Reflections of a restless eccentric

Today, I choose to narrate one of the scariest incidents of my life, which after a year has gone by, seems less scary and more humorous. :) On a day which started as normally as any other, I found myself alone at home. My day began at 5a.m, and I headed to work after having breakfast. Work was as hectic as always, and around lunch time, I felt the weird sensation of a skipped heartbeat. The most likely first question in your mind, as so many others asked me during that time is this: how does a skipped beat feel? This was what it felt like to me: I felt my heart suddenly thudding into life, and realized that it had stopped for a teeny tiny second, for the space of a beat. The first time this happened, I attributed it to a one-off anomaly and shrugged it off. I was a healthy young person who'd just turned 25, and had no cardiac history. Then, in less than half an hour, I felt the same thing happen again. This time, I took it a little more seriously. I tried to remember if I'...

My regular readers will recall that I mentioned in my previous article that I'd be writing about re-framing and story building. Here comes that post! My previous post was intended to be an example of cognitive restructuring-- I narrated the same story with two diametrically opposite points of view, and you could see the humongous difference that made. For anyone who wants to read that, here's the link . I'd been thinking of calling this re-framing, but there's a technical term for it in psychology, and I'm going to use that here: Cognitive restructuring. All jargon aside though, I'm only trying to convey the importance of perspective . When I started out writing on this blog, more than 3 years ago, my very first hello world post was on perspective and how it can magically change things. I am of the same opinion today, but my thoughts have been distilled into a clearer and more articulate version now.  One morning a couple of months ago, I was scrolling ...

A Vtable is like an apple in the mirror.No matter how appealing it looks,you can't eat it You just can't trust programmers to free their pointers. Talking face to face with people about a book is social.Putting a face and a book together is not.In fact,in many ways it's anti-social. More to come.Watch this space if you like what you're reading!

So I've come across someone who has a fascination for the etymology of everything--which spans across multiple languages--Greek,French,Arabic,Urdu,Hindi,Latin,German to name a few.I find him fascinating--listening to him is a privilege.( Although most of what he says goes over my head:P) What he talks is distilled wisdom.Really rare to come across such people.Original.I don't think I can find what he says anywhere:P He's witty and his analogies are unique enough to bring out the quote fanatic in me:P So from today I'm going to be officially quoting him.I'll also be quoting some of the things he quotes:D "Hardware is software frozen too soon"-- I love this one.I don't know who said this but it's amazing. Let's move on to what he says in class: I never put bullet points in slides.The students understand everything in class.But,they go home and the bullets kill them. Don't worry about exams.They're just events in your life.Like...

I suck at sketching,but at one point I was fascinated by mehendi.When I started out most of my attempts were disastrous,with the added disadvantage that the damn thing would stay for a week at least:P--gradually,I got marginally better and it became a part of my life.In fact,at one point it was a good stress-buster.The moment some set of exams ended,I'd pick up a cone and be lost in the world of designs:) Sigh! That used to feel amazing.It's been more than a year since I've done that and sometimes I have the feeling that I never will again. So,here's to all those days of joy--what I'd get was definitely not perfect but I think it is worth preserving for the sake of it.And since organizing pictures is getting more impossible by the day,I guess I could put them up here.If you happen to like them,do let me know:) I'd be happy--more like convinced that I'm not putting up total crap:P Also,you can see the evolution of phone cameras in the pictures:D I apolog...

My friend got around to writing about all of us and our opinions on love coz, well, it's that week which is akin to Christmas for florists,chocolate and teddy bear manufacturers:P By the way,a decade ago I distinctly remember none of this madness existed--it was just a day.Maybe the aforementioned companies were going through their balance sheets at the end of the fiscal year and after noticing the enormous spike on this insane day,some whizkid PR guy must have been like-- "Hey,why don't we publicize this for a week? That way we'll make ten times more money.Hmm,let's see.We'll call one of these days chocolate day.And another Teddy Bear day.And we'll come up with cheesy silly names for the rest of the days too.How does that sound?"   His manager ponders this skeptically : "But do you think people will buy it?" "Course they will.Anything that gets forwarded to them on whatsapp(or whatever was the equivalent back then:P) ten times sounds t...