After a week of near deafness, the day finally arrived when I made my way to the ENT specialist. My neighbouring cubicle dweller Abhilash Pillai had described the procedure with enough gore – so I wasn’t expecting any surprises.
There weren’t any. Except that the doctor was surprised to see so much wax at one place. The procedure was routine. He shoved a thick syringe into my ear and pumped in a lot of liquid (hydrogen peroxide, I am told). My eye almost got pushed away from the ear. It felt nice in a weird way. Do I want it done again? OH, YES. 
I freaked out the moment I stepped out of the clinic. I was a little dizzy from all the ear washing. But the thing that really shook me up was the sheer amount of noise on the road. Gazillion vehicles were ROARING past me. I sped away for dear life.
Believe me, its good to hear well. It’s all full fidelity surround sound again. I can only imagine how my mother felt when she could see well again. Surely that must have been ten times as exciting.
The Times of India today carried an article titled “Man Crushes” on where-else-but-Bangalore-Times. I found it somewhat interesting. Have no fear, I’m not about to write about my man crushes. 
But the point made in the article was that women are far more willing to admit their girl crushes than men would their man crushes. Now there is some truth to this. I remember having had a similar conversation with my sister years ago. My sister and her friends would go on praising any actress they would see on TV — for being oh-so-beautiful, for wearing those great clothes and so on. But I would never appreciate any male star for whatever reason. Of course my sister’s interpretation of this was that I refused to admit that other men could be good looking, and that I considered myself to be the best.
Speaking matter-of-factly, we are now in a society where people will be quick to label you gay if you dare to appreciate any man. And then your social life, if any, goes down all the way from that point on. But I guess that mentality is scheduled to decline given the overabundance of marketing lingo trying to define greys in the spectrum of men’s sexuality. There were straight and gay men. Now there are also metrosexuals and ubersexuals and… man-crushers, if you will.
By definition, a man crush is between two heterosexual men only. So if that is what you want, you can openly admit your man crushes without fear of being branded.
Here’s the press coverage on yesterday’s inauguration of Interwoven’s new Bangalore office.
Business Standard
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Deccan Herald
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Economic Times
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Financial Express
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Hindu Business Line
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The Hindu
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Other Links on the web
Just as a clarification, the Bangalore centre itself is not new. It’s only that we have moved to a new and better location.
Interwoven’s new Bangalore office will be officially inaugurated today at 11:30 AM.
Lunch at ZeroG at the Oomph lounge.
There is this email that is making the rounds promising to offer you a 1000 GB account at a certain http://www.mailnation.net. It also boasts of an Outlook UI. Well, who doesn’t?
Clicking on ‘Sign up’ takes you to this attractive page.
Please note that we have temporarily discontinued signups for the time being. Please check again in one weeks time. We are currently installing new servers due to increased demand. MailNation Solutions prides itself on delivering the best possible access speed and realibility. These server upgrades will mean that companies such as Gmail (R) will be left in the dust when it comes to reliability and speed. We apologize for the inconvienience and kindly ask you to check back within a week. Thank you.
Duh! Companies such as Gmail (R)? Anyway, for all I care, 1 GB = 2 GB = 100 GB = 1000 GB = … you get the point.
Standing by Residency road, I had another one of those meaning-of-life conversations with Niranjan late yesterday evening.
Niranjan is of the view that life is like a puzzle. Perhaps like a jig saw puzzle, or a crossword, or may be even sudoku these days. Let’s settle for the crossword, since it illustrates some points best. The purpose of life is to solve this puzzle. From birth to death, man seeks to put all the pieces together. And your friends, relatives and the happenings around you, with the messages they carry, serve as the clues to the puzzle. You learn from your surroundings, and that helps you solve the puzzle eventually.
The way I look at life is a little different from the way Niranjan views it. Equating life to a puzzle brings along with it many assumptions.
- The presence of a creator. If there is a puzzle, and it is known to have a solution, there must be a great creator up there who creates all these puzzles.
- The fact that there is a pre-existing solution to the puzzle. This brings in the concept of a fixed destiny, or fate.
- The singularity of solution (in most cases). This assumption takes the focus off human effort. No matter what you do or don’t, that’s the solution to your puzzle. You either solve it, or you don’t. But there’s no way you can change your destiny.
I prefer to equate life to a painting. Man is the painter. He has a rough idea of what he wants and a blank canvas in front of him. The picture will begin to take form only if man actually extends his hand and paints strokes with his brush. Onlookers and passers-by may comment on your painting and that may have an influence on your painting. But in the end it is only your brush strokes that make a difference to the painting. Far from being fixed, the end result is unpredictable. It may be pretty, it may not be pretty. It may not even be what the painter had in mind when he started off. But that’s how life is, isn’t it?
What do you think?
Until now, I have never really written about what we do at Interwoven. Before I do so, here is a great write up that speaks about just that.
Celebrating Tech @ 10
A look back at the last decade’s winners and losers in the battle for lawyers’ hearts, minds and technology dollars
Interwoven, Bangalore has a new office! 9th floor, Prestige Towers, Residency Road. The building with the galloping horses in the front. Above IBM and ABN Amro. Right below ZeroG and opposite Purple Haze.
We moved in today, and it’s really exciting. Drop by if you’re around.