Truth Value

My Truth may be factually incorrect yet it represent my true opinion and thoughts.

Absolute Truth

Brain is the hardware on which the software called mind create a virtual reality, each instance of the mind has its own world view. Everything is relative and nothing is Absolute. There is no absolute Truth, and those who believe in absolute Truth within their world view are absolutely mistaken.

क्रोधः (Anger)

क्रोधः कलेदति क्रोधिनाम्
Anger consumes the angry

Pinky and Squeaky

This is a story I wrote 0n 17th Nov. 2003, as my reaction to The Pinky campaign against BPO.
Pinky and Squeaky
Once upon a time, in the London Zoo lived a cute chubby little pink baby elephant called Pinky. She was the Queen's favorite pet. Pinky loved cheese and used to travel the zoo 's maize every day dancing and prancing around enjoying her favorite cheese, which came from the milk off the beefy fat cow, called Maddy.

Many visitors used to come to see Pinky traversing the maize and romping around enjoying Maddy's cheese. Pinky enjoyed living blissfully in the zoo, ignoring the fact that everyday there was less and less of Maddy's cheese in the maize.

Foxy the sly old fox, lived in the forest near the zoo, but not being the zoo's inmate nor being the Queen's pet, his staple food was not guaranteed. He too lived off the visitors of the zoo, but a little humbly. Foxy used to scurry the waste bins for the leftover food, discarded by the visitors. Off late Foxy noticed less and less food in the waste bins, but unlike Pinky, he was concerned.

Everyday early in the morning, Foxy would scavenge the bin and feel sad about the diminishing supply of food. He often wondered the reason behind it. Was is that the visitors had become thrifty and wasted less food? Or, was it that there were less and less visitors every passing day? Foxy often wondered.

Finally one day Foxy decided to consult Pundit, the wise old owl, who lived in a nearby barn.

Foxy took some juicy leftovers to Pundit when he went to see him. It was dusk and Pundit was just about waking from his day long slumber.

Knock, knock! “May I come in, sir?” asked Foxy, standing at the barn door. Adjusting his peepers, Pundit saw his old friend standing outside, with some nice smelling discarded foodstuff. “O Hi! Foxy, please do come in, you are most welcome in my barn.” Said Pundit warmly.

Foxy presented Pundit with the nice juicy leftover foodstuff, which they both relished. They chatted about many small things; Finally, Foxy brought about the subject of the diminishing leftovers. “Hmm...” said Pundit after a long pause. “I too, was wondering why the rats are not as fat as they used to be. Now that you tell me, I know why!”

After a brief discussion, Pundit too concluded that there could be only two reasons. Either, the visitors had become more environmentally aware and wasted less foodstuff or there were less visitors. Pundit asked Foxy to investigate. As per the plan, Foxy would count the visitors everyday and they would meet again after a fortnight to discuss the statistics.

For the next fifteen days, Foxy hid in a nearby bush, and counted off the visitors.

Foxy and Pundit met again as decided, to discuss the results from the study. After, tallying the data collected by Foxy, Pundit found that the visitors number were indeed diminishing! Foxy then narrated how he had overheard the zoo keepers grumbling that they had got no bonus this year as the zoo was getting less visitors. Foxy had also overheard a few visitors discussing how Pinky was less entertaining as she had become complacent.

“Only Pinky can help us!” cried Foxy. “Why should she?” drawled Pundit, “Her food is guaranteed by the virtue of being an honored guest of the Queen.” They pondered a while, and then Pundit said: “You are right Foxy! Only Pinky can help us” then he thoughtfully added, “Lets go and talk to her, maybe we can fix the problem.”

So, early next morning, Foxy slid past the zoo gates to see Pinky. And, offcourse he brought along some leftovers from the waste bin, to Pink as a gift.

Pinky was fast asleep, dreaming of some tasty Maddy's cheese, when suddenly her long nose twirled and her stomach churned from a nasty smell of garbage.

She lazily opened one eye, to figure out the source of her distress. She kept the other eye closed, in the hope of keeping her dream alive!

She saw a tattered thin fox, grinning from side to side and holding some discarded foul smelling foodstuff. This annoyed her grandly and she was now widely awake; her cheesy dream vaporized!

“Hi! I am Foxy, I have come to see you and brought you some tasty food. A very good morning to you, Ms Pinky.” said Foxy meekly.

Pinky was very cross: “Keep the smelly garbage away from my nose, and you just ruined my wonderful dream!” Her rude words wiped away the smile from Foxy's face. He hid the foodstuff behind him, not wanting to throw away a really tasty treat.

“I am sorry to wake you up, but Ms Pinky, I am here on behalf of all those who are in the business of living off the visitors to this zoo.” Foxy tried to be as polite as possible, given Pinky's rude behavior. “ I would like to discuss with you the study we conducted to figure out the reasons behind the falling number of visitors.”

Pinky's cheeks were now cherry red in anger. How beautiful she looks even when she is angry, admired Foxy.

Pinky screamed: “count me out of this. First I am not in any business. I am her Majesty's subject and all of the Maddy's cheese is my birth right! I am not here to entertain any visitors. If they come to see my grace they are welcome, else they can stay at home.”

Foxy looked confused: “But does the cheese not come from the money collected from tickets sold to visitors?

Pinky rebuked Foxy, “My cheese is secured so why should I bother about Her Majesty's coffers?” adding insult to injury, “Or for that matter, I am least concerned about the business people, living off the garbage bin. Yuk!” Pinky nearly puked by the very thought of some urban wild animals eating out of the garbage bins.

Foxy tried to persuade Pinky: “Dr. Hook says that, there is only one step from the jungle to the zoo. So better watch out, for they are going to get you too!”

Hearing Foxy sing the “Jungle and Zoo” song, Pinky rebuked him by saying: “Get your songs right, fox. This song was a warning for the tigers in the jungle and don't you try to scare me by quoting old songs out of context.”

Foxy pleaded desperately, “Its time for a reality check! There is a big wild world outside your cozy zoo. Your time will soon be up if you do not perform. Either you keep moving your own cheese or someone else will move your cheese.” Foxy then added after a pause, “and then you would ask: Who Moved My Cheese?” (with apologies to Dr. Spencer Johnson).

Pinky had enough of the tattered fox, “Stop casting spells, and off with your moving cheese philosophy. I would rather live in the Harry Potter's World than in a ratty maize.”

“But my dear, you do live in a maize!” pleaded Foxy.

Pinky: “Enough is enough, good bye and good luck...” then with a slight sneer she added, “...scavenging the bins.”

“Good Bye and sorry for the bother.” and thus left the fox.

Meanwhile, having started the day on a wrong note, Pinky was in a foul mood. She huffed and hawed and grumbling as she went towards the cheese station. Pinky stuck out her tongue out to the visitors and even gave a small but rude demonstration to register her protest.

Finding her behavior inappropriate, most of the visitors left. This left the garbage bin empty.

That night Foxy had to go hungry, but for the gift he had kept back, which Pinky had thankfully refused.

Foxy; dejected as he was, he did not loose hope. He went to meet the wise owl, Pundit, to work out a solution.

Pundit had also been thinking of alternatives to increase the number of visitors to the zoo. His fair share of supply of rats, also depended on the leftovers by the visitors. As Foxy came to see him, Pundit remembered of Squeaky, the computer mouse who lived in the Cyberland. Foxy listened to Pundit, as he shared his experience on how Pundit had met the humble electronic mouse in the Cyberland.

Pundit looked far away and said, “I once went surfing and got lost in the deep expanses of the tera bytes of the Cyberland. It was a strange virtual world, a world within this world. Just like our own world, it had many nice netizens doing many good things. I had a strange feeling of it being conscious of our own world.”

With a clouded looks he continued, “But, just like the reality, it too has a fair share of pirates and hackers. Not to mention the viruses and the worms.”

“It was when I had been attacked by a worm and I was surrounded by countlessly popping up windows, that my saviour appeared and she guided me to the safety.

But for her I would have been buried under the burden of the spam or would have been washed away by the flood of mega bytes generated by the evil worm.”

“But don't you thrive on mice?” Foxy quized Pundit.

Pundit smiled: “Oh! Pardon me, I forgot to mention that Ms Mouse was an electronic device and not the types we eat for dinner.” and added, “She does not even eat our food, she thrives on electricity and that too of just five volts!”.

Pundit added zestfully, “I have already texted Squeaky and she is on her way to meet us.”

Both eagerly awaited the arrival of Squeaky, and were soon rewarded by a squeaking sound of Ms Mouse arriving from the distant land called the Cyberland. After, the initial exchange of polite greetings, they got down to discuss the situation at hand.

Foxy found Squeaky to be friendly but he had a bit of a trouble understanding her speech, due to her strange ascent. But Foxy knew that he will get used to it and Squeaky's ascent would also change over a time.

As the night fell, Pundit showed Squeaky around the zoo and she found herself a cozy serial port to charge and rest for the night. She knew a busy and fruitful day lay ahead.

Foxy, too after a long time took some time out to say a little prayer before retiring for the night.

Pinky jolted up from her slumber, woken up by what appeared to be visitors clapping excitedly. She wondered what excited the visitors? A faint zipping sound floated in the air as if a micro Hoover was moving about the maize. She decided to check it out herself.

What she saw horrified her. A strange looking mouse like creature was zipping around her maize eating up all her cheese. She was too dazed to display any emotion. There she was standing frozen watching an alien take away her food and her job!

Pinky had always been scared of mice and now even more so by a strange looking at that! Look at its long tail, and goodness gracious! It moves not on legs but on a ball?

As Pinky stood looking over the maize, the crowd ignored her completely. She turned violet in a mixed emotion of rage, envy and disgust. Suddenly she noticed that there was far lesser cheese in the maize, than it used to be. She was now sure that the strange creature was responsible for the low supply of the Maddy's cheese.

Furious and hungry, she first tried demonstrating to public to make them aware of her plea and stop them from being entertained by Squeaky.

When it did not work, she scampered to Geeky, the cool cat. “There is a mouse in my maize, and it is eating away all my cheese!”, She pleaded to Geeky, “So, get up and chase the mouse away, or better still eat it!”.

Keeping a stiff upper lip, the Royal Blue cat said: “Calm down my lovely lady in pink! I am profoundly aware of the new guest in the zoo. But don't worry,I did check it out. It is not a real mouse. It is an electronic device, having a mind of its own. It lives in a far away virtual world called the Cyberland. It can not eat your cheese.”

He then crossed his eyebrows and said, “Just to keep the records straight, my dear lady, I am a respected denizen of the zoo. A special guest of Her Majesty the Queen. My food comes straight from Tesco, and unlike my cousins in the wild urban lands, I do not have to chase mice for a living.” Then with a slight of contempt he added, “Neither do I relish, jumping around the maize, creating a scene in front of the visitors to this zoo. Running the maize, is below my dignity and eating mice below my stature.”

Pinky turned deep pink in embarrassment on being rebuked by the cat. But she was not convinced by what Geeky had to say about this strange looking mouse. Partly so, because of the tone and the accompanying rebuke.

Over the next few days she rallied and demonstrated around the zoo, trying to put her point across, but in vain.

Then a few days later, forgoing a few tasty meals of Maddy's cheese, she felt that she had to herself sort the things out. Not that she was hungry, she was well fed by Her Majesty's officers, the keepers of the zoo.

She was afraid that the creature might have devoured all the tasty cheese. Though she was afraid of mice, but she put her fear aside in order to fight; to get back, what was and had always been all hers.

Determined to get over her fear of the foe, she peeped over the maize. To her surprise, rather than an empty cheese station, she found the maize overflowing with cheese!

“Must be trap.” She thought, “I must move in and stamp out the menace.” She stepped into the maize trying to track down the mouse. As she moved about, she bumped into a few days old Maddy's matured cheese. “Hmm, do they taste good!” she rejoiced aloud as she tasted some of it. And then some more.

Noticing the same vining sound, she turned around to see the strange creature approaching towards her. Momentarily, she froze in fear, then as if by instinct she started to run away. The strange mouse chased her.

Soon the creature, caught her over. Pinky froze with fear of the approaching foe and also partly due to exhaustion. Pinky winced as the mouse pounced on her. “Gotcha!” squeaked Squeaky “Its your turn now to catch me.”

Squeaky noticing beads of sweat around Pinky's forehead, and remarked: “Looks like someone's exhausted. Have some rest and we shall play again.” Squeaky offered Pinky an introduction, “Hello, Pinky I am Squeaky from the Cyberland. I know all about you.”

Pinky frowned, “what do you know about me, and who told you so?”

Squeaky elaborated, “Foxy did, he told me that you are the star of the zoo and the prime reason for the people to visit this zoo.”

Pinky blushed: “Am I?” She looked around, fluttering her eyelashes.

A large crowd had gathered around the maize and hearing them cheer, Pinky's spirits rose to new heights.

Pinky and Squeaky were friends now. They frolicked and romped around the maize. When Pinky was tired, Squeaky would bring her some cheese. And, when Squeaky got drained, Pinky would take her to the charging station, the serial port of the zoo's computer.

They focused on their own core competencies, adding value to each other.

Over the next few days, as the word went around, more visitors entered the zoo, swelling Her Majesty's exchequer as well as Foxy's food supply.

Over the time Squeaky improved her ascent in tune with that of Pinky's and the Geeky. Foxy could now understand her better.

Over the time, Pinky also changed. She was now far less arrogant and learned a few tricks like standing on her two feets and clapping with the crowd as Squaky zipped through the maize, collecting some Maddy's cheese for Pinky to eat.

She also learned Yoga from Squeaky, that kept her fit and trim.

As Pinky's stiff upper lip softened a bit, she learned to pick the peanuts offered by the visitors; which she had been studiously ignoring earlier.

The garbage bin also swelled with the countless visitors to the zoo. And Foxy and Pundit were getting fatter and complacent. Squeaky, then persuaded them to put up campaigns and posters to create awareness among the visitors to waste less and be more environmentally friendly.

What convinced Foxy and Pundit, to this apparent self destructive act of making the visitors to spend less, was the following mantra:

If you don't move you own cheese, someone else will!
(c) Ashish Banerjee, all rights reserved.

To learn XML unlearn legacy first

To those professionals who are working on legacy system and architectures and wish to learn the new next generation XML architecture, I recommend them to first bust their mental barriers. I have found the following books useful to clean up the rigid mindset and expand the programmers' mind-scape:

“Six Thinking Hats” De Bono

“Who moved my Cheese”

“Essays on Relativity” Albert Einstein

Wealth of Knowledge by Bhamini

Here is a Sanskrit shloka attibuted to Bhamini's Sabhatarangini:

न चोरहार्यं न च राजहार्यं न भ्रातृभाज्यं न च भारकारि।
व्यये कृते वर्धत एव नित्यम् विद्याधनं सर्वधनप्रधानं।।

It cannot be stolen by the thieves or the kings, nor can brothers divide it and it is burden less. Every time its is spent it grows. Knowledge is indeed the supreme wealth.
Sabhatarangini by Bhaamini

Five Components of a Religion

From an analytical framework viewpoint a region may be seen to have five components.

1. Rituals

2. Beliefs and Myths

3. Social Law and Order (including politics)

4. philosophy

5. Spirituality

All religions have a Manual (like Bible, Koran, Vedas) which cover mostly all the five aspects other than political structure, which is usually unstated.

मिथ्याचारी

प्रतिष्ठा लोभे येन प्रर्दश्यसि निष्ठा।
मिथ्याचार्स्य उच्यते।।