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Music.. Never thought of anything other than Rock in last couple of years. Its been only Rock. I’ve become an ardent fan without my own knowledge. Listening to stuff like Led Zep all the time. My iPod 160 GB classic (Silver), which I’m really proud of has close to 25 gig of bootleg Rock music. Ohh not all.. I bought some of em.. I never listen to music on my phone(iPhone 2g) though. I rarely look at my iPod app in my phone. Recently my roomie a big fan of iPhone took my phone and synced it to his iTunes album with a good mix of Hindi songs and some good old melodies like Roxxette. I’d no knowledge of this secret operation. And then suddenly today when my iPod’s battery truned red after playing for more than 30 hours, I had to use my phone for feeding my ears. And it was an eye opener. While I cannot give up Rock, its really been a long time since I last listened to Briyan Adams, one of my long time favs in college days. Also found songs from t.A.T.u., Duran Duran, Madonna, Mandy Moore and Belind Carlisle. I couldn’t believe my eyes the way they were organised with proper Album art and the way you can scroll/flip/touch them using coverflow really made me smile. Some of it sound a bit gay.. 
I mean when did you last listen to some tunes from the movie Kasoor. Haven’t watched the movie myself, but I would say the songs were beautiful. I found one today. [GRIN] Also found sound tracks from some of my favourite movies like the Rocky series and Top Gun. Suddenly a feeling of happines has come over me in the midst of all these depressing news/stories around, reminding of the good old college days. I miss those days.
Talks about the recession have spread all over the world. The media is going frenzy every single day over the same issue. Everyday I read news about another country going into recession. The US and the UK seem to be the worst hit. And of course as always the effects are being felt here in India too. People who’re employed also seem to be cutting down on spending, while the govts in the developed countries are encouraging people to spend more amid job cuts. In fact, recently when I was going to buy a new MacBook, I called up one my best friends who’d returned from the US to inquire about the price of the notebook. However, I was astonished by his reaction to the fact that I was buying a new MacBook when there are people who don’t have enough to eat. He was just back from California which probably has been one of the worst hit by the recession with photos of closed down shops printed on every news paper. India probably is the only country where the effect of the recession has not been so severe. Yes I know about these IT companies firing employees showing absurd reasons. Some other industries too are busy shedding some “Fat”. In fact, I being employed in this so called Indian Information Technology industry, can feel the wave of nervousness around the office corridors, while the companies are still making tons of profit and also declaring them quite proudly in their quarterly reports. Sometimes I just wonder about things happening around me and force myself to the conclusion that probably my brain is not yet properly equipped to understand all the dynamics of this complex world. May be I don’t want to. I still have fond memories of the Birmingham beer festival last year, when I was sipping ale lazily. In fact, as I write this blog I’m wearing the CAMRA t shirt I bought, perched lazily on my cozy office chair on a Friday afternoon. I guess its doing the job of providing me with inspiration, to follow my dream and open a bar of my own, where I can serve beer to people over rock music and may be, crack a joke or two..
Life is a screwed up thing. This world is a screwed up place too. I feel like giving up everything and go on a long vacation to Goa. May be, then work as a coast guard; certainly not inspired by Baywatch but I’d have the luxury of playing in the sea, all day long. It may so happen that I’ll get sick of it too. Change seems to be quite a part of life and so is our human nature resist it. In the last two months I’ve traveled more than 12,000 KMs, lived in many differenct places scattered across different time zones and geographies. Of course it’s taken its toll on me. One moment I find myself listening to Led Zeppelin and the next moment I switch to Sheryl Crow!! I feel like quitting everything. But again I see all the air-conditioned sedans on the road while I breathe diesel hanging from an auto-rickshaw. I see people suffocating inside the wooden buses of West Bengal Surface Transport corporation with sweat dripping down their every visible organs. Then I also see men in their Lungis pulling rickshaws breathing the same diesel. It makes me sad. While I feel sad about all this shit, people hanging from buses and auto rickshaws stare at my nine inch long hair tied up neatly behind my neck into a ponytail. Some of them giggle at it too. Then I find myself in a little cubicle staring at a computer screen, going through what seem like never ending lines of code, which of course I’ve lost every interest in, since a long time back. But I stare at it because I get paid for it! Boy, now I sound like a phoney, whom I hate the most. Now I’m starting to hate myself.
Boy. Was I crying. Am I drunk? All I feel like doing is reading some books and drinking goddamn JD.. I’m in the free pool these days. Well, otherwise known as the “BENCH” in the I.T. industry. I might get a pink slip anytime. But u know wot; I don’t give a shit. All I wanna do is read some good books and listen to Led Zep and all!! Boy, I hate those phonies at office..
Got up at 6.05 AM. Saw the sun and felt the cool breeze of the morning. Had my breakfast. All this after a grueling period of more than 1 year. I feel like a human again!
Just finished a bottle of white wine. Feels good. Probably was the best time I’d in last week. A week of sleepless nights working for American clients. Had to attend a team treat after a sleepless night on last Saturday. An entire week of screw ups and big tasks. Don’t know why such weeks come and where from.. Spent the Friendship day without any friends and watching Friends whole day. Had sent a Friendship day plus Good night SMS to couple of friends in the day without properly reading it. Even sinfully planned to tell them that I’d actually sent it in the mid night but somehow reached their cell phone around noon!! Fortunately no one called to tell me about this blunder; probably because they didn’t want me to get embarrassed. Could be just they have also failed to notice it in there busy life. Anyway, probably these things are coming to and end in next couple of weeks. Just waiting for those days hopefully…
A lot of people in this world use the term “Hacking” to refer to some kind of crime involving computers. Which is absolutely BULLSHIT. Hacking is not actually a crime. A person needs to have very high degree of programming expertise to be called as a hacker. All cyber crimes are actually committed by “Crackers” and “Script kiddies”. They are not real hackers. They just download information and softwares from the internet posted by real hackers to cause mischief. The real hacker hungers for knowledge. They analyze operating systems, softwares to find out vulnerabilities in them. They don’t do it for money. The following is a text written by famous hacker guru “The Mentor” on January 8, 1986. Have look..
—– Start —-
Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager
Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”…
Damn kids. They’re all alike.
But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950’s techobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?
I am a hacker, enter my world…
Mine is a world that begins with school… I’m smarter than most of
the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me…
Damn underachiever. They’re all alike.
I’m in junior high or high school. I’ve listened to teachers explain
for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms.
Smith, I didn’t show my work. I did it in my head…”
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike.
I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it’s because I
screwed it up. Not because it doesn’t like me…
Or feels threatened by me…
Or thinks I’m a smart ass…
Or doesn’t like teaching and shouldn’t be here…
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They’re all alike.
And then it happened… a door opened to a world… rushing through
the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is
sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought… a board is
found.
“This is it… this is where I belong…”
I know everyone here… even if I’ve never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again… I know you all…
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They’re all alike…
You bet your ass we’re all alike… we’ve been spoon-fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak… the bits of meat that you did let slip
through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We’ve been dominated by sadists, or
ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.
This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek
after knowledge… and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.
I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual,
but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.
+++The Mentor+++
—- End —-
It’s 2 O’clock in the night. I’m sitting in the confines of my cubicle behind many layers of access protected autodoors. I’m working on some damn assignments. I’m the eye witness to end of each stale day and beginning of each new fresh day. Yeah!! You have guessed it right! I’m a so called IT professional. I’ve been put in night shift since last week. My body cycle has completely been reversed. I sleep during tha day and rarely see the sun. I used to have lunch together with friends. We used to chat during the coffee breaks. But these days I roam around the campus alone like a ghost. I haven’t even spoken to many of my friends since last several days because of the time difference. Of course I do get paid extra bucks for it. What the hell u do with that extra money. Some of of friends even talk about my good luck (Extra bucks). But they dont realize, the things that I miss for few extra bucks are priceless. Really pricelesss….
Today is Bapu’s happy birth day. Yeah!! I admit it’s been copied from the Hindi movie “Lage raho munnabhai”. This is a national holiday in India. But, not for some unfortunate fellows like me. Well, I’m not a supporter of Mr. Bapu or his principle of “Ahimsa”, but the only thing that I need is a day off. But, I had to come to office. When I reached here today I found nothing but few security guards roaming around and also few dogs. The building where I work can accomodate upto 500-600 people. But, only 8-10 were to be seen today. Most of my friends went watch movies and some went for shopping. But I came to office to work on something called a GODAMNED holiday shift. I had no work to do. All I did in the whole day was Orkutting, Googling and finally now writing something in this f**king blog. Again to boost up my frustration level, when I visited the canteen to have my breakfast, I found it to be only partially open. The only items that were being served were some fucking South Indian food. DOSA. IDLY. FUCK!! Again, in such a large canteen I found only 3-4 men. Even the man who was serving food at the counter had nothing to do. He was fiddling with the “Sambhar” with a spatula making a noise similar to one you hear when a flock of birds feed on grains. The taste of these foods makes me sick. Still I had to eat. I had nothing to do. Still I had to sit in my cubicle. I never thought before that a holiday can be so frustrating….
