Life is an illusion

ಈ ಕೊರೊನ ರೋಗ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣವಾಗಿ ನಿರಾಯುಧರನ್ನಾಗಿಸಿದೆ. ಅದರ ಭಯದಿಂದ ನಾವು ಮನೆಯಿಂದ ಹೊರ ಹೋಗುವದಿರಲಿ, ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಉಸಿರಾಡಲು ಭಯ ಪಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೆ. ನಮ್ಮ ಸರಕಾರವೂ ರೋಗದ ಹಬ್ಬುವಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ನಿಯಂತ್ರಿಸಲು ಬಹಳಷ್ಟು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದೆ. ನಮ್ಮನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲೇ ಇರಲು ತಾಕೀತು ಮಾಡಿದೆ. ಆವಶ್ಯಕ ವಸ್ತುಗಳು ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಸಿಗಲು ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಆದರೆ ದಿನವೂ ನಾವು ಓದುತ್ತಿರುವ ಸುದ್ದಿ ಓದಿದರೆ ಭಯವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ ಇವತ್ತಿನ ಸುದ್ದಿ - ಅವನ ಹೆಸರು ರಣವೀರ್. ದೆಹಲಿಯ ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ಒಂದರಲ್ಲಿ ಡೆಲಿವರಿ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ. ಹೆಂಡತಿ ಮತ್ತು ಮಕ್ಕಳು ಮಧ್ಯಪ್ರದೇಶದ ಹಳ್ಳಿಯೊಂದರಲ್ಲಿ, ಅವನು ಕಲಿಸುವ ಹಣದಿಂದ ಹೇಗೋ ಸಂಸಾರ ಸಾಗಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಈಗ ಅವನು ಕೆಲಸ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿರುವ ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ಮುಚ್ಚಿದೆ. ಅವನಿಗೆ ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗೆ ಆಹಾರವಿಲ್ಲ. ಸಾವಿರಾರು ಅವನಂತಹ ಕೆಲಸಗಾರರಂತೆ ಅವನೂ ಸಹ ಮನೆಗೆ - ಅವನ ಹಳ್ಳಿಗೆ ವಾಪಸ್ ಹೋಗಲು ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ. ಆದರೆ ಬಸ್, ರೈಲು ಏನು ಇಲ್ಲವಲ್ಲ. ನಡೆಯಲು ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ. ನೀರು, ಆಹಾರ ಏನೂ ಇಲ್ಲದೆ. ಮನೆ ಇನ್ನು ನೂರು ಕಿಲೋಮೀಟರು ಇರುವಾಗ ಆಗ್ರಾದಿಂದ ರಣವೀರ ಹೆಂಡತಿಗೆ ಫೋನ್ ಮಾಡಿದಾಗ ಅವನಿಗೆ ಉಸಿರಾಡಲು ಆಗುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ. ಹೇಗಾದರೂ ಮಾಡಿ ನನ್ನನ್ನು ಕರೆದು ಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗು ಎಂದು ಹೇಳಿದ್ದಾನೆ. ಅವಳಾದರೂ ಏನು ಮಾಡುತ್ತಾಳೆ? ಎಲ್ಲಿಂದ ವಾಹನ ತರುತ್ತಾಳೆ ? ಮರು ದಿನ ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ರಣವೀರನ ಹೆಂಡತಿ ಅವನಿಗೆ ಫೋನ

Thanks to advice by son, we bought our stock of groceries on second week of March, much before any kind of lock down. And were saved from very long queues and empty shelves. Now I go to the store in our apartment complex, stand in a queue maintaining a distance. And stand, stand and stand. Finally I am prompted to go inside the store. Only to see there is almost nothing. A few packs of puffed rice, a very few packs of staples. I dare not venture out on the road. What if cops beat me! Yes, it seems cops are beating people - mostly delivery persons. And people some how are proud of this fact too. I have most grocery things needed for a fortnight. But what if some thing is needed before 21 days? What if by that time, all the stores will be completely shut?  I know, this is the exact thought which emptied all the stores. But knowing our people and our rulers, we need to be extra extra careful. But look at how selfish we are. We are worrying about a what if scenario. When many of

In one of the Tv dramas I watched half and half hearted, there was a scenario where a human  is venomous and has to bite someone to release the venom. If not, the venom poisons him. Yes, all kinds of stupidity. But I feel this is what is happening to our  news anchors now that we are in the middle of a very serious crisis. They can’t be spewing venom at Pakistan, opposition parties, the left, the naxals. No, they can’t be doing that because there is no market for that. They have to be empathetic. Which is a very “novel” idea for them. And they are worried about the unused hatred? Will it turn towards self? Not good, not good at all. I think they may turn their anger towards hapless common man who ventures  outside. Maybe because his mother is sick. Or may be his children need his daily wage for their next meal. They may start berating him for his callous behaviour. Phew !! What a relief ! My venom is spewed:)

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-america-europe-india-6325908/

We have to see the silver lining in each cloud. I am not so much worried about corona virus. And the effects of this pandemic are not entirely bad. Please don't troll me for calling this deadly disease "not bad". Now we are scared and fearful - but not of people from other religion or other country. We are all afraid of the virus. We are all fighting not  one another, but  common enemy - the virus. And for once, we are not the left, we are not the right, we are humans - weak, too human humans. We don't go out unnecessarily. We don't shop in the malls. We stay home with our family. And the vehicular pollution has reduced in most cities. So - silver lining - in this very very dark cloud. 

Our Indian news channels need to place a disclaimer every day before and after each news and debate. They don't, but they need to. Similar to movies and serials which disclaim that they are a work of fiction! This program is not entirely true - but not entirely a work of fiction either. It is some where in between. The anchor will often be rude and may hurt the feelings of viewers with his/her language/attitude and utter disregard for truth and honesty. As our channel is owned/funded by political party XYZ, we have to always defend that party, at any cost. We are telling our version of truth in our programs which is a relative term. We have to consider our survival and hence our main driving force is TRP and for that we may tweak the facts here and there a tiny little bit. We do consider astrology also as a science and hence take the help of astrologers for explaining events like, well like anything. Our ancestors had survived with astrology, not with this science mumbo

khuda jab deta hai to chappad phad ke deta hai And the corollary is also true. When things start going wrong, everything goes wrong. And let me tell you, I am talking about serious first world problems. Don't call me shallow. Or, it is ok. I accept the compliment. Now the last nail on the coffin is this broadband connection. Do you know what it has been doing, it is crashing netflix on my i-pad. And of course the very weak Jio mobile connection is showing no service. But how are these related to the broadband connection? I don't know. But it's happening. So my only new friend Netflix will be lost to me. :( P.S. And even this connection was very very slow, when I was in Facebook.

I did the easy thing - I converted my entire project to kotlin. A StackOverflow question told me that I need to go to Code menu in Android studio and give the option "convert java to kotlin". As simple as that. I opened each and every java source file and converted them into .kt file. Then came the fun part - hundred of errors. Because this automatic conversion does not consider the subtle points of your code. override : In java, when an inherited class redefines a base class function, it uses @Override before the function name. But kotlin uses "override". Automatic conversion does not convert @Override to override. You will have to do it yourself. Null, not null  and null safety : Kotlin is very particular about null safety. It uses the following ? and !! for this purpose. A variable defined as ? in front of its type name is nullable. e.g. var str1:String="Hello world" var str2:String?="Hello world" str2 is a nullable string.