Where are you..????

Where are you..????

If you’re living in India and you’ve inherited the habit of shifting your home sweet (?) home very often, you might have tackled this question to death. Do you have an address proof..??? Well, I can sense what most of the techno geeks would have imagined when I said address… But No…. I’m not talking about IP address..!!! It’s the residential address that I’m talking about. It’s a tragic irony that, in India, one can get your IP address more easily than your residential address. Kudos to India’s IT uprising..!!!!

You are almost nonexistent, if you do not have an address proof, in your name. You want a new SIM card, wanna buy a car/bike or open a bank account, or want to join driving school or least you travel in train, you need address proof. There are plenty of documents which you can use as address proof. Passport, Driving License, Voters card and any other Identity card issued to you by the government. I had all of them..!!! But the real twist in the tale began when I changed my residence. Read on.

It didn’t take much time to learn that to get my address changed, I need a proof. I first went to the Transport Department thinking it’s easy to get my Driving license details changed. But they said they wanted a proof that you’re living in current address. Oh man..!!! They seem to have forgotten that we cannot have a proof until they issue one.. What a Paradox..??

And getting my voters card changed was almost impossible because there were no elections at that time. (FYI, Election commission works only when there is an electionJ). Dejected, I went back to the transport department with one of my home phone bill I had. But again, my application was rejected. I almost fainted for the “compelling” reason they gave me this time. Since the phone was in my Dad’s name, they politely requested me to get a proof to say that the person on this bill is your “DAD”…!!!!!!

I had one last chance. The Big daddy of all the Identities. My Passport. But this time I did my home work properly. I checked over the internet for all the possible proofs that I could give them. Bank’s credit statement was one among them. This became my silver lining. Bank agreed to change my address in their database if I got an address change letter from my employer. This is the only proof I got without much efforts. BIG thanks to Accenture..!!!

I had to take an appointment online and wait for my turn to come. I eagerly waited for my “First Date” with the passport authority. The date arrived and I submitted my request. I reached home thinking I’m a legally certified resident of my HOME..!!! Yippieeeeee. I wanted to tell the world I have an address proof. I wanted to post it on Facebook..!!!

I came home with a huge, enormous grin on my face. With a great deal of enthusiasm, I stepped into dad’s room to tell what happened. No sooner had I opened my mouth to tell “Dad I got my addr…..” than I heard my dad say “Son, we are shifting to our own HOUSE, next week. Start packing your stuff…!!!!!

Needless to say, the rest is history.. !!!J J J. Well, every experience is a lesson and every loss is a gain. This is when it occurred to me

“Sometimes it’s more important to know where you are than who you are”

The Gyan, the Guru and the Google.

In olden days, I believe life was much more than just beautiful. People learnt things by trading their ideas. Thus the communication started to nurture as exchange of thoughts, opinions and views. But look at the impact. It was awesome. The idea of sending a sonnet to your loved one written on a papyrus with a pigeon as a messenger (pigeon is not any communicator software!!!) just fascinates me, even today. What an idea sirjee..???

As we evolved and progressed, in every domain, we had GURUs who possessed great knowledge and who used it to guide others and help them excel. Yes..!! We had SMEs called GURUs, who were educators and communicators. As the GURUs evolved, the mastery and the wisdom of a Guru was communicated to his/her followers. Even though the exchange of ideas stopped as we tried to widen our horizon, the Gyan was transformed thru Gurus. Dig through the history and we can certainly find many illustrations of gyan Gurus.

Today we have readymade knowledge available at our fingertips. With Internet, Smartphones and Wi-Fi, we have instant information in hands, no matter where we are. Thanks to technology. But are we smart enough to use it in the right way? Or has the technology outsmarted us..?? Experts quote this situation as the perfect example of paradox. Unknowingly We’ve become fanatics of Facebook. Or in reality, haven’t we made internet our inadvertent GURU...??

There are folks who go berserk when internet connection is down, people who use GPS to go to a restaurant downtown and friends who get headaches if they don’t tweet. Is it the technology that has done this or is it the way we’ve accepted it..?? Just think over and you’ll have your answer.

Don't be misled by hype, buzzwords and surrender yourself to technology. Don't deviate from your life’s game plan because of some newest and hottest technology. Remember, technology is only meant to boost your life’s game plan, not replace it or compete with it. There are and there will remain some things which Google can never answer..!!!

India and the “र”

India and the “र”

It’s not just about symbology when a nation is in search of a symbol for its currency. Having a unique symbol for the nation’s currency is a pride for the nation, an exclusive rank and above all, a new beginning in the trading arena.
From ages, India has been using the characters “RS” to denote the Indian currency. Though many countries have Rupee as their currency, the need for a specific symbol for Indian rupee did not become visible because, other than India, very few “RUPEE” nations were part of the international trade. After partition, Pakistan also started using rupee and as time passed, countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal entered the league and it became a necessity for India to have a currency symbol of its own.
With this, Government of India launched a campaign to create a symbol for the Indian Rupee. Finally five symbols were shortlisted and one among these would be picked up as the Symbol for rupee.


After so much of rummage, finally the cabinet ministry approved the symbol as the Rupee symbol for Indian currency. The new rupee sign is a fusion of Devanagari letter “र” (starting letter of Rupee in Hindi) and English letter “R” without the vertical line). It is also said that the 2 horizontal parallel lines are marked as the reference to the tri color flag of India. But it is noteworthy that in international trade, currency symbols are not used. Instead a unique currency code is issued to every country and that is being used. E.g. INR for Indian Rupee, USD for USA Dollar, EUR for the Euro and so on.

We’re already catching a glimpse of this beautiful logo in most of the national dailies and price tags of various products in the market. Very soon will be globally recognized symbol. We neither will be using this in our day to day life nor its gonna make any difference to us, but its every Indian’s responsibility to appreciate all the good thing that happen to us. A great person has said “"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."
Let’s take some time to welcome this beautiful, flawless s character to the world. Let’s hope it brings good luck with it and help India battle all its problems.

Me, Myself and iPhone

Everyone falls in love and Gadget freaks are no exception. Gadget freaks fall in love in a way too quickly and often. For the simple reason that it is not every day that a cute gadget will come into market and blow your senses away. That’s exactly what happened to me.
I know I am too late. But all these days I hadn’t had a chance to explore this wonder gadget. By chance one of my cousins had come from Singapore with this stunningly beautiful piece of equipment. The moment I had iPhone in hand. BAAM…! I was in love with it….!!!! I had seen so many Nokias, Blackberrys and Samsungs. They all were phones.. Just phones. Nothing, absolutely nothing stood in front of this beauty. It was Love @ first sight for me. The feel of it, its quality, design and the features it offered... Oh man..! I was on cloud nine. The more I explored about iPhone, the more I wanted to own one. Such was the impetus of it. But in India, I had to shell out 42 grands to buy iPhone. “42K for a phone..??? Come on dude...” I was not able to digest the price tag of 42000!
Apparently I came across a piece of writing on an iPhone blog which said that you can purchase it in United States, break the contract legally and take it back home. This kept my iPhone hopes alive. As a last resort, I asked one of my buddies in Reston to see if he can get an iPhone from there. Deal was struck. I dreamt of iPhone round the clock. I even installed iTunes on my PC. (I Can’t believe, but YES I did that). I couldn’t wait to see an iPhone in my hand. My life was easier when Apple and blackberry were only fruits!!!!
But fate had something else in stores for me. The iPhone’s firmware was upgraded to 3.1.3 that was yet to be hacked (Meaning, I can’t use it in India..!!!!). You don’t know how it feels when a gizmo doesn’t live up to your expectations. It’s like your gal turning down your proposal saying you are not romantic. It’s like doing exceptionally well in the exams and you don’t see your name in the topper’s list. When I learnt that iPhone’s firmware is upgraded, my heart choked, my lungs blocked and dreams shattered. Is this what is called paying heavy price for love..??
All of a sudden my nokia 6233 seemed to be the best phone in the world. My cursing of Mr. Steve Jobs for upgrading the firmware continued for next 1 week. Hearing about drawbacks of iPhone had a pleasant impact on my ears and soothing effect in my brains. And for obvious reasons, now iPhone doesn’t interest me anymore.
It was a lesson learnt for me. Though iPhone ditched me, I thought that my story of iPhone is worth a share for the reason that in a way it holds good for our living as well. With this incident I realized
“You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with what you have"