Equal Opportunity, My foot!

Many, if not most, of us might have gotten rejected at interviews and recruitment processes. While rejection itself is reason enough for one to brood over and blame the selection process or the employer, I had tried on such occasions to sit for a while and put myself in recruiters shoe to analyze what might have gone wrong. Almost 70% of the times I realized it was my mistake. OK no probs, will improve on that, I said to myself. For the rest, I felt that the recruiter were stupid. Now that's a unusual feeling. How can they be stupid, these are the guys who select people all the time, the ones who have perfected their technique. But I felt they were stupid because they were outrightly and hypocritically partial.

How many times have you noticed "date of birth" field on the application forms of so-called "equal opportunity" employer? Unless they are Wipro, who flash the fields on their online forms anyhow but proudly proclaim that filling the data is optional because they don't care about gender and age being an equal opportunity employer, most of them have it. There is not a single, read my lips, not a single employer in this world or the other who can be an euqal opportunity employer, in the true essense of the phrase.

A month ago a reputed company, a ubiquity in database solutions, was in my town for a walk-in. Since too many turned up, despite of my experience and certifications I had to write a Java test, alongwith the college enthusiasts. No probs, I said. Luckily, I cleared the test and was called for the interview. Now, from the very start, the guy just couldn't fathom my past non-IT experience. "Why do you show your non-IT experience at the end of your Resume?", he quipped sympathatically, "Do you want to put aside your 6 years of experience on the backburner?", "Oh my, how will you relocate?", "God, how will you manage at Bangalore, being a married guy you are?" All short of tears, he treated me as if I had tested HIV positive. No technical questions at all. After the hour long ordeal, the guy stood up, shook hand and "thanked me for my time" assuring that he would surely "get back to me". Oh so much respect, oh so much disgrace..

Why do I write all this stuff? Because this advisory by Joel Spolsky provoked me to. I have been a great fan of his writings, a regular reader. But then he is not perfect in his advise every time and this time he certainly isn't. Now Indian candidates might not know the difference between a comma and a space but certainly they speak/write better English than an American I suppose. With your bias towards Asians Mr.Joel I don't think there is no "equal opportunity" tag appearing anywhere on you site, beacuse if it does I now know what it means. Joel complains that the job cover letters often come with job advertisement at the footer (and one of yahoo site builder actually irritated him). I don't think Sir I can manage to add a context sensitive Google text-ad with mine because first of all I didn't put it there. The free email service providers are at liberty to scribble the glory and I am satisfied as long as they don't ruin my mail and I am certainly not going to have a paid email account just to post my resume.

Speaking of cover letters and resumes, while many of his points seem valid I wonder if any Indian recruitment firm (expect for the consultants) actually read them. They are just not meant for human consumption. You are supposed to mail your resume in propah format, write experience-location in subject of your email so that parsing and sorting becomes easier. As a matter of fact, old handsfriends have always advise to use the correct "keywords" in the resume, as per the "job demands" so that it surfaces rightly in search results. Who tries "to sound like a human in the cover letter" now a days? And while there may be dozens of book with advise on your resume I have not seen a single worthwhile response in last 5 years from 2 of the reputed job sites I had enrolled to, the noes that actually are supposed to create a good structured resume automatically.

So, whether my cover letter is written by Shakespeare or me, whether my profile is suitable or not, I suppose everywhere there would be some recruiter who would mange to give equal opportunity adding his angle of bias to your resume. (Disclaimer: I have not applied to Mr.Joel and I am perfectly happy with my current job)

Background cleansing

My last post had a quote that represents my long standing apprehension: How will the BJP look minus Atalji? The answer is: very scary. But how has this scary party managed to run a coalition government for 5 years and reach the stage proclaiming the "til-gud factor". Answer is: BJP (read that RSS and the Hinduist organisations like that of Bahubal Thoke-ray) knows how to play different games in foreground and background. The foreground is indeed Atalji, a poet this moment and a dedicated swayam-sevak that moment, an assurance for the NDA modules and janata together that all is going well. In the background RSS has Murli Joshi and his brigade working over-time to fulfill the hidden agendas, for ex: strenthening the Hindu Talibani groups and correcting the wrong-doings of the history by rewriting it. Education, after all, is the best way to create healthy Hindu minds.

What wrong doings, you ask? There were many, some have been documented at numerous stealthy websites like this one which justifies cleansing of the nation to avenge the Hindu holocaust. These people have only one agenda and they will take the help of anyone (including the Archaeological Survey of India, as in the Ayodhya case) to prove their point. One of the most ridiculous point is raised here and I couldn't resist quoting it here,

The most evident of such structures is Taj Mahal, a structure supposedly devoted to carnal love by the "great" mogul king Shah Jahan to his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal ..this is the same Shah Jahan who had a harem of 5,000 women and who had an incestuous relationship with his daughter justifying it by saying, 'a gardener has every right to taste the fruit he has planted'! Is such a person even capable of imagining such a wondrous structure as the Taj Mahal let alone be the architect of it?

The answer is no. It cannot be. And it isn't as has been proven. The Taj Mahal is as much a Islamic structure as is mathematics a Muslim discovery! The famous historian Shri P.N. Oak has proven that Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahalaya, a shiv temple-palace. His work was published in 1965 in the book, Taj Mahal - The True Story. However, we have not heard much about it because it was banned by the corrupt and power crazed Congress government of Bharat who did not want to alienate their precious vote bank, the Muslims.

Reminds of a funny letter that appeared long ago in TOI saying William Shakespeare was actually a Bhopali shaayar called "Wali Sheikh Peer". But the one above is not even funny.

Resonating Jibes: 1

In this series of posts I will try and include quotes from various sources which match my own views. Here is the first in the series.

Vir Sanghvi quips,

"Vajpayee's stature blinds us to the reality of the BJP. Take him out of the equation and what do you have: a party composed of people who condone mass murder, rewrite history books, seek political advice from sadhus and leave electoral strategy to tent-wallahs and fixers."

Noted writer Kamleshwar has a view which resonates with my post Living in Wonderland,

"People are apprehensive that after winning the elections Advani and Joshi will get rid of their Atal Mask and resort to the methodologies of goons like Modi and Togadia."

My Hindi Blog

Finally, I had to jump into it. I have been a Hindi writer, it is the language in which I think. But since typing in Hindi is tedious I had somehow put the project on backburner; not any more. The Hindi version of Null Pointer is now live here. It is called "Nukta Chini" (meaning occasional comments, frankly I am not awareof an English word that truly represents its meaning). My colleague Padmaja also joins the bandwagon with her blog "Kahi Ankahi". For the uninitiated, Alok hold the distinction of having the first Hindi weblog. Isn't it an irony that a country where Hindi is the highest spoken language there are only a handful of Hindi bloggers?

When DD animated lives!

I had my childhood nourishment of entertainment from Vividh Bharati and Doordarshan so this post of Turbanhead revived old memories. The "Ek Anek" short animation film was targeted at National integration and was used as filler by DD at that time and, thanks to the fact that satellite TV wasn't even there, was immensely popular. Many readers might not know perhaps about the persons behind this animation marvel, Vasant Desai (one of my favorite lyricists) and Bhimsen, one of India's finest animation talent. Desai has been better known for his work in the movie Utsav but Ek Anek is perhaps one of his best innocent work.

I had known about Bhimsen as a filmmaker first, from his serial against superstitions (damn, I can't recall the name of the serial now, do you?) featuring Ashok Saraf, Sulbha and Arvind Deshpande and Dr.Maya Alagh. This was a very successful Sunday bonanza on DD. It was later that I came to know that Bhimsen was actually an accomplished animator.

Speaking of animation, we have come a long way now, but in those days of 70's Films Division was the only harbinger for such projects. It's good that India's animation industry is now a sought after entity but it perhaps cannot be denied that it stands on the shoulder of stalwarts such as Bhimsen. I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice write-up on him here, so do read it if you have time.

Back to square 1?

If you read my post "Living in wonderland " notice the word "backtrack" that I used there. Devoid of spine, politicians have been known, since ages, to create artificial frenzy to fool people: the til-gud¹ factor, cute mini-budget full of goodies, all-is-well on Indo-Pak front (aka Hindi-Paki bhai-bhai), Vajpayee is BJPs undisputed leader (backstabbing noise in background), L.K.Kataarvani² willing to talk to Hurriyat etc etc.

Now where does backtracking figure? Well, it figures in both Indian and Paki premier's public speeches of the week with Mian Musharraf saying that under no circumstances will he accede to accepting the LOC as border ( a suggestion made in my mentioned post) and our Atalji quipping that all discussions of Kashmir will involve only POK and not IOK. Back to square 1?

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1 til-gud: Besides rhyming well with the media coined "Feel-good" factor is Hindi for Sesame seeds and jaggery, the basic ingredients of Sankranti festival.
2 Kataar: Hindi for a dagger, and the characterisitic of Indian deputy premier's counter-paki rhetorics

Mirrror, Mirror of my blog

Chakra provided this cool link that creates a mirror of your website, literally. Though I already have a mirror at blogspot, have a look at the one created by this trick. Now the trick is adding ".mirror.sytes.org" to the domain name of your URL .

Living in wonderland

I am always surprised by the media-frenzy that builds up even if the stalled vehicle of Indo-Pak talks manages to crawl an inch further and almost all the times backtracks many more inches later. For God's sake judge the scenario with a fair mind. Mian Musharraf will perhaps only risk his life from Islamic hardliners by negotiating anything on Kashmir if he is promised the Nobel Peace Prize, you cannot expect the author of Kargil and a military-man at heart, who have always been against keeping peace with India to shed his spots. At home, please notice the growing size of Advani's photos at the stage backdrop of BJPs press conferences, if BJP wins the next general elections, and not many opine they'll loose, don't be bewildered if Vajpayeeji, the mask man, graciously steps down citing age and health reasons and naming LK his heir to the thrown. Now, Advani is a known hardliner on Kashmir issue, has stalled the process many times earlier too including the Agra one and so the so called CBM's will be accorded a full-stop then and there.

Why then Atalji was allowed to go for this show-off. Easy, he is not getting any younger, before he retires he wanted to give it a last try and emerge as the "one who saved the world". The never before bonhomie at his grand birthday celebrations was actually a big farewell to AB. Solving the Kashmir issue in a jiffy just before Atalji retires, a beautiful wonderland he is living in but are we required to join him there. Cummon! Be realistic. If you ask me the issue has only the following solution and that can be implemented taking UN and the world in confidence:

• Convert the existing LOC in to an international border, let Pakistan be happy with POK and lets at least save our occupied Kashmir before we lose it too


• Ttake back army and treat Kashmir as a special state till life is made normal there


• Patrol the border well and flush all terrorist camps along with Pakistan's army

Call me a traitor, Marxist or whatever but not accepting the reality is same as living in a wonderland. When you wake up you will be in for a great shock!

Meandering ways, again

Whenever I encounter any strange behaviour on my referrer list (which, thanks to Paris Hilton, are no more public now) I usually add it to my list of "funny referers". Here is the latest list for you to savor, my favorite being the Neena Gupta one ;)

aircrafts videos crashed
Why do singletons prefer Mumbai?
"indian wives"
l o v e scenes from indian movies
sarkari mindset
neena gupta in b a t h room
Extra m a r i t a l affairs of IAS officers

What I hate in a blog

I came across Erik's survey on the "the 10 Habits of Highly Annoying Bloggers" and decided to jot down few things I detest about a blog:

• Blogs with black background and yellow fonts


• Blogs that are both blogs and photoblogs


• Blogs that would not accept an email id of the like debu at email dot com in comments


• Blog authors replying to your comments with a "thanks for reading", "ok" or such unnecessary courtesy remarks


• Blog authors who keep on writing about their personal lives all the times and then complain about readers "keeping tab" on their personal lives.

What are the things you hate about Null Pointer?

Are you Blogoholic?

There is an interesting quiz that would perhaps let you know if you are a Blogoholic. I thought I was one, coz even if I don't post very regularly I read a lot of blogs everyday. But it emerged that I am only a casual weblogger. "You only blog when you have nothing better to do, which is not very often. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you'd post a little more often, you'd make your readers very happy." says the quiz results where I scored a 48%.

While on the subject, Alan has posted about his "human-experiment" where he has classified persons based on their online behaviour. I have observed that we behave in a more bindas manner when we are online or chatting over phone. One may shudder while appearing for a personal interview but retain his calm and can even exude confidence on a telephonic interview. I find it easy to rudely evade the telemarketing cold calls while it becomes difficult to behave the same way with a "Eureka Phobes" sales personnel when he is there at your doorstep. You behave more gentlemanly. I am much in agreement with Alan when he says that "the online world is a glimpse of what it would be like if we were always drunk. Our inhibitions are lowered and we say things we normally would never say when faced with the same situation in real life. Generally, if people are pleasant online, it translates to their offline persona, and likewise, an a***hole is always an a***hole!" [Link via Erik]

The best of Null Pointer!

I have been pondering to put together this list for long and here it is. Now what do I mean my "the best"? Obviously not "the most visited" or "the most linked to" or " the most commented on" posts but those which I think I wrote well or reflect my stand-point on the issue. In a nutshell if you read only these posts you will perhaps have a dekko inside my mind. And obviously such a list helps new visitors to my blog who won't care to skim through all the archives. This list would be updated as and when appropriate and would be available on the right menu. BTW do tell me about the posts that do not deserve to be in this list.

Walking straight in muddled waters
The ASI Mockery Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Jaitly or Shushma for PM?
We learnt nothing from past follies
Israeli attacks: a lesson for India
Identity Crisis

What is Real development?
Bhopal: The struggle goes on
A dependable friend!
Flying Coffins
Enough of showcasing technologies
An NRI's plea for cleaniness

Wrong number?
Band Loyalty
Thorns of Desire!
The Blog Matrix

Bush rivals Vajpayee: On Poetic turf
Sleepy Tales!
Middle-age chakra

Code Analyzers
Primer: Difference between javac and JIT
Sun: Empathising with Programmers?