Online relationships, another perspective.

Recently, I got a chance to talk to one of my online friends, who used to claim that she was in love. I used to believe her, and I had made it clear to her right on day one itself that it will never work out and that we cannot be together. I am an India, Hindu, pure vegetarian (to the extent that I don't even have egg). She is from some other country, Christian, loves non-veg food.

She seemed to talk very emotional stuff. She used to tell me how she wants to come to India and how she'd have loved to be around me, and how she'd do anything for me, and so on and so on and so on .....

That was the background.

Recently, when I checked my yahoo, she asked me how I was, and I told her that I am married and happy. I got a message saying that she was not serious. Well, to say that I was shocked was the least. Now, I feel that she was just playing around! She might have been lying outright.

Given the prospect that she was lying on this aspect, chances are that she was not at all truthful. She was just screwing with my mind!! I just feel so sick of myself to have been so gullible to have really believed all that. I feel like some 15 year old, who met someone on net for the first time and claims to have fallen in love with that person. I feel ... betrayed. And so, i am hurt and angry too. Hurt that it turned out this way and Angry at myself for being so gullible.

There is another question that I need to answer. Was I really gullible or did I make that choice?

And the answer is equally frustrating. I guess I knew that this lady might have been a fake. Not only that I might also have known that she was playing with me. But, I still chose to be taken along. You see, it is a choice.

I can believe that she is who she is, and give respect to her lies. Or I could have played too, and simply keep insulting her in my psyche. I chose the later, and I knew that she might be playing with me. And I was ready for it.

Over a period of time, I guess I let my armor down, and that is what I am angry about myself. I let my armor down.

That takes me to another question. How true are online relationships. I think Zilch %. There is no chance that they might be true. Given the high pressure life that we are all living, online relationships offer almost no chance of success unless backed by real encounters of the partners. It is not only essential to keep the romance and trust alive, but also to make sure what each of the partners want, and whether there is truth in the other's words or not. I am sure lies will be caught sooner or later. They have their cost, no doubt. However, still, they will be caught and a better or bigger emotional tragedy might be avoided.

But something good had come out of my relationship with that lady. I came to understand how a woman thinks. And what are her expectations. That helped me understand my current wife better. And that is what I am thankful to online facilities about.

They give you a demo run of the female psyche. I suggest every nerd try it out at least once. it will be a good help! And guess what, you wont be a nerd after that.

I am back!

After a long time today, I read the blog of a person who is very close to me. Even though he is not related to me through blood, but he is as close and as dear to me as my brother. His name is KS. He was my brother's classmate and a real gem of a guy. I learnt a lot from him on maturity, thought process, family values... The list is too big to summarize here. Then, for sometime, we were out of touch. Today i chatted with him after a long time, and I feel very nostalgic about all those times when he was at home, studying and struggling to get into a Business School and I was working in Delhi. We used to write to each other mails ... and boy o boy, they were just images of our hearts, being shared with some other self.

I miss all those times. I miss that innocence, that little pleasures in life that we wanted to share. Those moments that used to sway us. I still remember that small poem that I wrote for him, to encourage him.

Gone are all those days, and gone is that time. But I still cant help the love I feel for him. He is my brother, my friend. He still is my younger brother, who never fails to amaze me through his actions, words, deeds, in countless ways.

I lost myself in the meaningless run of life. In that pointless chasing of pleasures, necessities and luxuries that I have come to find no free time for myself. But, now I do. It is just a matter of time and patience that I rediscover myself.

I feel totally blessed to have my bro and KS in family and circle. These two people have influenced me so much, and in so many ways that I want to thanks God with all my heart. The mad rush of life had made me move differently. But now, I am back, and back with vengeance.

NewCastle United - Giants in Coma

I am disappointed with the performance of NewCastle United. Always called as the sleeping giants, I have started to wonder if they have are 'Giants in Coma'. Whenever I look at the team line up, I fail to find a reason why this team fails to deliver. Last month, it lost matches to Blackburne, Reading, drew with ManU and Arsenal whereas I feel that they should have run riot in 4 out of last 7 or 8 matches.

Ever since Alan Shearer has retired, I am note sure how successful the team has been. I dont even know what kind of team building efforts these people have. It is not important to have a team full of big names like Barca or Chelsea. All that you need is a team, like Sevilla. You want your team to play as a unit, understand each other and above all, behave like a team, not just off the pitch, but also on the pitch.

I am hardly in a place to comment on what is going wrong. However, I feel there are some basic things wrong about this team.
1. Defence sucks.
It is only my opinion, but I am pretty convinced that Newcastle United has one of the worst back-lines in the premier league and Europe. I have seen them concede so many times that it seems as if the defense lacks the depth. It lacks that level of expertise. I am not sure if I will attribute this to inexperience/lack of skill. It may be more of lack of proper coaching or lack of clarity of purpose. As the season ends, I would have sacked the coach only on the basis of the number of times we conceded.
2. Midfield is not aggressive.
I have watched the matches a couple of times, and I have found that the midfield is not very fast. They are fast, but they have to be faster. They have to have that mentality to score on the counter. All the successful teams are deadly on counter. Juve still is, even after losing Ibrahimovic. This is where I appreciate the likes of Rooney, Ronaldo; and that is where Man U are doing so good. And that is what Tottenham addressed by getting Barbatov(dont know if intentionally). They should learn something from German soccer. I feel German soccer is amazing on counter, especially Podolski and Klose.
3. No Poachers!
I think this is something very basic that has gone wrong. Newcastle has no poachers. Every successful team needs one. Look at what Inzaghi did to Liverpool in UEFA CL final! Martins and Owen try to do that, but why are they unable to do well? Look at #1 and #2. They are needed behind the central line after some time.
4. Strategy sucks.
At best, I have seen some hint of players knowing what they should be doing!?!? Most of the time, they are simple random bunch of blokes trying to get their hands on the ball or looking to retain it. Either there is a lot of communication gap or most of the time the strategies are misfiring. Only people in the dressing room know the truth.

I hope someone from NewCastle United is reading it and above all, someone in a position to act is reading this blog. I dont say sack the coach, probably communication lessons are enough.

It is a little disheartening to see that one of my favorite clubs is going further down in the table. Don't know what's the plan for the new season. Hope there is something planned to address all the above issues.

Spring + Effective Communication = (Good!?) Agile

Currently, in my project, this is my first brush with Spring, and I have come to find that spring is the ideal framework for developing applications with intense business logic. There are certain features in spring that I find immensely powerful. However, there is one feature that really takes the cake: Dependency Injection!

Imagine a system where there is one flow for creation of some account. And there are various steps, which will be performed by different sub-systems. As of now, given that these systems have been developed by different people, the most popular and simplest way is to write these components and call one after the other component. More or less every component is hard-wired and will need some or the other portion to be written into the code. So, it also goes to say that changes will be that tougher to implement, you will have to change things in the code to get any change working.

What Spring can make you do is to define your entire flow in one XML and business interfaces and their implementations. It will ask you to create an XML that will pull all these implementations together and provide references to your component through the interfaces. Your business operation class' setters will be used for dependency injection.

For example, for creation of an account, I may have n number of operations like background check, credit history check, professional background check, etc. I just have to formalize input and specify interfaces, write an XML and will detail implementations of these interfaces and add references of these implementations to my account creation class. It is like defining a flow chart. Yes, it is as simple and as debuggable as that. Add the AOP concept for logging and security, and VOILA! you are ready for an app that is better debuggable and maintainable than never!

But... there is a catch. The entire magic of this arrangement works with impeccable integration between components. There has to be a clear protocol and business picture between two components. They have to be on the same understanding of the protocol.

So, organizations, that have good managers, can look forward to excellent applications using Spring. I am sure since Spring creates the entire application through smaller portions and pieces, it is the perfect platform for using Agile technologies. And as usual, agile also faces the biggest challenge of clear and precise communication.

Agile is being touted as the silver bullet for many issues, whereas it is not. Agile has its own list of pain-points. Combined with Spring, Agile can be a magical journey of controlled and managed software development. However, it can be an anathema for both Applications development company and its client.

The key here is... Communication!

Hare Krishna.

Finally, India wins

Finally, yesterday India has won against Bangladesh. Even though it was not a very convincing win, there was enough to rejoice about. I could see some good points in yesterday's match.

1. Almost all players got into twenties. This was a big change from the world cup. In world cup, our great blue tigers drew up ducks and eggs. And some did that in both matches that would have counted for India. But this time, they had all starts. It is sad that they all threw away those starts, but nevertheless, something is better than nothing.

2. Dhoni is back in runs: Even though the wicket keeper has not been upto the mark in worldcup, and his shot selection has been very poor, yesterday, to have scored 91 runs, he must be back in his usual form. There are two important things to notice here:
i) He stood out there for long. and ii) Even after injury, he did not choose to retire hurt. Neither did he threw away his wicket.
These are signals of a batsman's maturity, and I am happy that he is coming of age.

3. Sreesanth and Dinesh Karthick are back: I think this is worth rejoicing. I feel that these two, along with Dhoni, and possibly VRV Singh and RP Singh, may well become the back bone of the Indian side, and it is good to see that one of the Chappell prodogies is peforming as he had predicted.

The match actually was won by the people whom Chappell had supported or about whom he had predicted to have a good career.

Let us see what turn the second one dayer takes.

There is good news for Indian sport on the hockey front also! They are into semis of Azlan Shah Hockey tournament, defeating Argentina! It was a big achievement for a team that has found it tough to even reach the knock out stages of any major tournament in the last 4/5 years.

This week has gone well for Indian sports. I hope this spirit continues. I'd like to bitch about the apathy of the government in promoting sports, but I'd save that for another day, for another post. (Sparing you for now ;-) )

Hare Krishna.

Liverpool Vs. Milan

Soon the UEFA champions league will draw to an end on 23rd of this month. With it will come to end one hell of a time for football fans across the world. What a tale it has been, and what twists it has shown us. Lyon playes beautifully in league, only to be ousted by Roma, which eventually was brushed aside by ManU, which was simply outclassed by Milan. Inter lost to Valencia, the spanish charmer, which turn was chucked out by Chelsea, which was outclassed by Liverpool, yet again (more about it later!).

Milan has showed time and again that they are still a force to reckon with on the CL.

What I feel worth noticing here is that English football is good. However, a major feature of english football is a lot of physical play. Moreover, english football maybe good, but it is still to match the standards of Italian football (Two years ago, I would have said the same thing about germal football, but alas, I cant do that anymore). In defence, they are years behind Italian football.

Football is not only a sport, but the kind of football that teams play, also shows the culture of the countries. Just by looking at the teams, one can tell that English people are very physical and aggressive people. At the same time, spanish are easy-going, entertaining and people who would love food, wine and music. Italians, on the other hand, come out to be shy and defensive, yet firm people. French seem mild-mannered and talented people with a lot of flair. Same with portugese. Germans, on the other hand, are very methodical, disciplined and highly organized.

Going by above mentioned criteria, Liverpool has lesser flair than Milan. I feel that it is true. So, would that mean that Milan are a better favorites than Liverpool?

Possibly not. Personally, I would be supporting Milan. However, I feel that Liverpool has a better chance. Why? Because of two people: Rafael Benitez and Steven Gerrard.

Rafael Benitez has time and again proved that even though he may not be an expert in English Premier League, but when it comes to UEFA CL, he has the goods. Ever since he has taken over from Gerard Houllier, Liverpool has become 'that big team' from 'the small team that may make it big'. Someone said about him: "Not only was he a brilliant coach but he is a very sharp, savvy businessman. He knows what he wants and how to get it."

Gerrard... what do I say! I leave it to you. :) .

One the other side are Ancelotti and Kaka. The tactical subtleness of Ancelotti and overwhelming talent of Kaka has undone Bayern and ManU already.

Personally, I like both teams. I love Milan and Liverpool are a team whom I consider as the side best organized (in Europe at least).

What may eventually make the difference is the experience of Steven Gerrard over Kaka. But as I said, 'may'. You never know about Maldini, Inzaghi, Nesta and Gattuso either. The stars that Milan carries have been baptized as 'UEFA Men' since long. And Liverpool would also be out to prove that 2005 was not a fluke.

It is going to very interesting and I am as excited as ever!

Hare Krishna.

Indians living abroad and home societies

A lot of people in western countries blame indians for not socializing enough. More so, they are actually blamed that they either dont come out or stick to their own kind. Lately there have been a lot of such accusations, and so much so, that either Indians are sometimes not considered a part of home country or they are feared and suspected. The suspicion and hesitancy in accepting them in mainstream society has been more and more pronounced in European countries. It is particularly acute in more advanced countries like Germany, UK, etc. (even though france seems to be an exception).

Most of these accusations are a result of a big misunderstanding from the home society. There are two points to consider before jumping to such conclusions.

Firstly, Indian social structures are different. Indians are a very soft breed of social creatures. Intially, there is a lot of "over the surface" interactions with the home society. This is just to understand what are the values and the underlying ethos of the home country's society. Once it is established that the home country principles are more or less in coherence with the principles inherent in the society of which Indians have been a part of, only then, Indians will try to become a free part of mainstream society. This is not to be construed as resistance to new social norms. This reluctance on part of Indians happens only when there are some contradictive ideologies or ethics could be felt. Given a neutral or a new idelogy that does not contradict with existing Indian philosphies, rarely would an Indian avoid socializing.

This dilemma is more pronounced in cultures where pre-marital physical relationship is not a taboo. In Indian society, it is still very taboo. Not only that, it is also discouraged. So, Indian parents are very apprehensive of home youth. On surface, this looks like resistence to new culture, whereas the resistance is of a different nature and cannot be generalized to entire society as whole.

Secondly, in advanced countries, most of the Indians that have moved there under work visas or permits. It goes to say that these permits are for limited time periods and sooner or later the worker will be back in India, looking for another job or that person may be an extension of the permit (which cannot be guarenteedly renewed). So, the primary thrust of such Indians is to save as much as they can. Socializing always definitely involved give and take, and would certainly involve certain expenditure as a part of social activities. Most Indians, esp. families, dont want that. Infact, they are there to earn and save as much as they can.

Finally, I would feel that it is unjustified for home countries to be apprehensive of Indians arriving in home countries. Their skill and hard working nature will only bring revenue and profits to the organizations that employ them. By filling those positions economically, they are generating some other jobs at some place else.