//blog

The two ends of reason

2012-02-20T19:35:00.000+05:30

I do not write such posts. I do not know who wrote this post. I think it's me, but I'm not sure how. But when I do write such posts, I feel happy that somewhere deep within, there is this little bearded smiling philosopher sitting inside me, and telling me what to write. :)

Yeah. Like that.

I have always been intrigued by a couple of things that have, since the dawn of history helped shape human cultures and sculpted the way forward for civilizations. Not surprisingly, these have also been some of the most glaring epicenters of human conflict - to the point that even today, they require careful treading in public forums.

What do I refer to?

Quite simply, the two pillars of human existence - faith and reason.

Faith - or belief - that one-half of the human psychology that isn't based on logic or proof. That one half that scorns at reason and turns a blind eye to what the brain tries to work out.

And, reason. The exact opposite of faith - the half that believes in the systematic deduction of a complicated result from previously proven results and axioms. The half that looks at the heart, does a couple of facepalms and tries to convince it that it is all messed up. Needless to say, it generally fails.

Each of these two seemingly contrary ideas are interesting in their own unique way; each of these two ideas have their own school of thought, with the average human being either being given to one, or to the other; however what is particularly fascinating, more so than any one of these ideas, is both of them in the same light; In other words, their potential intersection.

I make a rather precocious assertion here, which is interestingly, fueled by both, my faith and reason and which I daresay, might ruffle a few orthodox feathers. Nevertheless here it goes :

Reason has its limits, while faith is limitless.

Rephrasing that into yet another precocious statement.

Faith picks up where reason loses out.

Now before going ballistic on me, think.

What are the frontiers of reason as it stands today? What has science been able to explain?

A lot of things indeed. It has explained why the earth goes round the sun. It has explained why the universe is expanding; how life works; why things happen in a particular sequence instead of the reverse. Most of the observable phenomena that happen around us - have been immaculately explained by science and quantified in the form of a set of rigid mathematical equations.1

We know that when science explains something it does so with reason. It would be foolish to disregard any component of of a rational framework. Why? Simply because it has been proven to be true or untrue. But then, the skeptic can go deep into the very foundations of reason, point at the axioms and ask "So who's proven these? Why do we consider axioms to be true?" For him I would recommend reading the Incompleteness Theorems put forward by Ernst Godel, that succinctly establish the limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic arithmetic based systems. Do not bother if that last sentence sounded Pashtu to you. It is not important in our discussion - not even one bit.

We do agree that science has explained most of the things that we see around us. Yet, science isn't complete. It hasn't explained a lot of things too. In fact, if there is a sum total of inexplicable phenomena, then this sum would overwhelmingly outweigh the sum total of the explicable things. Science has explained most of the things that we observe - but the fraction of things that we do not observe, that we cannot observe is a far greater fraction. And all that science has done with this fraction is try to extrapolate the known in an attempt to gauge the unknown. Again, this has worked remarkably well in most cases - be it with explaining the Big Bang. Explaining evolution. Explaining the quantum theory. These are things that we cannot completely observe; yet with a sufficient amount of reasonable extrapolation, we can actually form a fairly accurate idea of what goes or what has gone on under the veil of the unseen.

However, in spite of beautifully explaining billions of natural phenomena with amazing alacrity, there still are some things that science hasn't quite been able to explain; that science hasn't quite been able to put its fingers on. Therefore it does makes sense to call these, the limits of the science that we know today - or, the ends of reason.

What are the ends of reason? Roughly, there are two.

One, the beginning of life. Throughout human history, an alarmingly large number of philosophers have speculated about this issue. A gazillion scientists and rationalists have tried to find the true essence of what life is. What is that elusive thing that makes a cluster of non living atoms - living? After all, every living organism is made up of atoms and molecules; of protons, neutrons and electrons; which are fundamentally inanimate. What is it, that instills life into us then?

The most widely accepted answer to this question is that a favourable combination of atoms and molecules is all that it takes. You arrange ten million molecules randomly - you won't see a thing. But if you follow an order and arrange them so as to make this arrangement conducive for life - then presto! A living cell is born.

Of course, no one person does this ever. No one will be wasting his time to arrange billions of atoms to produce life, nor will anyone ever succeed in this gallant endeavour, should he begin. So the question that science cannot answer today, is who does this? Why and how do inanimate things auto-arrange and produce life? The second law of thermodynamics and chaos theory are vital tools here, in explaining this - and at a high school level, it is fairly easy to say that something happens if it happening increases the entropy of the universe.

But why?

Just like Newton's Laws and Maxwell's Laws this is again, just another law - that is accepted at face value because it does not go against that which we observe. Has never gone and hopefully, never will. We take it as an axiom. The verity of this axiom can be challenged - the only consolation regarding accepting it without a murmur takes us into Godel's Incompleteness Theorems one more time. Which I swore, you wouldn't need to know, and hence I shall cut past.

Thus, what it all boils down to is that, somewhere there is ample vagueness in the theory of how life began that not even the best minds on the planet have been able to rack and figure out. And I doubt they will.

The second limit of reason is the expanse of the universe. Science has proven, with the help of some remarkable technological advancements that the universe is expanding. Even the rate of expansion has been ascertained with a decent level of accuracy.2

But what then? The universe is happily expanding, we are all learning the laws of physics in high school - everything makes sense. All is well.

But what if, you wake up one fine day, and read the headlines "The universe has stopped expanding". What are the likelihoods of that happening? To answer this let us once look at the various theories that people have put forth to explain how the universe will end.

First up, The Big Freeze - This theory takes the current density of the universe, and the general preponderance of evidence that we have and states that the universe expands indefinitely, till the temperature everywhere reaches a pre determined low asymptotically. This predetermined low is considered to be the absolute zero. So in the end, everything freezes and dies out. Good bye choco lava cake; good bye Formula 1. Nothing exists any more. Thank you for your time.
Next, The Big Rip - This is a more dramatic concept, and far more interesting than a slow and steady decrease in temperature. This assumes that the density of dark energy increases with time in the universe. As a result, with continued increase, at some point in the future, everything just goes Poof! splitting into elementary particles once again. Dust thou art, to dust returnest. And hello, we are all dead.
Third, The Big Crunch - which is literally the opposite of the Big Bang. This theory assumes that the average density of the universe is not constant and that some day, the universe starts to contract and then slowly, everything collapses into a Singularity. This theory also predicts a subsequent Big Bang after the Big Crunch, which leads to the idea of an oscillatory universe - creation, sustenance, collapse, creation, sustenance, collapse and so on.
The Multiverse Theory - this theory takes an entirely different paradigm to explain the future of the universe. This states that our Big Bang is, but one of multiple Big Bangs that have already created several other universes elsewhere, and still are. These universes are either made up of matter or anti-matter, and whenever they come too close to each other, annihilation occurs, releasing a lot of energy - all this should lead to increased entropy and thus to a steady freeze, as speculated by the Big Freeze model - but since there'll be more and more Big Bangs happening all around, you'll probably get more universes to reside in. (However mental that might sound.)

There are other theories but then bringing them in here would be digressing. But what is common to all of these theories, is that not one theory has a proper scientific basis to it. They are merely attempts to try and apply the laws of physics in areas where their validity isn't obvious. They are all predictions, assumptions and empty speculations. No one has managed to stand up and decisively state that, "And this, ladies and gents, is how the universe shall end."

The end of the universe is thus, something that is as vague to rationalists as is the origin of life. To bring in a couple of pretentious terms, the microcosm, and the macrocosm are still not fully understood.

This is where reason fails to hold. You cannot apply reasoning here to figure out the how, the what, and the why.

And this is where faith comes in, riding on a fine steed, decked in shiny armour and helps saves the day.

You can always make up your theory about something, that you are unsure of, whether it is true or not. But then, you feel happy because it satisfies you. Hence you put your faith in your theory and believe in it.

This is exactly how faith is supposed to work. It is supposed to pick up from where reason ends and boldly predict something that the person is not sure of. Faith isn't blindly following age old rules without questioning them. Faith is not about having utter disbelief in established reason. Rather, faith should attempt to complement reason to give each person a holistic overview of everything - and this could very well be unique for each person, given the mix of his extent of knowledge and his beliefs.

Which brings me to my precocious assertion that reason has its limits, while faith is limitless.

You'll always have faith, even if you do not have reason. But the reverse is not true. Faith is ubiquitous, omnipresent - and invisible. It shows through only when the fabric of reason breaks and lets you look into what was under it. That is faith.

As a direct corollary of the above fabric model, if a person has less reason, he sees more of faith, and if he has more reason, he has less of faith. Faith and reason are not antagonistic towards each other. They merely supplement each other and help in the sustenance of the universe. As Sybill Trelawny would say, "Neither shall live while the other does not survive". That is, if they exist, they will exist together. Or neither at all.

Reason will never explain everything. My reasoning tell me that the frontiers of the rationale shall undoubtedly expand. It is expanding, and it will be expanding. But my belief tells me that that it will never be able to explain everything. For everything else that reason will surrender to, there will be faith.

In the slightly distorted words of Alan Turing, mathematician par excellence of the 20th century, "Science is a differential equation. Faith is a boundary condition". A succinct way of summing up what reason attempts to do.

His actual saying had the word 'religion' in it, which I replaced with 'faith' to get my point across.

That was it. Thank you for hanging around till the end. This was a long post, and I'm glad you read it. Please do leave in a comment or two, in case you wish to add something to my thoughts, or to contradict any of the things that I've written here.

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1 I would recommend reading the book, "Galileo's Finger" by Peter Atkins. This brilliant piece of work explains in layman's terms, the ten great ideas of science that have changed the way we think. The ten great ideas, for your information, are evolution, genetics, energy, entropy, atoms, symmetry, quanta, cosmology, spacetime and mathematics.

2 This rate is somewhere between 50 to 100 kilometers per second per megaparsec. Using the Hubble constant to be 70 km/sec/mps, this means that a galaxy appears to be moving 160,000 miles per hour faster for every 3.3 light years away from earth. Source.

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Thank you for reading this post. You can follow me (@wrahool) on Twitter or like my blog page on Facebook. Small things, mean a lot to me. :)

Like a boss

2012-02-08T14:37:00.002+05:30

Another rage comic. Click to enlarge, Should have ideally been posted on 23rd Jan. Nevertheless, hope you like it.

You can follow me (@wrahool) on Twitter or like my blog on Facebook . Small things, mean a lot to me. :)

Heisenberg!

2012-01-27T17:26:00.002+05:30

This is a meme, the idea of which stemmed while reading one of my friend's quantum mechanics books.

In case you do not know what this thing is, you should ideally jump off a well. Otherwise you might want to check this out.

Thank you for reading this post. If you want you can follow @wrahool on Twitter or like my blog on Facebook . Small things, mean a lot to me. :)

Alumni Research Talks 2012

2012-01-07T20:00:00.002+05:30

The day approaches! The first edition of the Alumni Research Talks is all set to kick off in five more days. This three day symposium shall see recent alumni of BITS Pilani converge from all corners of the world (literally) and talk about their experience in grad school and at their workplace.

The speakers include alumni doing research at some of the elite colleges in the world including UIUC, Stanford or are working/have worked at Google, Facebook, NetApp etc after passing out of BITS. While most of the lectures will be about their research/work fields, some lectures will also aim at clarifying the post-graduate scenario and hope to dispel all myths about fears and speculations that we BITSians tend to harbour.

ART is being organized by the Computer Science and Information Systems Department of BITS Pilani, with organizational support from us, the students of the Computer Science Association. All the lectures will be live-casted in the Goa and Hyderabad campuses (Dubai have their end semester examinations during this time, hence the exclusion). We've teamed up with Embryo for all the technical aspects of the event. Also, we've gotten Google and NetApp as sponsors. \m/

So if you have registered for ART, don't miss it. There'll be a lot of illuminating discussions, a lot of geekery, and yes, free snacks to boot. Moreover there's also an Idea Challenge for all hungry minds to compete in.

Registrations at Pilani have been closed now, because we already have 650 registrations here. However people who were off campus last semester can register by sending a mail to art [at] bits-csa [dot] org with the subject Request For Registration.

Keep following the official website and like the official Facebook page for details.

Hope to see you around! Tada.

--

Thank you for reading this post. You can follow @wrahool on Twitter or like my blog on Facebook . Small things, mean a lot to me. :)

Integrate C code within Java code using Java Native Interface in Ubuntu

2012-01-03T21:23:00.001+05:30

Java and C are two of the most widely used high level programming languages today. As a result of which there is often a need to incorporate the two in a single application. Like say for example, we have some legacy code written in C or C++ and we want to use certain features of the powerful Java platform within our application without rewriting the legacy code in Java.

This is where JNI or Java Native Interface comes riding in from the darkness on a fine steed and helps save the day.

This post serves to illustrate how to write a simple HelloWorld application using JNI wherein a certain function written in C will be invoked from a Java driver class.

And oh, this is for the Linux user. So if you are on Windows you should be better off Googling the same issue.

Prerequisites:

Needless to say, your system should have Java installed. I do not wish to digress and explain installing Java on Linux, there are a host of tutorials that will help you with the same.

So first up, we write a tiny Java code, and then analyse it's anatomy to see how it's different from the usual Java code.

import java.io.*;

class HelloWorld {
private native void nprint();
public static void main(String[] args) {
new HelloWorld().nprint();
}

static {
System.loadLibrary("HelloWorld");
}
}

It's a simple HelloWorld class with a few striking features.

private native void nprint(); This statement is crucial here. What it does is, it declares a native method, nprint(). (hence the n in the beginning) What is a native method? A native method is one that is implemented in some other native language (in this case, it will be, in C)
public static void main(String[] args) - the usual driver method. It invokes the aforementioned method nprint()
System.loadLibrary("HelloWorld") locates a native library corresponding to the name "HelloWorld" and loads the native library into the application. It shall be clearer as we progress.

Now we compile this class. So head over to your terminal and type

javac HelloWorld

Now we need to create a native header file that we can include in our C program. Doing that is simple. Another line in the terminal:

javah jni HelloWorld

Now if you do an ls -al, you shall see the original HelloWorld.java file that you've written, the HelloWorld.class file that was produced after compilation and HelloWorld.h - the header file that just got created.

If you check the contents of the header file, you'll see this line

JNIEXPORT void JNICALL Java_HelloWorld_nprint

(JNIEnv *, jobject);

Java_HelloWorld_nprint(JNIEnv *, jobject) : This is the C method that we implement. All the fanciful names in the function name - forget them for the time being, and proceed with the task at hand.

Also, this is important. The header file is system generated. So DO NOT EDIT it. Right, with that caution in mind, we move to the remaining part.

Now we write the native code in C.

#include jni.h

#include stdio.h

#include "HelloWorld.h"

JNIEXPORT void JNICALL

Java_HelloWorld_nprint(JNIEnv *env, jobject obj) {

printf("Hello JNI World!\n");

return;

}

Do not blindly copy this code! Thanks to Blogger's adeptness at parsing everything within angular brackets as html and not displaying the same I have been unable to include the header files in their proper syntax. Simply enclose jni.h and stdio.h within angular brackers and we're done.

Also notice that the function that we've written is the same function whose prototype we saw in the header file. This function isn't difficult to comprehend - save for the high sounding names, but let us leave that there.

Now we need to compile the C code and create a native library . We shall use our favourite compiler and all it takes is a single line in the terminal.

gcc -I/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/include -o libHelloWorld.so -shared HelloWorld.c

This command compiles HelloWorld.c and also creates a native library called libHelloWorld. You will find the newly created library file libHelloWorld.so within your current working folder.

Now we are all set to run our Java program. There is however one thing we need to take care of. We need to define the native library directory path. To do that we run the following two commands.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.

(This is because the native shared library is contained within the current folder ( . ) )

and then

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

That is it. Now we are all set to run our first JNI program.

java -Djava.library.path=. HelloWorld

If all goes well, you'll see the output.

Hello JNI World!

There you go. Your first working JNI program!

To sum up, here's a screenshot from my terminal, that shows the sequence of shell commands (click for bigger picture).

Setting up OpenCV 2.3 and Eclipse on Ubuntu 11.10

2012-01-02T00:08:00.000+05:30

This post seeks to help you in installing OpenCV and Eclipse and setting them up on Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric so that you can begin development straight away.

What is OpenCV? OpenCV is a library of programming functions (in C and some C++ classes) mainly aimed at real time computer vision and image processing. It is a cross platform library, first developed by Intel and now supported by Willow Garage, and is free for use under the open source BSD license.

What is Eclipse? Eclipse is a multi-language software development platform comprising an IDE and lots of plug ins to help you develop applications in several widely used programming languages.

This walk through is aimed at helping you to set up OpenCV 2.3 (the latest version as of January 2012), and Eclipse CDT (Eclipse with the C Development Toolkit) on Ubuntu 11.10.

Ubuntu 11.10 does come with OpenCV 2.1 in the repositories, but we want OpenCV 2.3 ... so we first begin with adding a PPA for OpenCV 2.3.

Head over to the terminal and type

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gijzelaar/cuda
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gijzelaar/opencv2.3
$ sudo apt-get update

Now, do the usual apt-get to get OpenCV. Note that the usual Ubuntu repos have a package called libcv-dev, however with the new PPA we are looking for a package called libopencv-dev.

$ sudo apt-get install libopencv-dev

This installs OpenCV on your computer. You will find the package files in /usr/include/opencv/

Now for Eclipse. You can do the usual apt-get (sudo apt-get install eclipse) to get Eclipse or you can download from the official website. I recommend the former. At the end you should have the following packages installed on your machine. ( I further recommend you install Synaptic Package Manager (sudo apt-get install synaptic) and then check for the individual packages.)

eclipse
eclipse-platform
eclipse-rcp
eclipse-platform-data
eclipse-pde
pdebuild
eclipse-cdt

Now you should be able to launch Eclipse. So do that and then create a new C or C++ project.

We shall write an introductory OpenCV program in C++ in this project, so we name the project ImageDisplay. (Note that I have created a C++ project and not a C project. While Ubuntu comes with the default gcc compiler for C, it does not have the GNU C++ compiler, g++ by default. In case you also wish to use C++ instead of C, do a sudo apt-get install g++ to install the g++ compiler on your computer).

We now have a C++ project called ImageDisplay. To enable us to use the OpenCV libraries in this project we need to include these libraries. To do that, right click on the ImageDisplay project in the Project Explorer on the left and select Properties. Go to C/C++ build in the left menu and then Settings, in the dialog box that appears.

The Configuration bar should be set to Debug [ Active ]. In the Tool Setting tab, select Directories in the GCC C++ Compiler menu and add the path

/usr/include/opencv

Now go to Libraries under GCC C++ Linker and add the libraries that you would need. Typically you would definitely need opencv_core and opencv_highgui. The other libraries that you can add are

opencv_imgproc
opencv_ml
opencv_video
opencv_features2d
opencv_calib3d
opencv_objdetect
opencv_contrib
opencv_legacy
opencv_flann

Lastly, in the Library search path, add /usr/lib.

Make sure that you add these paths and directories for the Release build as well (in the Configuration bar).

Now we are all set to write our first OpenCV program.

Before that let us once run through what all we've done.

Installed OpenCV.
Installed Eclipse.
Installed G++.
Created a project called ImageDisplay.
Configured the libraries and paths with our project.

Now for the program.

Create a file within your ImageDisplay project called main.cpp. Also, copy an image (.jpg format) to your project workspace folder. (You had set your workspace folder when you had started Eclipse. If you do not remember, then it mostly is in your home folder, and it's called workspace. There'll be a folder within the folder corresponding to you current project called ImageDisplay. So copy the image there. Call it image.jpg)

Double click main.cpp in the Project Explorer and write the following piece of code. If all goes well, when you compile and run this program, you should see a window and your image.jpg should be displayed in it.
Just replace the quotes in the include statements with angular brackets.

#include "cstdlib"
#include "cmath"
#include "cv.h"
#include "highgui.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])

{

cvNamedWindow( "Example1", CV_WINDOW_AUTOSIZE );

IplImage* img = 0;

img=cvLoadImage("image.jpg");

cvShowImage("Example1", img );

cvWaitKey(0);

cvReleaseImage(&img );

return 0;

}

Now save this file (Ctrl+S) and compile the code (ie "build" the project with Ctrl+B). Now click on the green arrow in the Eclipse toolbar to run the code.

You should see a window pop up called Example1 and your image.jpg should be in it.

You might face an error during compile time / run time that looks something like this :

Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "pixmap",

This is because you do not have a package in your system. To install it, just head over to the terminal and type

sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-pixbuf

That should be it. If you face any problem reread this post again and follow it carefully. Else of course, you can drop me a mail.

--

Also a very Happy New Year. Why I don't get all gaga on New Year's can be summed up nicely in the words of Mark Twain.

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion

So there.

A Time Travel Through Incredible India

2011-12-30T18:04:00.001+05:30

This and the past few posts, form the complete story of some of the most incredible things I experienced and saw during my week-long tour of Madhya Pradesh. To make it easier for you to go through, I shall index them in this pilot post, and hyperlink each place to its respective post.

a Time Travel through Incredible India - 5 : Muslim Palaces at Mandu

2011-12-30T17:54:00.002+05:30

We are all aware of the monumental standards that the Mughals set when it came to building palaces and pleasure domes for themselves - yeah, we've all seen the Taj Mahal, Humayun's Tomb et al.

Now little known to many, before the Taj Mahal was designed, the architects drew inspiration from another, albeit less grander Muslim piece of architecture. That, and various other exquisite Muslim palaces and pavilions form the fifth and the closing part of my Madhya Pradesh travelogue.

We leave Bhopal and travel by road to Indore. The distance is a little less than 200 kilometers and can be covered in two-and-a-half to three hours, on a usual day.

Our place of interest is not Indore however. It is 100 kilometers south west of Indore, and this place is the ruined city of Mandu. Established in the 10th century by Raja Bhoj, it gained prominence during the Mughal rule in the Medieval Age, as the capital city of Hoshang Shah, the king of Malwa. After the Mughals however, when the Marathas shifted their capital to Dhar, the importance of the town waned.

Mandu is home to a number of beautiful Muslim palaces. The most noteworthy of them, being the Jahaj Mahal, a huge ship-like palace, positioned between two huge lakes (which still exist, but are much smaller). The Jahah Mahal was built by Hoshang Shah, as his harem, and it was meant to give a sea-like ambiance to the lady members who stayed there - with the cool wind arising from the cross-ventilation between the two lakes.

Beside the Jahaj Mahal, there is yet another exquisite palace, albeit smaller, known as Hindola Mahal, which features sloping walls on its three sides - to give the impression that the entire structure is swaying with the wind.

All these do make one wonder on the creativity of the architects in those times!

The next place that we visit is Roopmati's pavilion - a "pavilion" that was built by Baz Bahadur, the last sultan of Malwa, for his Hindu queen - Roopmati, a singer and Rajput by birth. The pavilion was built for a specific purpose - to be a seat for the queen while she would gaze down the Narmada valley at the flowing waters of the Narmada. The pavilion is perched atop a cliff overlooking the valley - the Narmada is not visible to the naked eye, but there is a telescope that allows one to see it from the terrace.

Beside the Pavilion is the palace of the sultan Baz Bahadur himself.

The last couple of places that we visit in Mandu are the Jami Masjid, and thereafter the tomb of Hoshang Shah. This tomb of Hoshang Shah, was the structure that inspired the design of the Taj Mahal, as you shall see in the slideshow that follows.

The Masjid shows the confluence of two unique architectural patterns, the Hindu straight-cut-rectangular dharmshala style, and the second, the curve-oriented and arches of the traditional Mughal style.

That was it. This is the end of the travelogue. It was an incredible learning experience for me. I hope I have been able to share most of what I felt with you.

Thank you for staying till the end.

a Time Travel through Incredible India - 4 : Stupas at Sanchi

2011-12-28T22:05:00.000+05:30

This post takes us back to Bhopal and then some 60 kilometers to its north west - to Sanchi.

Everyone has heard of Sanchi. We've all read about it in our History books, seen the beautiful Stupas that make Sanchi so important today, in print.

Trust me when I say, the real thing is a totally different deal.

Back in the times of the Maurya Empire (circa 250 BC), when the newly found faith of Buddhism was fragmenting, a few hundred years after the death of founder Gautam Buddha, it was King Ashok who took upon himself the monumental task of propagating the religion and methodically channelising its progress.

And thus the construction of the Stupas were started. Stupas are essentially round, mound like structures, housing significant Buddhist relics; Today they are some of the most iconic historical structures of India, and with good reason. When India won her independence in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru was quick enough to recognise the Ashokan Stupas as a aymbol of the very beginning of the existence of the Indian State. Before Ashok, India had existed physically and geographically, but the concept of a political state, stretching from present-day Kashmir to Kanyakumari, was unheard of. Ashok was the first emperor who consolidated most of the region of the present Indian subcontinent into a single political entity - and thus, this period can safely be considered to be the beginning of an Indian polity.

It was because of this, Nehru established the Ashok Stambha, the pillar-head of the oldest (southern) entrance gate to the Stupa, as the national emblem of India.

I shall stop this rant and shall provide the customary slideshow. I hope you like the pictures.

The next and hopefully the last part of this travelogue shall take us to Indore, and to Mandu - the site of some beautiful Mughal architecture from Medieval India.

a Time Travel through Incredible India - 3 : Cave paintings of the early man

2011-12-28T18:53:00.000+05:30

After the visual treat that was the Narmada valley, we leave Jabalpur and move on to the capital city of Madhya Pradesh - Bhopal.

Now there isn't really much to see in Bhopal except for a couple of really huge lakes, which have given Bhopal, the name - city of lakes. However Bhopal is close to two extremely important tourist spots, both of which are important enough to have been declared as World Heritage Sites.

The first one is far less known than the second, but is equally as enchanting in a different way, and forms the content for this post. It is only 45 kilometers to the south of Bhopal, but the road conditions are bad enough to make a Humvee think twice before venturing ahead. Which affected our rattly old Chevy rather badly, for the information - resulting in two consecutive punctures.

This place is known as the Bhimbetka, and it is home to some of the oldest cave paintings known to man. Ten thousand years or more ago, these rocks were shelters to the early man, and in his .. er ... past time (?) the early man painted on the walls of these rock shelters. Overlapping and superimposition of paintings imply that these rocks were used as canvas for art by different people from different periods - from the Upper Paleolithic, through the Mesolithic and Chalcolithic periods, right up to the early historic to the very recent Medieval age.

The amazing thing about these paintings is that they weren't etched into the stone. Rather, they were painted, and given that they were painted, it's a wonder how the paintings haven't fallen prey to erosion and other natural processes. In fact, recent marks made by the Archaeological Survey of India on the same stones, only 60 years back have faded and discoloured.

These rock paintings were discovered by a VS Wakankar in 1957 when he saw some unique rock formations while traveling by train. Hundreds of such rock shelters where discovered of which fifteen caves have been opened for sightseeing.

Most of these paintings depict animals like bison, boars, horses, lions while others depict the culture of the early homo sapien, their festivals, rituals and the like. It really is marvelously, considering the fact that at this juncture in pre-history, the early man was coming out of an animal-like existence and learning the art of self expression in the form of art, that which has survived till today. I am embedding a slideshow here, do click on the slideshow and view the photos in all their glory in picasa. They really are incredible.

Also, the name Bhimbetka comes from Bhima, the strongest of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata - during the Pandava's 12 year exile, Bhim had apparently resided in this region - and hence Bhimbetka - the seat of Bhima.

That is it for this post. The next post shall take us to Sanchi, also 40 odd kilometers from Bhopal, in another direction - the home of the historic Stupas and the iconic Ashok Stambha, the national emblem of India.

a Time Travel through Incredible India - 2 : A Boat Ride through a Marble Palace

2011-12-26T20:35:00.000+05:30

Our next stop takes us to Jabalpur - 227 km to the west of Amarkantak and some 70 odd km from the National Fossil Park at Ghughua - which we covered in the previous post.

There is nothing spectacularly historical or archaeological in this city - but what sets this city apart is its proximity to one of the finest river valleys in the country - that of the Narmada. We've all read about the Narmada in our geography books - how it's the traditional boundary between North India and South India, and how it's one of the few peninsular rivers to flow westwards from its source in Amarkantak (which you might recall from my previous post) to the Arabian Sea, through a valley between the Vindhyas (to its north) and the Satpura (to its south) range.

Quite close to the city of Jabalpur, is a place called Bhedaghat in the Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, where the Narmada carves out a gorge through rocks made out of pure marble. And the breathtaking beauty of this marble-valley is one of the primary reasons that has helped tourism flourish in this state,

There are two ways of experiencing the marble rocks - both of which are splendid in their own unique way. The first is by taking a cable car and getting a bird's eye view of one of the best portions of the valley - with a beautiful waterfall to boot. The second way is a 50 minute boat ride down the valley and getting "up close and personal" with the rocks.

The boat ride through the valley revealed some beautiful natural marble "sculptures" - which are mostly figments of human imagination, humourous nevertheless when explained. I have included some of them in the slideshow below.

This completes the Jabalpur chapter of this travelougue. Next up, Bhopal, and cave paintings of the early man and the iconic Ashok Stambha at the Sanchi Stupa.

a Time Travel through Incredible India - 1 : A walk in a prehistoric park

2011-12-23T21:58:00.000+05:30

This is part one of a three (or more) part tour-de-excellence through MadhyaPradesh, the very heart of the Indian subcontinent.

Indeed, when I set out for this journey, little did I know that this would turnout to be one of the most incredible travelling experiences I've ever been on -which is a significant thing, considering that Jammu-Kashmir and Keralaare the only two states in India that I haven't been to. So, I was bothapprehensive yet expectant of the "wonders" that I would behold inthe course of ten odd days.

With this and the next few blog posts, I wish to recount the experiencesthat I have had in the past few days, and hope to take you, the reader down tothe very beginning of life on earth, to the roots of the present day homo sapien and some astonishingmilestones of Indian culture - which still affects our day to day life in the21st century.

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Our journey begins on the road, aboard a rattly Chevrolet Tavera, atAmarkantak. Amarkantak, situated in Madhya Pradesh, close to the MP-Chattisgarhborder is home to some of the oldest Shiv temples on the planet. These are someoutstanding works of art, dating back to 1000 AD - all sculpted out of stone.One look at the temples and one is compelled to wonder at the craftsmanship ofthe artisans who toiled with pickaxes and shovels and craved these brilliantarchitectural masterpieces, which have stood the test of time and seen medievalIndian history unfold alongside them.

Amarkantak is also of geographic importance as the source of the greatNarmada, which cuts through the rich igneous rocks of the Deccan plateau,between the Vindhya and the Satpura ranges, and empties into the Arabian Sea inGujarat. Also, merely a couple of kilometers away from the source of theNarmada is the source of the Son river. What is startling is that the entirewatershed region is such, that within a couple of kilometers, the altitudevaries so much that, the Narmada flows westward towards Gujarat, and thatthe Son flows North East-ward to join the Ganga in the great Northern Plains.

Leaving Amarkantak behind us, we travel westward, towards Jabalpur -National Highway 22. We cross the two towns of Dindori and Shahpur and thencome to a fork and turn left. 14 kilometers down this road and we come to oneof the most amazing, yet little known places in India. In fact, it's the onlysuch place that we have in our country, and even outside India, very few ofthese exist.

The National Fossil Park Park.

The National Fossil Park at Ghughua, is a rare, an extremely rare example of an entiretropical evergreen forest being petrified over millions of years - resistingall forms of biological decay while at it. Carbon dating has estimated thatthese plant fossils date back to the late Cretaceous and the early Tertiaryperiod in the geological timescale. That is more than 65 million years ago.Which is, well, a hell lot. Considering that dinosaurs had just becomeextinct then, and that the closest ancestor to the modern man was still manymillions of years away.

These fossils are predominantly of the prehistoric date palm and banana.This treasure trove of natural history was unearthed by a Dr Dharmendra Prasad,the statistical officer of the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, and afterrealizing the significance of this natural wonder, the Government of Indiadeclared this as a National Park in 1983.

Geological studies on the fossils excavated have proved several theories ofcontinental drift. The fact that the fossils are predominantly of evergreenplants imply that 65 million years ago, this region of India enjoyed a warmhumid climate with plenty of rainfall all year around. Also, the discovery of anumber of eucalyptus tree fossils have verified that the Deccan plateu and presentday Australia (which have eucalyptus forests to this date) shared the samelandmass - that of the ancient Gondwanaland. Seeing the fossils -million-year-old plants turned to stone - over the years - lying where theyonce stood, witnessing the evolution of planet earth happening all around them- the changing landscapes, new species appearing and dying out, the earlyprimates first learning the art of working with tools, the discovery of fire,the appearance of the first homo sapien- is exciting enough to send a shudder up one's spine!

After a surreal experience, which I'm thankful to have witnessed, we boardour rattly old Chevy and head to Jabalpur.

Part two of our journey - the enchanting marble rocks of the Narmada valleyin Jabalpur will be taken up in the next post. :)

walking into Mordor

2011-12-22T19:08:00.000+05:30

I have been pouring over Google Maps for the past few days, for finding routes and more interesting places to visit in Madhya Pradesh. And then this idea propped in my mind - the result of which was rather hilarious.

I love these tiny Easter Eggs Google keeps planting in arbitrary places in their products. <3

Brillaint, ain't it? :)

Also, Merry Christmas to everyone.

Tintin!

2011-12-17T21:56:00.001+05:30

I haven't written about Tintin in any of my 140 odd posts on this blog, and I'm dreadfully sorry for that. A great deal of injustice indeed, to what had pretty much been the holy grail of my childhood.

It started out in first standard, with my father and I, together reading Red Rackham's Treasure, and it slowly grew into an obsession that occupied the better part of my 12 years of school life, in which I read, re-read, re-re-read till I knew virtually every single panel on each of the 22 books by heart. From random addresses of the houses of minor characters, to the number on the licence plate of a random car that appeared in some random panel in some book.

When Tintin was announced for the big screen last year, I was to put it mildly, apprehensive. To put it not so mildly, I was waiting for it like this:

Yeah. I scoured the internet for news, for trailers, teasers and the sort, and kept talking about it to my friends and of course, with my father, who is as much of a Tintin fan as I am. Also, the fact that it was Spielberg himself who'd be directing the movie, did little to restrain my enthusiasm for the same.

Now finally, after quite a few weeks since its launch (regrettably so), I had the chance to watch the movie. In all of its three dimensional brilliance.

From the very beginning, what you notice is the incredible, absolutely mindblowing graphics. At first glance one would mistake it for reality. Just that the characters give it away owing to their facial characteristics which have been religiously maintained to respect Herge's caricatures in the books. Even with that constraint, the facial expressions, reactions and overall cinematography is so life like that it's creepy. I ain't the movie buff, but the few movies I have seen, I haven't seen better motion capture technology in any, and that's a fact.

Second, the story. Blind Tintin lovers will hate this bit, because what they've done is lift sections from three different books and made one story out of it all - kinda weird, because The Crab With The Golden Claws in reality has absolutely no connection to the epic Secret of the Unicorn + Red Rackham's Treasure saga. But whoever's distorted the original story, and rewritten the one filmed, has indeed done a brilliant job. Now before you go all Where'sYourFaithInTheOriginal on my arse, hear me out.

For one, the original story had an enormous coincidence in that Tintin bought the same Unicorn that had the history connected with his friend Haddock's ancestor. I respect Herge's story, inspite of the coincidence, because, well, it's Tintin. What Spielberg, very cleverly showed, was how Tintin first buys the Unicorn, then gets involved in the whole racket surrounding it, which brings him to meet Captain Haddock. Added to that is the revelation that Mr Sakharine is actually the descendant of Red Rackham the pirate himself. This leads to a brilliant climax where Captain Haddock and Sakahrine duel just as their ancestors had duelled two hundred years ago aboard the original Unicorn. (Oh did I forget to add spoiler alerts?)

To be honest, I loved this story a wee bit more than the original.

The entire Bird brothers incident has been done away with, including the brilliant chase in the Marlinspike Hall cellar which was so artfully shown in the comic strips. I was hoping to see all that animation there, but halfway through the movie I realized they would do away with that to keep the new story line. But no issues, there were several thrilling chase sequences in the movie, which more than just made up for that one lack. The naval battle between the Unicorn and the pirate galley has been depicted marvelously, as has been the rendition of the sea plane flight sequence right up to the crash land into the sands of Morocco.

Humour prevails throughout the movie, reaching peaks when the Thompsons make a fine mess of things, and during Snowy's hilarious antics and (mostly successful) attempts to help Tintin. Particularly funny was Haddock burping into the seaplane fuel tank, and his alcohol laden breath giving the engine enough juice to make it ashore.

However, I did miss the funny Captain Haddock. I missed his assorted compendium of swear words. I do agree, they are better read than heard, but a funnier Haddock, would indeed have made the movie more complete than what it currently is.

All in all, a brilliant movie. A spot-on, albeit distorted story; insane graphics; cliff hanging suspense, riddled with rib tickling humour. And an amazing climax.

Go watch it.

why this meme?

2011-11-28T14:18:00.001+05:30

My first attempt at a meme. For all those so inclined.

In case you you have been in India in the past few weeks and haven't been socially cocooned in an internet-tight bubble of ignorance, you would have come across this somewhere. May the Grim Reaper bless your soul in case you haven't.

Like it, hate it, share it, download it; just don't crop my name out and call it your own. :-)

a dramatic turn of events : quite literally for Dream Theater

2011-11-05T14:40:00.000+05:30

This was written long back (almost a month and a half) for my college newsletter, the Fine Print. Just thought of putting it up here as well.

--

The concept of bands changing members is as old as bands themselves. At times, it is a traumatic incident, often tragic; often it is musical differences that makes members part ways. At other times it is just the members being at loggerheads with each other that spells disaster (remember the band that was once Guns n’ Roses as opposed to the total abomination that exists today).

When Mike Portnoy, founding member and drummer of Dream Theater, and one of the most celebrated drummers in the world today, decided to go on a hiatus from his band, the music community was a little more than shell shocked. For Portnoy had been the be-all and end-all of one of the most successful progressive music acts ever. The departure of Portnoy, and the introduction of Mike Mangini however, did help Dream Theater get a degree of public attention that they would otherwise not have received and brought their new album in the limelight of exhaustive scrutiny.

A Dramatic Turn of Events (record label: Roadrunner) released worldwide on 13th September 2011. Interestingly, it had made its way into the DC hubs of BITS Pilani two days before its release. The album comprises 9 songs and yes, it is long; runs for over 85 minutes, but then again, that's progressive metal for you.

The songs are varied. From On the backs of Angels, which does does justice to the usual Dream Theater sound and dispenses all doubts about Mangini's drumming dexterity; to This is the Life and Far From Heaven, two of their softer and overtly melodious tracks, perfect for easy listening. Their metal roots are still prominent in Lost Not Forgotten and Bridges in the Sky, which showcase some brilliant double-pedal bass drumming by Mangini and some incredible guitar work by the maestro, John Petrucci. Jordan Rudess still maintains his postition as the reigning king of the keyboard and in this album, we hear so much more of him than we have in their previous ones. Also, the iconic ever changing time-signatures, that Dream Theater is synonymous with, have been kept alive with some very complex rhythm patterns leaving their mark in most of the tracks. Not to mention the silent wizard, John Myung and his superlative bass work on his 6 string bass.

So is the album good? Yes, it is. There's nothing wrong with it at all. It has all the things that can be expected of a band like Dream Theater. Technical brilliance. Gorgeous solos. Unpredictable transitions. Soaring vocals. Lost Not Forgotter in fact, with its steady build up from a beautiful piano arpeggio-motif to a stacatto riff and high pitched countertenor vocals does come close to the epicness that Dream Theater is.

But that. Is it. The album doesn't reach the high levels of blind-brilliance that one would anticipate. In fact, the second track, Build Me Up, Break Me Down, with its weirdly artificial chord progression and modulated vocals, made me facepalm in disgust. Even if we put that one track aside, there's no Pull Me Under or an Under A Glass Moon. Or even a Beyond This Life for that matter in this album. Moreover, if you are a Portnoy fan, then the new drum sound will take a lot of getting used to.

The album is awesome, but it still is a disappointment. Say, it's like ordering a Double Cheese Burst pizza and not getting the accompanying oregano and chilli flakes. It's the oregano and chilli flakes that help take the pizza to the next level, and that is what A Dramatic Turn of Events sorely lacks.

The current Dream Theater line-up. From left.
Mike Mangini (drums), John Myung (bass), James Labrie (vocals),
Jordan Rudess (keyboards), John Petrucci (guitars)

2011 Formula 1 Airtel Indian Grand Prix - a look back.

2011-10-31T19:12:00.000+05:30

what did I see yesterday?

was it the real life? was it just fantasy?

My head still reels when I think of all that I witnessed in the past three days. The colours! The speed! The sounds!

Oh boy oh boy.

Wasn't this all that I had been living for all these years? Wasn't this all that I had been dreaming of ever since I had watched Formula 1 back in Jamshedpur with my father - myself, no older than 4 years back then?

It all felt vaguely disorienting. The whole spectacle. I couldn't bring myself to terms with the fact that I had just watched a live Formula 1 Grand Prix. When had I, even a year back thought that I would be watching one so soon? Agreed, the hype surrounding an Indian GP had been floating around for quite sometime. But then again, the fact that this is India had given me enough doubts and riddled all my hopes with ample skepticism. ( which I'm sure Metallica fans in Delhi and around will understand :P )

No longer though.

I look back at the whirlwind that was the past one weekend, and I feel blessed to have lived though it all. The cars, the drivers, the circuit, the stands. The entire atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever witnessed in my entire life. Electric. Pulsating. Enervating.

It was the sort of thing that takes one by the scruff of his neck and thrusts him face first into a concoction of sheer epicness. You know when it's over. You feel a void. Life seems weird after that. Which is exactly what it seems like, right now. The deafening roar of a combined 7000+ horsepower still rings in my ears. I twitch at the slightest of the whirring sounds that I hear. My mind still latches on to the sight of Formula 1 cars flying in front of my eyes. I still hear the cheer of hundreds of thousands of eager spectators resounding all around me.

There is a certain factor that makes Formula 1 grand. A certain thing that makes it stand out from all other races that happen year around. Having seen a Formula 1 grand prix now, and some random lower order Formula league racing on the same track one after the other, I realise how marked the difference is. The random-lower-order-Formula race had colourful open wheeled, single-cockpit vehicles running all around the track, just like the F-1 race, making the sort of noise that the generic racing car makes.

But the difference in F-1 is so apparent. It is audibly, visibly and in all other aspects, so very different. The sound of the 300 horsepower naturally aspirated F-1 V8 engine, when it revs, is akin to that of a MiG 21 that has just taken off. You can trust me, because I have heard both. It's outlandish. Incredible.

And if the sound of the F-1 engine is outlandish when it revs, can you imagine the sound of the gear shifts as the car brakes? I have actually run out of adjectives and metaphors now to describe how the whole thing feels like (which is something). It is, to repeat something that I've already stated, quite unlike anything that I've seen or heard till date.

And it wasn't just the race! If you did go for the race and if you did miss out on the driver's parade which happened an hour and a half before the race, you, my dear sir, must take a leap into the nearest well. Because that provided an exquisite starter for the excitement that was to follow. A convoy of some of the finest old vintage cars, showcasing the iconic history of motorsports that India once had, did one lap around the track. Each of the cars had one F-1 driver in it, each one of whom was greeted with resounding applause from the grand stands. I personally was moved to tears when I saw a helmet-less Michael Schumacher and then a cheery Fernando Alonso waving at us from a Rolls Royce Phantom I.

And the venue! The Jaypee group and the Budh International Circuit dispelled all notions that India isn't capable of organizing a world-class event, and that too in the most consummate manner. 5.14 kilometers of raw adrenaline gushing exhilaration, complete with huge elevation changes, blitzkrieg straights, curves and hair pin bends: the track was as advanced as any other established International circuit, and interestingly, also happens to be the second fastest F-1 circuit in the world today. Sitting in the Classic Stand 2 East Zone, which luckily proved to be the most happening part of the circuit, I could hardly believe my eyes as they followed Felippe Massa's scarlet Ferrari round a curve and then straight into the fences during Saturday qualifying. I could hardly believe that I had seen an actual F-1 collision, that too, between the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Massa.

And Sebastien Vettel! What a perfect weekend for him! Pole Position on Saturday, fastest lap on Sunday, leading through all the 60 laps and finally emerging triumphant after hundred minutes of non-stop action. Kudos indeed, young German, you totally deserved it!

My rambling could go on, so I must stop now. I shall put up pics on my Picassa albums soon, and then link them here, so do come back. Agreed they aren't much, but to me, they are some real precious memories.

Till then people. The chequered flag waves.

PS : thanks to this wonderful person for everything. :)

sports in general, Formula 1 in particular

2011-10-27T20:46:00.001+05:30

This post begins with some rather opinionated comments about sports in general. Given that my sporting tastes were nipped in the bud by my own lethargy and disinterest, and that I mostly yawn while watching stuff like the Twenty Best Goals That Shook the World, you shouldn't let my opinions bother you one single bit. Because if you do, there'll be one of those famous word-battles in the comment form following this post, that have plagued quite a few of my blog posts till date.

Notwithstanding, I stick to being the opinionated douche that I am, and proceed.

Opinion #1. Every sport is unique.

However, as with most hastily stated assertions, there's a but to it. Which brings us to opinion #2

Every sport is unique, but down somewhere, they're all the same.

Yes, I love creating such situations where my reader is forced into being an indignant little pigeon that frets about in disagreement making that weird low frequency noise that pigeons make. Much like an ill-tuned bass guitar.

But yes, let us not digress.

Coming back to what I started out with, viz sports. Most sports inherently have one thing in common. They all have people running about on a field, and all of them making a huge fuss about a particular ball. I know, my reader-pigeons have transformed into guffawing gorillas now, and are probably laughing at how baseless my argument seems.

I agree. Hell, I suck at giving good arguments to defend my opinions. Let's say my opinions stem out of my passions more so than my reasons. I say something because my heart tells me to, not because my brain has thought something out. And it is stupid at times. But I really do not care. As long as my brain helps me think out stuff that I really want to think out, it doesn't matter. My heart tells me, Guns N' Roses is awesome. My heart tells me that non-vegetarians rule. My heart tells me that Google is the best thing that the world will ever have. I trust my intuitions and have full faith in them.

Such is the thing with sports. OK, I do enjoy following cricket, and I don't mind watching a heated football match. In fact, I actually enjoy seeing ManU and Arsenal fans baying for each other's blood.

But then, there is an inherent something to these sports that make them so ordinary. So mortal. After all, it's just men running around. I agree, Tendulkar did drive that through the cover exquisitely well, and yes, that goal was quite jaw dropping. Yet, these things, they lack something that appeals to my heart.

Which is where motorsports come in.

Which form of cheering in the crowd, which vuvuzela on this earth, can replace the sound of twenty super charged V8s revving? Which goal, or which home run, or which wicket, can set your adrenaline gushing like the sight of two F-1 cars locked in a frenzy of tyre-to-tyre overtaking?

Yes, ladies and gents, this is formula 1 we are talking about. And YES, it's finally here in our country, for the very first time ever, with all of its mind-blowing and eye popping awesomeness.

What is it that sets Formula 1 aside from other sports? What places F-1 in the pinnacle of sporting exclusivity that the other mortal sports cannot match? Let's see. For one, we have the sheer glamour. It's the sheer amount of money that is spent in this sport. Formula 1 can look at every other sport in the eye and say, "I'm richer, bitch".

There's that.

The second, and the more significant reason is probably the role the sport plays in science and engineering technology. Each of those twenty cars that race around the tracks are mechanical wonders. Each of them have had a few hundreds of scientists and engineers working on them. They're machines that live on the bleeding edge of tech. Spending hours and hours in wind tunnels. Having been subjected to every possible test that they could have gone through.

The people. The engineers. They're some of the finest minds in the business. They know their science and they know their math. They know how to make machines that can safely reach 300 kilometers an hour. They know how to put a wheel onto a car and ensure that it can survive such speeds and temperatures, and at the same time, they can be removed in less than two seconds. The drivers. They are human beings who do a lot more than running around and kicking balls. They have nerves of steel, and have a pulse rate that is a fraction of an average human being. They know how to keep their calm when they see a wall approaching in front of them at over 200 kilometers per hour, and find that their brakes aren't working.

This is what makes F-1 so very different. The money. The machines. The people.

Yet, that is again, not what F-1 essentially is. The glamor and the tech isn't really what's sporty about F-1. They are essential constituents, but not everything. For, under it's layer of glam, money and bleeding-edge-technology, F-1 has stories of exaltations and heart breaks. Just like any other sport. There are tales of history being rewritten and records being broken. For which fan does not remember the legend that was Ayrton Senna? Which fan does not cherish the memory of the epic last lap battle for victory between Gilles Villeniuve and René Arnoux in France '79?

These are not mere tales of sporting phenomena. These are stories of valour and passion. Of timeless people and their exploits.

For Formula 1 is so much more than a sport. It is to sports, what a McDonald's Happy Meal is to mess food. It is simply the holy grail of excitement, for those so inclined.

Why did I write all of this?

Simply because I'm going for the first every Indian Grand Prix, and that I'll be leaving in a couple of hours. #hellyeah #inserts slash-m-slash's wantonly.

I shudder to think of the dreary month that lies ahead of me, push the thought out of mind and turn on some loud heavy metal.

Till then folks! Cya soon.

PS : here's a simulation flying lap around the Budh International Circuit, with Sebastien Vettel. It all looks very rosy and promising. Let's hope it all goes off smoothly. :)

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot : how to set it up right.

2011-10-26T18:27:00.000+05:30

I had been using Ubuntu 10.10 for the past one year, and to be honest, I liked it a lot. Save for a few problems in the very beginning , it worked seamlessly and survived every inch of stress I subjected it to, from screwing around with device drivers, and (unsuccessfully) trying to enable multi-touch in an Inspiron 1545.

I had a myriad desktop environments as well, apart from the usual Gnome. There was KDE, Xfce, Unity, Unity 2D, as well as the new Gnome, Gnome 3, and when 11.04 Natty released last April, I contemplated a lot on whether to upgrade or not. Then wisely chose not to. Several of my friends did, and while the new Unity interface took getting used to (not for me, I had already been using Unity alongside 10.10) there were many other issues that dissuaded me from upgrading.

Now however, with 11.10 Oneiric out a couple of weeks back or so, I finally decided to take the step. Installing was the easiest part of setting up Oneiric on my computer. But then, a quick and easy install has always been Ubuntu's forte. (You can refer to this post of mine to help you out if you face any problems. Agreed, the post explains with Ubuntu 10.04 in mind, but it's really not different with 11.10).

The messy part begins once the installation is over. Setting it up here in the BITS Pilani network is quite of a bother, given the first bummer of 11.10 that is the lack of Synaptic Package Manager. Synaptic had always been the crux of one's Ubuntu experience in the LAN that exists on our campus, having provided the metaphorical shoulder to weep on when something has plagued us. Hence the lack of Synaptic is initially difficult to come to terms with. But no worries, here's how it is done.

The first part of this post helps you to set it up here in BITS, while the latter half is generally solving the post-installation problems that any Ubuntu user might encounter.

I'd advise you NOT to read up on the BITSFOSS site, because the steps mentioned therein are pretty confusing and don't quite work out the way they're meant to. Instead, follow the steps in the following order.

open the /etc/apt/sources.list file, using (sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list), and then replace http:// in every line with http://172.19.1.5:3142/
REMOVE the /etc/apt/apt.conf file (sudo rm /etc/apt/apt.conf)

Yes, now your apt-get and your Ubuntu Software Center are both synced with the seemingly infinite BITSFOSS repositories.

Now head back to the terminal, and update and upgrade your system with the new software sources in place. Run the following two commands, one after the other.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Upgrade will usually take some time, so be patient. Once that is done, you can use apt-get or Software Center to install anything you want. First up, we want our metaphorical shoulder-to-weep-on to come back. Hence run a sudo apt-get install synaptic and presto, there's your good old Synaptic back in action. Check the BITSFOSS site on how to sync it with BITSFOSS, and there you go. Everything's the same again. :)

Media codecs can be installed in a jiffy, as can be your wireless and trackpad drivers (from the Additional Drivers application that comes built into Ubuntu, that searches and find the drivers that you'd need.)

Now moving onto the post-installation problems. I had two major problems. One was installing VLC, via apt-get. I encountered the following error :

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock – open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

The solution to this was pretty simple. Remember the famous adage - no head, no headache? This was a fine application of that. Since the problem was with the /var/lib/apt/lists/lock file, I chose to remove the lock entirely. So,

rm -f /var/lib/apt/lists/lock

Tada!

The next problem was the installation of Google Chrome. Apparently, the fine folks at Google haven't yet launched a tailor made Chrome for the new kernel ( Linux 3.0, that 11.10 comes with) So if you download the .deb file from http://chrome.google.com and then proceed to install it by clicking on the file (the usual way you install debs), the error you'll get looks something like this

Internal Error"The file google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb can not be opened."

The 'no head, no headache' adage won't obviously work here, so I scoured the internet for a solution and finally came across this.

So what they're saying here, is to head back to your terminal and type in the following commands.

sudo dpkg -i /home/subhayan/Downloads/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb

Obviously, you'd need to change the file path name to wherever you've downloaded the .deb file to. Now, this command when run, will throw an error, but no issues. The next command will successfully install Chrome on your system. And this is the one.

sudo apt-get install -f

There, that's done it. You can now tap the Super Key (that's the one with the Windows logo on it) and type Chrome to start up Google Chrome.

These are the problems I have faced with 11.10 till now. There's one more, that I've had with Banshee, viz, with the cover art plug-in. My music collection is album-art-less and hence, looks staid and boring. Disabling and enabling the cover-art plug in hasn't worked, as hasn't a fix I found on the internet. Will update further on this post itself, if I solve this more and manage to solve any other problem that may arise. Keep checking!

As it is now, 11.10 seems very nice and refreshing. Let's see how long it remains that way.

By your leave now, the festivities beckon me. Here's wishing all of you a very happy Diwali. Cheers!

an old age rant

2011-10-10T16:16:00.000+05:30

Mishmash.

That is actually what this post is. It has some random and totally unrelated things, off the top of my mind put in one place. Without further ado, here goes:

One, I have my very own domain name now. Thanks to my uber-awesome mum and dad, they gifted me with the best possible long distance birthday gift possible viz, a .com domain, www.subhayan.com. Yes, you heard that right. So now, blog.subhayan.com will actually take you to what was (and still is), wrahoolwrites.blogspot.com.

I shall do a this.

Two, Durga Puja, and how epically awesome it was here in Pilani. Boy, oh boy, I miss those five days so much now. Therefore,

And a +1 if you got what that meant.

Three, the Computer Science Association of BITS Pilani just pulled off a pretty awesome weekend full of events last to last week. Why do I put it on my blog? Because I am the coordinator for CSA and yeah, it felt pretty satisfactory after it ended. It was called The Codestock Festival, and it had five components. There was a programming event in the esoteric language called Whitespace; there was a Project Orientation by the CSA Project Forum for our tech fest next semester; there was a Treasure Hunt that made teams run around campus in pursuit of answers to cryptic clues; there was a webdee event too, that pitched html, css, and a whole lot of web development skills of the contestants in one arena. Lastly, there was a grueling coding event hosted on SPOJ with problems set by some of the brightest coders on campus. All in all, it was great fun and I'd like to thank the whole CSA team, without whom this would never been possible.

Next I move into deeper stuff. I guess this is how you rant when you get old (which I can safely assume myself to be, given that I turned 21 yesterday).

Fake education here in India. After a pretty much one-sided GTalk session with one of my friends yesterday (needless to say, I was the one doing the talking) I managed to consolidate several fragments of an observation that I had been making ever since my third year in college has begun. All of these fragments when put in perspective, seem to imply that the education that we get here in India is, to put it simply, fake. We enter premium institutes after our +2: be it IITs, be it BITS or any other engineering college for that matter. We graduate with BTech's and BE's, and get labelled an engineer.

But how many of us, actually remain an engineer? How many of us, actually put all the techincal knowledge to use, after getting the degree? How many of us, actually like engineering as a subject and actually want to pursue it in the future.

The answer is pretty disheartening. I know for a fact that in my batch, the fraction of students who wish to pursue their discipline is small. The overwhelming majority is either composed of the ones who pine for the coveted MBA from an IIM or long to get a job the moment they step out of college.

Let's dissect the two options here.

First, an MBA. The moment you take admission to an MBA course, your entire engineering knowledge is rendered null and void. Save for the rare exceptions who wish to come back to the educational line in the future. Why then, (I use the word 'fashionably' here), 'fashionably' take up Science in your +2? Why then, spend sleepless nights and rote and sweat out for two years for taking an admission into an engineering college? Would you not take then, something like Economics, or say, Commerce and spend an easier life and then do a BCom degree if you really want to do an MBA later on? What is all that BTech knowledge giving you? How is all that hard work for getting into an engineering college paying off?

It isn't! It's futile, pointless and useless!

The second option, getting a job. This I can agree to, there being people who need to start earning as quickly as possible for a variety of reasons. But then again, why is it, that the most desired job in an engineering college like BITS is one where they pay you loads of money to manage people? Why is it, that some of the most wanted jobs require you to not use your engineering knowledge?

Is it just the students themselves or is something actually wrong with our system?

I met some alumni a few days back here on campus. Not surprisingly, out of eight, only one of them, was still in the technical line. This certain person, was a professor at the UIUC, and was happy with whatever he was doing. The rest were (of course, they were all happy with whatever they were doing), but they were all spread over different sectors and had left the technical line, long back. There was this one banker, who was the COO of HSBC London (impressive indeed) and there was someone else who was doing some big things in Singapore.

But the question remains, did he really need to go through BITS to do all of that? Most of them had been through an IIM, so wouldn't it have been simpler to just take BCom and then clear the CAT? Oh, don't tell me, that your BE courses helped you in CAT, I am definitely not buying that.

The thing I guess, that makes it different here from abroad (say in a US engineering college, where people graduate with their BTech's or equivalent and then enter research) is the whole system of education here. We don't study because we like to study. We don't enter IITs or BITS because we want to do engineering, but because we know, when we come out, we'll get a good job or if not, we'll do an MBA and then use the IIT-IIM tag to surely get a good job and then make it big as some corporate hotshot.

Consider the courses that are taught here in our college. Actually, no. Don't consider the courses. Instead concentrate on how they're taught. I, in the middle of my math courses, and having a tough job trying to reconcile my mind to study Group Theory on my birthday, can vouch for the fact that these are brilliant courses! Hell! I like my courses! I do not get marks in tests, fine! But I like studying Real Analysis! I like Topology!

But yes, the way they are taught, that is what I have problems with. Attending classes hasn't helped me, and the only bit of knowledge that I have about my courses, is owing to me waging a patient psychological warfare with the authors of my text books. Sometimes, when I understand small things, like Proving that the Cantor Set is uncountable or Permutation Groups, I actually smile to myself! Yes, I like understanding courses, and hence I do not want to waste all this knowledge in the future!

I do not know what to say now. I have no idea where destiny shall take me. I have too many things bubbling in my mind. I shall end with forty-five seconds of silence for the Adam who ate the forbidden fruit and died of pancreatic cancer, and fifteen seconds for the Mumbai Indians who won the Champions League Twenty20. Yes, it's that sad.

Actually, so am I.

Subhayan Mukerjee, 9th October 2011

:'(

on Harry Potter

2011-07-17T20:33:00.008+05:30

The year 2000.

I still remember that day, when my father presented to me a paperback version of a certain book called 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. I also remember, how after reading through the first few pages (the first chapter was called The Worst Birthday, I recollect ) I had closed the book and kept it somewhere and ... well, yes, had stopped reading it. It made no sense to me. It seemed all too imaginary and hocus-pocus for me after the fairly more realistic and less-fantastical Enid Blytons and Tintins, that had been my constant companions and sleeping partners for the past few years. (yes, don't you raise eyebrows now. flying chairs and gnomes and pixies were less fantastical than a jet of green light that killed people, or so I felt back then)

Now, however, when I look back on that day, I can only have a good laugh at the thing that was me twelve years back.

Yesterday marked the end of that era of my life that had begun on that day in the year 2000. An era that had begun in utter distaste, an era that had grown to become an inseparable part of my childhood and teenage years and an era that I feel blessed enough to have lived through.

There have been sagas and chronicles before, in English literature, as well as in English cinema. The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Pirates of the Caribbean, et al. Some of them are even, better than Harry Potter, I would dare say, from an absolute scale of reference.

But something set Harry Potter apart, right from its conception. Something made the child wizard connect with us. Something about Harry Potter, about Hogwarts, about Ron Weasley, about Hermione Granger, about Albus Dumbledore, about the rest of the Wizarding community. Reached within us. Identified with us. Something that Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi, and Princess Leia couldn't do. Something that Frodo, Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins couldn't do either.

I guess, one factor that made it special was how the story of Harry's life unfolded with that of our own. It was as if Harry Potter was one of us. He was eleven years old when the story began. We were of a similar age too, when we started reading the books. His schooling went alongside our own. He matured with us.

This was something that neither Luke Skywalker, nor Frodo could do, for absolutely no fault of their's, mind you.

Was it just this?

Hell no. Harry Potter reached out to an audience far expansive than just children of a particular age group. It appealed to the young, and to the old. To the housewife, and to the college goer. To the busy corporate, and to the archaic grey haired armchair stereotype.

Why was this then? Was it the story? Was it J K Rowling's mastery with the pen? I guess we'll never know. Also, it doesn't matter much, even if we do. It definitely wasn't the finest literary work ever. But then again, it was far superior from being just another work of literature, or so I feel. It was a new world that J K Rowling created, that merged seamlessly with the world of our own. A world that stared at us from the 4000+ pages of print. A world that drew us in, like a vortex, in a manner that no other fantastical world had ever drawn us before. And a world that left not one stone of doubt unturned and not one loose end before it dropped us back to reality.

Yesterday, as I sat through the final installment of the epic series, I cried like a little boy. The wilderness of feelings that gushed through my mind; through my self; through my body. Seemed choked by the sheer constipation of my ability to express them. I scarcely have felt more emotionally tugged before. As scene after scene rolled past in front of my eyes, all I could do was sit and stare, stunned to the very core.

To quote a certain review. The movie was "monumental cinema". It had everything that one would want. Nothing more, nothing less. It invoked every little bit of every possible feeling that one can muster. The sorrow that stuns you when you see Dobby's grave; The rush of adrenaline when the Hungarian Ironbelly breathes fire right at you; The overpowering sense of elation when Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts; The revelation of Snape's past, and his unconditional love for Lily Potter that blows your mind; The outburst of reverance when Minerva McGongall steps forward in the Great Hall. Oh man, this list goes on. The surge of new found respect for Neville Longbottom when he confronts Voldemort; The sheer finesse of Molly Weasley when she finishes off Bellatrix Lestrange, shouting, "Not my daughter, you bitch!" And the final flourish of triumph when Harry Potter "resurrects" himself and ... the final duel ... and the epic expression on Voldemort's face when he realizes that his wand is no longer under his control.

The movie has it all. It reaches deep within your soul; reaches places you don't know exist, and scours for every iota of feeling, and hunts them down. Personally, it is as if, someone had dipped me in liquid nitrogen and then hit me with a sledgehammer. Yes. That was the feeling. An inexplicable mishmash of wonder, shock, sorrow, and jubilance, (thought I doubt being hit by a sledgehammer while frozen makes you jubilant, but you get it, right?) It is something that no one can do justice by writing about. Needs to be experienced. First hand.

I really have nothing more to say about Harry Potter. I've been one of the millions who have stuck with Harry right from the beginning, till the very end, and I'm proud that I have.

And is this the end? Definitely not. The story may have ended, but the spirit of Harry Potter lives on. The voice of Dumbledore "Help shall always be give at Hogwarts to those who ask for it" and his reassuring smile; the undying spirit of Fred Weasley. The bravery and awe-inspiring courage of every Auror who sacrificed his life. The spirit of Sirius "Padfoot" Black. The character of Severus Snape, "the bravest man of them all". And Neville Longbottom. For being the ideal Gryffindor. In spirit and in action.

I should end this now, lest I get more emotional. I can only thank Ms Rowling for everything. It's been one helluva ride. And we've enjoyed every second on it.

To you J K. We all owe you one.

a collage of some of the posters featuring most of the major characters. (click to enlarge and see in greater detail)

the message

2011-07-13T15:50:00.013+05:30

If there is one thing that I have gained after seven weeks of summer internship, it is the sound knowledge of the working of Eastern Railways and the Kolkata Metro. This story is a direct culmination of all that knowledge. Also, pardon my Hindi if in some places it is incorrect. (Update : many thanks Vishala Arya for the corrections :P )

--

"Poroborti station, Belgachia. Platform dan dike."

"Agla station, Belgachia. Platform, dahine taraf."

"The next station is Belgachia. The platform is on the right side."

Rajat looked up from the magazine he was reading as the automated voice sounded over his head. He gave an exasperated groan, and cursed the Kolkata Metro announcements to himself. A 40 minute trip from one one terminal station to the other, spanning the whole of Kolkata from the south to the north, fraught with annoyances such as cackling automated female voices and sweaty co-passengers, wasn't the sort of start he had been expecting to an internship. Also, he had missed the new air-conditioned metro by a whisker, and that added to his present miseries.

As the train reached a standstill, it struck him, that his destination was now only a few minutes away, so he should better ready himself if he wanted to make the most out of the rush when the sliding doors gave way.

With a lurch, the train pulled away again, and Rajat nearly toppled to one side as he tried getting up. Clinging onto the handlebars, and cursing under his breath he steadied himself on his feet. And simultaneously, the automated female voice cackled once more.

"Shesh ebong prantik station, Dum Dum. Platform baa dike."

"Agla aur antim station, Dum Dum. Platform, baai taraf."

"The next and terminal station is Dum Dum. The platform is on the left side."

Rajat heaved a sigh. There, that had to be the last of them all.

He looked around. The crowd had thinned considerably. He had been praying and praying that it does. Seeing the exodus of passengers into and from the train at the stations in central Kolkata, he had remained mortally scared of his turn at Dum Dum.

Needless to say, Rajat wasn't the type of person who had frequently availed of public transport during his twenty odd years of his life in this city. He had remained confined to the luxuries of air-conditioned private cars, and rarely would one see him taking a bus or an autorickshaw. At worst, it would be a cab.

He looked out of the windows. It was still as dark as the insides of a blue whale. He had seldom been on the metro, but whenever he had, he had never travelled to the Dum Dum terminal where the new extension of the track made it come up to the surface and then travel in broad daylight. That was one little thing he was looking forward to. The transition from the darkness to the daylight, and how it happened.

A vibration in his right pocket brought him back to his senses, and he heaved a sigh realizing that he had once again come within the usual network coverage of his mobile service provider. The intermittent availability of the network throughout the boring 40 minutes of journeying in the underbelly of Kolkata had given him yet another thing to crib about.

He took out his phone and noticed that it was a text message from a friend, Sup it read. At work?
On the way. Shit crap this thing, he replied, and looked out of the window again, wondering when exactly would he start feeling the ascent.

And then suddenly, there was light all around. He frowned. That's it? The thing just goes out from darkness into light? Without any funny feelings in your tummy. On second thoughts, what else would have happened. I really shouldn't have expected something like a roller coaster here.

The train had now slowed down. It was drizzling outside, and the spray from the window wet his shirt. He moved away from the windows and approached the door.

A few more minutes later, the train pulled into the station. And once again, the now murderous-feeling-inducing automated voice was back

"Jatrider onurodh kora hocche, je ei prantik station e jeno garir kamra khali kore dei."
"Yatriyo se anurodh kiya ja raha hai ki is antim station par gaadi khaali kar di jaye"

"Passengers are requested to completely vacate the metro at the terminal station."

And the train gave a final lurch and stopped. The doors slid open and the customary rush ensued. Rajat went with the flow and soon found himself on the platform. He looked around, clutching his bag close to his self, before swinging it around and straddling it on his back. He knew that now he had to make his way to the railway station at Dum Dum. He looked around and fortunately saw a big red sign showing the way down the stairs to the same. This close, huh. All good.

The scene at the railway station was chaotic. It had all the attributes of the usual Indian railway station, random filth scattered in random places, malnourished and half naked children sleeping in front of the counters. Beggars and decrepit old men lying neglected. An involuntary shudder went down Rajat's spine as he made his way and stood at the end of the queue at the ticket counter. Thankfully enough, the queue was moving pretty quick and it was within a minute or two that he had bought a two way ticket to Agarpara, his intended destination. Dropping a coin in the pleading hands of a woman in tatters, he made his way to the platform. Credits for afterlife, he smiled. He did not look it, but actually was extremely religious and believed in doing good things to people in return of a grateful smile from them. Doesn't hurt. Does it?

On the stairs up to the platform he stopped at yet another blind old man, and dropped a coin into his steel bowl. On the platform however the scene was healthier. Passengers flocked around. Some aimlessly strolled smoking bidis. Quite a few of them were on the tracks, cutting across it, instead of taking the overhead bridge in their haste. A lungi clad person who was standing a few feet away was making weird facial gestures and holding a glass of what appeared to be water in his hand. Rinsing his mouth, Rajat realised, when the person squirted out the contents inside his mouth onto the track.

He looked around. A few hawkers lined the side of the platform: magazine stalls, tea stalls and the sort. He walked up to the magazine stand and the latest copy of the Top Gear magazine caught his eye. He grinned. Not so bad after all. He turned away and looked at his watch. The next train, the Barrackpore Local was due in less than 5 minutes. He resumed his aimless strolling, checking his watch at regular intervals.

Soon enough, the green and yellow electric locomotive was in sight. It was approaching the platform quite steadily, blaring it's horn now and then. And another cackling voice, and this was far worse in tone than the mildly respectable one in the metro, blared from the loud speakers.

"Barrackpore Local arriving at platform number 1."
"Barrackpore Local arriving at platform number 1."
"Barrackpore Local arriving ar platform number 1."

Ugh. Rajat frowned.

The people who were cutting across the track scattered, and clambered up on to the platforms on either side, as the train lumbered in slowly. These oafs will die like this, Rajat grimaced. Much as he was cautious in most of the things that he did, he loathed cutting across railways tracks. What is the overbridge for then?

When the train had come to a halt, he heaved himself up and was relieved to see it almost empty. He went and occupied a window seat, two seats away from an old man reading a newspaper.

Accha dada, eita Agarpara jabe toh? (This train will stop at Agarpara, right?) he leaned to his right and asked him, just to reassure himself.

The person did not take his eyes of the newspaper, Haan. Duto station pore (yes, two stations from this).

Rajat heaved a sigh and leaned back, took off his bag and placed it on his lap. Shouldn't be a long journey, he thought.

The train had started moving by then, and it steadily kept putting on speed. A candy seller had boarded too, he noticed and he kept moving around, asking one passenger after another. He came to Rajat as well, and thrust his colourful lot of candies at him. Rajat turned him down and gazed out of the window. When was the last time I had boarded a local train? He couldn't recollect. But he was more than glad that this one was not crowded, like the ones he usually saw at level crossings - local trains with people hanging onto the doors. Like bats. As he would say.

The next station was Belgharia. The train halted there for a minute or two before lurching off again. Rajat yawned. He had been up all night watching the Champions League Final. A disappointing game, for the Manchester United Fanatic that he was, and had thus lost most of this night's sleep. He wished he was home, happily snoring in his bed. Curse internships. He muttered.

Dada, time ta koto holo? (What's the time?)
He turned around and saw a young man looking at him and pointing at his watch.

Showa Nota. (A quarter past nine) he replied. He took out his phone and whiled some time away playing some random games, till he noticed that the train was slowing down again. Realising that this was Agarpara, he got up again, and headed for the door. An old woman sat huddled, on the edge, who peered up at him when he arrived. Rajat frowned again. What's with the fascination for edges?!

A few others flocked around him, all readying to disembark. The train kept rolling, slowing down with every passing second. The impatient passengers leapt off the train and hurried away. Rajat rolled his eyes. Won't ever learn, will they?

It was a few seconds later, when the train had come to a halt, that he jumped off, and looked around. He had to reach platform number 4, and then take a rickshaw from there, he had been directed. Reaching platform 4 would mean taking the overbridge. He glanced down, along the platform and saw one some feet away.

He started walking towards it. The platform he noticed, was far less crowded than the one at Dum Dum. The hawkers and stall keepers however were the same. His eyes wandered around at the colourful advertisement bill boards. There was a new Raymond's showroom at Agarpara, and they were giving 20% discount. He read the Bengali script slowly. He had studied Bengali for twelve long years in school, and still found reading Bengali to be a challenge.

The train had started moving again. He glanced at it, as it slowly moved out of the platform. The old woman was still huddled on the edge of the door, and was looking at him queerly. For some reason he kept staring at her, till his ringing phone made him break away his eye contact.

It was his mum.

Hullo? Yeah, I've reached, ... yeah, am okay. Bye!

He dropped his phone into his pocket, and turned around once again to catch that old woman. She had gone forward by quite a distance. However, he could still see her, and the hair at the back of his neck tingled when he realised that she was still staring at him. There was something she wanted to convey. He didn't know what.

In fact, he would never know what.

The next thing he knew a metal rod had sliced through his body. He fell down. His phone dropped upon the platform and split open. People around him gasped and rushed to lift him up.

It was too late.

--

Twenty odd kilometers away, Anindita stood outside her house, and locked the door. She looked at her husband.

Rajat's reached. Says he's ok.

Her husband nodded. You told him to collect the key from the darwan when he returns? As it is, we won't be done by then. We'll be late.

Oops. Hang on, will tell him, she called his number, and frowned. Says coverage kshetra se bahaar hai. (says that it's outside network coverage)

Network problems. Send him a message then.

Yeah Ok.

--

This story is a work of fiction. But it is based on a true story. Check this : http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/four-killed-in-freak-accident-at-aligarh-junction-113485

What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

2011-07-01T17:40:00.005+05:30

This is going to be a quickie. A vent of sorts to all that is bubbling within me.

What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

the concept of friends? And family? That too from Facebook? Really? Because Facebook never really understood the difference between the two, like ever. Google+ apparently does.
the concept of sharing? Right. I did that with food in my kinder-garden.
the concept of photos and tagging? *YAWN*

The more serious ones.

notifications? At first glance it's exactly like the Facebook thing. But a second glance, and whoa. There's the Google ingenuity staring at you in the face. What Facebook first brought into social networking - the notifications thingy ... it has remained the exact same thing to date. Excepting a few minor changes like clubbing multiple notifications into one, and positioning it from right to left, Facebook has never really improved on it. What Google has done is transform it into something so much more awesome. You can access it from any Google service, and can even do mini-Google+ ing in the small window that pops up. Also, Facebook had three irritating notifications for friend requests, messages and general notifications. Google+ has just one.
the 'like' as +1 ? Facebook's 'Like' evolved from a means to say "i approve of this status or photo" to simple sharing all across the web. You liked a page on the internet. That got shared on your Facebook feed. That is just simple sharing. Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit ... had all been there, done that. And did Mark Zuckerberg really think that he would have a copyright over a simple English word like ... 'like' ?
tagging? Letting a person know that he's been mentioned somewhere? Wasn't it Facebook who stole the exact same thing from Twitter in the first place? Where was the hue and cry of "not original" then?

bonus : What exactly has Google+ stolen from Twitter?

I personally love Twitter. But yes, what is there to steal from it? The concept of followers? Hullo. Jesus Christ and the Buddha have had their followers. So have a thousand people before them. The concept of "following" is too old to actually be considered plagiarism from the 2000s. Nothing new there!

What has Google+ not stolen from Facebook?

This could go on for ages.

The epic Google chat : that's like a slap on the face of Facebook chat.
Circles == sheer awesomeness. Because every person whom you know is not necessarily your friend.
Hangouts. This is the sheeez. \m/
Missing Facebook events? Check the top bar -> Google Calender ftw!
Document sharing? Google Docs ftw!
Videos? YouTube ftw!

Isn't this like utter pwnage already? Wait there's more.

Photo Albums : Picasa ftw!
Mail : GMail ftw!
Google Reader for RSS -- ftw!

last but not the least :

Google Search FTW!

I mean. HOW is Google+ still a Facebook copy?

Well, one thing that Google has actually copied is possibly this.

Because, that's essentially what Google+ is.

Legen-waitforit-dary.

on 5 supercars that shook the planet

2011-06-18T23:48:00.001+05:30

They have set a lot of adrenaline gushing. Many a heart fluttering. A lot of necks stiffening. And a lot of eyes popping. Not to mention, the elitist position they hold in the bleeding edge of engineering and technology.

Yes, it's them supercars that I allude to.

Over the years, supercars have referred to that niche of extreme vehicles which have consistently rewritten the rules of the automobile. In fact, the cult legends that they've become, they are an inspiration for manufacturers making family vehicles as well. They are ground breaking in innovation, exquisite in design and ... one thing they all have in common. They go from point A to point B quicker than anything else on the road.

While a comprehensive list of supercars will be as exhaustive upon completion, as it would be futile to actually complete, here is a personal selection of five of them (in chronological order of their first appearance), that quite literally turned the automobile planet upside down.

1. Porsche 911 (1963-present)

one of the early Porsche 911 Classics

The Porsche 911 (nine-eleven), was far from a supercar when it first appeared. In fact, the concept of supercars was unheard of, back in the 60s. But as this car evolved into what it is today, it pretty much became the yardstick that other car makers aspired to aim for, while making a supercar.

Today, the 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 4.0 is as much a full blown supercar as a car can be. A four liter flat-six powertrain that produces a staggering 493 horsepower and 460 Nm of torque, makes this beauty shoot off from 0 to100 km/h in less than 4 seconds, all the way up to a top speed in excess of 330 km/h.

2011 Porsche 911 GT3

But more so than the numbers, it is however, the legendary aura that this car has about itself that brings it into this list. It was ranked 5th in the "Car of the Century" international poll in 1999, and was one of only two in the top 5 that had remained continuously in production (the other was the Beetle).

The GT3 4.0 today costs INR 11,500,000. That too, minus the import taxes. So, if you want to possess one for yourself, you'd probably have to sell a few kidneys. But then so what. Who'd need kidneys if they have one of these?

2. Lamborghini Countach (1974-1990)

The Countach in fact, was the first true-blue supercar. Legend has it, that this was the vehicle that Darth Vader was destined to drive. This mean machine was everything that no one had ever imagined before. It was sharper than a razor's edge. It was disastrously fast for its time, peaking at close to 290 kilometers an hour, and doing the 0-100 run in less than 7 seconds. And it looked like the Italian rendition of Medusa. In 1985, the Countach 5000QV cost $100,000.

Only 2042 Countachs were made, and sold. Too bad you cannot buy one now. Not that you would have bought one back then either, eh?

3. Ferrari F40 (1987-1992)

Enzo Ferrari was 90 years old when he decided to build the F40. The late 80s-early 90s were a time when Ferrari was losing much of its status and ground to its arch rival Porsche, who had come up with the new 959. The 959 was the most technologically advanced car in that era, and Ferrari needed something desperate to reclaim lost ground.

The F40 did that. And more. It was a car built solely to perform. It had absolutely no creature comforts - not even an air-con or a stereo system. But was made using the latest in manufacturing technology, viz carbon fiber and Kevlar, revolutionary materials, a couple of decades back or so. Also, all panels were made using aluminium to reduce weight.

In the end it showed. It looked like car built for a purpose. To chase down Porsche and prove to the world what the Italian prancing horse was capable of. Not surprisingly, this was the first production car to cross the 200 miles an hour speed record.

Price? It debuted at $400,000 back in 1987, but some customers have been reputed to pay no less than $1.6 million for this piece of brilliance.

4. McLaren F1 (1992-1998)

If the other supercars listed in this post are legendary, the McLaren F1 is so much more than that. In 1994, the British auto magazine Autocar wrote that "The McLaren F1 is the finest driving machine yet built for the public road." and that "The F1 will be remembered as one of the great events in the history of the car, and it may possibly be the fastest production road car the world will ever see."

It almost was. It held the record for the fastest production car in the world for more than a decade. It did 0-100 kilometers an hour in less than three seconds and maxed out in excess of 360. It changed people's notions about supercars, and dropped a few million jaws worldwide. And it cost in excess of a million dollars.

For, quite simply put. This wasn't a car. This was a phenomenon.

5. Bugatti Veyron (2003-present)

This is again, not just a car. On the contrary, this is mathematics. Pure mathematics. Bugatti opted to play the numbers game, and yes, they succeeded darn well. As it stands today, the Veyron SuperSport is the fastest road-going vehicle ever built, doing the 0-100 run in a staggering two-and-a-half-seconds. Yes, you read that right, and by the time you would have finished reading this statement, the Veyron SS would happily be soaring in the realms surrounding 250 kilometers and hour. Flat out, it reaches a record 431 kilometers an hour. What is even staggering, is that it achieves all this, while weighing close to two metric tons! Indeed.

At the heart of this abomination, is a supercharged 8 liter W16. You read that right again. Remember, the 911? That was a flat-6. This is a W16! It's got 16 cylinders, which pump up and down to produce no less than 1200 horsepower. Yes, it's a hairy numbers game going on here, and the Veyron knows its math.

Oh and if only that were all. The Bugatti Veyron is also the most expensive car on the planet today, the base price of the SuperSport being close to €2 million. Which translates to 128,230,118 in INR, minus the taxes. In case you aren't aware, the Veyron is available in our country as well. And to get this one, even your own kidneys won't do. You'd probably have to take the ghost of John Lennon hostage and then charge this as ransom.

That was the top 5 supercars. There are however a few others that deserve special mention. Here they are :

Special Mentions

#1 Pagani Zonda (1999-2011) - Ridiculously low and wide, Horacio Pagani's creation exploded into the automotive arena at the turn of the millennium, and made every Ferrari, every Lamborghini and every Porsche look staid. This was a 600 horsepower no-nonsense, in your face, machine, that could well do in excess of 340 kilometers an hour. And yes, it cost close to $800,000.

#2 Porsche 959 (1986-1989) - the most technologically advanced car in its age, that forced Ferrari to come up with the F40, this German beauty boasted of adjustable ride height, never seen before all-wheel-drive technology and a host of other features. Also, when it was first released in 1986, it was the fastest road going car (it peaked at 315 kilometers per hour) till the F40 took over. Unfortunately, as with all the entries here, it cost a fortune.

#3 Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren (2003-2010) - If one supercar deserves mention, solely owing to its looks, then it would be this. The drop-dead gorgeous SLR, jointly developed by Mercedes Benz and McLaren was a hugely successful sports car and it continues to inspire car designers today. And no, it wasn't just supercar looks. It had the figures too. 0-100 in less than 4 and a top speed of more than 330 kilometers an hour. Suave? Definitely.

#4 Ferrari Enzo (2002-2004) - Named after the founder of the prancing horse, the Enzo was the closest simulation to Formula 1 that one could do. A supercar through and through, with blistering numbers to boot (0-100 in less than 4 and top speed, upwards of 350) this cutting edge mean machine had incredible driving dynamics and was loaded with tech, to the point it seemed to be a work of science fiction. Only 400 were built.

#5 Lamborghini Miura (1966-1972) - this wasn't technically a supercar. The Miura was to the supercar, what Led Zeppelin was to heavy metal. a precursor, more than a harbinger. One of the most beautiful cars ever designed by man, the Miura was powered by a V12, that took it all the way to a top speed of 270 kilometers an hour. Sounds low? Put that stat beside 1968 and you'll see how insane that looks.

So that was that. Of course, the list is far from complete. Forgive me for not including the Lamborghini Murcielago, the Porsche Carrera GT, the Koenegsseg CC and the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG and a host of others. Also, I did not include the brand new additions to the supercar market, because it is still too early to feature them in a "greatest ever" list. These include the Pagani Huayra, the Koenegsseg Agera, the McLaren MP-4 12C, the Lamborghini Aventador and a few others.

Hope you enjoyed reading this. Personally, this was my favourite blog post. Suggestions welcome!

the best mysteries of Isaac Asimov

2011-06-11T23:02:00.010+05:30

Isaac Asimov is known the world over as the maestro of science fiction. Not surprisingly, because along with Arthur Clarke, it was he who was instrumental in cementing the roots of the science fiction that we know today. Science fiction had existed before, in the ambitious works of Jules Verne and H G Wells, many of which continue to awe us today owing to their sheer clairvoyance, but in recent times the mainstream popularity of the genre was solely owing to names like Asimov and Clarke. Asimov with his epic Foundation series and ground breaking Robot stories, and Clarke, with his Rama saga and series of Space Odysseys, formed a cult following that has flourished, and continue to grow till date.

This post is however not about Asimov, nor is it about science fiction. Curiously, little known to many, Asimov wrote a host of mystery-thriller stories as well. They were written for newspapers and magazines more so than as part of his full time authorship.

The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov is the definitive compilation that contains every single mystery story ever written by the master. The book is divided into three sections.

Stories in the first, dubbed the 'Black Widower Mysteries' are all set at the Black Widowers' Club, a certain stag club, whose members are all elitist upper class Americans. Each story revolves around a meeting of the members of the club where one member brings a guest who has a peculiar predicament. The solution to the predicament and the lead-up to the solution forms the bulk of the story, and it is inevitably arrived at by Henry, unarguably, the most immaculate butler in the history of English literature, second only to Jeeves, (and maybe, Nestor? Umm. Nah.). The solution is, needless to say, sheer genius, and blows your mind. One is compelled to make colon Os and drop their jaws in sheer amazement and wonder at the ingenuity of the plot.

The stories in the second section, dubbed the 'Union Club Mysteries' are equally mind-boggling pieces of art. Here, the protagonist is a certain Griswold, a wizened old man, who lays slumped in one armchair, raising his voice to make himself heard, and to tell long tales that seem to make no sense, till the end, where his tale perfectly fits into the current situation and produces an amazing solution to whatever problem the members have at hand.

The third section consists of miscellaneous mysteries that don't fall in either of the aforementioned sections. These vary in length, plot complexity, but are invariably those wherein the protagonist rarely gets off the chair he's seated in, or moves out of the room where he is.

The thirty-one stories in this book, are better read than talked about. They add a new dimension to the stereotype that the thriller genre has grown to become, and immediately dispenses the myth that thrillers must have action and violence to thrill the reader. The stories are superlative from the literary point of view, and are sheer intellectual masterpieces; there's one story about the mysterious psychic powers of a little girl; another one where the secret to a young man's happiness lies in cracking a cryptogram; yet another where the solution to a puzzle is one number out of one million possible combinations. and yet another where the solution lies in reading a road sign with your head tilted. Moreover, each of the stories, has a lively commentary and an introduction, written by Asimov himself which adds a nice personal touch too.

Insanely arbitrary, outrightly outrageous at times, yet logically, absolutely sound and air-tight, these thirty one riddling tales form a compendium that any hardcore Asimov fan would treasure, and any book lover would love to add to his collection.

Not the sort of book you'd want to borrow from the library, or from a friend for that matter. Instead, the sort that you would want to shell out money for, and possess for eternity.

--

You might want to read this too.

Google vs Facebook : the definitive battle for internet dominance

2011-06-05T23:42:00.004+05:30

My blog is definitely not the place on the internet where you would want to read a commentary on the biggest battle that is being fought on this planet right now. But my fascination with the internet in general and social media in particular compels me to write down my views on the same.

So, Google versus Facebook it is. At first one glance one wonders what sense it makes to pitch the biggest search engine against the most successful social networking site, but you'll see. Hold your horses.

Enter Google.

Since 1998, Google's sole mission has been to organize all the information on this planet and make it more usable. Clearly it has succeeded in the most awesome manner. Starting off as a meek search engine being bayed by far superior rivals, its journey to the pinnacle of internet dominance has been a tale of sheer brilliance, innovation and in-your-face ethics, and till the mid-late 2000s Google enjoyed its pride of place as the numero uno on the web. But then, all happy tales have the irritating worm dangling from the end, which somehow manages to eat its way through and spoil the tale in its entirety.

For Google's fairy tale, that worm was Facebook.

Facebook started off as an ambitious project by a couple of college students to hit on their college girls. Well, I won't bore you with the details of Mark Zuckerberg's story here. But Facemash (as it was known back then) soon became Facebook, transcended the walls of Harvard University and spread like a pandemic. The be-all and end-all was that Facebook's increasing popularity gave the folks at Google more than just cold feet and broken finger nails. And things just kept getting worse. In July 2010, Facebook was reported to have 500 million users worldwide. A bit of math leads to the mind blowing stat that 500 million -- that's a twelfth of entire humanity. Of course, that was a year back, so it's a lot more today.

Let us now analyse some of the important aspects of this epic battle.

The naked truth first, which is simply put, Google sucks at social networking.
Or at least, has thoroughly sucked till date. Google championed the web. But its attempt at social networking never took off in the right direction. The glimmer of hope that was Orkut remained confined, largely to India and Brazil. The much-hyped Google Wave, despite its shizz with HTML 5, remained an obscurity and died an equally obscure death. Google Buzz lumbers on, but has been plagued by privacy issues since its birth and ... let's face it, it's basically a place where Google employees bite each other and grumble about Facebook.

Google's diversification meant that it had multiple arenas to fight multiple rivals. All well established, at that. There is Mozilla and Microsoft gnawing at the Chrome browser. There is Microsoft again, trying to outwit the Chrome OS with it's cloud based Azure. Lastly and more importantly, there is Apple's ubiquitous iOS locked in a death-match with Android.

The aforementioned however are not as much as Facebook's brilliance as they are Google's failings. As for the former, there are a couple.

Facebook's tiny red notification button, for one, was an important feature never seen on any social networking website before. Insignificant as it might seem, that was one factor that set Facebook apart. The user logging in, would naturally be lured by the red blotch on the top, and soon, he would be swimming around in a sea of notifications. It acted like a vortex, sucking the user into Facebook, redefining social networking. Orkut seemed staid after this.

Facebook's 'like' button, however, was the first definitive nail on Google's coffin. Maybe it's a bit too harsh to use that metaphor now, but it essentially was that clarion bell that sounded one fine morning that resulted in hundreds of Googlers all over the world scurrying to work overtime. The like button was an extraordinarily unassuming yet shrewd business move. Within weeks of its introduction every page in the internet, every blog, every brand, and every product of every brand had it's own 'like' page. Virtually every link on the web could now be 'like'd, and the internet thus transformed into a web of 'like's knit together by Facebook, and a certain Mr Zuckerberg leering from atop.

enter Facebook's next big venture, Facebook Mail, and to be frank, it did not turn the world upside down and was light years away from being the GMail killer that Zuckerberg had envisaged. It was a neat feature agreed, that incorporated messages and chat history in simple easy-to-look-up conversations, but it hardly does anything to rival Google's superbly successful GMail.

and enter Google's +1. Remember the Googlers scurrying to work overtime to combat Facebook's cunning 'like' button? After a lot of brainstorming they come up with something exactly similar to a 'like' button but with a supremely lame name. And presto, the +1 button is born. It is easy to see why they couldn't keep the name 'like' -- Zuckerberg would have personally disemboweled Larry Page over copyright infringement in that case. And verbs similar to 'like' are hard to come by, thanks to linguistic limitations. So +1 it was, and +1 it still is. It works exactly like a 'like' button, as you can see in this blog. You like a link, and instead of 'like'ing it on Facebook you '+1'it. Lame ass? Very.

The Question of Originality. But will it help? As it stands of now, the +1 button has exactly the same functionality as a 'like' button. Also, how many people will actually navigate to your Google profile to see what all you have '+1'd ? Quite unlike the teeming millions of Facebook admirers who will pounce upon any link that you have 'like'd that appears in their news feed?

All of the awesome innovation that Google is synonymous with seems to have hit the rocks here, and in a depressingly sad manner, if you ask me.

The important thing in the internet is, unless it is ground breaking, it never really catches on. GMail is a fine example. In spite of having some remarkable features that sets it apart from Windows Live or Yahoo! the fact that it came late in the email business is sorely responsible for its astonishingly low number of users as opposed to Windows Live or Yahoo!.

And so it is, with the '+1' button. I really don't think that Google's brainchild can match wits with Facebook's 'like' gambit here.

The final question remains. Is Google scared?
There is absolutely no doubt that Facebook's advances have shaken Google. Last November, Google announced that it would block automatic import of contacts from Google into Facebook. Coming from Google, a firm that stands for an open web and a motto that states " do no evil" this is surprising. Which goes on to prove that Google is getting cold feet, albeit, a wee bit. But does it matter to them anymore?

... finally enter, the awesome Google Inc.
And that is where Google's awesomeness kicks in. The dominance of the web, which was Google's primary ambition (and is the subject matter of this post) has indeed been threatened by Facebook. But it is imperative to understand, that in the age of the IT, when priorities change within years, web-dominance today is not just about having control over the websites that you visit and bringing the whole internet under one superpower. That might have been the case five years back, but now, with the advent of cloud computing, 4G and web TVs et al, web dominance is a hell lot more than knitting a web of 'like's between websites. And in this new scenario, social networking websites are, but a very trivial component.

Not surprisingly, Facebook has no identity here. Google on the other hand, has an arsenal of weapons to deploy and make the most of these changing demands, and yes, they are the Android, the Chrome OS and the Google TV.

For in the new web, its a different world out there. One that bodes exceedingly well for Google.

Because, as it always has been; Google = Awesome. And so shall it remain.

territorial PSings

2011-05-25T13:21:00.000+05:30

In the first semester of my second year in college, I did a certain course called Principles of Management.

Indeed, no other course has made me so ponder so much about life as this course did. It raised questions like "Why are we here?","Where did we come from?","Where do we go when we die?". Of course, not to mention the obvious questions like, "Why the **&^% &%$& does a math-comp sci student have to study the principles of management in college."

studying POM

At that crucial juncture in my life, I thought, nothing could possibly be more pointless than this.

But then, the best private engineering college in India has a way of taking you by the scruff of your neck and thrusting you, face first, into a jacuzzi of belief-changing liquid, that ... well, changes your beliefs about things.

And that is exactly what PS-1 did to me.

metaphorical passage of time. You can click here if you want. But do return.

Textiles and Machinery Company Limited, also known as Texmaco Ltd., is where I am to spend the next couple of months of my life, working, for my PS-1 and thus fulfilling my duties as an obedient BITSian.

As the name suggests, Texmaco was initially conceived to be a harmonious amalgamation of textiles and machinery. But what it looks like now, it's as if Ms Textiles pulled a Rachel Greene and ran off from the wedding alter, leaving Mr Machinery all alone. So what we have here is a huge, seemingly endless factory with humongous machines working all around. Smoke bellowing from huge electric arc furnaces. Enormous electromagnetic cranes lifting piles of iron.

And three computer science students, precariously balanced on the fine line separating sophomore from junior, having no clue what to do.

territorial PSings. I attribute the title of this post to the Nirvana classic. After all, with programs such as this in college, what other than attaining Nirvana can we aim for? More on that later.

So. Good thing is, I'm in my own city, in Calcutta and the factory isn't a bad place. The work going on around is mighty impressive. People are nice. Have a good friend as work colleague.The co-instructor is a senior and a good friend too. There's free food on offer (In fact, that was the one definitive directive we were given. Whatever you do, you must have lunch here.) It's just the pointlessness of the whole thing that baffles me.

But I'm happy. I've been getting news from my other friends, and many of them have a lot more to crib about. There's someone in Bhadrawati who lacks the amenities to flush his own crap down the toilet. There are a couple in Hyd who are working with ear canal instruments. There is someone in Mumbai who is (or rather was) sitting in the same place from 9 am to 5 pm and getting breakfast and lunch some 20 times over :P There's yet another innocent soul who is stuck in Chennai, and is completely at sea when it comes to telling the rickshaw driver where to go to. And not to forget, the ones who are completely absconding, possibly in and around regions of Maoist insurgencies.

Here's a few-waitforit-memes to help you understand my point better. Did I say 'poin't? Oh. Well there's one at least.

That's about it for now. Signing off on this pointless note. And giving you this link to hasten the oncoming of winter. Cheerio!

Pirates of the Caribbean IV - On Stranger Tides : a review

2011-05-22T17:33:00.002+05:30

First things, first : the fourth installment of the epic Pirates of the Caribbean saga, was never meant to be one. The original story concluded, fair and square with At World's End, in 2007; but for Johnny Depp, the titular Captain Jack Sparrow, who wanted one last hurrah before it all ended.

And to be honest, the saga could have done without this. For one, Pirates was at its best where it ended : as a trilogy. What Rob Marshall has done is add a piece of camphor to the butt of a glowing cigarette, hoping that it will light up. Instead, it has turned out to be wet patch.

So with this movie, we find our beloved Jack Sparrow in the middle of London, searching for an imposter who has been impersonating him. A lot of swashbuckling heroics follow. He saves his erstwhile first mate Joshamee Gibbs from being hanged. While escaping he is captured by King George II 's men. The king has a conversation with him wherein he is asked to guide an expedition to the Fountain of Youth, headed by his former arch-rival Captain Hector Barbossa. He comes to know that the Spanish have already set sail in pursuit of the Fountain. Sparrow jeopardizes the conversation and escapes, only to meet his father Captain Teague who warns him about the Fountain's tests. Here, after a brief sword fight, the imposter is revealed and it turns out to be Sparrow's former lover, Angelica (Penélope Cruz), the daughter of the ruthless pirate Blackbeard. Following Angelica's ploy, Jack finds himself aboard Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, and after a failed attempt to mutiny, Jack is forced into Blackbeard's crew. And as it turns out, Blackbeard too, is headed for the Fountain. While en route, Angelica tells Jack how, in order to be effective, the Fountain's water must be drunk from chalices belonging to one Juan de León, one of which one must contain a tear drop of a mermaid. Legend had it, that the person who drinks from the chalice with the mermaid tear would absorb the remaining years of the person drinking from the other chalice.

Meanwhile, Gibbs, who had had Jack's map showing the path to the Fountain is taken captive by the king's men. As a desperate last resort to save himself, he memorises the map before burning it in front of them. He is thus asked to guide them, and a race ensues.

commendable chemistry between Depp and Cruz throughout.

What happens thereafter is nothing more than routine drama. Sparrow gets into brawls. A lot of sparks fly. Mermaids come in.

Oh, wait, I must elaborate on this.

Mermaids. Beautiful half human-female-form, half fish-form beings. Their depiction was throughly brilliant. Their attack on Blackbeard's men at Whitecap Bay was portrayed very well indeed, and it was possibly one of the few good heart-in-your-mouth scenes in the movie. The captured mermaid and later, her chemistry with the captive missionary, Phillip Swift formed an essential part in whatever little story there was.

All in all, not the kind of movie one would expect, to follow up on such a saga as Pirates. It certainly does not take your mind out for a ride, but then again, none of the Pirates ever did that. The question is, does it do what was expected of it? Was it the visual treat that PoTC has been synonymous with? Was it the surreal extravaganza that Gore Verbisnky had started out with, in The Curse of the Black Pearl?

Clearly, no. It only does, but half live up to the expectations that an ardent Pirates fan would harbour. Which is what happens when you do something that Marshall so incongruously did. Obliterate two protagonists entirely (did anybody else miss Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann?), take an unrelated and an underrated story, and try to chip it into a chronicle as grand as Pirates, and call it the Grand Finale.

So should you watch the movie? If A, you are a Pirates fan, then you would watch anyways. If B, you are not, and are hesitant on watching it because you haven't seen the earlier ones, then do. Because the story is almost completely unrelated to the first three movies. If C, you are just looking for a good movie to watch, I would half suggest this one. Not fully.

And if you do choose to watch, do not miss Jack Sparrow's dialogues and retorts. They are as witty, as snide, and as epic as ever. Also, do not miss the post-credits scenes. That is one and the only scene that actually makes you think.

For what it was, Pirates of the Caribbean IV : On Stranger Tides was only a swan's song. It was a graceful swan while it lived. But it sure died a very sad death.

on home, and why it is so.

2011-05-18T23:32:00.002+05:30

A week ago, I was in Pilani.

Pilani. We study here.

Yes, that same stretch of deserted wasteland, that God created one fine morning when He woke up to find lice in His hair.

Aside : No offense dude, but it shows.

Actually no. To be honest, it isn't that bad.

But. Just before the semester ends, when you have all sorts of tests, paper distributions, academic heartbreaks, that work in unison to make you feel like a Marie biscuit dipped in a cup of tea for half an hour, it does get miserable. Very miserable. And then, the prospect of going home shines in the distance like a KFC bucket that is just out of reach.

But then, even semesters end. And a time comes for us to pack our stuff, and bid teary-eyed farewells to our fellow engineering mates (turning purple), and to our much detested abode in the sands.

And then we reach home.

Now. If we actually do a home versus BITS face-off here, there's no doubt that it will be a a very closely contested battle. BITS has its strengths. DC++. ANC. Wingies. Clubs. Departments. Fests. All of these tilt the scales heavily in BITS' favour.

But right now, being at home, and being pampered to the point of feeling pangs of guilt flowing through my body, home does seem to be the in thing. The rage, as one would say. And without further ado, let me elaborate on why it is so.

Broadband.


the sixth freedom. Freedom to browse.

Free internet. When I first told this to my dad, he raised an eyebrow, and clarified, "Free as in free speech. Not free beer. Remember".

Exactly what I meant, of course. Browsing the world wide web with absolutely no restrictions. No trying out different proxy servers. No issues with getting alternate IP addresses. No tunneling. Pure unadulterated freedom of browsing. And thanks to Reliance Netconnect Broadband Plus, getting high speeds. That too on the move.

2. Food.

burp.

After four months of eating daal that is no different from camel piss. Sabzi that raises questions about existentialism. A fake chicken roast once a week, which is probably a bat's left breast, deep-fried in the worst possible oils. And a chicken biryani which tastes like a slap on the face of the city of Hyderabad.

After all this. Home is like the best thing that can possibly happen. You go to MacD's and sink your famished teeth into a juicy MacMaharaja. Or order a Double Cheese Burst at Dominos, and revel in the cheese as it oozes out onto your palate. Or grab that KFC bucket and tear through it without a worry in this world.

Added to all this of course, is my brilliant mother and the battery of delicacies that she conjures every single day.

This is plainly one aspect of home that Pilani can never ever hope to match.

3. A Western Toilet and a Bath Tub

Now after gorging on all that food, Home ensures that passing them out is a pleasure as well. A western style toilet is one that thing my knees literally crave for when I do the thing in college. Bloody kneebreakers. That's what those contraptions back in college are. They do not look like they were even meant to be places to do-the-thing in, in the first place, and the only point of them seems to be in reviving the Dark Ages.

And a bath tub. Oh for the person who hasn't experienced the joy of spending hours with a magazine in the sweet smelling waters within a bath tub. I really don't care if it sounds gay. It is utter bliss to say the least.

4. Cars!

this isn't our's. But it is the same car. Our's is cherry red =)

Two things I sorely miss in Pilani are the two thoroughbreds that we have in our stable. A Toyota Qualis and a Hyundai i20. The car-fanatic that I am, I can never really get enough of them, ever. The sheer finesse of sinking into the seats, turning on the volume and putting your feet down on the gas, is akin to Bilbo Baggins blowing out a smoke ring. No less.

5. Finally. Calcutta.

The best city in the world. Even better this time around with the election results =)

Oh! Calcutta.

And before I sign off : Home. Here's a big wet one for you.

on 5 music albums that I swear by

2011-04-18T21:48:00.003+05:30

a very random post.

without further ado. without all that pointless writing that precedes such lists. here goes.

5 albums that I swear by (in no particular order)

Nevermind

artist : Nirvana
genre : grunge
label : DCG Records
release : 14 Sep 1991

Nevermind is hailed by many as Nirvana's "flagship" album and a milestone in the timeline of grunge music. Released in an era dominated by heavy metal and hard rock, with bands like Metallica and Guns N' Roses ruling the roost, it was never expected to become the commercial success that it did. But surprisingly within four months of its release it had carved out a niche for itself and had peaked at the top of the Billboard charts replacing Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous'.

If there was one reason that propelled Nevermind to the cult status that it did, it was the first single, Smells Like Teen Spirit, which would later go on to become the one song synonymous with grunge itself. And otherwise too, boasting of heavily distorted electric guitars, and angst ridden lyrics, and with tracks like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Lithium, In Bloom and Territorial Pissings, Nevermind took alternative rock by the scruff of its neck, dipped it in a heavy concoction of distortion, bass and drums and thrust it into the mainstream music industry in a manner like no one had ever before. The early-mid 1990s thus came to be known as the "era of grunge" in the music timeline.

my connection : I started liking Nirvana rather late. When I first heard the songs, they seemed to be oddly off-tune and all of them sounded similar for some reason that I find rather hilarious now. It was when I started appreciating Kurt Cobain's deep throated vocals, and Dave Grohl's fantastic work with the drums, that it hit me that, "Gosh. This is brilliant stuff". As a follow up to this surge in interest in this genre (though much later), I was asked to write a grunge themed story for my college magazine, Cactus Flower. Unfortunately my story never went beyond the second page, but I did delve into a lot of grunge music and did do a lot of research about this genre. And yes, Nevermind somewhat became a way of life for me.

2. Scenes From a Memory

artist : Dream Theater
genre : progressive metal
label : Elektra Records
release : 26 Oct 1999

If a music album was defined to be a compilation of songs, then Metropolis Pt 2 : Scenes From a Memory is certainly not one. It is so much more than that. It is an experience that one lives through when he puts it on his headphones and immerses himself in it.

According to Dream Theater, 'Scenes From a Memory' is a concept album. It deals with the story of a person named Nicholas, and the gradual discovery of his past life which involves love, murder and infidelity. The entire album is a play that is divided into two Acts. The characters involved are Nicholas himself, The Hypnotherapist and The Old Man in the present day and Victoria Page, Sen Edward Baynes, and Julian Baynes back in 1928. The first track, Regression depicts Nicholas relaxing to the voice of The Hypnotherapist and entering a hypnotic stage. With every song more revelations occur, and we are made aware of Nicholas' strange connection with Victoria Page. A thrilling yet grim psychological tale unwinds (which I shall not go into, for conciseness' sake) and we are left gaping in awe at the brilliance of the song writers. (You can read the full story here)

Musically, this album is synonymous with sheer awesomeness. The styles utilized to depict the different moods, Portnoy's prowess with the drums, Petrucci's skill with the guitar, and Jordan Ruddess' brilliant work with the keys make for an experience that is surreal to say the least. Having songs that range from the soft and soothing 'Through Her Eyes' and 'The Spirit Carries On' to classic progressive ones that combine metal, thrash, synths and grunge like 'Beyond this Life' the album cements its position as nothing short of a work of fine art.

If you haven't heard this album, you have missed out. On a lot.

my connection : Dream Theater has always been up there amongst my favorite bands of all time. Scenes From a Memory does not have any of the songs that DT is known for. Yet it occupies a special place in my heart, for the sheer epicness of the content that it delivers.

3. S&M

artist : Metallica and San Fransisco Symphony
genre : symphonic metal / thrash metal
label : Elektra, Vertigo
release : 23 Nov 1999

This is one album that amazes me solely owing to the concept which, had this album not existed, I would have considered impossible to be implemented.The fusion of symphonic orchestra with heavy metal is actually as brilliant as it sounds and given that the heavy metal here is courtesy none other than Metallica, you would expect a lot from it.
And my. Does it deliver.
This double-album is essentially a live Metallica concert with additional symphonic accompaniment by the San Fransisco Symphony. The symphony was composed by Michael Kamen, who also conducted the orchestra during the concert.

Most of the songs that occur in the album are regular Metallica numbers from their previous albums, and they sound unearthly with all the symphonic sounds in them. Particularly remarkable in the album is symphonic rendition of 'The Ecstasy of Gold' a previously released Metallic instrumental track, and the symphonic version of 'Master of Puppets' a timeless Metallica thrash song.

The album also contains two new compositions, 'No Leaf Clover' and 'Human', which are outstanding in their own way.

What I really like in the album (yes, there is more) is that with all that symphony hullabaloo, Metallica's thrash roots have not been compromised with. Kirk's guitar solos have remain unchanged and they blend into the orchestral music seamlessly. Lars' drumming and Hetfield's vocals are as superlative as ever (he always sounds better in live concerts than in studio albums :-/) and Burton's bass riffs are as terrific. Incidentally this entire idea of a classical approach to heavy metal was Burton's own.

my connection : Fusion music has always intrigued me. And S&M simply happens to be the best fusion album that I've heard. Hence ...

4. Use Your Illusion

artist : Guns N' Roses
genre : hard rock
label : Geffen
release : 17 Sep 1991

Use Your Illusion is touted as GnR's most ambitious album ever. That's a slight exaggeration considering the fact that they only released four. (By GnR I refer to the Guns N' Roses of the 1990s, the one with Slash, Duff and Matt Sorum, not the abomination that exists today)

Riding high on the popularity of their first album Appetite For Destruction (which was, incredibly well received given the fact it was a debut album), Axl Rose took upon himself the elaborate task of planning this album out in a near perfect manner.
When it was released it set the sales charts on fire and in one week, Use Your Illusion I had sold out 685,000 copies and Use Your Illusion II had sold a staggering 770,000.

This double album is important in the GnR discography mostly because it represents a turning point in their style of music. Although the gangsta' rock n' roll and hard rock elements have been retained, other newer aspects of music have been experimented with, including blues, classical music and country. In fact, Axl himself plays the piano in some of the songs that are included in this album, something which was unheard of during the recording of their first album.

The tracks in this double album vary from rock n' roll (Garden of Eden), hard rock (Civil War) and the down and dirty (Double Talkin' Jive and Get In The Ring) to a cover of Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door. Also a part of this album is the epic ballad trio comprising of November Rain, Don't Cry and Estranged, three songs whose music videos are considered to be an all time classic trilogy.

my connection : November Rain. Slash. Need I say more?

5. Machine Head

artist : Deep Purple
genre : hard rock

label : Purple Records (UK) / Warner Bros Records (US)
release : 1 Mar 1972

This is the oldest and the only non-American entry in this list. Deep Purple has always been recognized as one of the big three precursors of heavy metal (Led Zep and Black Sabbath being the other two), and this album is one that justifies their position as one of the all time greats in the history of rock. For one, it contains the cult hit Smoke On The Water, which cemented their position in the Rolling Stones List of the 500 Greatest Rock Songs. For another it has Jon Lord and his phenomenal skill with the keyboard which many say haven't been paralleled yet. Frankly speaking, the keyboard solo in Highway Star stills sends a shiver up my spine when I listen to it. Not to mention the brilliant guitars and yes, British vocals (something that is very close to my heart) that make Machine Head one exemplary vintage hard rock classic to cherish. Not surprisingly, when it was released in the UK, it peaked at number 1 in seven days stayed in the Top 40 for 20 weeks. In the US, Machine Head reached #7 and stayed in the Billboard Top 200 for a staggering 118 weeks.

my connection : Generally speaking I prefer British bands to American bands. There's something in the way they speak which I thoroughly admire and that reflects in their vocals as well. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and yes, Deep Purple are therefore three of my favourite bands. And well, out of these, this happens to my favourite album.
\
\
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PS : I have absolutely no idea why I wrote all this. Wasted a few hours, as one would say. But trust me, it feels blissfully relaxing now.

november rain - a story

2011-04-04T21:06:00.004+05:30

November Rain occupies a very special place deep within my heart. Maybe it's the feeling that the song invokes when you put it on your headphones and turn up the volume, maybe it's the music video featuring the sweeping scenes of Slash with his yellow Gibson in the desert, or maybe it's the soulful funeral music in the very end.

This story, which follows along the lyrics of this epic GnR ballad, was written 5 months back, and wasn't put up on the blog for some very obscure reason. So in case you are jobless and are willing to read something that has absolutely nothing to do with India winning the world cup, well, then you may.

Darkness. Complete and undivided.

As he looked out of the shattered pane of glass, outside the window, out at the dark eerie quietness of the night, he realized that he might as well be looking inwards. For the darkness outside seemed to be but an extension of the darkness within him. Blending into each other with the surety of the passing time. The creases upon his brow did give but a mere hint of his sadness, to whoever would care to look his way. But he knew perfectly well that no-one would. For there was no one left to look his way.

It had started drizzling some time back. And the steady trickling from the darker heavens above was the only sound that made its way into his ears. The sound was beautiful. Sadly beautiful. The melancholic undercurrents were strong in it. And he liked it. He liked it because he liked all things sad and beautiful. He opened his mouth to taste the night air. To taste the moistness and quench his parched throat. But all he tasted was misery. Thick dark misery. He felt liked retching.

It was then that he heard it. Something other than the drizzling, which by then, had transformed into a downpour. Something familiar. Something beautiful.

A tune. A familiar tune, floating in through the cold night air, creeping into his ears. Like some hesitant stranger outside a gate. It took him an instant to recognize the tune. And when he had, he opened his mouth again.

Words flowed out like the endless rain outside. And he sang.

When I look into your eyes,

pause.

I can see a love restrained.

The imagery that floated into his mind was a happy one. He hated it. He hated things which were happy. He let go of it. And it dropped like china on the ground. Shattering in a thousand pieces.

And darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same.

He closed his eyes. And through his closed eyes he saw the interplay of light and dark. He hated light. Light meant happiness. He hated happiness.

'Cause nothing lasts for ever,
And we both know hearts can change.

He laughed. Dry humour-less wry laughter. There are no hearts left to change, he said to himself.

And it's hard to hold a candle,
In the cold November Rain.

He loved this part. No. He liked this part. He did not love. He could not love anymore. He hated love. But yes, he liked it. He liked blowing candles out. It symbolised the triumph of darkness over light. And as he sang, in his mind's eye, the dark rains washed the lights away.

He sang, even though he wasn't a good singer. Never had been a good singer. Never had he sung. But now, he sang. As if that was the only thing which he could do. He sang with the trickling of the rain. He sang with the darkness around him. He sang with the darkness within him.

So if you want to love me,
then darlin' don't refrain.
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain.

The rain had lightened now. It was drizzling again. But it was still raining. And that was all it mattered. He liked the rain. He liked the sound. He liked the smell. He liked the taste. He liked how it felt.

Do you need some time...on your own
Do you need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone

He was alone. He liked being alone. He liked the sound of being alone. You can hear sounds which you otherwise wouldn't, he had told his mother a long time back. And now, he reveled in the sounds of the solitary. The feeling was blissfully ecstatic.

The tune was still floating in. Riding on the night wind. Unwavering. Resolute. The melody was haunting. Beautiful. Bewitching. It made him breathe in lung-fulls of the night air. Yet he felt strangled. As if the air around him was a cage. And while he heard the tune and breathed in the night air, his hand dropped down.

His fingers felt something solid and hard in his pocket. Something cold.

He knew what it was. And the thought comforted him. He realized that now, he could breathe easier. As if someone had loosened the iron links that made up the cage around him. The load upon his chest seemed to lighten.

He dropped his head and looked down. Smart attire, he observed. A blue tie. A black suit. Black trousers. He liked black. Black was the colour of darkness. He liked darkness. A red ... he frowned. What is that red in my left pocket? Creases furrowed on his forehead. His hands came up and he lifted it. It felt nice. Smooth. Velvety. He looked at it closely.

I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you

The rain was picking up again. It was getting colder too, he sensed. He liked it. He liked the cold. It calmed him down.

Suddenly in the distance far away, he observed a flickering source of light, through the rain. It was faint and it shone through the water. It shone through the distance. With much trepidation.

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain, oh yeah

The fear. The fear of the light. He hated it. It spoiled the purity of the darkness. He detested it. The shadows. He hated them too. They were caused by light and they were impure. They were bits of darkness caused by light sources. He loathed them frauds.

I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame

Love. Exactly how much he hated love, even he was unsure. But alone. He liked being alone. He liked being the only one left.

He looked out, breathing heavily. The night outside was wilder than he had ever seen it and the rain was heavier. Much heavier. A sudden lightning forking through the night, made him recoil involuntarily. It hurt his eyes. He hated it.

So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way

No. A voice in his head said. He wanted darkness. Not a way out of it.

The thunder rumbled yonder.

He looked at the red in his hand. There was a sudden outburst of realisation. And his eyes popped. His head reeled.

No! The voice was screaming now.

He gasped.

Or maybe it is time, a softer, quieter voice spoke.

It is time, he convinced himself through his gasps.

The cold hard object in his pocket had never felt more comforting.

'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain.

There was a muffled crack.

And then silence. Complete. Unbroken Wholesome. Silence.

The first glimmerings of dawn were appearing in the distance. Heralding a new day. The rays broke through the fast dispersing clouds. Filtered through the leaves of the trees. The trees loved it. The night had been cold. And wet. The trees welcomed the light of the new day.

The sun beams hit the cracked window pane, and infiltrated inside. The sight was sorry. A figure in black lay slumped in one corner. The blood trickling down from the hole in the temple had still not

dried.

In one hand the gun was still smoking. In the other, the rose was still fresh.

A tribute to November Rain. And Guns n' Roses.

the editorials

2011-03-08T18:32:00.001+05:30

As the de-facto editor of the Computer Science Association of BITS Pilani, I am responsible, amongst other things, to get newsletters out every month. And that involves, again, amongst other things, writing an editorial to fill the first page of the newsletter.

Inspired by a really old Bong, who does the same with his editorials for the Fine Print, I considered putting them up on my blog, for posterity's sake.

--

Editorial for the January 2011 issue. My first ever attempt at an editorial. Thus, a sizable portion of it is within quotes, so that I myself had to write lesser. Produced after much trepidation after my knobbly knees had become steady, and the butterflies in my stomach had died out.

--

Amen

What does it take to be different?

OK, maybe I should rephrase and say, what does it take to be differently minded?

Charles Babbage, to whom history has ascribed the title, “the father of the computer”, sure was such. hen Lord Alfred Tennyson published a poem, two lines in which read “Every moment dies a man, every moment one is born”, Babbage sent him a letter saying that, “I need hardly point out to you that this calculation would tend to keep the sum total of the world's population in a state of perpetual equipoise, whereas it is a well-known fact that the said sum total is constantly on the increase. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in the next edition of your excellent poem the erroneous calculation to which I refer should be corrected as follows: "Every moment dies a man, And one and a sixteenth is born." I may add that the exact figures are 1.067, but something must, of course, be conceded to the laws of metre.”

That’s different mindedness for you.

Sure, he was not the ordinary human being. Indeed, he was a lot more than that. A visionary, a thinker, a philosopher, and of course, one of the most brilliant mathematicians this planet has ever seen.

To Charles Babbage. To the father of the computer. To the reason behind A7.

We dedicate this to you.

Editorial for the February 2011 issue. My second-ever editorial. Written at 3 AM in the peculiar time of the day when day is almost at odds with night. Confidence levels that had been generated after the lukewarm success of my first newsletter, were dashed to the rocks while designing this issue. Hence, I was back to square one, and drew ideas from the various intelligence-related articles that had been compiled for this edition.

The Question of Intelligence

Alan Turing once said, "A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human." Just in case you are wondering who Alan Turing is, he was the mind behind the Enigma, the code breaking computer, that eventually helped the Allies secure victory in the Second World War.

Today, after several decades of Turing, one can actually contemplate on the possibility of what he had envisaged.

An epic incident this month, wherein a supercomputer beat two men at a word game, has gone a long way in proving that position of humans as the most intelligent beings on the planet, is indeed at stake. There may come a time in the distant future when machine intelligence shall become as instrumental in daily human life, as humans themselves!

Or maybe, machines shall progress in leaps and bounds and take over all of humanity? When man himself shall become subservient to his own creation? Like in Frankenstein and I, Robot?

Only time will tell. But we can always rack our brains over the question of intelligence : should a machine, going by just what it does be considered more intelligent than his creator? More intelligent than the person who infused that intelligence in him?

What do YOU say?

That's all. I shall keep putting up the ones that I conjure up every month, from now onwards.

See you!

on eggs and egg-heads

2011-02-15T17:25:00.005+05:30

Yes, this post has a lot to do with eggs and other related stuff, viz chickens and egg-heads.

But before we develop this plot further, please don't get misled into thinking that this is a copy-pasted slice of text from a journal on evolutionary biology which ought to begin with "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" et al. This is not definitely not so. Though chickens and eggs form a very important part of this discussion, this very surely does not intend to border on text-book subjects that refer to the same. Any violation of the above intent (or lack of intent, thereof) is sorely regretted.

--

boiled eggs. They don't look so nice here in the mess, but. So what.

Eggs. It would be a horrific understatement to say that I love eggs. My affection for eggs surpasses many of my other worldly affections, which include ... umm ... let's chuck that. Anyways, right since my tryst with eggs began, back in the days of nursery school, when my mum used to wield a plate of water-poached eggs in front of my face .. till the present haggling over the mess counter, "bhaiyya, do ande ka egg-rice" my relationship with this wonder-oval has been, a very happy one indeed. Maybe I am a day too late, but, I am ready to make the egg my valentine this year without batting an eyelid.

Eggs are ubiquitous. It's the first thing a human baby learns when he reads about "ovals". It's the one thing that the cuckoo so conveniently lays in the crow's nest. Also it's the one shape that Hercule Poirot's head so nicely resembles. Look around you and presto! examples galore.

Back home, eggs had always meant a lot to me and my family, thanks to the numerous improvisations that my mum used to conjure up in her kitchen. Now in college, though the variety which I used to indulge in back home has vanished, the egg still manages to bring a smile to my lips and replace that otherwise menacing frown which results when one enters the mess.

Indeed. Would you rather have the stupid aloo-sabzi concoction made even more disgusting with the dal that resembles jaundiced camel piss when you could rather ask the egg-guy to graciously dish out a nice double omelette for you? 'course not. Hell no!

Which takes me down me memory lane into the shady corners of RB mess last year. On second thoughts, no, RB mess rocked.

I was initially very confused when it came to taking mess extras. Yes, I am the sort who gets very bewildered when he's faced with a new situation. Though, I eventually emerge victorious ( :P ) I take my time. So on the very first day that I saw a huddle up around one counter in the mess, my curiosity got the better of me and I dared into the unruly throng who were beating about the counter with steel plates. I did not catch exactly what they were saying, but there were loads of "ek ande's" and "do ande's" flying here and there. "Andes are never bad" I said to myself, and ventured in. Five minutes later, I was having the best omelette that I had had in the past few weeks.

that's a tomato omlette. We don't get that here. But then again, so what.

After a few days of omelette, the egg fanatic in me demanded poached eggs, and I went to the same counter and said, "bhaiyya, do ande poached".

I wish I hadn't uttered that. The egg-guy gave me a look of utter incomprehension. As if I had just asked him what the Navier-Stokes equation was and why it was still unsolved. It took a few seconds, and a few more stifled chuckles from all around before a kindly third yearite explained, "Dude, I think you should be asking for fried eggs."

I was baffled. Fried eggs? Poached eggs sound so much cooler. You fry stuff like potatoes, vegetables. You fry fish. Frying eggs would bring eggs down to the level of all these things. It would be demeaning eggs and showing utter disregard for the lofty stature in the hierarchy of food items, that they so rightfully deserve and occupy.

A trifle peeved, I muttered the required insult, and in a few moments, was sitting amidst my friends and wingies, gloating over my new found indulgence. A poached double egg. And in the course of conversation, I unearthed an eye popping truth.

No one seemed to know what poached eggs were. No one that is, except for my GoodOldBongFriend who, like me, was having trouble believing that the situation was so. We were throughly dumbfounded. We sat and ate like a couple of baffled bongs ... hell, we WERE baffled bongs. And silently passed snide comments about our ignorant countrymen. I am sorry if I sound racist or regionally prejudiced, but I just can't help it.

A few more days passed, when more truths were unveiled. Though they were far less eye-popping than the previous one. My KungFuPanda Tambram sidey confirmed that poached eggs were to us, what Bullseyes were to them. Now when he said that, I did remember seeing or reading about bullseyes. But I also remember "ewwww-ing" when I had heard of it for the first time, and had wondered how such a beautiful delicacy could be in any form of human logic be associated with the gross eyes of a bull. Maybe jaundiced bullseye would have at least gotten the colour right, but as they say, logic is one thing that humanity lacks.

Moving on. Three semesters passed, meandering through tests, classes, lectures, fests and of course, a lot of omlettes, plates of egg rice, fried eggs, hard boiled eggs, and egg bhujji. Till I rediscovered something in my second year, that drew a nice grin on my otherwise bong visage.

The liquid yolk.

The yellow liquid yolk of the egg. Which is another way of saying, life seriously rocks.

This very awesome egg-guy in VKB mess. What he does is, half-fry eggs, without turning them over, so that the upside remains liquid-y, yet just enough cooked to remain free of the H5N1 virus. Actually no. But it's a risk worth taking.

Now there's a way of savouring every delicacy. With half-fried eggs, with the sunny side up, it is as follows.

fried / poached / bullseyes. Call it what you want. It kicks ass.

Eat away the white albumin part, without spoiling the yellow thing in the middle. Because, the yellow thing in the middle : that's the show stopper. That's the real deal. the white part is the general rag-tag band performing. The yellow is the Led Zeppelin. The final performer. What everyone's been waiting for.

There are several ways of enjoying Led Zep. You can head bang to Whole Lotta Love. You can come drunk and stay dazed with Kashmir. Or you can just sit and delve in to the melodious realm of Stairway to Heaven. So it is, with the egg yolk. You can either

a) sublimely deliver a smooth cut with your spoon parallel to the top surface of the yolk. And revel in the yellow as it oozes out onto your spoon. Or
b) you can hack at the egg with the spoon, holding it perpendicular to the top surface of the yolk, and drive it right into it. Like a stabber who has no knowledge of using a knife. And then sit back and enjoy the yellow as it flows onto your plate.

I am sorry if that invoked anything gross in my dear readers' minds, but it does explain stuff really nicely.

OK, I am too dazed after giving birth to this metaphor. The labour pain is very high. So I shall quit now, with some lines from the Beatles.

I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob.

on a first hour

2011-01-20T14:53:00.001+05:30

now when you see things such as this, you know that somewhere down there, something is seriously wrong. With this in mind, proceed.

---

the alarm clock rings, it's 7 o'clock

and mefeels much like Socrates drinking hemlock.

for in an hour's time I would be

sitting and dozing in a class called MuPee.

Oh, for the non-BITSian reading this,

and wondering what on earth MuPee is,

MuPee is a health hazard and I am guessing,

it stands for Microprocessor Programming, and Interfacing.

Oh ye first hour, ye heartless soul!

do you really know how much you take your toll?

Nah, I know, you really do care.

Just as much I do about what Lady Gaga wears.

which reminds me, why do I attend thee?

when I would rather be dreaming about a chocolate tree?

But still I do, I'll never know why

just like why Harry Potter had a bowl of rye.

Not that he did, but he always could have,

just like the modern day driver who's using SAT NAV.

So back to the first hour, and the issues it raises

most of which to us, is what land is to water-barges.

For one it involves, getting up early

and then brushing all those teeth to make them white and pearly.

now yes, I know that sounded lame.
But you do know that the poem itself is the same.

now while brushing your teeth you need water,
which for us in winter, is like a colony of ants facing an ant-eater.

(... phew ...)

so once done with this initial ordeal,
one takes out his time table with absolutely no zeal.

oh, for the winter, and the warmth it begets.
when one is snuggling cosily under two blankets!

alas, those are, but dreams forever lost.
much like the woolly mammoth and the summer frost.

the journey to the mess is always fraught
with much hesitation for the student distraught.

for the food that is available there,
is reason enough to cause despair.

but when the tea is hurriedly drunk
he who wakes up gets a scalded red tongue

and all your hopes of cursing and swearing,
bite the dust with quite a lot of hair tearing

the trip from the mess to the bloody FD
is always rowdy, and seldom speedy.

and once, with trepidation, you reach the class,
the only thing you can utter is a throaty 'Alas!'

for there stands the teacher, grinning with spite
and waving white sheets with diabolical delight

the agony lasts for minutes fifty
after which the siren sounds, very very thrifty.

So up we get, and scurry back to our rooms,
perpetually dirty they are, for we don't have brooms.

and upon reaching, into our beds we dive
and shut our eyes for the time we are alive.

for death is near, and while I won't go that far,
for those will be chronicled in "on a third hour".

--

thank you Nickspinkboots for the truck-loads of inspiration.

on 2010

2010-12-30T19:50:00.007+05:30

dear 2010,

You're old, and let's face it, one irritating little wimp, dwindling at the fag end of your lifetime. But, let's face it again, that you've been one heck of a thing for all of us. You've been a year full of oil leaks. A year riddled by money laundering scams. A year of strange obsessions with gadgets that begin with i's. Most importantly, you were the year of Wikileaks. Which suffices had there been a lack anywhere. A comprehensive research from various sources on and off the internet (the 'on' portions overwhelmingly outnumbering the 'off' ones) makes for an interesting compilation.

Ten things that you shouldn't have missed in 2010

(from an Indian perspective, in no particular order. A self composed list, in case you are skeptical.)

the FIFA world cup

the one with all the noise

the one with the tentacles

I am far from the football fanatic, and I mean very far. But this had me enthralled because it was a football world cup where an octopus stole the show and took centre stage. This was a football world cup which heralded the emergence of the vuvuzela. The average black-skinned South African blowing the vuvuzela became the new icon of a ground breaking musician. Much like Jimi Hendrix wielding a Fender Stratocaster in the 1960s.

the Gulf Oil leak

the one with an oily affair

The next big leak after Wikileaks, the BP oil leak (which it is often affectionately addressed as) added to the increasing worries of the environmentalists, and also gave Barack Obama yet another chance to get up on the pulpit and, yes, do something good.

the one with the blown minds

Inception

Referred to by many as the best movie in the history of cinema, by me as a *very good* sci fi movie, it couldn't really be the highest-grosser, or come even close for that matter. It blew a few million minds worldwide nevertheless, including mine. If you haven't seen it yet, then I would suggest a running leap into the nearest well.

the Common Wealth Games

the one who hit the jackpot

India tried hard. Really hard to pull off a world class event. She almost succeeded, but for the Kalmadi fund embezzling scam (which furrowed many brows) and the Asiad at Guangzhou (which made the CWG look like a rusted lock). An A for Attempt though.

the one without the caption, oh sorry

and more scams

The year saw the shooting-to-fame of people like Suresh Kalmadi, for all the wrong reasons. It saw or rather heard, or yet rather tapped, into telephonic conversations between a lobbyist and a journalist. A lot of ministers exchanged looks. A lot of brows creased. A lot of black money flew in all directions.

the Mobile Wars

begun truly have. If Apple was the Empire, Google became the Jedi. And if the Empire struck back, then Android was the New Hope. The launch, or should I say, the leak of the much hyped iPhone 4 and the path breaking iPad tablet, set new trends in mobile technology. Android wasn't far behind and soon had ripped apart the sales charts sending Jobs scurrying for cover and etching that big smile upon my face. Blackberry and Nokia fought hard, but for them, luck was harder.

the one with the dishoom-dishoom

the fall of Lalu

the one with the white hair

Nitish Kumar's definitive victory over Lalu in the Bihar polls was perhaps as significant to the country as the fall of London Bridge is in nursery rhymes. Amongst many things, which included lighting up many faces, this victory even made people contemplate upon a new recipe for the samosa.

Cricketing Glory

the one with the God

Hockey might be India's official national sport but Cricket is the de facto one, and the most loved sport in the country. 2010 brought, but only smiles and tears of joy to the face of the Indian cricket fan, as the team became the number one in Tests and number two in ODIs. A journey fraught with an Australian whitewash in October and a Kiwi-mincing in December. Not to forget, Sachin Tendulkar breaking two of the most coveted cricketing records by becoming the first person to score a double century in an ODI and the first person to score fifty centuries in Test cricket.

Onionism

The meek onion had its share of the limelight as well. Peaking at ₹80 a kilogram, it cast a shade of gloom over the faces of the majority of the Indian junta. The impact was so huge that it sparked off a new faith which became a trending topic on Twitter : Onionsim.

the one with the teary eyes

Wikileaks

The thing that makes all the aforementioned nine points look Cretazoic. And with reason. One man and his refusal to keep mum, kept the US government stuttering in the rain, and gave cold feet to many other governments around the world. There was no dearth of revelations as document after document fell prey to the public. A lot transpired, including fake charges and a hefty amount of covering-up. But it was Julian Assagne himself who the light burned brightly upon.

the one with all the leak

So that was that. Ten things that made twenty-ten one heck of a year.

Have I missed anything? What do you say?

PS : a very Happy New Year to all of you.

If you, (like me) suffer from this massively irritating problem of ear-phones falling off your ears, here's wishing that they do not fall off any more. If they don't, then I wish they do, so that you get to feel how we feel.

Signing off on this ominous note. See you all next year ;-)

on Ayrton Senna

2010-12-29T11:06:00.003+05:30

My thoughts entirely with this name today. After a certain documentary I watched last night.

I had heard a lot about him. How he would have gone on to become the greatest ever in the blitzkrieg world of formula 1 had destiny been but a bit more rewarding. Little did I know that well before the disaster at Imola which claimed his life, Ayrton Senna had established his name as the greatest already.

He didn't have the statistics on paper. He had raced for 10 years and had won 3 championships. Juan Maunel Fangio (with 5) and later on, Michael Schumacher (with 7) would go on to become the greatest F-1 racer of all time, but the ones who know the sport, tell a different story.

Ayrton Senna's greatness laid, not on paper, but on the sheer way he drove. Formula One experts including Schumacher himself have openly admitted that a driver like Senna, has not, does not and will not exist in motor-sport history.

The documentary I saw yesterday was all about what exactly made him all that great. Martin Brundle, an F-1 great, who had raced alongside this genius went into details about his driving style which he considered would give enough reasons to consider him the "ultimate driver's driver".

Speed
Senna was not just a fast driver. He was just the fastest driver one could race against. While others would set lap-records and fastest times with a margin of a few tenths of a second from the existing record, Senna would settle for no less than a whole second or at least three-quarters of second. "He had this God gifted talent," as Brundle put it, "a sixth sense, which gave him full knowledge of where in the track the grip would be before he went into a corner. The moment you see him do a lap, you're bound to say, "I can't do that." As simple as that." He was known to drive completely on the limit and set some of the most blistering lap times in his ten year career. "He used to emerge out of corners and overtake a whole lot of other drivers with the most consummate ease. Other drivers wouldn't even have him in their mirrors a few seconds back, but suddenly .. poof! He's gone past them." The fact that he won 65 pole positions in 162 races when pitched against Schumacher's 68 pole-positions in 269 races more than cements him as the speed overlord. His qualifying greatness reached it's epitome in Monaco 1988, when he out-qualified his arch-rival and team mate Alain Prost by a staggering 1.5 seconds. Brundle recollects that "Nobody in the end wanted to spoil Senna's pole lap. When the day-glow McLaren and the very bright helmet of Ayrton Senna would come through, we'd literally jump out of the way. You didn't one to be the one who'd blown the lap of the one everybody was talking about, the lap that entire Grand Prix venue was looking forward to."

Senna in his epic McLaren in Canada 1988

Attention to detail
It wasn't just speed that made Senna what he was. As David Coulthard, yet another F-1 legend who started off as Senna's test-driver recollects his dedication."A certain test session when he (Senna) had tweaked his neck, and that was it. Test was over that day but as far as he was concerned, "I recommend the following day" and he was there the following day! In the morning I thought that ... OK .. he must have made a miraculous recovery ... but no, he was just there to listen to what I was telling the engineers. So that he could trust my feedback." I mean other people whom I've been test driver for would just listen to the lap-times and bugger off to the golf course!"

Ruthlessness

one of the numerous corners Senna (in the red and white McLaren) aced

Yet another and one of his best wielded weapons, was his utter ruthlessness. As Brundle explains, Senna would often put them (his rivals) in a position where you'd have an accident and he would leave it up to you to decide whether you wanted it or not. If you let him through, you wouldn't have the accident, if you did not, you would. During a certain Formula 3 race, Brundle says, "he suddenly came up from behind me and before I knew it, his car was upon mine." He would always put his rivals in a compromising position at every corner, and wage this psychological warfare every single time. You would either run into him, which would mean, your race is over, or you would lose this mind game. And if you did run into him, he would ensure that the next time such a scenario repeated you would jump out of his way. He was easily the toughest driver, and the most ferocious driver to protect his area of space. His ruthlessness and will to win reached the peak in the Japanese Grand Prix of 1990, when he would emerge world champion of the season provided his arch-rival Alain Prost (now racing for Ferrari) failed to finish the race. This makes for a throughly gripping tale.

Senna and Prost were 1-2 on the starting grid respectively. Senna's McLaren however was on the dirtier side of the track and despite his asking the officials to change the side they hadn't. No sooner had the race been flagged off than Prost's scarlet Ferrari took lead ahead of Senna's McLaren. And for Senna to win the world-title, Prost would have to not finish the race.

Barely had ten seconds gone when the first corner came up. And Prost went into the corner ahead of Senna. But Senna accelerated through the corner reaching a speed of 270 kilometres an hour, without even bothering to brake, as the gap between his and Prost's car disappeared. Suddenly Senna's front left tire had hit Prost's rear end. And Prost's rear wing fell off as both cars skidded off into the turf.

In the very first corner of the very first lap Senna thus made sure that Prost indeed failed to finish and secured the world title for himself.

Senna's McLaren hits Prost's Ferrari

and the state a few seconds after ... Senna, secured with his Championship title

Prost was so disgusted with the turn of events that he publicly slammed Senna's tactics and even considered retiring from F-1. After the crash Senna however showed absolutely no remorse for what he done. "When there is a gap," Senna said later, "you either permit yourself as a professional racing driver who is designed to win races, or you come second or you come third or you come fifth. And I am not designed to come third, fourth or fifth. I race to win."

Senna's aggressiveness; his ruthlessness can be well summed up in his own words. "If you no longer go for a gap which doesn't exist ... well, you are no longer a racing driver."

Strangely however, Senna had a heart of gold. A devout Christian he was capable of incredible compassion. When in Spa 1992 his rival Érik Comas had a fatal crash, Senna stopped his car, leapt out, stopped Comas' engine and held his head in a comfortable position before doctors arrived. An incident which made Comas retire from F-1 after his inability to help Senna after his life claiming crash.

Senna parks his car and runs to help Erik Comas

This paradox in Senna's behavior shows that he was an incredible human being. He would donate for his poor children in his country Brazil. he would help his rivals out of difficult situations. He was morally broken when Ratenberger died the night before he died. But then it was the same Ayrton Senna who would crash Prost's car out of a race, putting both their lives at risk.

The Wet Weather Master
What really set apart Senna, all the more from other F-1 drivers was his driving wizardry when it rained. Referred to as "the Wet Weather Master" by commentators, his driving prowess would really come in the limelight in such circumstances.

Senna mastered the art of wet-weather driving

Donnington Park, 1993. The track was wet and it was drizzling. Senna was having trouble keeping up in his inferior McLaren from the beginning. He had dropped to fifth position when a new lap had begun, behind the likes of Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill and Alain Prost. A couple of corners later, he had muscled his way to third. And yet another couple of corners later Alain Prost was eating his tire marks and Senna was leading the race, which he went on to win. This historic lap, which saw Senna taking the lead within a half of a lap of running fifth, established him as an all time great wet weather driver. After the race he said that the driving pressure in such conditions is tremendous and it's like gambling; taking chances where it might pay off. And that his team gambled well that day.

The cars back then
Senna gambled. Senna gambled in cars which were like untamed wild beasts. Racing regulations weren't as stringent then as they are today, and Senna belonged to the era of F-1 when cars had turbochargers (needless to say, they are illegal in F-1 now); he belonged to the age of Formula -1 when cars produced 1200 horsepower, which was a mind-boggling 450 more than an F-1 car of today. Inferior aerodynamics back then, as compared to today, ensured that cars had a lot less down-force and was at higher risks of flying off. Also safety levels were far worse which made Senna's job all the more difficult.

Senna's epic McLaren Honda MP-4/4 :
the machine in which he won eight races in one season
and his first world championship title

Yet Senna aced. He drove on the edge without a care in the world. He drove to win. Which he did. And would have won more had he been luckier.

Imola, San Marino 1994.

An event already riddled by disasters. Ratenberger's death the night before the final race had shaken the entire F-1 community. The night before that, a serious accident involving Senna's protégé, Rubens Barichello had broken Senna down, all the more. The final race as well, was plagued by misfortune. It was interrupted in the very beginning when J J Lehtto's Benetton-Ford had stalled, and Pedro Lammy's Lotus-Mugen Honda had rammed into his rear at nearly full speed. A wheel tore off and flew into the grandstands, injuring eight spectators and a police officer. The race went into yellow flag, and the safety car, which was on Opel Vectra for that year, was deployed. The slow pace maintained by the Vectra was later questioned and suspected for the lower-than-normal tire pressure in the race cars.

When the race restarted, Senna immediately shot off and set the third-fastest lap of the race, followed closely by Schumacher. In the next lap, as Senna approached the super-fast Tamburello corner, his car left the track ...

That would go down in his history as the last corner he ever took, and the first one, he never came out of. Alive.

... his Williams ploughed into the concrete wall in excess of 215 kilometres an hour.

His right front wheel had broken off and shot through into his cockpit, hitting his helmet and pushing his head against his head rest. A piece of upright, attached to the wheel had penetrated his helmet made a big indent in his forehead, and a jagged piece of the upright had penetrated his visor just above his right eye.

He died almost immediately owing to fatal skull fracture. Track officials, upon investigation found a furled Austrian flag in his cockpit, which he had planned on unfurling and waving in honour of Ratenberger in the event of his winning the race.

Senna's Williams at the moment of impact

The cause of his accident, as later revealed was steering column failure which had resulted in this fatal under-steer (what happens when you turn your steering wheel, but the wheels don't turn). Patrick Head, of team Williams, who had been responsible for the "bad-design and badly executed modifications" of Senna's steering column, was proven guilty of omitted control by the Italian Court of Appeal on 13th April 2007.

His death at Imola, San Marino was probably the greatest tragedy in the history of motor-sports. Brazil declared a national holiday in honour of their greatest sportsman and set aside three days for mourning. Three million people lined up to see his funeral march and offer salute to their hero.

Senna's funeral saw many F-1 greats participating.
Including his arch rivals Alain Prost and Damon Hill

His grave bears the epitaph "Nada pode me separar do amor de Deus" which means "Nothing can separate me from the love of God".

To you, Ayrton Senna. Never was. Never will be.

to and on Vegetarians

2010-12-28T10:38:00.003+05:30

I have absolutely nothing against vegetarians. Many of my GoodFriends are vegetarian, and how dare I have anything against them?

sample vegetarian. Notice the look of extreme sadness on her face.

Nevertheless. Nevertheless, they manage to bewilder me. They make me scratch my head and make me ponder upon the futility of such a life; the inherent sadness of such an existence. And all this they perform by the sheer power of the fact that they are vegetarian.

At a personal level, (I hope I don't get into issues with the PETA) I believe that it is an animal's moral duty to present itself on my plate when I sit down to eat, at least once in its life time. The fact that it can do that only once makes the previous statement sound a tad redundant but let that not taint the vitality of my faith.

I've been involved in countless food-brawls with my GoodFriends. By food-brawls I refer to brawls over food, not brawls with the food (the thing that the WWE superstars are so competent at). And most of this have ended with a tongue-lock when I am left to counter the very very ancient and incorrigibly clichéd argument regarding the "compassion and love for all things living". Which I admit, I cannot. The best reply I can give when someone stumps with a "How would YOU feel like if you were to be eaten someday?" is that "I cannot foresee a future when I would be within 50 miles of cannibalism at any point in my life." Lame, I admit. But works.

Which brings me to the question of plant perception. Can plants feel?

Hell, yes they do. I base my conviction on the numerous results that appear when you type the same question in the Google search-bar. This, being the most glaring. Discarding non-vegetarian food on grounds of "compassion and love for all living things" can now go to the dogs. But yes, them vegetarians, are hard nuts to crack. My GoodOldSidey (I don't know whether whether he's reading this) (yet another vegetarian, needless to say) comes up with this extremely contrived extension of the same reason. Which is, "I don't like eating something which has yelpt in pain and cried so that I may eat it".

If he had as much of a white soul as he appears to, after this revelation, God bless this sin-stained world, but that is besides the point.

To him, and to others who would like to emulate him, let them be made aware that when Sir George Bernard Shaw visited Sir Jagdish Bose's laboratory, he was stunned to see that cabbages suffered from violent convulsions when boiled to death. (A piece of information shamelessly wiki-lifted from the above link). To them I ask, "Will you stop boiling cabbages now?" I think I know the answer to that.

Plants (continuing upon the same spree of shameless wiki-lifting) actually have a very well developed nervous system and they respond to shock by spasm in exactly the same way as an animal muscle does. Just because one cannot visibly see or hear the pain a broccoli plant goes through when you chop its limbs off without a bother doesn't prove anything. You can as well wait for goats to sleep (or use tranquilisers for that matter) before you behead them and proceed to cut them into nice chops and blah-blah.

Another thing.

Vegetarian food has this weird way of staring up at you and shouting, "Hah! Your ancestors fought their way up the food chain and you're somewhere down there again." Quite right! Being vegetarian is like openly disregarding the revered concept of the food chain and showing scant respect to the laws of evolution, which over millions of years have carved a path for you, so that you, as a Homo sapien are given the birth-right to be a secondary consumer. If not higher.

Therefore, by being vegetarian, you actually go against nature and it's predetermined laws.

Hah. So much for your compassion and love for nature now.

Quad-erat-demonstrandum.

would you have all these?

or well, just this?

PS : Andy Rooney ( I have absolutely no idea who he is) says that "Vegetarian is an old Indian word for 'lousy hunter' ". I say, "Bullseye."

WWE : second thoughts

2010-12-23T19:06:00.000+05:30

The World Wrestling Entertainment (erstwhile World Wrestling Federation) had given me my share of corny, make-believe, and yes, comical entertainment during my primary and middle school years. During high school I assumed that I had grown out of it, and hence gave up on the habit of following this ridiculous spectacle.

And then came college. Along with all of its associated idiosyncrasies. Revival of WWE enthusiasm being one of them. Thanks to DC++ I have (buries head in shame) a few GBs of WWE in my hard drive. And though I view it from a completely different perspective now, it sure is a lot cornier than what I had assumed it to be.

People beating each other up was never this funny. Consider this. Two "superstars" Edge and Eddie Guerrero fighting in the ring. Amazing moves, amazing athletics. Amazing what nots. But two seconds after the near lifeless body of Edge lies in the centre of the ring, beaten to pulp ... presto! He's up again! *pow* *biff* *biff* *pow* and very soon it's Eddie's turn to play possum. Sigh. They call it Entertainment Wrestling. Not without reason.
Triple H entrance. Cracking song courtesy Motorhead. No issues. Hot chic by his side. No issues. A bottle of mineral water in his hand. Serious issues! A bottle of mineral water which he'll squirt out in the most disgusting manner. Why? Moan.
The patience shown by a to-be-chokeslammed victim is interesting. Or for that matter, any to-be-finished victim. No matter how badly beaten up a person is, when someone has taken hold of you by your neck, and is showing off this feat to all and sundry before he lifts you up and slams you down, you do not do nothing! How difficult is that to get? Same applies to the stoopid chap supported against the ropes before Rey Mysterio deals a 6 1 9, or to the oh-so-helpless soul lying in the ring while the Rock savours a People's elbow.
Some moves don't hurt. No matter how realistic they try and make it. Kurt Angle's leg lock is one such move. A creased forehead and furious swearing do not hide the fact that you are just holding his legs in your hand ... and that's it. You could as well be holding a purring kitty without a hiccup in the same manner!
Tag Team matches. Roll-over-the-ring-laughing stuff. Specially when one chap from each team is as badly hurt as the other. In fact, they are "so equally hurt" that they take the exact same time to crawl across the ring and tag their partner at the exact same instant. Whoa. Radium clocks seem jurassic after this.
Food brawls. I guess these are intentionally made funny. Because they don't turn out to be so. It pains me to see the amount of food getting wasted, assuming of course, that the food is at least, real.

Off-the-ring issues. This is when one actually starts questioning the "Wrestling" in "World Wrestling Entertainment". Because it might just have been "World Soap Entertainment" executed nicely.

and that is all that they do.

give me MY AQUAFINA!!!

take your time Kane. I'm waiting.

my jaws hurt more now

He is as hurt as I am, and these two are equally hurt as well.

not cool.

now we're speaking.

But all said, it's fun watching these big men and criticizing them as well. Rey Mysterio's aerial feats. The Undertaker executing a Chokeslam. A Brock Lesnar superplex. The divas (oh yes!) and of course, the off-the-ring dramatics as well.

Howver if you are the WWE fanatic, who has idols of John Cena kept in his cupboard which you bring out every night and kiss yourself to sleep ... I really don't know what to say.

Wrapping up with some light humour.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part 1 : because a review is better late than never!

2010-12-23T01:32:00.001+05:30

When I was a kid I read a lot of Enid Blyton, like most other kids,. She was essentially the one person who made me read, save for my father who brought me her books. It began with Noddy, then went into more mature stuff (for want of a better word) like ... the Wishing Chair and the Faraway Tree ... where there were TopsyTurvy Worlds and gnomes and pixies and thought bubbles and children and ... well, you get it don't you?

This was when I actually realised that books invoked feelings in me. They made me happy, they made me sad, they made me laugh, and yes, they made me cry as well.

Something which continues till this day.

When I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first time, I ... well confess, I had cried when Dobby had died. And, yes, after a long long time in a cinema hall, yesterday, I cried. I don't know why. Books invoke stronger emotions in me, than movies in general, but, I don't know how or why, the scene of Dobby dying, made all those welled up tears in my eyes, flow down my cheeks and ... well, the usual mushy stuff.

The characters in Harry Potter have a way of connecting with us. Maybe it's because of the sheer length of the saga, and the fact that we've stuck on with it for quite a while now. Maybe it's the fact that Harry and his friends have matured with us, progressed along with us. Or maybe it's just that J K Rowling's plain good at her job. Or maybe it's all of these reasons. Whatever it is, it's the fact that they somehow connect, that makes them so very close to us. And Dobby was one of that sort, oh yes.

Reverting to what I had in mind when I started this post, a review.

HP 7 sure does a good job and there's no denying it. Finally a Harry Potter movie which doesn't make the non-Harry Potter follower (NHPF) feel like he's on a roller coaster wearing a blind-fold. Which I daresay, the past few ones did. They grabbed the NHPF by the scruff of his neck, popped him atop a steed in some Mexican bronc-busting arena and set the steed loose. Unlike those ones, where the non-HP-fan would die a cruel and generally painful death while watching the movie, gaping in utter incomprehension, at the sheer amount of tomfoolery that happened in front of his eyes, this one's milder. More composed. The NHPF, while watching this one, would just die a slow and painless death. Something akin to an overdose of sleeping pills.

So yes, from the point of view of the HP fanatic, this movie might just seem dull at times. Specially when Harry, Ron and Hermoine are wandering in the middle of nowhere; when Harry is in one of his many contemplative phases (weren't there just too many of them?). But the dull part is, needless to say, triumphantly overshadowed by the exceedingly well portrayed ... erm ... not so dull parts.

The story is not new. We all know what happens. We all know what will happen. Voldemort's forces are pretty much everywhere. Death eaters pop up now and then throughout the movie with alarming regularity. The Ministry of Magic has been taken over by the Dark Forces. The fiasco involving the seven Harrys in the beginning, laced with Mundungus Fletcher's double-crossing and the Weasley twins humour make for a cracking start. Hagrid's motorcycle escape and the subsequent regathering at the Burrow bring in the first couple of LumpsInThroats, more of which occur later. The first two are the deaths of Hedwig and Mad-eye Moody respectively. Then there's Bill and Fleur's wedding which fall prey to another Death Eater attack. Harry, Ron and Hermione (HRH for speed's sake) flee upon hearing Shacklebolt's warning and Disapparate to some place faraway. Voldemort's growing impatience and frustration as Harry gives him and his Death Eaters the slip many a time are evident. Then there's the finely rendered depiction of HRH breaking into the Ministry with the help of the Polyjuice potion and Umbridge's subsequent confrontation with Harry. Harry now has a price on his head and he's wanted "Undesirable no. 1" by the Wizarding community. The Ministry's malpractices are on the rise and every possible bit of action is taken to ensure the destruction of Muggle borns and Muggle lovers.With great trepidation, HRH escape and run away, having procured one of the Horcruxes (the locket) from Umbridge. The chap who plays Rufus Scrimgeour does it well. (He appears earlier on when he comes to the Burrow to give HRH stuff they inherited from Dumbledore as left in his will).

Now the rift between Ron and Harry builds up. Ron's impatience in finding the remaining Horcruxes, his frustration at being the Chosen One's sidekick, and his suspicions regarding Harry's feelings for Hermoine take a toll on him and he leaves. Shaken, Harry and Hermione then decide to visit Godric's Hollow to try and find the sword of Godric Gryffindor which might prove to be helpful in the destruction of the Horcruxes. The trip, however backfires as Death Eaters in the guise of Bathilda Bagshot along with the serpent Nagini ambush them. The third LumpInTheThroat occurs here, when Harry sees for the first time in his life, his parents' graves. Harry and Hermione barely Dissaparate and escape and return to the jungles.

One night Harry is guided by a mysterious silver doe to a frozen pond in the middle of the jungle and there he sees the sword of Godric Gryffindor lying deep under water. He breaks through the ice and dives in, but the locket-Horcrux around his neck tries to strangle him. This is where Ron comes in again, and saves him and recovers the sword. It is him who destroys the Horcrux then and there. In the meanwhile Hermione gets some leads from the Tales of Beedle the Bard and identifies the recurrence of an enigmatic symbol. Harry remembers that Xenophilius Lovegood had worn a similar symbol at the wedding. So the three decide to go and visit the Lovegoods'. There, the eccentric old man then tells them the story of the Deathly Hallows ... the Elder Wand, the Ressurection Stone and the Cloak of Invisiblity and how three brothers of a certain folk tale went after each of them. This is followed by Xenophilius' attempt to sell off Harry to the Death Eaters in return for Luna who has been taken captive. HRH escape yet again.

The final battle happens in the underground vault in Malfoy Manor where the prisoners have been kept. The prisoners viz Luna, Ovillander and the Goblins (who were in charge of the Gringotts bank). HRH is joined by Dobby the House-elf who eventually saves them all from the Death Eaters in general and Bellatrix in particular, and sacrifices his own life instead (final and climactic LumpInTheThroat).

Parallel to this story, Voldemort goes on his quest to procure all the Deathly Hallows for himself. We are made aware of his movements and activities through his connection with Harry, in the form of visions and dreams. His first mission, to find the Elder Wand or the Death Stick takes him to the wand maker Gregorovitch whom he threatens for the information as to the wand's hereabouts. Gregorovitch tells him that Dumbledore had possessed it when he had died. The movie ends with Voldemort locating Dumbledore's grave, cracking open the coffin, procuring the Elder Wand and rejoicing.

Of course, in case you are wondering, the story's not over yet.

A few points :

HRH did pack a good selection of clothes! They keep changing from one set to another everyday. Not the pitiful state of nomadic existence that JKR had talked about.
Humour is scattered here and there. Mainly owing to Ron's facial expressions.
the mood is sombre throughout and strong undercurrents of dark forces play a big role.
the animated shadow-play depiction of the Tale of Three Brothers stole the show. I wish I had more thumbs to up.
unnecessary romance has been cut out. Good sign. The last two films had me retching and had given me nightmares about Edward Cullens with lightning scars on their foreheads.
the HRH camaraderie thrives, flourishes and inspite of the Ron-Harry rift, reaches its zenith.

All in all, finally a movie that does justice to the novel. Maybe splitting it into two parts was the key. Who knows, HP 4, 5 and 6 might just have been better in two parts. The ending is incomplete as it is expected to be. And sad, (Dobby, sniff). The beginning of the end has drawn to a close. A cliff-hanger of an ending is expected. And only a cliff-hanger will whet the appetite of the millions of fans all across the world. Hope David Yates finishes it off in the same vein in which he's begun.

accio Summer 2011.

voila! volvo

2010-12-19T18:01:00.001+05:30

I am not the frequent bus commuter. Never was either. The few tiffs that I had had with these annoyingly large multi-wheeled vehicles are best left untold, for times' sake, and for the sake of not beating-about-the-bush.

But then things happen which make you go "Voila! How wrong I was" and make you change your stance towards things. Which is what happened as a side-effect after my Goa trip, which you might just remember from my previous post.

I am, if you've been following the story of my life closely, currently anchored at Pune, and shall be leaving for Cal in a few hours. So the trip to Goa which I was party to, happened from Pune, and hell, it happened in one heck of a delightful manner.

Courtesy Volvo.

Yes, you guessed it right. It was a Volvo multi-axle semi-sleeper coach that did the monumental task of transporting myself and several others from Pune to Goa. That too, in the lap of luxury.

The ten-and-a-half-hour long journey, whose mere first mention had sent an involuntary shudder down my spine, eventually left the generally verbose me lost for words. And with good reason too. My fascination for all wheeled-contraptions compelled me to do some homework after I returned, and the results I arrived at were pretty interesting. Or at least, they are to the auto-enthusiast.

The coach that had taken me from Pune to Goa, was a certain Volvo B9R.

For those who are trying to stifle their yawns now, can freely choose not to, and navigate away to this page. For the rare ones who are falling off their seats in excitement can join me for the rest of this fascinating journey.

A Volvo B9R is, as I have mentioned earlier, a multi-axle semi-sleeper coach. Using the British policy of Divide and School, let us fragment the hieroglyphics in the above line to facilitate better understanding for those who are groping about in the dark.

Multi-axle == more than two axles. Which simply translates to, it has more wheels than the ordinary bus.
Semi-sleeper == er ... half sleeper. Meaning where you sleep, but then again, where you don't.

multi-axle clear now?

The technical specifications however are far less literary, and more ... technical (sorry for the redundancy). The power-train is a massive 9 litre 6 cylinder diesel engine that generates a staggering 380 horsepower and an equally gargantuan 1740 N-m of torque. (If this sounded gibberish to you, then you should have left this page long back. Don't look at me like that! I warned you!) And this does a more than exemplary job at making this blue whale scrunch down miles and miles of expressway with the most consummate ease. The coach is 13.7 metres long, and no, don't ask me what the width is. No one cares. It seats 53 homo-sapiens effortlessly and has cutting edge safety features including EBS (Electronic Braking System ), all wheel disc-brakes, and air-suspension, all of which are firsts in this country. What's more, it even comes with an on-board computer which feeds in brakes and suspension related data to the rare computer-savvy driver.

I am assuming that the orange LCD screen is the on-board computer.

But what really stole the show in this mighty machine was the galactic levels of comfort it pampers you with. The moment you sink into one of these outworldly seats, you feel a sense of bliss like no other. Recline the seat backward. Raise the lumbar supports, and you could well mistake the experience with that of being in a private jet, complete with all creature comforts.

the heavenly seats. And guess what, I can now semi-sleep.

I got a tad too lucky with the front row seat that day, as a result of which I had the additional advantage of having the seemingly endless windscreen r-i-g-h-t in front of me. When the journey began, it was an unexpectedly quaint affair. The virtually air-tight cabin had completely muffled the otherwise deafening roar of the engine, and the bus, with all it's air-suspension wizardry and thick tubeless radials seemed to gobble up the potholes and irregularities of theGreatIndianRoads without a hiccup.

Yet another impressive thing I noticed was the incredibly small turning radius. I have driven a Toyota Qualis and for a car of that size, it is surprisingly agile around corners. But for the 13.7 metre long mammoth that it is, this beast executed U-turns and other letter-like turns in the manner that could have left many large luxury saloons burying their heads in shame.

Well, that's that. I wish I had driven it too, then I would have been able to give more details regarding its performance, engine and transmission (:P) but well ... I can rest assured now, that I have started loving buses.

Or so I hope.

incomplete thoughts during my Goa tour

2010-12-18T17:34:00.001+05:30

Trips are enlightening. Always. You revel, you enjoy, you do all other things that make everyone else J, but with a certain degree of consciousness you can actually learn quite a lot as well.

Three things worthy of mention which intrigued me during my 3-night long Goa trip follows.

One. The difference in the beach.

The only "other" beaches I had seen till before my Goa trip were those of Puri and Shankarpur. For the reader who is not aware, Puri is a bustling coastal town in Orissa, made famous by the historic temple of Jagannath (amongst other things) and Shankarpur is one of those lesser known (and hence, blissfully desolate) coastal towns in West Bengal which boasts of remarkably good prawns (erm ... amongst other things).

The beaches in Goa are radically different. They aren't desolate. They aren't bustling. In fact, they are like pleasant surprises. Like when you expect an ice cream and get vanilla with hot chocolate syrup instead. The Goan beaches are as picture perfect as beaches in India can get. And they speak volumes of how better off the western states are at doing the right stuff as compared to the Eastern ones.

Yes, I am referring to West Bengal in particular and the sorry state of affairs, decades of bad governance has plummeted it into. That when you visit places like Goa, you actually feel sad about your own home state.

West Bengal has a unique geographical location. It is the only state in India that can boast of snowy hill stations like Darjeeling on one hand, and picturesque beaches like the ones in Shankarpur on the other. Oh, wait a second. It could have. Thanks to (sorry if it sounds repetitive) decades of bad governance, Darjeeling today, is but a terror stricken district, with several clamorous minority factions threatening to break the state apart. And Shankarpur. As dead and dull as a dodo in ditch water.

Even Digha for that matter. The other better-known Bengal beach. Which is today, no different from a fish market.

One glance at the western states and you'll notice the difference. While hill stations in Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir, thrive par excellence as numero uno tourist spots, and beaches like the ones in Goa outshine as world class tourist attractions, good old Bengal remains stuck in the cesspool of abject decadence. And the 'could be's become 'could have been's. Or rather 'should have been's.

The harmless commercialisation of the Goan beaches awed me. There are water sports and boat rides. Food stalls and shacks. But interestingly enough, they co-exist in perfect harmony with the natural beauty. Quite unlike Digha or Puri which have zero signs of innovative commercialisation or anything remotely constructive. And with all human activity laced with utter disregard for nature.

Sigh.

Moving on to my second thought.

On a site-seeing trip around north Goa, we stopped at quite a few marvelous locations. One of which was the Basilica of bom Jesus. This historic church, which dates back to the early 17th century, houses the 450 year old and still preserved body of St Francis Xavier. Needless to see, he is the patron of the school I spent 12 years in, in Calcutta.

Another historic location we stopped at was the 400 year old temple of Mangeshi. It's a shiv temple which fell prey to two religious insurgencies and was moved to Goa from Aurangabad and to Aurangabad, from Nepal. Which was what made me put my thinking cap on.

Terrorists, who today wreak havoc on our planet, in the name of religion aren't new. Such religiously intolerant groups have existed for centuries before the rise of the Taliban. That the Portuguese missionaries, in their pursuit of religious conversion had done similar acts of arson in the medieval ages, there's no hiding it.

The third, and a lot more trivial thought that had the competence to engage my brain was that of the foreigners and their fascination for the sun. Seriously. They puzzled me. Bewildered me. And made my head spin.

Why would anyone in their right minds, even consider basking in the mid day sun for hours at a stretch, and watch their own colourless skin burn into brilliant shades of crimson? Yet they did. And did. For hours and hours. Till their skins looked like the burnt buttocks of I R baboon. If not redder.

If you ask me, the only good part of the beach during the day is the sea. The water. And the water-sports. NOT the sun! Not at all. The beach, the non watery, non-sporty component is good when there is NO sun, which is nighttime. The beach at night is heavenly. You hear the splashing of the waves against the sand. The cool salty wind from the sea hits you in the face. That is understandably good. But what with lying in the sand at mid day and watching yourself transform into a red herring, I say!

Till then. I hope I have furnished enough contemplative material for the interested reader to ponder upon. By your leave.

PS : Best wishes and season's greetings :-)

the good side to the Obama visit

2010-11-09T11:45:00.006+05:30

After a hell lot of Oba-mashing in the previous post, I contemplated for a while and said to myself "Messa thinks every cloud has a silver lining!" and decided to jot down some points, some positive points and indications about Obama's visit. Most of these points however relate to his address in the Parliament yesterday, views expressed in which, have changed quite a lot from what his takes in Mumbai had been.

*/ a detour -
Apparently this was what Obama was reported to have done after he had read my previous blog post :P

this post is to tell him "Cheer up, ol' fella' ... it's not that bad" :D /*

so here goes the points -

India is the strongest power in Asia

Which puts India on the same footing as China. With one major difference. India is democratic. China is autocratic, bordering at times on dictatorship. Which makes India's case all the more favourable to this world.

India's seat in the UN Security Council as a permanent member

After initially and very craftily avoiding the issue in Mumbai, Obama announced yesterday in the Parliament that, "in the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed U.N Security Council that includes India as a permanent member." This, needless to say drew a lot of applause from the the MPs.

end to India's nuclear isolation

Obama's confirmation regarding the lifting of ban on high-end technology exports and the removal of ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organisation ) and DRDO ( Defence Research and Development Organization) from the Entity List has been welcomed by scientists all over the country.

the Pakistan issue

Obama finally brought up the Pakistan issue yesterday, and the stance he took seemed pretty reassuring. To put it in his words "We will continue to insist to Pakistan's leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders are unacceptable, and that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks be brought to justice"

the economic perspective

this has certain sub-points :

Obama has brought along 300 businessmen and industrialists during his visit.
He has asked Indian industrialists to invest in the US. Earlier it had been only foreigners investing in our country. Now it would be a two-way affair.
Last but not the least, the offer to sell high-end stuff to India.

This is by far the most significant aspect. The situation is clear. The US is groping about in the dark during the dreary times of a full-on economic recession, with the dollar value plunging every day and share values of big US firms, plummeting. And by Obama's implications and actions it is more than clear that Obama is looking towards the pretty-much-economically-stable India to bail out the US from this financial crisis. Obama sees India as a good market to sell stuff to. He recognises India's stability and knows that Indians investing in the US now would mean a lot to his country.

This is heartwarming, to say the least.

Till then.

*/ There, you can smile now boy :-)

There, there, a nice toothy smile ;-) /*

PS : I am in love with my elective viz Current Affairs. Messa wants to repeat it next sem, and in the sem after that, and after that ... and so on.

400 years : from Sir Thomas Roe to Barack Obama

2010-11-07T23:22:00.012+05:30

400 years.

Well, almost 400 years back, a ship had sailed across the choppy waters of the Arabian Sea, the Union Jack waving aloft, and had entered the port of Surat. The affair had been humdrum. Surprisingly so, because the person who had sailed, was destined to leave his mark in the time-stained pages of the Great Indian History.

The year was 1615, and the person was Sir Thomas Roe.

The journey had been long and exhausting. The ship had braved the raging Atlantic Ocean, right down to the Cape of Good Hope. And then had entered the tumultous Arabian Sea. The alighting at Surat had been followed by a long and gruelling journey through the hot wastelands of the North West. When, after weeks of travelling Sir Thomas Roe had finally reached the gates of Agra, his face did not betray his weariness, nor did he lose focus of the humoungous resposnsibility he was bearing upon his shoulders.

For Sir Thomas was no ordinary person. He was the emissary from the court of His Majesty James I, the then King of England, himself. And his instructions had been very clear: Arrange for a commercial treaty which would give the English East India Company exclusive rights to reside and build factories in Surat and other areas. In return, the Company would provide the Emperor of the land with goods and rarities from the European market.

And he was the man chosen for the job.

The "Emperor of the land", or of what was then the "known India", was none other than Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir, third of the great Moguls, direct descendant of the illustrious Akbar, and the father of Shah Jahan. And it wasn't long before the happy-go-lucky Jahangir was smitten by the English offer. Sir Thomas, in fact became his drinking buddy in his own Court and the Mogul emperor, was quick to wrap up the deal in a gracious letter of acceptance to James I.

--pause--

Such was the story of the first commercial contact that India made with the Western World.

November 2010. 395 years later.

The basics remain the same. As had happened 395 years back, it is another Westerner approaching India. With yet another commercial idea in his mind. The only difference : this is no Sir Thomas Roe. Instead it is the President of the United States, who goes by the name Barack Hussein Obama. And along with him, is the First Lady Michelle, and their kids whoseNamesAren'tReallyOfMuchConsequence.

Remember the single ship entourage that had come along with Sir Thomas Roe? In this case it is ..ahem... slightly different : 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, stationed off the coast of Mumbai. 40 aircraft, including the Air Force One military 'plane and 6 heavily armoured cars to accompany Him around.

So yes, you guessed it right. That which has changed, is just the magnitude. Magnitude of everything that is of absolutely no tangible consequence to our country. And that is it. At a personal level this entire hullabaloo around Obama's oh-so-epic visit is somewhere between rotten cheese and half baked cabbages in my priority list. Or maybe lower.

First things first. Why has His Uselessness Mr Barack Obama decided to sanctify our motherland?

The answer my friend is a-blowing in the wind. Obama comes to India, not as a Statesman, but as a mere salesman. Remember those irritating people who wake you up from your mid-day siesta by ringing your door bell and politely asking whether you have tried out the new fairness cream which makes you glow in the dark? Obama comes for a similar reason. The only difference is that, you just cannot ignore his doorbell. So poor old Manmohan Singh, (analogous to Jahangir in the previous example), has to wake up from his mid day slumber and make arrangements and listen to the useless rattling of this person.

Also when He says something akin to "And it is clear that standing in the 21st century, it is but an Indo-US alliance that will save this planet" old Manmohan has to nod his head in sugar-coated agreement and clap. And yes, he has to remember to shake His Worthlessness Mr Obama's hand at every strategically spaced-out time interval.

Seriously Mr Obama. Whom are you trying to hoodwink?

'nuff with your diplomacies. What's with getting stuff done? $200m being spent per day to keep His OhMyGoodness alive. 800 rooms in the Taj and Hyatt ... beefed up with extra layers of air-tight security to keep His Joblessness safe from the prying sniper rifles of the Al Quaida.

To what avail?

Change. And long rambling eloquent speeches on how India should not misinterpret the outsourcing issue in the US.
More change. And another long rambling eloquent speech on why India needs to buy US goods over Indian ones.
... And more change.And yet another long eloquent speech on how an Indo-US partnership is the next best thing about to happen to this world after Jockey Inners.

What's with the compensation for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims? What's with the Sino-Pak threats along our borders? What about the terrorism issues, following in the wake of the 26/11?

Surprisingly, His HollowVivaciousness has no answer. And interestingly, His MasterfulEloquence doesn't dare utter the P-word in any of His public addresses.

Sigh.

I shall end this now. It's been dragging along for quite some time. Here's hoping His PseudoAwesomeness realises that it's high time He stops beating about the bush. And starts some real work for a change.

It certainly is necessary.

PS : Goodness, do I sound like a leftist? Well I am not! Anything but that!

Here's some light humour to wrap up.

just another thing

2010-11-04T19:10:00.001+05:30

A snippet from JustAnotherDayInMyLife (read, today).

I had this really really boring chem lab class wherein we were to do one stoopid little titration experiment. Not once, or twice, or thrice ... but, SIX whole times. Six is anyways not a particularly good number of times, one does an experiment that involves blowing up through pipettes, and carefully measuring out chemicals having quasi-intellectual-sounding-polysyllabic names (sodium isocyanate et al), at any time of the year ... and on the eve of Diwali, it gets plain worse. And to cap it all, it was a strictly individual experiment.

We had two hours to wrap it all up, and half-way through the class, I had just obtained one set of readings and had just begun the second attempt. Half an hour later, when the two other guys doing the same experiment finished off and got all their six sets of readings signed by the instructor, I realised that I had to buckle up. No, the thought of not finishing the experiment did not bother me, it was the thought of staying back on Diwali eve to finish it, that frustrated me all the more. So I decided to give my luck a try.

As it is, it hadn't been of much help to me this entire semester ... so maybe, I might just get lucky now, or so I thought.

After I had completed the experiment a second time, I quickly manipulated and made up four other readings out of thin air, and presto! presented them to the instructor.

Now this instructor is ... yes, you guessed it right, the no-nonsense kinda usual chemistry person who likes venting out his five years of chemistry studying frustration upon anyone who wishes to risk it. So he eyed me very keenly, before asking me sternly. "Were you not doing the first one some ten minutes back?"

I was expecting this, and so calmly replied, "Sir, yes, but then I got the hang of it and the next five happened pretty quickly."

He eyed me again. Penetrating kinda gaze. That makes you wonder whether you are really as opaque as you think you are. "A bit too quickly I'd say?"

I turned red. This was it. The make-or-break instance. I gathered up all the niceness I could muster. Difficult when you are standing in front of someone like him. But I tried my best. And then, when I was convinced that I possibly couldn't be nicer to him, I gave this very very sweet toothy smile, and gulped ... before opening my mouth ...

"Oh sir, by the way, Happy Diwali!"

And waited. With needless to say, bated breath.

Five angst-ridden seconds later.

The grim grumpy face that had eyed me so sternly for the past few minutes, broke into a smile. That was it. I knew my trick had worked. I had to now just enjoy the aftermath.

"Same to you!" he grinned back. And flashed me a pair of GreatWhites before picking up his pen and gracefully signing my set of readings.

> > > fastforward > > >

So as you can see, what a little niceness can do. Or should I say, sugar-coated niceness? Whatever it may be, it worked like charmed clockwork. And I was on cloud 9.2 when I walked out of the lab.

By your leave, dear reader, the festivities beckon me. Here's wishing a cheerful, prosperous and happy Diwali to all of you!

Till then people. Love you guys!

the BITS network is an #epicfail

2010-11-01T00:45:00.000+05:30

I always wondered why my blog takes such an extraordinarily long time to load here from the BITS campus. I did a lot of tweaking to streamline my page, including getting rid of heavy widgets, using a blogger template and not a third party one. To no avail.

Till one day one of my GoodOldFriends told me that the highly retarded people in the BITS Information Processing Center (better known as IPC) reduce your bandwidth when particular strings appear in an URL. For example iso or avi or mpg. Why? Because they believe that with something as efficient a p2p contraption as DC++ operating within campus, we students would hog the institute bandwidth in an attempt to download huge movies and sitcoms and other video files.

Not that we wouldn't, but that is besides the point.

So you search for 'isometric' on Google and fifteen minutes later, you will still be staring at a white screen and cursing the network. Because a wretched 'iso' appears in the URL, and because a bunch of diabolical guys are of the opinion that you are actually trying to download the 2 GB+ iso files of FIFA 11 or Call of Duty.

On the other hand, try searching 'isametric' and .. presto ... flash gordon on steroids!

Bleh!

The levels of brainless bureaucracy the IPC reaches, astonishes me at times. Right from blocking words like 'sex' in URLs (I can gauge the irritation of the Bio student who needs to do a project on sex chromosomes) to 'movies' (which can be easily eluded by searching for 'movis' instead, Google does the rest), to having such weird selective bandwidth restrictions.

So following the thought-route opened up by my GoodOldFriend whom you might remember from the second paragraph, I started fragmenting my blog URL in an attempt to find the trouble causing string within it.

I started Googling the following strings :

'wr' - nothing wrong

'wra' - nothing wrong again.

'wram' - BEEP BEEP. WhiteScreenOfIrritation.

chopped off the 'w' from the front.

'ram' - BEEP BEEP. WhiteScreenOfIrritation. #fail

chopped off the 'r'

'am' - nothing wrong yet again.

Needlessly, I chopped off the 'a'

'm' - no problems (as expected)

So there it was. The culprit string. 'ram'.

RAM! Of all things? What do they think? Some religious move to prevent devotees of Lord Ram(a) from Googling their benefactor and protector?

My GoodOldFriend clarifies on GTalk that .ram is apparently an extension of Real Audio files.

Aha. So that's it.

But in the end, all I can say is this is just one helluvan #epicfail to boot.

PS : ramayana when googled blazes in like Usain Bolt on a diet. Which isn't saying much, but still. I wonder why. Or how.

Till then.

No leaf Clover

2010-10-30T14:26:00.002+05:30

Have you ever gone through those phases of your life, when a certain thing had kept haunting you? Kept getting back to you? It could have been anything - a memory, a loved one, an incident, a scene from a movie ... or something as arbit as a game of chess you had won, a shirt that you had worn or even a sumptuous dessert that you had tasted.

From a personal perspective, I have. Many a time. Though what I relate now is something that has been stuck in one corner of my mind for as long as three-and-a-half-months. It laid there for all this while, gathering dust and neglect, till I thought I had to dig it up. Express it, rather than let theGreatHealer shroud it in layers of forgetfulness.

It's a song. More specifically, a particular lyric of a song. And the song goes by the name No Leaf Clover. And just in case you haven't head the song, it's a song from the live S&M album of none other than Metallica.

Contrary to the reactions expressed by those of you, who snickered in disgust at the name Metallica, instantly associating it to a loud, noisy, headache-inducing group of profane people, who yell in front of microphones, and jump around on stage ... well, honestly speaking, I have nothing to say. The only thing I can hazard is saying that the next time, try to look at the thing differently. Or follow the lyrics of the song you are listening to. Maybe you'll like it that way.

But to those of you who are into metal music, who can understand the beauty behind all that "noise and loud sound", to them, I really don't need to say anything.

Coming back to No Leaf Clover.

the lyrics and my interpretation follow :

And it feels right this time
On his crash course with the big time
Pay no mind to the distant thunder
New Day fills his head with wonder, boy

Says it feels right this time
Turned it 'round and found the right line
“Good day to be alive, sir
Good day to be alive,” he says

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way

Don't it feels right like this
All the pieces fall to his wish
“Suck up for that quick reward, boy
Suck up for that quick reward,” they say

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way
It's coming your way
It's coming your way oh yeah!
Here it comes

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way

the song begins with positive vibes. Of how things seem to be falling in place. The rejection of the ominous elements (pay no mind to the distant thunder), and the start of a new day, a new hope signify a near plethora of good things about to happen. It is apparently a "good day to be alive" ...

The next stanza brings all the positivity crashing down. How things which had seemed to be falling in place ... suddenly get all hay-wire and messed up. There's trouble brewing up. And the ominous agents are on the rise.

The analogy drawn is not only very appropriate, but also very thoughtful. How a person who is trapped in a dark dreary tunnel, welcomes the soothing light at the end of tunnel, assuming it to be the end of the darkness, but is overcome with sudden fear when he realises that it is actually the light from a freight train heading his way.

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way ...

The next stanza again raises the hope, and makes references to times of war. "Suck up for that quick reward boy." "Suck up for that quick reward" they say ... how a newly recruit soldier, who is all enthused about joining the army is shown the real deal in the battle front. His senior officers ("they") ask him "Don't it feels right likes this?" The young gun loves it ... the battle field is all that he had dreamed of all his life ... and "All the pieces fall to his wish" ... but then again

Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel
Was just a freight train coming your way ...

By far, this is the most crucial line in the lyrics, and the one about which the song revolves.

The sudden fall in luck; the suddenly overwhelming helplessness; the sudden rise of negativity; the sudden turning of tides. All this and more.

PS : A four leaf clover is a symbol of good luck, and a harbinger of good times. A NO leaf clover is therefore, quite the reverse.

brb

the zero

2010-10-28T21:58:00.004+05:30

"... and what happens when we take a number out from itself", asked the primeval Ghot.
"Nothing remains ... at all", the primeval master answered.
"So how do we show that there is nothing left in that?" the primeval Ghot continued.

The primeval Master closed his eyes and contemplated for a while. After he was done pondering over this question ... an answer to which would change the course of human history, he opened his eyes again, picked up a piece of charcoal and scribbled something on the parchment, that lay on the ground. Having done this, he stared at his handiwork in amazement and wonder.

The primeval Ghot peered into the parchment expecting to see something out-of-the-ordinary scribbled in that, and was quite disappointed when he saw that it was nothing more than a circle.

"That's it?" he asked incredulously, "a tiny circle?"

The primeval Master smiled back.

-- passage of time --

Little did the primeval Ghot and his Master know that by this feat, they had actually changed the way societies would evolve thousands of years down the line. Little did they know that they had by this act, shaped the way cultures would function, the sciences would develop and the world would become what it is today.

The little circle which came to being as a result of a simple question posed by the primeval Ghot, is today better known as the zero. Or, if you are BITSian, a zuc.

So why the sudden fascination for this seemingly well-known everyday little object, a fascination that has even compelled me to dedicate an entire blog post to it?

Why indeed? I wonder.

What does the zero denote?

Several things. For one, it is the answer most unsuspecting IITJEE aspirants tick in an OMR sheet, hoping that to be the correct option and then wonder what went wrong. For another, it's the thing that comes back on your answer sheet, in red ink when you submit a blank one. For yet another, it is the thing which when added at the end of your paycheck, increases your worries ten-fold.

To the chemist, the concept of Absolute Zero, the theoretical temperature at which all thermodynamic activity ceases, is of profound interest. To the physicist it is the hearing threshold in decibels, amongst other things which projects zero into its numero-uno status. To the computer science student it is the quintessential role zero plays in binary mathematics and Boolean algebra that makes it so very essential. And to the historian, the year zero is the fulcrum about which the Gregorian calender is pivoted.

To the mathematician ... lets not get into that.

So as you can see the zero is not only ubiquitous, but varied in it's application in the real world.

What else does it denote?

Simply put, another of its applications lies in its usage as a symbol for nothingness, as a symbol for voids, and emptiness. This application is possibly the biggest feather this beautiful number has in its cap, and the reason why it came to exist in the first place.

Which brings me to the thing I had in mind when I began writing this post.

Nothingness.

A queer thing it is. We know what it is, yet we don't understand what it means.

We seem made out of it, yet we fail to embrace it.

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust

We know that that's what is in store for us, yet we don't want it.

If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it; let us fight against destiny, even though without hope of victory.

It is that which is present everywhere, yet we fail to perceive it.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

One only needs to look at it the right way.

-- pondering --

Why the hell did I write all this? Forgive me if I've wasted your time all this while. I guess it's the post-Oasis hangover. Need to get some sleep.

PS : my backy shouts and tells me that SENSEX has gone down by 65 points. That's bad.

On a parting note, here's some food-for-thought.

cheers :-)