Jaane woh kaise log the jinke

Jaane Woh Kaise Log The Jinke Pyar Ko Pyar Mila
Humne To Jab Kaliyaan Maangi Kaaton Ka Haar Mila

Bichhad Gayaa Har Saathi Dekar Pal Do Pal Ka Saath
Kisko Phursat Hai Jo Thaame Deewane Ka Haath
Humko Apna Saaya Tak Aqsar Bezaar Mila
Humne To Jab...

Isko Hi Jeena Kehte Hain To Yunhi Ji Lenge
Uf Na Karenge Lab See Lenge Aansoo Pee Lenge
Gham Se Ab Ghabraana Kaisa Gham Sau Baar Mila
Humne To Jab...

Logging in and Logging out

Whats this post about?

Oh, all of us keep logging in and out of so many systems every day. Our mails, messengers, work computers, home computers, bank accounts, so many things around us. It just dawned on me that this logging in and logging out is a much higher concept than just my Gmail and my gtalk and my laptop.

The Idea!

In an AHA moment, I just thought up that logging in is birth and logging out is death and we keep reincarnating again and again in different realms time and again.

Different Realms...

In our Hindu literature, we have different lokas like Swarg loka (for all the good souls), Narak loka (for all the bad guys), Patal loka (usually Rakshasa reside there), Goloka (Mr. Krishna conducts his Ras leela's there), Yam loka (Mr. Yamraj rules t here and with help of Mr. Chitragupt's accounts, keeps moving us around from one lok to another) and so on. . I was looking for a right word in English for loka and I finally thought that Realms are the same thing as our lokas.

Extending the Realms idea.. .

Then I extended this idea of realms a bit further. Each of these systems like Gmail, gtalk, yahoo, etc. are realms of their own. They provide a way to get into the realm and a way to get out. We all (the free spirits), have a choice to move around from one realm to another. In a particular realm, we have a few ways of moving around and interacting with other souls currently in the realm. The idea is pretty interesting. It may be crap but its an interesting crap.

A realm is essentially a system which provides ways to log in to the realm (taking birth inside it), and log out of it (dying out of it).

Every day is a new day (Or Every life is a new life)

Every time we log on to a system, its a new session for us. Things in one session are never exactly the same as things in earlier session. Things in one life are never exactly the same as a previous life.

Limitations

Every realm that we enter into, is a physical realm, which provides certain ways of interaction, while limiting other forms of interaction with other souls. In gmail, you can write mails to others, read current and old mails, in gtalk you can chat with others, on orkut, you can scrap and see what all others are doing (in a limited but its own unique way)

Sub realms

A realm can contain multiple sub realms within providing different ways of interaction. For example, Google is a bigger realm which provides various sub-realms like: gtalk, orkut, gmail, Google search, Google videos.

Your office is a realm of its own. Where you generally meet your colleagues. Your home is another different realm. India is a bigger realm containing multiple sub and sub-sub and sub-sub-sub realms. So is US.

Overlapping/Related/Connected Realms

A number of realms are actually related to each other in certain ways. For example, using an aeroplane you can move from India to US or come back later. Using the telephone, you can talk to another person, who is in a different country(realm).

Super Realm

The earth as a whole is a super realm which contains so many realms within for all of us human beings to keep us engaged from the earthly birth to earthly death.

Attachment

Attachment is our longing to go back to a realm again and again. We go back and check mails again. Chat with people again. Meet with them again.

The Dilemma

It is interesting to note that every possible realm has very limited ways of interaction. All of us beings are essentially free spiritual beings and don't enjoy limitations of any kind. Still to experience any particular kind of interaction, we will also have to embrace the corresponding limitations of the associated physical realm. In the end, we get frustrated with our limitations, and keep hopping from one realm to another looking for freedom everywhere.

Moksha

The day this need/desire to go back to all these realms will be over, we will have attained Moksha. That's too simplistic! When would this need/desire go? Only when we understand that all of us are essentially connected with each other and we don't need to go into the different physical realms to experience our connections. When we understand this, there would be no further need to go through the infinite cycle of birth and death again and again.

And then there will be light and we will rest in peace forever!!!

Aye Malik Tere bande hum

Film: (Do Aankhein Baarah Haath)

aye malik tere bande hum aise ho hamare karam
neki par chale, aur badi se tale, taki has te hue nik le dum

ye andhera ghana chha raha, tera insaan ghabara raha
ho raha bekhabar, kuchh na aata najar, sukh ka sooraj chhupa ja raha
hai teri roshni mein jo dam tu amawas ko kar de punam
neki par chale, aur badi se tale, taki has te hue nik le dum
aye malik tere bande hum...

bada kamjor hai aadmee, abhi laakhon hai is mein kamee
par too jo khada, hai dayalu bada, teri kirpa se dharti thami
diya tune hume jab janam tu hi jhelega hum sab ke gam
neki par chale, aur badi se tale, taki has te hue nik le dum
aye malik tere bande hum...

jab julmon ka ho samna, tab tu hi hume thamna
wo burai kare, hum bhalai bhare, naheen badle ki ho kamna
badh uthhe pyaar ka har kadam aur mite bair ka ye bharam
neki par chale, aur badi se tale, taki has te hue nik le dum
aye malik tere bande hum...

Getting Rich Slowly (The Non Conformist's Guide to Personal Finance)

Oh its not my idea.

Please read the whole article at http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/06/26/the-nonconformists’-guide-to-personal-finance/

And I am impressed by the article.

Oh just to revisit some of the principles mentioned there:

• Emergency saving funds (I usually have them, but seem to be doing bad on this count these days)
• paying off credit card balances every month ( I religiously follow this. Never paid a single penny extra to the credit card company)
• being aware of all your expenses (I try hard but am not good at it yet :( basically I try to keep everything in my memory and its not a good idea)
• using a cash method for discretionary spending (this is a good idea)
• long term index-fund investing (still to understand it)
• there is no such thing as a good debt (home loans, car loans, education loans, all are bad in the end, they constrain your freedom)
• a house is a liability not an asset (so true except for those who are in real estate business ;) )

Actually the article is about much more than just this. It discusses your larger view of life and how your management of your finances assist you towards achieving those.

Oh go ahead and read the whole article yourself. Its worth it.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/06/26/the-nonconformists’-guide-to-personal-finance/

Lyrics of 'Tumko Dekha to ye khayaal aaya'

Tumko dekhaa to ye khayaal aya
zindagi dhoop tum ghanaa saya
tumko...

aaj phir dil ne ik tamannaa ki - (2)
aaj phir dil ko hamne samjhaya
zindagi dhoop tum ghana saaya...

tum chale jaoge to sochenge - (2)
ham ne kya khoya- ham ne kya paya
zindagi dhoop tum ghana saya...

ham jise gunguna nahi sak te - (2)
waqt ne aisa geet kyun gaya
zindagi dhoop tum ghana saya...


Movie: saath saath
singer: Jagjit Singh

Managing my personal finances

Prelude

One of the things that I have always kept putting of, is managing my finances personally.

In principle, I don't have to do much. Its more of a record-keeping work that I need to do on a regular basis.

But my problem is that I only want to do things which are a bit involved, are fun doing, involve some programming, and look like I would achieve something by doing those activities.

Keeping a mundane record of my credits and debits is not one of them.

But something forced me to actually sit back and do it finally.

Oh in short, lately my expenses have be on the higher side, and have led to a situation that I am running short of credit these days. By looking at the statements today, I found that there were some transactions which I couldn't recall at all.

It downed on me that if I don't my books straightened, I would really get into trouble some day.

The Search

Oh I like open source software very much and the moment I thought that I need to manage my personal finances, I went on to look for good open source solutions for them.

After some search, I ended up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accounting_software

I zeroed on the three for testing:

• GNU Cash http://www.gnucash.org/
• Grisbi http://www.grisbi.org/
• JGNash http://jgnash.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Well my another problem is that I like open source software which runs well on Windows. (I fortunately/unforunately have a Windows laptop for everything I do).

GNU Cash is primarily from Linux/Unix background, so I skipped it.

I then tried Grisbi, and JGNash, one by one, but was pretty much dissatisfied with both of them :(

I figured out that :

• I don't know much about the terminology of personal accounting (things like separate accounts for bank, assets, liabilities, reconciling etc.) and would have to learn them before being able to effectively use these pieces of software
• They were not actually running well on my Windows (the UI was not native, and didn't feel like I was enjoying using them)

So I spent about 1 hour reading about these and trying them out.

Back to Good Old Spreadsheets

Oh I figured out that I couldn't spend so much time on this. So back to the good old spreadsheets.

Guess what! I don't like spreadsheets :) Reason is simple. I am a programmer, and like to write programs where I can see all the text of the program in front of me (C/C++/Python etc.) and I am a reasonably good programmer.

And in spreadsheets, the programs are supposedly to be fitted inside the cells (formulas etc.); and for myself, I haven't yet been able to reconcile myself with the idea of laying out programs like this.

So in front of spreadsheets, I feel like a dumb foolish guy, and I cannot make much use of these sophisticated applications (Excel/OpenOffice Calc) more than just putting up a dumb table of text and numbers.

The Mundane work

But then this personal finance work needed to be done. And I finally did it. And it turned out that the work was ultimately very useful :)

• I did a full review of my last 4-5 months of expenses and could identify the different sources of leakages
• I also was able to finally remember some of the transactions I had forgotten about
• Finally I had a table in which I had put remarks on some of the important transactions so that I could later remember what they were for.

The Happy Ending

Somehow I got the idea, that I should blog about this experience :) And if you have read so far, then thanx a lot, I hope it was not too bad a reading for you.

Lyrics of Kate nahi kat te ye din ye raat (Mr. India)

Kaate Nahi Katate Ye Din Ye Raat
Kehni Thi Tumse Jo Dil Ki Baat
Lo Aaj Main Kehta Hoon
I Love You

Koi Nahi Bas Tum Ho Saath
Kehni Thi Tumse Jo Dil Ki Baat
Lo Aaj Main Kehti Hoon
I Love You

Kaisi Hava Hai Dhuli Dhuli
Aaj Fiza Hain Khili Khili
Saara Nazaara Naya Naya
Dil Ne Pukaara Piya Piya

Tumne Jo Li Angdaai Hai
Phir Baat Vahi Yaad Aayi Hai
Lo Aaj Main Kehta Hoon
I Love You

Mahaka Mahaka Tera Badan
Bahaka Bahaka Mera Ye Man
Chhalaka Chhalaka Roop Tera
Halka Halka Nasha Mera
Jab A Hi Gai Main Paas Tere
Kah Doon Jo Dil Mein Hai Mere
Lo Aaj Main Kehti Hoon
I Love U