'If' by Rudyard Kipling

Inspiration, encouragement, belief, virtue and strength.
I don't look for anything beyond, but for my own comprehension of it.

...................................

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Yes. It's been a while.

Is the initial euphoria of publishing a blog dying or am I genuinely busy?

Rewind to Week 10
(In Sweden, we often schedule our dates based on the week number. So if I say week 32, you ought to know the month and dates that I am talking about! Strange huh? :) )

I consumed Week 10 in Germany with CeBIT. Rather, CeBIT consumed me.
With 3600 exhibitors and almost half a million visitors, CeBIT is the world's largest technology trade event.
This is huge - it's like a city of it's own! It would actually take you half an hour to walk from one end of the show to the other!
It's where companies launch products, flaunt prototypes, talk business, make audacious press releases, and have great parties in the evenings.

Between all the light & sound, gadgets & gizmos, wine & women, tom-tomming and extravagance, Opera shared a humble exhibitor stand sponsored by big daddy Sun Microsystems. We managed to catch a fair bit of the limelight with the voice enabled browser technology, where you can simply talk to your TV and say, show me "Friends" or order a pizza online with "1 pizza with pepperoni and extra cheese"!!
Now, how cool is that?! Aren't we whizkids of the internet age?! :) (yes, preening like a cat!)
On a different note, how lonely are you when you look forward to talking to your TV?!

On a cooler note, I hired a New Beetle Cabrio convertable for 5 days to celebrate the German autobahns!
Though, I'm not too sure if Anthony, Berit and Jakob enjoyed the drive as much as I did! ;)

Anyway, with 60 meetings in 5 days, 2 hours of driving everyday and a party hosted by Intel, I was absolutely exhausted!

CeBIT was an experience!

----------------------------------------------------

Before I begin unfolding Week 11, I must share some news.

April onwards, I join Opera Software Japan as the new product champion for Asia Pacific. I will be based in Tokyo, coordinating operations in Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan and China. And it is definitely something that I am eagerly looking forward to.

With the excitement of travel and a new country, comes the visa anxiety! Ok, this time, I aint going to rant about what a pain it is. Just that I've been on my toes for pretty much the whole week, shunting between the Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese embassies. I am sure that by now the driver on Bus No. 69 to Ambassaden/Blockhuset knows me pretty well!
Adding to the woes, I've had to apply for a new Indian passport.
(If George Carlin was asked to give a go at my previous line, he'd say, "too many words! Why 'new Indian passport'?! Aint 'passport' just enough?! Hell you sure know that your li'l brown arse can't drag itself to get a Swedish one!". Random, yes, I know!)

Trivia: Ok, what is nomad orgasm?
Answer: When all the pages in your passport are full of visas and you need to apply for a new passport! :)

Back to week 11 - it's been muddled with the anxiety of leaving Sweden and packing everything again. It was the other day, that I was discussing with Erika that, just when you have begun to transform the house into your home, it's time to move and look for another house to make it your home.
C'est la vie - but it sure is exciting!

----------------------------------------------------

I hope week 12 soothes my nerves a bit. I will spend Easter on an island in the Baltic Sea called Gotland. And then back to packing my bags and jetting off to Tokyo.
Not sure if I will find the time to write another posting before I leave.

If not, it's syonara for now and the next one's from the land of saki, sushi and kinky sex!

Thank You

02 March 2005.

One year in Sweden.

One year of living it and loving it.
Of a vacation from conventional thought, society and expectations.
Of enthusiasm and boredom,
of hardwork and procrastination,
of depression and jubiliation.

One year of making plans and breaking plans.
Of appearing, disappearing, and then reappearing.
Of realizing that pretending to be happy doesn't make you happy.
Or pretending to be smart doesn't make you smart.

One year of learning and unlearning.
Of taking chances and not taking them,
of forgetting the past and not fucking your future,
rather, investing in it.

One year.

Of enjoying being with myself.
Of realizing that it's ok to mess up.
And it's ok to feel like crap.
But also knowing that I will survive.

Realizing that things I want to forget,
are the things I need to talk about the most.
And that just when you think it can't get worse - it does!
But then time, friends and positivity rescue your wretched soul.

Of things I wanted the most,
but I just couldn't have.
Of moving on and wanting something else the most.
Of realizing closure for a new and better beginning.

One year.

Of aspirations and milestones.
Of challenges and success.
Of building a new life and enjoying every moment of it.

And if there is something I really want to say, its Thank You.

Thank you Mom and Dad, thanks Dada. Thank you Ira. A special thanks to Rajat. Thanks Anthony, Jags, Erika, Erik, Magnus, Fredrik, Johanna, Hanna, Onur, Emma, Heather, Lauren, Anna, and Johan. Thanks Vivianne, Ying, Robin, Ana, Nisarg, Ruki, Suren, PK, Agata, and Gokce.
Thanks Priya.
Thank you Mina, Dana, and Mira. And, thanks Dool for being there - you are a gem.

It's been special.

Humanizing Home Media Technology

It's a different high when newspapers back home are covering the work that you do: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1252943,0003.htm

Opera's Voice-enabled browser technology in collaboration with IBM, was also featured on CNET New.com, ZDNet, Yahoo! News, Computing, internetnews.com, InternetWeek, LinuxDevices, and the New York Post.

Here's to the next step in human-computer interactivity.