknames in my family are rhyming to the ‘-unnu’ sound so we went forward with it.

Tunnu has been drinking some water, but not touched any food as yet. This was worrying me very much. He should eat or how else would he have the strength to live. This went on whole of yesterday and till 2pm today.

It was then that I observed that the mother who has been coming every other hour to the window, is actually feeding the child through the grill. So now I am not very worried about feeding Tunnu, now my only concern is to how to reunite Tunnu with his mother. His beaks and claws scare me so i don’t think I would be courageous enough to lift him from the window ad place him in an open environment from where he can fly away. I am not even sure if he knows how to fly. Even if I “free” him, I am worried about his sustenance in the ‘wild’ world. The only option that seems viable to me is break open the grill so that Tunnu can learn to fly and fly to freedom one day.

Can you think of any better solution? If yes, any help is welcome.

These days with Tunnu have also been very illuminating. It is very inspiring to see pigeons exhibit complex relations. I had only heard of them, now I am seeing them first hand.

Afterlife is a science fiction novel I am working on. Currently in talk with some publishers (do recommend me to some if you find it worth it). This is an old copy of the initial 3 chapters as old as 2006. Will soon update with more details. Matrix and Harry Potter are acknowledged inspirations :)

Afterlife tells the story of Rahul Sharma, a prodigious software engineer from India, working for the best Virtual Reality company in the world. During his researches and his work, he designs a powerful neuro-electric simulation program, which is soon licensed as a successful MMO. The company, though, in their greed overlook common development wisdom and rush through the development cycle. The long and winding road soon brings Rahul on the crossroads where the interest of his family will conflict with the benefit of the world. he has to choose his own path, forge his own destiny. He is no hero.

I was away on a family trip for the last 5 days. A long pending tasks before commencing the journey was to clean my bathroom, which I finally managed to do some twenty minutes ago. While cleaning, I gained enlightenment – understood some life’s reality due to the very process of the cleaning. I share some five lessons from that enlightenment. Remember, cleaning the Toilet is an allegory to the real life here.

1. Its easy to be shitting around, but when you have to clean your own shit you start getting responsible with it.
It is very easy for anyone to spread the dirt – back-bite, bitch about, scams and spams, etc but when you have to clean your own mess you start realizing what a pain it is. End result, the next time you shit, you know how to do it in a responsible fashion so that you can do the cleaning up later and not get dirty.

2. Don’t mess up with stains that you cant clean, you will only get dirty.
OK! When you start the cleaning up remember there are some stains, some grime that you cant clean. You just don’t have the skills yet. When such is the case don’t mess with that stuff, you will only get dirty and achieve nothing. Similarly in life, you are not supposed to do everything and work at everything. Know your domain or you will be nowhere.

3. Not all grime can be cleaned by you, leave the tough ones for the experts.
Refer to point above. Not everything can be done by you. You don’t have all the skills – you are good at something but at the cost of being not-so-good at something else. Don’t waste your time and efforts doing stuff someone else can do better than you. Concentrate on what you can do best, let the rest of the stuff be tackled by specific experts.

4. If you make mistakes, some scarring will always happen.
It was never a good idea to let the dirt settle over time. When I let that happen, I make a mistake. The better approach would have been to be pro-active (being lazy doesn’t help) and run a continuous process of cleaning which wouldn’t let stains set. Now that I made the mistake, no matter what I do, I wont be able to get rid of everything. Some scars will always remain. So in life, think before you act. Watch out, before you make a mistake. For once you have committed it, there is no turning back and damage control won’t be complete. Some scarring will always happen.

5. No matter how well you clean it, it will never be 100%.
No matter how well you clean the grime, some one will be able to find faults with it. No matter how much time and effort you put into things, there will always be people who are not satisfied, who criticize. It will not do good to waste your efforts in pleasing them. It is not humanly possible to please everyone. So don’t waste your resources trying it. Learn to move on and learn to heed only to those who count. Don’t get dejected, disappointed. And next time, make a better attempt. Learn, Grow, and Evolve.

Now that the sermon is over, let me rest. Coming up next are tidbits from my recent trip and a rant on how infrastructure still sucks in India and what can be done about it.

Kinshuk

If you have trouble seeing the pictures, check them out at Picasa.

A controversial talk on what open source is all about… will be used to initiate discussion on open source during OSScamp Delhi September 2008, Day 2