1 thing you should start doing (Sorry I don't have a "gif")

There is a lot that is wrong with the articles currently circulated on social websites. Judging by the "likes" and "shares" they are pretty popular too. I will be honest. I don’t like them one bit. I think they are doing what Chetan Bhagat did to literature. They inspire new readers (the good part) and then they restrict them to that for their whole life (the horror part). And I failed to fathom why this happens. I understand no one starts with big profound literary works. I started with champak, balhans, Nancy Drew, Sydney Sheldon,  and then build my way gradually up.

And it's not just that way for people who start early. I have introduced novels to a lot of my friend (And I say it with a lot of pride) and I see them reading such big range of work now. Its generally small books initially; Animal Farm , To Kill a Mockingbird, O Henry's short stories, Premchandra 's short stories. But the guys who start with Chetan Bhagat, I don’t know what happens to them. All they could reach is "Anything for you Mam."

And I think I see the same pattern with Scoopwhoop or Storypick or other sites of the same sort. No one now seems to have the time to enjoy a good long article. No New Yorker, Der Spiegel or any random blog for that matter. And this really saddens me. But the article is not about that.

There are other things here that annoy me. The bulletisation for one." 10 things you should do (7th is awesome)". Does no one have the patience to read a paragraph anymore? And I think gifs are cool but that's what 9gag is for. I would like to keep them separate. It was probably funny the first two-three times but to make a template out of it just irritates me. The quality of language seems to be a clear outcome of the recklessness that comes with deadlines.

It is about something more important. Something that we as a society seem to be losing. If you have a bit of time at your hand just quickly go through the above paragraphs. Notice the number of times that I have used "I". I think it is irritating. I think the quality is not good...and so on .". Now go to any of these websites. Notice the number of "you" there. "10 things you should do", "10 things you should avoid", "Why you should marry a girl who travels". 

Welcome my friend to the world of diminished individuality. A world, where people don’t share experiences as "food for thought". They shovel advice down your throat. When an anchor says the "nation wants to know" he assumes that his question is the all important all knowing one. I don't like Chetan Bhagat novels and I like people who travel and I may even use that as some basis for selecting my friends. But that would be because I would opt for compatibility. But no fucking way in hell, have I the right to say that I am better than them. They could have other things. They may not like to travel much but just want to listen to music on weekends. Who am I to compare a sight of the flowing river with the melody of Beatles.

One may leave a high paying job and I would love to hear his/her experience but it would be absolutely foolish of him/her to say that nobody should pursue high paying jobs. This act of making us follow one path and one path only horrifies me. The news channels are the same. Gone are the days of debate. I remember my teachers telling me in school that a chance of debate reaching a conclusion is nigh impossible. The idea is to listen to both sides and take out the insights. Try telling that to the newsroom debates of today where the conclusion is fixed even before the debate begins.

This has now crept up in our day to day life as well. Very often I would take what I do as a standard template and try to force fit the life of people around me into it. There is a sense of security in it. There is ease in it too. Don't we all love if everybody will speak the same language as we do? But this needs to be checked against.

So ironically I will end it with a "Thou shall not " statement. Don't force your views on others. Present them as an option but leave the choice to others. That's all I ask.

Password Story

Password Story

After the 9/11 crisis, Microsoft faced an issue. To retrieve the passwords of people who died. It looks trivial and yes, inhumane too in front of the tragedy that had just occurred. Regardless, it was a serious problem. A lot of people were privy to information only known to them and their computer/mailbox. In the absence of the password it would all have been lost.

The brute force technique would have solved it eventually but would have taken a lot of time. To give an example let's assume that password is to be of 5 characters and all of them letters. The machine will start with applying aaaaa as a password and will try all combinations till zzzzz until the password is retrieved. That's 26^5 combinations. And in the real word the passwords are more than 5 letters , the length is also not fixed and special characters and uppercase letters are also involved. It is clearly a tough, very tough task.

So they have to look at the person's life for inputs. For e.g. , was he married? If yes, than could his marriage anniversary be a password. How did they combine this information with brute force exactly, I can only imagine. And this blog is definitely not going to cover that.

What I was interested in is how that little password; that is there only for security reasons; that has no impact or belonging to our life; could carry so much of "us" in it. Based on our need to remember it we award to it a print of our personality.

Of course it's not the same for everyone. The" security-ease of remembering" trade off creates a fascinating scene. The absolute pro-security ones will make up an absolute random password like 12sfgdv$%k and commit it to memory. The one that favours ease of remembrance will opt for birthday dates, wedding dates etc. It's the one in middle that fascinates me. Those who would like their password to be secure enough to be random to others but personal enough for them to remember. In the process of doing so they provide to it an imprint of their personality. The imprint could be well thought off or could be more subconscious.

There is this absolutely moving story of how a mother found out about his son's homosexuality only after his death. His password was" lambda1969". Lambda is the Greek word "I" sometimes referring to the gay liberation. The year 1969 referring to the year of stonewall riots.

My passwords were never this profound but now that I look at them closely they do reveal some things about me. Initially my passwords were names of famous English movies like "matrix" , "killbill" etc. I grew up in a small town where English was, and I dare say;  is, something that commands respect. The fact that I can understand English movies gave me something of a status. Also that they were much better than hindi movies, is a statement not many would argue on. So basically it was something that I liked and gave me a bit of status. No wonder they became my initial passwords.

My password up next, "confuse" or some variation of it pretty much defines my after school years. I had one focus in the later part of my school life; To get into an IIT. Once I was there I was not really sure if that was what I wanted to do . I felt like coming back but then I was not sure if I wanted to come back either. It is the confusion of choosing what to do that just stayed with me and crept its way to my password. In between there was time of homesickness where my password became my hometown itself. "Banswara". There was also a time; that I remember now with a fair amount of cringe, when a conversation with my Ex tested my patience to a hilt resulting in the password "fuckyouall". The fact that my password today is a far more positive word tells me that I probably came out of it all Okay (Fingers crossed)

So here is what I would want you guys to do. Think of your old or new passwords and think of the way it captures you and I would love to hear your story. I think it's a fascinating read into somebody (and I do know this is borderline voyeurism but I am what I am) and also I think it would be nice to create a story about it.

I really don’t know what I am looking for and probably it's too much to ask for anyway.

But I do believe there is a compelling urge in everyone to make their stories heard just like there is a compelling urge in me to hear those stories. Here is the link for you to send me the stories anonymously. There is an option of sharing your details too but needless to say they would be purely confidential.

Your password story . I must admit my reach to social media is fairly limited so do help me spread it around. If you know of someone who would be interested in sharing his password story , feel free to forward the link around.