India - The New World Cup Champions!

And finally we have made it. What an amazing and electrifying atmosphere here at Marine Drive near Wankhede. The roar is breathtaking and the excitement immense. The entire nation has gone crazy. The men in blue have swarmed the entire nation totally. A standing salute to Sachin, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Kohli, Gambhir, Raina, Harbhajan, Patel, Zaheer, Sehwag, Chawla, Nehra, Shreesanth and all the other players of the Indian team. Thanks for the wonderful memory, which I am sure everyone over here will cherish for their lifetime. Thanks for the world cup and thanks for everything which we are witnessing right now. I m speechless here. More on it later.
Glory India, Glory :-)

India - Sri Lanka - CWC Final at Wankhede Stadium, 2nd April 2011!

With all the matches over, all the venues covered and all the teams wiped out, CWC 2011 has reached its grand finale. India will be playing Sri Lanka in the CWC finale at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on 2^nd April 2011. The fact remains that the cup will stay with the hosting Asian nation.

Sri Lanka can pose a serious threat with Dilshan, Sangakara, Jayawardena and Tharanga ruining the Indian bowling line up. Also Malinga, Mendis and Muralitharan will try to wind up Indian innings as soon as possible. India look strong too with Sehwag and Sachin in the opening batting spree followed by Gambhir, Yuvraj, Kohli and Raina. Bowling attack will be shouldered by Zaheer Khan, Patel, Harbhajan and Nehra. While Muralitharan is all set to play his last big game on Saturday, it is quite possible that Sachin, in all the likelihood, would also be playing his last ODI. These two biggies have already raised a roar in the betting market and also for the better player of the tournament. Sachin is the second leading run scorer in this tournament; only three runs behind Dilshan whereas Muralitharan is the leading wicket taker for Sri Lanka with 15 wickets.

India will try to make the best of this situation. It has got the best team since 1983, Sachin is in great form, Dhoni’s captaincy is almost unambiguous while Yuvraj, Kohli and Raina are demonstrating the true power of youth. Also, playing at their home ground will be a bit of relief for them. On the other hand Sri Lanka will fight to revive their 1996 glory for an awesome farewell to Muralitharan.

All in all, it’s going to be an action packed game with loads of heat and enthusiasm. Not to forget the pressure and tension these two nations will be subjected too.

Let the spirit of Cricket roll down through every fan’s nerve and lets witness the one of the biggest game we could ever see in the history of the World Cup.

Hail India, Hail.

Bleed Blue ...

With every passing ball of the match the picture is getting clearer. India will be playing Pakistan in the World Cup semi final which is at Mohali on Wednesday. The second semi final contestants are yet to be decided but taking into consideration the current situation of South Africa vs. New Zealand (188/5, 45.1), I guess RSA will make it to the semi finals.

For India, it was a well deserved consolidated win with mountain efforts coming from Yuvraj and Raina. Sachin and Gambhir did a splendid job of adding the scores to the board. Sachin also completed 18000 runs in ODI’s. Now, with every match he plays, there exists at least a record which stands broken or newly created by him. So, as it is normally said that this would be the last world cup Sachin would be playing, what else all Indians could dream of except for the win against Pakistan and eventually winning the World Cup?

India vs. Pakistan has been a war level match from ages. Its more than Cricket. Its more than scoring and defending. Its more than swears and bruises. India and Pakistan (and all the cricket playing nations) will witness the greatest match which every cricket lover had always yearned to see. The border clashes will be transformed onto the fields and even to the dressing rooms. Fate is undecided, but the attitude of the game is well in picture in front of everyone – heated and passionate. If we knock down the Pakis we would be entering the finals where there would be no stopping for the dreams and vows of every Indian in the entire world who would shout in one voice – Win India Win!

The entire India is ready to halt, watch, curse, abuse, bunk, off, swear and stretch the limits. The entire India is ready to get over its fear, pain, sufferings, mockeries and excuses. The entire India is ready to Bleed BLUE.

You can put the blame on me!

I am sorry to have left you all alone
I am sorry for the love so easily gone
I am sorry for the way you reacted
I am sorry for the ways that departed

I am sorry for the freak that I was
I am sorry for the misunderstandings that I parsed
How was I to know that your feelings bowed
I thought I was the perfect world that you showed

I am sorry for the feelings that went away
I am sorry for the lies that here now lay
I am sorry for making your life as hell
Now you can be happy is what I can tell

That is why I apologized to you
Else it would have been a shame on me
I was the reason for all your pain
So you can put the blame on me.

PS: The theme for this poem has been taken from Akon’s song – Sorry, you can blame it one. Read the original lyrics here. The poem in this blog post is essentially my original piece.

We are counting on you. This time, literally!

Yet another Thursday will arrive when all the Indian eyes would be glued to the television to see the fate of Indian team when they take the mighty Australia in the CWC 2011 quarter final. And there is one man for whom all the prayers will be channelized and all the swears would be taken. Yes, we are talking about Sachin Tendulkar. Somewhere deep down our heart, we feel that India would beat Australia as we are known to play the champs well. Also, we dream of a knock from Sachin similar to the Sharjah Cup when he had a killer innings from his bat.

The matter of the fact stays that India dooms down when Sachin knocks his best, but that is not all the times and there still exists times when it brings victory to India. This Wednesday needs to be such a time. All the hard work, determination, bruised body parts, ideology, thought process that Sachin has portrayed for all these years will have to bear sweet fruits of victory in this world cup. And I am sure, this is what he wants too. After virtually breaking almost every record in the history of Cricket, a world cup win is certainly a missing feather in his crown. If accomplished, he would be the king of kings. But again, it’s not his job alone. Team work has to play a very vital role in the victory.

I wish him and the entire Indian team all the best. May the best come to us, and may we see the best from him. The entire nation is bleeding, this time in blue. And the uproar will certainly have a positive effect if we transform this into a cup our nation deserves at this point of time.

All these billion people have eyes full of dreams which only you can fulfill and emotions which only you can do justice to. Do the magic and take India to the top of the world. Make us proud. Only you have that heavenly power. We all are counting on you. And this time, literally.

An evening in Paris

For all my life I always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, I wanted to plunge into the picturesque horizon of the beautiful city, I wanted to smell its aroma and feel it within me. I always wanted to do that, for all my life. Having read of the deep and enthusiastic mysteries of this great city, my love for Paris grew with every passing moment. I felt in love with the place. The Seine river which gives the city a beautiful and romantic dusky hue, Montparnasse which makes you feel like you are part of a movie, Faubourg Saint-Honoré which is the fashion district and also home to some of the biggest fashion brands in the industry and many more other places which can skip your heart beat. But the most elusive place was the Eiffel tower. It is magnetic, charismatic and mind boggling.

One fine evening, I was totally unaware of the fact where I was heading to. I was busy with my chores as usual and had no idea what my life was going to bestow upon me. Sometimes it happens that you leave behind all your dreams from the fairyland and chase your life so spontaneously that you even forget where are you and what are you here for. But then, destiny has its own way of knocking you up (and sometimes down too) to make you realize the beauty of life, the beauty of the world. Only a few weeks in the city and I was forlorn of the fact that I was probably in the 4th greatest place in the world (I ranked it after NY, London and Switzerland). But this was going to lame upon me for only a while. I was busy talking about the meetings for the next day, planning to cover my work as fast as I could and walking fastly only over the lane when my leg hit the footpath across the street. I strangled for a moment and when I got a control of myself, I lifted my head. And what did I see, the glorious and ever shining Eiffel Tower in front of me. I was not even aware that I was in the same city.

Life's hard cores had totally drowned my wishes and dreams. But the mere look of that fabulous piece of art sent a quivering current all throughout my body as if it was an alarming call to my soul. I never felt so magical and heavenly. I never felt so powerful and relieved. It was by far the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. Sometimes, you plan all throughout your life to achieve a particular thing. You give it your best bet, you get your part of failures and sometimes you even think of giving up. Sometimes you even do. But time has its own plan for you, like it had for me. Seeing the most beautiful thing in the world known to me, I was mesmerized and a few drops oozed down my cheeks for unknown reasons. I was more than contented only at the look of it. For years to come I was going to cherish this evening. It was 'the evening of my life'.

Main thak chuka hu

Ek din bheed mein chalte chalte achanak yeh mehsus hua ki main bhi bheed ka ek hissa ban chuka hu. Bachpan mein jo lagta tha ki main dusro se alag hu, main zindagi mein kuch alag karke dikhaunga, aaj sab jhooth lagta hai. Aaj lagta hai ki main bhi un hazaaro laakhon logon ki hi tarah maamooli hu. Maine kuch bada kaam kiya nahi hai aur aisa lagta hai ki shayad kar bhi nahi paaunga. Kayi sapne tut ke choor ho gaye hai aur jo bache hai who aaj bhi adhoore hai. Aur najaane kyu mann mein kahi yeh darr hai ki yeh saare sapne kabhi poore nahi honge. Unko poori karne ki yeh jo bhaag daud hai who najaane kyu aaj bematlab si lag rahi hai. Thak chuka hu main sabko jawaab dete dete, thak chukka hu main sabko samjhate samjhate. Aur sabse jyada main apne aap ko samjhake thak gaya hu. Ab aur naahi himaat hai, naahi hausla hai, aur naahi taakat hai ki main iss duniya se ladhu, main apne aap se ladhu. Main thak chuka hu.

Referential integrity of an entity called life

Referential integrity is needed to keep the entity as a particular and the database as a whole in synchronized state. If a primary key value of a particular table is deleted or tampered with, either the corresponding key value of the foreign table should be deleted (known as cascade) or a message should be generated and the delete operation should be stopped. If none of these steps are carried out, the database goes for a toss rendering itself completely useless.

Sounds as a simple rule in databases, right? But when applied to a larger entity called ‘life’, the database definitions start getting more complex. A column which is the primary key of a given table has necessarily undergone the polling session when it was appointed as the primary key of that table at the first place. So, that means everyone (including the table and the key selected to be the primary key) knows its importance in the bigger role and the bigger world. All the further transactions and definitions of some of the larger database tables, now depend on the definition of this table. Various static and dynamic definitions are executed and various objects are created and altered accordingly in order to fit the integrity of this entity into the whole database. There are many new entities (smaller as well as larger, some even as critical as life itself) based on the current definition of this entity.

But, when this key in being deleted (for whatever reason) from the entity, referential integrity rule should, ideally, be applied right? That means, even the other primary key values should be deleted (in a cascaded manner) or a (strict) message should be displayed that this delete operation cannot (could not is too lenient a term for database errors ) be performed. But this does not happen and the key is deleted without taking into consideration any warnings or messages or even the possible threat of a complete database crash. This ultimately results in a complete disaster leaving the database in a totally unsynchronized manner and sometimes even crashes it rendering it completely useless. Only use of this database, then would be to query junk and some reference data.

Thus it is vividly clear that even though referential integrity is a small and simple concept in databases but when it comes to a larger entity called life, it is not that simple as we/people think.

Adios 2010

Hello friends,
Today, yet another fruitful (supposed to say so) year comes to a marvelous end. And again, it’s time to celebrate the year bygone and the new year that is at the dawn.

The year 2010 (MMX) was popularly called as the International Year of Youth true to its spirit seeing some youth coming forward in each of the diversified culture. This year saw some major heart breaking and mind blowing events like the opening of Burj Khalifa in Dubai, a devastative earthquake in Haiti which took the lives of over 2.5 lac people, volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull (weird name haan) which disrupted European air traffic, Air India flight running down from the runway in Mangalore killing almost all passengers but 8, Spain winning the FIFA World Cup and WikiLeaks becoming public and creating havoc by publishing secret and confidential cases. As US market started to boom up slowly and steadily, this year also saw the European economy slowing down.

Personally, this year had been hard and strict with many turbulences and now it is gone once and for all. It was this year when I hit the quarter life crisis which changed many a things for me personally. I came to know why is it called ‘crisis’. It has taught me and I believe many of us to look forward, not to sulk on the past, to believe strongly and have an uncanny faith and desire in your yourself. Drive a success path personally, professionally as well as financially. So friends, let bygones be bygones, grow over your weaknesses and insecurities, work upon your strengths, get healed of your heartbreaks, inculcate the feeling of love and fondness. Keep learning something new, revive the old, be fresh, be friendly, be flexible, be strong. Make resolutions and stick to them just to keep yourself determined, make promises and fulfill them because it is not always that your tongue weighs more than anything else in the world, look after your health because there is nothing much you can achieve without it, set goals for yourself to keep you focused. Welcome new, welcome the change. Change has been declared to be good :-). But for now be a part of the bigger celebration.

I wish all my near and dear ones and my readers a very happy and a prosperous new year. May you find the courage to step forward towards your dreams and hope they come true one fine day. Cheers and have a blast. :-)

Adios 2010.

Wedding Season

With the year coming to an end, it seems it’s a good time for people to get married. With many (almost all) of my friends, colleagues and relatives getting engaged/married in this period it is, by far, the greatest marrying season till date. Majority of my school / college friends are getting married with their sweethearts and many of my relatives are tying the knot too. Growing to an age of 26 is the perfect time to enter the new phase of life. And most of them have all of it sorted out. Marrying your childhood sweetheart is probably the greatest boon on this planet. Of all the things and times faced and shared together for so many years, marriage would be the ultimate goal. Things might even change after marriage (as they say), but atleast you are lucky enough to reach till this breakpoint.


Going to school and then accompanying them to college and probably even during pursuing the masters degree is quite a time together with each other. You might have had to bear a brunt of staying away for some time during the college or masters degree, but it is all worth it when the quarter life crisis comes to an end and you decide to accompany him/her to the next level in life and start an altogether new phase as the better half. All the quarrels, taunts, love bits, insecurities, wisdom, plans, promises will now get to the next level. Having cleared and sustained so many levels (read years) is certainly an advantage in the relationship. It does not mean that life will cease to be a challenge from now onwards, but companionship gives you that boost and courage to fight difficult times. When you have your better half with you, you are determined to stand against all the odds. And of course the wisdom of so many years of togetherness only adds to the morale support. You feel stronger day by day. It is great when your teenage love changes into a marriage.

With almost everyone getting engaged and married leaves us bachelors in the undying candid spirit of independence. But the feeling of comradeship with your loved one is, according to me, far better than the spirit of independence which cease in its joy with times to come. So cheers guys, congratulations for the new beginning all over again with the person you love. Wish your lives be full of joy and you stay together through the toughest of storms. Wish you all a happy married life.

Nostalgia

I visited the apartment recently (after a long time) and more than feeling felicitous looking at the advancement, I yearned for someone which made me miss my heart beat. That anxiety shock was jeopardizing. Then I reached the railway station and the past days (or may I say years) of companionship glared through my eyes only to be converted into tears. We accompanied each other in trains not so often but it was special and caring. I liked to drop her to her home whenever we met. Facts of life, or may I say bitter facts of life are always harder to digest in the times to come.


You make every effort, however small it may be, to what people say ‘Move On’ and at times you even be successful in it, but at the end you are back to square one. You try almost all the steps to get over it and try to walk ahead in life. Days pass by and you even start feeling comfortable about it, but destiny strikes at the right time and knocks you down at ground zero, bruised, disappointed and utterly depressed.

Returning from office in the shuttle, cool breeze waving through the hair, shiny glowing posters on the highway, reminds me of the invaluable time I spent in the unknown city. It feels warm from inside for a moment and right at the next moment the heart seems to burn ferociously in ache. Why in life does undesirable things take place when there is absolutely no chance of them being fulfilled? But not all the time is life the game you always wanted to play. You plan for certain things, you change the course of most of the ideas and you are all set to go. It is just then when you are swayed off your feet and off the ground so harshly that you don’t even have time to think of what the heck is happening over here. Before you come back to your senses the damage has already been done and there is nothing much left for you to do about it. The point I am trying to say is, memories last, moments die. But time flies by. The hours of the clock which were, once, pleasant become a harsh reality today. You always wish this would be a dreaded dream, a nightmare, only to wake up and know that it is nothing but a reality. The unknown language of the city, the unruly behavior of the people, the unfelt warmth in the breeze, the chilling cold of the night and an awesome sense of belonging and togetherness is what takes me aback today to shed an unnoticed tear.

Many a times, it is better to leave a prospect unanalyzed and unlooked. For it may get you down, break your heart and bring you back to from where you had started the harsh yet real journey of life. They say ‘to lose’ is the part of life. Then why don’t they also say ‘to gain’ is another part of it. I guess, these sayings were invented only to console depressed people.

Time to get strong yet again. Time to learn to stride without the guiding angel. Time to kick nostalgia out of here, not because I don’t admire it, but because it causes more pain than pleasure. It is better to be like a machine with no feelings, only biological cycles and unnerved intelligence which evolves by each passing day.

The memories are green and will always be. The moments are gone, but will remain in the hearts of thee.

Mondays are not always blue

We all have felt the blues while going to office on Mondays some or the other time (probably most of the times), didn’t we? This is because, our life during the weekends is more joyous compared to the weekdays. After a wholesome week of tiring work, cutting deadlines, boss’s tantrums and meetings and presentation’s overhead, it feels great to be on a holiday of two days to take a break; more of a mental one than physical. During this holiday (so called weekend), we try to relax ourselves by watching a movie or treating ourselves, a little bit of shopping, a little bit of household chores and largely by just lying around lazily. And hence, when this period comes to an end we start feeling sad and low and the after effect is the ‘Monday Blues’ when we are about to go to office on Monday morning.

But this is not always true. When weekends start to get boring, when you have no special plans over the weekend, when you have nothing to look forward to, and when all your friends make plans with other friends, the yearning for going to office on Monday becomes the most looking-forward-to moment. You start looking for outlook mails and appointments for the upcoming week and the communicator suddenly seems more interesting. It feels safe and good to be in office doing your usual routine (read boring) work rather than sitting at home idle, sulking over petty issues and giving your little brain a darn heavy exercise. In this, case certainly Monday blows life back into you taking you back on track. That could be just for a while, but yes, truly plausible.

Sirf ek mulaqaat ...

Aankhon mein aakhein dale
Haathon mein haath
Ban jaaye apni zindagi
Bina kahe koi baat

Jhoothe nahi hai
Tere mere jazbaat
Fir kyu nahi ho paati
Sirf ek mulaqaat

Zindagi jeene ka naam hai ....

Bheeg jaane de aaj mujhe
Aansoo bahane de
Dho lene de saare paap
Ganga nahane de

Chaar dino ka pyaar hi sahi
Use pee lene de
Choti si zindagi ko
Aaj jee lene de

Pyaar jo badnaam hua hai
Use saaf karne de
Uski saari galtiyaa
Aaj maaf karne de

Khushiyaa jo bach gayee hai
Unhe baant lene de
Zindagi ke saare gamo ko
Aaj chchaant lene de

Zindagi jeene ka naam hai
Mujhe maan lene de
Aaj fir ek baar
Us nacheej ko jaan lene de.

How to deal with Windows BSoD - Blue Screen of Death

What is BSoD

BSoD refers to Blue Screen of Death (also known as stop error screen or bug check screen or blue screen of doom). It is usually caused by unsuspected software errors in device drivers, incompatible DLL driver files or bugs in the kernel of the operating system. It can also be caused by physical hardware faults such as faulty RAM, overheating of components or over-clocking (running a hardware device beyond its specification limits).

The information about the memory when the system crashed is saved in a file called as ‘mini dump’ or the ‘dump file’. It is usually stored at ‘C:\Windows\Minidump’ folder. This dump file can be used to analyze the cause of the blue dump.

Ways to deal with blue dump

      1. Open up your CPU and remove the RAM stick(s) from their slot(s). Wipe them off with a clean cloth or by an eraser (softly) and put them back in the slots. You can also try exchanging the positions of the RAM sticks provided you have more than 2 RAM sticks.

      2. Download and install WhoCrashed (a free system utility to find the drivers responsible for crashing your computer) from http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed. This utility requires the Windows Debugging Package (WinDbg) from Microsoft. This is available for download while installing WhoCrashed or can be separately downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/installx86.mspx. Once WhoCrashed is successfully installed, start the tool, click on analyze and it would display the information about the driver which caused the system crash. To resolve the problem, you can just uninstall that driver if not required, or re-install the updated driver for the same.

      3. Another way to analyze the cause of blue dump is to look at the Windows Event Logs. Right click on Computer in the Start menu, select Manage. In the Computer Management window select Event Viewer. Go to Windows Logs à System. And check for Error type of events marked with red exclamation. The Details tab displays the detailed information of the error.

      4. You can try installing the ‘fixshell.exe’ from http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX

      5. You can download and install the hotfix directly from Microsoft support site at http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=979444&kbln=en-us

      6. Just install this hotfix and forget about anything else - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979444/en-us

      PS: These ways have been consolidated through various search results and are intended only for informational purpose and home use. These methods should be tried at your own risks.

If you have failed at it ...

If you have failed at it once
You stand a chance of tonnes

If you have failed at it twice
Not trying it anymore would make you wise

If you have failed at it thrice
Its worthless to even seek an advice.

Happy Diwali to one and all ....

Happy Diwali to all you frens and foes
May this day vanish all your woes
Pataake jaraa dhyaan se jalaye
Aap sabko Diwali ki hardik shubhkaamnaaye :-)

 

The unique combination of fire (read crackers) and water (read rain) on this auspicious day, made this an unusual but special day. May this Diwali shower upon you all the happiness and prosperity, wisdom and clarity, smile and courage. Be happy by making someone happy.

 

Happy Diwali to one and all.

Maut agar mil jaaye ...

Main tere paas nahi
Matlab yeh nahi ki main tere saath nahi
Lambi si judaai hai
Matlab yeh nahi ki koi jazbaat nahi

Yun to pehchaan gehri hai aapki
Fir bhi koi mulaaqat nahi
Jeene ke liye to hum jee lete hai
Lekin iss zindagi mein woh baat nahi

Maut agar mil jaaye
Toh khushnaseeb hum honge
Jitna khudse nahi
Utna aapse hum kareeb honge
Iss janam mein aapke na ho sake
Agle janam mein hum jaroor humraaz honge

Arz hai ... Part II

Tumhe paane ki chaah main
Main puri tarah barbaad ho jaau
Tumne agar bichaayee maut hai
To us kabar pe bhi main so jaau

Arz hai ....

Ek baar maut mili
Fir bhi baar baar marne ko jee chahta hai
Kaatil hai agar tumhari aankhen

To har baar shikaar hone ko jee chahta hai