Lost Key

 When I was surfing the net, I heard a voice. It was a man's voice. I paused the music player and removed my headphones. I was still hearing it and it was nothing but my name. I have heard this voice before. The voice belonged to none other than my sub-ordinate, seated opposite to me. OK cool, I just thought of giving a suspense novel introduction. He wanted to check his mail. So I told him to come over to my desk and check it in the laptop. Let us resume the story later; before that I just want to clarify the readers who expect some technical stuffs or someone who expect a notch in the story like that comes in Dan Brown's, I am so sorry, this is not that you wanted. When I was thinking of an attractive title for this post, the picture of the book "The lost symbol" came in my mind. Hence, this title. I can clearly hear, how much you are cursing me for this post, now itself. 

This is about passwords and people. We do use lot of mail accounts, social networks, online banking, online shopping, etc, etc which asks us mainly two important things. One is user id and another one is password. This post is just just about them. Let us go back to the story now. He as usual typed his user id and started typing his password. I was controlling myself, not to peak at what he is typing. But who wins, its the devil again. I noticed him typing all numbers starting with 9 and typing some 10 digits, all numerics. Now, you all would have known what is his password. For those who couldn't guess yet, it was his mobile number. So i started thinking about various people I know and their various kind of passwords. The entire topic sounded interesting to me, its about their passwords, their key to their private world. We love to know what happens in next house, apartment and so on. Basically, its the curiosity, which even makes you reading this now, with much more attention. Here I am going to share about my knowledge on various kind of passwords and people. 

This very first kind, i.e, the ones who keep mobile numbers, their date of births, their date of marriage (it cant be a man any day), their spouses/children date of birth, their vehicle no (can be mostly man) are those newbies to this world of passwords. They will kind of persons who seldom use those accounts or occasional users I must say. We can include those persons who keep their brother's name, sister's name, mom's, dad's,doggy's, etc also in this category. They wouldn't have been hacked by anybody till then or even won't mind being hacked also. There will be nothing interesting their accounts too, unless its a bank account.

The second kind is those, who use their hidden brains to keep a such a safe and secured password which they themselves cannot recollect to log-in back. Then, they will as usual press that glorious option called "forgot password" and do all those irritating procedures to regain access to their respective accounts. This happens to normally many people, when it is not their primary id. For example, your company's messenger/mail password which you will set once, select "remember me" option and go on like that for months together without even switching off your PC. And one day will come, when you will be breaking your head to get what did u kept. I think, we should it as "self check". 

Then comes the most interesting group, who keeps their password as their name of loved ones. It could be anyone, some heroine / hero, school days crush, girl / boy friend, etc. They believe typing those names build some sort of telepath(et)ic connection between them. It gives a satisfaction to them,some sort of comforts for their lonely heart. 

 There is one category, who is so annoyed after overcoming so many self checks jumps here which is called "all is one". All locks are opened by single key and when you forget your key, it will be funny. When your key becomes a open book, it will be even miserable. Few more more here, choose a password in such way it doesn't fall prey to those websites which compels you to use alpha numericals, or minimum 6 or 9 strings etc. Again using hidden brains, they add 123, 246, 786 or most famous 143, 007 strings at the end to get it pass through all gateways. I wont complaint, because, I also fall in such a category. There is one more group which goes one step more than this, who replace 'a' with @, or add some special characters to make it unbreakable. Now, let me talk about few case studies. 

 One friend of mine, keeps his passwords as things like mobile phone model no, his current project name, a IC part no,etc. A friend of mine told me once, that his passwords are names of chemical compounds. I know one guy, who keeps different password for every account. No one repeats itself. All unique and he remembers all. Best part is, he will be trying at-least four or five passwords to unlock his own PC. Then, I know a large community who keeps their passwords as 'allowme', 'permitme' 'itsme' 'iamtheboss' 'mydoor' etc. I am wondering when will that day come where you authenticate yourself with some sort of biometric system to avoid all these password conflicts.

This is just about passwords. Forgotten user-id stories  and its various categories are plenty. But, I am not so jobless as you are now. Hence, I am finishing this crap right here. 

So whats your password story ?

Kannada Kali

Bengaluru... City of Gardens. The title is getting questioned nowadays because of the rapid growth in infrastructural activities happening in and around the city. But I am not going to write about these things now. This city has become a hub to people from different parts of the nation. The population of invaders ( including me ) are  more than that of the localities.

Right from the very first day, I wanted to learn Kannada. 

Being a Xena-phobic, I was trying to learn Kannada in Salem itself, almost a year before I came to Bangalore. Unfortunately, my tutor in Salem knew very little knowledge in my language of desire. Also my interest to learn Kannada was just budding, so I didn’t try too hard to learn. Hence, Kannada was saved for a while. After coming to Bengaluru, my colleagues taught me Kannada. They stopped doing the same, after they heard me implementing it. Now, for every sentence, I try to translate in Kannada, those guys are cursing themselves for doing that mistake of their lifetime.

Initial days, whenever, I try to implement my knowledge in practical situations, I used to get caught in three four words. When I try to ask in Kannada about the way to go to some place, the listener will immediately reply back in Tamil ( my mother tongue ) about the way . I used to get amazed at the listener's ability and sharpness, at the same time, was annoyed for my poor show of casting me as Kannadiga. This would have happened to almost many of the new comers (Xenaphobes)  to Bangalore.

The Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore attracts people from all over India with its heavily paid software jobs. I commonly see people from Tamil Nadu, AP, Gujarat, Omnipresent Keralites, North Indians, some Bengalis, many foreigners living in Bangalore. They have mixed up so much here, its quite difficult to point out a area which is not polluted by aliens in Bangalore.

Natives over here, casually speak three to four languages without any problem. I was figured a "odd-man out" in just few seconds by almost everyone. Then, the game was on (still it is). I wanted to beat them by all means. I began to sniff all the words, which I don’t understand and I later started to nudge my tutors for the meaning and added it to my vocabulary. It will be used in almost every sentence somehow for the entire day.

Then came the big devil. Pronunciation. There are two 'la's. he, ye, etc. Here in Kannada, the pronunciation of la and La is different, one with more stress and another with no/less stress. Tamil has also two la's, which doesn't have any difference ( sorry if I am wrong ) in pronouncing normally up to my knowledge. When I try to speak Kannada in a low voice, due to my accent, I mostly mispronounced many words, which meant entirely different, sometimes exactly opposite things. I was advised my by tutors not to use my Kannada skills in public.

It must be a real shock to many of you who might have aspired to learn Kannada. But, I never gave up. I tried to speak in Kannada in each and every occasion possible. Slowly I have now started picking up. I am able to make a two minute conversation with people in Kannada. One of my tutor now appreciates my attitude to learn Kannada. But, Both are still hoping me to stop speaking Kannada.

You might be wondering "Is Kannada too difficult ?". The answer is a big no. At-least for me, being a tamilian, I find lot of similarities between Kannada and Tamil. The words which start with Pa and Va in Tamil, start with Ha and Ba in Kannada. Eg Pogiran ( Ta ) - Hoguthaane (Kn ) , Vaa ( Ta ) - Baa ( Kn ). Likewise, there are many such words almost  similar which helps me to learn Kannada easily. Then, why am I struggling so much to speak that language even after staying in the capital city of Karnataka for last two years.

The reason is because of the people who live here in Bengaluru. They seldom give you a chance to learn their language. On a contrary, they try to speak with you in your mother tongue, making you comfortable, learning your mother tongue, in-turn not letting you learn Kannada. I have admired these people's willingness to learn new languages. I must confess, I got some insipiration from them too to learn their language. The hidden fruit is more delicious to eat.

The Bengaluru auto drivers speak minimum 5 languages, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and English. Bus conductor, fruit vendor, shop keeper, chemist, paper boy, Govt officials, Hotel servers, are all multi lingual experts. Even if they cant speak, they understand.

I have witnessed few very funny conversations. The auto driver will be speaking Kannada, the passenger either Tamil or Telugu. Both of them will be using their respective mother tongue to inquire, fight, argue, negotiate whatever, but the point to be noted is, the effective conversation is 100% success. After two to three minutes, they will be travelling together as passenger and driver with a satisfaction in their face. Let me tell you, this can happen only in Bengaluru.

I know a lot of people living in Bengaluru for many years without knowing a single word in Kannada. They have no problems. I don't understand how come they are able to refrain themselves from knowing what's going on around them, why are the guys fighting in the middle of the road, what does that husband and wife at your next house yell at each other, what does your front seat people in bus talking about, what does the RJ shouting in FM all the day, what did that girl said to her friend about you in city bus, what is the bus conductor scolding that guy standing close to the door. I wonder how will they manage if they go to other parts of Karnataka. I cannot live a alien life, without able to understand a wor(l)d around me. There are millions of questions like that in my heart which drives me crazy to learn Kannada.

If you are one among them, don't you worry. Listen to Kannada Haadus ( songs), movies, start a friendly conversation with a colleague or classmate. I prefer to try with opp gender, since it drastically increases the learning curve in exponential form. If you are unlucky to find one like me, then it will be tickling once in a while. Whatever, lets speak the sweet "Kannada Kasthuri" and rock  "Bombat Kannada"

Tail peice: Now, I am learning to read Kannda also. I have started with three letters Ra, Tha and ge.