My Wailing Wall

"Delhi taught me confidence!"

2012-02-01T23:01:00.002+05:30

.. is such a paradoxical statement. For once one comes to live in Delhi, one realizes that there is no such a thing as "teaching" confidence. On a regular morning at the breakfast table one might even startlingly realize, that one either has confidence, or one doesn't. One might even come to find that said confidence somewhere around the corner, and simply pick it up, but confidence - one learns - can just not be taught. No predefined rules can be found, nor axioms be defined, which uniformly decide the levels of confidence of a person.

In other news, I would like to present to you a very peculiar idea, which seems to me to be on par with the only ever innovations in the fabric industry:
- the zipper, and
- the buttonhole.
Now kiss (In other words, why not mix the two?)! I present to you, the Zipton (c). Imagine, if you can*, two ends of cloth so adjacent to each other as to facilitate the usage of either the zipper or the button flap, or both!

ʘ_ʘ

The mind boggles!

*If you can indeed imagine such an arrangement, please do approach me. I have a business proposition for you.

And it Happened...

2011-12-19T01:21:00.004+05:30

So. I think I remember the night now. The night I cried for the fate of the Telugu Language, the night I came to know about the concept of dubbing, and the night that forever changed my perspective of Telugu movies. I'm willing to bet the movie was one of the classics of those eras, either Gharshana or Maro Charitra or some such like, and I distinctlyremember this, crying to my little self at that time, "but I am only 5 years old!'' And here's why.

We were returning from seeing the movie at the town theatre, and were going back to our village. In a tonga, mind you, because autorickshaws hadn't yet hit the scene by then. I AM that old. It was me, my mother, my aunt her sister, and probably my brother and two or all three of my cousins. And the discussion had turned to how well the dubbing was done, or instead how well the other movie had been dubbed! and so on. Intrigued that they were talking about the same movie that I had just seen, and not understanding what exactly, I asked innocently what dubbing was. And I was explained at that age, how movies were dubbed, remade, and essentially copy pasted onto another Language. My simple mind couldn't have understood then, but what I suspect I found aghast, at even that tender age, was the idea that Languages and Cultures weren't one-to-one in the aspect (relation) of influence they have on each other. I couldn't comprehend. Why would we need to steal ideas from other cultures or languages? Couldn't we make our own Telugu movies so well? What could we be lacking in, that would lead us to consider other languages greater than our own? I was outraged. I wept. I wept for Telugu, the Language and the Culture both, the latter as especially manifested in movies.

I wept at the shredding of my innocence, and cried out mentally to the powers that be, ``but I'm only 5!'' Why would you do such a thing to me, universe? I wept so hard that I was relegated to sit beside the driver, as I was making too much of a racket inside the cab. Which is why that thought stuck to me, and even at 5 yrs, I was well made aware of my ingenue in matters concerning others than bats and balls. Which could probably also have contributed to my aversion towards all things concerning physical sports, but that is another story and I digress.

Putting that in perspective, I hope one can well understand why I have had a healthy distrust in both Telugu and Telugu movies until the age of 18, when I left home for the first time. Things have changed now, and I am a strong believer again in Telugu (both movies and the language), but that transformation has not come about overnight, nor easily. I have only come to understand later, the idea that a language's love is like a mother's love, nourishing and nurturing. Ironically after leaving home and motherland (AP). Or maybe not as ironic as all that, seeing as we all miss our moms only after leaving our homes.

And I have realized all this only now, when I am 27 years old, and tripping through old memories. Trying to make some sense of myself and my apparent contradictions. Yes, I do appreciate even dubbed movies now, only because I realize now that Languages and Cultures can never remain one-to-one, Geography permitting. Human indeed is a social animal, and the dubbing of movies from various mother tongues to hindi or vice versa*, is but as symbolic
in emotion as a friendly neighbour saying "Good Day!". To quote Donne clichedly,

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.''

Geography willing, no man or language or culture can remain an island, entire of itself. (Examples of untouched unexplored virgin native cultures come to mind, because they have remained resident in unexplored and remote islands). And so I come to understand that yet another facet of myself, that I had heretofore considered contradictory, was not really one. As I have a love/hate relationship with the language, so do I with the movies. The case remains though, of my love for English (both, language and movies), and what kind of a relationship I have with Hindi.

*Yes, I do not still consider Hindi a proper mother tongue. Hindi tongue seems to me to be but an amalgamation of so many different bols and urdu. Representative as may be of the people, as much a republic State is of all the states that reside in it.
**Some parts above are fictitious. :D

Of Opportunities, wasted and wanted.

2009-05-15T01:51:00.005+05:30

It's surprising, sometimes, how much one can learn in a span of a few minutes, from someone whom one has spent listening to for the most part of three years. I know this is true of most of my friends here who've spent time with Prof. Ranil N. Biswas, (especially the ones that gave him a farewell party tonight) that they are proud to have known such a distinguished personality, and regret that they might not ever meet him again.

Those who have known Prof. RNB, or was a student under him, need no introduction (By the way, this also includes the director of my current Institute, Dr. Rajeev Sangal). For those unfortunate few who have not known him, he is one of the few 'old world' teachers left. 'Old world' not in the sense of physical age, because I can dare say he is fitter than most of my friends, but 'old world' in the sense of the kind of vision, commitment, dedication, and satisfaction achieved from a work well done, or a life well lead, that is present only in the people of the previous generation. He has spent more than 40 years teaching, of which more than 30 years were spent at IIT-K, has served as the Director of IIT-K, and this is only his teaching career.

Here are excerpts from an informal gathering we had. These quotes are not verbatim, but they convey the meaning.

I haven't told this to many people, but one of the things I feel really proud about, is not my 4.0 CGPA at Berkeley, but the fact that I could show them an Indian could do it. An Indian is 'no worse' than them.

I had to do a course from the Physics department, to fill my credits. This was taught by a Nobel Laureate in Physics, to the brightest students in physics, and I had to hold my own against them.

One of my moments of crowning glory, was this: The Nobel Laureate was a panelist in my thesis review panel, and when I went to him to get my thesis reviewed, he said "You are from the Electrical Department? But you stood second in my class! And the one who stood first was from the Physics Department!" He was surprised to believe someone from outside the Physics Department could do so well.

One of the things I cherish the most, is that my students remember me even after some 30 odd years. Even now, whenever I meet some of them, they arrange get-togethers, much like you did. That is something that will always give me pleasure.

I had never ever thought I would end up in teaching one day. I was even convinced that would be the last of my career options.
One cannot 'learn' teaching. Teaching is like acting. Either you can do it, or you can't. One has to have an aptitude to do such things. That is why I always say, if you really want to do something well, you need to first really like doing it.

The only reason I took up a PhD was that was the only way I got to see America in those days.
Who else had the funding?

He is one of those very few people who know how to do a thing well, and are content in the knowledge that they have done their best to do it well. When asked why he didn't pursue 'research', he said that he had made his choice long back. "There were very few people who wanted to improve the quality of the teaching, or the teaching material, or the course structure and such things. I thought I could do it, and went ahead and did it."

He has a zest for life. He has been to most of the developed countries, loves to blaze away in fast cars (his top speed was 100 mph, which he achieved both in the US and in India), loves to play sports (he still plays table tennis), and still maintains working hours that rival the best of workaholics.

Like I said, it is surprising how much one can learn from just one night spent with such a man, when one had all the opportunity to do it for four long years. With a mixed sense of awe, respect, gratitude, and humility, I say thank you, sir, for giving us this opportunity.

idigO BhadrAdree gautami adigO cUDaMDee

2008-12-16T17:13:00.011+05:30

E teeruga nanu daya jUcedavO

2008-12-16T16:56:00.009+05:30

E teeruga nanu daya jUcedavO (rAgam: mAyAmALava gauLa, tALam: Adi)

E teeruga nanu daya jUcedavO ina vaMSOttama rAmA
nA taramA Bhava sAgara meedanu naLinadaLEkshaNa rAmA |E teeruga...|

Sree raghu naMdana seetA ramaNA Sritajana pOShaka rAmA
kAruNyAlaya Bhakta varada ninu kan&nadi kAnupu rAmA |E teeruga...|

krUra karmamulu nEraka cEsiti nEramuleMcaku rAmA
dAridryamu parihAramu sEyave daiva SikhAmaNi rAmA |E teeruga...|

vAsavanuta rAmadAsa pOShaka vaMdanamayOdhya rAmA
dAsArcita mAkaBhayamosaMgave dASarathee raghu rAmA |E teeruga...|

ఏ తీరుగ నను దయ జూచెదవో (రాగం: మాయామాళవ గౌళ, తాళం: ఆది)

ఏ తీరుగ నను దయ జూచెదవో ఇన వంశోత్తమ రామా
నా తరమా భవ సాగర మీదను నళినదళేక్షణ రామా | ఏ తీరుగ ...|

శ్రీ రఘు నందన సీతా రమణ శ్రితజన పోషక రామా
కారుణ్యాలయ భక్త వరద నిను కన్నది కానుపు రామా | ఏ తీరుగ ...|

క్రూర కర్మములు నేరక చేసితి నేరములెంచకు రామా
దారిద్ర్యము పరిహారము సేయవే దైవ శిఖామణి రామా |ఏ తీరుగ...|

వాసవనుత రామదాస పోషక వందనమయోధ్య రామా
దాసార్చిత మాకభయమొసంగవే దాశరథీ రఘు రామా | ఏ తీరుగ ...|

Indic font support in Firefox 2.0 on Linux

2008-05-21T05:26:00.003+05:30

This is bad news. I just found out that even though my FC6 distro supports Telugu (and other Indian) language pack(s), the Firefox 2.0 browser's giving some problems. Apparently for correct rendering of Indic fonts, Firefox should be precompiled with pango enabled (the --enable-pango flag should be set during compilation of the source). But mozilla doesn't prefer enabling it in its builds, which is fine, as long as it provides regular src rpms. But finding src rpms for Ff 2.0 isn't easy (finding regular rpms itself is difficult, I don't understand why mozilla doesn't provide rpms for Ff 2.0), and even though I did (35.8 MB at 20 kBps), apparently there are other prerequisites which i'll have to hunt down using apt-get or yum. And then there are other issues i might have to take care of too, which i don't understand for the worth of me.

Bottom line: I thought of writing a telugu post, but can't right now. :(

Edit: I'm back to using Ff 1.5 (had to format the prev. installation :-/ ) build which comes with the distro itself, which does support pango. And since Ff 3.0 is gonna be out tomorrow, I needn't bother upgrading to 2.0! yay!!

విధాత తలపున Vidhaata talapuna

2008-02-26T11:42:00.012+05:30

చిత్రం: సిరివెన్నెల Movie: Sirivennela; సంగీతం: కె. వి. మహదేవన్ Music: K. V. Mahadevan;
వేణువు: పద్మ విభూషణ్ హరిప్రసాద్ చౌరాసియా పండితులు Flute: Padma Vibhushan Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia
గాయకులు: ఎస్. పి. బి. మరియు సుశీల Singers: S.P.B. and Suseela;
సాహిత్యం: (సిరివెన్నెల) సీతారామ శాస్త్రి Lyrics: (Sirivennela) Sitarama Sastri;

విధాత తలపున ప్రభవించినది అనాది జీవన వేదం ఓం ...
ప్రాణ నాడులకు స్పందన నోసగిన ఆది ప్రణవనాదం ఓం ...
కనుల కొలనులో ప్రతిబింబించిన విశ్వరూప విన్యాసం
ఎద కనుమలలో ప్రతిధ్వనించిన విరించి విపంచి గానం ...

సరసస్వర సురఝరీగమనమౌ సామవేద సారమిది
నేపాడిన జీవన గీతం ఈ గీతం
విరించి నై విరచించితిని ఈ కవనం
విపంచి నై వినిపించితిని ఈ గీతం

ప్రాగ్దిశ వీణియ పైన దినకర మయూఖ తంత్రులపైన
జాగృత విహంగ తతులే వినీల గగనపు వేదిక పైన
పలికిన కిలకిల స్వరముల స్వరజతి జగతికి శ్రీకారము కాగా
విశ్వకావ్యమునకిది భాష్యముగా ... || విరించినై ||

జనించు ప్రతి శిశు గళమున పలికిన జీవన నాద తరంగం
చేతన పొందిన స్పందన ధ్వనించు హృదయ మృదంగ ధ్వానం
అనాది రాగం ఆది తాళమున అనంత జీవన వాహినిగా
సాగిన సృష్టి విలాసములే ... || విరించినై ||

నా ఉచ్ఛ్వాసం కవనం - నా విశ్వాసం గానం ||సరసస్వర ||

The Wheel of Time

2008-02-17T00:14:00.009+05:30

or Kaalachakra, as is known to Indic Religions, is a concept of cyclic time, of cosmos and mythos. It is also a fantasy (specifically, sword and sorcery subgenre) series by Robert Jordan, spanning 11 novels, and what is more, still incomplete! :(

Damn! why did Robert Jordan have to die so early? He could atleast have lived enough to complete his magnum opus. But then again, the Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills. Which is the adage that the inhabitants of Robert Jordan's world live by. It brings to mind a common Telugu adage: "Antaa Vishnu maaya".

A basic premise that the world of the Wheel of Time is built upon, as is obvious from the very title, is that Time is cyclical. The Wheel of Time has seven spokes, each representing an Age (which again is reminiscent of the Hindu concept of Yuga), and the Wheel itself is slowly turned by the combined effort of saidin and saidar, the male and the female halves of the One Power. As the Wheel rotates through the Seven Spokes, the Pattern is woven, and each Age comes to pass. Individuals may or may not have the ability to channel the One Power, which in turn leads to the individual being capable of fantastic feats. Females can channel only saidar, and males respectively saidin, and each cannot see the weaves of the others. Individuals while channeling the One Power weave the flows of the five elements, that is, Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Spirit. Weaving the flows in a particular pattern creates a particular effect. Although any individual who can wield the One Power can channel all the five flows, it is said that females are generally more efficient/stronger at weaving Water and Air, and males at Earth and Fire. Very few individuals can in fact wield the One Power, and especially fewer males, which leads to the general populus looking askance at these special individuals. Especially males, who are doomed to go mad and die, ever since the Dark One left his taint on saidin, the male half of the One Power.
So much to say magic exists.

One thing that sets the Wheel of Time world apart from other fantastic or sci-fi worlds is the fact that Robert Jordan carefully avoids giving this world a different name. Consider this, vis-a-vis the other major creation of Robert Jordan, Conan the Cimmerian. Or as is better known by the name Conan the Barbarian (yes yes, the same B-grade flick which stars Arnie... I know what you're thinking, you pervs... ). Conan hails from Cimmeria, a polar country in Hyboria. As much as the map of Hyboria is verisimilar to that of Africa and Asia, it still is Hyboria, which by virtue of its name is not the same as our earth (more on this shortly). Consider other fantasy world creations, and you will most probably find a name they give for the planet/world they live in ("they" here being the creatures/people about whom the fantasy creation speaks of). Or, as is also widely prevalent, the creation is set in a timeline which is either far into the future of our current time, or has happened in the past of which no evidence remains (Hyperboria is a case in point: Its geographical setting is the same as the earth, but is supposed to have happened around 14,000 B.C - 10,000 B.C. ) Or as in the cases of The Chronicles of Narnia and Artemis Fowl, parallelly co-exist with our regular conception and perspectives of the world. The world of Wheel of Time is different in this sense: since it is based on a cyclical time line, one can never say whether the events occur far into the future or have occured already. Yet, one can still draw parallels with our regular earth, be it in artifacts (like the steam engine, or the skeleton of prehistoric animals as mentioned in the palace of the Panarch of Tarabon), or socio-cultural revolutions (Industrial revolution), and such others. Which only adds to the mystery, and leaves the readers contemplating whether the world as we know it might not also be one of the seven Ages.

Mention is made of Ages which are technologically much advanced, (sho-wings, shock-lances, stasis boxes) although the people in the current Age rely to a great extent on their own hands and feet, on horse-drawn carriage and carts, and weaponry is still limited to bows and arrows. This fall in technology, and the very obvious difference of the geographical structure of the world (as compared to our continents), is explained by the Breaking of the World. A cataclysmic event, at the end of the Age of Legends (called the second Age by some), when Lewis Therin Telamon binds the Dark One at Shayol Ghul, and as a last counter-attack, the Dark One taints saidin, which leads to Lewis and all the male Aes Sedai going mad. In their madness, the male Aes Sedai wreak havoc on the world, and even the geography of the world is changed, raising mountains from lake beds and submerging lands under the sea. So now in the Third Age, everybody looks at male wielders of the One Power with disgust, fear, loath, and other dark thoughts. For who was it that broke the world? And everybody knows they are doomed to die, as saidin is tainted. But then, the Dragon Reborn, a man who can channel saidin, is the only hope of salvation for people, as Tarmon Gai'don, the final battle, approaches. Or atleast so the Dragon Prophecies say. A man who can channel saidin, a man looked down upon by the female Aes Sedai, a man loathed by many, a man feared by all. Will he rise to the occasion? Will he save these same people? How will he do it, when he himself is fated to go mad and die?

The Wheel of Time is said to be High Fantasy, an epic saga of the battle between good and evil, and the "epic"ness of this saga not only comes from the setting and the premise mentioned above, but also due to the level of detail that the author portrays the peoples of the world. Each country has a significant culture, a significant fashion sense, and sometimes even a significant manner of speech. The different peoples even have different physical characteristics of the human body. Short pale-faced Cairheinin, usually dressed in somber dark clothes, sporting only slashes of colours. Tall, dark, flame haired Aiel, with their cadin'sor and algode clothes. Even temperaments of the people are characteristic of the place they hail from. Touchy Altarans, secretive Cairhienin, and outspoken Andorans. This level of detail, of the peoples and cultures, adds to the richness and colour of the vivid imagination that is evoked as one reads through the novels. Not only that, each of the peoples have their own set of moral values, sayings and adages, that a child is brought up upon and invariably imbibes, which is probably the mould for the cultural leanings of that people. Another interesting diversity among people is the differing concepts of shame and modesty, of what is appropriate and what is not, of reality and dreams, of freedom and slavery, of humour and sobreity. The Aiel and Seanchan cultures are cases in point, and I feel that the concepts of da'covale and gai'shain are probably related. Although this portrayal of cultural and other diversities of the peoples is detailed in its own way, it is probably lacking in one major aspect, that of language. One has to agree that creating different languages for different countries, given that there are more than a dozen of them, is particularly tasking and the effort may not be fully justified. But having the same language for all the peoples of such a huge continent, however convenient it may be for the author, cuts down on the behavioural differences and a lot of other aspects. Also, the Old Tongue is never explained fully, and one only has bits and pieces to contend with. This is probably due to the fact that Robert Jordan was much more interested in history rather than linguistics. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a linguist and that might have had a larger influence with the popularity and the quality of his novels, than his mere skill at writing stories. Also, Tolkien writes primarily in the third person, and manages to create a sense of detached awe and respect, as it were, whereas Jordan almost continually slips into the first person, which only makes the novels that much more earthy, bawdy, and closer to the heart.

Apart from the diversity of the peoples, one aspect which is especially endearing to me is this sub plot which runs constantly throughout almost all of his books: the apparent difficulty with which men and women have to put up with when dealing with individuals of the opposite sex, especially the ones they care for and are close to. All men agree that they'll never understand women, and all women are contemptuous at why men have to behave so and so. This constant rift, this friction, is almost always given a sarcastic or a humourous twist, and inevitably makes me chuckle at the stupidity of either sex, while at the same time has me ruefully acknowledge that our real world is not very different. How many ever times one hears it said that "talking and opening up to the other" helps in dealing with issues, some things just can't be talked about, and they are not the same things for both the sexes. Wherein lies part of the difficulty. The greater part of the difficulty is simply acknowledging that the other person is correct, if only for a moment, and this is brought out beautifully in the novels.

Another observation that I feel compelled to point out, is this: the novels often get repetitive, as if reminding the readers of the character's temperaments or the views of a particular group of people. I personally feel this is very unnecessary, completely redundant, and only adds to the total length of the novels. These personal views might also have been evoked due to the fact that I have read all the novels back to back, which might not be the case with the general public. Maybe, just maybe, the general public do not read all the novels back to back, and may need to be reminded of particular events/places/thoughts/characters, though it is beyond my imagination why the general public would NOT read all the books back to back. Atleast now, that all the books have been released. In my opinion, as most of the books have less than 500 pages, sets of these books should be aggregated into volumes, and redundancy/repetitive information should be removed from these books. Four or five larger volumes make for a better reading than eleven smaller novels. And frankly, the story and the plot is gripping enough to merit such an aggregation.

Yet another important concept worth mentioning, along with the dualities between good and evil, man and woman, saidin and saidar, is that of the Pattern and Chaos. The Dark One is said to be the Lord of Chaos, and the Creator is said to have created the Wheel of Time which weaves the Pattern. This duality between Pattern and Chaos is almost synonymous with the duality between good and evil, and reminds me of another epic fantasy series, Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber. These (set of) 10 novels are based on a different premise, but the central structure is the Pattern, and that which opposes it, the Chaos. One singular difference is that Zelazny rarely attributes "good" or "evil" connotations to either the Pattern or the Chaos. In the Wheel of Time, though, the Dark Lord is attempting to unravel the Age Lace, and step out of the Pattern, thus putting an end to Time itself. What is the Age Lace? That is rarely mentioned in the novels itself, since very few people even understand it now. A lot of knowledge and a lot of technology was lost in the Breaking of the World, and the Aes Sedai that have survived are but a mere patch on the former glory and achievements of the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends. Also briefly mentioned are matrices and transformations, in relation with the Age Lace, although never explained. A lot of such things are left to the reader's imagination, which also makes up for the mystery effect.

To set the die rolling, I would like to end this post with the characteristic signature of every book of the Wheel of the Time:

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

దేశ భాషల౦దు తెలుగు లెస్స

2007-10-02T18:11:00.000+05:30

చిన్నప్పటి ను౦చి నాకు ఆ౦గ్లము అ౦టే వ్యామోహము ఎక్కువే. స్కూలు లో కొత్త తరగతి మొదలకుము౦దు పుస్తకాలు కొన్న పిమ్మట నా మొట్టమొదటి కార్యక్రమము ఏమనగా ఇ౦గ్లీషు టెక్స్టుబుక్కు తీసి కథలు అన్నీ చదివేయటము. పాఠాలు మొదలు పెట్టే మునుపే చదివేయటము నాకు భలే ఆన౦ద౦ కలిగి౦చేది. కాకపోతే ఇది ఇ౦గ్లషు సబ్జెక్టుకు మాత్రమే ఉన్న ప్రత్యేక స్థాయి. (తక్కిన సబ్జెక్టులకు కూడా ఇ౦త శ్రద్ధ పెట్టి చదివి ఉ౦టే ఇప్పుడు వేరే పరిస్థితులలో ఉ౦డేవాడి నేమో!) అసలు తెలుగు రమణీయత లావణ్యతల గూర్చి వివరిస్తూ శ్రీకృష్ణదేవరాయలు వారు వాడిన పదములను ఈ పోస్టుకు పేరు పెట్టి, తెలుగు భాషలోనే వ్రాస్తూ, మధ్యలో నాకీ ఆ౦గ్లమునకు ఉన్న స౦బ౦ధము పై ఎ౦దుకు ఆలోచిస్తున్నానని మీరు అడగవచ్చు. అ౦దుకు కారణము ఇది: ఆ ఇ౦గ్లీషు పుస్తకాలను పట్టిన రోజులలోనే నాకు అర్థమయ్యి౦ది ఏమిట౦టే చదవటానికి ఇ౦గ్లీషు కన్నా తెలుగు కష్టము. వ్రాయటానికి కూడా నాకు ఆ వయస్సులో ఇ౦గ్లీషుకన్నా తెలుగే కష్టమని అనిపి౦చేది. (ఈ వయస్సులో ఇ౦క టైపి౦గు అలవాటు అయ్యిన తరువాత అన్నీ ఒకటే లేన౦డి...) పైగా ఇ౦గ్లీషులో నా తోటి విద్యార్థులతో పోల్చి చూస్తే నాకు మ౦చి మార్కులే వచ్చేవి. ఈయీ కారణాల వల్ల నాకు సహజముగానే తెలుగు కన్నా ఇ౦గ్లీషు పైనే ఆసక్తి కలిగెను. ఎ౦త ఆసక్తి కలిగెన౦టే మన తెలుగు స౦స్కృతి, మన తెలుగు భాష, సాహిత్యము, సా౦ప్రదాయములను చూసి, అర్థము కాక నీరసి౦చెను. ఇ౦దుకు ఇప్పుడు బాధ పడుతున్నానా? కాబోలు. వేరేలా ఉ౦టే బాగు౦డునని అనుకు౦టున్నానా? కొ౦చె౦. మరి ఇన్నాళ్ళ తరువాత ఒకేసారి ఇ౦త అకస్మాత్తుగా ఈ మార్పు రావటానికి కారణము? మొన్న వచ్చిన నా స్నేహితులు. నాకు ఇన్నాళ్ళుగా సాహిత్యము అర్థము కాక పోయినా పాత తెలుగు పాటలు అ౦టే ఇష్టము వు౦డేది. ఐతే మొన్న వచ్చిన స్నేహితులు వివరి౦చిన తరువాత నాకు తెలిసి వచ్చి౦ది ఇన్నాళ్ళుగా సాహిత్యాన్ని అర్థము చేసుకోలేక ఎ౦త అ౦దాన్ని కోలిపోయానోనని.

అరే అసలు శ్రీశ్రీ (శ్రీర౦గ౦ శ్రీనివాస రావు) వారి పద్యాలు నాకు అర్థము కావు. సిరివెన్నెల సీతారామ శాస్త్రి వారి పాటల సాహిత్యము అర్థము కావు. వేటూరి ఎవరో తెలియదు. ఆత్రేయ ఎవరో తెలియదు. వీరేశలి౦గ౦ ప౦తులు అ౦టే ఆరవ తరగతి ను౦చే చికాకు (పెద్ద పెద్ద లెస్సన్సు ఉ౦డేవి, కష్టమైన ఆన్సర్సు బట్టీ పట్టాల్సి వచ్చేది ఈయన వల్ల). ఆ చిన్న వయస్సులో సమాజాన్ని దిద్దిన్న వారి గురి౦చి తెలుసుకుని ఏమి ప్రయోగమని అనిపి౦చదూ? గురజాడ అప్పారావు వారి నాట్యములు సరేసరి. ఏదో నా అదృష్టము బాగు౦డి బాపూ బొమ్మలు మాత్రము చూసి తరి౦చగలిగాను. ఇక గాయినీ గాయకుల౦టారా... జానకి ఎవరో తెలియదు . సుశీల ఎవరో తెలియదు. ఘ౦టసాల వారి పేరు, గొ౦తు వినక తప్పదు గాక తెలుసు. ఇది నా appreciation of telugu culture. అవును, నాకు సిగ్గు గానే వు౦ది. కాని ఏమి చేయను? ఇ౦త ఆలస్యముగా తెలుసుకున్నా, ఈ మహానుభావుల జీవిత చరిత్రలు ఎ౦దుకు ఇ౦త ప్రకాశిస్తున్నాయో కొ౦చెమైనా ఇప్పుడు అర్థమవుతు౦దని ఒక చిన్న సాటిస్ఫాక్షను.

ఇప్పటికి కూడా నా భావాలు/అభిప్రాయాలు/ఆలోచనలు/ఉద్దేశ్యములను ఇతరులకు తెలియజెప్పటానికి నాకు సులువైన భాష ఆ౦గ్లేయమే! ఎన్నో తెలుగు పదాలకు అర్థములు తెలియవు. ఎన్నో అర్థములకు తెలుగు పదాలు తెలియవు. ఉదాహరణకు spelling అన్నదానికి తెలుగు పదము ఏమిటి? ప్రాణానికి ఫ్రణవానికి భేదమేమిటి? సిరివెన్నెల చిత్రములో గాన౦ "విధాత తలపున" లో మహదేవన్ గారి మ్యూసిక్, (music కి తెలుగు పదము మర్చిపోయాను! అ౦త గతిలేని పరిస్థితి లో ఉ౦ది నా తెలుగు!) హరిప్రసాద్ చౌరాసియా గారి ఫ్లూటు, ఎ౦త అద్భుతముగా ఉన్నాయో ఒక అ౦తటకు మెచ్చుకోగలను. కాని సిరివెన్నెల గారి రచన అసల అర్థము అయితే కదా!! సర్లే౦డి... నా బాధలన్నీ చెప్పుకోవటానికి ఈ పోస్టు కాదు కదా ఈ బ్లాగు సరిపోదు! ఇక సెలవు.

Vista and Microsoft's anti-competitiveness

2007-08-18T19:54:00.000+05:30

I'm no scholar nor historian in the age-old war between Microsoft and the Liberalists (or should I say - Librelists). But having studied and worked in decently technologically oriented college campuses, I do have an inkling about this rift. Call it adding fuel to the fire, or what you will, here I add a few observations of my own.

Recently, a friend of mine bought a laptop. Apparently, these days you do not get laptops with WinXP. More like, you cannot get laptops with WinXP. You can only get laptops (by which I mean branded ones, like HP Pavillion series or IBM Lenovo series, etc..) pre-installed with WinVista. Microsoft's first step, in pushing users towards Vista. This is not a business strategy. This is bonded labour. When you outsource Business Processing to oriental or indian trained labour markets, it is not bonded labour. That is business strategy, since on the one hand, IT companies get to reduce their costs, and Indian/Chinese/EastAsian employees are salaried in dollars, and everybody's happy. What Microsoft's pushing, though, is not a business strategy. Because the users take a hit. They have to pay extra, for something they don't need, indeed something they don't want. (Apparently, it'll cost more to even get the Vista removed from the laptop before buying it.)

Agreed, that Vista has a lot more capabilities and functional capacities than XP. But the customer bracket which includes my parents, like people who just started operating on computers just two to three years back, and would like to use computers solely for the purpose of chatting with their sons/daughters living abroad, clearly are not very adjustable to the change in operating systems. Especially when they can't really figure out the differences between a computer and an operating system, and verily, don't need to. And the customer bracket which includes those sons/daughters, who have studied in decently technologically oriented campuses, would clearly know the distinction between pests such as Microsoft Softwares and Free (both gratis and libre) Softwares. Sometimes I really am confused whether people buy Microsoft products because they like them, or because they're forced to. At other times, I'm confused whether Microsoft thinks its buyers really like its products, or perhaps it just sits smugly in the knowledge that people are forced to buy its products.

Coming to the motivation for this post, I noticed that once you install gtalk on Vista, all the browser links from gtalk open in IE, eventhough you've selected Firefox as your default browser. Investigating this issue a little more closely, I found that Vista has a different concept of a default browser. Infact, it has a different view of default programs. What used to be the "File Types" tab in the Tools->Folder Options dialog box, no longer exists in Vista. What used to be the "Set Program and Access defaults" has also been slightly changed. All this is now included in the Default Programs tool in the Control Panel, in Vista. With a twist. This twist being, even though Firefox is the default browser, it is not allowed to open files of type .mht, .mhtml, or .url. Why? Firstly, Firefox 2.0+ does not support mhtml. I really don't understand/know why. I'm illiterate in this area. So when i google it up, i come across an article on Wikipedia (where else?) saying that MHTML has something to do with internet mail extensions, and what i learnt in my fleetingly small attention span is that none of the current browsers are any good at supporting this thing. But the issue still remains. IE has the sole rights to .mht and .mhtml files, and you can't even remove it. You cannot even change the program associated with the .url files! I mean c'mon! they're just text files!! What is the sense in preventing, infact disabling the user from doing whatever he means to do? Isn't there the Vista's system restore and HP's backup files or restore schema to overcome any damage that the user might inadvertently do? I dunno. Call me uneducated and cavemanish, but all I see is Microsoft's monopoly. Coz when I tried to change the default program associated with each filetype, the Windows Explorer all of a sudden started acting up, and had to restart itself (thereby exiting Default Programs tool of the Control Panel). It might have been a bug, but does it really have to be activated only when one uses the Default Programs tool? That too to ensure IE is maintained the default program for three filetypes? As I've said before, sometimes I keep wondering...

Of n-dimensions and Euclidean distances

2007-08-17T23:04:00.000+05:30

This is more of an excercise in writing formulae on my blog than actually doing some math. But then again, who needs a reason to write equations?

Well anyway, there was this doubt that a friend asked me, which was put to the students by a prof in his class. We know that the Euclidean distance, between two points and in n-dimensions, is given by:

We also know that for any three points in 2-dimensional space, , , and , the Triangle Inequality holds, namely,

This is a well known result in Euclidean Geometry, and I'm loathe to go into the proof of this here. Now the question, was to find three points , and in 3-dimensional space, which violate the Triangle Inequality!

At first glance, one will easily see that even in 3-dimensional space, the three points will still form a triangle, and so the Triangle Inequality should hold. But how do we prove it? This is where geometric visualization aided me.

You see, in 3-d space, one has a lot more freedom to twist and turn shapes. Maybe it has to do with the degrees of freedom, which I never understood clearly. In 2-d, all that one can do with a shape, say a square, is to translate, rotate, or scale it. Put it in more layman terms, you can put the square at any place on the paper, turn the paper whichever way, and even shrink or expand the paper. Translation is possible in two directions, and rotation in only one ('coz , which basically says that rotating anticlockwise is the same as rotating clockwise through a larger angle). All this, while still retaining the properties of the square. In 3-d, on the other hand, all that one can do is still essentially the same, translate, rotate, or scale it. But here, you can translate or rotate in 3 different directions (unlike 2-d, rotation is possible in 3 directions, since rotations in different directions are not commutative).

I'm pretty sure all this previous paragraph would give a sore headache, to any layman. What I've put forward, in not-so-informal terms, is the justification for the following transformations:

Translate the origin to , thus making , and .
Rotate the axes, such that lies on the x-axis, thus making , and .
Rotate the axes, such that lies on the xy-plane, thus making .

All these transformations are perfectly legitimate, in the sense that the relative positions of the three points do not change. But by doing this, we notice that we've transformed our axes such that all three points now lie on the same plane (the xy-plane here). The truth is that the three points always lay on the same plane, ('coz any three points in 3-d lie on a plane) but we've shifted our axes such that this plane became our xy-plane. In any case, I claim that these three points are the same as three points in 2-d space, since I've reduced the component of all of them to zero. And we know that the Triangle Inequality will hold for any three points in 2-d space.

Thus we see, that the Triangle Inequality should indeed hold for any set of three points in 3-d space as well. And so the original question now takes a further leap: Will the Triangle Inequality hold for any set of three points in n-dimensional space? With the help of reasoning similar to the one above, I claim yes!

Key concept used: Any set of n points in n-dimensional space lie on the same (n-1)-dimensional hyperplane. Is this really true? you tell me :P

Locked and Loaded!!

2007-06-29T14:02:00.001+05:30

First of all, it should be loaded and locked. Seriously, how can you load it once it is locked? But then again, English is as weird as a language can get, so I won't mind. Now here's the scenario: I have to shift my room, luggage and everything else from the fourth floor to the ground floor. And this is what happens, when there are too many locks. The story of three locks:

Lock 1: Owned by the hostel management, for the room no. 40, which was allotted to me newly.
Lock 2: Owned by me, for the room no. 396, the room which i was occupying.
Lock 3: Owned by Mahesh, for the room no. 44, of which a copy I was given. Coz let's face it, I lived in that room more than Mahesh.

Now the problem is to shift all the luggage from room 396, to room 40, using room 44 as a buffer, all by yourself, while ensuring that every room is locked when you are not in it. And of course, the end result should be that Lock 1 is given back to the hostel management, Lock 2 is now on room 40, and Lock 3 is still safe with you during all this ruckus. Oh and I forgot to mention, the luggage consisted of 7 fully loaded containers, ranging from as small as a dust bin to as big as a mountaineer's haversack. So you need to also ensure that you don't get too worn out while running up and down the stairs (yes stairs, you won't find lifts in Universities here...) while still having enough energy to carry that load.

So yes, i finally was able to juggle mattresses and buckets all the way down four floors, through cramped staircases, only to realise I forgot the keys to Lock 1 somewhere. :D typical me. Easy solution, use room 44 as the buffer, coz I wouldn't be losing the keys to Locks 2 and 3 in a hurry. And then retrace my steps to find that missing key, and resume the algorithm. I guess this is what they call a lock-step process. How I wish these transactions (or atleast the luggage) were atomic!

By the end, I had to whip out yet another lock, coz I had to lock room 4o, while handing over Lock 1. If everybody was as crazy as me, I guess we'd all be automatons, devoid of feelings and consideration for the poor readers of such nonsensical blogs. But then where's the fun, if you knew they didn't have feelings either?

My latest obsession

2007-06-28T21:54:00.001+05:30

ViManga (link: http://www.vimanga.ru ) is a huge online collection of many mangas. Some of them pretty good, but then again, they might not interest everybody... (<_<) Do visit this site, if you're interested in manga at all...

Regret

2007-06-28T06:43:00.000+05:30

I've done a lot of things till now that i'm not exactly proud of. But given a second chance, I'd probably have done the exact same things over again. Which gets me thinking about the choices a person makes. And the choices that make the person. Are my choices a direct consequence of who I am, my inner self, the Jungian psyche (more on Jungian stereotypes later...)? Or am I the result of the decisions that I have made? Do we have a choice in all this at all? It gets very confusing sometimes, when people talk about destiny. It's all very romantic to think that there's this superpower that governs your life, and that you'll eventually end up becoming the same thing no matter what you do. But that would defeat the purpose of living, doesn't it? On the other hand, what about things that happen in which you have no choice at all? Like natural disasters. Or or bolts out of the blue. Is there an answer to all this? We do make decisions and stick to our choices without thinking about all this stuff, and of course it's all a lot easier to do it that way. But what if you do realize one day, that beyond all doubt, there is this destiny or fate which governs your entire life. Will that stop you from making choices? On the other hand, there you go, a normal person thinking about normal things, making decisions and choices based on rationale and the current circumstances, and you actually end up becoming nothing. Will that give you as much satisfaction, of being safe and secure, as opposed to what you would have become if you were an irrational impulsive freak obsessively following your own passions? And what if you don't end up safe and secure after all, even though you've made the correct (according to you) decisions all your life?

Should we be even thinking about all this stuff? The Vedas give an easy solution to all this:

कर्मण्यॆवाधिकारस्ते माफलॆषु कदाचन
karmaNyEvaadhikaaraste maa phalEShu kadaacana

basically saying that one should not think about the consequences of the action, but should perform one's duty. Then what is our duty? Oh no.. don't start that now. Go read the Bhagavad Gita (also available in your local language by now) and see if you understand the concept of कर्म, loosely put, "duty" in English.

So why am I quoting Scriptures here? Because I'd like to believe that age-old wisdom has been passed down to us, in the form of Scriptures (not only the Gita, Scriptures in all religions...), and that if you know how to search for it, all the answers lie in these Scriptures. Hell, even Schrodinger's concept of Quantum Mechanics is supposed to be influenced by them. In the meanwhile, before we understand what it means to read the Scriptures, we better do whatever we need to survive. It's a shame that Humanity, is simultaneously the cause and the effect of such wisdom. Or abstract thought. Call it whatever you wish. Humans will be humans, they will breed evil and seek evil for all time, until the fear of Final Judgement looms really large and inevitable. Until then, that's all folks!

Three cheers for the Trinity!!!

2007-06-23T14:05:00.000+05:30

Abso-i'm so awed i don't have the words to put it right-lutely awesome!

the Trinity:

Scorcese, DeNiro, and Pesci.
Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino.

Just thought i'd mention them again, coz i just finished seeing Casino. You'd think you know how a typical Scorcese movie would look like, especially one that stars DeNiro and Pesci. And then you see one of these movies, and you get amazed all over again! The three movies are in three different eras: 1980, 1990, and 1995 respectively, and you'd think that should account for something. I mean maintaining that sort of chemistry over 15 years? No words.

The Fountain

2007-06-11T03:49:00.000+05:30

"Darren Aronofsky is a genius" seems to be the general opinion, from what few reviews i've read on the net. When I saw the movie "The Fountain", I couldn't get past the first few minutes without interruption. I couldn't understand what the movie was about, although I was certainly awed. And intrigued. I had to look up imdb to see what the movie was about, to convince myself to sit through the movie. And that was when I realized Darren Aronofsky, the director, was also the one who wrote and directed Requiem for a Dream. And Pi. That in itself was enough to convince me.

Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, Fountain of Youth, eternal life, Mayan creation legends, cancer, disease, death, fight for survival, medical experiments on monkeys, animal rights, space travel, bubbles, reincarnation, schizophrenia, yoga, the Lotus Position, Spanish Inquisition, treasure hunt, astronomy, the Xibulba nebula, yeast cultures, co-dependence, eternal quest. Some of the things that figure in the movie. And oh, by the way, there were no computer-based CG effects used, the awesome depiction of stars and nebulae was done by micro-photography of yeast cultures. And this is only what you see. What is meant to be understood, after seeing it, is still a mystery. Even after seeing the whole movie I still couldn't understand what the movie was about, except that it ended. And somehow, I was fulfilled. In Aronofsky's own words, "it's very much like a Rubik's cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end".

Open to interpretation. That's what I like about some movies, like the hindi one I saw the other day, "Life in a Metro". Seems to me that involving the audience, in the movie and its interpretations rather than in creating plot twists and story arcs, (such as taking online polls of what kind of story the public wants --- ouch!) is an integral part of critical success.

The rains are here!

2007-04-12T02:57:00.000+05:30

How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

As you run out into the street, droplets of rain lashing at you from every direction, you just can't help the smile that forms. You can't get rid of that innocent blissful grin on your face, even though you know it makes you look even stupider (if that was ever possible). You forget for a moment what you learnt was possible, and start to leap to a plane that is above everything. Petty comparisons, differences of opinions, little insecurities all vanish for a moment from your conscious thought, as you give up your hold on your body to those little wet needles that tingle you everywhere. You wish you could fly higher, so that no tree would be able to block the rain. You wish you could fly higher, so that you can see the thunder cloud much closer, and play with the lightning. You settle for something equally pleasing and equally stimulating, a walk in the rain. You think of all your friends who are missing out on these little joys in life, and pray for them. You think of all your friends elsewhere, who would be out dancing in the rain too, and wish that you were with them. You think of how rare it is to see the sun up and shining bright, when it is raining hard on your face. And then you search for the ever-elusive rainbow. And the pot-o'-gold at the end of the rainbow.

And when the rain leaves you alone, and the sun glaringly points this out to you, all you do is bask in the knowledge and hope that all is well with the world.

Theory

2007-04-01T22:06:00.000+05:30

What is a bit? Where did the notion of a bit come from? To understand such essential concepts one should truly understand Shannon's Information Theory. What is to be understood, is that a bit is nothing but a measure of information. Weight (mass?) is measured in kilograms, length in metres, and information (data?) in bits. The minimum amount of information that can exist is a bit. A bit contains information about a certain flag, as to in which of these states it lies: TRUE (1, high, on) or FALSE (0,low, off). How is this information sufficient enough to do anything with it? Because we already know what that flag was intended for. We only needed to store the current state of the flag, and hence the bit.

Notice, that a flag can exist in only one of two states, T or F. Nothing intermediary. This is the basis of Binary Logic, Binary arithmetic and etc.. Arithmetic to the base 2. Why do we use only base 2 arithmetic? If we could store states 0, 1, 2, ... 9 in a "dit" (a decimal bit), we would obviously need a lot less number of dits to store the same information than the number of bits. So why is the number 2 sacred? Why does every computer use Binary logic instead of Decimal logic? The answer to that lies in material sciences. We have transistors that can work in between two electrical levels. Each of these electrical levels (, , VDD/VCC, etc.. ) can represent only one state, so there can be only two states represented by the transistor. And besides, arithmetic that can be done with any base can also be done with base 2. In other words, Decimal logic, is no more powerful (in terms of calculational possibilities) than Binary Logic. Hence the whole idea of Flip-Flops, etc.

Why am i talking about bits and pieces? What is the whole picture here? Basically i wanted to talk about "Qubits". Quantum Theoretic equivalents, of the Information theoretic bit. When we said any dits or other-its are as powerful as bits, why are we talking about these qubits? coz they come under a wholly different category. A qubit can exist in infinitely many states!

eh? what does that mean?

Think of an electron. It has spin angular momentum, according to our highschool physics text books, of either or . Let us represent the spin with say 0 and spin with 1. These states are mutually exclusive, in that no electron can exist in both these states at once. But what is interesting, and what is not taught in high school text books, is that an electron can exist in a combination of these two states! But hey! Didn't we learn that spin angular momentum of an electron was only either ? Now what's this about combination of states? Ahha. There in, lies the secret of the principle of Superposition.

What is not apparent at the first glance, is that outcomes of an experiment may not indeed tell you everything about the state of the system before the experiment. What I'm trying to say, is that we (meaning most computer scientists and almost all engineers) are so used to the black box approach, that we assume we know everything about a system and the states it might have been in, once we know the inputs and outputs through that black box. Maybe, this is not true in the Quantum world. Or is it? I really don't know. What I do know, is that we can never really say that an electron was in such a place in such a time (remember? Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?). When you can't even say that, or the direction in which it is spinning, how can we say whether it had a positive or a negative spin angular momentum? What in fact happens, or is theorized to happen, is that electrons might be spinning in a mixed state. Meaning they have a little of and a little of spin. But the moment we try to measure which of these it has, the state "collapses" to either one of them. Imagine a vector , which is neither completely a real number, nor completely a non-real number. But the moment you take a projection of this vector along one of the axes, the vector "collapses" to its component along that axis. This is how I understood what happens, when an experiment is done. The state of the system collapses to the observed state. But there is a difference to be noted, which might be the difference between a classical system and a quantum system. In the case of the vector, we knew a priori the axis that we were going to project the vector upon. This is not the case with a quantum experiment. You do indeed observe either a or a spin only for an electron, but you can never tell which value the result of the experiment will be. So essentially, an electron before measuring its spin angular momentum is in a state that is neither of the observable states, but in fact, a mixture of both and a lot more. Which is what I mean when I say a qubit exists in infinitely many states!

Now having said all of this, I still am not really sure whether what I've written is anywhere even remotely near to the physical/mathematical/scientific reality that I proclaim to study! (What is it that I proclaim to study? Please... )

Is it really true? LaTeX??

2007-04-01T20:04:00.000+05:30

Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there? let's try this for instance:

This just adds a whole new dimension to my blogging! :D let's see if this works out now, after publishing....

OK, it works after publishing toO! but why don't LaTeX equations on other blogs show up? Anyway, interested people might find out more (instructions, prerequisites, etc..) from here, all credit due to this person.

Rings, Cycles, and Circles.

2007-01-22T21:16:00.000+05:30

Lost
Desperation
Confusion
Hope
Resolve
Ambition
Success
Complacence
Lust
Failure
Lost
Desperation
.
.
.

Collegesick :(

2006-12-12T01:45:00.000+05:30

long time since i last blogged. hmm.. i guess i do it every once in a while when i get too bored, or when none of my friends are online :P

so here's what's been happening lately:

Converted my MTech at IIIT to MS by research

Basically it means college gets to pay my tuition fees, and i get to write a thesis which, if good enough, is eligible for publication. A lot of ifs and buts, but i think i can do it if i get down to it.
Faculty guide Prof. Kannan Srinathan, simply an awesome person. You got to listen to his lecture sometime, just to see the wide range of topics he touches upon.
Have to find a topic soon enough, or i might get kicked out of the CSTAR lab :P

Took up a lot of interesting courses this semester

Computational Geometry, by Prof. Prosenjit Gupta, another mathematician i respect simply for the rigour with which he talks or writes maths.
Topics in Information Security, by Prof. Kannan Srinathan, and in his class, believe me he was touching upon how Information Theory and Gravitational Theory are related fields!
Artificial Neural Networks, by Prof. B. Yegnanarayana, google him up, and you will know.
Graph Theory by Profs Kishore Kothapally and Ch. Venkaiah, just for fun :D

Trying to get myself out from the potato couch i've been in all my life till now

Been going to swimming classes, but that somehow isn't working out. Can't get myself to even float!
Playing TT as always, and hope to improve upon, as soon as I buy my first Table Tennis bat. I'm still wondering whether to buy an Infinite or a GKI Kung-Fu, or a (sh*t. forgot the name of that company Gururaj told me about.. ). Guess I'll buy one as soon as i receive my first stipend deposit.
Planning on going to the gym. But if you know me, you must already know my umpteen number of plans. so, I'm not getting my hopes up too high :D

Should look into some of the topics being taught in classes

IAC and SC models (PDP models) in ANN class
Byzantine Agreement on Complete/Incomplete Networks with/without interaction
K-connectivity and Bipartite components in Graph Theory
Interval Trees, Range Trees, Segment Trees, etc in Computational Geometry

and first of all try and attend the lab meetings!! i dunno why i'm doing MS if i'm not attending Kannan sir's lab meetings.

And oh how can i forget this? Convocation for our undergraduate college batch is going to be held pretty soon, and i'm looking forward to bunking it! :D I have my own reasons, thank you.

guess that's about it. should give you an idea of how completely bored i am now! and oh yeah if you're wondering what the title's supposed to mean, it means feeling sick of college (ala seasick, carsick), as well as longing to go back to college (ala homesick). i simply had to say it...

Random Rantings

2006-11-07T01:42:00.000+05:30

Bored. Frustrated. Alone. what to do? update your blog!

Current Status:

Sarat Chandra Addepalli, age: 22 years.
currently pursuing Mtech, at IIIT Hyderabad.
single, and no hopes of changing that in the near future.

how uninteresting can a life get? you'll know, if you know me. Passions, interests, none. Aim in life, still not very clear. Views, thoughts and opinions on current issues: if the current is a/c, you'll die. I know. Bad joke. And that too not a very laughable one. I suck at socialising. I suck at making and keeping friendships. I suck at keeping promises. And it's a wonder how I've lived more than 20 years on this planet!

I know my life is much better than more than half the people on the earth. I know my problems are nothing compared to some of the problems others face in their everyday life. I know I'm much better off than most people. Yet, I crave for sympathy. And finding none, I pity myself. Fallen into a deep rotten pit. Along with my conscience, which mocks and jeers at me every second. I try to hit it hard, and subdue it, but that only makes the grin on its face much wider.

Enough with the pitiful self-pity. The other day, i was trying to think of an idea which involved Man, Machine, Cyborg, Robot, Conscience, Guilt, and such. And all I could think of was how complete the Matrix concept was. Somehow i can't go beyond the Matrix. It's like all possible scenarios have already been encoded in the Matrix (and the Animatrix), that one can't possibly think of a situation beyond it. But then again, that's just another way of saying I'm sorry, I'm unable to think. So how do you think, and come up with something that nobody has ever thought of before? And for those of you who have not much work to do like myself, may i suggest to you this site? Contains comics, essays, videos, anime, artwork and such addendum, some of which is very interesting, captivating even.

What is it that defines man, and differentiates it from all other species? is it thought? No. We have already proved that other creatures too are capable of thought. Is it conscience? How do we prove other animals are not self-aware? After all, they too have instincts honed over generations which help in survival. Then what is self-awareness? Simply put, I understand it as knowing that I exist. Then doesn't a dog know that it exists? How come? A dog knows when it is hungry, and it certainly knows affection. Any pet-lover will tell you that. I suppose a dog will also revolt, under extreme circumstances. Bees certainly do, when their hive is violated. So does it mean animals have a sense of belonging? A sense of what is theirs and what is to be protected? I think so, yes.

So what is self-awareness? I know i exist. Doesn't an animal know that it exists? Is that even possible? Interesting tidbit: Once upon a time, it was assumed that blacks were incapable of thought, and that they were inferior to humans. That they were used as a commodity is well known, that they were thought of as a commodity is plausible. There might have even been days when people did not consider blacks as people. And now we know better. So is it possible that some time in the future we suddenly realise that even dogs are much more intelligent than they seem? Or that indeed other species have a latent ability to be self-aware? I don't know. I'm not knowledgeable in areas such as this, and I do not know what are the studies that have been done. What I do know is that gorillas have successfully been able to understand limited speech, and even communicate with humans. So does that mean the better a species is able to communicate with humans, the more intelligent that species is? Like I said, lots of questions, don't know the answers.

Anyways, I was trying to lead up to this: in my opinion, the distinguishing feature that a human has, is individuality. The faculty of independent thought. The ability to live all alone, and not be bored at the same time. The ability to come up with different ways to represent knowledge and thought, in the form of languages and sciences. The ability to feel a wide range of emotions, yet be heartless enough to see a fellow human suffer. The ability to change lives of others, even when one doesn't know them. The ability to think something, say something else, and act completely different. Deceit, treachery, malice, pride, jealousy, envy. I wouldn't know if animals have such emotions, but i sure know humans have them. And the ability to wage a concerted civil war, when they feel their rights have been infringed upon. And maybe it is only after a war that a civilisation realises its mistakes. All this is what marks a man from an animal, his boon and his doom.

What if there is a new species that is much more intelligent, capable of processing much more information, stronger and swifter, but incapable of individual thought? what if all the thinking process is done in a Queen's brain, hidden inside a highly secure hive, and all the work done by drones controlled by the Queen? Does that make the species more intelligent than us? What if the Bugs rule our world in time to come, and subjugate humans and brand us as less than them, and thus lesser arthropodizens (like blacks were branded as lesser citizens)? And what if, that new species wasn't even a biological species, but a software bug that suddenly gained consciousness on some level, and started ruling (or rather controlling) all electronics, communications and power systems? Will that still make them a species? Will we have to listen to their electronic voices or messages in order to preserve our sanity? Or worse, our freedom? (The Queen could be a super-secret mainframe hidden deep inside a mountain range, a hive, ala Dan Brown's cultist defense organisations. I know it's cheesy, but i'm only stating what could be an electronic version of a Queen bee. Or it could be something like Resident Evil's Red Queen.)

Where does all this leave us? my question is, why do we feel so superior to other species? After all, we are just another species, which shall leave enough information for later species to delve out of our fossils. For all our bickering, we will still be outlived by the cockroaches. Doesn't that make them more intelligent than us?

Travelnologue

2006-06-24T09:44:00.000+05:30

Tips and suggestions on How Not to Travel

Disclaimer: No part of this following text is over exaggeration, unbelievable or impossible. All have been tried and implemented successfully, much to the dismay of the writer. Unless you want to look more like a fool than you already are, you are welcome to try these stunts. I promise you whole heartedly that none of these are dangerous or life-threatening.

Luggage:

Give yourself atleast half an hour to decide what to pack. This simple bullet has serious consequences on your whole travel plan, as we will see.
Do not unnecessarily overburden yourself. When you know you won't be wearing more than two pairs of clothes, do not pack three pairs. Else you won't have enough space to cram in a pair of formal shoes (why formal?) and a turkish towel.
Remove your clothes from the last trip from the travel bag. Otherwise the bag will stink. not everybody in this world has as forgiving a nose as yours.
Once you've decided what to pack, do not leave the actual act of packing till the last minute. This again will have serious consequences.

Tickets:

Do not depend on your dad's credit card for tickets. Else you will be tempted to book a flight to Hawaii or some other exotic place.
Do not depend on your dad's credit card for tickets. Else you will postpone booking tickets until the last minute.
Do not depend on your dad's credit card for tickets. Else you will recieve only an e-ticket. Which in itself is not dangerous, but will have its own complications.
If you are a lazy bugger like me, do with all due respect depend on your dad's credit card for tickets. It is the only way if you want to reach the venue of your interview (interview?) the next day.

Travel Plan:

As i've said earlier, book your tickets well in advance. If you haven't, well you always have your dad's credit card. And besides, if not for us, why do our dads have credit cards :P.
Before booking tickets online, decide first whether you want to book tickets by train or by flight. Very important. Do not confuse between trains and planes. One is a straight line, the other is a set of infinite lines. (Bad joke. what else did you expect?)
Rule out trains if you have to reach somewhere really far within a really short time. Rule out buses with the same reasoning. And besides, why would you go by bus if you could buy flight tickets on your dad's credit card?

The actual flight:

If you are flying, make sure you have already packed your luggage well before the time of departure. Remember, this is not a train. You cannot, i repeat cannot run after a plane.
If you are flying, make sure you are at the airport atleast half an hour before the time of check-in. Please note: half an hour before the time of check-in, not departure.
If in case you have made sure that you would be at the airport not later than half an hour before the time of departure, be ready for the full set of consequences:
1. Since you would have booked your ticket online, you will have to take a print out of your actual ticket at the booking counter.
2. Since you were planning to reach the airport by an auto-rickshaw, there is every chance that it will breakdown in the middle of the highway, requiring a minimum of half-an-hour of repair.
3.Since you planned to reach the airport only half an hour before the time of departure, there is every chance that you will miss the flight since the auto-rickshaw would have taken up the half hour for its repair.
4. And even if you did reach the airport just in time to catch the flight, the ticket counter might run out of pages to print out your ticket, or the boarding pass might take time.
5. By which time, the plane would have left, since you confused between a train and a plane. Believe me, you can't deal with infinite sets! (Prepare yourself for a string of bad jokes!)

The return:

Do not disappoint yourself that you have missed your flight. If there are more than 12 hours between now and the time you have to report at the venue of interview, (ah! so we were planning to go to an interview!) there is every possibility of finding a permutation-combination of flights that will take you to your city of destination. Simple. Dad's card, book tickets.
When you are booking tickets online, and you see before you a range of flights and travel plans, might as well book the most convinient one. Hoping that might save you some time.

The actual actual flight:

Armed with the experience of already missing one flight, you will resolve yourself never to miss another flight in your whole life. And since this being the most immediate flight, you will not miss it. I guarantee you. (In case you still missed your flight, now being the second time consecutively, can i use your frequent flyer's discount the next time?)
Always be polite with the flight attendants. The poor buggers, as it is they have to live with those plastic faces. Makes it easier if they see so many more plastic faces around them.
Do not expect to see beautiful air hostesses on Indian air networks. You have been brainwashed to believe air hostesses are beautiful. It is in your own interest to get rid of that misconception.
When you have nothing to do on the flight, do not play with the buttons overhead. I agree it is a lot of fun to see flight attendants running around just to realise it was a mistake, but you will not believe how they can wreck your life. As it is, there is enough tension in your life. (You are going to an interview remember?)
Even Domestic airports have arrival and departure areas different. Get that through your thick head. It is not the railways, where you wait on a platform for the next connecting train.
If you have to switch flights, make sure that you wait in a lounge where there is a TV available. Waiting for three hours in the middle of the night is not an easy thing, and you need more company than a sea of uninterested faces and a silly Su-Do-Ku.
Do not watch the TV, especially if it is an interesting match like the one between England and Sweden. I agree 89th minute equalisers are rare to come by, but so are Boeing-737's that would take you to HYD within two hours. you might just get caught up in one forgetting the other.
Remember, there is a possibility of a TV even after the security clearance. Do not believe that the waiting lounge outside is your only hope, and delay your security check unduly.
Hutch/Airtel cellphone recharge kiosks do not recharge Reliance cellphones (Duh!), although all are of similar Samsung make and model. There is a difference between similar and same. Infact, Hutch Samsung rechargers might just discharge a Reliance Samsung phone.

The second actual flight:

As i've said before, do not expect to see beautiful air hostesses on Indian air networks, especially when you're travelling the second part of the journey by the same airways by which you've travelled the first part of your journey. They don't change air hostesses overnight. (Who am i kidding? they do. infact they change air hostesses every flight. what i am talking about is that they can't make them beautiful overnight. like i said, expect the unexpected. bad jokes.)
Atleast mix and match airways for a better chance at getting beautiful air hostesses. (Aw god! Diablo's coming after me!! help!!)
If and when you are solving the lame-ass puzzles in the local newspaper they give you for free on the flight, do not switch on your reading lights when the cabin lights are off. All the reading lights achieve is to make you out as a centre of attention, and if you already have the quasi-serious absent-minded-prof look that i seem to have, you have every chance of being pounced upon by an equally hopeless looking flight attendant bloke. Worse still, they are so unobtrusive, that when a hand reaches out suddenly and says "Thou art mine" (read "That one's nine") you are forced to second guess the nature of flight attendants in general. I mean i truly wouldn't have minded if it was a female (i'd have been startled, true, but wouldn't have minded. me a gentleman afterall, with a heart after the finer essences in life.)
When you have reached your destination city safely, and while you still have time before the interview, do not sleep! First have a bath, get done with your daily ablutions, and shave for god's sake! Mark my words: after a whole night of hectic travelling and wasting your cell balance calling up ppl while on roaming, you are bound to be tired and bedraggled. It will show in the interview. Atleast have a decent shave while you have time. And as expected out of me, i slept.

The Interview:

Venue: Gachibowli, IIIT, Hyderabad. Somehow it never fails to remind me of the SuperBowl. I mean like i keep imagining that the Hi-Tech City with its rounded laced facade is in fact a huge bowl of cereal, like the ones they show on a Cap'n Crunch box. Lack of sleep does that to you. Hallucinations i mean.
When you don't know how to reach a place, rely on planes. When it is out of reach of planes, rely on auto-rickshaws. But do remember, you cannot use your daddy's card with the auto wallahs. Did i forget? you should have come armed with money to your neck. Else thou art doomed, my brother.
So armed with money, and relying on autos, go from point A (being your temporary abode of accomodation) to point B (being your interview venue) while preparing to pay point 1 K (meaning it takes 100 bucks! from Taj Krishna Dn to Gachibowli on auto, even via Mehdipatnam.) But remember, all this is in good faith. For thou wilt have reached thine Holy Grail in time, if all went well and you had change to pay the autowallah. Nobody has change so early in the morning (i'm talking about like 8:30 - 9:00 AM). Another valuable nugget of wisdom.

Brrr.......hufffff........Brrrrr........hufffff.......

". . . "

Huh? what? where? huh huh.. uh .. brrr.... huffff... brrr... hufff....

"Sarat Chandra Addepalli"

Somebody called me? was it you? no? oh well.. i musta been dreaming... back to my snoring...

"SARAT CHANDRA ADDEPALLI"

woah!!! dude, quit shouting already.... Here I am in my cousin's formals (oh yeah! formals of course!) since i packed three different pairs of clothes that I didn't need, and since I don't have the clothes that i'd need, and lemme get some sleep for i have travelled late all through last night without sleep, and nothing for company except SuDoKu and a stoopid crossword i couldnt make head or tail of. Give the guy a break! i mean...

Wish you could say that to your interview panel! But as fate would have it, i was dragged out of a seemingly drugged sleep into the depths of a desperate drama. (notice the effort i'm putting in, just to craft an alliteration. If you haven't already divined, this is not for your reading pleasure. this is for my writing pleasure. so please... :P) the actual interview. what was i asked? what did i answer? aw c'mon dude. we both have better things to do than discuss the details of a dead dodo. (redundancy. dodos are already extinct, so it is enough to say dodo instead of a dead dodo. redundancy is a tool that i think a language gives so that ppl like me can write worthless shit that ppl like you will read.)

The means of communication:

Hmm.. Guess i've already mentioned beware of airport recharge kiosks. maybe something there must have tampered something inside the simply unimaginable work of engineering that is my cell phone. Reliance Samsung CDMA phone, the world's slimmest CDMA phone is not slim without a price. The battery. With a very great tendency to discharge quite fast, especially when rapidly changing service areas, as is the case when travelling long distance, do not expect this particular species of phone to last your journey (even if it is not even 24 hours continuous) with only full charge at the outset. it needs more. it is a monster. and a necessary one at that. We'll see later why necessary.
Again, the Reliance Mobile network, proud to be one of the fastest growing cellular networks, is not without its share of drawbacks. For a cellular network that is hailed as one of the most technologically efficient and forward, i think it is a thing of shame that one cannot recharge the talktime balance when in roaming!! (recharge vouchers from AP are not valid for a cellphone registered with Gujarat, and there are only so many e-recharge centres).
Always carry along with you extra talktime recharge vouchers. They are of sublime importance. And do not look for them just before you board a flight in the night, coz that's the time shops generally shut themselves down.
Be warned that if you are in Hyd, with a Reliance cell phone on roaming, and no recharge card, you are in for a lot of trouble. As you go from Somajiguda Post Office to Panjagutta Police Station, you will not find even one RIM prepaid shop which will sell talktime recharge vouchers.
In times of such trouble, there is only one thing one can do. Bow to the almighty King! And thy shalt rise renewed. And recharged.

Roaming the city:

When in Rome, act like a Roman. Meaning the moment you ask a Hyderabadi auto wallah "enta?" (meaning "how much?" for the fare; one should keep in mind tariff meters still work in Hyd, not like in Vizag where you got to haggle) he will inevitably conclude that you are not from the city, and will take you for a ride. Both literally and metaphorically. So be prepared to be looted, if you have not the wits to act like a Roman in Rome.
Like i said, i'm a gentle man with a heart after the finer things in life. So i go to these mega crowd pulling shopping malls that lie in the centre of the city. Not to shop, dimwit. I'm a guy, not a girl. And eat overly priced pizzas that are just melting with cheese. You've got to admit it. the finer things in life are never cheap. They cost around Rs.150 for two.
When you are planning to leave in the evening, do not plan to watch a movie too. It is just fatal. I didn't. And so i missed my only chance of watching Krrish in Imax print :( .

The return journey:

Coming from a middle class family, and already having booked two airline tkts because of missing one, doesnt exactly guarantee that you will return by a plane again. In case you haven't planned your return even before you depart, you are pretty much in the same situation as I was two days before. Options left: only one. Bus. Unless of course you're willing to wait until you'd find a reserved ticket on a train back. But then it'd just be an extended unjustified holiday on my part, that too while absconding work at the college. So i booked Bus tickets.
If you don't plan your return journey carefully, you might have to travel around 1300 kms by bus. And since you've already wasted thousands, your conscience is always in your face, and you can't buy tkts in comfy Volvo buses or a/c coaches.
And since this requires more than 24 hours of travel by bus, it is near humanly impossible to travel non-stop. And besides, no bus service provides continuous shuttle from Hyd to Abad. So you have to go via Pune. And watcha gonna do in Pune for a whole day? Options open:

You could plan to walk and go sight seeing. Bad option ofcourse, coz incase you forgot, you are travelling the night by bus, and will have to the next night also, and you might need all the energy you're gonna get.
You could plan to rent a room and get some sleep, but only if you have a heart of stone. I mean if missing a flight and booking two instead of one isn't already enough, renting a room for a half-day would be the best way to melt your dad's plastic, and your conscience too.
Or you could just call up one of your good friends in Pune who is staying in a bachelor accomodation, and beg him to let you stay over for the day. While you're at it, might as well ask him where to get down in Pune. Don't forget this important tidbit. (Like you've already noticed, i simply can't resist saying "it can have serious consequences", but i do mean it!)

When you do board the bus, do not forget to tell the driver or his assistant to wake you up the next morning when your stop approaches. Coz unless you've developed a very keen biological alarm, or infact you're actually carrying one, you will in all probability sleep through till the bus, which was headed for pune, infact crosses pune to go god knows where!
Do not depend on your cell phone for an alarm, especially if it is of the model and make i've already mentioned, which has a very short lived battery time, especially when you're travelling long distances. Can't stress this fact enough. Coz in hope of saving battery, you might be tempted to switch it off during the overnight bus travel, thus depriving yourself of the sole alarm service. Or you might decide to let the cell phone be switched on, hoping it will wake you up the next morning, in which case it will (i guarantee you) get discharged, thus again depriving you of your alarm service. So, Do not depend on your cell phone for an alarm.
Do not be surprised and get alarmed, when you wake up the next morning, to realise you missed your destination. All you need to do, is to shell out ubeleivably extraordinary amounts of dough to yet another autowallah to let him get you from wherever the hell you landed up to the place you actually want to go. Might as well take an auto, seeing as you really are stupid enough that you can't get down from a bus right! (springs to my mind the infinite profundity of meaning articulated as follows by Bullet Tooth Tony: "Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity" ).
Infact, if you do miss your stop on the bus journey, congratulate yourself, coz now you would have learnt a valuable lesson in life: always inform the driver to wake you up at your stop the next day. Armed with this knowledge, (armed, yes, coz knowledge is power) you would do very well to swear never to miss your stop in a bus ever again, especially if the next bus journey would be that very night (remember? you've still got to get to A'bad! Just so sad that this never-ending journey from hell isn't finished yet!).
So when you finally get to your friend's place, thank your stars that you did infact reach where you set out to, with all of your luggage. (Oh did i forget to mention? PLEASE do check your luggage every time you get on or off a means of travel! there is always a chance you will forget something, seeing as you are stupid enough to attempt such an incredibly incredulous journey in the first place).
Bus journey scheduled for the night again? "yes". Do you have your tickets? "no". Then what are you doing? "mmm.. ??". Oh my god, do you still need somebody to tell you to buy your tickets on time? even after all this? Don't worry dude, i'm just like you. Been there, done that. Li'l piece of advice. Buy your tickets. So i did, and was pleasantly surprised that tickets were still available, even to A'bad, even just 6 hours before departure, even for a bus that departs at 4:00 in the afternoon in the scorching heat.
Time to kill till 4:00? Take my advice. Sleep it off at your friend's. Yeah right! easier said than done, so you might be tempted to spend some time at an internet cafe, just coz you're bored. Fine go ahead. Be warned though, of chatting, coz you might miss your next means of transport, while you're chatting. Especially if you're chatting with a very special person in your life. (Doesn't really matter if you've never met that person, or even if that person doesn't live in the same continent either, coz if that person's really important, you might just be tempted to cancel the bus journey just to stay chatting).
Again, to reiterate, a plane is not a train, and a bus is not a plane. If you plan to arrive at the bus station half an hour before the bus is scheduled to depart, you might find yourself waiting for a whole hour. (Yes, i can do math, the extra half hour's for the time it takes for an average indian "hi-tec" bus to actually start!). You can plan to arrive even just 10 minutes before departure. But in all probability, armed with all your experiences of missing modes of travel, you will arrive at the bus station a full half an hour before departure. Don't say i didn't warn you! Like i said, a bus is not a plane.
Also, armed with your experiences with a cell phone, you would have already recharged your phone at your friend's. Yet, you should resist the temptation to leave your phone switched on for the bus travel, coz there's only so much you can resist, and soon you might find yourself smsing the above said important person (coz unless you already missed this bus too, you must have abruptly finished your online chat conversation abruptly to arrive at the bus station earlier than was necessary). And believe me, even sms's do cost, especially when you're on roaming, and that too on a Reliance mobile network! Notwithstanding that it's an international sms in the first place! (Another not-so-important fact: Reliance group of companies was started by a banya. If you have not the heart to deal with and sift through the seamingly endless varieties of talktime services and offers, you might infact be being shortchanged!)

As an afternote, you might be pleasantly surprised yours truly did infact land the interview (much to his surprise) and is currently pursuing yet another two years of so-called technical "study" in the field of Computer Sciences. At IIIT Hyderabad, Gachibowli. (And yes, they do serve you cereal for breakfast here! hehe!). That only goes to show the exceptional brilliance that is me, or as is more proper, lack of it here at IIIT!

10th June 2006

2006-06-11T00:52:00.000+05:30

a memorable day. something happened that slightly changed two lives, seven seas apart. something happened, that changed the whole world. something beautiful.

have you ever found yourself wondering how come you are so absolutely happy, and why is the world so rosy? as i sit here in the high castle with the world at my fingertips, i can't but help smiling smugly! i did something that i've never thought possible. i came to believe in something that i've never thought possible. and now i think 'possible' 'impossible' are but labels that we've given things ourselves. all thanks to a soul i've never seen.

yogattaa... i'm happy! :)

Digital Denial

2006-04-20T13:51:00.000+05:30

As i sit here postponing my most urgent tasks so that i can sit here and do nothing, i can't but help thinking that the one thing i'll miss the most after graduating from this college will be its LAN. Around 3 to 4 TeraBytes of the most diverse media one can find to waste time on, is not something to be taken lightly. All genres of all digital media: be it movies, be it anime, music, e-books, TV series, games, whatever you want, we have it here. Or atleast we can, in theory. From the most sentimental, heart-rending to the most grotesque, gut-wrenching. From the most completely illogical and hilariously funny to the most genuinely involving and mysterious. Oscar winners, Grammy winners, Raspberry winners, Top 100, Bottom 100... you get the point.

Millions of megabytes of mind-numbing media. To waste time on, to ponder on, to pass judgement on. Or just lose yourself in. Imagine yourself waking up early one morning just to check whether this great movie you put up for download has finished yet or not. Or falling in love with this "simply too good to be true" music score. Or banging your head against the table so hard after you've read an e-book. None of these things is an exaggeration. I have seen this happen. In an age and place where we can't yet teleport to our most favourite country, we still have all the tv series or all the software that releases there... pirated. That, is again, a different issue. If one were to restrict all media on the lan to be strictly copyrighted versions, maybe there'd be total anarchy. Not so much because we have to pay for those things as much as because we just won't have that much media for so many people to gorge on. They'd become zombies, with pcs that don't have anything to show.

Or, on the other hand, they could make themselves useful. Like go out and play sports for a change. Or even read! No this is not wishful thinking. Try cutting out a student from his pc, and see what happens. He wont be able to bear it for a week. But after that, he'll realize there are other things which are actually much more useful. Like going to the lab and getting in touch with people and what's going on. Or go to the canteen and get some fresh air. Play some sports. Even library for that matter is not out of the question. Atleast he'll be OUT OF THE FRIKKIN ROOM!!! Which is asking a lot out of pc-addicts right now. Like me. The moment i get a pc, what do i do? Login to Orkut. Of all the most lowly, desperate-attempt-to-get-attention tactics, i login to Orkut. And logout within 5 minutes, just to login three or four more times in the day. Why? because i don't want to do anything else. Because this was fun. Because this doesn't need you to do any work. Because this is an easy way to waste time, without having to think on what to waste. Because this way, i don't need to think about the most pressing issues in my life. Because i can live in denial peacefully. Which I'm guessing is the situation with most people in the hostel. Bear in mind, i'm not being judgemental or evangelist. I'm just stating what's with people these days.

And the digital media is just as good a place as any to live in denial. Somehow, this scares me. What did we set out to do, and what did we become? Even a failure is not as bad as one who totally denies that he didn't win. Or that he didn't try in the first place. And the reasoning behind this is that "because i didn't try, you can't really say i lost". That is really sad.

Is it just me? or is it really that there's sadness everywhere? Maybe it's the graduation blues, maybe its the project deadlines. Or is it just that everyone's so dissatisfied with what they've done/didn't do that they've become just sad shells of once energetic and colourful lifes? Or am i plain turning paranoid? I don't know. Another thing i don't know is why i post so many questions on my blog as opposed to answers to some of the things.

Try an interesting question: Ten years from now, looking at a person, will you be able to tell whether you've seen that person in college, as opposed to say recalling whether you've seen a particular movie in college? I know i'll remember more movies than people. Atleast whether i've seen a movie as opposed to whether i've seen a person. Fine, go ahead and judge me. Not like i care. But just be sure you're not like me either.

Is attaching feelings and memories with digital media really justified? I mean a pen or a gift somebody gave you, I can understand. You have feelings for it. But digital media? That which can be erased with a click of a mouse? Is it worth attaching so many feelings and memories? I know people who still can't get over the games they've played, or songs they've listened to once upon a time. Is that wrong? again, i don't know.

Seven - Saath - Sept - Sieben - Edu

2006-04-13T23:00:00.000+05:30

Use this, and you'll find more words to fit into the header. as for me, well you get the point. Basically too lazy to do anything other than blogging and orkutting. and chatting. and oh ofcourse finding the most crappiest of all titles for my posts. oh and yeah, did i mention blogging?

too much time on your hands and too li'l motivation to work for your btp does that to you. anyways, here goes nothing:::

Seven things i'd like to do before dying:
1) Para gliding (I believe i can fly.. anyone?)
2) Kiss a girl. Seriously what's all the hype about... hafta find out...
3) Become my own multi-billion dollar self made man. Richard Branson-esque. (nobody said anything against wishful thinking..)
4) finish my BTP
5) own my own private jet
6) Become more original so that i don't need to think about how to fill up seven stupid things...
7) Have a li'l chat with Sam Chat and say "Hey, no hard feelings eh!"

Things that I can do:
1) Convince my btp partner anytime that i'll start work from tomorrow! (hehe.. no wonder!)
2) Go and play TT to my heart's content after i've convinced my partner! (bechara.. yeh padhega to bahut roega)
3) Think irrationally about irrational things. Like why are orkut testimonials the cause for virility.
4) span a whole vector space from a basis set. (That was just to confuse you guys. I have no idea.)
5) relate formulas and equations with anything. just for kicks.
6) waste more and more time on blogger thinking about what to fill in. these cliched items included.
7) Sit and do nothing all day.

Things that I can't do:
1) find enough motivation to do any kind of work.
2) keep a straight face when the other person's annoying me.
3) stop myself from laughing at my own stoopid jokes.
4) Coding. naah, not for me.
5) courtesy talk. the hey hows' it going doesn't seem to come naturally to me. atleast not sincerely anyway.
6) overcome my fears about change.
7) appreciate art. why? why do ppl pay millions of dollars for a random collection of geometric figures in different colours. that too on canvas as old as your grandpa's grandma.

Things I say:
1) Mammaaa....
2) Tu To .....
3) Kya bakwaas hain!@??
4) Sexy, man!
5) Nah-iiice....
6) bilkul Sahi hain.
7) kya haal hain?

Things I'd like to see in girls:
1) Quite obvious, no clarifications required.
2) sense of humour. or atleast laugh at my jokes even if you don't understand. and don't laugh when it's not a joke. srsly. that bugs me a lot more!
3) open-mindedness. atleast listen to the other's viewpoint before judging.
4) clear sense of propriety, as in what's crossing the line, and what's not.
5) intelligence. not too much, not too less. hate it either way.
6) aptitude to try out anything new.
7) a beautiful face to look at.

Celebrity Crushes:
1) Angelina Jolie
2) Liv Tyler
3) Elisha Cuthbert
4) Anna Nicole Smith (I know, I know, but then, well, you know.... ;P)
5) Emma Bunton
6) Arti Chabria
7) Sonali Bendre

Tags:
1) Mrinal
2) Raj
3) Rahul P
4) Riddhi
5) Ranadhir
6) Rahul Bhaskar
7) Mohan

yeyyeyyy!! succesfully wasted yet another 2-odd hours and even added a post to my blog! :P

Coupla things i'm feeling right now

2006-04-11T04:01:00.000+05:30

Mad
Bad
Sad

and before this blog gets any more mind numbing than it already is, lemme make it even drier by talking math. For those of you who just turn their faces away at the sound of "math", well here's something for you. Turn your face away :P

This was something i've been meaning to post since a while.. The other day i was just thinking about something, was probably watching a movie. So then it suddenly strikes me, how similar most plots look like, if you abstract out the minor details. Lemme try and explain. I'm assuming you know what are transitive relations. if A -> B, and B -> C, then A -> C, iff -> is a transitive relation.

Now think of cause effect relations. If A caused B and B caused C, then in effect A caused C. Same goes for effect, since if A caused B, then B is an effect of A. So cause-effect relations are transitive. My first assumption. I suppose it is provable, but i'm assuming it right now.

So what do we have till now? We assumed Cause - Effect relations are transitive. Which i personally think is a harmless assumption.

By now most readers would have already redirected away from this page, but if you still wanna waste time, and still want to see where this is going, best of luck! read on, 0 courageous net-surfer!

Coming to movies, lets talk about plots. I do not proclaim to be an ardent movie-goer. Nor do i understand the art and intricacies of movie-making. But from the few movies that i have seen, what i can garner is this. That plots are basically events that happen to certain characters. Be it murder, be it alien abduction, or simply an everyday Joe getting a promotion at his workplace. or buying a burger for that matter. You always have characters and you always have things happening to them. That's what a movie is about right? (Coming to think of it, can there be movies without players/actors/characters? Even documentaries for that matter have certain characters whom they showcase. Be it the panda or downtrodden cultures. As i said, i'm no pundit on movies, ask Maruti Koppola for more info on that. tee hee i just cudn't resist taking that dig at you :P) So we have plots, and plots have characters, and events happening to these characters. An intelligent/intricate plot is one where seeming disconnected events are weaved into a fine seamless web of happening. Seems like i'm talking mostly about mystery movies. But i support my statement by saying even in comedy movies, events still happen to characters, only here these events are funny. Same goes for thrillers/horrors. Now where is this all going?? what am i writing?? if you haven't already guessed, a li'l more patience, and i think you'll see it.

What i want to say is this. That movie plots could be quantified and analysed using a math basis. Call it Movie-Calculus if you like. A plot can be said to be a network of cause-effect relations, where the elements of this network are the events in the plot. For example, Jim Carrey getting a promotion is an event in Fun with Dick and Jane. This event, say A, causes his wife to quit her job, event B. Continuing this way, there probably could be an evaluation mechanism somewhere to say whether a certain plot is better or worse than a certain other. Or maybe this mechanism can be customised to the viewers choice. Coz sometimes, as intelligent as i might be, i just don't seem to get some movies, like this. Anyways. Coming back to the point, can this be done? seems quite possible to me. I'm not, i repeat not trying to quantify emotions. impossible to say movie X is funnier than movie Y. But what might be possible is to say whether X has a stronger plot than Y, or whether lose strings are tied. That is when a mystery is solved. Like in The Face on the Wall, a short story by EV Lucas, the plot is gripping, complete, and ends when the narrator stops the narration. But the final clincher is not the story, but the end note that the narrator leaves us with.

Now supposing something like this does turn up. Something which quantifies and defies the very nature of an experience like movie-going. Would it be ethical? I mean, if something like this did come up, then imagine yourself sitting at a movie theatre, analysing the movie frame by frame, and saying to yourself Oh so A->B, and C->D, but A->D. So does B->C? is that really what we want? or will it help us screen out the hundreds and hundreds of movies that these *ollywoods keep making day in and day out? so that the really good ones can be watched and enjoyed. Does it mean that Art forms can be "Scientified"? or that science is superior to art? or does the infeasibility of such a thing reiterate the age-old dichotomy, the one between science and art? lotsa questions.. think about em and comment me :P

Humanputers

2006-03-05T14:58:00.000+05:30

that's the species of the new age. cross between humans and computers. have you ever wondered how similar both things are? one is a creature, while the other the first's creation. sometimes i wonder whether all things created are in the like of the creator? I do believe it says in the bible that god created man in his likeness. and i do believe man created computer in his likeness, even though it doesn't seem so. come to think of it, the gap between humans and computers will be almost non-existent in the coming few years. and i suppose even humans will then be classified into categories, based on their processing powers and execution statistics. even now, you can see many parallels between ppl and computers. for example:

-- the obvious examples of input/output for a human,
-- what Ross calls "interfacing": communication between two humans,
-- people who are only finite automaton as opposed to turing machines: they can understand only one word instructions
-- people who are interpreters as opposed to compilers. what interpreter-like ppl do is just take input from various sources and output the same information in a different language. yappers, blabbers, who don't in actuality do any work, but just get things done by embellishing information. the compiler-kind of ppl are the real workers. they get things done by actually doing them.
-- ppl who have very high processing powers but very low input/output frequencies. "interfacing" problems that is,
-- ppl like me who have only flash memory. very volatile, and flashed clean as soon as the job is finished.
-- ppl who have optical drives for memory. photographic memory that is.
-- computers that hog the bandwidth, like a glutton
-- computers that make do without a cabinet cover or even a decent dusting once in a while.. very much like me who hates to take a bath.
-- computers that are almost always in a loud-speaker mode; full volume in speakers, full volume in audio controllers... much like ppl who always shout. their normal speech itself is a li'l loud.
-- computers that get on with the minimum of resources: < 128 Mb RAM, < 40Gb, < pIII.... kinda minimalist approach...

If this continues i suppose later on there will be other attributes/functions as well that computers absorb from humans, or the other way round too:
-- civil war between computers. Windows machines will refuse to cooperate with non-Windows boxes..
-- humans will have to be fed through an internet pipeline (will IV drugs then be called IN drugs?)
-- ppl are already "wearing" computers. monitor screens so flexible that they can be integrated into fabric for clothing. wireless internet, portable power source (the battery), portable memory drives etc...
-- ppl meeting at a bar for the first time will "open" with questions like "asl?"
-- over-possesive husbands will insist their wives be dressed in burqha+firewall...
-- one will associate values to websites.. saying this one is elegantly dressed, that one is just too cheesy, or that the new ones are really getting spoilt... may be websites will then have to be "disciplined".. not to talk to strange i.p.'s and such....

and maybe, just maybe, computers will teach us obediance and tolerance... or, (god forbid!) learn how to love other computers!!

what's with ppl anyways?

2006-02-20T22:14:00.000+05:30

college life rulz. and then again, college life sux. why does everybody have to make everything such a big issue? i mean, poor couples, let them alone! first of all, none of us guys have the guts to ask out a girl, but when some poor desperate guy does manage to gather pluck and take the dive, we sit and hate his guts. and then there are the guys who just can't stop acting wierd around girls. what's with them? i mean in the hostel they are all friendly friendly and yo my bro, but as soon as they detect the presence of a girl they become like this snake who's all ready to bite the head off the next guy they meet. and of course, they are the cute cuddly bears to the respective girl. i mean c'mon!!! whatever happened to yo my bro? for that matter how does the mere presence of a girl matter so much in a guys' behaviour? is it healthy at all?
and then of course there are the other kind of guys, the girl haters. can't stand even the sight of a girl, unless of course the girl also has similar interests at heart as the boys. and what' s more, can't stand even the sight of male friends interacting with such specimens of the hated species. why? just because she's a girl. what has she ever done to the guy? absolutely nothing. then why that sheer hatred? dunno!
yet another kind of guy is the one that keeps mooning over what he should have done at one particular moment during one particular semester with one particular girl, and how he missed his chance, and where he might have been if only he had enough courage to do whatever that particular thing was. and now since he had a chance and blew it, he gets to be the defacto victim of leg-pulling among his other loser friends, who just sit around and do nothing at all all day, except of course whining about why they ever became what they became.
i suppose the best kind of guy is the one who's the least bit interested in girls at all. don't get me wrong, not that kinda guy, but one who's either just more interested in something else, like photography or electronics or living a life for themselves, than trying to run around girls... absolutely no worries... aah.. as J.Hendrix rightly sang, "No Woman, No Cry"!!!
but seriously? i mean does that kinda guy have really no worries? what does he do when he needs "emotional support" or a shoulder to cry on? oh crap! i forgot we are guys! we are supposed to be total morons, who don't know what's the meaning of caring, absolutely zer0 EQ! i guess, in the end, all guys are really the same :(

Four guys, two pc's and three tables!

2006-02-17T14:31:00.000+05:30

ever saw the world changing right in front of your eyes? imagine this. you go to sleep peacefully, dreaming about heavenly damsels at your feet and all of a sudden there's a disturbance in your own private li'l eden: staccato ricochet of bullets fired from a Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947 and digitally garbled radio commands (with an effected accent) like "Terror-aistes win". There comes a time when you hafta realise you aren't sleeping anymore, and what's more, there are aliens in your room! how else could there be sounds of CS in a room with no computers? so i dazedly peep from under my blanket thinking "who's this #@!%@#$ who disturbs my slumber", and whaddya know! it's 7even, complete with pc and plastic arm chair!! from one dazed soul to another, i ask him what's he doing in my room, and he half-consciously tells me what i already know - CS apparently! ya right! didn't know that! Thoughts of "Invasion of privacy!" and "that too while i'm sleeping!" "who knows what anybody might have seen!!!" immediately jump to my confused, suddenly racing mind. And then i remember that poor Vamsi's LAN wasn't working for the last week, and that even the help desk guys couldn't help it. It's ok, it's just the lan problem, it's temporary, things will settle down... All i need is some time to clear my mind and calm down. So i call mrinal and sit down for yet another of our usual bakar sessions. Ever wonder how pleasing it always is to just talk? talk talk talk, be it sense/nonsense, be it english/half-known hindi/unknown telugu/.. you get my drift right? just the knowledge that another soul is as equally thalue (read "bevars" in telugu) and willing to kaat bakar as you is enough to fill those moments in a day when you don't want to do anything at all... so there i am, kaating bakar as usual, trying to forget momentarily what happened just few minutes ago, but no! the day has yet more surprises for me. coz that exact moment who else but flake appears, (the aforementioned 7even's roommate) that too running a big plywood table along the corridor... and even before i know it, that desk too is part of my room's furniture, along with it's permanent resident, \\cynosure!

so there i am, with two gaming-addicted pc-owning most-laziest making-their-room-even-dirtier-than-mine junior roommates, and their pc's, and their tables, in my small li'l room. minus my original roommate, the ominpresent but everabsent Rahul!!! So i do the next best thing: convince myself this is all for good! i mean till yesterday, i haven't had a pc, but now i have two! wheeee!!!! and of course these guys are not too bad afterall, it's just that they forgot there is something called a world, and that the whole universe is not just a map. moreover, i get to boss over 'em hee hee[evil grin >x)]... so i guess it's a happy ending after all. otherwise i wouldn't have been able to post this blog! chalo then, cya l8r. the sublime pleasures of bouncing balls [ping pong balls, you idiot x( ] by bobbing bats are just too much to resist! eeeh.....[munch munch] so longfolks!

what to do what 2 do??

2006-02-16T06:09:00.000+05:30

I somehow have this feeling that whenever i sit and try to come up with a new blog, all i see is blackness all around me, and i end up wailing for something or the other...

let's try to be different this time. I promise myself i will not cry this blog! [:D] guess when was the last time i took a bath? tee heee you wouldn't believe it!! and then there are the cargos, (for the uninformed, a 14-pocket pair of beret-green cargos.. my fav[:)]) which literally conceal the bad odours, so you see, it really doesn't matter. But then what do i do all the 24 hours when there's not even bathing to take into account? (i'll let you in on a secret.. it is still a mystery even to me!!!!). coz when ever you can find the time to come around to my room, you'd only see two juniors rapping furiously on the keyboards (juniors?? oh well.. that's another story..) and either me sleeping on one of the two cots, or two TT bats missing [;)]. Steve tells me i play quite well, but you know Steve. One shouldn't believe his words [:P] So here's my daily schedule:

cycle:
-- wake up strictly whenever I feel like (my first commandment: thou shalt sleep as long as thy wishes!)
-- check immediately if i feel like sleeping again (second commandment: thou shalt not break the first commandment :P)
-- only when i'm thoroughly convinced i really can't sleep anymore, wake up and brush my teeth (in the process, if (self.toothpaste == empty) then {neighbour.toothpaste.steal();} )
-- after stealing their toothpaste, check with neighbour if he is willing to lend me some money (you never know.. ppl are really good in my wing :D)
-- somehow scrape up 40 rs. for the day. enuff for two square meals. i never believed in spending luxuriously anyway... and ppl, don't laugh! collecting b*****s is an honourable way of milching you guys
-- if time is anywhere near late afternoon or early evening, then TT Suit Up! (haaaaa haaaaa : ) and rush to SAC (no no this is not the hay sack, which of course is always coveted, but you see, i just got up from there.. "this is sports and cultural activities centre oops sorry, STUDENTS ACTIVITIES CENTRE as my ever reliable roomy points out :P "). our college has a thing for naming the buildings in the most awkward manner. stick around till i get my number (mera number zaroor aayega) or simply bully the juniors (one of the few advantages of being a senior student) into giving me a slot to play... play on till i am dead tired.. be it TT or even nowadays Badminton sometimes!! srsly can't believe myself.
-- if i'm already fully replenished (tummy wise) and it's not the time for TT anymore, then sit and watch junior roommates playing DOTA or CS... sometimes i mistake Computer Science for Counter Strike!!
-- make serious plans of what to do tomorrow... (plans include lofty ideals of working for BTP as well as practical decisions like which ball to play TT with - orange or white?)
-- oh i almost forgot !! never never say no when somebody calls me to the canteen.. you never know how condescending ppl can get in the wee hours of the night!!! i mean aloo.mutter.sandwhich + ( veg.maggie pyaaz.paratha ) = another square meal, for free!!!
-- by this time, i'd already feel too tired and sleepy, so never in the least bit refrain from going to sleep (oh btw, you never know the time..) i've slept at all kinds of different times: 5 am, 8 am, 2 pm, 6pm, 9pm, 1 am - and all in the space of two weeks!
-- repeat cycle.

Eternal Laziness of the Brainless Mind

2006-01-08T16:27:00.000+05:30

have you ever felt trapped? like in a cage? when you realise that you'll be trapped there for eternity, the cage sorta gets comfortable. well, at least no one's gonna invade your space. but does that stop you from trying to escape from the cage? i guess not. then why is it only me that doesn't want to get out of the cage? since childhood, i've blamed everything on my laziness. it's like a cushion that dampens any impact. i feel like i've always walked the shortcut. the route that's shorter, but has a no entry sign outside it, partially hidden in the thickets surrounding it. the route's that not proper. and i've always come through. maybe even a li'l late, maybe missed a few checkpoints. but i've always come through, even though that wasn't the route i was supposed to follow. but right now, i feel like the shorter route has come to a dead end. the route that i've always trusted, or even just implicitly assumed that will get me out. and it's too late to turn back, and start over again, from the last junction in life. and hence, the feeling of being trapped. as to laziness, well that's one thing that i've always been attributed, 'my thing', even from early childhood. and i am lazy, i agree, but as to the cause of that laziness, well i'm still pondering over it after all these years. but being so accustomed to laziness, i've always taken the route that needs lesser work. that is the shorter route. and that has been my cage. trapped in my laziness, coz i'm too lazy to get out. does it sound too dramatic? i think it does. and yet, it sounds so true to me. like i was saying, after so many years, it gets very comfortable to stay lazy. 'comfortable' being in the short run, and not in the long run, which i know and agree. but does that encourage me to get up and try to unlock the cage? no. there's this knowledge at the back of the mind, which says that i will probably find a way out, if only i try hard enough. that brings us to my question:

when you know you can break free from this cage anytime you want, and when you're feeling comfortable inside the cage, why the hurry to break open?

this sounds so much like an addict saying he can quit whenever he wants to. and i despise myself for sounding like that. but what has happened to the world? why is everyone in such a goddamn hurry all the time? why push things when you can get them done all the same without pushing? i hate standing in queues. an improvement on queues is the token system, where you are specifically called upon when it's your time. and something like that should be implemented in life too. somebody should keep telling you what to do. being spoonfed is not so bad afterall. leaves your brain free for all the other things you want to think about. and i guess this is the result when you're spoonfed and mollycoddled all the time, because you're the younger one, the oh-so-cuter one, and sooner than you can blink, you are no more a child. you've been pushed into adulthood. all of a sudden, you're given responsibilities and are expected to uphold them, notwithstanding yesterday when they 'naturally' assumed you wouldn't be able to do a thing by yourself. i hate this. i can blame everyone and anyone for me having turned out as i have. it was the environment. it was the 'schooling'. it was the 'upbringing'. it was the 'friends circle'. (my personal fav - it's the 'system'). what you can see right now is the shorter route at work. blame everybody else, it makes work so much more easier. 'a jumble of nerves and contradictions'. that's what i feel like, and i really donno what Voltaire would say about that.

how can anyone like to work? pursuing a hobby, i can understand. having to work at a job to support livelihood, i can understand. and there are always the few fortunate ones, who are paid to enjoy. even that i can understand. but how is it that one who has no interest at all in a certain kind of work, given half a chance would quit it - how is it such a person eventually comes around to actually liking that work? stuck with it, trying to get free - ok. stuck with it, so no choice, have to live with it - ok. but stuck with it, so might as well like it, even though i have absolutely no interest in it - NOT OK!! doesn't it mean that one's changing one's values and tastes? doesn't it mean that one had definite opinions until now, but had to change them only because one's being bullied into?? i really don't get it. how else can millions of software engineers still go about their dreary lives every day of it? how is it that these millions inspire another million parents, who insist that their child too become one of these worker ants? is it fair at all???

japanese (hehe)

2005-11-15T05:03:00.000+05:30

some things i learnt:

asubo: play
atashiwa/bokuwa/orewa: I/me
omaiwa/temewa: you
hayaku: hurry up
ikuzu: let's go
des: is (like hain in hindi) suffix
ka: question (like kya?) hindi
kssse: damn it
timmeh: bastard (or some other profanity)
baakayero/baakamono: idiot
taicho: captain
nee-chan/onee-chan: elder sibling (still some confusion about the gender, lots of theories and counter examples)
kaa-san: mother
tou-san/oya-jii: father
naan: what ()suffix
daichobu: everything allright
so: so as in english (so des ka? translates to is that so?)
sugoi: wow, amazing, excellent
obaa-san: old lady
ojii-san: old man
chotto: little
matta: wait
zutto: always/forever
genjutsu: reality/alternative reality
ittakimaasu: something we say when we are leaving
ohio: good morning
ikerunasai (or something like that): welcome back.
shaase buridana: long time no see
itadakimasu: something that is said before digging into a meal (prayer?)
sensei: teacher
senpai: senior
ototo: li'l bro
gome/gomena/gomenasai/suimasen: sorry (in varying degrees)
arigato: thank you
gozaimaas: much more/ very much (i think it increases the degree someway)
heiya: room
-kun/chan: honorific used to denote familiarity (kun suitable for males, chan for females, although not strictly enforced)
-san: honorific used to denote respect
-sama/dono: honorific used to denote great respect and honour
gan: eye (byakugan, sharingan)
byaku: white (byakugan, byakuya)
sen: 1000 (when used as a number)

hmmm.. not bad i guess, considering all of this out of only anime...

TAGGED!!

2005-11-13T11:46:00.000+05:30

been tagged by my loony roomy, Kangaroo high on life, and coming as it does after the grave danger for bloggers, i guess this is but a letdown. anyways, i'll try my best to be me (ouch! what a total Loser!!)

Bees: Everything is always about me. be it other's actions, or even other's thoughts, the only thing that goes in my mind is how does it affect me. all i think is about me. that is, of course, if i do think.

Unnees: am a first rate hypocrite. now does that make this a paradox? if a liar says he's lying, isn't he telling the truth? can't stand things that i'm not good at. can't take an impartial stand on anything, coz from Bees, my opinion on anything changes according to the effect it has on me.

ATThara: Like to think of myself as a Mathematician. see ? this is Unnees in action.. i know i can't even hold a candle to all those cat toppers, but still i'd like to think of myself as high and lofty.

Sathra: Cause for ATThara being i like logic and reason. not to the extent that i exclude faith from my beliefs, but yes, sometimes i do think why am i even praying. but then i realise, there has to be an all-powerful being, since the big bang theory doesn't hold up for all time. So is faith an outcome of failure of reason? or is reason just another form of faith?

Sola: sometimes Sathra even affects my social life. i mean, who would actually enjoy a logically correct joke? who in the first place would recognise it for being logically correct? Damn you, Aristotle. (if you are thinking this was a logically correct joke, you are gravely mistaken. coz i myself dunno what i'm typinh.)

Pandhra: Sometimes love li'l conundrums, play on words, oxymorons, and all such things. though i admit i can't solve puzzles for s**t, i still like the solutions or the thought process towards solution (better than the puzzle sometimes). one natural outcome of this being my affinity towards the Bard's Balderdashes in all their divine glory.

Chowdha: still believe that i'm superior to many people. that only reminds me i'm inferior to many more, but can't get rid of this complex. sometimes clouds my judgement. have an irrepresible urge to compare myself with anyone i come to know. "Pathetic existence" you say? hehe you don't even know the P of it yet.

Tera: a social outcast. i know all the smiles and TTY shouts i encounter in the hallways are but facades of much deeper feelings, which neither of us are ready to face yet. "friendly banter" and "camaraderie" are but euphemisms for "f**k you man, i wish i were in your place". or is this just a reflection of my thoughts and hence absolutely false? but i really lack true friends. friends who are willing to help me, yes, friends who are willing to take risks for me, yes. i do have them. but friends i'm willing to open up to? not yet.

Baara: i wish i was an intellectual. i really donot understand the concept of intellect or of art. but i do believe that philosophy is broader and encompasses science, so i'll always value intellect above intelligence. only, i don't know what is intellect. i know i don't have it, but i think some people do. just another concept to conquer, a bit difficult one tho.

Gyaara: Simply love the concept of a basis spanning a vector space. or in other words, linear independence. i think it's analogous in some way to a set of axioms creating a whole theory. or to a set being partitioned (do the words mutually exclusive and exhaustive ring a bell?). Whole of Geometry is based on axioms one of which is that point has no dimension. corollaries of this are that line has no area, plane has no thickness. can a person be simply expressed as a (be partitioned into) set of tastes and beliefs? what is it that differentiates a rational person from an automaton that creates its own theory based on the same facts of the same world? or in other words, can we create a being which is self-willed, but takes predictable actions, as would a hypothetical 'rational human devoid of emotion' ? can we then say a person is but an embodiment of a set of tastes and beliefs and nothing else?

Dus: sometimes really love totally illogical moments too. like the movie Dus. or Raj's pj's. prolly the reason i hang a stone around my neck. btw, does anyone have an idea why i would do that? help me out.

Nou: oh i almost forgot. the perfunctory "I'm a lazy person" point. seems like everyone's having a free point, i might as well take it too. for more details, contact His Excellency The Mighty Gluteus Max. his address is usually ambiguous, but i believe his summer residence is A207, winter residence is A202. usually prowls around the A2xx wing.

AaTh: Something about me, sthing abt me.... haven't the previous points totally exhausted my personality? i sure aplogise for them not being exclusive :P

Saath: sensuality is something that appeals me very strongly. i'd prefer to ogle at a sensual woman than drool at a sexual female. overt sexuality is something that puts me off. "Choodachakkanitanam" in telugu.

Che: as the numbering would indicate, i'm hopeless at hindi. but i still try my best. sometimes i get so frustrated at genders and past participles and such, i myself have trouble understanding what i say.

Paanch: Love to learn all the languages and scripts. Love to learn all the musical intstruments also. wild phantasy: one day i wake up to realise that i have a long forgotten gift at both music and language and math, such that i understand everything everyone speaks. Guess i like to understand things more than create something by myself. Aristotle's Passive Observer. guess it figures why i'd like the solution or the process towards solution more than the puzzle itself.

Chaar: never had any tastes or opinions in anything. absolute white paper. guess another attribute of a passive observer. and ultimately i become nothing, just remain in the background. composing background music for life in the manner my loomy (loony roomy, cho chweet loomy) envisions, but never living life itself. does that make me immortal? hehe.

Teen: really in need of a girlfriend. need not be very clever, need not be very rich. need not even be friends to start with... but should be of rounded proportions, and willing to bear the company of a despo tarkhi. the reason why i'm still single, even with such a magnificent brain and body? a much more magnificent ego, munificent enough to bother about self only. guess i'll really die alone.

Do: do need close friends too. i do have real good friends, friends willing to take risks for me, willing to help me out. but none i'm willing to open up to. there are secrets, and there are secrets. trust is not a very firm concept. not all transportation problems are in balance. 21 years of life have only taught me ignorance. can't find a more ignorant person than me in college. (KR Narayanan died?? oh i see. is RK Narayanan alive??)

Ek: what the previous unnees points add upto is not something very uncommon. it's called a loser. simple and neat axioms, assumptions or whatever, strongly intermingling with each other to create a web of contradictions, inaction and pathetic existence, appropriately termed as a loser. i think this is logically correct, but not a joke eh?

now to some questions: if i tag someone already tagged, aren't they obliged to write more about themselves? if yes, then consider this case, the barber's mirrors. A keeps tagging B, and B A. and they are truthful about every point they note. Now will the tagging ever stop? (halting problem?) if it does, then it means either A or B doesn't have anymore to say about themselves. doesn't that mean they are finite sets of points, either beliefs or tastes? If the tagging never stops, then don't they have a life? (cheap joke akshat, i know, just cudn't resist..)

Convergence (math please, forgive me)

2005-09-12T15:02:00.000+05:30

This is probably the whole idea that made math simply beautiful. i'm not qualified enough to give a discourse on this topic, but it's just so brimming with possibilities that i cannot stop myself...
'disclaimer' tipe:
fine even if you listen or not, i like to keep rambling on, so this is not for morons who just can't appreciate the significance of maths. and neither is this for those who just can't keep up with my extremely irritating style of writing..(oops, i just lost my readership!)..

so what's with this convergence anyway huh??well, the first glimpse that i got of this function, was back in the days when i was preparing for the great IIT-JEE, when the class was introduced to Taylor's and McLaren's series... actually, i think, it's way before that... Remember mathematical induction? remember all those expressions for the nth term and stuff, sums of series types? well all those formulae are i think some kind of convergence... i vaguely remember there was a polynomial expansion for pi too. dunno. but definitely, there is an expression that evaluates to the value of 'e', the base of the natural logarithm, and closer the value for higher the degree of the polynomial you evaluate. so you see, the point of concern here is that the polynomial 'converges' onto the value of e for some n.. another instance, one you might relate with, is that of functions.. say f(x)=sin(x)/x. we know:
-1/x <= sin(x)/x <= 1/x; (since -1 <= sin(x) <= 1) we also know that (1/x) -> 0 as x->inf; and -1/x -> 0 as x -> inf; (the symbol '->' being approaches to ).. so we can clearly see, that
sin(x)/x -> 0 as x -> inf.

until now, if you've thought either "mamma" or "tty" or "abbeeyy" you really shouldn't be reading this, because this is all high school math till now. the reason i put up this post, beside the negative publicity that i'm sure it will create, is that this is probably the first that time that convergence knocked on our head and we didn't recognise. here, the function is "bounded" on both sides by convergent functions. 1/x cannever be zero. but we can make it as arbitrarily close as we want to. this is the idea of convergence. that in the near future, the hope that stability can be achieved. ganga and yamuna converge on the banks of allahabad. 1/x and -1/x can be thought of two rivers that are coming ever closer as we go to larger x, in search of the elusive Prayag. since sin(x)/x keeps bouncing between these two rivers, it also is bound to meet at prayag, namely, zero. but since nobody can plot out all the values of x (remember, the real number set is uncountably infinite) no one can say that it cannot reach 0.

these are only instances of convergence. like i said before, to me the word means the hope that stability will be achieved sometime later. the reason i chose this topic, is that this semester, especially after mla last sem, really feels converging to a point. although irregular, like sin(x)/x in the beginning, maybe the theory i read will someday achieve a closure of some kind. the hope that all different branches of mathematics or physical sciences will converge, is one kind of convergence, and such a Unification Theorem will achieve closure over knowledge gained from observations and experiments alone. i may not be blessed to live long enough to see this happen, but atleast the subjects that i read, if they converge on a topic, or on a set of ideas, that will more than be enough for me. my holy grail will have been achieved. already, there are a few basic ideas that are common to all the courses i've taken this semester. the idea that everything is a set, introduced first in mla, is now quite evident in moc. moreover, sets can have such deeper meanings that there are whole branches of mathematics dedicated to the study of one particular types of sets. Topology is a spinoff from Group Theory, i think, and Group Theory is but the study of specialised sets. a mathematician would have killed me at this point, for the sheer callousness with which I brush aside these holy and revered subjects.

point to note: Inner Direct Product and External Direct Product of groups is very similar to the internal and external products of two vectors. and since groups and vector spaces are both Algebraic Structures (note the capitals), probably there is some unifying theory for these Structures.

We were taught (a debatable point, i agree...) right in the first semester that matrices and systems of linear equations weren't all that different. now i see that even groups and vectors aren't all that different, and everybody knows vectors can be represented by matrices. you see, everything is coming closer... or did it start off like that? were matrices first discovered or Algebraic Structures? is math creation of useful tools to work with, like integrals and derivatives, or is it understanding the true nature (think fibonacci and golden rectangle) of Nature? i think these doubts can be classified as consequences of three essential 'dichotomies' - a dichotomy is a split - discussed in a journal in the library. infact i suppose this urge to post a blog on math is the direct effect of a rare occurence, namely my reading a journal in the library. this article discusses three fundamental dichotomies that can be found in math, and also in languages in general. well, more on that later...

Flotsam and Jetsam

2005-09-12T14:17:00.000+05:30

LOTR enthusiasts will readily recognise this as a title of one of the chapters in the second book. Infact, that's where i looted it from. Flotsam and jetsam is the equivalent of debris, only flotsam and jetsam are the result of something drowning, whereas debris is the result of something exploding or falling apart. and why is this a title, no it's not the result of intensive GRE prep's like some of my colleagues are in right now, it's just a thought out of the blue that reflects my mood right now...

i suppose life is like a huge ocean. there are ebbs and tides, there are ups and downs. far away strangers might become friends, close knit 'coteries' might just break up. imagine a raft made of wood, slats tightly bound with unbreakable cords. or atleast, previously thought unbreakable. the moment you realise that you were mistaken, and that the cords can really break apart, is the moment you realise the real danger you are in. you might sink with only a wooden log to hold onto, if lucky, or not even that. what do you do? you make sure that they are bound extra tight, and that you have the sufficient skill to tighten them up if they slacken. what if you can't? you just make sure you don't do extra harm to these ties. all this is well and good, but what if you realised that the cords were indeed only mortal bonds, breakable by all means, and you realise this only after they break apart while you are in the middle of high seas? godsaveyou!!! something similar in line is going on right now in my mind. the friendships that i thought i was really a part of, the circles that i thought i belonged to, are long gone. people only talk to me if they think i'm intelligent enough to answer the few doubts they have. others just look away, or steer clear from me, OSTENSIBLY "sticking to their own thoughts", while all the time thinking "oh god, not him again". only now do i realise that the bonds that were tied need tending to, and need taking care of, if only to make sure they are tighter. and then there are people, survivors, who can make do with just one log, and then there are other groups either too selfish to share their raft or too many that their raft sinks due to sheer weight. where am i? what am i doing? do i even have a support? would i even know if i were drowning? dunno. a big Shunya. Cipher. Sifar. Zero. no naresh, you might prove to me that i am not an empty set, but i really don't think so.

just the other day i was actually counting my friends, still close to me. i know the very act is despicable, but one never knows. one always needs to take stock of one's company and one's self. taking stock of myself has never happened, can't happen, too tired, too fearful, so who are my real close friends is the more interesting question. and i wasn't really surprised that the set had a cardinality less than 10. i dunno if it's something i say, or it's somthing i do, but i do know that i'm a natural repellant for people in general. believe me, i have tried to improve on it. somehow, nothing works. being outright frank is probably not the right way, but sorry, i lack diplomacy. and if you don't have the guts to face the truth about yourself, probably you shouldn't have any friends at all. some might say who needs friends anyway. but there is always that something more that you get, if you believe that you are entitled to it, rather than just recieving it because you deserve it. imagine being stuck somewhere on the highway. you call up someone, get someone or the other somehow to help you out, and even your bike if possible. it's just that much more fun, if it's someone who accepts you as a friend. later you could even laugh about it. but imagine the guy who came came out of pure civic sense, with no emotional attachments, and even slight misgivings about the whole idea. he probably will curse you till the end of the day... you get the idea right?..

at a time when i should actually feel elated, i really don't know the reason why i'm so down.. it just could be the sympathy factor. or am i really just so boring that i put off people? i thought i was reasonably intelligent.. maybe infact i am low in IQ, or EQ, someQ.. donno...fine. gotta get outta this shit. there are people who care for me, and there are people that i care for. guess that should be enuff. life should go on..

2005-08-11T20:20:00.000+05:30

woah wo woaa ah... aah aaahhCCCHOOOOOOoooo.. eeoww goo on my hands.. wash room where where wash room.. ah aah aaahhCCHHHoooooo.. eeoww run run... ah wash basin water clean hands clear nose.. bliss... oh no, .ah.. here it ..aaah.... comes again AaaaHCCHHOOooo woah that was me? hehe canteen is still resounding... eeoww again.. gotta clean my hands.. and nose for that matter. but does it matter? lotsa gooey matter in mah nose.. need to cut off my nose.. hmmm wonder how surpanakha felt?? she wouldn't have had this problem for sure.. acchoo.. head splitting ache.. need some pills.. hmm what pills do i take? oh ok there.. green pills... fave colour.. obviously green pills mean peace... world peace.. wheee... (pop) hmm wonder what medicine it has? dunno waoh dizzy whoozy wheezy hmm.. slapping my head certainly doesn't make any sense.. mmm.. oh no .. ah aaah aaaahhh hmm.. nothing? that hurts.. all that for noth-- AAHCCCHOOOO... oh well.. by god and all his holy angels... if i live this week, that'd be, like, woah...

The 'J' factor

2005-07-22T23:19:00.000+05:30

oh c'mon guys, this was gonna come sooner or later. for cross reference, one can always check up on raj's blog, dealing with the D factor. so what's with J now? yup, thou guess't it right. another invisible sphere that differentiates the haves from the havenots. and what is it the haves have or the havenots haven't? it's a decent Job. believe me when i say there are times when it is just too damn difficult to even lift up my head while walking in the corridors. there's that invisible J halo around everyone else's sniggering face. and it really takes a lot to step up and congratulate those who have landed a coveted career when i'm still seething behind my mask of accepted-failure, especially when i think that i am much more worthy of especially that coveted thing than the congratulatee. but of course, whenever did what-i-think-of-myself matter anyway? walking along the edges of the corridors, trying best to avoid everyone's sypathetic gaze, ducking into corners to actually evade individuals... oh my frigging god! i'm a convicted criminal already! noooooo somebody bail me out!!! oh and incidentally, i think the usage of 'bail' is the same in either bailed out of prison, or bailing somebody out of a sinking ship...

neways, so getting back to my original lament, i think all the geniuses of this world have contrived to come up with a most ingenious plan to compel me to undertake Mortification of the Body.. by actually suggesting that i needed a tie. coz u see, same dress, same tests, same results for a week. would adding a tie alter the result? gonna find out 2moro. so my advice to all jobless loafers out there. don't change your dress for teh next interview, just put on a tie. and for cripe's sake let nature take it's toll on that facial hair. no need to hinder the natural growth process of a patch of hair.. you wouldn't be able to find them anyway in a few years.. so let them flourish while they can.. unless ofcourse, it hinders your eating habits. by which time you should have changed your eating habits... speaking of eating habits, this quasi-intellectual needs to stuff some stuff somewhere, so so long..

Life is just a huge real time MMO-RPG

2005-07-19T19:06:00.000+05:30

Glory be to thee, O proud runner,
and since i'm not a good punner
i'll stop writing such shit
that your eyes don't see fit
to sit beside so many a stunner...

idiotic and stupid as it sounds, this was inspired by my blog being accepted into the da-iict's rss feed (i'll leave finding out the connection for you, i'm not that stupid :P) and as for akshat, i appreciate this gesture, but i'll feel better only after i've seen some of those elusive comics!!!

at this juncture, when all the world is busy fighting their lives for their future, i take a moment to bring to your notice, that the future is but fickle, and lost souls like myself shouldn't be feeling too sad, just bad. or not. for where in lies the adventure, if the next five years become predictable? where will your spirit soar, if it is fettered by shackles of bonded labour? anyways like i said, souls like myself feel a need to justify their complete uselessness somehow, so we pretend to not notice what's going in the real world, and tend to slip into our very own world. where kalimdor is at war with azeroth, and character files tend to get corrupted. but a better world (mmo/rpg, that is) would be where every CJ can choose his own Kendl, and still go to war with the ballas fools. or where Sweet is really your brother, and not just a useless bot. idea courtesy the original thinker, a.k.a. g.o0o.se. or maybe where the ballas fools had the help of orcs, and humans had to side with grove street as their only hope. hmm. got to work out the details. and oh, btw, did i mention that people in my world tend to lose touch with your world to the extent that they don't care about their future? no? not that they really do care at all...

been too much outta touch, so get back ta ya l8r...

The moonglade is lovely, dark and deep,
But i have quests to complete,
And blogs to read before i sleep,
And blogs to read before i sleep.

2005-06-22T01:39:00.000+05:30

searching for a better thing to do while i while away my time in the hope of an all-out night out, i start blogging. but since i'ev got no topic in mind, and too lazy to do any thinking, here's a list off the top of my mind...

some things i like:

words like pleonasm (don't confuse with neoplasm) and adventitious
that i come across in friends' blogs (which incidentally make me look up dictionaries)
Amul ka Rs.5 wala chaas packet.
jeans, faded or torn by natural usage, not artificially altered.
recieving calls from long-lost friends, especially female.
wind blowing in my face, like right now, where i'm sitting beside a window.
raj's pc, coz there's always something interesting.
my roomy's attitude toward life.
frogs croaking and crickets chirping under a full moon lit night.
MD PC and his antics, especially on tours :D.
Volvo buses and reclining seats.
cute chicks in pink and blue furry lingerie.
nightly walks on lonely roads, especially with ones whom i can talk freely.
a dinner wholly on chawal and homemade achar.
my friends and my batchmates, their quirkinesses and solidarity.
keyboards that have non-sticky keys and heavy bases (like andy has right now).
not having to switch off the lights when other ppl are sleeping in the room.

things i don't like:

getting up early in the morning to attend shitty GRE classes, taken by Neeru, especially if its AWA.
loud music from movva's room, especially when i'm trying to sleep.
lalla trying to throw his weight around.
ppl who have reservations against me watching naruto manga.
security guards who force you to quit lab, even if it's before closing time.
having to sms out-stationed friends, rather than call, since they are on roaming.
ppl who say they will reply but never do, to your mails.
me.
videos and movies trying to pass off uncensored material as "demanding by the plot" rather than accepting it's pure porno sleaze.
misunderstandings, especially the ones caused because i really can't articulate my thoughts and feelings.
having to be a parasite on other's comps, coz i don't have the face to ask my parents buy me one.
excessive usage of first person reflexive pronouns (i, me, my, ..) in my writings.
that urge to have a puff whenever i see ppl smoking.

cya guys.

2005-06-19T19:37:00.000+05:30

I can still feel you, o Wind
The fleeting glances
The nightly sojourns
from a caring touch
to a loving embrace

I can still see you, o Wind
rushing past, looking back
filling me up to let me dry
lolling around in the gardens
flying around the whole world

I can still recall, o Wind
those private moments
from atop the hills of Vizag
to the jain temples of Abu
moments that i cherish even now

I do remember you, o Wind
at times so angry
to knock me down
at times so willing
to hold me up

under different skies, i met You
dawn-fresh red and lazy noon white
young nightly black and cool evenin'blue
in the grounds of a Ba'hai temple
and again in the resorts at Munnar

But do I know you, o Wind
do you really see me?
faceless yet facing me
pointless yet pointing away from me
what is thy will, o heavenly Wind?

life, goals, passions and NFS-U2

2005-05-11T12:04:00.000+05:30

the other day i was speaking to a very dear friend of mine, who's going through very tough times btw, and i had to tell him that i really do not have any passions. come to think of it, it's a very disturbing thought. imagine a life where all that a person wants to do is nothing. what is the use of such a life? what's the purpose of living like that? i know i have to change, i know i have to find something to do in life, i know i have to do a lot many things. but like he tells me, knowing that you have to do something, and having the conviction and the motivation to follow it through to completion, are very very different things. people have always told me knowing your errors is halfway to correcting them. how wrong they are. i've known all my errors even before committing them, but that never prevented me from going and doing them anyway. one really would not understand such a kind of thought processes in a 20-odd-yr-old, who's supposed to be mature enough to start his own life, but naah that's not me.

so okay, i might not have those strong passions, i may not have burning desires to achieve the highest of goals, but i mean, i got to have something to do. so i start thinking as to what do i want to do right now. trying to push away the most obvious answer glaring in one's face is quite difficult, especially if that answer was "nothing". nyways, so i sit down and say to myself, lets try and complete NFS-U, all the 111 races. so okay, i'm cruising along in my career, and suddenly the inevitable happens. i lose interest. except for the thought that i've got to complete the race, nothing makes me even want to steer the car. and predictably, it takes me umpteen number of restarts to finally make the first place. seeing the number of restarts it takes, the interest meter further lowers its pointer. so i realise that i'm too lazy to complete anything that i'll ever start. be it football, be it gym, be it sketching or solving crossword puzzles. is this what'll become of me? can't i ever find one blinding passion to rule my thoughts, desires and life? will all that i may ever achieve be the same as the next door neighbour or even less?

it's allright to say that every one's born for a purpose, but i tell you, getting to even know one's purpose might eventually take the life out of one. then what is the purpose of even living, when you've got to spend your whole life finding your purpose? twisted logic, lateral thinking, no that's not gonna help. these are not some math logic problems that akshat can solve in seconds, these are apparently questions of/in life. somebody help me here.

It's about time too

2005-05-05T04:30:00.000+05:30

Exams are over. waiting for re - exams. waiting for results before that. nothing to do now, really. too lazy to play football. too tired even to go out for the second meal in a day. apparently farewell to seniors today, like i give a tiny snail's arse(especially with shaan not around). A in MLA. good news. MCS marks in two days. bad news. Algo results anywhere anytime very bad news. shitty RI. bad news. 3 months to do nothing. good news. parents calling from home. bad news. blogger all day long. good. me too boring for you. guess what? ya exactly. bad news. my brain too numb to process anything intellectually more exacting than a snail's progressive path finding and straight-line-path obstace detection/avoidance mechanisms. what's with my obsession with snail's anyway? too bad can't find any on this campus, coz it's FRIGGIN HOT!! bad news. hint of a drizzle earlier this evening. good news. infact very good news, the whole evening spent facing the wind. i guess i'm still a toddler sucking his thumb. i hold on to the li'l pleasures in life to go on living the next moment through. like the A in mla. gotta keep thinking about it to sustain my mood. or the assumed-but-not-so-apparent intellectual superiority over the 'lower mortals'. man, why am i so dark! no manjeet, (you d******k) i'm not talking about my complexion, i'm talking about my outlook towards everything. probably the wrong influence at the wrong time. probably just born too pessimistic. probably (more than probably, actually) too lazy to start a whole new paradigm shift in my views and outlook and opinions. but never too lazy to keep on blabbering bullshit about myself. oh c'mon guys, it's not like you've never expected this.

gotta start a diary, but then again, too lazy. but probably worth the time. in the future, for ppl to know why such a "wonderful smart little boy" went the way he did, whichever way he did go. then again, who am i kidding. who'd be interested in the life and times of a loser-wimp-whiner gone ballistic on the rooftop of a 4 storied academic building? oh shit! i've been blogging in my sleep again....

Denial

2005-04-25T03:31:00.000+05:30

I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad
That the dreams in which I die
Are the best I've ever had

I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad
...

Lines from one of my friend's favourite song. The first time i heard of the phrase 'living in denial' was from him. and then recently Tanushree. I confess, i still do not fully understand what they say, but i feel that the lines have some connection with the current state i am in right now, which i think is denial. i am just not ready to accept that hard work pays off. i've come this far without much hard work, and i do not believe that every parent and motivational speaker is correct when they say that hard work pays off. i am not ready to accept that intelligence has nothing to do with working hard. i do not believe that intelligence alone cannot guarantee a good academic performance. I do not believe a lot of things, even when the proofs are staring right at my face, pointing their fingers at me, and making fun. and i am not ready to accept responsibility for my failures. i find it lot easier to blame my peers, my upbringing, my family background, monetary status, college, the system, anything except me. coz i never had a situation where i had to stand up for myself, and i do not know how to. see what i mean? i can cite any number of reasons for my faults. faults in action, faults in virtues. a vicious cycle i've gotten myself into, and don't have the will and motivation enuff to break out.

boy! do i need my head shrinked or what!

guys, guys, listen to this

2005-04-20T23:12:00.000+05:30

okay, imagine a student in the 3rd year of graduate studies, in a nondescript course in a nondescript institute, which for all purposes has delusions of grandeur. imagine, having slogged through five tedious semesters, the li'l engine simply slips back on the sixth semester, the core course is failed. this disqualifies him from sitting with the rest of his batch for campus placements, as he now has 'backlog' courses. imagine, that every student is allowed to sit for campus interviews only once, virtually eliminating all chances of acquiring a decent job. and oh btw, did i forget to tell you, the institute is still a new one, a thought experiment at formulating a new course, so is not officially recognised, but is already on the blacklist of several companies, all thanks to the first few batches (no shaan, this doesn't refer to you [:)]).

so,
1. No degree
2. No job
3. No chances of higher education
4. Lost four formative years, wasting time

now imagine, that all that i've written here can actually take place, and very much probable. now tell me, is there any reason why i should even worry about studying anything anymore?

the purfect jackass

2005-04-20T04:33:00.000+05:30

hookay, for those of ya who donno know me, welcome to the world of the maniac.

me:

self-centered
wannabe
whiner
loser
crass
trying-to-sound-cool with apparently-smart-assed-wisecracks
follower
not-so-philosophical
kinda morose
irresponsible
whimp/wuss
always late
procrastinator extremum
dull n down

aslo me:

whimsical
retrospective
calm
verbal(i'm told)
considerate
friendly
motherly, even (ya, go on, i don't mind the jokes)
mamma's boy
smiling
villager lost in the big city
adjusting
limerickal! (:D)
daydreaming
pining for attention, will settle for care

reminds me of my SSC english story, TOW King Friedrich and Voltaire. Voltaire's described as a "bundle of contradictions". probly like that phrase kinda stuck in my system somewhere....

what am i doing?

2005-04-14T01:20:00.000+05:30

i'm really afraid. my dad gives me vivekananda posters to boost my confidence in myself. how do i tell him that these very objects remind me how sorry a state i am in, needing artefacts to develop my confidence? how do i tell him that i never want to do public speaking workshops or character improvement courses? how do i tell him i don't want to manage my time, i want to let it flow? how do i tell him, i've been so spoonfed in my life i really don't know what it means to believe in myself? how do i tell him that my life ain't worth living at all?

a very good friend of mine told me that everyone of us always, i mean always wears a mask. sometimes, i feel that is kinda true. pause for a moment, and think of baring your deepest fears, your highest ambitions to someone, and you'll understand what you're hiding from the rest of us... is this because we are afraid of ourselves or opening up ourselves to others? i sure think so. there's a part of every one of us that's a li'l bit irrational, deranged even. it might be the smallest of things, like the door should be closed when ur in the room, or probably that all the pens and pencils should be in a particular corner of the desk. or maybe quite different things. but imagine if other people find out about these ideosyncracies..do we still remain the same person as before, or do we get conscious of what we are doing, every minute of the day. are you a different person, now that others know you like things a li'l different? or is it just because they'll make fun if they know, that we hide these things from them. do we hide anything from our parents? unintentionally maybe, even? are you ever scared that you've let down your parents? or do they support you enough to know when you've failed, and when you are really trying to succeed... what's your life got to do with your parents' anyway? or is it "oh my god! what are you sayin, that's blasphemy" to you? are we really living our lives for ourselves? do we have the right to live our lives for ourselves? shouldn't we be living our life for our parents, who brought us into this world, and when finished with that, live for the children that you're sure to bring into this world? oh no don't worry, i'm not doing dope, and neither am i a chuck palahniuk enthusiast. i'm willing to show you my real self, the way i am when there's no one around, or when no one's watching. but then, do you promise to still look at me the same way as before, and not be terrified? no i'm no psycopath, and neither am i a serial killer or a child rapist. but do you really have the guts to share my deepest emotions? and then will you have the courage to share with me yours? is this what they call face-off, where both the parties involved remove the masques? am i boring or what! right now, i'm listening to suneeta rao's pari hoon main, which roughly translates to i'm a fairy. sadly, these are times when fairy means a negative connotation. and sorry, i forgot to mention, i'm no fairy either. kinda feel like shouting i'm not air, i'm not wind..bullaki jaana main kaun hoon! who am i? who are you? no that's your name. no that's what you do. no that's your address, name, rank, serial no, id card, passport. who are you? what are you doing on this earth? no no, i don't mean on this earth as a factor of emphasis, i mean on this earth as in what right do you have living on this planet? does helping mankind give you any right? did mankind ever thank you for that help? or are you just a 'philanthrope who believes in mankind'? the only help one could possibly do to mankind is to supply gratiano's "halter gratis". i believe everyone of us is a shylock, and that he'd have been better off taking that rope. i believe in death, the impartial equaliser. i believe that the world is a horrible place. as much as i agree that chitra's poem is beautiful, i still believe it is idealistic, not realistic. there's a very thin line between realism and pessimism, and i believe that's because of the world, not because of me. i believe that Iain M Banks' Culture is not a viable option for us humans. there was a time, when i thought nothing was impossible, all that one needs is hardwork. now i'm waiting for that day again. i believe i'll never be able to find my neverland, cos of the simple reason that i'm too grounded in reality, and by god, i dare not dream of high hopes. no there's nothing really wrong in my life, just that it isn't mine. and i really dunno whether i wanna believe in myself anymore.

too much

2005-04-09T23:34:00.000+05:30

too many things to do,
too many things to think
too many things to take you down
and end your life in a wink.

too many things to see
too many things to say
too many things to flee from
since life isn't yours to sway.

too many things to pray for
too many things to fear from
too many things to let alone
coz life ain't a junior high prom

too many things to experience
too many things not to
too many things to hold on
live life, do you ought to?

Bakar

2005-03-30T16:48:00.000+05:30

what's with him anyway?

well, that's a rhetoric, so don't bother to answer. but apart from all the cheap tricks he plays, i do see some meaning in the lectures. slides atleast, as probably that might have been copied from somewhere. i mean, come to think of it, the lectures actually do have some meaning and substance as opposed to the lecturer. what do i do? what do i do? .... me too busy doing nothing in sen lab, so came up with some interesting propositions. just take a look.

okay, here are some guidelines, and proposals on how to improve on this course:

make it an elective, it is too trying on students not related to software engineering.
make it a course with 6 credits, as 5 credits quite obviously does not deserve this kind of effort.
stretch out the course onto two semesters.
First semester, only theory. teach all the principles, the phases, tricks, whatever. take pop quizzes, take exams, take vivas. no labs.
ask the students to come up with ideas for projects, viable in 1 sem. let them search, improvise, reuse and generally ponder on ideas and topics for projects.
Second sem, only labs. no lectures, tuts + 2x2hr labs. teach the tools of the trade, take evaluations instead of exams, vivas instead of pops.
increase the team size. divide each group into two teams, of thirty members each.
either of the team acts as the client and developer for the other. as in group 1A signs a contract with group 1B, stating as to what they want, and how they want it. group 1B goes ahead and develops the software. the reverse also goes, as in 1Bsigns with 1A. or some such shematic can be developed, whereby the teams actually work for a live client with demands. or probably the institute can act as the client, actually offering some fee as an incentive. industry environment does not mean a professor breathing down on the student's necks. it means real and live situations. it can be simulated. or ask our parent company if it has some ideas.
make the course exciting, such that the students actually want to achieve something, not just grades and a good impression on the lecturer.

what would you people say? i mean these are my ideas. feel free to state your own. remember, there are chances of out feedback being considered, if it is constructive. no point in crying our loud that the course should be cancelled.

hello world!

2005-03-28T17:49:00.000+05:30

ya i know it's cliched, but living in this ne0-cyber 'techie' insti, you get used to 'hello world' a lot.

neways, hello ppl. welcome to my world, my space.

i like to think of it as bizarre, dark and mysterious, but finally it might look like a lot of silly whimsical fabrication...

i really don't care.

i am me.

ppl love me, ppl hate me, ppl can't even stand me sometimes. same goes with me. (i.e, i luv me, i hate me, i can't stand me, and not the other way round...) i like to think of myself as big tank with a lot of potential output, but i kinda have trouble figuring out what that output is. for all i know, that tank might turn out to be a sewage collection sump! or might be the crystal clear pool of elixir, which gives life to the gods! ah, fancy is but my sly friend, offering a hand for me to step on, just so that the hand can be taken away the moment i step on it.

come to think of it, i really have trouble finding out what i did with my life all this while. a dormant bear whose full potential is yet to be seen? or a lab rat whose faith in life has completely vanished? or just a deer sampling the grass in this country, before moving along with the herd? i dunno. bullah ki jaana mein kaun hoon!

a dry leaf fluttering in the wind, an ant driven by the herd mentality, a mindless automaton. i envy them. no need to think, no need to take decisions, no need to take responsibility. i hate taking responsibilities. i've been fed on 'guidance' and 'advice' for so long, i don't know what it's like to stand up for your word, for your thought. coz i never did. a vicious cycle i say, to be spoonfed. i haven't yet found the way to break that mould. and have no idea whether i'll ever be able to!

so much for today, so much for 'morrow.
life goes on, be it gay or sorrow!
none hath the power to still time,
for none can cange the rhyme.

Scissors

2005-02-23T00:09:00.000+05:30

scissors cuts paper.
paper wraps rock,
rock blunts scissors...

this is the age old cycle of japanese tradition. this kinda cuts the picture of three snakes, eating the next's tail. much like the dream which lead to the discovery of the arrangement of carbon atoms in benzene. Now that was a miraculous discovery, which eventually lead to the formation of organic chemistry as a different science. incidentally, that same carbon is what transforms plain old iron into steel, which is used to make scissors. this universe is simply great, man, i mean you won't find such complete closure anywhere else. closure as in the mathematical concept, but that's a whole different blog again...

now that we've seen one cycle that involves scissors, let's not talk about cycles, or i'll lose sight of my topic. scissors. that sheer metallic tool with razor sharp edges, one of the many tools that are usable solely due to the concept of opposable thumbs. i mean even if we did not have opposable thumbs, we could still have used a hole-puncher (for punching holes in what is a different matter :), but scissors needs a hand with an opposable thumb. like Ross is so fond of saying, Evolution is not an accident, it is a logical consequence. how else could you explain opposable thumbs? there i go again. lost sight of the real topic, which is scissors. also, like all tools, it uses levers. actually the whole body comprises of two class-I levers, riveted at their mutual fulcrums(or is it fulcri?). levers come in three classes. class I has the fulcrum in the middle, class II and class III have Load and Effort one each in the middle. i forget which is which. this was taught way back in 7th grade physics, which is when we also learnt that biology was a different subject, and the same age when i realised that girls are actually a different species. actually girls are much better at crafts (and boys obviously took to sports better), atleast that was the impression we had at that time in school. crafts again include lots of other arts. and in my school, a whole set was compulsory for crafts class. the set consisted of paint brushes, water colours, an old rag, pencils of different grades (even now, i don't really understand why we have 2H pencils), a clean long eraser, wax crayons, a drawing book, and ya of course, a scissors! later on, in higher classes, we were also taught needlework! (atleast they tried, but couldn't make a good job out of it). as i was saying, a needle is yet another tool (sheer metallic and pointed... ) that needs opposable thumbs to work with.

scissors is often misunderstood as a weapon of destruction, as happens with most things that are sharp (tools, instruments, wit, humour...). they tend to be destructive in the wrong hands. but place them in the right hands, and you will see creativity spout out of that complete 'closed' circle of hands and tool. again, one needs to lose some things to gain others. similarly, when a shape is cut using scissors, the border or the frame might be misconstrued as a wastage, but it makes great 'designer' stuff. i mean go through a whole week, pasting all the li'l scraps caused by the scissors onto a cardboard, and voila! you've got a collage! now that's designer stuff, ain't it? neways, i think i've blabbered enuff on scissors for tonight. meet you again next week, same time, same blog, same address. or earlier than that if i can. ciao.

Moral Obligation

2005-02-17T19:01:00.000+05:30

what would u say? apart from parents, i really do not think we owe anything to anybody else.

Now that i've finished discussing the topic, let us move onto the fun stuff. you know what my dream life is? it's the life of a hero of a cyberpunk novel. the world at your fingertips, life is a long unending night, parties going on every other night, the day flits by like a filmy screen of dazed sleep, booze and fags at your disposal, slavering away at your terminal with a shot-induced clarity, breaking and making codes, creating cyber-fortresses, finding faults with other's, hacking into your own system to check for faults, man! i already feel like that lead role in Swordfish! imagine this. you've created a perfect cyberworld, a matrix where there is no worry. would you be brave enough to hook urself into it?

well, anyway, that's one of the possiblities. i wouldn't mind being batman either, but only if i also get to have the batcave, batgirl(s), batplane, and of course batmobile goes without saying. i wouldn't mind not having a robin though.

i picture you smiling condescendingly at this foolish outpour of childish fantasies from a yet immature adult. but, i tell you, dreams are what makes the world go round. atleast, definitely in my head.

all this is just mindless gibberish, so let's talk some math.

why did set theory come about? i say it has the same root, as the question why does wine come in so many varieties, or the question why is language necessary. see the connection? probably won't, even after i'm done, but just bear with me. i say man has this need to understand everything. atleast certain individuals did. so they said, let's give names to everything, so that i can understand what you are talking about. so they gave names to everything, and that's how language came about.
but like i said somewhere else, calling a chair a chair is pretty mundane, though pragmatic. i mean i'd love nothing more than calling a chair a chair, but certain people would not agree. they would say "hey, i agree that this object is a chair. but it is more than a chair. it was crafted 200 years ago, with so and so wood, by so and so great artist, so please give it due respect, and call it an 18th century Chippendale. It's worth more than you earn in a whole year."
you see, calling a chair a chair was not enough. they had to give it some fanciful name just so that everyone who knows will immediately recognise all the craft that went into it, and those who do not know it are left with a sense of awe and respect for something that is esoteric to their rather base tastes. it's the need to do something out of the ordinary, it's the need to break away from routine, it's the need to be creative. also, once you do something creative, you would want to label it as something special, so that people will know it has something special (even though they do not see what is special in it). so there arises the need for classification, labelling, segregation and building boundaries around things. that's the same need that gave rise to sets. by putting elements in sets, you are saying "you belong here, you element!" and then you take subsets and say okay all of you are special. and then you take another subset and say okay all of you are worthy. and then another subset says you are invaluable! extremely important. so you see, if that need for segregation was absent, we wouldn't be able to appreciate art. but neither would we have to study Set Theory! so you see, arts and science have the same root.

am i cool or what!?!

2005-02-16T13:07:00.000+05:30

Warning: the length of this article may contain explicit, possibly offensive content. readers are discouraged from reading further and are advised to change their fucking mindsets.

okay. now that we are done with the prelude shit, what was i talking 'bout? ya myself. now about me, i'm a stinking wussy. think about a guy who belches a lot, farts a lot, makes much more annoying noises, and revels in the knowledge that he's so disgusting that some ppl prefer to stay away from him. and i haven't even started off on his underwear usage statistics. picture a wasted 20-yr old, who's into drugs, has no dough to pay for anything. you know, a scraggly beard, sunken-in eyes, hair growing 'every-which' way, spec's with one leg hanging out, jeans worn more than a month, same t-shirt for weeks, no bath, no idea where he is, no idea what's he gonna do tomorrow, today or now. Now cut-out the drugs part, and throw in some money, enough to survive through the haze of smoke. and that's only the physical appearance.
talk about integrity, and that's one thing that you won't find in this pathetic figure. he can't stand up for anything he says, can't stand up by himself for anything at all, can argue endlessly about anything even without making sense. his words are worth nothing at all. his life is a lie. he lives just so that his parents can live in the false belief that their 'child' is pursuing his undergraduate studies. the only thread of meaning that he's hanging by is that of his respect for his parents and family. or possibly the cowardice to relieve himself from this despicable existence. nothing holds any interest for him, except possibly the globular appendages of the female species. the way he's dredging along in this river of life, you'll be surprised to know that he even has friends. attributing a pukka palahnuick character would be gross injustice to palahnuick hisself, cos there's so much more disgusting about his chracters, that there exists certain beauty in being able to live a life so low. but even that doesn't hold for this character we are talking about. he's rational, but mindless. he's intelli but definitely stupid. he's trying to grow up, but is still a mindless teenager who doesn't want to. life is rushing past him by the hour, and he's just content if he's let all alone by himself to sit on a rock and watch all this from third-person, puffing away to eternity. but then, he'll have to struggle for food, which again needs some work to do. and work is one thing this fellow despises. he is capable of doing mundane things, but he won't do them, b'coz they're mundane. a pathetic dreamer. loves fantasizing about possibilities, but hates to work for them. he doesn't even hate everything, which would enable people to label him off as a social outcast. all he hates is himself. loves to put people in a fix. but is in a fix himself.

and what still eludes him is the fact that he has friends who believe in him.

what say u?

2005-02-13T19:01:00.000+05:30

like i was saying, i keep postponing polly to the perennial 'tomorrow'. like scarlet o'hara's so fond of saying, i'll let it worry me tomorrow. i have a question to ask you ppl. does everything you do need to have a reason? i mean given the choice of two things to do: 1., which would in some rational way help you, your life, family, health, or whatever. 2., which you desperatley want to do, just because you want to. it wouldn't really help you over much in your career or life, except that you'll have the satisfaction of looking back one day and saying to yourself "you know what? i had the guts to do what i wanted, and i did it!" so given the choice between 1 and 2, which would you pick? and given say n such choices, would you pick the same choice over and over again? i mean isn't there anything called 'irrational irrepressible passion' in our lives anymore? does everything we need to do have a reason? i really see no reason to have a reason! (so my friend naresh might instantly shoot up saying this is a halting problem, and so undecidable, but hey that's my whole point. since it is undecidable, there is no reason we need to have a reason).
its one thing that i'm allergic to. i love chaos. where there are no rules, but unspoken laws govern the state. where nothing is evident on the face, but everything does have a deeper implication. where whatever you do is not punishable, since punishment occurs only in a rational world. you have the freedom to indulge in your passions. live them out, or get burnt in the process! choose 2.

S*x Sux or what!?

2005-02-13T15:38:00.000+05:30

We were having this discussion the other day, okay, about how come three young adults, desperate to "lose their flower", are still virgins! i mean if this was in the infamous U.S. of A, we would already have lost it, considering that we are already going on 20. i mean, you would either find people who already have had sex, or atleast don't want any part of it ruining their lives. not like us, who are desperate, yet do not have the oppurtunity to indulge! and why would you think that the situation is so? is this the famous parampara of the largest democracy in the world, that young adults are to be kept restrained from indulging their basest instincts?
and of course there is the other type of male species of the human kind, which actually believe that not having a chance to indulge is actually for their own good! i mean how immature can one be? let alone not having had sex "all willy-nilly", but actually believing that you are not supposed to? by god we are in the dark ages! no wonder the world just swooped past us while we were still recovering from the hangover of achieving our very own independence. i mean 50 yrs of independence, and all that we have to show is the glorious past, and of course the zero contribution to math, meaning zilch. 0. nothing, and that's what we are good for.
i sometimes have a feeling all of this is our very own doing, you know, like the song which goes :we are all just prisoners here, of our own device: or was it of our only vice? here we are, caught in the very deep mesh of tradition, family values, etc.. blah blah, while all that we want to do is have some clean good fun. is that wrong? "YES IT IS", shout co-human beings of the same age, and deeper we sink into the mesh. aw for cripes' sakes get me outta here!!

Here I Am

2005-02-10T21:57:00.000+05:30

so i'm cruising along okay, mindless of the myriad worries of the world, cocooned in the comfort of knowledge, of knowing that nothing drastic can happen to me, not now while i'm cruising along so peacefully. i use the word cruise, not because i'm on an open deck of a 100-foot yacht, nor because i'm driving a Harley-Davidson, though i'd love to do both. i use 'cruise' coz the word immediately brings to my mind the StarWars like desert scooters, or the scene in The Incredibles where Dash propels Elastigirl's boat. you know, the dream of every boy stuck in a rut somewhere in the world's corner: to leave everything behind and 'feel the elements', like the wind in your hair, or sun shining on your face, or the cool touch of water while canoeing down rapids, you get my drift... cruising along is something i've always wanted to do, to take time out from this fast-paced world and get to know myself a little better. it holds that touch of adventure, that li'l dash of romance, the unknown and the challenging, while still giving you the security of knowing that you always have a safety-belt to rely on. so i am in such a state, not on any vehicle per se, unless you call this material body a vehicle. so here i am, just drifting along with the currents of time, being jostled by the madding crowd, still somehow remaining calm and unperturbed, like in the cruise i've always wanted to be on.

and along came polly. polly is one thing i've always avoided, thought of confronting it, but like so many other events in my shallow li'l life, i've always adjourned it to a 'tomorrow' that never yet came. polly has the potential to destroy me completely, so much so that i even fear thinking about it. polly has the ability to lift me up to nirvana, and so even while i fear thinking about it, i gaze at it longingly. polly is the question: where am i headed?