Archana Online.com

January 30. The day when the father of the nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was assassinated.

I remember this day from the school. At the assembly, on this day, we would be reminded to follow the silent standing ceremony at around 10 or 10.30 am. The bell would ring at an odd time in midst of the class period, and we would all stand for one single minute in silence to commemorate the assassination of Gandhiji. We considered this break a warm welcome to the same routine of the teaching. In those days, I don’t remember having a break in the morning session.

In the high school, we had to study full history and autobiography of Gandhiji, “My Experiments with Truth”, in the form of English-II subject. Though it was the edited or the simplified version, we had to study his whole life. It was interesting at some points, but from the point of view of exams, it was not. I even once wondered, if Gandhiji was not there, we would have escaped this subject etc!

When I was in school, I remember watching the film Gandhi, on either August 15th, January 26th or October 2nd. But I remember the school book rather than the film. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I was just going through the archives. I feel that I have reduced penning down my thoughts and feelings. Rather the short stories, movie reviews, articles, recent happenings are the topics I have been blogging off late.

There was a time, when I used to blog, when my mind blew out of the proportion with suffocating words and rants. For me, at that time, I never cared about the number of readers, or the traffic. I blurted out all my thoughts, sometimes directly or sometimes through analogy. I used to finish the posts within half hour or so, and without spell checking or re-reading the draft, I just published.

Now looking back, I feel those posts do have a personal touch and is more readable. Like the innocent outburst of a child. It worked, because things happened at that time. The race with time, the busy life schedule with many many things, the glimpses at various nook n corner of city life which gave spark to various thoughts and views.

I do not wonder what has changed. I know what has happened. And I know what should I do to change. But then, something is pulling me back. Maybe its the fears or the various choices available. The point of time when you feel like slapping yourself for the inability. The time when heart says lovingly to wake up, and when mind pushes it down with the lame and age-old excuses of practicality. The time when you await for your heart and the soul to win over the mind battle. The time when you await the death so that you could be re-born to a fresh life.

People say, time heals everything. It answers the strangling questions you have been asking in the early ages. But then, how do we wait for time until it heals or gives me the answers? Isn’t time running away? From me and from my life?

The vortex has knocked me out into the deep darkness of unconsciousness.

PS: This post too has been completed now within half hour. You do have it in you, when it wants to surmount you.

Barack Hussain Obama has been sworn in as the new President of United States on January 20th 2009. People all over the world are considering it as a sign of hope. Is it so?

I had not planned to watch the live telecast of Barack Obama’s oath. It just happened. The energy and inspiration in his speech was remarkable. I shamefully acknowledge that I knew nothing about the politics. But the few words I could translate from his speech to my mind and the emotional tears of the crowd gave me a vision of the hope and expectations of United States civilians on the new President. And I sincerely hope that their hopes do come true.

In overall, 2008 was a dreaded year, at least for India. There were the series of bomb attacks in various cities, and the Mumbai Taj attacks, for which the rift is still on between India and Pakistan. The year marked the economic recession which accelerated the job loss of many people which still continues. The blow up of Satyam fraud, in December, added to the heat. Read the rest of this entry »

It have been creeping inside me for a long while. Taking my attention away. Making me not able to concentrate anywhere else. It provoked me. I tried to avoid the tingling sensation it gave me every few minutes. I couldn’t ignore it. The pain was deepening. The morning was busy and hectic as usual. But it demanded me to sit down and take rest. I couldn’t. I started worrying whether my hubby would start asking what’s the problem is. How will I say to him? I am sure. He won’t understand it. Read the rest of this entry »

Technology has now stepped up in various ways. It has started influencing our day to day life in every possible way. We are getting addicted to internet off late. Atleast I am.

In the earlier ages, Yahoo and MSN dominated us with their chat rooms and then the messengers. The blogs and personal pages like Yahoo pages and Yahoo 360 and MSN spaces grew side by side.  Actually, the search of enhanced personal pages landed me in the world of blogs. Some say, though the world is growing, people are being worse. In handling their values, morals, and relations. But technology has geared up to teach us back the essence and need of being connected. The innumerous sites for social networking like the famous Orkut and Facebook and lesser known hi5, Friendster, Refriendz etc and the volume of registered members speaks it out. People are networking with each other and finding their lost friends and relations spread geographically over internet. Its as if the telecommunications has blended into the computer workstation. And the postal department has been almost replaced by emails and blogs. I wonder what would be the future. Read the rest of this entry »

..::.. Strange are those relations which are really apart though you remain virtually closer….And more strange are those relations which remain virtually closer to heart though really distant… My old friend came visiting yesterday at home. I was meeting her after more than a year. There were talks of getting married, and the emotional stress you go through. I was amazed at myself for surpassing those and wonderstruck at how I survived it and glad that its finally over… Maybe its the Rock On movie effect of re-living your dream, but the thoughts of relationships and their nature have got triggered in me again. But this time I am tired of thinking about them….

..::.. Nowadays I am online too much. As they say, I guess I got discomgooglation. I am disappointed at my inability to twitter or to write out my thoughts in the midst of something. Airtel GPRS is too costly sometimes to subscrbe when you have net at home as other alternative. I have wondered why I am twittering or blogging so much. I don’t think that I write out good content or shout out enough important links or site urls than anyone. Then why are we so glued to blogging or twittering(mini-blogging). There are people who are shy or introvert in real world, but can talk or write for long online. I guess I am one of those to shout to the world in the hope that some unknown is listening to my vents…

..::.. Lots of books to read are pending at the desk shelf. i don’t remember when I started to read, but now when I look back, I have been reading from childhood. Be it the children’s books of small picture stories to thrillers like Nancy drew and hardy boys to the current novels, I don’t know how I got wired to the world of words. Maybe its the effect of being at home alone, but until I moved out of my hometown and reached Chennai, I had never bought books. It had always been from the library. I remember the first book I bought. It was the Chetan Bhagat’s Five point someone. There started my tryst with IIT, which actually calls for a separate post. There were times of boredom when I couldn’t do anything but read, read and read. I didn’t mind spending huge amounts of money at those times to buy books from any bookstore nearby. Seeing my strange taste of books, rather than the thriller fiction, I have seen the strange look on my roomie’s face too. But then it was like that.. Recently to spent the gift voucher I received as marriage gift I was again forced to few books from Landmark. Not sure when I am gonna finish off all that…

..::.. Today was in really inspired mood to study new things. But alas, i couldn’t manage time. The ubiquity article and the Enso application inspired me again on various interfaces and brought me flashes of my college study topics reminding me of parsers, languages, interfacing and many other such things. The long browsing time has made me think of php, javascript, ajax, perl and other scripts, css, html, xml etc etc. What to do? Which way to go?

1. Had heard of tweet long before. But twitter I came to know just recently. The twittermania is spreading onto me. everywhere I am checking out whether people are twittering. There are other feeds like friendfeed n all, but I feel people likes to twitter more. There was the forums, technical and entertainment ones, and then new popular short aggravated social networking sites like orkut, facebook, myspace, hi5, linkedln, and many others, and then the weblogs or blogs from blogger and wordpress, and now the mini blogs or feeds!!! The new improvements in Internet world are remarkable. I guess the tagline of Nokia, “Connecting people” matches better with the world of Internet, if ever it needed an advertisement and a tagline. Now I have even tried out various twitter tools rebuild for firefox or browsers or in general as desktop apps. But everywhere they mention Adobe Air as system requirement. I checked it out and it seems an important part for executing any web application. Does that mean, like any other Adobe PS, Air has also been hitting various desktops and laptops these days? It seems there are many things to catch up for me in this net life.

2. Being at home is sometimes very boring, but it reminds me of old days. The times when I spent at home in Kerala. As mentioned, I am getting more and more used to the TV shows. Nowadays its hot masala shows like Koffee with Karan or Rakhi Sawant Showz or trailors and interviews and gossips from Zoom. Read the rest of this entry »

Its been long that I watched television serials or rather followed them keenly.

I still remember the pre-engineering days or holidays when I had nothing to do at home apart from attending entrance tuitions. I was booming into or outta my adolescence age. My favourite channels were the top notch hindi channels, including Star Plus, Sony TV, Zee Tv, and few others. And if I ever got bored I used to skip to some English ones too but just for a break. The timings were late in the afternoon say, from 2 to 4, and after a while it started as early as 12.30 and extended upto 5pm..! All the K-serials were part of my daily routine, and prime time ones were favorites of mom too… But I alone could watch the re-telecast of the episodes in afternoon, if we ever missed them at night. Of the English ones, I rarely saw the kid-doctor series and the wonder years in Star World aired from 4.30 to 5.30pm. They were stories of boys and girls of my age and why shouldn’t I like them and their experiences retold in the form of a series. I have forgotten almost the English series names and I am trying hard to revive those memories through my various searches in youtube. I caught hold of The Wonder Years, but not the brilliant kid who became doc at 16. The addiction at that age to anything you are gifted with, was clear now when I look back at those years.

Now, being at home full time, I am bestowed upon the full opportunity to view any and all, I don’t feel that urge anymore. Its as if the excitement has worn out. In all the almost three years I lived away from home, I have gone accustomed not watching tv, or movies. And especially not alone. Almost a similar phase, but at different time of life and at a different place. And you find the passion is not there. Is it the same for most of the desires?