Instant Messaging (IM)

You must be wondering what this is all about. One must have chatted so many times with their friends that their typing speed must have improved by now. At least mine have :) I am talking about chatting with people you don't know, probably of the opposite sex. We all have done it sometime or the other. I am writing down my experiences as I see that IM (instant messenger) chatting has made its way to the graveyard. I found my chats to be amusing, funny and did left me wondering too!!!

It was during my college days that I was into it whenever I need to 'pass my time'. I would go into the chat rooms and hoping to find some girl to talk to. The conversation always started with a Hi and if you are lucky enough they will reply back. One needs to be make sure that their chat is interesting or else you might end up chatting with yourself.

I used do get stuck up wondering what to say next when I do get a reply from the other side. You might talk about interests, work/studies and may be other stuff. May be I need to learn how to break the ice. In my messenger I find a long contact list which is never online whenever I am or they have learned the trick of being invisible. I remember one 'friend' of mine with whom I had chatted and then added to my contact list. After a few months down the line, when I told 'Hi' to her when she was online she did not remembered me although I was in her contact list. How funny can things get?

The one thing I found was that I ended up doing all the talking and all they would do is answer. I guess they are used to that kind of attention where they can choose whom they want to talk to. Not different from the real world. After all when one sees an id with a girl name it gets bombarded with so many chat requests. My friends used to chat pretending to be girls. What a fun they had doing it.

Though there were times when the chat would end before it began, then there were times when the 'friend' whom I had added in my contact list would never appear online. They were also those with whom you really had a good time chatting too. You would exchange e-mail ids but after that there would be no reply. I even had instances where I had to introduce n number of times to a friend of mine who is adept at shayari. Sometime chatting does has the same effects of a face to face conversation, the only difference is that the face is missing here. Then I had this chat with this girl, we instantly hit it off and talked for hrs. After that I never saw her online again. Did left me wondering what happened here?

I find online chatting to be interesting as you tend to judge the person by the text they entered rather than how they look. Something we don't follow in the outside world. One tends to create an image about the person with whom they are talking which of course creates an excitement within us. I mad a lot of friends throughout the globe and even meet some of them.

Nowadays when I do turned my IM, one can only see the long list of contacts who appear offline. Even if you do go in chat rooms hoping to chat with someone. The only ones you would find are bots which would try to entice you to click on their link and see them live on the cam. With the number of social networking sites coming up, it can be said that chatting online has made a transformation in the form of scraps. One can know whom they want to be friends with and may even check out their pics, profile something not possible with IM.

As for me I don't go in search of making new friends now, don't even have the time to do that. Hope online chatting has been fun for you as it has been for me. I use my IM to check for mails. Works better for me, rather than going into the site and log into it. For now

Instant Messaging R.I.P.

Sport Loans Something to think about................

Today, when I read the papers there was an article on how most of the medals that India won in the individual category at the Olympics was mostly due to the individuals ability for funding for their own training rather depending on the government for providing the facilities. Though there have been exceptions but mostly its been their own making.

This kind of hit me when I was thinking how a sports person can get the funds one requires for their training. Why not banks give loans to sports persons? This would really change the whole scenario of sports in India, the one which is seen today. We have lot of talent here, but the problem is not every one has the moolah to make it to the top. By giving loans to sports person at concessional rates, they will be able to avail the amenities that they were being denied.

Having said this, I know this is not a very easy task, but if we can work on it then definetly things can work out for better. One of things about getting loans is you need to prove to the banks you have enough money and you don't need the money in the first place!!

The banks can give loans at lower rates for a longer duration and on the other hand they stand to gain, if the sport person they have given loan to is winning events. This would give them a brand ambassador and would mean more business. It can also happen that they did not win any events, at least they were able to give them the facilities which was required for their improvement. This can also be dubbed as a corporate effort to develop sports in India and making their contribution towards the same.

I do hope they are reading this and make a note of it.

Insomania

You have trouble sleeping in the night. If you don't then stop reading this and if you are, you just found yourself a friend in me. Yup that's me. I too have the problem of hitting the bed.

This has been going for some years now and somehow I have not been able to be on top of it. Its been more than a week that I hardly feel asleep now. So I end up getting late which makes life miserable for me.

My family feels that there is a ghost moving around the house which incidentally happens to be 'me' as I tend to move around my house when I don't feel asleep.

I tried counting sheep and it never ends, in fact coz of it I can say numbers in a descending order without stopping for once. Some one said reading a book helps in sleep, you know what I happen to finish that book in the early morning.

I envy people who falls asleep at the fall of a pin. There are people who can sleep throughout the day. Man, wish I could do that.

Hope that I am able to get a good sleep tonight!!

India's Quest to Olympics

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part;
the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well"

— Pierre de Coubertin (founder of modern Olympic Games)

It was heartening to see the Indian flag rising at the top of the podium when Abhinav Bindra clinched the only individual gold medal in the 10m shooting competition in the recent Beijing Olympics 2008. This was a proud day for India and the Indians to cheer about.

Abhinav really needs to be complimented for the way he held his nerve to hit the bulls eye in the last round which made all the difference.

This happens to be the first individual gold medal to be won by India and that too after 28 long years. India's populations stands at about one billion approximately. This very much says a lot about the sorry state of affairs about sports excluding cricket which has the players raking in lots of moolah.

Though we have sport organizations formed to take care of the development of sports in India, we hardly get to see the results. It is very sad to see that we are not doing much for the development of sports, though we have athletes who overcame all these obstacles to win medals for India.

We need to learn a lot from our neighbor China which starts working on its athletes from a young age. No wonder they have bagged so many gold medals at the Olympics. I surely hope this we take a leaf out of China to change the face of the dismal state of sports in India.

Though Abhinav had the money to fund his training, others are not so lucky. Hope the sports authority takes a note of this and starts working on it soon as the 2010 Common Wealth Games is to be held in Delhi.

I hope to see us winning more medals at the Olympics and the coming Commonwealth Games in 2010.

Making A Difference!!!

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world;
Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed."

— Ray Goforth

This got me thinking when I saw one of them in the local trains going about their work few years back. Today when I saw one of them again, I decided to share this thought with you.

You must be wondering what I am talking about, who I saw and all the fuss about. Relax, you see them everyday if you happen to travel in the Mumbai local trains and yet they remain invisible to us as we try to make our journey and for some a nuisance. I am talking about the individuals who are trying to make a living by selling accessories or singing in trains. For most of you they may appear as ordinary people who rob you of your peace when in transit. They do that as they are trying to make a living.

They are the real heroes who try to make a decent living even when the grim realities of their lives make it easier for them to get into illegal activities.

I often hear people saying they hate their lives. Even I do that. When I think of them, all my problems gets vanishes in thin air. If I am down, then I say to myself if they can do it so can I.

Life gives us lot of opportunities and options for solving the problems of our life, but they don't have that many options to make their problems go away. The only way they can do it is by making a decent living and hoping that they can give their children the kind of life they dreamed of.

It was the singing of a young girl accompanied by her father perhaps which are still fresh in my mind. The girl sang so beautifully the song and was moving towards people asking for money. My friend took out a 5 rupee coin and handed over to her. While I was indecisive about whether I should give it or not. Though I enjoyed her singing, I was in a dilemma as I have a strict policy of not giving money to kids who most of the time happen to be beggars as I wanted them to stop doing it. I thought if everyone did this, may be there won't be any kid begging in and around the streets. I did not offer the girl the money though I kind of regretted not doing it and kind of made it a point that instead of turning them away, we should encourage them of making as they are trying to make a decent living by singing or through selling items. Living life at their level is not that easy.

I would like to make a humble request, in case you come across them, do make a point to buy from them. There are times when we waste our money on useless things, only this time you would be making a difference!!

We all wish that we make a difference. How many of you have been able to do that? or have made an attempt to do it?

The most common answer would be that it is something that you only thought about but did nothing. While some even made an attempt to do so, some succeed some don't. Some even made the difference and feel great about it.

Where do you stand among them??