Kabul

"But the game involves only male names. Because, if it's a girl, the name was already chosen". My eyes barely met with the penultimate word that it flirted with a news article on my computer screen. I sat numb with my eyes gouging into oblivion on account of two facts I conjured; Khaled Husseini is nothing less than a pied piper, Hope still seems to be too highly priced a dream for a desolation draped nation.

I was meant to be writing a book review on " A Thousand Splendid Suns" which is another class act from the author, but it would be unfair to constrict the vastitude of human misery defined in the book to be mere heart wrenching. What pains me the most is even after almost 40 years of endless wars and crimes on humanity, Afghanistan remains a blood sucking land and Kabul, a cradle of unfathomable miseries. I have never been to Kabul, but the novel teleports me from my plush mattress to the parched meadows, air conditioned coupe to sun stricken deserts. The endless times of endurance tests are beyond words and sometimes, it is hard to perceive the depth of adaptability cortex wound around human souls that transcends any emotional breakdowns and bypasses savage torture. Its unbelievable what a mass of flesh and bones can withstand in order to survive and realise its hopes.

I winced in pain when the protagonist embraced the lashes, silently wailed when mines chopped off the limbs. When I finally finished  the book, I had a sigh of relief that there will be no more EQ poking, a satisfaction of having read a wonderful piece and more importantly, the assuagement that  after all this is just a story and I just self-abased to pamper some one else's imagination. All of a sudden, when the news article that worded the brutal bombings at Kabul, struck my eyes, I knew; Beyond any veil of words of misery in a novel, beyond any magnifications by the media, there is truth in the pale story of Kabul, there is pain in every street which I might never see, but I feel it. A pain inflicted by humans on humanity with nature watching  silently as if incapacitated by its intensity. Many excuses tabled  and the burden being borne by mute ideologies which are being preached by purblind "saviours". I realise the triviality of my self assurance of existence, how obvious it seems to me that I will be alive tomorrow, how true is Maslow's hierarchy where the base level  meant nothing  more than an academician's delight to me.

But there are some painful similarities between me and a human embodiment in the land of hopes. He has learned to walk past the debris of bodies with indomitable calm, he has learned to sell his artificial leg for a meager meal, he has lost hope of seeing his kin and kith alive tomorrow morning. He has gained strength. I have learned to skim past the pages of truth with indomitable calm, I have learned to tread on others pain without a treble. I proudly claim, with an unashamed conscience, I can feign compassion.

The Kite Runner

My fascination for fiction is in its infancy and I am quite enthralled to tell you that I have been fortunate to read a gem which is termed as one of the best read in the last decade. 'The Kite Runner' is nothing but fascinating in every sense of word and beautiful beyond any bounds of tangible expression. As  I ran through the last words of the book, it was not a sense of  satisfaction that I had, but of a settled window pane that had quivered in a severe gust of wind, a satiable smile after having a ride on roller coaster of emotions.

The novel takes you through the parched lives of Afghanistan and the hardships people face to survive another day. Its an unparalleled caricature of  human story of Afghanistan with such depth and vividness that you cant tear yourself off the plot. The first hand narration of the protagonist makes you empathize the character  and your involvement to the whole plot bears an involuntary commitment.

Chanakya Chants

Its been a long time I have written a review on a book I read, the reason being successful pampering of my procrastination in ploughing out time for reading something worth. When you are happy cuddling on your idleness in life, it requires something spectacular to throw you into action and "Chanakya Chants" is nothing less than that. Its the latest novel written by Ashwin Sanghi of "The Rozabal Line" fame.

The novel starts with an old man, toiling for his last breaths at a hospital bed, watching, a woman getting sworn in as the prime minster, on television. The next chapter pulls you down the time line to some where around 500 BC when the King Paurus is brutally murdered by a female assassin. The novel is a blend of two stories occurring at different timelines but the theme being the same. The present time story has a man named Gangasagar Mishra as the protagonist who successfully thrones a poor village girl in the helm of the world's largest democracy. The second story which dates back to 500 BC or around when Vishnu Gupta alias Chanakya avenges his father's murder and in the process places Chandra Gupta Maurya as the Emperor of 'Bharath'. The novel in detail portrays the strategy carved out by both protagonists in taking their partisans to the zenith of political power. It explicitly mentions the shrewdness and diplomacy played out by both king makers in getting their jobs done.

One cannot stop admiring the precision with which Sanghi has spawned both threads and intermingled them throughout the novel in a delightful and gracefully discern manner. The novel glues to your palms from the first page and it requires quite an insensitive mental attire to even take a pee break in between. I would recommend this novel a must read for those who love political thrillers and also those who closely follow the Indian political scenario. Even though the author claims the book to be entertaining, rather than educative, I feel the second aspect has been well covered, given the depth with which the domain has been handled. Read it and conjure your wickedness :)

Chotu

Drenched in November rains, this morning appeared much colder than it usually is, that walking out in the streets without a sweater was implausible, at least an over coat is inevitable. I was in no mood to move out of my bed. But my belly would never agree. As always, I again 'deliberately' missed my breakfast today. I always believed that on holidays, ten in the morning is too early to rise from bed, but unfortunately, after ten, you can't find breakfast in any nearby restaurants. So, even though the clock had just ticked twelve, I decided that an early lunch would solve my belly's outcry. At half past twelve, I walked out of my apartment with my black khakis and a grey t-shirt that has been demanding a clean up for past few days. But thanks to my deodorants and perfumes, I completely suppressed the ever longing hope of my fabric.

The PRO who never voted

At this moment, when my thoughts are being draped in words, I hear rain drops pelting at the glass pane. I can feel its restlessness, it mirrors what I feel within. When the rains decided to drench a thirsty Bangalore night, I walk into the world of nostalgia, I trace back the steps form this moment to as far as I can go. The drizzle always have had the effect of a vodka in me. It burns in through my memory hole slowly and steadily like a vodka does through your throat. You never gulp vodka, you feel it.

Another hour from now, when people expect me to rejoice the moment which I consider trivial, I am reminded that whatever I do, wherever I am; I cant escape from the clutches of inevitable decay. I am growing on one side whereas at the other end, am decaying. Its been twenty four years since the unique moment when I cried and my mother smiled. At the penultimate hour of twenty three years since my first breath; the rain makes me skim through all those moments that I have shelved at various phases. The latest one that tickles my funny bone took place almost six months back.

Since I am a government employee, I am obliged to serve the country in various ways. But at the age of twenty three, I never ever imagined that I would have to conduct a poll. The heat of BBMP elections were at its peak and all the posters and banners ensured that none of the walls in Bangalore were spared. But, I was least bothered. To put it frankly, I have been an irresponsible cribbing citizen of this country who never casted a vote even though I had three chances. I never considered it worth enough to be a part of the democratic process, not that I dont believe in it, but my lethargy always surpasses my duties by yards. So BBMP elections were not even in my distraction list that could eat up a few minutes of my life. And all of a sudden, I came to know that I am appointed as the presiding officer (PRO) in a particular booth during this elections. My vocabulary fails to express the agonising moments I went through, the agony of a person who has never seen a ballot box and has to conduct the polls.

I had to attend a training session two days prior to the elections. Most of the sessions were in the domestic language and even the handouts conveyed the information in the same. Since the native language appeared nothing better than Greek to me, one can imagine what I would have learned during that day. The day before the elections, I reported at a school where I met my other "team members" (Polling officer and two assistants). Fortunately, they belonged to the same state and luckily for me, they could follow English. I thought I could communicate with the voters at the booth through these people. Finally, after a long wait, I was given the ballot box and other components. So there, I had my first rendezvous with the device that tracked a nation's destiny.

We moved on to our polling booth. It was already evening by then and even the twilight bid adieu while we arranged the room for the next day's election. I knew I had to fill up a hell lot of forms and so I pulled out the bundle of forms to fill them one by one. Once I went through the forms, I had a smile on my face. I realised, you smile only on two cases, either when you are satisfied, or when you are sad beyond reconciliation. None of the forms were in English, not even the numerals in the forms. I think my smile doesn't need an explanation now. My team mates sprang into action and they started filling out all the forms. I kept signing at various places where ever they asked me to. I had a face of helplessness, my destiny were in their hands. I spent a sleepless night. Tension crept in within me with every passing moment.

Next day, somehow I managed to start the elections on time; thanks to the various political party agents at my polling booth, they were very co-operative and in turn eased the pressure on me whereas they could have easily capitalised on my inexperience. At the end of the day , I thanked them for helping me out and then wrapped up the ballot boxes and other components along with all the forms and files. Then we moved on to the depositing area. I was shocked to see the scene there, it appeared more like a wrestling arena with people trying to dispose their ballot boxes soon and get off. I waited for my turn and after almost two hours, the ballot box and other items were taken from me and I was relieved. I thanked my team mates and then boarded the bus back to my house. I was feeling relieved and happy. On my way back, I had the rain to accompany my thoughts as I have now. I was thinking, maybe I am the first person in the history of Indian democracy who conducted an election even before casting his vote; "The PRO who never voted"

64 and Beyond

This Sunday morning had some peculiarities when I bring in other days into perspective. The first thing I noted was , I had my eyes wide open at 6 in the morning; I was having a stroll with my friend when I should be craving for warmth under my blanket. It would be hard to pick up another such day from the scrap of my memory when I was this unfortunate (Not that I was with my friend, but I was out of bed). Other than this trivial personal mini anecdote, the day was important as my country celebrated her 64th anniversary as a free state.

The Independence day had always given me reasons for joy at various phases of my life. During my school days, I never missed the session at school on this particular day. It was the thrill of getting a flag badge along with the sweets, once the programme was over, that enthralled me. All vehicles had the tricolours hung on them. I knew Prime Minister delivers a speech on that day, but I could never follow it since it always appeared boring and the words "development" and "harmony" were repetitive. Once I was at my college, Independence day meant I can either sleep at home or can watch a movie without having to sacrifice the attendance. The Prime Minister's speech was not even in my minds. I mean how many times can your ears buy a mere verbal distinction.

In the current phase, I am a pessimistic citizen who believes that nothing can be right. Some one rightly quoted," Everyone wants change, but none brings it by themselves". I am a pseudo well wisher of this nation who believes in a radical transformation of our administration system for the good, but prefer to find a seat in the audience. This sunday morning, I was no different. I knew there will be loads of talks on hopes and aspirations and future and finally by the end of the day, we remain where we are.

There is a KG school in my neighbourhood and the day's celebration was on with small kids dancing and singing. I thought this would be interesting and so, had my ears open to the activities running there. Thanks to my laziness , I preferred to 'stay and listen' rather than 'go and watch'. It was the turn of a boy to speak on Independence day. He began his speech in a loud voice which was blend with innocence. He kept speaking whatever he had memorised last night. I expected it to be another well polished set of un-perceived sentences from him. I could never have blamed him for that since he was too young to know what he was speaking.

My prejudiced perspective was jolted when I heard him say, "We need to save our country from terrorism". Even though he might not be knowing, what he meant, the statement had its impact on the audience including me. There are many things that hit my head when I heard that child throw out those bunch of words. The first thing was that I realised, how terrorism had become a part of our life that even a four year old kid mentions it. During my kindergarten days, the only "ism" I knew was mannerism, " Dont bite your nails, speak politely to people and bla bla..". But for current budding generation, there are more important terms and hard realities to catch up with, that what I learned during my kindergarten days are what they imbibe in nappy days.

Fifteen years back, our problems were mostly monotonic, we had to bring down poverty levels, stabilise the economy and bring in decent job opportunities for the youth; almost all of them were financial concerns. Now we have variants and sub variants of issues so vast and vivid that one sentence for each of them would make a good essay. We have to root out terrorism, sort out naxalism, dig out corruption and the list goes on...These thoughts kept poking me and all of a sudden, I had an interest to know what Prime Minister had to offer on this Independence day. As expected, he touched up on almost all issues and had all important aspects covered. Later, many pseudo socialists and self proclaimed hypocrite social reformers blasted PM's speech for lacking the punch, most importantly it was sad to know that they were not bothered about the content and purpose. He was indirectly termed as a mere glorified consultant. But contrary to them; more importantly, contrary to my preconceived notion; I felt, his words had a vision. I felt we, as a nation have become more vigilant, atleast more focused on resolving issues. There seems to be purpose in the air rather than just beating around the bush. I feel myself as a witness of an evident transformation, this nation and its leaders undergoing, from an Utopian-altruistic and pseudo-visioned verbal acrobatics to a more focused and pragmatic propaganda for the good. I feel atleast this time around, we are dealing things with a purpose. And to all those who have seriously criticised (through social networks especially) PM for his non-animated speech , I wonder if they expected a Bushesque melodrama at Redfort. I feel those things look better in movies. We are not the people who needs to be motivated. We have had enough of goosebumps, what we need is action and I hope the administration will keep its word.

I am no more damn pessimistic. I strongly believe we can pick ourselves up from the filth of problems and we are already on the process. Ultimately, when a 60+ Prime Minister and a 5- kid of one nation share the same wavelength on a national issue, I am sure, the future is not bleak...

An Exceptional Inception

Dreaming is an involuntary frequent activity; dreaming within a dream has a hairline occurrence probability; but dreaming within that dream is well.... It even takes more than one good minute for me to understand what I mean by the first statement. Now to make others understand what I mean, its goin to be an implausible task. But precisely, that's why I remain here and Christopher Nolan is there where he deserves to be :) . Inception is an intriguing movie in every sense of word.

Talking about the people behind the movie; Christopher Nolan has almost got nothing wrong in any of his previous endeavours and has virtually produced a classic out of each of his previous movies. With such a meritorious back ground, you dont have to think twice for booking a seat for his show. Leonardo di Caprio is someone who is yet to act in a junk movie and given his previous flawless performances, I didn't have a moment to think about watching this one. Talking about other performers, Nolan belongs to the elite list of directors who hand-picks even a light boy for his movie; cant expect things to go wrong from such a perfectionist.

Moving on from preview to review; we have a list of movies which boasted of heavy casts and technical gimmicks and failed miserably . But INCEPTION had its task cut out to such an extent that none of the reviews across the globe called it "good", they termed it "excellent". From the very first scene to the last , the craftsmenship of the director is carved in every frame; The picturesque of each scene, more a mastery on canvas than on a screen. There is probably not a single technical flaw thorough out the movie; not a single scene that makes you feel out from the wild, no frame out of context and virtually nothing that hinders the flow, except may be your thought process that is a moment slower in perceiving what you see. As far as the performance of the actors are considered, they were delivering what they were expected to.

If "Memento" was a memento for the audience to cherish forever; Inception was destined to trigger inception within its audience, if not in all, atleast in people of my wavelength who always felt that a day would come when movies would run short of themes. Finally when I get out of the theatre, I remember the famous dialogue from the movie 'The Shawshank Redemption', "how the hell did he ever get the best of me". Hats off Nolan and crew for that near perfect job called "Inception". Now lemme start dreaming !!!!

Tweaking Fedora-11

Its been some weeks that I have posted something over here . Thanks to Fedora-11 installation process, I have been eating my head out for weeks now and fortunately ,finally I got a solution to my problem ;So I thoughtthis post would be useful to those working with F-11 and having a tough time. If you have a Fedora 11 - Leonidas version at your system and your system is connected to internet, probably there is every likely chance that you would face the problem that I have faced. Especially if you are using Yum for installation of any application or RPM files , you will find an error displayed on a small box which reads
"Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: fedora. Please verify its path and try again"
Since I haven't been much into Linux internals , I had nothing but Google to depend on to know what that very statement meant.

Let me straight away get into the technical aspect of this problem. If you get in such a message while using Fedora-11, some of the reasons for this can be
1. Error in fedora.repos file
2. Proxy issues
3. Dns issues
4. Temporary server break down

Lets analyse each one of these issues.
1. Error in Fedora .repos file
Step-1-Open up a terminal and type in this command
"cd /etc/yum.repos.d"
Now you are in yum.repos.d folder within etc folder. yum.repos.d contains three files that deals with repository management. To be specific it contains those files which the system access when it has to update itself from the fedora repository.

Step-2-Now login as root and open the file fedora.repo-" vi fedora.repo"
In that particular file if the base url is commented using "#" , then uncomment that and then comment mirrorlist using "#"
Now your Fedora.repo would look like this

[fedora-debuginfo]
name=Fedora 11 - i386 - Debug
failovermethod=priority
baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/11/Everything/i386/debug/
#mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=fedora-debug-11&arch=i386
enabled=0
metadata_expire=7d
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-i386

Step-3-Save the file and your problem must be solved.


2.Proxy Issues
In case your internet connection is through a proxy, you can try this out.
Step-1-Open up a terminal and type in this command
"vi /etc/yum.conf" (Remember you have to be root to manipulate this file)

Step-2-Your yum.conf file would look like this

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
keepcache=0
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
exactarch=1
obsoletes=1
gpgcheck=1
plugins=1
installonly_limit=3
# This is the default, if you make this bigger yum won't see if the metadata
# is newer on the remote and so you'll "gain" the bandwidth of not having to
# download the new metadata and "pay" for it by yum not having correct
# information.
# It is esp. important, to have correct metadata, for distributions like
# Fedora which don't keep old packages around. If you don't like this checking
# interupting your command line usage, it's much better to have something
# manually check the metadata once an hour (yum-updatesd will do this).
# metadata_expire=90m
# PUT YOUR REPOS HERE OR IN separate files named file.repo
# in /etc/yum.repos.d

Now to access repository add these lines to your yum.conf file below the line installonly_limit=3

proxy=http://x.x.x.x:portno/(your proxy domain name or ip along with the port no)
proxy_username=abcde (Your proxy username)
proxy_password=abcde (Your proxy password)

Step-3-Save the file and your problem must be solved.


3.DNS Isuues
You might even get an error due to DNS lookup failure. in that case , you can look into the following.
Step-1- Open the file "/etc/resolv.conf". This contains the list of name servers that is used by your system. Try adding another DNS server like 8.8.8.8 (Google Public DNS server) and save the file.

Step-2-Restart the network service by issuing the command ,"service network restart".

Step-3-Try now and now the issue might be solved.
4. Temporary server break down
This issue is mighty be because of the server crash out or server is too busy. In this case what I can tell you is wait for sometime and your issue would be solved.

I haven't heard about/experienced any other issue other than these four , in case or repository error. If you find any, do let me know.

Hacking Windows

In this post , I would be focusing on a simple hacking strategy. I would be explaining how to access a system(Windows) to which you have no access. Let me elaborate the scenario. Suppose you want to access your friend’s desktop when he is on leave. You actually need to get some important document from his computer that is related to your project and you are not able to get him online to get his password so that you can have access to his system, in such a case you can use the below mentioned method. This is one of the good uses out of it. But as you all know, the negative side would be more attractive for the most where you can access your administrator’s system on his absence, you can peep into your boss’ system, the list goes on and on.

Concept
In Windows, the feature you can have access to before logging into the system is “sticky keys”. This is actually not in a flaw in the system, but its devised so that even physically challenged people can access the system with much ease. But, unfortunately, we have tapped the functionality for some “other” purposes. Now our procedure is basically developed on exploiting this property of Windows. But to use this property , you should at least get 30 seconds access to the system you are planning to hack. The file that executes Sticky Key is present in "C:\WINDOWS\system32" and the name of the file is “sethc.exe”.

Procedure
Step.1: Copy the file “cmd.exe” from “C:\WINDOWS\system32” to any other folder.
Step.2: Rename the file as “sethc.exe”.
Step.3: Copy the file back to “C:\WINDOWS\system32”.A message would pop up asking if the existing file needs to be replaced.Click on "Yes". ( It is advised that you copy the original sethc.exe file to some other folder intially)
Step.4: Now log off the system.
Step.5: Now press Shift key 5 times and you can see your command window opening up on the login screen.

This is not over yet. Now type in “ start explorer.exe ” and you can see the whole start menu popping up in the login screen. Now use them on your will. So you are actually using the system without even logging in.Now since you have command prompt ready for you to use, I guess you know the power you have got. In the next post, I would be talking about how to tweak it further.

Note:Try this at your own risk :)

Courtesy:Kyrion Technologies

The Lesson Learnt

Every day ,Nature keeps teaching you a lesson or two, but it solely depends on you if you wanna accept it or not.This was a piece of an advice my dad had given me during my school days, something I let to pass off through my ears. But now I feel , I am experiencing the worth of those words .When you observe things or events around you, you receive lots of data that pokes your thought.Even though you get them in bits and pieces, when you correlate things it just opens up a fabulous message or a thought provoking idea or a staggering eye opener. The Nature gives you everything you ever need to know, but giving it a patient hearing is what you have to do first. Just had one such experience which I thought is worth sharing.

Last week, I had a visit to a temple situated in Kannur, the neighboring district of my native. The visit was something planned long back, but the realization of the same took more than a year and a half.After the visit, I was waiting outside the temple for my mom.She was held up in a queue for "prasadam". Fortunately , buttermilk was being supplied to the devotees at the entrance and thus I could find a bit of relief in that scorching heat.Feeling refreshed , I took a dekko through the area and my eyes just froze over a frame, something that was destined to carve a long lasting impression in me . A woman in black burqua (The dress suggested me she was a Muslim ) was at the entrance of the temple. Her anxious face suggested she had come looking for something or someone. She talked to a person at the entrance and went in the temple. After a few minutes, she came out, gulped in a glass of butter milk which was offered to her and she went off. My eyes were fixed on her till the moment she was lost in the crowd.

The most interesting thing was that none around seemed bothered at all. The whole scene seemed impalpable for me, not that a Muslim woman entered a Hindu temple ( I always believed a place of worship should be open to all), but how people had reacted. I would say secularism at its very best. In a world where there are nations which prohibit you from following your traditions, ideologies which propagate hatred and violence, agendas for dissecting the social attitude of human society , You couldn't get a better example which would rightly degrade the basic hate propaganda. Everyday we come through various articles, conferences, proclamations on secularism, national integration songs aired across radio stations ,Netas giving out never ending speeches on fraternity and still the very menace of communalism prevails more than ever before.

Its not lack of education that motivates people into any sort of communal shenanigans, its not that people are not aware that hurting others sentiments is not a fruitful activity, but its the very conscious reminiscence of ramification of human society on basis of various factors that creates fear, lack of trust and even hatred. For whatever reason she came to the temple, I respect her attitude and trust that she laid on her fellow beings. Her appearance didn't give me an impression of that of a well educated woman , but then what do I mean by educated. If education cant strip me off my notions about religious insecurity and conscious scrutiny of people of other communities, am I educated!

The response of the people were even better, nobody questioned her, none gazed at her; they moved on with their activities and even offered a glass full of energy and love to a tiring woman. No media were there to flash their cameras, no decorations to dig in a fancy show out of it, no chief guests to witness a 'communal harmony" event, but a normal unnoticed event that portrayed love and trust for fellow human beings.

Its not that people in the scene were reminded about the essence of communal harmony and then they got involved in a "noble" act, possibly they would have never ever thought about it; they just played their part in the inevitable social dependency chain of human interaction. In fact they would be screwing me for complicating my perception of a normal event They would feel they did nothing special, but the whole scene means a lot in a frustrated, restless and intolerant society. Action spoke better than words, but people like me find time only to glorify them in words. Write-ups like this come and go, motivates people for self-actualization , but we forget that a bit of common sense and the world would be an entirely different place to live in.