kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

November 26, 2008 was a dark day for all of us as 10 gunmen roamed the streets of Mumbai, firing indiscriminately on anyone in sight. They molested the Indian dignity and hospitality that day. Destroyed many families, ruptured life. Today, it is a complete year and there is no justice in sight. Things havent changed. When will they?

As I have mentioned in previous posts, these days I am working on the lyrics for some songs for Manu Rajeev’s next album. One of the songs is on the subject of terrorism – a lament. Today, I share the lyrics with you. Do give your feedback. Hopefully, the song will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Romanised Hindi lyrics, followed by (rough) English Translation:
(I had trouble writing in devanagri – every help welcome)

Kal, shor tha aur tha, jalta aasman
Kal the, sapno ke bujhate chiraag
Kal, dard tha aur tha, ye ehsaas
maine hai khoya koi apna is gham ki aandhi me

Yadon ki dastak na thi, Sapno ki aahat na thi
Gardishi gard me, mit gaya tera mera nishan

Tu hai kaisa aadmi? Teri jannat ki ye hasrat kaisi?
Mujhko mita ke, khud ko luta ke, tu kya payega?
Khoon ki ye nadiya baha ke, tu kya payega?

Apno ki aahat na thi, Lamho ki chahat na thi,
Gardishi gard me, mit gaya tera mera nishan

Tu tha kaisa aadmi? Jannat ki ye teri hasrat thi kaisi?
Sab kuch bhula ke, duniya ko jala ke tu kya payega?

Kal, lut gaya, kho gaya mera jahaan
Aansuon me beh gayi, meri pehchaan

English Translation:
Yesterday, there were shouts and cries and a burning sky
Yesterday, there were some dying hopes

Yesterday, there was pain and the numb feeling
that I have lost a dear one
in this torrent of sorrow

Memories did not beckon, dreams did not reckon
In a sad dark cloud was lost our existence

What sort of man are you? What is this desire for heaven?
By destroying me, by ruining yourself, What will you achieve?
With all this blood-shed, What will you achieve?

Kin do not beckon any more, No more is a want of moments
In a sad dark cloud was lost our existence

What sort of man were you? What was your desire for heaven?
You forget everything and just burn the world, What will that achieve?

Yesterday, was ravaged and was lost – my world
And was lost, in tears, my name

Folks,

I have 10 invites for the CodeChef Tech Talk Geek Symposium scheduled for Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad on September 11, 12 and 13. For more details about the event, please read the CodeChef Website.

These invites are available courtesy the CodeChef community for the OSScamp Community. If you are interested in participating at the event, please leave a comment on the post on the OSScamp Community Blog.

Hope to catch you all on OSScamp Delhi September 2009.

I also have another exciting announcement, coming up in the next blog post. Watch out!

I am so tired. Its been a tough month for me. A tougher month awaits. First was OSScamp Pantnagar, then was the MozillaCamp (I will be talking about it in this post). Now, upcoming are OSScamp Delhi and OSScamp Chennai. But then, they are immense events in prospects and i do hope to get a lot of community support (unlike the previous times). It would be unfair to add that kudos to the Pantnagar student for the awesome camp they organised in their university. The only thing lacking in OSScamp Pantnagar was the absence of professionals. It was predominantly a student’s camp.

Now about the recent MozillaCamp – How and what of it. (And, I am sorry for writing this post so late)

It all began with a phone call I received from Mohak, when he introduced himself and his idea for MozillaCamp Delhi. The basic idea was that Arun and Seth were coming to India for Techkriti and GNUnify. Mohak talked with Mary Colvig at Mozilla and ensured that Arun and Seth spend a day at Delhi too. Problem was they’d be in Delhi on Tuesday the Tenth. And so started our endeavour to organise a technology unconference for working professionals on a weekday. If anything was supposed not to work, this was it.

Mohak’s first and foremost instruction to me was ‘meet me before you leave for Pantnagar’ and we worked on a number of issues related to sponsorships and venues on phone. Finally, we met for the first time at JIMS (Rithala), to scout it for a venue. In the meanwhile, I had got us our only sponsorship – from OSSCube (my company, but that doesn’t mean it was easy).

In the meanwhile, I also asked Yadu to design the visual assets for the camp and he did a splendid job. Mohak and his team of volunteers did a lot of running job to all sponsors, printers, and supporters. Mohak’s efforts on pre-event promotion paid of really well. But the event was on Tuesday and we had our doubts about the possible attendance. Registrations on the wiki were only about 150.

The biggest challenge for us was to find a venue at such a short notice. We shifted from JIMS (Rithala) to IIT Delhi to finally at Indian Social Institute.

Came Tuesday. Untill 11 only about 10 participants were on the venue. But soon, the hall was full with over 80 participants. It made a grand sight. Arun and Seth were to join us by around 2. So for the morning session, the participants were left at the mercies of me and Mohak. And we ran rampant! The morning session was a drag without any quality session and while breaking for lunch my main concern was – how many will return ?

Return they did from a not-sponsored lunch. (There was hardly any point in sponsoring it either – the venue didnt allow a caterer and their canteen sux). Then, we were joined by Seth and Arun and the rest as they say is history.

The first session was by Pascal Finette on the Concept Series by Mozilla Labs. He talked in length about what is the aim of Concept Series and how is it creatign a better Firefox and a better web. Seth, then, introduced us all to Mozilla and their efforts on Localisation. He discussed emerging issues and challenges in localisation over the web. Then the floor belonged to Arun who talked at length about the new and exciting things coming up in Mozilla Firefox 3.1, HTML 5, Video Tags, and Canvas. His sesion included a number of live demos and was very entertaining event for the non-geeks (a small section of the audeince).Soon it was 5:30pm and we had to wind up.

Mohak and I joined Arun and Seth, then, at the India Habitat Center for a short interview that I recorded for OSSCube, which basically discussed the emerging issues and challenges on the web.

You will find a lot of pictures from the event at: http://tr.im/gd3b and http://tr.im/gd3e
Videos will be uploaded soon at http://youtube.com/osscube . Keep watching that space.

This is not a poem, this is a philosophy.

Never tickle the sleeping panda
‘coz then the panda awakens.
The panda, then, feels hungry
and, the panda eats bamboo.
Then, there is not enough bamboo,
to make paper, and,
so there are no more books.

How will, then, you fall asleep?

I hopes you understand it (while i eats some caek)! :D

on my flight back home:

And I’m coming home now
It’s been so long now
Gonna get there somehow
Praying you’ll be there