Anish's Blogs

A lot of fiction novels, sci-fi movies, and even religious mythologies have predicted End of the World. Variety of causes including a deluge, super volcano, asteroids, devastating natural disasters, pandemics and war could be blamed for this annihilation.  While the Earth went through multiple rounds of destruction of the entire life like the Great Dying and End of the Dinosaur Era, how plausible is a similar situation in the modern world? With the technological power that humankind has now, any natural disaster causing a total destruction, looks a little far fetched! Even a worldwide pandemic as we experienced this year, one of the possible causes of apocalypse, is far from causing the amount of destruction that could be considered apocalyptic.  The pandemic did affect all the countries, but the total number of infections is about 1% of the world population, while only about 0.02% perished in the disease so far. Compare that to the pandemics of the previous centuries, where 1...

“What did you expect about America that wasn’t true?” It was a loaded question; Brian wanted to ask me about the lifestyle, culture and the behavior of the people I met in my first 3-4 weeks of my stay in the USA. Brian was an employee of the client company that TCS deputed me to in Florida. I could not answer the question directly, but gave a political answer, “I expected skyscrapers in the USA, but here in Melbourne, I don't see structures taller than 2-3 stories”. Brian went on to become a good friend of mine. In fact, when my parents visited Niagara Falls, his father, a retired Buffalo city cop showed them around in his big Impala. Brian used to discuss how American history is bloody and how steak is the staple diet for all Americans during dinnertime. He had a couple of complaints about me, one that I can't truly pronounce a “w” and a “v” separately and that my English was more formal than his colloquial language. The day I landed in Melbourne was a cool winter day; yes ev...

Today marks the second anniversary of the availability of vaccines for COVID-19! What a tumultuous 3+ year period it was. The first phase of denials, followed by lockdowns, then partial reopenings, and a cautious sense of normalcy, marked the distinct phases of this pandemic. Everything changed after the vaccine was available though. Humanity had finally won the war against this invisible enemy. But it took more than 6 months for the vaccine to be made available to the general public, only doctors and healthcare workers got it in the first phase. After general availability though there was the same chaos which we experienced during early phases of the pandemic where people hoarded stuff, and essentials like disinfectant wipes were not available for months together. There was a beeline of folks wanting to get vaccinated. After about 4 months of patiently waiting, my family finally got the immunity through vaccination. A lot of things have changed during this journey forever. Man...

Last month we vacationed in Cancun, Mexico. Like most vacationers in Cancun, we went on a pilgrimage to Chichen Itza, a complex of ruins from Mayan civilization. While appreciating the architecture and the grandiosity of the step pyramid, the Temple of the warriors and other structures there, and the fact that this complex was built some 800-1000 years ago, I realized that this complex was uncovered only in the 20th century. Much of the Mayan civilization and its creations were destroyed by the Spanish as part of their aggression in the 16th century. Felt bad about the destruction of such a highly sophisticated society at the hands of Europeans. On the tour, the tour guide, a man of Spanish descent, introduced us to a native Mayan who was also on the same bus. Apparently, only about 5% of Mexican population is native Mayan, rest of the population is of Spanish descent. The types of jobs done by native Mayan population are mundane, definitely not customer facing and naturally t...