Kalapi sent me these excerpts of a speech delivered by Chetan Bhagat at an orientation for a fresh batch of MBA students at Symbiosis, Pune. I have been always been a fan, but this just made me love him even more. I had to share it;

Don’t just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your break-up. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

Life is one of those races in nursery school where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first.. Same is with life where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.

One thing about nurturing the spark – don’t take life seriously. Life is not meant to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here.

We are like a prepaid card with limited validity.

If we are lucky, we may last another 50years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked u

It’s ok, bunk a few classes, scoring low in couple of papers, goof up a few interviews, take leave from work, fall in love, little fights with your spouse. We are people, not programmed devices. Don’t be serious, be sincere.

God gave me nothing i wanted, He gave me everything I needed.

By the way, if you are interested in the entire speech… Head over here.

Meenal and I recently decided to swap phones. And it goes without saying she wanted it wiped completely clean (with the niggly application issues, my saved Wi-Fi settings and my music collection that she absolutely loathes) and baby fresh just like the day we got it. And the whole exercise being as “exciting” as watching paint dry… I thought I’d put it out there for anyone who every decided to go this route.

Step 1: Head over to the iPhone settings page

Step 2: From the General page, (Step 3) hit the Reset button

Step 4: Finally press the Erase all Content and Settings button.

The phone would now ask to you conform your choice a couple of times. Since you’re not going to be doing this every other day, decide carefully. Oh and since this process is irreversible too! Now the iPhone does its thing for a few minutes or hours depending on your iPhones’ config or files. That’s it… Enjoy your as-new and fresh iPhone.

Its been quite a while since I’ve posted anything, anywhere online… Anyone who’s been through the ordeal of finding a home in the current scenario would surely vouch for the heartache and frustration of finding a place that fits your needs and your budget. So after 4-6 months of a roller-coaster ride (with many dips, than highs), we finally settled for this 3 bedder, 880 sq. mt. weatherboard “cottage” in a lovely court at Bayswater North. Overlooking the Dandenong ranges, we just immediately fell in love with the light and air that permeated the space. The rear deck and backyard rejuvenate us every time we get home after a dreary day at work. Have a dekko;

More pics, shall be posted as we work our way through our unpacking, sorting and minor refurbishments on the inside. Here is an exterior shot from the homehound archive;

Thank you to all the people who guided us through this search. Our special thanks to Jossychayan, Benjichayan and Atap who we’ve annoyed at all hours with all kinds of doubts and queries. Thanks guys! Over and above, thank God for finally revealing an earthly abode for us. Keep us in your prayers.

“Australian All Let Us Rejoice”

Yup, and we surely did rejoice.

I am now finally an Australian citizen. Its been 4 years and 236 days since leaving the Indian shores and arriving on this ‘golden soil’. The ceremony was quite an occasion, with about 200 people becoming citizens that night. All pledging our oath to the Australian way of life.

I sat between a Welsh man and another Indian lady for the ceremony and made it a wonderful evening. We sang some songs along with the Brumbies and made a lot of noise as people went up to take their oaths’ and collect their certificates from the Mayor. A few Federal MP’s were in the house to give out the citizenship certificates and a potted plant. There is nothing on the pot or the package that would let me know what it is… (gotta Google it soon).

Here are a few pics from the night.

For any information on Australian Citizenship, head over to this website.

Received a lovely email from Vikram recently and I just had to share it.

Money has no memory. Experience has. You will never know what the total cost of your education was, but for a lifetime you will recall and relive the memories of schools and colleges. Few years from now, you will forget the amount you paid to settle the hospitalization bill, but will ever cherish having saved your mother’s life or the life you get to live with the just born. You won’t remember the cost of your honeymoon, but to the last breath remember the experiences of the bliss of togetherness. Money has no memory. Experience has.

Good times and bad times, times of prosperity and times of poverty, times when the future looked so secure and times when you didn’t know from where the tomorrow will come… life has been in one way or the other a roller-coaster ride for everyone. Beyond all that abundance and beyond all that deprivation, what remains is the memory of experiences. Sometimes the wallet was full… sometimes even the pocket was empty. There was enough and you still had reasons to frown. There wasn’t enough and you still had reasons to smile. Today, you can look back with tears of gratitude for all the times you had laughed together, and also look back with a smile at all the times you cried alone. All in all, life filled you with experiences to create a history of your own self, and you alone can remember them all.

The first time you balanced yourself on your cycle without support… The first time she said ‘yes’ and it was two years since you proposed… The first cry… the first steps… the first word… the first kiss… all of your child… The first gift you bought for your parents and the first gift your daughter gave you… The first award… the first public appreciation… the first stage performance… And the list is endless… Experiences, with timeless memory… No denying that anything that’s material cost money, but the fact remains the cost of the experience will be forgotten, but the experience never.

So, what if it’s economic recession? Let it be, but let there not be a recession to the quality of your life. You can still take your parents, if not on a pilgrimage, at least to the local temple. You can still play with your children, if not on an international holiday, at least in the local park. It doesn’t cost money to lie down or to take a loved one onto your lap. Nice time to train the employees, create leadership availability and be ready for the wonderful times when they arrive. Hey! Aspects like your health, knowledge development and spiritual growth are not economy dependent.

Time will pass… economy will revive… currency will soon be in current… and in all this; I don’t want you to look back and realize you did nothing but stayed in gloom. Recession can make you lose out on money. Let it not make you lose out on experiences… If you are not happy with what you have, no matter how much more you have, you will still not be happy.

Make a statement with the way you live your life: How I feel has nothing to do with how much I have.

Its been almost two years now that I’ve been enjoying my Rapidshare’s premium account and simply love it! Blazing speeds and no more waiting on seeders with torrents… its been sensational. I was previously using Speed Download as my dedicated download manager. All was well until I wanted to setup scheduled downloads… What a nightmare?! So this time around, I decided to give iGetter a go. I then realized, that scheduling or managing downloads was a breeze. The interface still left a lot to be desired as compared to Speed Download. But the main issue was getting Rapidshare downloads to work. And so it was Google to the rescue… again. Here’s getting iGetter & Rapidshare to work in 8 steps:

1. Open iGetter preferences

2. Head over to Site Manager

3. Click the “New” button

4. Set the Server Path to http://.rapidshare.com/ and enter in your Username and Password for your Rapidshare premium account.

5. Repeat step number 4 by changing the Server Path to http://.rapidshare.com/files/ and re-entering your Username and Password.

6. Browse to your Rapidshare Premium Zone Login and go to the “Settings” page. You’ll find the button just below the large Rapidshare logo.

7. Be sure to have ticked the Direct Downloads selection for your account.

8. Enjoy!

After 2 years of rigorous (ab)use, my gutsy old Camry has given up on me. It all started with a standard mid-week morning dash to work. The cars’ engine just wouldn’t turn. I ended up calling RACV and was in luck, with a bloke at my gate literally in 5 minutes. He had a look and suspected that this problem was a ‘compression lock’. After pouring in some anti-freeze (I guess), and after a few ignition attempts the engine finally turns over. But then, we spot another issue, white fumes and fluid dripping from the exhaust. And while I’m still at the front of the car with the boot open, I spot the fumes and bubbles at the radiator cap opening. This is when the RACV mechanic gets really worried. He reckons I should get my car checked out ASAP. Ah well, after calling in to report the emergency in at work, I head off to the nearest car workshop.

The bloke there has a dekko, and thinks the car engine has a minute hole thats letting all the coolant and engine oil mix-up and ultimately causing it to stall. He reckon he can solve the issue by using an entire can of some-kinda-glass-chip-based sealant. His process consisted of running the engine super hot pouring in all this concocted mixture and then cooling the engine down. Hopefully fusing the minute gap. A few hours later, we are still left with a sputtering, leaky exhaust and a fuming radiator. That left this mechanic guessing it was a blown head gasket. A few days of public transport and soul-and-wallet-searching resulted in our decision to now get in and get a new car.

So without further ado, here is our new car…

We are really enjoying the Camry Altise. This is really our first new car, ever. So yes, we’re definitely very excited. The downside after driving it around for about a week and a half is the lack of power when I compare it against the V6 of the old one. That is my only (major) gripe. Apart from that, I love the new styling of the Camry Altise and just about everything else.

Just a parting reminder of what I once had. Alas, now just a flowerpot waiting for the yard strippers to take it apart.

I’m loving the new (not quite so new) Pentagram single, Voice. The video for this song coincided with the India wide protests that occurred due to the extension of the reservation quota by the Indian universities. Their video features about 30 of the bands’ friends and fans, who sing the chorus. Have a dekko.

I came across the WPtouch plugin while browsing through Alan Levine’s blog. This is primarily a WordPress theme that formats your blog to make it slick and readable on mobile devices. Developed by BraveNewCode that makes an awesome array of open source projects. In their own words;

More than just a plugin, WPtouch is an entire theme package for your WordPress website. Modeled after Apple’s app store design specs, WPtouch makes your WordPress website load lightning fast on touch mobile devices, show your content beautifully, all while not interfering with your regular theme.

The blog looks beautiful on my iPhone. Have a dekko.

Web crawling tonight I came across a neat site called “Spell with Flickr“, which does exactly what it implies. It uses an assortment of images on Flickr that have text in them (graffiti, signage etc) to generate a word or phrase of your choice. You can click on any text that you don’t like to cycle through the database of bright, gaudy, delightful text, till you get (or think) you’ve got your font fix.

This web-app is made by a 28 year old developer based in Springfield NJ, Erik Kastner.