Category Archives: opinions

Personal opinion about culture, movies, books.

Drawing the Line

  1. Probably, Cyril John Radcliffe, a lawyer in England who had not traveled farther than Paris, had no clue about the culture and ethos of India ever. But he was asked to draw a line to divide the country into 2 halves. We are still paying for it.
  2. Apparently, there is no mention of Lakshman Rekha in Valmiki Ramayan. Sita didn’t really cross any drawn line but still, repercussions were huge.
  3. Roger Bannister didn’t think of the line that was drawn by the runners before him. He just ran faster than anyone before him (1954) and crossed the barrier of running 1 mile in under 4 minutes.
  4. If you measure the length of the blood vessels of an average human by laying them all out in a line, the line would encircle Earth more than 2 times.
  5. Some people aren’t really lying when they recall the past incorrectly. It might be possible that they really hold a different version of the event in their memory.

Bonus: Flat Earth people think that Antarctica surrounds the allegedly flat Earth and that’s why Water doesn’t spillover.

Photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash

Without further ado

Often, these words ‘without further ado’ are said before calling upon someone of importance or moving on to the main event. It has become a tradition. For the audience, build up matters, but they can also do without it if everything before was ‘ado’. More often than not, warming up a crowd is just a formality or a mere trend. If I have chosen to spend my time to attend an event, or a concert, or a comedy show, I know why I’m here. I don’t want to be subjected to unnecessary delays. Of course, only when I haven’t chosen, then the heightened fuss might lead to something.

The same example works for going to a restaurant for a specific dish. We can extend the wait further by bringing in a minute portion of appetizers, or can directly dig in the main course. Again, if your motive is to spend more time at the restaurant and savor everything one by one, only then it is fine.

For me, getting to the point, in time, works wonders. If it were up to me, I will cut a from ado and just do it. Delaying just because of tradition might be off-putting for many. If you have something to do or say, the right time is now.

The Point of No Return

Whenever you ask a friend or a fellow colleague if they have filed their Income Tax Return, first they give a huge exhalation of frustration. It is as if you just reminded them of their greatest enemy. Then, they utter fancy words under their breath. As if their greatest enemy just passed by them in a shiny red Bentley. And lastly, they thank you for reminding them of the due date by which they have to file their Income Tax Returns. As if their greatest enemy just rammed into a pole.

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AC vs DC

Movies like Nolan’s The Prestige, nowadays most coveted car company The Elon Musk’s Tesla and this comic by Oatmeal, all tell us one thing: Nikola Tesla was one of the major pioneers in modern-day science but he was, at large, underrated. He was an impactful geek who was overshadowed by flash, edgy, and publicity-hungry Thomas Alva Edison. Did you also know that Nikola Tesla was not always a humble servant of science himself, as we believe nowadays? He was indeed the inventor of the system of electricity that we use without noticing. But he was also known to sign things not with his name but with the letters “GI.” (GI here means “Great Inventor.”)

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So I recently read: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

The Internet is full of vast amounts of knowledge and it keeps on bloating itself. We have got access to so much data that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find quality material that you can actually use. Then there are some gems that are available that once you stumble onto, you can not get enough of it.

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, created, compiled, and edited by Eric Jorgenson is one such gem. This crisp book is one of the best things I stumbled upon this year. In fact, this book is one of the most hopeful pieces of gift or advice one can give oneself in this craptastic of a year.

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Criticizing Others

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Some people and things do deserve the criticism. Like

  • People who don’t wash their hands after using the restroom,
  • Newspaper with 100 pages filled with just advertisements,
  • People who drive rashly deliberately,
  • People who throw garbage on road from their cars,
  • Fanboys of anything,
  • Motorcycles in which getting to neutral is a pain,
  • People who address you as Bro without knowing you,
  • Radish,

The list goes on.

But we should, hypothetically at least, put ourselves in others’ place just before putting them down.

Same way, if the other person has not been through what you’ve been through or have never seen loss or failure themselves, we can ignore them.

Photo by Stefan Spassov on Unsplash

Share, if you care

Recently, the Twitter account of India’s PM got hacked by someone who might be a Keanu Reeves fan (who isn’t?!). And, obviously, that’s not the only high profile account which has got compromised in recent history but it keeps happening once in a while. If even the most powerful person in the country is insecure online, think about yourself. Your password would be even easier to break down. It is just Password@123. Right?

Normally, Passwords are somethings we hold very dear. We can share the most personal things with others but not passwords. Some people do share passwords at work for common systems which is highly risky in itself but they will never share passwords of their bank accounts for sure.

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