The Social Network. The Facebook. Facebook

I hope you've already watched the movie - because I don't intend to review the movie. What I'm most interested in, is Mark Zuckerberg's reaction to what was an attempt at bringing a couple or more of certain episodes from his life on the silver screen.

I saw the movie a week ago and liked most parts of it. While viewing it, the thing that most concerned me was- Was this how it really happened? I know that not everyone was entirely pleasant about the movie. My sister for example, is of the notion (after watching the movie) that Mark Zuckerberg really is, as was put by a character from the movie, an a-hole. I was unable to gauge whether or not the movie intended to malign Mark Zuckerberg's image, so I went on to check out movie reviews and comments and also some statements made by the Facebook founder on the movie.

But before that, here's my take. The Social Network was cool. And the Zuckerberg in the movie IS cool. I'm sure there might be inconsistencies from the truth - but that usually happens with any movie based on real life figures. Fitting a part of somebody's life into a 120 minute film has to capture the interest of its viewers, and such an attempt, needless to say, calls for some drama - not unlike a coating of garnish. Nothing we already don't know.

Well here is what Zuckerberg had to say:

Okay. 

It's quite obvious that the girl from the first scene in the movie HAS to be fictitious - not someone from real life. But even if she were someone from real life, Zuckerberg wouldn't admit that, would he? After all, why would he want to further tarnish somone's image.  It's difficult to figure out what exactly drives people to do all the amazing things that they do, so it's only normal if they've not managed to get that part right in the movie. And maybe they haven't got that entirely wrong. More than anything, I know that others' impressions of us and our own image of ourselves are hardly ever consistent. And contrary to what Zuckerberg thinks the movie makes it look like - that Facebook was a result of him wanting to get into a club or to help get over this girl - I feel that they were just minor backdrops, yet probably the best items from the movie worthy of criticism. Criticism that was quite expected of him. The movie makes him look both good and bad. As a boy genius struck with a drive to dump the ordinary with creative energy, and also as a self-centered, idea-jacking snob. We're all free to have our own takes. 

Who cares. Facebook rocks.

the GuyNextDoor

MY Senseof Humor

Okay fellows. Here goes another equally pointless post, plus some mildly good news. I won't be discreet. I haven't been posting stuff here that frequently for a while now. And by 'a while', I mean a duration that has spanned one semester followed by another and yet another. YES. 3 semesters. Backbreaking enough to bring my posts-per-week rate down by four-fifths! If that isn't something, I hope saying that the last three semesters of college have been the suckiest months of my life does suffice. Though, I am now at a point of comeback from where I can see things a lot more clearly and am certain that the next 7-8 months to follow are going to be a breeze.

Throughout this 3-semester span, my chuddy-buddy, Senseof Humor had met with accident after accident, one minor/mid/end-semester exam after the other. Yeah, power systems and microprocessors and electrical machines and power electronics and the like had exfoliated Senseof Humor from my life. He had dozens of broken bones and was bed-ridden for all these days. Good news is that he is recovering fast and steady and has been discharged from the aspataal only very recently.

Now all this seems very very goody goody. But for one little problem...He seems to be hit by an overdose of the vulgar. Here's the last chat I and Senseof Humor had on g-talk:

Senseof Humor (SH): Dude!

Me (M): hey!wassup? Missed you man...when are you getting back?

SH: I am better now. Can't wait to catch a pair of ants humping each other. \m/

M: Whaaaatttt!!? you'd better be mtrfking kidding me

SH: yeah man...I've been catching up on Hugh Antner's Playboy. Awesome stills man...beats all the other stuff! :)

M: other stuff eh?  :-P

SH: Yeah dude.

M: okay buddy no problems. i've always got ants screwing over my laptop keyboard

SH: Freakin' Awesome man!

M: Yeah right. Ahem... dude, tone down on the ant humping crap. you still need help. Get back soon and we'll have to work on you

SH: hey, check this out: http://2fa.org/ants.jpg

M: Dude...ewww. You DEFINITELY need help. ttyl. bbye

Now, I'm not too happy letting you in on the details of our chat. But I need to do this to follow up with a message to the following distinguised subjects that have distorted and damaged my poor little Senseof Humor like that:

To
1. Power System Operation and Control
2. Power Systems II
3. dM-vK aka Boodha (who rides a pink scooty to class without realizing he's probably doing the gay community proud)
4. Booddha, for screwing up my PSOC grades
5. Booddha, for being Booddha
6. Kantaala for his hair
7. Kantaala for his screwed up way of boring the hell out of me during Machines classes
8. Kantaala for the 24x7 pissed expression on his face
9. Kantaala for giving me full marks in the mid semester exam and giving me only a passing grade in his subject
10. Electrical Machines
11. Power Electronics
12. B. Tech
.
.
.
.
and the list does not end here.


For now I'll convey my message to this limited set. I'll leave Senseof Humor to make his own list sometime later, when he's back to Absolute Normal.

SUBJECT: hey!

MESSAGE:

SUCKERS!


the GuyNextDoor

INDIAN ENGLISH and the "HABITWA SYSTEM"

Habitwa system.

Pure unadulterated comedy. Life sure has its funny moments :-)

Click on Image for a larger view

In full support of the propagation of 'INDIAN ENGLISH' in which I'm still, regrettably, only fairly proficient, let us help Mr and Miss Arora by spreading information about the wondrous "Habitwa System"

Cheers

the GuyNextDoor

A FABRIC CALLED THE INDIAN RAILWAYS

I have had this on-and-off love affair with trains since I was a kid. Back then, the train journeys meant nothing but an unending ordeal of wiping off perspiration and periodically checking the watch for minutes left to reach the destination – but that was before discovering AC travel. The local EMUs were a nightmare. You rarely ever got a place to sit, and even if there was someone ready to accommodate you, they would have you a small area where you were expected to stuff in as much of your derriere as you could. Peanut shells carpeted the foot-space more often than not.

The tang that was once unpleasant, I now love. The EMU is perfect for capturing in the mind’s eye what the local social fabric really looks like. Express trains are my favorite - as we move from lower class compartments to the upper class ones, we are in fact browsing through varying economic strata. Try making yourself at equal ease with a Bhagalpuri bhenji travelling unreserved and a diplomat in 1st AC – social experiments that I’ve relished.

Indian railways are an epitome of unity in diversity. Cross-country train journeys are experiences worth savoring. The fields, rivers, hills, and color are gifts that our country has always had for us, and our railroad helps us realize their presence. I have had the chance to meet some remarkable people on my train journeys, read many a book and have soaked in scenic nectar in bounteous amounts. Travelling with family and friends on long train journeys has its own charm.

Employing around 16 lakh people all over India, our railways are one of the world’s largest utility employers and have witnessed considerable reforms and improvements over the years, even though there are many issues that still need looking into - infrastructure, rolling stock, signaling gear, railway tracks and bridges, ticketless traveling, overcrowding and hygiene being some of them.

Born in 1853, the Railways are of great historical significance. The National Rail Museum has rail buffs and trainspotters visiting daily. The IRFCA (Indian Railway Fan Club) is manna to rail enthusiasts and is doing a great job of connecting railfans countrywide. I have seen people cherishing the moments as trains pass by them, absorbing their beauty just as a man would for his beloved. The wonder and amazement that trains evoke in us is nothing short of magic.

the GuyNextDoor

LESSONS ON UNITY WE NEVER LEARNT

For the first nineteen years of my life I hadn’t any idea of the cultural and social fabric that made India. My primary schooling was at an IB school in Bangkok, and most of the kids around me were rich. The tuition fee paid here was nearly as much as what my dad made on his own, so he wouldn’t have put me in that school if it weren’t for the full funding we received from the Indian Government. So for the first four years of my education, I was around kids whose mums and dads were mostly stinking-rich. Like any other place on the globe, this place also had many Indians, and I remember having lunch at school with Indian kids most of the times.

When we were back in India, I got the first taste of what my class of society – the middle class – was like. Kids were brash and I got my first dose of bullying. There was more shouting, punching, running around and sweating - I learnt to swear, and we all found that cool. The standard of education was nothing compared to what I had experienced earlier, and that hit me the most. I can almost say that my early impressions helped me understand the intellectual differences across sections and classes of society. I knew that well, and over the years my natural inclinations led me towards better education and the more refined. All through these years in India, I lived in the capital and it goes without saying that I rarely came across people from rural or economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

I’m in college now, in a campus where there are people from economically and socially diametric strata of society – rich, poor; sons of cobblers and domestic workers, sons of diplomats, doctors and engineers. Our campus has students who are a subset of India’s brightest minds, and even in such an intellectually charged Diaspora one can easily spot the tendency to cluster, based on region/caste/language. A closer look indicates clustering based on socio-economic status too.

The thing that surprised me – which also indicated my naivety – was that all this wasn’t organized. People naturally blended with those from their own communities and economic backgrounds. The entire organized flocking based on factors such as caste, region and the like was spontaneous at best. What I’m trying to point out is that even among the ‘brighter minds’ there exists such a primitive sub-conscious urge to form packs. Even though we all feel comfortable with our own kind, learning and growth might be stifled as a result. If all people act instinctively in a certain way, should there be some reason to it?

What I see here, in my campus - where Indians all through the length and breadth of the country live together – gives me the actual picture of things. How over-rated is unity!

All through my boyhood and schooling, we were taught that all men are made equal and that we must shed our differences of caste, region, color, etc. The universal-brotherhood rhetoric seems all for naught. Ultimately, what prevails is human instinct. Unless we don’t realize that we are made equal, we might even subscribe to Hitler’s view of the world upon intellectualizing!

the GuyNextDoor

ON QUESTIONS OUT OF THE-NOWHERE

Sometimes out of nowhere - the ether, subconscious, call it whatever you want - there pops a thought inside this head, even at my busiest. Somebody whispers to me, "What the hell is all this for?!"

There was a time when this Question-Out-of-The-Nowhere seemed funny. Something to laugh at. Something that 'losers' who couldn't do a thing, sought refuge in.

But soon enough I got the feeling that I wasn't any longer amused by its recurrence. It got irritating. This question is hurled at my face time and again. And this has been the case for years. Coming up with an answer to the Question-from-The-Nowhere isn't a matter of counting chicken. I felt inadequate, as if stripped to the last piece of clothing.

You think I'm cooking a story here? I would hate to exaggerate.

I think it's safe in assuming that I'm not the only one indulging in these bouts of psychobabble. I don't talk to people about my weirder self. The ones I've tried doing that with, usually don't buy my stories. Anyhow, I'm used to that now and know for a fact that we all have these psycho-shadows following us that we can't get off us.

When you're asked by this shadow, 'Why?', people mostly ignore it. Convention and years of psycho-moulding gets the better of us. We're so in the World, that we don't even realise how outside ourselves we could be.

I've had my share of inner wanderings. I love the pictures that my shadow paints; the lessons I learn from it. I'm no longer bothered when it comes up with questions out of the blue. I see these queries as ways to learn things that somehow no one cares to teach. I've learnt a secret. I've learnt that it's best to tackle a problem right away, rather than letting it eat you bit by bit.

Oh yes.

I have finally come to terms with the reality that I'm part of a cosmic musical. The ups and downs are all part of making it a hit. And I love playing my part. The play is so very beautiful...in a magnificently ordinary way.

the GuyNextDoor

LOVE ACTUALLY

Here's a thing about love. I'm sure no one, no matter how many strands of gray color their hair, no matter how many winters they have been through, can qualify themselves as being the right persons to try capture in words what love is. All they can be sure about is that it is a feeling very familiar and common to us all.

And in spite of the helplessness while forcing the feeling into the English language, I do so merely because I owe Love this much.

Love is a word with many meanings. All of us think we know it in some way or the other because it is used to describe strong feelings of oneness. Yet it seems the bond needs to be guarded and cherished as long as it lasts. We needn't necessarily call this bond 'love'. The world does so because it thinks this to be love. In truth, love can be many things as maturity, wisdom and the volumes of our reservoirs of acceptance vary. Do we really care what all this is called? Let the world speak of it as love.

I am inspired to believe that this feeling and the joy that flushes from it is at its height when felt as unconditional; free flowing. Where there is a bond so strong that there is no bond. Need we call it a bond at all? For that which has no bonds is unity. Let the idea of a bond-less bond suffice.

In truth, we feel this emotion towards one and all. Only in varying degrees. Intuition leads me to believe that the Lord feels a limitlessly vast, unabiding love for all whose beauty seems difficult to embrace. We'll get there with time...

Attachment to the hungers of the flesh at times cloud our thought. They result in holes...for it is merely a secondary and less intense substitute to the true strength of pure love. And yet we must not overlook the unity achieved from detached union, the bond-less bond. Hunger is there. But when was it ever meant to be the goal?

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On a seemingly unrelated yet not-entirely-so note: What if Roark had met Katy? Or what if fate had him at cross roads with both Katy and Dominique? What would he have done?

My opinion hardly matters. But I instinctively perceive this as nothing but a worldly outlook at something that hardly might be a complication. Or so it seems to my eyes. Let thine eyes be one. So does the Holy Bible say.

the Guy Next Door