Krishnaa Nee Begane Baro Baro..

I am sitting in very "quiet" surroundings when making this post!! Its festival time at the temple near my college and the speakers are roaring. You thought it was some 'mantra' chanting by the priests or some hymns in praise of the deity "SreeKrishna"?? Naaa..What I am hearing now is a peppy number from the Tamil movie "Anyan"(song is Andangakka kondakkari !! Now u get it)..What has such a song got to do with my favourite Lord?? I dont know..Even if it was some form of prayers in praise of the Lord I dont think it is too amusing considering the volume with which they are playing the music..Now you think that I am living very close to the temple and so its quite natural that there is a speaker being put in front of the temple during festival time.. Sorry to disappoint you but I am living almost 1 km away from the temple..Its not the speaker at the temple that is making such loud noise(thank God they didnt manage one), we have got one right at the start of our lane..Sadly thats not the last one,the speakers are there after about 1.5 kms too..My heartfelt condolences to the unfortunate souls who have their houses close to temples..

There is something else that provoked me to make this post. I was going out to have lunch today with my friend Chethan. We just reached the college front when I got a call and i just walked on answering it without looking if Chethan was with me..After the call I looked back to see him far behind surrounded by 4-5 people..Since a technical festival was going on in our college I thought he was talking to some friends who happened to come for the event..Then I saw him taking money from his purse and giving it to one of them..I still thought they were friends but then why was this guy handing over a receipt..Nothing special, the "friends" were people collecting funds for the temple..The way they does it looked (atleast to me) as if they were robbing..Not many people will have the guts to say no to a group of 4-5 people who demand money surrounding you..I am not against receiving funds for temple festivals..I agree there will be many expenses ,but making every passer-by make a donation is something I strongly disagree..There is not much of a difference for this act to burglary..


The second is something which I did not see but was told to me by my room mate..He was passing by when he happened to overhear a Christian nun asking a person who was setting up the 'notorious' speakers in front of the college.. She was asking if they could reduce the volume..Though my friend did not wait for the person to reply,I am sure what the reply would have been..If he was polite enough he would have told he cannot reduce the volume because the temple authorities wanted it in full volume or a curt reply would have been something against Christian churches.. I pity the One who gets most of the disrespect because of these "loud speaker preachings"..Yeah thats it, our own "Lord Krishna"..The next in line is the majority of the Hindus who are against this "loud speaker bhakthi"(in which I am one)..Though only a minority is responsible, the label of a 'public nuisance' goes to Hindu community as a whole..This phenomenon is common to all religions I presume..The majority being labeled intolerant for the actions by a minority..

The authorities wont be able to make any prompt action because the moment they try to curb on the use of speakers, these unworthy souls who put up speakers, would take the ultimate weapon in modern day India..Violence in the name of religion..They would make umpteen statements on how their right to pray was infringed by the authorities and how the majority Hindus was ill-treated by others..You may be thinking what the purpose of this post was..I know this wont make a change in the social setup and the speakers will continue to roar as they do now..But then everyone has the right to be sad..I just wanted to express the dislike I feel on such happenings in the name of the religion..A religion that has been in existence for centuries..One that has taught us to practise ours without "bothering" others..Only thing I can do is to pray to God stop this blatant blasphemy..The song has changed (thank God) to a more melodious one but still the sound has not reduced ..I have been lamenting for long and I dont want you to be bored more..I conclude this post with a song in mind :
"Krishna nee begane..Baro.. baro.."

The Humble Programmer

I think I made a wrong assumption in my last post..I wanted myself to "walk fast", but cant do it whatsoever..Now I realise something..You cant be a good blogger overnight..So I have decided to try walking slow, though with some difficulty I am managing it..I read an interesting book today titled "The Humble Programmer" by the pioneer computer scientist Edsgar W Dijkstra..The way in which he has presented the book in simply excellent..The book reflects Dijkstra's own experiences being a programmer and what he thinks should the thought process be like in the development of programs and for that matter any technological project..

The book depicts many interesting experiences from his life..This is the one he mentions as the incident that changed his life..-"Full of misgivings I knocked on the door of Prof. van Wijngaarden's( his boss at Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam) office door asking him whether I could "speak to him for a moment";when I left his office after a number of hours I was another person. For after having listened to my problems patiently ,he agreed that up till that moment,there was not much of a programming discipline, but he then went on to explain quietly that computers were here to stay,that we were just at the beginning and could not I be one of the persons called to make programming a respectable discipline in the years to come? This was a turning point in my life. One moral of the above story is ,of course, that we must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!"

Some of his personal experiences that he shares are quite interesting as he has presented them in a humerous manner..Thought of sharing it with you..Dijkstra was asked to change his profession name from "programmer" to "theortical physicist" by the authorities when he filled his marriage certificate..At that time programming was not considered a "profession" and few people knew what it meant too..Quite hard to believe that such a social setup ever existed ,considering the fact that most of the youth nowadays try making a living doing just "programming"..

The concluding statement is the most infallible one: "We shall do a much better programming job,provided that we approach the task with a full appreciation of its tremendous difficulty,provided that we stick to modest and elegant programming languages,provided that we respect the intrinsic limitations of the human mind and approach the task as Very Humble Programmers."

I find the book very inspiring..It has something about it that motivates you..That encourages you to think different and think beyond the present state of existence of things..It is the proof from a man who decided to take a path less travelled and found his way to glory..The most worthy message this book puts before you is a virtue named "humility"..The world calls for more and more "Humble Programmers"..