Waking up

Its been more than a year since I blogged. I have been hoping to make a comeback, without ever trying.

This should be a good start! Let me say what I have been upto lately...

I married Shilpa on 9th Feb 2007 (or was it the 8th? ;)

Changed jobs to Xtenza hoping to make it an entrepreneur. It turned out to be a very bad experience. I realized that making money is no excuse for losing peace of mind or leading an unhappy life. Am not able to pinpoint what exactly was wrong, but I was very unhappy there. Quit in 6 months flat.

Taught Linux at SkillMaq for an induction batch of Xylog Systems.

Very busy in visiting temples, getting the REACH website up, organizing for the opening function of the REACH Foundation.

Then, I stop frequenting old temples (though my heart still yearns to) and activities of the REACH Foundation. Part of it is because I felt exhausted doing too many things - none of which were in my core interest area. I realize am not too much of an activist - more of an academic.

Part of it is due to the hindu extremist attitude in the people I met while at REACH. It was surprising to meet such people, and I slowly started siding with them - hey thats not me. To me religion is the walking stick, which you use to balance yourself. The stick doesn't need to be protected. It just needs to be used. I believe anybody who thinks they are doing good by just defending/expanding the religion of their choice without properly reaching higher goals himself/herself is missing the point.

These extremists defend very vehemently with incidents that happened the other day at another place and again and again. I find it difficult to subscribe to such point of views. To be fair, they do not compel me to subscribe to their ideas, but you are who your friends are, you know... and I feel a churn in my heart when I think I might become like them.

Part of it is also due to exposure to some very selfish motives of some people involved - which I'd rather not talk about here. Am sure they have their own reason, but am just not able to digest it.

Part of it is because I was jumped upon by members for not completing the online course of the REACH website which I genuinely tried to, but couldn't. Well, I guess, am not the kind who takes negative criticism very well...

More than all that, I wanted to know more about history, document and probably help a few with their research - Not run around to arrange functions or fight the political/tactical battles.

I would much rather be an academic, learn about the past and contribute academically, instead of trying to fix the world - which is very difficult, and actually the fix is just relative to who is looking at it - too narrow to bother about.

Back at Collabnet, is like a breath of fresh air. I have been working really hard for the last two weeks on the QC2PT connector, and I believe that I have turned it around to a certain extent - with a lot of help from Karthi, before and after I re-joined Collabnet. We have much more confidence in the connector now than before.

Worked a bit on a couple of other small projects.

Well, that about captures the gist of my life that I haven't been blogging.