Saturday, June 30, 2007

Mumbai rain is here..and it makes me wonder

Of the very VERY few things I like about this city (that never gets to sleep) the absolute pelting rains is most definitely one of them.

There is something soothing about it, the gentle pitter patter. The constant static sound is actually better than the usual absolute silence I prefer when I want to be alone (which is getting to be more and more of the time these days)

Sitting in my balcony feeling the rain drops fall on me reminds of the time in college we all went to marine drive and got completely drenched. I wonder why I haven't gone back and gotten wet in the rain again. Come to think of it, I cant remember the last time I went out in the rain to get wet.

I wonder why I stopped. I wonder when I will gather the will to step out and do it again.

The strong coffee in my hand is making me strangely nostalgic. It also brings up another observation and subsequent question.

I miss that smell of fresh earth that you get if you experience rain in the country side or smaller towns. We dont get that in Mumbai. All we have here is cemented roads and depressingly boring buildings which start looking rundown 5 minutes after their renovation ends. We also get tons of garbage.

Just spending some time with my cousins and it dawns on me, they don't even KNOW what this smell is like. They get excited when we step out of town and they can see the rare star filled sky. Another thing which I had simply forgotten about.

What else have we forgotten ourselves and cant share with the next generation coming in? What all was forgotten before us that we haven't yet experienced and probably never will?

Today is probably "that day" when Mumbai will come to a standstill. Just as well. Everyone should stand still and enjoy the few remenants of nature still available to us in this concretized monstrosity.

How long till we forget about this as well?

Evil Google knows ALL!

This is what I was afraid of.

The sheer amount of categorized, identifiable data with Google.

If you think I am taking this relaxed weekend to indulge in favorite pastime - Google Bashing, well, you are probably right BUT my passion for bashing google does not mean what I say is wrong.

If you want to be scared and/or shocked head over to : www.google.com/history

Type in your google password and see a list of ALL the search queries you have ever made on Google. ALL of them. Even the naughty ones.

You can see statistics of your searches per month, per day and infact even by the hour. The graph here is my search statistic for this past week. Do post your "scores" so we can see who searches the MOST :)

Go check this out. You will find that Google now knows more about you than even you do.

Be scared. Be VERY scared.