2080: A futurama : V2.0

[This is in continuation with my previous blog. Please read it to get the context and glossary]

At breakfast the next day, my granddaughter, Niharika, says “Nanaji, I am going for work. Do you need something?”.

Me: “Nothing dear. Can I come to office with you? I want to see the work culture of this time.”

Her: “I would have loved to take you to my office but you don’t have any ID.”

Me: “ID? Why do I need that to travel to your office?”

Her: “Beacause travelling to the office is a thing of the past. We just log on to our offices from home.”

Me: “Oh! OK.. you work from home.”

Her:”No, not work from home. We go to the office you see… only that the office is virtual. You must know this cause this was all concieved and done by you. I work for your company, Digitiser, it is the biggest company on this planet.”

Me: “Oh! Is that? I dunno because in the time I came from, I used to work in a very large office with a campus of its own. I used to travel for one hour daily to reach office in the worst traffice you may ecer imagine.”

Her: “Well, the traffic is a nightmare still but we don’t go to office. It works like this. When I feel like working, the ID connects me to the network carrier server and then I can log in to my work slot using my UniqueID. I am an architect…”

Me: “Wait wait wait. That means I built a construction empire. WOW! not bad for a software geek”

Her: “No… your company is a job distribution portal. Anyone who needs any kinda work done comes to you and gives you the specifications. The Digitiser, the name of the application you developed, then scans the database for the person or team best qualified for the job and assigns it to them and they do the job.”

Me: “Cool… that means I earn without doing anything. Are the teams freelancers or regular employees?”

Her: “Both. The system selects the best team based on some parameters and the team may consist of the best brains on the planet, so who cares if they are freelancers or regulars. And this is why you earn so much coz you give the best quality work at the optimum price.”

Me: “Hmmm… so what is the currency in circulation now? Is it dollars or Euro?”

Her: “Well they are also things of the past. There are no different countries so there are no different currencies. To contain inflation and to bring uniformity all the countries decided to come together in 2063 as a big happy family and name the new government simply as EARTH.”

Me: “WHAT?? There is no India now?”

Her: “Not if you don’t consider the company which produces all the food which we eat as a country.”

Me: “My God!! The earth has changed a lot.”

“Yes, It is… Nanaji, i wanted to talk with you more but I have to go now. I will be in my bedroom. Call me if you need something urgent. See ya in the evening.”

She kissed me and left for her “office”. Well i am still wondering how much the world has changed in 2080. Aren’t you?

2080 : A Futurama

OMG!! The guy is talking to himself… Is he mad?? Oh!! Look he is laughing all by himself too.. His logical circuits MUST be terribly screwed.

Well this is how I reacted. If you somehow bear the excruciating pain of passing through a time warp and travel to the future (like me) you will do the same. In 2080 we do not need Cellphones to talk to each other. People are able to talk through their brains. No I am not talking about telepathy; I am talking about multipurpose chips implanted in our hand which can interpret our nerve signals. Imagine a dumb terminal (the ID chip in our hands) hacking into the supercomputer (our brain) and redirecting its signals not only to the targeted muscle group but also to the network carrier servers distributed throughout the world.

You don’t need to use your hands now; you just have to think about talking to someone. The chip activates the phone call subroutine, you give in our unique 200 GB password. It serves two purposes :

1. To hack into the 128 Bit encryption is a literal child’s play now using the humungous power of our brains. Though with a networked system of around 200000 brains, it has been shown that we can successfully crack the 200 GB password by brute force, it is illegal to do so and identity theft is reprimanded with removal of the ID chips

2. It prevents any accidental dialling. Suppose you are thinking about your ex-wife and think about tallking to her in the middle of the night and the call gets connected. Woooo… you are in a thick soup my dear freind.

Anyways, the ID chip then connects to the central server of the mobile network, gets the ID of the required person, connects to him and lo you can start a conversation.

The signals which are sent by the brain to our vocal boxes to produce voices are captured, digitised, encoded and sent over the network to the person on the other end. There the signals are decoded and recoded as the signals which the ear drums send the brain. Your brain reacts just like it has listened to a normal voice. The system doesn’t play with the original signals but just makes copies of it before releasing it for the target muscles. Thus you have the authentic feel of talking to the person. Your vocal chords make the same voices which are sent over the network.

I learnt later that this was done so that vocal chords are not rendered vestibule and lost to evolutionary process. Though Mobile carriers fought nails and claws to retain this functionality to monopolise the way people talk to each other, but some hacker got an idea of their intended monopoly of human socialisation and posted it all over the network. After much flaming and hate-blogging the confederation (I will talk about the political structure some other time coz its a different story all together) denied the companies this functionality.

What more, you also ARE with the person while you talk to him. Satellite cameras of the network carrier company record the 3-D image of you while you talk and stream the encoded video live to you on the same channel. The chip then decodes the video stream and re-encodes it into the signals which the eyes send to the brain. You feel that you are with the person you are talking to you. This all create a great talking experience.

Well all this was told to me by my future grand-daughter.. I don’t have the ID implanted on me as I have died by this time due to smoking too many cigarretes and my chip was purged with the unique ID password :(.

I am amazed by the world in 2080. I would post my experiences as and when I can lay my hands upon the ancient virtual PC in the local museum. I have to hack into the network so that I can write into the official blog of a company long lost in time… Its very risky and I stand the chance of being deported back to the past. So appreciate my effort guys ;).

Of Mangoes and civilisation

Yesterday my teammate brought some mangoes from his home for everyone to have. I saw everyone talk about them but not eat coz they had inhibitions about what everyone will think seeing them eat mangoes in the cafeteria. Mangoes have a nasty habit of dirtying your hands and clothes, you know.

Being the non conformist that I am, I took it upon myself to prove them otherwise. Who can resist the temptation of mangoes anyway? I went to the cafeteria armed with my supply of mangoes and had my full of them. People came, they saw and they grumbled seeing me voraciously feeding on with both my hands. Whoever said that eating with both the hands is ill mannered never had a mango in his life. I ,personally, have always felt that if u wanna enjoy mangoes to the fullest, u gotta have juice dripping down ur sleeves.

Anyways, while enjoying the boons of the nature gods, some random questions crossed my mind. I know that these are all rhetorical ones. I don’t wanna know the answers nor will I give two hoots about them two hours from now. But still…

Why do we care so much about what the society conforms with? Who made the rules for all of us? Why is the society which is made of individual more powerful than the individual?

What is the system? Who gave the power of life and death to the system? Why should the society have a watchdog to police over them?

Why do I need to keep the roads clean when I am paying the govt taxes to do the same? Who told that littering is unethical? Isn’t it the same govt. and isn’t that washing your hands off from your duties?

Why should I pay my taxes off my hard earned income so that someone from the govt makes up a grand scheme to give away freebies to the so-called poor ones? Isn’t it scavenging to feed a non performing individual off the pockets of another hardworking one?

Isn’t it convenient on the part of some to lay down rules for all of us to follow so that they can sit in the high seats of powers and enjoy the benefits?

Why are the so-called netas given so much priviledges and priority over common men when a democracy is a govt for the people, by the people and of the people?

I wonder who conjured up this greatest scam of all times called the govt. He/she must be a true genius. I would sell my soul to be with him for one day.

So many thoughts over a mango. Whoever said that its the best to think over coffee…. And then again I think “Hmmmm…. so much for the civilization and civilized people… I would rather have my mangoes with both my hands.”

Much Ado About Smoking

Jaisa ki baba Shakespeare ne kaha tha… to smoke or not to smoke is the question. So much energy and paper is wasted every year to discourage people from smoking that it has become a major cause of global warming. So whenever I light up the cancer-stick(as the purists tend to call it) I think why do people smoke? Or rather as the post is mine, why do I smoke? Well, to be honest, I don’t know. I can give loads of excuses but the truth is that I don’t know.

I started smoking when I was in DPS, in 11th class. It was not peer pressure that initiated me. I experimented with it just because I wanted to do it. Well, it was one of the best feelings I had in my life, better than when I smoked weed or pot.

And before I knew what was going on I was addicted to it. I loved the feeling of being with my tanhai and sutta. When I went to college, I had many frnds becuz I smoked. They went on to become my best frnds for life. Till date we share a chai sutta whenever we meet.

My lovestory with my wife started bucuz she wanted me to quit. She felt that I had all the qualities of a gentleman except that I smoke and not chew ;).

So much has been the influence of a sutta in my life that I can’t imagine my life without it. Its not that I have not tried quitting. It has the distinction of being my sole new year resolution three years in running. Somehow or the other I end up taking a drag and then whoosh, its gone. The hazy blue cloud was too good to resist, for me.

I pondered upon the situation and came up with a few plausible reasons to help my cause of smoking :-

- You make frnds very fast when you smoke. I have met some of the best people of my life in the smoking zones. There is a great comaraderie between people who smoke, they form a sort of brotherhood or may be sisterhood (I have some gal frnds who smoke), hated and despised by everyone, they have a strong bond amongst them.

- Its easily available and at a very reasonable price. The merchandising and visiblity of the product is too good. You can be at the farthest corner of the earth (even where there is no Maruti Service Station or Reliance network) you will find a small shack which sells cigarettes.

- It is a good morning walk. I wake up early in the morning and go to the nearby paanwalla for a fag. I have kept the habit for last 9 years and I am fit as a fiddle.

- After supper I walk back to the panwalla and thus follow the old saying that “After meals rest for a while, after supper walk a mile”.

- Girls hate me when they come to know that I smoke. This decreases the insecurity level of my wife and thus prolongs my happy marriage.

- Its good to invest in the country’s economy. ITC Limited is one of India’s foremost private sector companies with a market capitalisation of more than US $ 15 billion and a turnover of US $ 4.75 billion. Do I need to tell that I smoke only Indian cigarettes?

I can rattle out a hundred such benefits of smoking but what the hell… I would rather go out and smoke a cigarette than preach its values to some infidels.

P.S. - This post is not a glorification of smoking but a personal reminder to me as to why I smoke and as they say Keep Walking….

The Lovestory

When you love someone - you’ll do anything
You’ll do all the crazy things that you can’t explain
You’ll shoot the moon - put out the sun
When you love someone

You’ll deny the truth - believe a lie
There’ll be times that youll believe you can really fly
But your lonely nights - have just begun
When you love someone

When you love someone - you’ll feel it deep inside
And nothin else can ever change your mind
When you want someone - when you need someone
When you love someone…

When you love someone - you’ll sacrifice
You’d give it everything you got and you wont think twice
You’d risk it all - no matter what may come
When you love someone
You’ll shoot the moon - put out the sun
When you love someone

-Bryan Adams

What would you say about two people who hate each other so much so that they can’t wait to see each other? That they are in love…. This was our story once upon a time.

I was a person whom you would either love to hate or hate to love. Don’t get confused, either way you would end up hating me. All the vices in the world….. you name it and I have had a taste of it. Music blared 24*7 out of my system. I watched movies the night before my exams ( yes, I am talking about my grads papers ). To cut the long story short I was an a$$#*!e ( I won’t like to delve deeper into the murky history of my life).

Now take this girl. She was the kind whom we always hated at school coz she was so smart and we weren’t ( I dunno about you guys but I for sure hated such girls). She was the head girl of her school, studious, smart, sweetheart of her parents ( well my parents love me too but that’s a not considerable cause in my favour), did not listen to music (can you imagine!!), hated wasting time on movies ( she would rather love to study her books, huh!!)…. GOD!! What a waste of beauty (did I tell you she was B.E.A.U.tiful?) !!

I and she were as different as Milk and Water ( I being the water thingy, of course). Can you even imagine in your worst nightmares what happens when two such people meet? If not then well let me tell you…. There starts an adventure called a Love Story.

All you people have at some time or the other been the characters in this story. This is the story which you will love to tell your teenagers and warn them of the sweet side effects of love. However this is the time for the protagonist, i.e. me ( Oh I love myself ) to tell the story of the best three years of his life. So guys please close all your applications and put on your safety jackets coz you are gonna be on one hell of a roller coster ride of your life.

This story starts ( OMG!! Was all that before this the preface!!) on the day after valentine of a long forgotten year in the B’day party of a friend. I saw her for the some time. Well I won’t bore you with the mundane activities of that day just for the pure reason that I don’t remember them. The only thing I remember of that day is her smile, the clear smile that only a person pure from heart ( like me ) can dare to have. I won’t say that it was a love at first sight but somewhere in the deepest corners of my heart I realized that she was the one.

So I did what every guy worth his salt would do, I got her phone number from my friends and called her up. And lo!! I was in for a shock. She was quite different from my imaginations. She was smart and intelligent. I was attracted to her instantly. Then she came, she saw and she conquered. Mind you I have never accepted this fact before but I fell in love the first few hours she spent with me. However no love story is complete without a villain or two. And in this case I was the villain and the hero rolled into one ( God was on a tight budget in this movie ). My past came to haunt me. Someone told her that behind all my farce goody-guy show I was an I-have-already-told-you-what. So after two days of wooing ( oh yes I was that fast and let me tell you I have my own charms, girls don’t refuse me often ) when I proposed her she turned back and said a perfect “NO”.

I was devastated. No, not because she told me but coz I was told a no. I hope you get me.Anyways I tried a little more but when the results went from bad to worse I gave it up. I went back to my old life chasing my older and more faithful passions coz when the going gets tough the great give up.

Suddenly in true bollywood style she came up again in my life ( actually she had to buy a PC and I was the uncrowned king of computers among my friends ). This time it was my turn to hit back. I set upon work and wooed her again but this time I had my homework done. I had found out all her likes and dislikes ( believe me girls are always gaga about these ). However as I came to know her more and more she intrigued me. Every day was an adventure with her and I was never sure as to how the day would end.

We did all that normal couples do. We went around in parks, went shopping and dining together. However the things which were uncommon were the ones the ones who were the most important. We read books together ( this is one of the VERY few passions common between us). I tought her how to reboot a computer and she taught me that people hated me ( I was aghast when I learnt this). I taught her how to appreciate movies and she taught me how to appreciates someone’s emotions. I taught her the value of music in life and she taught me how to value life.

Love took its own sweet time and after three years here we are… She listens to my favoirate songs. I have reinvented myself and can hope to say that now people really like me. We both watch movies together munching into bucket full of popcorns almost every weekend. Though she still loathes me for not keeping my room clean or for sitting for long hours on the system and I still am trying to convince her that I won’t ever look at another girl the way I look at her, we are quite inseparable.

I can’t imagine myself living without her and she wouldn’t leave me even if her anger is making her push me off her terrace. And believe me there are days we come to all these. What has kept us together all these days is our love and our friends. Through all these bad phases our friends have stood by us and helped us realize the fact that we love more than we hate each other.

And then came the moment when I asked her to marry me (with the ring and flowers, of course).She answered affirmatively and the darkest fears of my yesteryears are finally came true… I GOT MARRIED…. He he he… just kidding guys ( only about the fear part though). Thus ends a story which is always in continuation… just like life does.