Chronicles of Nikhil Baliga

Swami Nikhilaananda said: " Remember, if you know the answer and refrain from answering, your head will explode to a thousand pieces - said the Betal to Vikramaditya " I am sure most of you are familiar with the Vikram Betal stories... And today, I heard a very interesting story that apparently happened in India. So, here's the short narrative, followed by the standard question... And remember, if you know the correct answer, and refrain from saying it, your head will explode to a thousand pieces (Betal's threat) A traffic constable pulls a car over for jumping the signal. The driver of the car tells the constable in a way of warning, " Do you know who is in the car? It's the big boss " and tells him who the big boss is - Joint secretary or one such hot shot chief... The constable says " It doesn't matter who is in the car. I am just doing my job! " and asks for a fine to be paid.  The joint secretary subsequently contacted the supe...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " My wish my will, maybe I will jump off the hill...; Or maybe another time, I can already feel the chill " Raj looked at me and said " You know what I want to do? I want to run naked in the sunflower fields ". I raised an eyebrow as I looked at him and grinned. " You what? But why? " Raj stared at me without any expressions " Because I can.... " " Okkk... But why sunflower fields? " I asked. This was getting rather curious. " Why not " he asked. I said, " Dude, why don't you run in the city streets? Like one of those marathons for a cause that's often held? Someone might capture videos, organise fund raisers, maybe you will go viral and you can actually help people through charity. Not to forget, you will become famous - you would have done what Poonam Pandey only bluffed about "... Raj seemed to be seriously considering it. " What you say sounds true, but hey, I can...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " If your supporters aren't supported by you, what use is of supporters supporting you " There is a movie called Kurukshetra in which Sanjay Dutt plays the lead role, that of a top cop. In the movie, a poor girl gets raped and murdered by a politicians son. Then starts an epic battle between good and evil (hence the title of the movie) and Sanjay Dutt fights on behalf of the poor parents of the girl. Naturally, politicians being politicians, have a nexus with mafia, and then there is a "good" politician (Oxymoron? You bet) who eventually betrays Sanjay. Throughout the movie, there is an enormous effort put by him, he almost dies, fights bravely and doesn't know whom to trust. Towards the end of the movie, Sanjay Dutt is invitied by the politicians to settle matters. On reaching the home of the politicians, he is taken aback by seeing the father of the girl present there - the politicians try to convince Sanjay to stop fighting ...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " When you set your expectations too high, you are bound to be disappointed " I happened to watch a very interesting video about choices. Today, we have a lot of choices when we are about to do something or purchase something. And while these choices may seem to be a good thing, an excess of choices creates problems. How can choices create problems? The video will answer all the questions. However, what I wanted to talk about was expectations. As technology and society advances, the kinds of expectations that we have keep going higher and higher. I had some of these experiences personally where I have a really fast internet connection both at home and work. And on one occassion, when I had to access the internet through the mobile internet devices, like Tata Photon Plus, I found the speed pathetically poor. It is not that the speed itself is poor, because I used to have a dial up connection before broadband, and I remember clicking the butto...

Swami Nikhilaananda said: " The world is shrinking, along with the thickness of smart devices " Ever since the release of the fabulous iPhone, the smart phone industry seems to be in a mode of constant innovation. Fabulous apps keep coming out every so often and one that I would like to discuss today, is Viber. So what's Viber anyway? The development of phones has gone to such extents that very often we forget the original purpose of the phones - to make calls and send messages. This was the fundamental couple of features from the days of the venerable 3315. However, with a host of features that came along later, which makes your life greatly simplified, such as maps and GPS for navigation, locating places nearby and keeping track of events with synced calendars, one often had problems only in one case - When having to contact someone who is beyond your country. This was also not really much of an issue with tools like Skype, Fring and Google talk. You can tal...

Swami Nikhilaananda said: " Prevention is better than cure, it is better to avoid than to lure " Today's newspaper article showed that the Slut walk campaign that was due to be held in Bangalore got cancelled because there was opposition from some groups against the campaign. I posted a link of one of my previous posts on Facebook, citing that the protest in itself was silly . Since were there were several discussions on that, I thought, let me put a clearer picture, solely dedicated to this protest here. == Note == Read the whole post, do ample research. Knee jerk reactions will be not be commented upon So, what exactly is Slut Walk? On January 24, 2011 Constable Michael Sanguinetti spoke on crime prevention at a York University safety forum. He said: "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." ( wikipedia ) Then what happened? This had happened in Canada. So people protested against it, saying that wearing provocative c...

Swami Gulagulaananda said: " A chain will always break at the weakest link " Let us assume that you are a military commander who is creating a small team of elite warriors. You have decided to create a team of eight people. You have chosen a really elite set of people who clearly stood out from the ordinary, and you are all set to go into enemy territory with a mission to infiltrate, steal some top secret files, and blow up the facility. And then all of a sudden, your boss gives you a call and suggests and insists (read orders) that you have to take his nephew into the team because he wants to give his nephew an opportunity to get a piece of the action, first hand experience and become a hero. You know his nephew, he's useless. He couldn't even get the basics right, leave alone being one who can match up to the rest of the elite. Taking a guy like him into the team is as good as surrendering to the enemy. You are sure he'll bungle along the way. You are worr...