Of Bill Gates and Open Source, and S'porean oldies

Yesterday I had the honour of listening live to a speech by Bill Gates, Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. He visited here for the 3rd time ever, and he was quite happy what with the govt doing all it can to go .netting their services. I shud be glad too, tht means steady cash flow for me.

I should say I thot he cud talk more fluently than that - with a lot of vocal pauses. Anyway, all went well until the Q&A when one guy had asked "Why dont you make your code open source". The look on Bill Gates'face then - priceless! There was an obvious pause for 5 seconds before he replied some value for money and stuff which no one gave a damn about.

The best was the pause..This is what he must have been thinkin.."Its my freakin company, I want to make money, and thats what makes me so adorable. No one will give a damn abt me if I wasnt the second richest person. Go ask companies like IBM and Sun to make theirs open source or Motorola and Siemens make their phone technology opensource. And if I do expose my code, a lot of companies will file law suits saying tht i have copied from their software! Plus a lot of companies will start getting out much better products based on our software than we ever can..Cmon think about the reputation of Microsoft if Windows doesnt ever crash! We are just not ready to accept that kinda isolation and frustration."

OK, now on to the more serious second part...

Imagine...a person with a shoulder bag full of stuff to sell..the first reaction is to bend down and ignore. If the person comes to you and says something.."No thanks" trying to be as polite as u can. Then the person sadly moves away, but wait..there is a chair on the way.. and the stuff gets strewn all over. Thats when my instinct takes over and I help the person gather the stuff...And I open my eyes and take note.

An old woman 70-80 i assume, withered looks, blind, selling tissue papers. An equally old blind man tagging on behind her clutching her hand for moral and physical support, worried at the scene unfolding in his darkness. Once I finished my errand, she said "che che" (well, it sounds like tht, means thanks in chinese). I felt kinda sad about the whole thing and I offered to buy a pack. And I gave her a $10 note for tht. Then she started scrambling in her purse feeling the circumferance and girth of the coins to give me the exact change. Whatever color when blood red and saline water combines, I had tht in my eyes then. I was out of words, cos I dint know how to say "juz keep it" in chinese. But I cud always show it in action and then her gratefulness made me ashamed and made me fight my tears. And then it was off to the next table and another rejection taken with elan. I wish I had some more..not juz money..

Back to consciousness, I was fuming at a lot of things. The way the oldies go about their 70-80+ years. Its quite shocking that all the places u go, its the oldies who clean the tables and plates at the university canteens, hawker centres (roadside food courts) and the careless emptiness of their existence to the younger generation. Sometimes I really feel that they have brought that situation upon themselves and that they juz go about the whole thing with no remorse. People often associate this city/country with all the skyscrapers and beautiful roads..but is beauty all about cement concrete and tar? I was thinkin about how many times I have heard "paati sonna kadhai", "thatha used to do this and that" from Indians. Here, I have never ever heard that. The children here are quite dependant on their parents till they get married, and then still its about their parents (till the parents earn ofcourse). What about the grandparents? Are they too old or are you too rigid or are you blind? Even the blind get tears in their eyes, cos they feel..and I saw a coupla pints pour down today, the tiny pool splattered by the tap tap tap..leaving my heart in shambles.

I dont wanna blame it on poverty, which btw, is present here (though might seem unbelivable for many). basic necessities are there, but in heavy debt and mortgage.. For one, it seems hard to believe there are no Indian families here struggling like this, but there is no indian man or woman (70+) i have seen doing the cleaning and cleansing. That makes me wonder. Is it the over-enthu S'porean (kiasu) workaholic behaviour that makes them work even a day before their demise or is it the Indian family and society values that prevent the Indian counterpart from doin such things when faced with adversity? Its been there in my mind for a long time now..but all I can do right now is dump my plates into the bin myself..

Old is gold is probably not true when it comes to how society treats the old, atleast here..Even the world goes round and round, does it bore u? Think about the reality on the ground and do ur best to make the old people proud or atleast happy..cos they deserve it. I remember a line from Kandukondain Kandukondain..when aishwarya rai says "Maranathai vida kodiyadhu enna theriyuma..marakka padardhu" The way she said it made me laugh..but now I think.

heart-broken... not by a girl this time.

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