chaotic order

Jottings - Slice of life - 185 (Eat, pray and love - an escapist’s account of the East) In 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert, a short story writer and novelist, wrote a memoir based on her travels in Italy and some parts of the East called “Eat, Pray and love”. Not surprisingly, the book was a phenomenal success. It stayed on the best sellers list – for Fiction or Non-fiction, I don’t know - for more than 200 weeks. Readers lapped up the book as new age revelation and guide on how to lead a “Balanced” life. Brad pitt decided to produce a movie based on the book, which was released in 2010, starring Julia Robert as the protagonist. An undistinguished performance by one of the finest actors of this age. All said and done, the book, the movie, and of course, Ms. Gilbert achieved international fame, and Ms. Gilbert in particular - was crowned as a paragon of spiritual quest in maddening modern world. I beg to differ. The story of West’s fascination with the east goes back two hundred years, wh

Jottings - Slice of life – 183 (Training to implementation - a humble success story) “Nothing could have deferred our vacation but the fact you were coming to teach. Thanks a ton, Bala. This project wouldn’t be ready to go live, if not for your matured guidance” - John held my hands and in a voice choking slightly with emotion spoke these words. And with these words, I ended one of the most fascinating training assignments in my career. It was in May 2017, that I ran the first installment of Big data workshop for this audience, who were then completely new to the subject. They were obviously experienced, articulate and handpicked to work on this flagship multi million project. A lot was at stake. The project was funded by Top management as a pilot to evaluate the feasibility of migrating their enterprise storage to a platform more conducive to Data analytics and mining. With the consumer market becoming digitized, and user preferences better gauged through social media and blogs,

Jottings - Slice of life – 180 (Oh! Jerusalem...) (Note to my readers: The story of Jerusalem is a story of human potential of what can be achieved, and equally a story of human stupidity. A little piece of land has governed the imagination of millions for over two thousand years. It’s very name invokes deep divisions, yet at the same, an intense reverence. The following piece is meant to be a basic primer for those who would want to know a little about why Jerusalem has constantly remained a bone contention in world politics. For those interested in knowing more, I have recommended two popular volumes towards the end of the article.) In the annals of history, no piece of land has been subject to so much dispute, possessiveness - and imbued with so much religious connotation and interpretation as that of Jerusalem - th city of foundation of the God Shalom. For thousands of years this land has been the bone of contention for variety of reasons. Its grounds have been trodden by Jew