And the Oscar goes to......

So I turned 28 today. Through the day, I realized that wishes came from 2 sources - Calls and Facebook (Orkut

bhi check kar lena chahiye ek baar). In 'good old times' sms wishes used to form a sizeable chunk of these

wishes. Now it has been almost eliminated - a huge loss in revenue for the Mobile operators for sure.

Actually when you think of it, the case is of Volume vs Value. Facebook is definitely for Volume Lovers -

hundreds of wishes from across the globe - it certainly feels nice to have them.

Sms provided the value. After all it took a little bit of effort on the part of the sender to type it and he/she

needed to know your number!!!

Reading the above lines again, I realize that being a part of the 'Change Generation' - the one who have seen

both sides of the technological revolution - it is a sin to call something 'good old times'. I mean how can you

say 4 years ago as old. Good, on the other hand is definitely subjective.

Anyways, the idea before penning down this post was something else but is turning out to be entirely

different. This was meant to be an Oscar like speech on the past 28 years of life - a suggestion from KT.

But now I realize that for a Oscar-like speech, you need to have an equivalent achievement. Most Oscar winners

have one thing in common - they have been able to focus all their energies on one project and make it the best

in the world. In many cases, they have toiled their whole lives to reach that pinnacle. I compare my 28 years to

it and find myself at the other end of the spectrum. I graduated as Mechanical engineer, became a Software coder

and then delved into learning the art of Management. On the way washed my hands in the washrooms of a heavy

machines manufacturing plant, a steel plant, five star ones of an IT company, a small branch of an Insurance

company and then quite literally with five different types of oil. In a nutshell, these 28 years cannot be more

diversified - quite the opposite of a 'Focus' that is required to be the best in the world.

No prizes for guessing what the learning is out of the thoughts in the last few lines. Wish it was easy to find

out what exactly you need to do in life... You can call that my Birthday wish!

Khussshhh to Bahut ho Tum….

It seems to have been a happy 2010 for Indians - if Facebook's Gross National Happiness Index is to be believed. And assuming it is largely a young India that is Social media active, we indeed have a very happy young brigade.

In fact, in the past several months, even on the occassions we have gone below zero - implying that most of the FB status updates were negative in nature - have not been less than -1. (the only significant dip was last on 26/11/2008 for obvious reasons).

The reasons for this positivism and happiness can be multifold.

1. Jobs are back - probably the biggest reason.

2. No major terrorist attack. Ofcourse Naxals attacking and killing CRPF Jawans by the hundreds is no terrorist activity. Terrorists are only the ones who come from across the border. These Naxals are fighting for Basic human rights. No?

3.Sachin's form. He completes 20 years in Cricket, hits a double hundred, top run getter in IPL, joins twitter. Sachin's form is directly proportional to the nation's happiness.

4. A general conscious or sub-conscious human tendency to make others jealous by writing awesome things happening in their lives.

5. Extra ordinary performances in Farmville. IT may be our growth engine but we are really farmers at heart. It has been proved by young Indians, specially those working in the IT sector being so successful at managing huge farms on their own.

6. Plenty of jokers to make fun of: Yuvi's pregnant woman body, Rahul Mahajan's marriage, the 1411 tigers, MRF Blimp, Nithyanand and ND Tiwari, the evergreen Arnab Goswami.

There are plenty more I am sure. If anyone reading this has more reasons in mind for our happiness, do share.


The GNH index of India and other countries can be viewed here.

Image courtesy Facebook.