Arthur Ashe - a true inspiration

Sometimes in life words told by a complete stranger can change our life and our perception towards it drastically... Many a words/speeches from many a great men and women who had lived on this earth have left their mark in my mind forever and one such highly motivating words were from Arthur Ashe.

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe was born in the year 1943. He was a professional tennis player who had won 3 Grand-slam titles. He was considered one of the best American tennis players of his time. He had also served in the US Army for a while during the period  1966-68. Arthur passed away in the year 1993.

Arthur's life was filled with many tragic incidents starting from the loss of his mother at an early age to undergoing multiple heart surgeries and to end it all he had also contracted the deadly HIV during one of the many blood transfusions he had had for the heart surgeries. From what I have read and understood about Arthur, I can only say that he was a thorough gentleman and he continues to inspire people around the world.

Here is an excerpt of his answer to the question one might ask on a death bed - "Why ME, God?". Though some of them say that these words were told by Arthur to a question by a journalist, others opine that it was Arthur's answer to his fans' concerns. At this moment I am not really sure of the situation or to whom the below words were told, nevertheless they are truly remarkable and inspiring. Read it to get inspired.

All over the world some million teenagers aspire to become tennis players. Out of these million may be a hundred thousand reach to some sort of proficiency. Of them only a few thousand play in some circuit and only a hundred or so play the grand slam. Finally only two reach the final of Wimbledon. When I was standing with the trophy of Wimbledon in my hand I never questioned God “Why Me?” And now what right do I have to ask God “Why Me?

What is there in this speech that inspires me? The simplistic attitude towards life and accepting it the way it had come without complicating and without asking why we are the way we are. That is what inspires me a lot.

Before readin' this I'd asked myself the same question so many times... Whenever I'd come second in a running race, whenever I'd lost near and dear ones, whenever I'd missed an opportunity to win something, whenever I was at the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reason, whenever I was sad for reasons unknown to me, I had asked God, Why Me? But after reading these words from Arthur, I'll never question my fate. I am happy and thankful for what I am.

I hope the words of Arthur Ashe and this little article inspire more number of people to accept the life the way it is and stay happy rather than worrying and feeling sad about it.

Fwd: " A battle we must not lose " - Pritish Nandy

From: India Against Corruption <no-reply@causesmail.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 1:26 AM
Subject: " A battle we must not lose " - Pritish Nandy

Bulletin from the cause: India Against Corruption Go to Cause Posted By: Gitesh Devhane To: Members in India Against Corruption " A battle we must not lose " - Pritish Nandy Forget Anna Hazare. The Jan Lokpal movement can go to hell for all I care. Let us just look at the issues over which the battle between the Government and us citizens is being fought. And then let's decide where we want to stand, each one of us, on the issue of corruption. The first question is: Do corruption and bribery hurt you? If they do, do you want a solution? If your answer is yes to both, do you think such a solution lies with an independent authority? Or do you think a corrupt Government can fight corruption on its own, and within its own ranks? If your answer is no to that, then we need to create an independent institution to fight corruption. Right? Well, that's precisely what Anna is asking for. He is asking for a Lokpal that the Government cannot influence nor manipulate. This is the first battle. The second battle is over four things. One: Should the Prime Minister come under the purview of the Lokpal? Almost everyone I know thinks he should. A honest Prime Minister wouldn't care. A dishonest one must be supervised. Or else, we will have cases like Bofors that will never ever be resolved. Two: Should Members of Parliament come under the Lokpal? I have not met a single person till date who thinks that our MPs are so honest that they need not be supervised. My guess is if a referendum is ever taken, Anna will get a 100% yes to this question, given what people think of our politicians and the standards of probity in public life. The third question is even more obvious: Do all public servants need to come under the Lokpal? My guess is India's answer will be yes, yes, yes. Every day, in every area of our life and work, we are constantly harassed, intimidated and extorted by corrupt Government officers. The poorer you are, the worse is the torture. So yes, every public servant, every Government officer must come under the Lokpal. Question four: Who should give permission to file an FIR against a corrupt judge? If the Lokpal can look into corruption charges against the PM, the MPs and Government servants, isn't it only logical to expect it to do the same against judges? The third and final battle is over an even simpler thing: The Citizen's Charter. Should every Government office have such a Charter which will clearly state which officer will do what work and in how much time? And should an officer who refuses to do his work in time or asks for a bribe to move a file be punished? The Government says a charter a fine but Government servants must not be penalised if they don't do their work! Anna believes that officers not doing their work in time amounts to corruption and must face the same treatment. Isn't it rather obvious what India thinks about this? Do we really need a referendum on these simple, basic issues? I seriously doubt it. Every Indian will endorse the idea of a Lokpal as Anna and his team have envisioned it, with the help of thousands of Indians who have contributed online to the process of drafting the bill. Yes, there are genuine fears that we should not create yet another monster out there, who will make life more difficult for us than it already is. But even that has been addressed rather adroitly by Anna's team. It is a complex process, true but it also ensures that the choice is wisely made. And what if there are charges against the Lokpal? Well, there's a provision there too. You can go straight to the Supreme Court and seek justice out there. So why are we arguing so much over this Bill? Why is the Government digging its heels in and refusing to listen to us citizens? Why must Anna go on a hunger strike all over again to press home the point that corruption must be fought back? I guess it's a question of both ego and fear. No one likes to give up the power they have, and certainly not the Government. In fact, it's always trying to interfere more and more in our lives, grab more and more authority, more and more space. And fear? Well, I guess we all know the answer to that. This is possibly the most corrupt Government we have ever had. It has good reason to be scared. IF YOU LIKE THIS POST, PLEASE FORWARD IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. Call to Action Spread the word. Every invitation counts: Invite Friends

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What an as****e!!!

What an asshole should this Manish Tiwari be to not only make defamatory attack on Anna Hazare but also make stupid comment about Anna's supporters and people of India who are against corruption. To clean his and his party workers' shit, Manish Tiwari is using the people of democratic India as his toilet paper.

Read this in today's edition of TOI: "Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari’s defamatory attack on Anna. He said the Gandhian was corrupt from tip to toe, and said his followers were “armchair fascists, overground Maoists, closet anarchists” funded by “invisible donors”. The unrestrained attack on respected citizens made people angrier"

I feel this Manish Tiwari should take a lesson or two in political science to understand who are actually Fascists, Maoists or Anarchists before making such derogatory comments against the people of India.

I hope "Tiwari goes to Tihar Jail forever" becomes the next hot news!! :)

Bad broadband services in India

I have been using BSNL DataOne broadband service from past 5-6 years. Though the connectivity and the promised speed is up to the mark, once the problem starts there is no end to it. I have had my own set of problems with BSNL in the year 2009, 2010 and now in the year 2011. 

In the year 2009, I didn't have the internet connection for a complete 3 months, though the phone service was still available. The line man and the in-charge officer kept making me go here and there for nearly 3 months before changing a single cable from the telephone pole coming into the house connecting the telephone instrument which solved the broadband problem. That was not all, I was also forced to buy a new modem because both the line man and the in-charge officer told me that the problem was with the modem for which I spent an extra Rs. 1000. A wise one might ask why I didn't change the operator when I had problem for 3 long months. The reason is simple. I didn't have an option. I was, at that time, was staying in a central government quarters and no other operators except BSNL may operate there!! Anyway the drama ended after 10-11 manual/telephone complaints, 5 emails sent to higher officials, 1 written complaint and couple of fights.

The second set of problems started in the year 2010 when I shifted my house from North Bangalore to South Bangalore. I didn't have the internet as well as phone connection from BSNL for a total 7 months. The reason for not giving the connection was simple though silly - BSNL was running short of telephone cables. Of course I was not charged for the connection during the time but imagine amount of trouble I was in. I was again left with no option but to go for a costlier yet slower connection from Tata WiMax. The service from Tata wasn't good. Though I used to get the promised speed, hardly did the internet stay connected for a long time. Whenever the internet got disconnected, I'd to either wait for hours to get the connection back or call up the customer care to reset the connection. I'd also bought a static IP since I was told that the above mentioned problem could get solved by the use of a static IP!!! Nah... that didn't help either. So at last when the BSNL connection was provided at the end of 7th month after my shift to Bangalore South, I switched back to DataOne. Though there were intermittent disconnection due to various reasons I was quite happy with the connection and the download/upload speed of the DataOne connection till 2 months back when the problem resurfaced.

The 3rd set of problems with BSNL started on one of those fateful days in the month of May when there was heavy rainfall in Bangalore. For a day phone went dead, but came back alive on the 2nd day. The DataOne connection which stopped working then, still doesn't. For a few days the problem was complete disconnection. And now the problem is that the connection exists only during day-time and in the evening and in the night, the internet doesn't work!! I guess I need not have to re-explain all the problems that comes with the disconnection - n number of complaints, cost incurred to travel/complain for the DataOne problem correction!!

I did some basic research on the next best available WiFi broadband connection since along with my computer I'd also wanted the connection to be available in parallel to 3-4 smart phones and a laptop. So I ended up with the Tata Photon WiFi which promised a download speed of up to 3.1MBPS and upload speed up to 1MBPS. When I test the speed for the Tata Photon WiFi on speedtest.net, it shows download speed anywhere between 0.5MBPS to 1.2MBPS and upload speed anywhere between 0.2MBPS to 0.4MBPS. So much for having paid Rs. 6400.00/- for the WiFi modem and monthly rental of Rs. 1500.00/-. And yesterday when I called up the Tata Photon Customer Care I came to know that the CC agents are not even well versed with the technology. One of the Tata Photon CC guys who spoke with me asked me to re-install all the modem drivers and then check for the connection even after telling him a couple of times that I am connecting to the internet through LAN!

Well, many of my friends have always praised Airtel broadband connection for their customer support and almost 100% uptime. But call it bad luck or whatever, wherever I go Airtel doesn't follow me! :( I haven't tried Reliance since it has a mixed feelings about it from the group of friends of mine who are using it.

The conclusion is that the customers (aam aadmi or the Mango People) are always taken for a ride by these big companies. For this reason and only this reason I wish I was in some developed country to enjoy the full broadband speed!!! Alas!!!

Browser usage - Chrome and IE

It is nearly 3 years since Chrome the web browser from Google was launched and my experience with it has always been excellent. Though IE has been predominantly used at office for intranet sites, I mainly use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome for browsing the net. I especially use Firefox if I need to download anything!

I have the habit of checking the "Audience" of my sites - the country from which majority of people are browsing my articles and what OS & browsers they use. Till recently it was IE that was the leader. Around 60% of the viewers of my site used to use IE, a little around 20% used to use Firefox and the rest other browsers. Today I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that the majority of my site users are using Chrome. For a minute I couldn't believe it. The reason being that just a few weeks back it was IE which was the dominant browser and from nowhere has Chrome taken up a major chunk of IE users.

Check the below data from Google stats available for my blog.

Pageviews by Browsers

Chrome 585 (32%) Internet Explorer 546 (30%) Firefox 512 (28%) Safari 88 (4%) Opera 46 (2%) chromeframe 7 (<1%) Jakarta Commons-HttpClient 6 (<1%) Mobile Safari 5 (<1%) Java 4 (<1%) Version 3 (<1%)

I guess Google's advertisement for Chrome has really helped in increasing the market share. Here is the advertisement for Chrome which is aired in India.

Though Chrome and Firefox are closely competing with IE, Microsoft Windows operating systems are still ruling the world!!

Pageviews by Operating Systems

Windows 1,595 (89%) Macintosh 80 (4%) Linux 45 (2%) Other Unix 34 (1%) Android 7 (<1%) iPad 4 (<1%) iPhone 4 (<1%) Nokia 3 (<1%) SAMSUNG 3 (<1%) iPod 2 (<1%)

So I opine that in coming months Chrome shall surely overtake all the other browsers by a major percentage of users going for it. But IE or no IE, Microsoft Windows surely rules the OS world -as of now!!!

Update: Here is an article published at ZDNet - "Chrome takes bite out of IE's share" and "Chrome rises at IE's expense; iPad makes a showing".