Orkut mania

There have been many social networking sites but nothing caught me as much as Orkut. Can’t say exactly what makes it cool or distinct from others… could be the features… could be the navigation… could be etc etc etc but it surely has changed the traditional way of discovering friends or rather mutual friends.

I don’t know exactly if this is the reason that‘s making me hook to Orkut. I have been meeting many old friends and also discovering many mutual friends. Here is how you discover mutual friends or relatives in traditional way. We have been doing this from years.

I have two different friends who belong to two different worlds to me. Actually they both are room mates in same hostel unaware that they both know me. On the day of my wedding each told to the other it’s their friend’s wedding today; they got ready and left the room. The funny part is that they didn’t discover that they both are heading towards the same venue. It was a shock to both of them when they finally ended up in the same place. When they told me the matter I was a bit shocked myself as I never suspected all these days that they could be knowing each other.

I had one more experience where in the marriage ceremony leads us to the undiscovered fact. seems like weddings are the only way to discover in those days (those days??? its just been a year of my marriage and I am referring to the days before orkut as those days :|. though orkut is launched in 2004 I started using it in 2006)And now with Orkut it’s like every thing is changed all of a sudden. I discovered many a mutual friend/relative with a single click on ‘view friends’. Some of them were like I wouldn’t be able to discover in my whole life time. I would have died without knowing.

Later I started thinking if discovering the new relation is really helpful. Probably I might not lose any thing had I not known it, but knowing it made the relation more intimate. Social relations are always good whether they are beneficial or not all the times. After all man is a social animal and has a social need, remember it? one of the needs in motivational theory :)

Indians Glorified II

In my previous blog I gave few examples of Indians who won accolades world wide and how that fills me with pride. Here I have come up with yet another example.

It is an ad by Italian Telecommunication Company which has won Epica Award for best ad.

Play Video

I am very glad that an Indian leader is recognized and remembered by world even after half a century of his death. Though I am more a follower of the revolutionists like Bhagat Singh, Bose (a glance at my Orkut communities will surely reveal that), this ad has surely delighted me.

It is said that distance intensifies love, this surely has happened to me. My love towards my nation is at peaks at this point than at any stage of my life. A single article I read about my country, a single award to my nation, single achievement by any Indian … all these add fuel to fire.

Indians glorified

Well… it’s almost been a month of no blogging. All the credit goes to my latest obsession with books. I have always loved reading, but from a month it has been addiction. I have completed reading a 300 pages book in one single day :)… well considering my reading speeds… it’s surely an achievement for me. Orkut is still there on my obsession list, but surely not on top now.

Even on the weekends books have become priority than hanging out. But, being a responsible wife and home maker :P :D there are certain things we can never skip. Since our lease in our current apartment is ending and we have no intention of extending it (Vijay hates the callous staff here), we were on rove in quest of apartment. I accompanied Vijay in this task reluctantly keeping the book aside. We started with an organized search looking for the ones with good reviews on the net. It was surely fun meeting so many different people on a single day. Can never forget one funny woman, who acted like a typical blond in Hollywood teen movies. Well introducing myself to Americans had always been a tough task. ‘Sharmila’ is surely not easy for them. Vijay for sure has upper hand here, he can comfortably call himself VJ. Well, yesterday’s experience with VJ is surely a shock. The American guy could identify Vijay’s name He said ‘Vijay??? As in Vijay Singh?’ for me it’s a shock… because I myself don’t know who Vijay Singh is. But to Vijay it’s not his first experience. Later on little inputs from Vijay and little research on net enlightened me.

Vijay Singh was a golfer who was number one in official world golf rankings for 32 weeks in 2004 and 2005, and also he was highest money earner in golf circuit in 2004. Though he is a Fiji national, he has his roots from India.

Well…it fills me with pride when Indians are glorified in foreign countries. This reminds me of one more incident. The world’s biggest space research centre NASA has a painting of Tipu Sultan army launching rockets on British army in a war against them. Apparently Tipu is the first person to have used rockets in the war. It is said that his rockets were much more advanced than the weapons possessed by British at that time. When the president Abdul Kalam had been to the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia, which was a base of NASA's sounding rocket programme, he was very much delighted on finding the painting and said "The painting depicted a fact forgotten in Tipu's own country but commemorated here on the other side of the planet. I was happy to see an Indian glorified by NASA as a hero of warfare rocketry."

Enough of blogging :) time to get back to reading... Agatha Christie’s ‘Curtain’ in which Poirot dies… intriguing huhhh