NameSpace Violation



Today something remarkable happened. I spent the entire day renaming the variables, methods in the code that I had written in the past month. Some standard needs to be followed for naming them. But hey what about me, rather my name?

A person's name is one of the few things that is truly his. But think what happens when you have to share it with not one, two but hundreds!!!!
Want some proof? try entering sameer gupta on google, you will get some 266,000 results (I didnt add any zeroes!). Now that is too much for me to take. I share my name with another guy in my college, I keep getting spam from some marriage bueraus, I never get an email id with my name straight, I end up getting some crappy ids like sameersameer22, sameerhateslinux, saer and what not!
According to google, Sameer Gupta is a musician, a doctor, an author and even a gay rights activist. Sameer Gupta is omnipresent, he is enrolled in almost all worthwhile colleges in India and US (All IITs, NITs, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Pennysylvania to name a few). Sameer Gupta has been the star student of Georgia state and has even been awarded by the US President. There are a quite a few warrants issued against Sameer Gupta and hold your breath Sameer Gupta has also won an Ignoble Prize. Sameer Gupta has even died some 62 times, now thats something.

So finally I have decided that enough is enough. Before the Mumbai Police guns me down in a fake encounter, I am changing my name. Yes, you read it right, I am changing my name. So people who do stumble upon this whining, please suggest an uncommon, outlandish name that can just be mine forever.

PS: Tell me about the legal procedures involved in getting this name change done, I am serious.

A Post mortem of Love, Relationships and you know what


Really dont know why I am writing this one. I consider myself a noob in such matters but whatever, this is my space and I am free to fart as much as I like.

Have been reading and trying out a lot of things in the recent past, so maybe its time I put my thoughts in a more coherent way. There is a theory about passion, intimacy and commitment being the three components for understanding love and here is my take.

Now what is passion? Is it a motorcycle, obviously not. Then is it merely infatuation? not really. Passion is something that comes from the heart, not something that you can think about logically, it is very impulsive... no second thoughts, even you cant describe why you fell for it. It doesnt matter to you if its right or wrong, whether the other person is responsive or not, its total madness. Something like Akshaye Khanna's love in Dil Chahta hai. When you watch a romantic movie or story the person that you imagine yourself with in place of the characters is your passion. When someone's "Hi,hello" makes your day then she is the passion. When you cant press the delete all messages option in your cellphone just to save a single message from her, then she is the passion. Passion is like dreaming for a Mercedes when you walk without shoes. It knows no boundaries.

Intimacy develops when you are always looking for that special someone whether to talk about your day's work, to share a laugh or just to get a shoulder to cry upon. It starts of as a "friendship" but goes way beyond that. I find this to be the most potent component in any relationship. It is impossible to imagine life without that person. When in a group if someone cracks a joke your eyes inadvertently turn towards her to gauge her reaction, when you have two movie tickets the first person you think of is her. And when you have to tell yourself again and again that she is just a friend. You just need that person by your side always. The Internet ofcourse has made even "remote access" intimacy possible, so the distances no longer matter.

And finally commitment. At first glance commitment seems some bullshit straight out of old Hindi movies, like parents fixing their children's marriage when they were peeing in their pants and the children grow up to honour the promise. But there is more to commitment. If without passion and intimacy, it is like the common minimum program in a coalition government -- two losers who couldnt get their passion sit down and agree upon a face saving formula so that everyone gets atleast something to bank upon. You dont like her and she knows that but you two still continue that way, very frightful for me!
But the situation changes drastically if commitment is accompanied by the other two. You say no to a transfer which is a potential promotion because it will mean going away from her. You cancel your holiday because she has an appointment with a dentist and you just cant go alone. The ideal relationship comes in when all three are there and from both the parties involved.

Enough for now I guess, have more urgent tasks to look at.

PS: Tried making the post gender neutral. Use him/her, he/she whatever suits you.

Have been hearing a lot about equal opportunities for all, equal rights, opportunities and such things be it for women, backward classes or someone else. Equal opportunities is maybe digestable but should everything in the world be equal? What would the world be if everything including "good" genes were rationed? Would the world then be equal?

I don't know that but feel it would surely be much more boring to live in. Imagine everyone is equal...... no fantasies, no heroes nothing. Surely the romance would be all gone. Maybe with inequality I can be at a disadvantage but I can atleast dream about the "greener" grass on the other side of the fence. Equality will take that even my dreams away. Nothing would be "greener" only green, nothing great but everything ok, something like the dreams of a blind person, deprived of colour. Nothing to prove, just getting up each day doing some work and going back to sleep all very uniformly like everyone else. And above all what about my identity? Is it not the inequalities in this world that make us unique, that give us something which can be called truly ours?

Even the poorest of the poor would rather live in his poverty than in a robotic equal world. After all what does he want, bread? Bread he wants so that he can live, in the hope that some day he would be on the other side of the fence, that some day he would enjoy INEQUALITY.

God did roll the dice afterall while creating us. And I am mighty happy that He did.