Capital Punishment

Well I had the issue on my mind for a very long time but you need a stimuli (Afzal Guru in this case). I am very well aware that its sensitive issue and everyone is entitled to have his/her opinion. Frankly I do not have a firm opinion on the issue but there are factors which push me sometime either on one side or the other.

I am still wondering where to start the thread from. Well as one of my cousin puts it, I too really have mad number of people in the friendlist on Facebook. Since FB has this status box which says "What's on your mind XYZ ? " which they have smartly modified over the time to "What's happening XYZ ?" after some infamous episodes ;-) , people tend to pour in their opinion freely and if they don't have any they just share what ever someone has posted without even making an effort to verify the credibility of the info.

I am not a psychologist but I do tend to observe people and form opinions and hypothesis as well. There are certain sect of people I know who irrespective of what is happening have to always either oppose the system/criticize it/rebel etc. I really do not know if the particular category of people add any value or are necessary for the society or not. I am not sure if they want to prove their individual identity by these actions. 

While I do not deny that in the most civilized parts of the world capital punishments are either abolished or are rarely used. In the developing and under-development nations it more often heard of. But trying to prove ourselves as a part of civilized world shall we move away from justice ? I really do not know how a person's heart can change over time and if there is a way to verify it. But someone who can mercilessly kill people at will without even blinking an eye, how can he be let free or imprisoned for life where he serves 14 yrs and walks out again by proving his good conduct. 

But yes again there is always history to prove things. The reason I started the thread was the angst  I had for people asking for human rights and justice for people who did not know what these terms mean. Be it Afzal Guru, Ajmal Kasab, David Headley, the rapists in the Delhi gang rape case or any other Capital punishment may or may not justice for them. But I can assure it does work as a deterrent for others. Will it solve problems like this for ever? Might not, since there will always be some people who would not be impacted by efforts and bold actions like these, but then there would certainly be lessor people who would try doing it since they would know they won't be able to walk away just like that.

Does it mean that there would be no misuse of it, well I doubt that but you can't let people like Kasab out and expect them not to do what they did before. Neither do I have answer for - "Why do we kill people who kill people to show killing people is wrong ?".

Flavor of Season

I couldn't come up with a better title for the topic. The news-feed section of my FB page is filled only with the following things:
1) Marriage pics and status updates of my friends/batchmates/colleagues.
2) Rest with baby pics and status updates on the same lines.
3) Since its a supposedly a season of love there are humor quotes, dedication etc.

Its not that I have a trouble with them but then when everyone keeps repeating the same thing you tend to think more on the issue even if you don't want it. As stated before I am on the verge of going over the marriageable age and would be considered too old in case I don't settle down soon. But since the brain always tends to ask for a logic behind everything here are few dilemma/issues in my current life in the order of priority
1)  I am currently a student and would be for another 1.5 yrs before I move back to corporate life (hence it does not make sense settling down as I wouldn't have time for my probable partner)
2) Financially I cant support a family since the stipend I get is just enough for managing personal needs.
3) I do not know a girl whom I understand and know enough to start thinking on those lines.

Even the program I am pursuing has a good proportion of married boys/girls and I could see their daily problems and discussions over the lunch/dinner table. Oddly they still advocate getting married is good idea which makes me wonder their motive behind it. One of most commonly used argument to defend it is since you anyways have to do it, why delay it. And mostly frequently defense from my side is that I am not ready for it yet. Which some people agree to but parents/relatives counter with how would you know that you are ready for it. Well for this I try to come up with a creative answer everytime :-).

But apart from the sarcasm there is some real good news, my best pal got engazed yesterday and am really happy since she had been looking forward to it and there were too many things which were not going right. I hope this is just a start of the good phase for her. As soon as I started writing the blog and I got a call from my mom and she had the same agenda for her call her as well so Law of Attraction does work  irrespective whether you want it or not but if you are thinking about it does :-).

RR3

Well as it is rightly stated that we become more mature with time as we encounter more situations in life. All of us go through similar(rarely identical) stages at different ages in our lifetime. There was a time when I believed in perfection in everything I did and rather had a very narrow window for tolerance for things I did or could accomplish myself. Then I realized that people have different abilities,motives and attitude behind a particular tasks which determines the outcome. As I can see and draw a conclusion from my past that I have transitioned from perfectionist to more of a finisher with slight traces of perfectionism here and there. I want to get the jobs done more on time rather than waiting and coming up with perfect solutions beyond time.

I have tried being regular to gym quiet a few times and was successful for varied duration ( from a week to 3 months as well). As one of my batch-mates here puts it "gym-person" - I do not belong to that category, but I love playing outdoor sports/workouts like running etc. I have run couple of half marathons, 5 and 10 k runs over the last 3-4 years. But after joining the program here I haven't done much of the workout which I consider extremely essential. Just like most of us I plan every night as well the lazy part inside me doesn't let me out of bed in the mornings. Hence I have decided to keep this post as an incentive. That means this post or any other post would see the light of the day(get published) if and only if I take the first step and start the workouts again. I know once I start I would figure out ways to keep up with it.

There was a University fest in the campus last weekend and it was the first fest ever here. And very unusual of me that I wasn't involved either in coordination or participating actively in it. But there are always first for everything, what I learned was its better to be in thick of things rather just whiling away your time. I did donate my blood in the blood camp but that I consider as passive activity than an active one. It was that day I had decided about the workouts and its been 5 days the action has not happened. Anyways the reason I started talking about fest was there were many wonderful performances and last day we had a live rock band called "Them Clones". Though I am not a rock/hard metal guy and the songs I can understand are too few but the above song made instantly in my favorites list.

The last thread of thoughts is on marriage. One of professors who handles economics for us made a wise  statement during a break which I could connect to instantly. The professor is visiting faculty (was Ex-Dean for Delhi University, one of small credibility from long list which can be associated with him) and is in his 70s. I do not believe in horoscopes and he was of the same opinion as well, but he stated - it makes lot of sense matching RH factor of the blood and exchanging medical reports/history instead of horoscopes (which made an instant logic for the rational me). He also went ahead and stated that it is difficult the way marriages work in India(arranged marriages) and it might be considered a taboo but a good way to handle would be pass on your report and let your partner decide if they want to return the favor. 

Continued...

If you happen to stumble upon my blog for the first time and is wondering on the title. Here is your guide/help for figuring out if its worth wasting your time here by going in chronological order some 25+ odd posts. I always suggests my friends to go through in chronological order since its easier to understand and sometimes there could be reference to previous posts as well. For e.g. RR2 stands for Random Rambling part 2 (title of my previous post). The story behind it is as simple as - I have become more regular now in blogging and I ran out of Titles, hence came up numbering funda for posts which are really random thoughts on my head. Though you may still find odd individual titles in between post which have proper background or story behind it.

Let me use this post as chance to post a disclaimer/copyrights stuff as well. All stuff put up on this blog is either my personal thoughts/opinions/experience or fictional stuff. And most of the pictures or audio/video belong to the respective owners and I had stumbled across them through the web only, unless otherwise stated as personally shot by me. For e.g the attached video (Tent No. 13)

We have an audit course called Community Connect in the MBA program I am pursuing, where the motto was to go back and connect with the under privileged mass of the society & contribute in some manner. This was to be shot and edited as a video and submitted. While doing the editing of that video I recalled the above video which I along with my team members at the previous firm SAP had shot as a part of team building activity (right from concept to shooting-editing-final screening under 24 hrs). During a class discussion I talked about it as well, where my batch-mates had asked me to post so that they can have a look at it as well. A bit of background before you form an opinion about the above short film, everyone associated with the movie is from a software industry(right from developer/tester/consultant/team manager/vice president) with no exposure to movie making, though we had professional help/hand holding in terms of how to use rolling movie camera and how to use the software to edit it etc. since it was to be done under a time frame of 24 hours.

The community connect video was shot with regular digital camera and still needs proper editing. It was done under time constraints as well (had semester exams in the coming week) and was to submitted in 3 days time else it would mean F grade in the course which might not stop us from getting the degree but would have meant unnecessary mark on the final course grade-sheet. Once it goes through a proper editing it I would definitely post it up here as well.

RR2

Well let me sound philosophical today. Actually there are plenty of things on my mind right now and I would try to work them one by one as long as this post doesn't start giving a long and boring look :-).

Is there something called as a right or wrong decision? All of us know there is nothing as an absolute right or wrong and most of them are relative to each other. Everybody's definition of right on wrong depends on his thought process and definitely on the purpose one is trying to achieve. Then there is a factor called circumstances where in one place something might look right but might be not be right in another scenario.

If I want to make an instant profit and expect the prices of a particular stock to rise and invest in it. Depending whether prices actually go up or not might decision would be right or wrong. Had I invested in the same stock for a long term perspective the decision might have been right (with an assumption that the firm did well in the long run). Hence the context/purpose is what defines whether a particular choice was right or not to a large extent. Some choices might sound/look good in short run but might not be in the long run.

But then again this is a vicious circle the purpose/context does not remain same/constant always and its keeps changing as well. So deciding something one did was it right or not is a difficult task. Irrespective where one is today or would be in future depends largely on the choices one made-makes. As Steve Jobs said "Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."  So when I look back today I can see lot of good things and some not so good as well. But if I wouldn't have done it I would have never known that it shouldn't be done. There is little voice which still keeps telling me that there was something good even in them which I probably cant differentiate right now.

Let me jump to another thread of the thoughts, it sometime makes me wonder why aren't we comfortable with some people around, though at ease with others even when we are meeting them the first time. I read somewhere that you get rid of feeling which you aren't comfortable with by repeating it again and again. But then I guess its a mutual stuff, if the other person is not comfortable in your presence you will have the discomfort as well no matter how much efforts you make. Rather sometime making those additional efforts might have the exact opposite outcome. I was interacting with a cousin of mine the other day and conversation was about having a gf/bf and that when I realized that its not only about the desire but also about the effort. Simple sentences like I am comfortable/not comfortable with strangers go a long way in conditioning our mind and our natural responses in situations when we encounter them.

Let me close the rambling here and save the remaining thoughts for the next post :-) since this post already has a scroll bar on my edit window.