A man was killed. It can and should not be the reason for anyone to be happy. For it changes nothing. It does not bring back those he killed nor will it deter any such events in future. It happened too late for an example to be set. I am not against death sentence but he should not have been killed. They say heaven and hell both are present here on earth. He should have been shown hell. Here. I am not talking about torture. That doesn’t work. I am taking about public shaming of such people. To the extent that they stop feeling any sense of so called martyrdom for which they work. To set such an example that any one else thinking of doing anything of such sort in future would shiver in their souls thinking about the outcome. Revenge does not solve anything. You know the “an eye for an eye” drill. It’s always about being prepared for such mishaps and in case they happen, make sure they don’t happen again. Now kasab is dead. No more suffering for him. His overlords will make an example out of him to recruit more fools who will be willing to kill others and themselves for reasons they don’t even properly understand. They will call him a martyr. And that he has achieved his virgins. Ajmal Kasab should not have been killed. Nothing good has come out of it for us. At least I don’t see it.

Note: I know I don’t usually write about such topics but this is an important issue. Also I am sure a lot of people will disagree with me. I too want to disagree with me but this is what I feel. I am sorry if I am hurting anyones feelings.

Recently I had to embed a facebook video in a web page and the first idea that came to my mind was to download the video and host it locally and render it on the page. But then I realized that there must be some way to embed the video directly. After a few searches I found out that there IS a way to embed the video into the page using the conventional <object> method

<object width=”300″ height=”240″ ><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” />
<param name=”movie” value=”http://www.facebook.com/v/1671900191543″ />
<embed src=”http://www.facebook.com/v/1671900191543″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”300″ height=”240″>
</embed>
</object>
In the times of HTML5 and CSS3 where you can embed video directly using the <video> tag this seems a tad historic and an overkill.

Apart from the many not so advantageous advantages of social media networks (spamming, stalking, poking…) one good thing they have done is to enhance accessibility of the high and mighty. Now you can directly tweet to SRK about how you have been overwhelmed with RaOne promotion or have a heart to heart chat with Shekhar Kapur. Most of the people use this ability for either ass-kissing or patronizing. But it makes me really happy when people bring this ability to actual utility. One such instance is about this fellow, Prasad Yaliwal, who tweeted Anand Mahindra directly to bring up the issue about his placement at MSAT.

I cannot even recall how many times I have been asked these questions – Are you happy with the decision of quitting a well-paying job to be an entrepreneur? Is it worth all this effort? The askers of these questions most of the times are clients or prospective clients who find it hard to understand why these young guys have decided to move away from a well settled life to one that will require constant hard work, with little prospect of retirement whatsoever. I just have one answer to all these questions. Sir, if I had not done this, we would not have been having this conversation. If I was still working for someone I might never have gotten the chance to meet and work with people like you.

Apart from the freedom of living a ‘Boss-free’ life and the great joy of getting to create something of your own, having a lot of different clients to work with/for is a major attraction for us. And being primarily a service based firm we get to interact with a lot of clients at a regular basis. As a matter of fact, as this post is being penned (penciled) down, I am on my way back from an interesting client meeting only.

Today I stumbled upon an article titled “An Open Letter to a Delhi Boy” at a lot of places in my social sphere. It was being cheerfully tweeted and retweeted about in my twitter stream and was shared multiple times on my Facebook wall. Some people had even gone to the extent of copying the damn thing to take credit for the same. I did read the article, but to great disappointment. Even though the lack of depth of the piece was “in your face” apparent, it was still gaining popularity. All of a sudden every girl could relate to it and every boy was defending himself. The reason for its popularity is quite clear though. It’s fun to see some one diss someone else in a well formed and articulate manner. Personally I feel the article itself is quite amusing but very inaccurate. So I decided to take on my shoulders the burden to provide a proper response on behalf of all “Delhi Boys”. Before I continue let me give you a fair warning. Though I will sincerely try not to pick up the tone of the aforementioned article or the kind of words, being a “Delhi Boy” I might get emotional and should be duly excused for the same.

Firstly let us define “Delhi Boy”. I am a Delhi Boy. I have my roots in UP and MP and I have a strong punjabi connection as well with all the colleagues and friends. I drive a small hatchback car and am usually seen wearing a Levis Jeans. I have never and might never read Vogue but I have never/will never miss an issue of Top Gear. I listened to Sonu Nigam and Bryan Adams as I was growing up and have decently evolved to admiring Md. Rafi and Led Zepplin. I might not brag about the few foreign trips I have made but I will definitely make sure that you are aware that I attended a specific ODI match that India won. I am an omnivore who can chow down on any cuisine. In the above said sentences if you replace all the I’s with “Delhi Boy” it won’t be wrong. This is the apt description of a common “Delhi Boy”. I will not deny that the samples that you talked about do exist, maybe even in great numbers, THEY STILL DO NOT REPRESENT A COMMON DELHI GUY. These are pretty much the generics of a “Delhi Boy”, feel free to interact with any random but genuine “Delhi Boy” for specifics.