• entries RSS
• comments RSS





• About



• November 2009
• February 2009
• November 2008



• India
• Random
• Uncategorized



• The tortoise and the hare
• Is Internet Booking in India good?
• Questions after Mumbai gunbattle…



• A-musing Thoughts
• InnExperience
• My thoughts in words
• TechMeets
• The marketing blog

The tortoise and the hare Written on November 4, 2009, by Subin Varghese.

I have never really understood the fable of ‘The Tortoise and The Hare‘. For the 0.000001% of the World who don’t know it, the story, attributed to Aesop, goes something like this:

A hare always ridicules a slow-moving tortoise. In response, the tortoise challenges his swift mocker to a race. The hare soon leaves the tortoise far behind and, confident of winning, he decides to take a nap midway through the course. When he awakes, however, he finds that his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, has already won the race.

The moral, stated at the end of the story, is “Slow and steady wins the race”.

I can never co-relate the story and the given moral. In my opinion, the moral of the story should be “It is not good to become overconfident” or something like this. If the hare had not been overconfident of himself, he would easily have won the race. Then we could also say that “Fast but steady always win”.

I can’t think of any interpretation of the story which will give me the moral as “Slow and steady wins the race”.

Just a thought:

The tortoise challenged the hare to a race even though he knew that he was much slower than the hare. This means that the tortoise believed that he would win the race. Was it because tortoise knew that the hare was very overconfident or the he had put some sleeping pills in hare’s food before the race?

Is Internet Booking in India good? Written on February 24, 2009, by Subin Varghese.

Today I booked my train tickets through the Internet.
Date of departure: 24th May 2009 (during summer vacations)
Booking started on: 23rd February 2009, 8:00pm (3 months earlier)
Train: Kerala Express
Class: AC 3 tier (3A)
Number of tickets: 4
Time it took for booking these: 10 minutes (for preparing) + 5 minutes (while booking)
Time it took to book all the tickets in this class: 6 minutes!!!

You may be thinking: “Ya, what”s so the fuzz about?”Last year, my father ”tried to” book tickets to visit me with the family… by personally going to the railway station. I was not there and at that time, I didn”t had internet connection available with which I could book the tickets.

Date of departure: around the same time.
Booking started: on the day when he went to get the tickets.
Train: Kerala Express
Class: AC 3 tier (3A)
Number of tickets: 3
What happened: My parents reached the nearest railway station at around 4 o”clock for booking which starts at 8 o”clock. They stood outside the reservation counter”s doors for long hours with nothing to do but wait.

Just before 8 o”clock, the doors opened and all the people who were waiting outside rushed inside to stand first in the line. My father also rushed inside along with them. In this run, he had a fall. He still ran and got around 7th or 8th position in the queue.

Those who had internet at home and knew how to book train tickets from internet booked the tickets. By the time my father got to book the tickets, all tickets got booked and he got tickets in waiting list. He took a leave from the office to book the tickets.

I went straight to the office after this as this took me just a few minutes. My parents must have woke at 3 o”clock to get ready and reach at the railway station at 4. I could wake up at 7:30 am and still book the tickets. My parents stood there for about 4 hours + half an hour more to stand in the queue to book the tickets. I just spend around 15 minutes.

Today my father could go to his office and mother was doing her chores at home as I booked the tickets. This all happened because of internet and e-ticket. But even today, many would have waited outside the reservation counters and would have got tickets in waiting list. Many such people would be cursing me and other ”e-bookers”.

Isn”t this a sort of discrimination?

I was able to book tickets from internet because:

1. I have computer and internet connection at my home.
2. I know how to use computer and internet.
3. I know how to book tickets online.

But there will many like my father who don”t know about these things and are suffering. In America, and other such developed countries, this may not be the problem because:

1. Most of them are computer-literate.
2. Most have internet connection at home and know to use it.
3. Those countries have high train seats-population ratio (or whatever you call that) so that there is not such high demand.

Ya, this advancement – ebooking – is good but this will be good in India only when all the people who book tickets are computer literate enough to compete with each other without any discrimination.

“In our case, internet booking helped us but there are many who are still suffering. When will they be rescued.”

Questions after Mumbai gunbattle… Written on November 27, 2008, by Subin Varghese.

First of all, thanks to Twitter for providing the latest updates of the gunbattle which is going on while I am writing this post)

My questions are:

1. To Raj Thackeray: Is it ok for the non-Marathis (especially, north Indians) to give blood to Marathis who have been critically injured in the gun battle and want blood.
2. To the forces who are behind this hideous crime:Will you be happy if India stops its development for the sake of the well-being of its citizens?
3. To BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal: Are you thinking about launching a nation-wide attack on Muslims and encourage the growth of terrorism or accept the Muslims and other minorities as an integral part of India and see them as brothers?
4. To the terrorists who are going to die there: Do you think that ALLAH will be happy with you for killing your brothers whom he himself created?
5. To the persons funding these organizations: You may be making a lot of money and power but will you still fund them when they go after your loved ones?
6. To people who sympathies these terrorists: Do you think that these killings have any moral …… what do I say to you..

© Copyright Idle-listic mind - Powered by Wordpress - Designed by Speckyboy. Enjoy with a Whopper Meal & Large Coke.