Back from the Dead

Aah the D word...it incites grief, fear,satisfaction,mania, disgust,curiosity,humor...Before I venture further to express my opinions about this, my sincere apologies to anyone who thinks this is solecism...

My analysis starts from what is death- the state of lack of life...what is life...hmmmmm???!!! now very few people like the question , need I say about the answer... as one of my friends once advised me- its not worth analysing, just live it... yeh its a fair enough way of looking at it, but hey spare it a thought...:-)

The rise of the phoenix from its ashes has always been the quintessential example of 'back from the dead'. Accepted, its a quite inspirational thought..getting over setbacks in life, picking up the pieces and moving on and not only moving on baby, conquering the world in the process... hallelujah!!!

Spiritualism has always inspired human inquiry into this... every religion has its own unique way of looking at it..infact most of religious philosophy has been based on guiding principles to lead a good 'life' so that one can reap the benefits of it in the afterlife... then there are theories about reincarnation and the repercussions of our actions in this life on other lives...The way I look at it- hey atleast something gives human beings a reason to be good not only to themselves but also to others, cheers to it all!!!

And sometimes we do see miracles happening.. almost in a sci-fi flick kinda way... patients rising from commas to play chess when a struck with a surge of electricity.. Well the way I look at it, we are used to seeing zinc carbon batteries become 'alive' after being 'dead' for sometimes arent we... the reason behind this 'miracle' is that the reaction products(hydrogen gas in the case of the battery need some time to dissipate)... hmmm may be we too need some time to 'dissipate' things to recharge at times ;-P or for the sake of evangelists- may be miracles do happen!!!


Well moving away from the literal 'back from the dead' .... is life only about physical existence, does the mere presence of vital signs assure that one is alive?... vegetables are alive... how much we as humans deem the 'quality of life' important is a question having several dimensions - ethical(the whole debate about euthanasia) , economical (economists toy with the term 'standard of living') , social( thats what forms our 'culture') etc... A look at how we as a society treat those who deserve a 'second chance'. Its easy to dismiss a criminals unpardonable, but we must also give a thought to words like 'redemption' and 'rehabilitation'...more often than not we cant get rid of the stigma that we attach to criminals, addicts and mental patients- and refuse them the second chance merely on the bais that we have against them!!! But then ... As George Orwell says in his book "Animal Farm" - 'All animals are equal, but some are more equal' ;-)

Being a computer engineer, I cant not juxtapose the 'back from the dead' phenomenon in my pasture...We are all too familiar about 'data recovery'.... a hard disc failure - is just so much like a heart failure (sometimes the cause of it too) ... the specifics are different- you have a disc rotating at around 15000rpm, some actuators, controlling logic, arms... its easy to see the parallel...We even have parallel word for the average life span here - its called 'mean time to failure'... And the same questions surface here too- how do u weigh the cost of recovery against the utilityof the data.... all that, or may be I am too perceptive for my bread and butter!!

Well the term 'back from dead' assumes careful scrutiny when it comes to world politics... One cant help but wonder how many times the innocent civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan, Seirra Leonne die every moment... but they are the true survivors and epitomise the spirit of being 'back from the dead' with every breath they breathe...This reminds me of a statement by an Iraqi girl, I saw on CNN , when asked if she found it in her to find happiness amidst destruction, this was what she said,"Yes, I can find happiness within me, because unlike people in other parts of the world, I dont assume that suffering is not meant to be a part of life" ... Its aaha moments like these that should hit as brick-bats to those of us who dont cherish their better circumstances...

Ending on a humorous note.... well this has not been substantiated but its a popular urban legend in the category of business blunders ... Pepsi in its intial days was considered to be the kitchen drink- something thrifty housewives would use to fool their guests as 'coke' which was the popular 'living room' drink then.. this was due to a wrong marketing strategy by pepsi co which adopted the 'nickel' campaign ...so Pepsi was perceived to be the 'cheap' drink..Later, Pepsi tried to market it as a social drink with its 'Be sociable' campaign but they used prim and perfect brabd ambassadors which were viewed as boring by the public, during this process Pepsi completely overlooked the Rock and roll rage that was spreading its wings at that time...Realising this, Pepsi launched its 'Come Alive! its the Pepsi Generation!!" campaign, which presented a sort of social acceptance in the 'in' clique even to those who werent used to it in real life...and hey all that at a price of a cold drink, who wouldnt buy it!!! When Pepsi marketed this slogan in China, their sales dropped.. the reason being that the Chinese thought of it as a drink which would bring back their dead ancestors to life!!!!Hmm so much for coming alive eeih?:-P