Bahut bolta hai tu, chupke se soch

Sometimes one looks upon the past and looks at oneself, one almost smiles, smirks, shrugs off and wonders what happened. My arguments were so immature, the blood so hot and the belief that I was so supremely right. I also now realize that a bit of knowledge without humility is so dam dangerous. It is important to know but even more important to know that you don’t know the entire truth. No one can know the entire truth. One can only presuppose and guess. The day we realize that, we argue much less, we argue much better. We may discuss and argue on the logic but at least no heated argument ensues. Oh humility, I love. Don’t desert me ever! Hehe.
I was reading Nandan Nilekani’s book Imagining India. It starts slow and quite boring. But he does get in to grove once he starts discussing the ideas (that is the subject matter of the book). I have learnt to be patient with books. Allow the writer to hem and haw a bit in the start and then wait till he starts making the points. That’s when it gets interesting. I wouldn’t be fair to yet make a comment on it as I am still reading it but as of now, it reads well. The starting chapters have some great history built into it.
Coming back to my youth paradigms, when I grew up computers were just being introduced in India. There was this big debate on computers being the hot new thing that would take away jobs. I probably did not know whom to trust or believe. The near danger far outweighed on my mind compared to the far consequences. I was probably swayed by the Luddites (for more on Luddites, see last para) at the time. I remember once thinking that this will take so many jobs and wondering if it would really help us. But thank god I quickly got over it. Soon enough.
Also to add to my list of bullshit predictions. I thought computers were irritating and painful and how would they ever be useful to the mass. I hated the basic programming that they made us do in school. I also thought cell phones were a fancy and no one would really need one besides some really rich chappies. To give me credit, the call rates at the time were 16 bucks a minute (incoming and outgoing). I hope I am a lot more circumspect these days. I can weigh the pros and cons and then give what my current knowledge tells me, while accepting the counter logic.
Luddites – very interesting term I got while reading the book. the great thing with your black berry is the option to immediately go online and Google the term that you don’t understand.
The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested—often by destroying mechanized looms—against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work. The principal objection of the Luddites was against the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many skilled textile workers.