Incoherent Ramblings

United: A Mid Term Review 2009-10

2009-12-31T21:54:00.003+05:30

Well, I am just going to take a short break from my self-imposed "permanent" hiatus on blogger with this one-off post about Manchester United's prospects this season. So much has been said about the club and its prospects - some true, some quite fantastic to say the least. At the end of the day, as the old saying goes, it is the performance on the football pitch that counts and that is what I shall be trying to make sense of (from a diehard fan's perspective).

2009 was a reasonably successful year for United yet again. Last season ended on the most bitter of notes with the 2-0 thrashing at the hands of Barcelona in the Champions League final and kind of soured another successful campaign. Suddenly, everyone forgot about the 11th Premier League win and the victory in the two less prestigious trophies (I mean, come on, do you seriously believe I'd rank the Carling Cup victory as a watershed moment, especially with it being treated by us as the Worthless Cup not more than a decade earlier?) However, the worst thing about the Champions League defeat was not so much in the loss itself, but in the seemingly huge gulf in class that was visible between United and Barca. All credit to the Catalans, they had probably the best season by a club in modern times and their success was somehow regarded as evidence of United's failings. On top of that, we had Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez departing over the summer. No wonder then that all the pundits proclaimed doom and gloom for us in the pre-season predictions. So how have we fared till now?

Let's regard the tournaments one by one:

Premier League: To say that we have underperformed is an understatement. United have only fired in fits and bursts and spurts. We haven't been helped by a decimated defence either. No one has ever won 4 league titles in a row in English football history, but the fact that United are only two points off the pace at this stage of the season augurs reasonably well. If we can put together a run in the latter half of the campaign like we usually do, a 19th league title (beating Liverpool's earlier record) won't look as impossible as the experts had us believe pre-season.
FA Cup: Sunday is a mouth-watering clash between United and Leeds United at Old Trafford. This will be a especially evocative memory for me, because I was fully converted into a diehard United supporter when I saw United beating Leeds 3-2 at home during the treble season. The FA Cup has lately proven the hardest to win for us (the last time we won it was in 2004) and nothing would please fans like me more (aside from the League title and the Champions League title :P) than to see us extend our record number of wins in the FA Cup to 12.
Champions League: The yardstick against which Fergie has measured this latest great time of his, has been AC Milan. It was in 2005 after the consecutive 1-0 losses away and at home to Milan that everyone probably realized that the team of van Nistelrooy, Keane, Solskjaer and all wouldn't win the European Cup. 2007 saw us snatch a memorable last-gasp victory at Old Trafford but Milan gave us a footballing lesson in the return leg (in much the same way as Barca did last season) Beckham's return would be an attraction here, but it would be interesting to see whether United manage to overcome Milan for the first time over two legs (it would also be the first time that they probably start with the tag of favourites for a two-legged fixture against Milan). Another Champions League triumph probably doesn't look likely on current form, but the Milan fixture would be crucial in determining how far we can go this year.
League Cup: We are up against the noisy neighbours in the semi-finals. I do hope that Fergie continues fielding a predominantly young team even against City. God knows that the likes of Gibson, Macheda, Welbeck, Fabio, de Laet and Obertan need big game experience.

THE PLAYERS:
Cristiano Ronaldo has been a huge loss, whereas I am still undecided on Tevez. The best players this season by far have been Rooney, Giggs and Fletcher. Enough has been said about the m this season for me to choose to not add my own to cents of opinion.

However, I have been equally impressed by Valencia's contribution. While he doesn't come remotely close to Ronaldo's contribution to the team, he has made his presence felt in his own way. Good pace, reasonably accurate crossing and the ability to track back and defend quite decently - all of these have been on show over the course of half a season; plus his goal-scoring record is already as good as his record at Wigan (7 goals from 28 appearances in comparison to 89 appearances at Wigan)

Berbatov continues to be an enigma. There seems to be an intermittent pattern of great/good performances in a couple of matches on the trot following by frustrating performances in the following ones. But I am one of the believers in the Bulgarian's ability and am backing him to come into his own in the second half of this season, especially if he remains injury-free.

THE DISAPPOINTMENTS:
Nani is surely on his way out; he seems to have adopted everything that was frustrating about Ronaldo, while conveniently failing to emulate his work ethic and bravery on the field.

Ferdinand has been injury-prone, while Vidic has not really been at his commanding best. Although it must be said that he seems to be inching back into form over the last few matches.

THE NEW SIGNINGS:
Michael Owen won us over with his last-gasp winner against City and then with his hat-trick at Wolfsburg but he hasn't been scoring as often as everyone at United would like. Still a 50-50 signing for me, since he hasn't been given too many chances by Fergie.

Obertan seems like one for the future. One to watch out for...

Valencia, for me has been a decent success, and he has established for himself a great platform from which to launch himself into the pantheon of great United wingers.

BEST MATCH:
Definitely the Manchester derby. Defensive mistakes cost us two goals but the truth is that our attacking display in the second half was as good as it has been all season. It encapsulated all that is good (and even all that is frustrating) about United. And yes, the experience when Owen's shot went in was almost orgasmic.

Honourable mentions must also be made of the match at White Hart Lane against Tottenham (where we came back from conceding an early goal to beating the high-flying Spurs 3-1), and the home match against Wigan Athletic (5-0 to United).

GOALS OF THE SEASON:
1. Darron Gibson against West Ham United at Upton Park - brilliant long-range efforts just like his two goals against Tottenham in the League Cup.
2. Wayne Rooney against Tottenham at White Hart Lane - wonderful pass by Fletcher from the half-way line to release Rooney who did everything right (including nutmegging a defender) to secure three points
3. Michael Owen for THE GOAL in the Manchester Derby - slide rule pass by Giggs was followed by a nerveless finish.

Honourable mentions must be made of Berbatov's two goals - against Sunderland and Blackburn as well.

Finally, I must say that United made a habit out of winning on the minimum last season. Signs are that we are less solid defensively this season, but that is also encouraging our attackers to score more goals this time around. Hopefully, I'll be writing something about another successful season this time next year (looking back on a very very successful and joyous 2010 for all United fans).

Happy new year to all of you! And "GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED"!!

2009

2009-01-01T21:17:00.002+05:30

This weird-shit custom of celebrating the "new year" has always bewildered me. I mean, do people really need an opportunity to celebrate "a day" and get sloshed while enjoying the same? But then again, that is just me being cynical...

Here are some of the things that may happen in the new year -

Chances of some new scandal/ weird once in a college lifetime incident hitting the BITSian headlines while the 2006 batch remains in the 3rd year - Very high
Probability of attending more than half of my classes at college - Zero
Likelihood of getting a job offer - High, especially since it's going to be the placement season come August and BITS Pilani does offer highly saleable degrees
Likelihood of the disappearance of my new-found optimism - Quite High, I am calling upon historical occurrences to reach a conclusion here :P
Probability of feeding and sustaining my own cynicism and narcissism - Doesn't this post answer that for itself? ;)

Overwhelmed by Nature

2008-12-25T20:07:00.002+05:30

Sometimes, you just need a trip into nature's beautiful garden to realize that the world isn't so depressing after all...Pics from a family trip to Pachmarhi...

Rock Formation at Jatashankar

Pachamarhi Lake

Panchali Kund

Apsara Falls

Some More Pics

2008-12-25T20:00:00.003+05:30

At Reech Caves
(Reech is Hindi for Bear)

Bee Falls

Bee Falls Part Deux...

Bee Falls Again...

Reech Caves Pic Deux

And Some More Pics...The Last Lot

2008-12-25T19:56:00.001+05:30

Denva River Flowing Through a Valley

Just a Forest...A Common Sight

The Satpuras as seen from Mahadeo

A Tree Finds some Nook to Take Root at Mahadeo

Lots of Caves - Mahadeo

Take Some Time Out...And Listen

2008-11-30T11:04:00.002+05:30

There is a lot of noise going around these days, with people just queuing up to have their say. Everywhere you look, every day you live, there are even more people joining the "make yourself heard" bandwagon. But in the midst of all these, have we just lost our ability to listen? Listen in terms of hearing and comprehending, not just hearing and filing away into the dark recesses of the brain never to be brought to the surface again. To appreciate all those beautiful thoughts floated once in a while, to take a deep breath and enjoy the magic of silence.

I don't know about others, but for me the world is still beautiful. There is still hope and colour and intelligence out there...all you need to do is to earn for yourself a moment of silence...and listen...

One Joke Here !!

2008-11-01T16:49:00.003+05:30

Well, saw this today on Vineet's blog. And so I thought I'd narrate a joke for a change, but then I didn't have any. So I turned to our good friend (and by our, I mean around 60% of the civilized world) Google, which promptly came up with some joke from some site called Comedy Central. And the joke goes something like this:

A grade school teacher was asking students what their parents did for a living. "Tim, you're first," she said. "What does your mother do all day?"
Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."
"That's wonderful. How about you, Amie?" Amie shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman."
"Thank you, Amie," said the teacher. "What about your father, Billy?"
Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."
The teacher was aghast and promptly changed the subject to geography. Later that day she went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy''s father answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation.
Billy''s father said, "I'm actually an attorney, but how can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"

Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaa!!! I hope you liked the joke, because I didn't...

P.S. Well, my return to blogging is meaninglessly brought about (finally)

Feeling Spent

2008-09-15T20:42:00.002+05:30

BOSM is just over. Had a lot of fun live blogging during it at http://bosm2k8.blogspot.com. The response we got to the blog was so awesome that watching the matches became just another excuse to do live commentary from the sidelines.

Of course, while I just survived the time during BOSM riding on a wave of club enthu and a rush of adrenaline every time I felt like taking to the field myself, there was another more stark reality to address...the growing apathy I am starting to feel towards anything encroaching on my attempts at trying to make sense out of computer science (It's such a brilliant subject that I am feeling guilty for not spending hours at an end just assimilating it all in)...I guess it's reflecting on my neglect of this blog as well. It's painful to sit and compose posts when I have monthly editorials to vent all my frustrations out. :)

The New Cherrapunji??

2008-07-10T08:15:00.001+05:30

Pilani - the new Cherrapunji!!!

Apparently, that's what the guy from the Blue Moon claims... :-)

Sports Journalism

2008-07-08T01:13:00.004+05:30

I have a certain affinity for British papers - both of the tabloid and the broadsheet kinds - for they are the best sources of any news on Manchester United. So while I've made it a point to start of my daily internet browsing with BBC Sport, Guardian Sport, Telegraph, Daily Mail and the Independent (usually in the same order) it has also made me blisfully aware of the opinions of many of the best sports writers in business (for the previous term, read James Lawton of the Independent, Henry Winter of the Telegraph and Richard Williams of the Guardian) One only wishes that India had such great sports writers...Unfortunately none of our journalists seem to have enough working knowledge of sports (the only column that I do read comes from Harsha Bhogle) and often, Indian newspapers often resort to lifting articles straight out of their UK counterparts (mainly because both countries seem to follow the same sports to different extents)

Of course, the choices of articles are coloured at best - coloured by support, perception and more generally, the Indian mentality which frowns upon almost every sport that boasts of a ball smaller than the red cherry of cricket. So while people coo about the most recent Federer-Nadal final (admittedly, it deserved cooing on the fans' part) and drive themselves mad over Spain's conquest at the Euro (newspapers here called it the return of beauty to football...I guess they haven't followed Fergie's United over the past two years) the most stunning achievement in sport over the last year was conveniently consigned to a most disappointing two-column report in most dailies.

In the Olympic year when we will see more fairy-tale stories and scandals than can be counted on our fingers, we have perhaps ignored the greatest achievement of the greatest sportsperson on earth. On 16th June 2008, Tiger Woods completed his 14th major win, competing against the rest of the field - the best golfers in the world - on one good leg. Playing with two stress fractures in his foot, a knee that he said was as painful as it gets (after the tournament of course...he wouldn't dream of giving a quarter to his opponents before or during a major) and rust out of not playing for six weeks before the tournament due to injury, he overcame the odds and won, prompting James Lawton to say, "Wonder of Woods rooted in resolve as much as flashes of divine inspiration."

These are the kind of stories that sports journalists should highlight - triumph against the odds, the emphatic statement of a champion on the field of play. Pity though, that people seek sensationalism more than inspiration and sports writers give it to them. So on May 22 in the aftermath of Manchester United's Champions' League victory, most papers preferred to dwell on the indecisiveness of a greedy footballer (I am not criticizing Ronaldo's ability but merely a part of his attitude) instead of the unquenching thirst of the longest-serving club manager in Britain, who despite having re-emphasized his place at the top of the pantheon of great football managers, said, "It drains away quickly for me. The euphoria evaporates almost immediately. The moment of that final penalty save from Edwin van der Sar, that was my moment, my euphoria and excitement, then you just carry on."

A Bone of Contention

2008-07-06T08:13:00.001+05:30

I read something the other day:

"In an ideal world, we would have 'm' parallel tasks and 'm' processors. But since we are not living in the ideal world, we usually have 'm' parallel tasks and 'n' processors where 'n'<'m'. In the former case, we would complete 'm' tasks in t time, where t is the time that a single task will take for completion."

I don't know why this statement got me thinking, but there seems to be something wrong with it, and I can't seem to put my finger (literally!) on to it. The proverbial "bone of contention" with this statement seems to be a basic assumption which is usually false in the real-world scenario; the assumption being that all the m parallel tasks being spoken of here are completely independent - as in the memory they access, the buses they send their data on, the processors they use are all different from each other - only then would one get m times the performance of a single-processor system.

However, say the tasks aren't completely independent. Let's assume that some of the tasks refer to the same memory space, some of the tasks require information from the results of the other tasks to actually start their own operation. In that case, even if we do have an equal number of processors to the number of tasks at hand, all of them will definitely not be used, which would equate to a wastage of resources.

Which brings me to my question,

"Exactly where on the Performance v/s Utilization line is the trade-off between the two deemed acceptable?"

Of course, the trade-off point (if I might be allowed to say so) will vary from application to application, depending on the required response time of each application and a million other factors (not literally). So, a better way to phrase the question would be "Is there some way to quantify a minimum ratio (maybe not the right term) or a worst-case relationship between Performance and Resource Utilization? In essence, is there a guarantee that while my performance won't suffer much, my resources will still have to work a minimum amount of time?"

Any CSE Gods here care to explain??

P.S. Just discovered a strange quirk of the Blogger editor...Apparently you cannot enclose m inside of HTML tags.

Depression and Addiction: A Superficial Comment

2008-06-23T08:24:00.004+05:30

The best thing about being depressed is that no one really cares if you are depressed or not until you do something so stupid that the world sits up and takes notice.

Just to make things clear: No! I am not depressed. It's just a passing thought I came across and somehow I seemed to remember it.

I had been suffering from withdrawal symptoms for the past two weeks. The reason: My notebook went into a coma, its power-on circuit apparently screwed. Now that I've got it back, let me tell you one thing....there's no better thing to get addicted to. :P

Pilani Diary - Part One : An Info Post

2008-05-29T06:58:00.005+05:30

The height of geekiness is in looking at a circuit design layout and exclaiming 'Isn't that beautiful?' The height of eagerness is in selecting a project guide without even meeting him. The height of stupidity is in asking questions without knowing what the question is about. The height of professionalism is in...well, I do not know. For all I have done in Practice School-I (or PS-I) as I call it in the past few days, learning about professionalism has hardly been one of those things.

Like all other batchmates of mine, I've been spending the last week (the first in a series of eight consecutive weeks) at 'work' - where work for me means being a trainee at the Central Electronics Engineering Institute, Pilani (CEERI Pilani). So from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. everyday, you can find me working either on Embedded Systems in the Digital Signal Processing laboratory or looking around in the library (they call it the Knowledge Resource Centre in CEERI) searching for information on the assignments at hand.

As far as CEERI is concerned, it is a part of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi and was conceived for the purpose of advanced research and developmentin the field of electronics. With three major focus areas, namely, Microwave Tubes, Semiconductor Devices and Electronic Systems, a lot of good work is going on in various fields like Integrated Circuit design, Smart Materials and Nanoelectronics.

Overall, with seven days of good weather along with a bit of learning and a lot of fun have made for an interesting start to PS-I. Hopefully, Part Two of this Pilani Diary will be a similar upbeat and interested tone...

P.S. On a different note, for those of you interested in the current debate over rising food prices, read Prof. Amartya Sen's views here.

Pilani Travelogue...The Prelude to Pilani Diary

2008-05-27T16:40:00.003+05:30

Well, I am not dead...not yet anyways. The weather Gods have been kind and the days from the 22nd till now have alternated between making me apprehensive about the onset of the summer heat for real and enjoying the dust-storms and the thunderstorms being thrown this way - I have counted three of those since I reached here less than a week back (not that I am complaining!)

And so it is that after six days, I have finally found the necessary energy to write about my journey from Delhi to Pilani. And I am going to make this a balanced, colourless and bland account of the entire thing, that I can guarantee.

The journey to Pilani in itself was interesting - it was the first time I was travelling alone from my home to BITS (usually I am a part of a group of at least twenty). Of course, I had a fellow passenger who hailed from the nearby town of Bagar and he promptly began listing the names of all the famous Indian businessmen (or rather business families) who hail from the region around Pilani. Then came the usual running around Delhi trying to get a bus to Pilani (although this time I had taken a refill at McDonalds :) ). Of course, it didn't help that it had rained cats and dogs earlier in the day; so what I got was two buses which were supposed to turn up not turning up (of course, buses don't turn up by themselves, but I reckon everybody but the daftest person would have caught my drift).

So...what I ended up doing was take a bus from Delhi to Bhiwani (which is 80 km from Pilani) in the hope that I'd get another bus from there to my destination. Of course, like all other things that happened on the day, the decision turned out to be bad, very bad...If sitting through two successive B-grade Hindi movies from the 80s that had 60-year old passengers leering at the slightest show of skin of the female kind (well there is only one kind of skin though, isn't there) wasn't enough, the journey which should have taken three hours took four and a half hours. So there I was in Bhiwani having missed the last bus to Pilani (God, everything rhymes!!!!) and better still, the bus stand was closed because of waterlogging due to incessant rains (in the middle of the summer).

So after waiting at an unknown place in the midst of unknown people with no idea of how to go forward, I had to resort to trying hitch-hiking for the first time in my life. So the thumbs came out (though I doubt half of the cars with defective headlights would have seen them) and after an hour of desperate courting of the few who actually stopped, I found myself inside the cabin of a truck with ten other guys - the ten included the driver and his companion.

What followed was a cat-and-mouse game of "Bend your arms and cringe your nose and breathe in to contract your chest and create a millimetre more of space". One has to actually experience it to actually realize the level of expertise that can be attained in this game in two hours of a tiresome journey. Of course, I think I might have won since I was dropped off at the outskirts of Pilani in one piece. It was a closely-fought encounter and I had aches and pain for the next three days to attest for that.

Nice, wasn't it???

In Transition

2008-05-20T15:40:00.003+05:30

After a long while, a change in looks seems to be the order. Evidently, I have little time left before I catch a train from my hometown back to Pilani, for what would be the start to my 6 weeks as a Practice School student at CEERI, Pilani. So, the completion to this change will have to span two days and thirteen hundred kilometres...In short, lemme get back to Pilani first... :-)

Of course, a drawback of the timing of my journey and my subsequent stay at Pilani is that I'll miss the Champions' League Final on 21st night (or more accurately, early morning on the 22nd here in India) between Manchester United and Chelsea at the Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow. Of course, I am not predicting anything for the risk of tempting fate.

Anyways, see you at the end of this transition...

Being a BITSian

2008-05-09T08:09:00.005+05:30

Of course, it is very difficult to actually define something that stays with you every waking moment and has done for the past two years (nearly :-) ) It is incredibly complicated when someone talks about a common thread that links you, your friends, your bhawan mates, your fellow college students and everybody else studying on campus, as well as thousands of others who have passed out of the university - some last year, others thirty years before that. Surely such an incredible number of people with different backgrounds, current geographical locations, different jobs (and job descriptions) cannot have a culture in common; plus for the current on-campus students, there is also the small matter of a limited field of vision, a bias that creeps in due to nine months spent in the middle of nowhere among people who have to do the same thing themselves.

But being a BITSian is beyond the regular whines about the location of Pilani, the animated discussions about course averages (or rather Avs I should say), the futile attempts and unfulfilled resolutions pertaining to attending classes, the rush felt on getting up at 8.57 and realizing there is a class at 9 (a class with an evaluative component of course), the realization on entering the exam hall that the open-book test you're about to give is actually a closed book one, the arbitrarily occurring moments of wing enthu where break into hysterics (usually happens on the eve of exams), the birthday bumps, the growing immunity from outcomes and other countless other things. Maybe, the BITSian spirit is what you get when you put four thousand students still confused about whether - on the threshold of adulthood - they should act like smitten, crazy, desperate-to-get-a-girl/guy teenagers or mature, serious adults or in between.

But what makes the experience special is that through every moment you live here, for all the grievances and ill-will you harbour against the entire BITSian system, you can't help but develop loyalty towards the BITSian tag. For it is your identity. For all your claims to indifference, detachment, escapism and whatever, the tag sticks to you as soon as you enter the gates of the campus as a gullible, slightly apprehensive (in some cases, more so) freshman.

Ultimately, being a BITSian isn't probably about whatever I just wrote. Maybe, it is an individual interpretation. To each, his/her own experiences...to each, his/her own meaning.

Detachment

2008-05-07T22:38:00.000+05:30

There are some words that define time periods - whether they be ages, years, aeons or even such short time-spans as semesters. Discovery, assurance, exploration - all these phases have come and gone as they willed. The newest one in this list has been detachment...

Well, for one, detachment does bring out a funky ethereality in every thing that one does; after all, it is associated with things like aloofness, stupidity or misunderstood genius (this one should appeal to you if you are particularly influenced by fantasy or alternate reality or you just think that the aforementioned term describes you appropriately)...But that's deviating from the point really - just a sad attempt to add some colour to an otherwise bland, insipid, uninspiring post.

Being detached might just mean feeling nothing but feeling everything at the same time. It is one of those perfect, uncertain states (only the uncertainty is perfect, that is) - there is never a perfectly detached state as such...only an illusion to the believer in his/her own ability/inclination/desire to remain 'above and beyond' everything.

So, does detachment work? That is the all-important question...Well, on certain levels, when applied to certain things, it probably does...

Expectations, Face-value Friendships, Trivialities, Lies or Untruths (as the case may be), Companionship, Self-appraisal, Self-gratification, Mollification, Self-esteem, Confidence...

Isn't freedom from all these enough? Isn't a moment without all these worth craving for?

Tests = No Sweat!

2008-04-05T10:40:00.002+05:30

It finally happened to me. Any fear of tests I had left is now gone!!! Gone are the days when I used to be tense, uptight and a downright big pricking arse when it came to tests. Let me tell you how I know...

Over the past few days, I've had Artificial Intelligence tests clashing with every other test I had. I think yesterday was the fifth occasion this semester when I gave two tests in a day. The crowning glory was yesterday when I had an SPM test and an AI test on the same day.

Well, the SPM test was normal enough - prepared, sat, wrote - the usual cycle (whether it was the usual performance remains to be seen ;-) ) Then I went for the AI test, thinking it was an open book test - the lack of preparation was proportionate. When I did find out it was a closed book test, what did I do? I took the news in my stride, was as dispassionate as things go, and then I wrote the test and came out.

Performance on the test is another matter, but aside from that, the day and age when tests used to lord over me seem truly over.

(P.S. Seems like I've fallen into a rut that many regular bloggers fall into, which is describing mundane, day-to-day matters. Whatever missing insights I made are strangely missing. Wonder what this indicates...)

Me, Myself and More of Meself

2008-04-04T20:02:00.002+05:30

Every cloud has a silver lining, they say...But then again, what about the clouds that crowd the sky at night, empty themselves of all forms of water and disappear even before the night it up? Bad attempt at humour, I know...but still...

PS-I (Practice School-I) lists were out today. Got allotted to Central Electronics and Electrical Research Institute (CEERI), Pilani, which essentially means that you will be hearing from yours truly throughout the summer from the midst of this desert (not technically, but rather figuratively). It's going to be a very interesting experience, with the campus bereft of most of its population; but then again, I am not a very people person, so probably won't matter that much to me anyway.

Have been feeling under the weather a bit lately - what with late working hours and precious little sleep to accompany them. My appearance has been likened to a 'drug addict' on more than one occasion over the past two days, which is strange actually, since I do not know any drug addicts.

Have been listening to re-runs of the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings. Evenstar is a track that has been particularly growing on me - it contains that pain, the sense of lost hope and the feeling of losing a precious thing that tears at your heart and makes you want to surrender to the waves of your despair.

For me, that is what music is about - making you feel. Of course, to each, there is his own interpretation. For some, music might be stuff you can bang your head to...for some, it might be the soothing melody of a singer's voice taking over...for me, it comprises of those simple tunes which on one hand, can uplift you; which on the other, can make you despair and cry; above all, music is the thing which can make you feel something you aren't remotely associated with at a given point of time - pain, sorrow, joy, hope and despair.

Sometimes, when you have these uncertain phases, when the chips are down; when you think you are trying hard enough to accomplish what you set out to do, but still feel that something is missing, that you can do better; sometimes when you set out to compose a post and even though you are a stickler for proper grammar and grammatically correct expressions, you simply don't care to correct your own erroneous sentences - it is in these times when you realize that you cannot let the rut affect you so, you can't let it get to your head, you can't let it play around with your mind.

It is in these times that you realize that you are afforded with an opportunity to distinguish yourself from others...to rise above the crowd...to be someone who not only does what he has to or what he wants to...to be someone who dares to dream, accomplish and follow this cycle without stopping to count his achievements...it is in these times that you realize that this is just the beginning of a journey - one which you will see to its end.

All Fools' Day

2008-04-01T10:45:00.002+05:30

The April Fools' Day syndrome is back again...The eve of the POM quiz was spent in deliberately planning pranks and setting them into action - all that was ruined though by the multiple allegiance switches of one of the people involved in the prank. So, with all attempts at an elaborately constructed prank getting botched up, I was left marvelling at the simplicity of the PS prank, which fooled hundreds of my batch-mates (In case you wondered, I was saved by Harshad, who regaled me with the story of the PS prank having been played on him.)

Of course, it seems as if the weather gods were trying to play a prank on the Pilani residents as well. In the middle of days which leave you roasted - it's that hot, and worse still, it is going to get hotter - we got some well-earned respite in the form of a thunderstorm that really shook up things - especially our attempts at trying to 'GHOT' POM (Let me tell you there is nothing so uninteresting as studying management.) The first light didn't really appear as it usually does...in fact, it was more a question of 'Is it evening already?' with the clouds giving the appearance of a cloudy dusk setting its stall out in the sky. And then, there was rain - quiet little drops raining down from the sky - not really soaking anyone but still giving that lovely, rainy feel to the day.

This was two hours ago...Two hours from then, it's already sunny, and it seems like it's going to be a pretty hot day. It is these moments that make you wonder if there is a God, and if there is, what kind of wicked sense of humour he/she has. Because regardless of all the pranks that were played and the ones that will see completion today, the prank played by the weather today shall remain the most lasting one.

Language

2008-03-26T21:08:00.002+05:30

I remember writing long back about how the ability to understand a language lends meaning to meaningless sounds. Today, let me write about how language has become a part of our learning.

Let me tell you about three specific words I heard during today's Microprocessor lecture - polling, interrupt and handshake.

For those of you who do not know of the meaning of these words in computer science context, let me just give you some very rudimentary definitions:

Polling implies that the processor works in sync with devices by checking continuously for changes in the device status. Can you draw a parallel with a small, shy child or even an adult who doesn't really like drawing attention to himself and so, has to be constantly monitored/taken care of?
Interrupt involves the device interrupting the processor whenever it needs something to be done. Can you draw a parallel with chronic attention-seekers here?
Handshake involves continuous status exchange signals being passed in between the processor and the device to ensure smooth transfer of data. Can you draw a parallel with good communication associated with a successful relationship?

My point here is very simple. Learning mirrors life, which in turn, is represented by language. So, learning mirrors language. You can even put it the other way around and say that language mirrors learning.

The fact that we have well-formed languages makes things much simpler. This Apogee, we had a Spanish speaker lecturing about supercomputing. The distance and language barriers didn't hinder the exchange, simply because of the common language we spoke - of science translated into English, albeit with a very Spanish flavour for an accent.

Sometimes, I have an astounding sense of wonderment when I read something I read in a local book being referred to as the same thing in material originating from some other part of the world. For me, the extent to which the common language of learning has permeated the fabric of our species is simply awe-inspiring. They say globalization has brought about this trend of global learning, but could it not be that global learning has brought about globalization?

Are We Dead, My Precioussssss???

2008-03-24T23:05:00.003+05:30

It's been so long since I keyed in my last post that I am not even going to give you readers an explanation for why the blog was dead for so long.

Blogosphere seems to have suddenly metamorphosed into 'blog-dom'. It's become more of a kingdom, fief or whatever else you choose to call it instead of a forum. But then again, that's just me and my cynical illusions...But the truth is, when there are no stories to tell, opinions are hard to manufacture and words are difficult to produce.

Amidst all the revelry which started with APOGEE (BITS' technical fest, in case you didn't know) and ended with Holi (or for me, with a twenty-four hour whirlwind trip to Delhi - a trip that involved philosophy, cynicism and lots of proof-reading, enough for a year actually) some things were lost...the most prominent among those being the regular seven courses I am currently doing this semester.

As I tried to shake off sleeplessness during my Civil labs today, I wondered about certain things. For example, about how instead of Chain surveying to find out the area of a given piece of land, we could take the area's satellite pictures (to scale of course) and calculate the area from that. A simple idea really - probably something that is already commonplace.

Which brings me back to my pet topic - the need for integrating computers into everything we do. Pervasive computing, in short. I never appreciated the concept more than when I came face-to-face with my microprocessor design assignment question. The reason? If we can design a microprocessor based computing system around a weighing machine, that's pretty cool, isn't it? As I like to say, it sort of brings things into perspective and falsifies my claim that we don't make use of automatic computing tools enough in our lives.

The truth is, I have never been happy with my computer's speed. I remember my first PC boasted the then latest 550 MHz Pentium III processor with 64 MB RAM and a 10.2 GB HDD. I vaguely recall naively thinking a year later as I regarded all the 1.2 GHz machines that they would be double as fast as my machine. Well sadly, I operate a 1.66 GHz Core 2 Duo powered machine with 1 GB RAM and 2 MB of L2 Cache, and it definitely isn't proportionately fast. Be it Windows or Linux, I haven't been able to extract the best performance out of my machine with the existing software I use. So is it the fault of the software or is it the user's limitation? Surely the hardware is not to blame...Or is it?

I don't know, but it seems to me that over the last three years, the computer world has undergone a massive paradigm shift when it comes to performance priorities. We saw it occurring when the focus shifted from microprocessor clock-speeds to power consumption; we saw it occurring when Intel abandoned its 30-stage pipeline to use a more modest 14-stage one; we see it happening even now, when Web 2.0 is re-defining the way we perceive the Internet (even though the change might be slower than we like.)

My only interpretation is that we have lingered on old ideas for too long. Maybe we have extracted all we could out of them and are now trying to extend their utility beyond their expiry date. New ideas are needed, if only to herald the death of old, seemingly precious ones. We need these new ideas to revitalize the way things are done. We need them, if only to have the old dying ideas asking, "Are we dead, my precioussssss?"

Delhi ‘Fiasco’ cacies

2008-02-16T22:07:00.001+05:30

Just back from the Capitol Grub.

Moral of the entire experience: Just decent food doesn't satisfy the appetite; definitely not if the service is bad and there is a hungry stomach grumbling for food within you.

Result: Storming out of the grub in anger doesn't satisfy the desire to break something; it's highly advisable to actually break something before leaving…

Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

2008-02-09T11:05:00.001+05:30

“The size and age of the universe incline us to believe that many
technologically advanced civilizations must exist. However, this belief seems
logically inconsistent with our lack of observational evidence to support it.
Either the initial assumption is incorrect and technologically advanced
intelligent life is much rarer than we believe, our current observations are
incomplete and we simply have not detected them yet, or our search methodologies
are flawed and we are not searching for the correct indicators.”

At SETI, scientists and researchers are trying to find the search methodologies that will give us correct indicators about the existence of intelligent life in other parts of the universe, a task complicated very much by our limited reach within the universe and the relatively high turnover (read low lifespan) of humans as compared to the extent of the universe.

Here’s an interesting news item on a recent development in the apparently growing uncertainty regarding the direction to be taken by SETI researchers in pursuing their search for extra-terrestrial life.

SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Some of the important facts about the organization are:

The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.
Their motto: ‘We believe we are conducting the most profound search in human history — to know our beginnings and our place among the stars.’
The SETI Institute is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research, education and public outreach.
Founded in 1984, the Institute today employs over 100 scientists, educators and support staff.

Always at the epicenter of many modern sci-fi stories, especially those that involve discovery of extra-terrestrial life, SETI quite possibly acts as the hand put forward by human beings to intelligent extra-terrestrial beings.

But there are a few other things about SETI that interest me, one of them being their SETI@home project. SETI@home is an extremely popular volunteer computing project that was launched by U.C. Berkeley in May 1999. It was funded originally by the The Planetary Society and Paramount pictures and later by the State of California. Any individual can become involved with SETI research by downloading and running the SETI@home software package, which then runs signal analysis on a "work unit" of data recorded from the central 2.5 MHz wide band of the SERENDIP IV instrument. The results are then automatically reported back to UC Berkeley. Over 5 million computer users in more than 200 countries have signed up for SETI@home and have collectively contributed over 19 billion hours of computer processing time. As of January 29, 2008the Seti@home achieves an average throughput of 387 TeraFLOPS, making it equivalent to the second fastest supercomputer on Earth.

There have been two distinct approaches that SETI researchers have tried to follow in their search for intelligent beings outside the planet.

1. The Ordinary SETI approach involves using an array of radio telescopes to listen for signals sent out by alien civilizations.
2. The Active SETI approach involves sending out powerful radio signals in the hope that alien civilizations can receive and listen to them.

On the superficial level, it might seem that these approaches are nothing but a fool’s hope of trying to find out about sentient life in other parts of the universe. As I remember, Abhinav once expressed his extreme displeasure about the day and age we are born in. If I remember the argument correctly, somebody predicted that the nearest distance between life forms at different places in this universe would be 200 light years at best, which means any chance of us finding intelligent extra-terrestrial beings within our lifetime, is unlikely, improbable and impossible at best. Unless of course, we have aliens actually knocking at our doorstep, which is probably what’s rankling with many of the opponents of the active SETI approach.

Ultimately, it is one of those ethical questions that confront researchers quite often, especially these days. How far do you push the boundaries and dimensions of science before it starts infringing upon our beliefs and our seemingly convoluted sense of what is ethical and what isn’t.
Although the two fields seem far removed from each other and one might be inclined to think that the purported long term nature of extra-terrestrial search makes this an issue which isn’t quite as relevant, I find many parallels between the opposition to cloning and the opposition to active SETI. Both stem from a fear of the unknown for one.

In the former case, people are afraid that cloning and stem cell research might prove the natural order of things wrong. And worse still, they are afraid that advances in these technologies might actually put a big question mark over their own belief systems – they are afraid that their belief in God, Genesis and the like might prove to be false. People reckon man shouldn’t play God. But why shouldn’t he? The essence of an intelligent being is to try and gain more knowledge. Man is trying to do that. Why stop him? Why curb his thirst for more of the driving force behind civilization – knowledge?

On similar lines, why must we stop people from seeking out other intelligent life forms – life forms that might be so technologically advanced than us that all of our questions regarding life, its inception and the universe could answered by them? Why must we stop looking for others, whose existence would prove to us that we are not alone in this infinitely empty universe? A lone person seeks comfort in the company of others of his kind. Can’t a lone intelligent civilization seek to find solace in other civilizations rather like its own? Isn’t that a cause worth pursuing? Isn’t that a cause worth risking everything we own for?

It is my belief that there are others around us – some of whom are more advanced and others less so. It is also my belief that all civilizations undergo the same stages of development – establishment, infancy, coming-of-age, glory, wane and finally, self-destruction. It is indeed debatable as to which stage we have reached (depends on the point of view, doesn’t it?) but one thing is certain – the ultimate quest for our civilization’s survival will involve meeting other life forms and taking their aid – it will involve intermingling and cross-civilizational learning. That will be the only way wherein we might be able to ensure the establishment of a new civilization – ready to tread on the same cyclic path of establishment, infancy, coming-of-age, glory, wane and self-destruction.

23 & 3 & 1...Another Rat Race

2008-01-07T22:50:00.001+05:30

Enough said. Period.

A Sad Rant

2008-01-05T00:53:00.001+05:30

Just when you think the pall of hypocrisy and contorted views can't cast a longer shadow upon our supposedly educated society, something comes along which perfectly well makes you believe otherwise. Let me tell you a couple of examples that I encountered over the end-semester break...

December 23 (or so I remember)...I was watching the Gujarat elections' coverage on CNN-IBN. One of the 'experts' being questioned was Teesta Sethlavar - well,I might have got the spelling wrong...don't care about the spelling though since I guess the name would sound right enough) - a self proclaimed social activist. A question posed to her spoke of why the only human rights violations during the 2002 Gujarat riots are the only violations they saw. The question went on to ask about the lack of action of these very human rights activist groups in the case of the blatant atrocities that were committed in Nandigram. The reply didn't surprise me. The reply could have made the best diplomat proud in the way the question was dodged.

January 7, today...Sachin Tendulkar scored a hundred at the SCG, and the same media, which was vilifying him for such reasons like not scoring/failing under pressure/scoring too slowly/getting out in the 90s and what not, showered upon him the same adulation reserved for demi-gods who can do no wrong? And funnily enough, we had all these discussions popping up about whether Tendulkar now deserves to be awarded the Bharat Ratna...And of course, then we have people who were vehemently opposing the possibility of the government ever taking such a step (a social activist was one of them, surprise surprise!!!!)

Now, don't get me wrong! But there are two fundamental flaws in the topic of discussion itself. First, the Bharat Ratna should be awarded to persons in recognition of a life time of work. In Tendulkar's case, he might be nearing the end of his career but he's certainly not hung up his bat. The honour can wait...but having said that, I must also emphasize that the honour must be given, which brings me to the second flaw in the discussion...

When we have people who grossly underestimate the power of a particular medium talking about achievements of a person engaging himself in that medium, we get senseless reasons being thrown about which only succeed at tarnishing not only the person's achievements but also the medium itself.

Sport is a medium that transcends the physical and psychological sphere. The joy and inspiration that we, as plain and simple supporters of a sports team, get out of watching a genius wield his bat around like a wand, cannot be quantified in terms of sheer direct influence on a person's life. Isn't the example of the heights attained by Sachin through sheer hard labour an inspiration to everybody who wishes to achieve something in life? Isn't the example of his undying hunger on the cricket field a lesson in keeping the flame of desire glowing inside one's mind?

It is time we looked beyond strictly defined rules and analyzed the real influence...the real service done by a person to the nation...Sachin has done a service to the nation which few in post-independence India can claim to have done...he's made us proud of being Indians...he's given us a reason to hold our collective breaths when he steps out to bat...he's given the great Indian middle class a reason to believe that the sky is the limit for their achievements...

It is for only this reason that Tendulkar must be honoured...but only when the time is right (and that time certainly isn't now)

Unfortunately, the media has made this issue a media circus. No doubt, it is going to be the same group of people who will be the first to vilify Sachin once again when the going gets tough.

Sadly, it is this hypocrisy that is gnawing at our collective conscience. People might never have liked others climbing ladders to success even while they themselves lingered on the lower rungs, but now our society and its components have begun doing something that's even worse...We've begun pulling down those who show the spirit, the endeavour and the industry to attempt to climb the ladder.

Maybe it is time for change...Probably it's upto us to find a way to make sure that the values we treasure don't get lost in a race for instant popularity...Probably it is upto us to concentrate on our own success - and that too, without trying to vilify and harm others.

A Year Gone...What About Manchester United?

2008-01-02T00:55:00.004+05:30

(ONLY FOR FOOTBALL FANS, ESPECIALLY MANCHESTER UNITED ONES - AT LEAST THOSE WHO CARE FOR THE OPINIONS OF A FELLOW FAN)

Well, it's now exactly a year since I started off on this little thingy called Blogger. Well, I'm not really going to go all bleary-eyed and rant about whatever I've written over the past year. No, not at all!

I'm just going to write on a topic that was also the subject of my first post - Manchester United Football Club.

Last time I wrote about United, we were at the top of the Barclays Premier League, chasing a title that we once considered ours by right but one which we hadn't been able to claim for the last four years. This time, the time of the year is the same...the number of games played by each club in the league is the same...only United is going for its tenth Premier League crown.

So, with half of the season gone, I thought let me take a look (as a fan) at what all United have done (or not done) during this campaign.

Barclays Premier League: We currently lie second in the table, two points behind the leaders Arsenal. Not bad, although the loss at West Ham United might come back to haunt us. Still, with as many as 18 games to go, it's a long race ahead. Only, Arsenal don't seem willing to let the lead slip (unlike Chelsea who were quite charitable during the festive season last time around)
FA Cup: A 3rd round tie against Aston Villa beckons.
Champions' League: The team did brilliantly to make light of a potentially tricky group to qualify on top. Lyon in the pre-quarters will be a completely different proposition (in a difficult sort of sense) but man for man, it seems like Lyon should be more afraid of United.
League Cup: Another early exit meant that questions were once again raised about the quality of United's youngsters. Okay, I might not be an authority on United youth teams, but I reckon we are expecting too much from the club's youngsters. The specter of the Class of '92 hangs over these lads and that probably, is the reason why the pressure is getting to them.

Overall though, the team is looking good. The new boys Tevez, Nani, Anderson and Hargreaves have settled remarkably well. Ronaldo is still in awesome form, and the defense looks good too. Fergie too seems quite ready for battle and even more glory, despite being 66 years young as a man and 21 years old as a manager. So, I guess there is only one thing left to say: "Go For It United."

Here's a list of some of the best action of the season thus far according to me:

BEST MATCH: Definitely a toss-up between the match against Aston Villa (away) and the match against Middlesborough (home). Will probably go for the Boro match, since the one against Villa ended up with United against nine men.

BEST PLAYERS:

Christiano Ronaldo : 18 goals. Enough said.
Nemanja Vidic : Best defensive record in the league. Enough said again.
Anderson : I never thought I'd say this, but at last United seem like they've got a genuine contender to replace Paul Scholes after he retires. If only he adds an added dimension of scoring regularly to his game, Anderson could be United's midfield lynchpin for the future.

GOALS OF THE SEASON:

Carlos Tevez against Birmingham City (H)
Carlos Tevez against Middlesborough (H)
Nani against Tottenham (H)

Vacationophobia

2007-12-22T12:04:00.001+05:30

Vacationophobia
n. euphoric state attained due to excessive enjoyment of vacations

Well since I googled this word and found no word to match this exactly, I reckon Abhinav and I have indeed invented a new word. All we now need is three more people using the word on a regular basis, a writer who includes the word in his/her new book and lo! Thou shalt have the latest entry into the dictionary. ;)

Okay that was incredibly cynical of me, probably a bit conceited (don't ask me the history of this word's association with this word, it would take the story of the entire semester to do justice to the explanation) but still incredibly true.

Meanwhile, I am still suffering from a severe case of vacationophobia (the suffix phobia is quite misleading here, it seems) and reveling in the frustratingly blissful yet disturbing inactivity.

It's almost one year since I started blogging and the change in the frequency of my posts says everything about my desire to express. And let me tell you one thing. If you want to blog more frequently and have a mind that works like mine, make sure you have fewer wing debates. The act of saying or writing the same thing twice is too cumbersome for yours truly.

And amidst all the incessantly unnecessary ramblings that I'm spewing out like…well, I'm feeling too lazy to either cook up or find any simile…so I'll just leave it at that.

Last word: While you surf the net, those of you who've not seen Vineet's team up message, do check it out here.

Hatred

2007-12-03T20:02:00.000+05:30

Hatred is such a strong word.

Wonder what it really implies though.

I mean, you hate many things around you but all those things seem to be the things you actually can’t do without. Like when you hate yourself for forgetting the birthday of your best friend of ten years, or when you begin to avoid the company of another of your pals just because you feel you’re being looked at as ‘one’ entity – always seen together, celebrating together, joking together – and you don’t want to lose your individuality.

Maybe it is bitterness at what you’ve become yourself – an image of someone you neither anticipated nor desired to be. Or maybe it’s just a simple hatred of yourself because you think you’re wasting your time - that you should be doing more revolutionary things, more radical things than blogging on the eve of a comprehensive exam. Or maybe it’s just frustration at your inability to come up with an appropriate title for the blog post you’ve just typed and anger at the fact that you just want to post it on your blog at the soonest, so you just post it under the heading of the first word of the post.

Epiphany

2007-11-17T09:30:00.001+05:30

What is an epiphany? Is it merely realizing something you had stored in the back of your mind – the solutions to all your problems for example – or is it realizing that something and acting accordingly?

But then again, what do I know about epiphanies? Unless…it is the realization of the fact that it is probably time to stop being so dreamy…to stop being so abstract…to stop dealing in fuzzy measures and to begin weighing everything in concrete terms…in terms you can quantify…

The abstract is a part of me. I love imagining. I love dreaming. Like when I say my dream is to buy Manchester United Football Club, so that I can have access to the Director's box for every match. ;-)

Probably the epiphany does not lie so much in realization as it does in the choice it brings in tow…

Freed

2007-11-03T09:01:00.001+05:30

A large window. A beautiful horizon. An attainable dream. A chain holding me back.

The only light that I see comes from the few rays that escape that beautiful scene. I don't want it to be night any more. I don't wish for it to go dark. Because the light will fade. And the dream would vanish. And all that I would be left with is nothing but despair.

An endless cycle. A vicious cycle. Time and space all merging into one. My entire being shivering.

Words have failed me. My mental faculties have deserted me. Is this some crippling disease?

And then the night comes. I look out of that same window. A vast ocean lies before me. An endless whisper of waves seduces me into making the decision. The chain suddenly comes off. I am on the brink…on the edge…teetering between despair and nothingness. I choose nothingness. As I enter the water, I don't feel the freezing cold, or the pain of a thousand pointed swords stabbing at me. All I feel is ecstasy. I am free. I have left. At last, I found something – the emptiness inside me at one with the emptiness in the belly of the ocean. Freed from everything I despised at last.

A Moment for the Technologically Inept

2007-09-14T23:40:00.001+05:30

Things have been much easier ever since I discovered the way to blog directly from Microsoft Word 2007. No big deal, you might say, but it probably is for someone as technologically challenged, as resistant to change as yours truly. Funny thing you might say – a would-be engineer confessing about his apparent lack of technological aptitude – but it is true. I have a cell phone which I've never ever bothered to explore – all I do or rather, find reason to do is to make/receive calls, save contact information (read phone numbers) and send/receive messages. All I've done with an iPod is to ask about the storage space in the particular machine – as far as listening to songs goes, it's much easier pressing the play button and listening to whatever song that's on than to search for my favourite song.

In short, I'm technologically inept, or should I say challenged because that simply sounds better. Probably the only thing I've a good feeling about is computers, probably not because I claim to be any good at it, but more because of the ease with which I can use it. It's simple really – if you want to access the internet, just open the browser, type in the required URL and wait for the page to load. If you want to type in a document, just open a word processor, type in the content and print it out. There's no need to really know anything beyond this, especially if you are a home/office user whose profession requires computing as a cosmetic tool to improve productivity rather than as a fundamental requirement integral to success. Once though, you begin to dig deeper, it does become more and more difficult for you to have as much ease in doing your thing on the computer as you had earlier.

The point I am trying to make is that it is this abstraction which has, while attracting lots of people towards computers as tools for productivity, inhibited the integration of computing machines into our daily lives. So much more can be done with computers, but do we bother? No, because we'd much rather maintain our daily expenses in a diary than fill out the spreadsheet workspace with the same. Because the minutes wasted in just booting up the computer and starting Word might be better utilized in enhancing and embellishing your words to write stuff you're actually proud of. Because, though e-mail may be faster, longer and more intimate because of the magic of words, you'd rather call up your friend and talk to him/her just to make sure that his voice still carries that same closeness, the same confidence and the same comfort level as it once did.

So is this a pointless exercise – aiming for complete computer integration into our lives? Is it too much to ask for?

I don't think so, for even though the world of computing has become trapped into a mire of bulky programs/software slowing down the fastest processors ever (reportedly), high-end computers failing to satisfy user requirements of performance, people still asking for more speed despite the fact that our systems are a hundred times faster than systems of a decade ago and endless debates over open-source and closed-source software, I believe we will break this trap. I believe we will come up with platform-independent software that actually provide the functionality we need at high speeds by making full use of the CPU resources – that too while being fully secure. I believe we will come up with hardware components that shall reflect this change in computing – this change which shall reflect speed of thought, process and connectivity. And above all, I believe computing can be taken to the masses, by making the rules and syntaxes as simple as the rules of daily thinking.

A Return to the Fold

2007-09-13T10:58:00.001+05:30

To quote Saurya,

Blogicide. Almost.

Hell, they say 2-1 is the lightest semester of them all. I beg to differ. It's more like 2-1 is the lightest semester, if you consider the number of classes you attend. Otherwise, you find yourself drowning in a mire of mismanaged time, endless activities on campus and general wing enthusiasm.

8th September was my birthday - the first time I went through the rites of actually being on the receiving end of birthday bumps - bumps, rapid fire and what not. Eye-opening experience really. Guess all those whimpers and screams of pain are for real!

So, do I have anything interesting to write about today? I don't know. I don't even know why I didn't have anything to write all these days, especially seeing that time has been flying past me. It seems like I'm stuck in a time warp where everything else seems to have lost significance…I keep doing the same things over and over again…with varying degrees of interest – sometimes with gusto, sometimes with curiosity and at others, just mechanically pursuing the motions. All of this sounds familiar – I wonder if it means I'm getting into a rut…

The strongest feeling of déjà vu I had this semester was when I registered for the course on ASP.NET. It was the same form I'd filled up last semester when I signed for the same course (For all the curious ones out there who want to know why I signed up for the same course twice, I dropped out midway through last semester. Guess my ego didn't feel comfortable with that decision and so I signed up for the course again this time around.) and all the columns had to be similarly filled, except for the date. Depressing really. Especially when you think of the dreams of dynamism I always harbour. So does this mean I'm getting into a rut? If it does, then the reasons from my absence from the blogosphere are apparent enough..

Switch Off???

2007-08-26T00:09:00.000+05:30

With notices everywhere proclaiming 'Switch Off' in the most attention-seeking way, you can't help but do the very thing that's asked on these posters. Avoiding electricity wastage is probably one of the best ways to reduce the shortfall in electricity generation as compared to the demand, and the 'Switch Off' campaign pursued by the Rotaract Club on campus probably stresses on that.

One of the greatest problems with the world's campaign against Global warming is that we get too caught up in the bleak statistics and the doomsday scenarios. Okay, that does not mean I don't believe in such predictions. I just believe such unceasingly depressing predictions take away the most important factor in the campaign - the role of the individual. We get so caught up either sensationalizing the issue or following its sensational treatment at the hands of the media that we tend to ignore the little things we all can do to contribute towards tackling this giant of a problem.

At the same time, I wish people would also talk of issues like vanishing species, reduced tree cover, endanged ecosystems - a result of imbalance in species, and the like in the same breath as global warming. The only reason I say this is because there is a close relationship between everything I've mentioned above and to speak of one without the others is to present an incomplete picture of the environmental issues that plague us. Only, very few people actually manage to do that. Hats off to those who do! They probably are the ones who really want to make a difference.

60 Years of Independence

2007-08-15T10:36:00.000+05:30

I'm afraid I don't have much to write in this post. Is it the case of a writer's block? Or is it that I've just run out of things to write about? Or do both these things mean the same and I've begun this post crapping?

For all the miserable net speeds in BITS and the related problems arising due to that, I've realized the truth in an argument that might claim there are no original thoughts out there in the thought-sphere. After all, whenever over the last few days, I've sat down to write something, whether it be my blog post or something else, I've realized midway with a jolt that whatever I wanted to say, it had already been said or it was being said even as I wrote it.

On to a different track now: Today is India's Independence day. 60 years of Independence - that's what all the headlines proclaim. I remember vividly the occasion when we celebrated 50 years of independence and the ten intervening years seem to have lost their discrete meanings and blended into one. I don't know how time flew by, but I guess it's been quite a journey for me since then. I'd like to believe that I've changed for the better during these times, having learnt a lot about things in general.

But of course, today isn't about me, nor about another of its citizens. It's about the country itself, about the promise we always have managed to show. And that makes me wonder whether ten years down the line, we will all be talking about the promise we show. After all we did the same ten years ago, and while the last decade saw a lot of progress on our part, the world too maintained its progress march, and we remained the rising, albeit the rising who ascend fast...

I Wonder...

2007-07-28T11:43:00.000+05:30

Last night was rainy. The raindrops came down together - like a sheet - a translucent obstruction in my line of vision. As I stood on the balcony staring at the fading light and then, at the man-made lights coming to life, I wondered how it would feel to be a bird crouched in its nest, trying to shield itself unsuccessfully from the drops which the leaves on the tree can't protect it from. I wondered how it would feel to be the wet grass, revelling in the luscious feel of the raindrops, for they can only mean one thing - sustenance. And then I wondered - when was the last time I let myself soak in the rain, not worrying about how I could catch a cold out there or about the things I needed to do and the jobs that I needed to complete? Where has all the romance gone? Where has the joy of life gone? Have I become the one thing I didn't want to become - a machine-like person not caring or appreciating the beauty that nature has wrought around us? I wonder...

Of Open Source, Patents et al

2007-07-25T18:37:00.000+05:30

As the open-source v/s closed source debate rages on with companies and brands on either side of the fence each trying to gain the upper hand, it seems that Microsoft has started to change its policies to ensure sustained control of the software markets.

A perfect example of this is Microsoft's policy in China which includes tolerating piracy - one of the reasons why China has not yet woken up to the Linux-driven open-source revolution. Apparently, it took Microsoft nearly 15 years of struggle in the Chinese markets and billions of lost dollars to formulate its plan of pricing its products at the lowest possible rates and working in sync with the Chinese government - a policy that has paid dividends. Apparently Bill Gates says that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody's software he'd certainly prefer it be Microsoft's.

So does this prove that Microsoft is worried about maintaining its long-standing dominance of the software markets? You bet. Open-source is both the present and the future. Why must Windows be priced exorbitantly when all its features (and even some more powerful than those) are present in Linux which you can all download and use for free? The people in Redmond realize this grave threat to business and there are some policies which indicate changes are afoot.

For example, take the instance of Microsoft releasing Visual Studio Express Editions for free. Maybe it realizes that with so many languages all packed with platform-independent features available in the market (Java, Python to name a few) it can't afford to rely on its Windows environment to ensure the survival of its Visual Studio suite. And hence the available free downloads (albeit with restricted features yet enough of them to be going on with.)

So is Microsoft going the 'free' way? Apparently not, if reports of patent terrorism are to be believed.

So will it finally give up its policy of trying to preserve its intellectual property by obfuscation? Will it realize that opening up their source codes will accelerate the development of computing? Doesn't look like it.

For the biggest argument that closed-source has is the attempt to protect intellectual property at all costs. Time for that to change, methinks.

Speaking of protection of intellectual property, there is interesting and most disturbing evidence emerging of an increasing number of lawsuits by inventors of new treatment technologies, citing infringement of their intellectual property that is threatening to interfere with effective treatment of patients. I mean, imagine what happened if you went for a surgery where it would take three weeks to recover fully instead of one where you could be up and running in three days flat only because the latter is protected by patents all over the board.

Perhaps it is time we looked hard and long at the concept of intellectual property and patents and did something to change the fact that the current system is proving to be a hindrance to progress and innovation.

A New Task at Hand: Probashi Bong Pseudo Intellectuals

2007-07-20T23:46:00.000+05:30

For all the talk about the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of Bongs all over the world (hey I just used a tautology, didn't I?), for all our endless chatter and discussions and (allow me to say so) addas, this is possibly the most concrete step we've taken with regards to letting the world know about what we feel. And that's precisely why we've set up this forum which imbibes two keywords that form an integral part of my identity and that of the rest of the team: Probashi Bong.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, presenting before you the forum: Probashi Bong Pseudo Intellectuals

Stir It Up!!!

2007-07-19T18:49:00.000+05:30

Hope all of you explored and appreciated the new colours on the blog. I hope it comes across for what I meant it to be - something completely different from the old layout, something bright, gay and over-the-top (though I don't think it is still so over-the-top as I'd have liked it to be) Of course, the change didn't just happen for the sake of it. I changed the layout simply for the lack of something better to do. The bliss of inactivity you might say but I prefer to call it 'encountering the perils of an idle mind'.

After all, isn't it ironical that a title (and a post) I've been thinking of writing about for the last month or so, sees the light of the day so late during my vacations? Probably not, I guess. It's probably a case of actually stirring things up and then acquiring the right to talk about it - at least that's what the blogger's ego inside of me wants to believe. Evidently, for all the philosophies and crap this mind can spout, the feeling of actually doing the said things is definitely better than the eternal philosophizing.

See the thing is, with hardly ten days worth of vacations remaining and having enjoyed two precious months worth of vacations, I had simply run out of things to do. My stock of interesting BITsian tales had apparently exhausted itself long ago (the remainder of these tales were the inside jokes and stories, which people in the outside world can surely never appreciate.) I'd reduced myself to watching re-runs of movies - for the first time, I realized how few movies are actually shown on TV - after all it's all about repeat telecasts. And of course, even sleep deserted me - an extra six-hour nap to go with my twelve-hour sleeping routine could have helped me to get rid of that boredom.

So, with the seemingly futile prospect of killing time in any and whatever way possible, I decided to stir it up. And hence the change in colours.

Needless to say, this change was the only stirring up I did. After it, I felt weak, troubled and exhausted - all a result of the toll inactivity had exacted on me. And now, to bring a sort of closure to this episode (and also to my desire for radical change) I chose to write about why I actually decided to change the layout. After all, this blog might be stuck with the same layout until another bout of inactivity hits me and I decide to stir it up all over again.

Wah Taj!

2007-07-10T23:48:00.000+05:30

Well, isn't this what we found splashed all across our television screens on the morning of the 8th. With the satisfaction of averting a self-dreamt national insult behind us, people went all out to celebrate (or so the media would have us believe) The most ironic thing that I find though within hours of declaring 'THE NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD', the same website now calls for 'THE 7 NEW NATURAL WONDERS OF THE WORLD' - a list that is to be announced on 8.8.08.

Probably this is something that is beyond what I think - in other words, it does not matter what I think about this...after all, everything is done and dusted and the list - a result of millions of votes from across the world - has been released. But I do question the validity of this list.

How do you define a wonder? This in itself is a very subjective question and the boundary lines which differentiate this question from others on many aesthetic and metaphysical issues are probably so blurred that I'd rather not go into this topic.

Of more interest to me is the nature of people who have voted in this poll. The obvious fact that most of the people who've voted haven't ever visited the monuments they have voted for. Can such a voter imagine the awe that must fill a devotee when he/she stands in the shadow of Christ the Redeemer atop the Sugarloaf mountain in Rio? Can such a voter feel the throb of a hunger for blood and savagery which a gladiatorial bout in the Colosseum would have elicited centuries ago? Can such a voter truly appreciate the ingenuity involved in building the Great Wall of China for the purpose of imperial defence?

Instead of a survey that weighed in these factors plus many more like architectural ingenuity and difficulty, significance and symbolism, we got a poll where heavily populated nations could dominate the voting and hence push forth their candidates.

All said and done, I feel that the bottom line remains as to how we can compare these great monuments and grade them as better than the other. How can we choose to honour some monuments and not others, despite the fact that they all stand for the same thing - the triumph of human creativity and ingenuity as mankind strove (as it still does) for a world that stands for comfort, beauty, love and happiness.

Old Skool...

2007-07-10T01:25:00.000+05:30

I was watching an episode of Doogie Howser, M.D., during one of its re-runs earlier today, and there was this brilliant quote -

"They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe if we all spent a little less time beholding -- We'd be a lot happier."

Simple and meaningful, ain't it?

Why Tiger Woods' Quest for Golfing Immortality is Tougher than Roger Federer's Shot at All-Time Tennis Supremacy

2007-07-08T23:15:00.000+05:30

Well, this is another one of those long-title posts, though I doubt the contents will be as long. Just for some background info though, let it make it clear to all that I'm both a Tiger Woods and a Roger Federer fan, so do not doubt me for someone who favours one over the other.

I just mean to say that Woods' shot at trying to surpass Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major wins is a task that i difficulty, surpasses Federer's attempt at beating Sampras' record of 14 Grand Slam wins. Here are the reasons why-

1) In golf, you compete not only against your opponents but also against the golf course, which in short means nature itself. After all, the conditions on the golf course may change in an instant. In tennis though, you at least have the luxury of knowing that if the conditions change, they will be equally difficult for both the players.

2) No sportsman has generated as much fear in the hearts of opponents as Tiger has done, though Federer comes a close second.

3) This one clinches it for me - Tiger's will to win. He rebuilt his swing when he was at the top of his game just to make sure that by the time the field caught up to his standards then, he would be miles ahead on his own.

Having said all this, I must acknowledge that both of this gentlemen are great sportsmen who embody the whole gamut of values that sports are supposed to generate in a sportsman. And as a sports man, I feel privileged to live in an era when we see these two giants of their sport chase sporting immortality even after they've both achieved greatness.

P.S. All said and done, today's final between Roger and Rafa was the best men's tennis match I saw since Sampras beat Agassi 6-7 7-6 7-6 7-6 in the 2001 US Open quarter finals. Kudos to both players!

Faith...

2007-07-01T23:33:00.000+05:30

6/30/2007, 10:24 PM

This is my last night in Pune for quite some time, as it now seems to appear from the plans that we've made for ourselves. Of course, even the best laid plans have loopholes in them, and they do tend to allow themselves to be modified by situations, occurrences and people.

The trip in itself, while being quite delightful (if only because I met many old acquaintances - among them friends and relatives), was an experience in itself for me, primarily because it was the first housewarming ceremony I've ever been a part of. It's kind of strange how even the most simple-seeming event of coming to live in a house can lend itself to all sorts of pomp, celebration and rituals.

I wonder how all this started - I mean, the observance of housewarming. Did the rituals originate out of a desire to please the Gods and seek their blessings at the start of this new abode one begins to inhabit? Did the pomp arise out of the need to express fully - in a truly extrovert way - the joy of moving into a new home? Did the celebrations start as an attempt to celebrate the big and small joys of life - moving into a new home being one of them? And do these questions really matter with all things being observed the way they are and everything happening the way things such as these usually do? If any one has any theory related to this, or better still, the answers to these questions, I'd love to listen to them.

I believe that questions are one of the many that can be asked when we deal with matters of faith and belief. After all, what is faith but an unwavering belief in a curious hunch we have? That hunch being the belief that there is something greater at work in our lives and in those of people around us, something which makes us part of a whole - a whole that is integral to the working of the entire universe, a whole which has so many cogs in the form of all things - animate and inanimate - yet which cannot work properly even if a single cog breaks down and stops functioning without a ready replacement. What is faith but a round-about way of glorifying oneself and making one believe that one is important enough to be the cynosure of a pair of eyes (maybe more) watching over one, from somewhere in the universe?

I now remember that night last semester when I was having some fun at a formatting session with our EPC psenti-semites. That was the first time when I'd really met and gotten to know them and amidst all the fun, just as we were going to ANC, trying to alleviate our fear that there was too much matter to publish and we'd have to bring out a 10-page issue or worse, a 12-page issue, Shibanka da asked me (out of the blue, mind you) about the school of philosophy I can most relate to. And to his vote for existentialism, I replied with a word which I'm not quite sure is a school of philosophy at all - that word being individualism.

For me, my faith is an extension of my individual identity. It is mine and mine alone, and I can explain it to no one - not my friends, nor my family. It is the thing that keeps my ship sailing when I find negative thoughts crowding my brain. My faith helps me live through all those periods of self-doubt that I have all too often. It gees me up when I wonder if I'm good enough to do something…it keeps me grounded and modest when I feel the elation of accomplishment, constantly reminding me that there are tougher challenges to come and taller achievements to conquer…it keeps me upbeat when things go wrong, reminding me of the countless times I've learnt from mistakes.

That is why I can’t explain where I place my faith. That is why I can't describe the voice which my polymorphic faith assumes. All I can describe is what it does for me - it gives me a reason to believe in myself, to expect something good to emanate from whatever faculties I possess and to appreciate all the things I should be grateful for in my life.

Every Other Person Seems to Be Blogging Nowadays and I Love the Blogosphere for It!!!

2007-06-15T00:12:00.001+05:30

I remember reading somewhere (and please excuse my memory for not remembering where) that the first step towards creating something that makes an interesting read is the title. It's like if you make a good impression on the reader, he will read your stuff and the way to making a good impression is to have a most eye-grabbing, attention-catching title. The author went on to elaborate how short titles are always more preferable to long ones (Guess Bora t makers didn't read this stuff.) But that isn't going to stop me from putting up this post with this title, because I'm part of this non-conformist world driven by an undercurrent called the Information Revolution...because there is no longer one right way and many wrong ways to do things...because new ideas are welcome today...new thoughts are appearing at will because of our willingness to accept each person as a different individual with thoughts, behaviour and mentality completely different from the person beside him/her...because at last, we realize that just as many problems can have multiple solutions, many things can be done in multiple ways.

So how has this river of non-conformism and independent thinking swept us away? I don't know for sure, although I am a part of this. Probably it is the sudden upsurge of people expressing themselves that has created so many independent threads of thoughts - all snaking about, intertwining, sparring, concurring and debating with each other. The sheer number of these leave me wondering whether there are new thoughts at all...But that's something I'll leave for another post...

I just returned from a short break from home yesterday and let me tell you, I had more than my fair share of blog posts to check out - Saurya, Rachit, Nilanjana, Swapnil, Ramya, Rajat, Rishabh (not necessarily in the same order - I've got to be politically correct here) - with each blog having multiple posts. And then the thought struck me like a bolt of lightening that is all so common in these rainy days - how do people whose blogrolls stretch on and on, keep track of what their friends are writing? If there are say, ten people on your blogroll and each of them posts 10 entries per month - that translates into 100 different threads of thought every month. Just imagine that the number of people in the blogging world is many thousand times the number I just quoted in the earlier example.

This, for me is the real power of blogging, of internet, and of freedom of speech in general. Discussions are no longer confined to being held in hurried whispers with fears of being caught hanging like a spectre over one's head; opinions are no longer withheld for fear of not meeting with approval. People want to be heard, they want their thoughts to count or they just want to release their thoughts and feelings out of their systems - and many (yours truly being one of them) have, among other things turned to blogging to do just that.

The concept of a thought sphere - a ambiguous, non-real entity supposed to contain all the info in the minds of all the people on this earth - is now truly realized in the form of the blogosphere. It contains info, opinions, general crap - everything. But above all, I feel it tells me how all humans differ from each other, especially when two people see the same thing, yet write different interpretations of it in their blogs.

Promise of A New World

2007-06-05T23:41:00.000+05:30

I swore to myself when I started this blog that I'd never have 'techie' posts here. It's my belief that unless you are a very good sci-fi author with oodles of imagination to supplement tons of ability with words, you can't make techie stuff appear good reads for everybody; and since I haven't proved myself to be either, hence the reason for my resolve.

But over the last few days, two things have caught my attention and excited me to such an extent that I've now broken my aforementioned golden rule, not once but twice in quick succession. The first of course, was the concept of $100 laptops; the second is the incredible concept of surface computing.

To know more about this, you can look over the papers from a couple of days ago, or you could wiki it, or just visit the homepage of Microsoft Surface. This is hardly a place for putting up all the details of the project since I do not know everything, nor am I an expert in this field. But it is the possible reach of this enterprise that excites me.

This is possibly the first genuine step to make computing a part of our daily life, and I mean computers as a integral part of everything we do. Okay, it is a big part even today; but computers are still ensconced within the traditional display, input and processing devices - at least to the general public. Sure there are microprocessors everywhere - as traditional microprocessors or microcontrollers, but they are not quite capable of multi-tasked all round computing, are they? (Do correct me if I am wrong in saying any of this) But Microsoft Surface is the first attempt at breaking this notion.

It's probably too early to say this, but I think we are heading for a Star Wars style world full of computers and devices having brilliant computing capability. We are heading towards an exciting, brave new world where our creations - machines led by computers - will enable us to reach greater heights of progress and technical advancement. It takes software and hardware development and inter-relation to a whole new level altogether. And these are the reasons why, this new concept excites me. Despite all the immediate inflated costs and stuff, this shows the way towards the next generation in computer evolution.

I wonder whether Alan M. Turing, when he invented the first computing machine, ever imagined this stage in computer evolution. If he did and had he been alive, wouldn't he be having a smile on his face on this day, looking at the direction his invention his original invention is taking and the limitless possibilities it is providing to mankind? And if he didn't, wouldn't he still be happy that his invention has reached such zeniths, with even more peaks to scale?

Modern Day Cynicism

2007-06-03T10:55:00.000+05:30

A six-day break from blogging for no reason other than the lack of stuff to write - that's been the story of the past week for me at home. But on the flip side, while I haven't had much to express, I've had a lot to observe, a lot to mull upon and finally, something to write about.

To start with let's look at some of the major news stories from the past week:

Agitations in Rajasthan over the OBC reservation issues - pity that certain groups of people consider fighting for a right to circumvent the path everyone has to take as a righteous struggle; pity that even after 60 years of independence, the specter of reservations haunts us.

The FBI foiled a planned attack on the JFK airport in NY.

The progress of the monsoons hits a roadblock with the formation of a cyclone 800 km southwest of Mumbai.

There were fears of an outbreak of smallpox in Bangladesh and Myanmar, which eventually turned out to a false alarm with the WHO confirming it as an outbreak of measles.

NDTV expose purportedly showing the collusion between the prosecution and the defence in the sensational BMW hit-and-run case aired on TV.

Now, the print media did dwell on each of these issues in some length or the other although one could argue that they had to do so for fear of lacking the necessary content to fill up the few blanks within their pages. After all, you can't fill a whole newspaper with advertisements - not that TOI and some others would mind.

Let's look at the television media on the other hand. Each of these events appeared, yes, but with sensational claims, twists and turns along the way. And that brings me to the point of asking whether the media in the country looks for news in search of the truth or is sensationalism the major criterion for breaking news. Whatever it is, the phenomenon of television ratings and market share seems to have caught up with the media, causing an overkill of sensational, eye-grabbing headlines - some true, some blown-up beyond proportion.

I do wonder sometimes whether today's media - the self-style voice and saviour of the people - care about the people themselves whose cause they are fighting for. The general cynicism and lack of preparation that goes into the coverage of news stories is all so apparent to me. News channels have become an extension of tabloid tattle, whereby issues like celebrity hookups are given supreme priority. And when the issues that really matter do come to the fore, one can be rest assured it's due to the sensation potential of that issue. Add to that the bias regarding many many issues that are covered - and you realize that Indian media, amidst all the cynicism, is ill.

It is this cynicism that we have to rid our mindsets of. For I believe a reason for the widespread cynicism in the media is that the people themselves demand it. When you are in the business of selling news to people, you better give them what they want; and it seems this is what is happening in India at the moment.

However, that does not mean there are no good journalists out there. There are people who are doing a really good job out there. Without taking names, I'll be the first one to admit that there are people in the media who earnestly believe in their duty as the voice of the people and try to bring out real issues from beneath the cloak of sensationalism. And I for one hope that the number of this increasingly rare breed of journalists sees a considerable increase.

$100 Laptops

2007-05-28T11:34:00.000+05:30

Does Intel fear the $100 laptops? Such is the title of an article on CNN Money which you can read here. These $100 laptops, manufactured under the brand name of XO laptops as per a project called OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Programme, aim at bringing the power of computers and the Internet into the lives of children from developing nations. An analysis of the technical specifications for the laptop can be found on ars technica.

A project which has the whole computing world watching and anticipating with bated breath with all the big software and hardware companies showing considerable interest (read this piece here for more on this), the XO project is possibly the most radical idea to come out in computer sciences since their speedy inception - an idea that is as fantastic as it is difficult, an idea which has been borne out of a single minded dedication of the people involved to create a non-profit machine which will help children across the world take advantage of the computer revolution that has failed to touch their lives till now.

Sure there are detractors...and the competition is only just heating up, with Intel bringing out its Classmate machines which will be prices just a little higher but probably provide better computing capabilities. (A comparative study of OLPC's XO laptop and Intel's Classmate can be found here on CNN Money.)

So how does this bode for the world of computing? It all depends, of course, on the sales that OLPC can make - something that should be clear by the end of 2008. Indeed, it is a testament to the potential of these laptops - whether for being a harbinger of an educational revolution or for being a great opportunity in marketing computing solutions and products across the globe - that everybody from Google to Microsoft to Dell is involved/trying to get involved in this project which initially meant to work on and open source platform (Linux). For me, after reading this stuff, I just hope that the target of this project isn't overshadowed by some marketing war that comes up between OLPC and Intel with regards to their respective products or by the politics that may get in the way of the XO sales (a very distinct possibility since governments are involved).

All said and done, this is a beautiful concept which deserves to achieve fruition beyond the wildest dreams of its creators. After all, it will bring a smile on the faces of children across the globe, won't it?

And a last word on this: Apparently, India is planning to create a $10 laptop, aimed at outshining the OLPC endeavours, though I wonder whether it's a genuine attempt or just a hoax to gain some publicity.

The Thing About Reminiscence

2007-05-23T12:21:00.000+05:30

"That's why we have the blogs my friend....for all the crap in the world.....let it spout freely like the blood from Ceaser's mouth in Calphurnia's dreams"

Well, let me start this post with this quote by Saurya. And yes, check out the logic he's dishing out on his blog these days. You'll like it, not in the least because of the humour, that I can tell you.

Okay, now to the issue at hand, which is obviously related to the title - probably a side-effect of me being too uptight or me craving symmetry, reason and relation in everything I do - Reminiscence. Obviously, with the year having come to a close (the academic year of course), every second person from BITS I talk to/chat has gone into what I call the 'bleary-eye' mode, with attitudes varying from elation to downright disappointment - elation of having shrug off the tag of being the newbies on campus and curiously, disappointment of having experienced (but not noticed) one year go by like a blur, which of course means that our BITsian life has one less year remaining...Am I making any sense there?

See, the thing with reminiscing is it's probably most suited for occasions when we've finished with some thing, for good that is. So, if the world does turn on its head and starts spinning from east to west, making me bring to reality the least probable event that would see me reminisce about my first year, it surely won't be happening in the next three years...and even then when I do become a psenti-semite spending his last few days at college or better still, as a fresh pass-out, I'd probably end up pursuing more pressing interests rather than reminisce.

Ah yes, I said it! Reminiscing should be reserved for times when you feel you've achieved something. It should be about looking back on a job well done, learning from the way you approached the task and trying to incorporate that approach in your future endeavours (oh look at me, spewing fundas like a guru!) But yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about the entire thing. So next time you see me sitting about deep in thought, understand in advance that it's the present and the future, rather than the past, in my thoughts.

Of course, if my blog does have elements of reminiscence in the posts, I'll take the most hypocritical route to any question of that nature and say, 'Do not look at past posts for that is evidence of reminiscence themselves...Besides, I haven't reminisced in the past posts...I've merely gone into a retrospective mode...Broaden your minds and look to the future posts,' though of course why anyone needs to broaden his/her mind while trying to read the crap I'm putting here is anybody's guess.

What I Learnt Today: 22nd May 2007

2007-05-22T21:43:00.000+05:30

Humans manage complexity through abstraction. For example, people do not think of a car as a set of tens of thousands of individual parts. They think of it as a well-defined object with its own unique behavior. This abstraction allows people to use a car to drive to the grocery store without being overwhelmed by the complexity of the parts that form the car. They can ignore the details of how the engine, transmission, and braking systems work. Instead they are free to utilize the object as a whole. (quoted from some e-book whose title I've no idea about)

Have you ever felt the value of something only when you're forced to do without it...Sort of like people realizing how invaluable Paul Scholes really was to Manchester United only after he sat out half of the last season with his eye problem? Well, that's the sort of thing I'm facing these hols. Gone is the joy of solitude, the peace of lonely toil and the ecstasy of a free-spirited will looking to roam the skies. Instead, it's been replaced by more mundane things like waiting for a good movie to be broadcast on TV, thinking about what great dish Ma is going to whip up next and worrying about when the maintenance guys will heed the calls to keep filling up the water tanks more frequently (or maybe it's just that water is more scarce these days, so he can't help but fill the tanks less frequently)

A label list that extends for more than a single screen view doesn't look too good, so it's better to do away with it. That and Blogger being the great tool it is, I can put it back any time I feel the need.

The best stress-buster is shallow thinking. The more you think about something, the more tense it can make you. I envy all the guys out there who've been accused of having the emotional range of a teaspoon (in J K Rowling's words) by others. At least you won't be giving in to stress sometime soon.

The Experience of A Lifetime!

2007-05-18T06:13:00.000+05:30

Well okay, I am exaggerating...and believe me, exaggeration is the proper word for it...well, what I'm referring to is my journey from Pilani to Jaipur on the night of 11th May - more precisely, the stretch of journey from Pilani to Chirawa in a Rajasthan State Transport Bus. Wait a minute! Did I just write 'in'? Wrong! I meant to say 'on'.

This is what happens when you have way too much luggage and too little space inside the bus to accommodate the same...plus the conductor insists on piling on more and more passengers - paying no heed to the creaking parts of the bus, indicating a considerable strain on the bus' load bearing capacity. Indeed, it was out of compulsion rather than due to a weird and highly strung sense of adventure that we - that is, Dhruv and I - decided to act as watchdogs for our luggage and sit atop the bus along with fifteen other crazy men for whom such a daring act of reckless courage (as it appeared to us, of course) was a part of daily commuting.

The experience could well be described as something that brought the both of us closer to heaven - both figuratively and literally. Indeed when I think about it with the gift of hindsight firmly embedded within my senses, I thank my stars for the adrenaline rush that I felt when I began climbing the mini-ladder at the back of the stationary bus at the Pilani bus stop. It was this adrenaline rush that prevented a outpouring of fear while I calmly sat there on the roof - enjoying the blanket of stars above on that moonless night, reveling in the silky touch of the night and mentally philosophizing over the silent night.

Thankfully, the 15 minutes of madness or adventure (whichever you choose to call it) were over in a jiffy and we retook our places within the bus.

And in case you were wondering what happened to our luggage, it was still there on top of the bus throughout the journey, but our luck held and we got everything back safely once the bus pulled up into Jaipur bus station.

As they say, all is well that ends better.

A Curious Paradox

2007-05-15T10:24:00.000+05:30

I've been back home for a day now, and the strangest part is that there is a strange ethereal quality about the outside world now - outside world as in the world outside of BITS - a world that is not bounded by Gym G to the east, C'not to the south, SAC to the west and the Central Library to the north - a world that is not confined to BITS and BITsians alone. It sort of affirms what I've come to realize about the isolation of Pilani and within it, BITS.

I mean, within BITS, it's only the happenings on campus that really matter or make a difference to my daily life. Probably, for the last year or so, the only kind of news that I've kept myself abreast of is regarding football and Manchester United FC in particular. Of course, I don't mean to say that I could not have followed other developments had I wanted to do so, but that is exactly my point.

Within BITS, I've never felt the inclination to follow politics, crime, business and whatever other things I've never been disinterested with. It's been all about me, my friends and my interests, with my family being my only link with the outside world. And just as well, it has made me realized the importance of focus - focus on my aims, my ambitions - focus on achieving something and labouring towards it. In short, BITsian life has helped me to remove the shackles that I unknowingly bound myself with - shackles that prevented me from exploring myself as an individual, shackles that constrained my potential - now I know if I decide to fly off into the sky looking for the sun, nothing in the outside world will hold me back.

Probably, it needs this detachment from the outside world to actually move on and succeed in that very world! And in this paradox lies the gist of this entry...

Vacation Time

2007-05-09T20:37:00.000+05:30

Was talking with Harshad the other day about blogging in general...and we got into a nice discussion about how a blog should, instead of being like a diary, be a reflection of one's thoughts only. It doesn't make sense if a blog reads 'Went to the supermarket now', 'Have to watch TV today' and all that. Of course, blogging topics are going to be related to daily life but I'm not going to go into that debate now, especially since I wrote about it in a earlier post which can be read here.

Anyways, the semester has ended and I'm faced with two and a half months of free time in which I wonder what I shall do. One thing on my to-do list is to catch up on some reading from the world of literature. After all, when you've read only five books in a period of four months, it does indicate that you've to read more. The last book I read was 'The Inheritance of Loss' - a nice, little endeavour by Kiran Desai, but I do wonder whether it was a book worthy of the Booker Prize. Certainly, it takes on the same sorrowful themes that are repeated throughout all books at some point of time or the other, and lends it the credence of infallible human spirits. Whether that is what it takes to win the prize, I do not know.

Now that I'm free, I guess I'll have more time to blog more...So, let me end this post on that note itself.

Do Two Random Thoughts a Blog Post Make?

2007-05-03T18:15:00.000+05:30

I am sitting here with the Compose window open before me and I don't know what to write. There are thoughts which aren't quite taking shape and words that do not quite convey those thoughts. I guess the trick for any aspiring writer is to acquire the ability to make his words speak exactly the way his thoughts flow. That is the challenge - to induce as much drama as the mind makes out, as much emotion as the thoughts allow and as much suspense as the brain deems necessary. Am I at that stage yet? Obviously not, but I hope to be...some day...

Two things that I can think about right now of the top of my mind are -
1. The workshop test, which was okay, but has Prob & Stat following it immediately.
2. Manchester United's loss to Milan in the Champions' League.

Let me dwell for a moment on the latter then. It seems like the away bogey has struck Fergie's team again. But I think we have a bright future to look forward to. Ferguson was quite wise in defeat and acknowledged the need for his new generation of starlets to gain more experience. It's gonna take some time, but I reckon that we'll all see Manchester United lift the European Cup again in two years' time. It's not hope but it's the realization that two years will see this team grow in stature and ability.

I guess such random thoughts do make a blog entry after all. Hopefully, the next time I sit down to post something, things won't be so random and the thoughts won't be so discrete!

Oh the Sweltering Summer Heat!

2007-05-02T13:54:00.000+05:30

Suffering through 45 degrees (celsius that is) for the first time in my life, and let me tell you...it is thoroughly unbearable...

Of course, the heat is supposed to get even worse, and better still, even though I'm going home in about ten days, the weather back home is as bad. It will be a long first summer in Vidarbha, methinks.

Anyways, off to study Workshop now. It's a brilliant course which really makes you believe you are learning something. But then again, you don't fancy staying in the hot cauldron of your room studying workshop while half of the batch is comfortably sitting in the air conditioned confines of the IPC, preparing for Engineering Graphics (EG). That's why I say, 'Workshop may be brilliant but give me EG any day, any time'.

A Time to Reckon With

2007-05-01T12:27:00.000+05:30

It's compre time now - the comprehensive examinations have officially arrived. Today was the time for Linear Algebra and Complex Analysis. So with all the 'z's' finally out of the way, it's now the time for manufacturing and manufacturing techniques...

It's like a weird hush has descended upon the campus with everyone busy mugging for the compres. Obviously, I'm one of them...God knows why this 'ghoting' phenomenon is infectious!

Anyways, the reward facing us is two and a half months worth of summer vacations. So, here's hoping to a good series of compres and a fun vacation after that...

P.S. Manchester United are playing Milan on 2nd night. A 3-2 lead from the home leg is quite dangerous...Let's see what the guys can conjure...

Realpolitik on Campus

2007-04-28T09:22:00.000+05:30

So how far are you willing to go to ensure you get the choicest wing and the wingies of your choice? How far are you willing to go to make sure you have the necessary numbers to stake claim for the new wing, or the back wing, or the front wing, or whatever? How far are you willing to ensure a wing in which there are people from your discipline only and no one else (whatever happened to inter-disciplinary interaction that BITS is famous for?)

Well, it is these questions and a few more that I've found (and am still finding) answers to over the past two days in BITS, that is ever since the hostel allotments have been announced. Wings have been made, they have been broken - sometimes by the members themselves and sometimes, by others. There have been numerous ego clashes as well - God knows why such an issue as who to include and who to exclude and which of the numerous groups offered to choose, holds such a burden of responsibility!

Having said that, maybe it is one of the instances of realpolitik that we must face in the real world. Realpolitik as in practical politics - politics that is based not on any ideology or moral but on the basic human tendency to fulfill one's need and nothing else. This has been my first real big encounter with realpolitik - the first in which I was involved in the mix (as were 800 other students alongside me.) And I did not like it one bit.

Give me a good book to read...give me good music to listen...give me an idea to develop...to write upon...give me a hard code to crack...give me anything except for this...

I do not like negotiations - they are a waste of time. I do not wish to spend my time in boardrooms or anywhere else, trying to iron out agreements and consensus. I wish to be able to say 'Sod off' to everyone and do my own thing. Maybe, that's the biggest benefit I got from the past few days - a wing devoid of people trying to play realpolitik - a wing thinking practically and rationally (Credit to others who didn't mess about, and went quietly about grouping and choosing - I think Andy's wing, the C6 group, and Dushyant's wing are among them)

And for all those non-BITSIAN readers who could make neither head or tail of this post, I think it's better if you do not try to figure out what's written. It would be nigh impossible.

Random Thoughts - I

2007-04-27T17:33:00.000+05:30

What does a maestro feel after the completion of his musical masterpiece? What thoughts race through his mind when the last big flourish of the conductor's baton signals the end of his rendition?

What does an author feel when his book - the one which he has toiled and sweat over for months together attains completion and appears on the bookshelves?

What does a director feel when a film which he has seen from its infantile state to the completed, is screened for the first time before his eyes?

Is there a sense of fulfillment or loss? Is there a sense of pleasure or grief?

Think about it...

When a book attains completion, when a musical piece is perfected, when a film is canned, the efforts of the creators are all condensed into one, final end product. There's no going back from what form it attains - all the memories, all the hours of labour - everything ends with completion.

I suppose whenever you create something, it is something you are fashioning out of your own mind, your thoughts, your hands - in short, that something is a part of your own soul. Maybe that is the joy of creation - to watch something that you conceived gather roots and shoot up into the sky - growing and flourishing.

Rants...

2007-04-24T20:34:00.000+05:30

Ever heard of the statement- 'When you set out on a journey, the whole world conspires to help you on your path'? Well the last few days have been like the whole world has conspired to do anything but help me tread on my path...

Let's start at the beginning shall we?

Chigoor 2k7, which is BITS Pilani Maharashtra Mandal's cultural night (and in which I was going to perform in a play) was to be held on the night of the 18th. Unfortunately, the only unseasonal storm in my time at Pilani put paid to the best laid plans. The audi was swathed in darkness, as was the rest of BITS for a while and the night had to be postpone

My laptop apparently has its motherboard fu**ed up, which means that I would have to shell out 35,000 bucks to replace it. Pathetic really when you consider that the laptop is not even 14 months old. I mean, if SONY and a product worth 100,000 bucks can't give you reliability, God knows what will! Whatever, SONY is now officially off my radar as I try to salvage the situation somehow (ironically, a situation in which I neither had control nor responsibility)

Aside from that, the compres are coming and with that, exam fever is starting to occupy minds and souls.

But there's also the silver lining to these dark clouds that approach...

18th might have seen our labours for Chigoor get washed away in the storm but it also showed me a perfect specimen of nature's harmony with man's creation. The wind that was howling and blowing at the rate of knots was strong enough to almost blow us off our feet. It was fun trying to resist it...It almost made me feel like a child again.

But the real treat was watching the Saraswati temple in the storm. As I stood on the porch in front of the Audi and looked out towards the temple, all I could see was gloom - the dark of the night. And then out of nowhere, lightning came, accompanied by thunder and everything was illuminated for that instant. The temple was now visible in its full splendour, the pure white of lightning being reflected in the dazzling white of its marble. A single sighting of this kind would have been enough to leave its imprint on my mind forever; I count myself fortunate to have seen the same thing many times over that night.

Maybe that is the way this world is built...You lose something, but you also gain something else from that loss...Had the rain not happened, had the storm not come, had we performed in Chigoor as per our intended plans, I would not have experienced this divinity that night...

Hopefully, something brilliant will also come out of this laptop fiasco. Have already sent a letter to SONY regarding this matter...

P.S. Did I mention the fact that United play AC Milan tonight in the Champions' League semifinal with the most patched-up back four you'll ever find in football? Am really worried about whether they are going to get anything out of this game, and possibly out of these semifinals at all...

Sense and Sensibility

2007-04-17T10:19:00.000+05:30

Was just sitting here in the common room watching Harshad chat with one of his old friends in Marathi and talking to Goonjan...and then a thought suddenly struck me (which I subsequently voiced out to an incredulously sarcastic reception by Goonjan - even now he's commenting what I'm writing...you can hear his Goonj here)...

Anyways, the thought runs something like this...Words are nothing but gibberish...For a person who doesn't know a particular language, sentences spoken in any foreign/alien language sounds nothing better than monkeys' chatter coming from the mouths of humans. But when he knows the language, that same mindless, senseless chatter is transformed into something meaningful - whereby every sound has a purpose, every word a meaning and every sentence some sense attached with it.

For me, this is the power of language...this power lies in the ability to transform the meaningless into the meaningful...the alien into our very own...

As they say, 'Nuff said!' (Enough said, that is!)

Dynamism and Permanence

2007-04-16T12:31:00.000+05:30

Here are two terms and their definitions as shown by dictionary.com:

dynamism: great energy, force, or power; vigour
permanence: perpetual or continued existence

So, why do I need to look up these words all of a sudden?

To be honest, it was just a thought that entered my mind. Don't we often associate the dynamism of someone with the will to change and the ability to influence the course of events and occurrences as they occur in our daily life? Don't we often treat dynamism and permanence as mutually antagonistic things - one of which cannot be achieved in presence of the other?

It's another paradox - one of many that I've discovered over the years. To say I'm dynamic doesn't mean that I wish to change anything and everything around me. It might only mean that I wish to channel all my vigour, all my energy, all my faculties towards ensuring that the right things remain permanent and the things that are going wrong, the things that can be improved, change. So there you go, dynamism and permanence aren't antagonistic, are they?

Let's see it the other way around...Let's say I crave permanence. But it surely doesn't mean that I do not wish for things to be as they are - the good, the not so good and the bad. It only means that I wish for something in my life which is going to be a constant...which is not going to change over the years as I wish to make my life better...

So, is this an unwanted stereotype I'm talking about? Am I right? I do not know...but I guess the balance between dynamism and permanence is one of the most important balances in our lives...and it's one's individual decision whether he/she wants more of the former or more of the latter...

Winds of Change

2007-04-15T10:29:00.000+05:30

Having been the subject of an enforced sabbatical from the world of blogging, I'm back to haunt the few readers of this column with my writing...Well, only kidding...

As the title of this post suggests, there have been changes in the world around me over the past two weeks when I've not blogged:

1. Change No. 1: My laptop's gone for repairs with God knows what problem. Hence the break from blogging.

2. Change No. 2: Blogging in IPC is a very big pain in the a**e. The formatting toolbar is absent, hence the pathetic unaligned look.

3. Change No. 3: The Chief Warden requires us to sign our attendance in the hostel during 2300-2330 hrs everyday. The reason for this nonsensical time is beyond me. What if I'm tired someday and sleep too early, or what if I'm in IPC till midnight?

4. Change No. 4: The semester (and the academic year) is coming to a close, so all sorts of farewells are being organized for the psenti students (those who're gonna pass out). Also, the hierarchy of clubs and departments at BITS is undergoing a change. Ramya's going to be the EPC secretary next year, taking over from Aparna.

Anyways, with so much changing, probably nothing will actually change, will it? (Quite the paradox, ain't it?) BITS will still remain BITS; I'll still mull over all the activities here which can improve my self but for which I have no time; I'll still shudder at the extremes in weather Pilani sees and suffer through all the classes (even though most of them are quite good)...I'll still have the same zeal and passion for writing and blogging such that I can't resist to be away for too long from the same...I'll still have the low days, when I'll wonder if I'm good enough to be here and brave enough to face upto all that my ambitions require of me...

The only thing that will probably change is that mind will contain a bit more knowledge, my time remaining at BITS will have another day, then another week, then another month and then another semester reduced, and I'll grow ever closer to the day when I shall really be able to fly into the sky, borne on these winds of change...

HAIL APJ!!!

2007-03-30T21:55:00.000+05:30

The Hon. President of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was here in BITS today. I was among those who had the fortune of listening to him speaking in the audi, and by God, I do swear that this man wears greatness on his sleeve...

Technology is a non-linear tool which can effect fundamental changes in economic competitiveness.

This was how the great man began his address. The speech in itself turned out to be quite an anticlimax as I went expecting some drivel about making India developed by 2020 but ended up hearing probably the most exciting talk I've ever heard regarding future prospects in the field of technology and engineering.

I'll not bore you with a recap of everything that Dr Kalam said. (For those who want to know, you can visit this link http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/eventslatest1.jsp?id=1483 which contains the transcript of his speech and his subsequent interaction with us students.)

The best thing about the Hon. President's address was that he held nothing back. He spoke like a true teacher, exhorting us to become leaders in the field of technology by taking up new cutting edge research in the fields of nanotechnology and ICT (that's Information and Communication Technology). Everything were in the earnest words of a speaker who believes in the potential of the youth and their power to make the country a better place.

All in all, a wonderful experience...Long live APJ!!!

The Battle Won...

2007-03-30T07:28:00.000+05:30

What a victory for the anti-quota brigade! With the Hon. Supreme Court of India imposing a stay on the proposal for implementing 27% reservations for OBC's in educational institutes across the country, everyone of us (who have always/at some point or the other spoken against the very idea and notion of quotas) is rejoicing.

This is the reason why Indian democracy hasn't failed over the last 60 years - there always has been a check in place to prevent excesses by any of the arms of the Government machinery. I never lived in the 70's (obviously, since my birth year is 1988) but remembering whatever I've gleaned from various articles related to the times and from the memories of those older than me, I know that Indian democracy succeeded in salvaging itself even in its darkest moment.

But is this victory going to last? I do not know...I do not know if even the Judiciary at this point of time is strong enough to resist the strong-arm tactics of greedy politicians intent upon dividing the country on whatever lines they can conjure - all in the hope that somehow, they retain power.

But whatever happens, at least all of us have the hope now that in times of need - in times where justice is shrouded by the fanaticism of partisans - there is someone who will stand by us, provided we are right.

A showdown is imminent...
The battle lines that were drawn have just turned more prominent...
The battle might have been won...
But the outcome of the war remains to be seen...

Here's to the hope that equality and justice - and not the tyranny of bureaucrats - prevail in the end.

P.S. One thing that I wanted to add here is how fortunate I consider myself for being in an institute like BITS, which has always upheld the principle of merit before any other criterion. During the height of the Government's aggressive stance regarding reservations, BITS had the courage to say 'Sod off' (not quite literally though) and take on the Government in a matter of principle. It was because of the pro-merit stance of the institute that the anti-quota protests didn't affect us as much as it affected others. It is because of the institute that my apathetic attitude towards the issue was cured. It is because of the institute that I got one more reason to believe in India and its glorious future. Hail BITS!!!

P.P.S. These views are my own. Please do not interpret them as the views of people or organization(s) mentioned in this entry.

Writing for the Sake of It

2007-03-22T08:00:00.000+05:30

I always believed that freedom from the daily run-of-the-mill activities would allow me to unleash my creative talents (*insert a roll of the eyes here*) and a direct proof of such a thing happening would result in an increase in the frequency and the number of blog entries. But with this sixth day of this short mid-semester break at an end, I find it surprising that this is only my second entry during this time period.

Maybe you do require that extra inspiration and push from your daily life to create something. Maybe that stress and duress does help you express your thoughts as you seek an outlet to free your mind. Whatever it is, today's post is undoubtedly more for writing for the sake of it rather than for writing as a craving and a need.

Before signing off though, here's something I conjured up after waking up today. It's the first vestige of rhyming poetry that I've ever produced (Maybe I should join the poetry club after all!!!)

The stars that were shining bright,
Have given way to the immortal light,
The dark must flee and the sun must shine,
So let the joy of awakening be thine.

Freedom

2007-03-16T13:15:00.001+05:30

What does freedom mean? Obviously, there is no standard definition...nor is there any standard way of defining how being free feels...The thing that everyone says though about freedom is that it means different things to different people. For some, it's the joy of waking up everyday and knowing that you are in charge of your own destiny while for others, it still remains an elusive dream that is the only reason for living...

It is on this note that I must admit of being guilty of something that is to do with 'the lost meaning of words' and that is of using the word 'Freedom' too liberally or too frequently, without probably knowing of its true meaning or of its true implications. Let me give an example to illustrate what I'm saying...

From 20th to 24th March, BITS is going to play host to APOGEE - the institute's All-India Tech Fest. So, it effectively means that all of us have a fortnight off starting today. My classwork ended today at 10 am. So what have I done after that? I logged onto Google Talk and promptly set my status message to 'FREEDOM FOR A FORTNIGHT', freedom as in there being no tests, no exams, no classes for the next fortnight.

So, maybe I have forgotten the true meaning of freedom. After all, being born and brought up in a free nation, there are many things which are taken for granted...some simple pleasures of a free life that are not appreciated...some historical percepts that are not remembered...

Today, as write this entry, I hope I can absolve myself of this crime of taking the word 'freedom' so lightly. I hope that I always remember what this simple word means to those who suffer from its absence, and I hope too that the freedom that I enjoy, also extends to all other beings on this planet.

A Duel or A Reply???

2007-03-11T01:25:00.000+05:30

This is what I think has the makings of a bloggers' duel - at least one in which one shot from each side is fired. To know what I'm talking about, you first have to read Harshad's latest blog entry though. (You can read it here.) It's really a good insight into what I think and believe in...For example, when I see him play FIFA, I can't help wonder how his sedate, calm approach and a slow build-up to the game is similar to his careful and measured attitude to life in general. (Sorry Harshad, couldn't resist that jibe :) )

Anyways, it's true that I do find a lot of similarities between what I see around me in the inanimate world to what I find in people engaging in various activities related to this inanimate world. It's because for me, everything boils down to two things - your choices and their consequences. And in consequences, everything related to whatever goes on around you - animate or inanimate - is included. And I've already spoken about the influence of your daily life on your daily thoughts and the stuff, so I won't bother you with a repeat of that. (In case, you don't remember or you'd like to know of it, click here.)

The Right Time

2007-03-10T22:14:00.002+05:30

2200 hrs now and I was trying to get some sleep…it’s too early for a normal BITsian to succumb to the slow seductive harmony of sleep but the reason for resting is much different than the usual suspects – tiredness and sickness…Manchester United play in less than an hour and I thought that getting a little rest while I had nothing better to do would soothe the frayed mechanism of my biological clock.

Anyways, inspiration and thought (the latter being more important than the former) struck me and so here I am…composing a blog entry in the dark with only the light of the display screen before me (I do wonder how weird the scene must be for an outsider)…

The thing that struck me was regarding the phrase ‘the right moment’. We do tend to use it over and over again…always treating it as an excuse through which we could escape something…sometimes using it as a tool to conveniently represent procrastination as necessary…There’s always an expression like ‘I am waiting for the right time to do this thing’ or better still ‘I knew the world wasn’t prepared for this…I knew it wasn’t the right time…so I decided not to do it…’ around the corner for you to use.

But somehow, I tend to believe that there is no right time in our lives. There never comes a time when you say this time is most appropriate for this and all that stuff…

Am I getting abstract? I guess so, but then again, the chance of speaking out against old clichés doesn’t come up everyday, does it? What I’m trying to say here is that the best time to start with anything is ‘now’…not today…not tomorrow…not the right time…but now…The reason I say this is that if you don’t do what you plan today, someone else will do it in your stead…And imagine if that something which you wanted to do was some wildly original idea that could have changed the world…Just imagine…

All difficulties in life can be overcome by starting early…If you find something difficult to understand in study, start studying earlier, put in more efforts, work harder and you’ll surely succeed…If you find yourself struggling to make a mark in writing a story, think harder and longer, put pen on paper and produce something even if what you actually write transpires into shit. Eventually, you’ll produce something completely original.

That’s why I believe in the tenet of starting now…If you do so, if you decide to start with whatever you want at the earliest possible moment, you’ll never have to give the excuse of the ‘right time’. The opportune moment will always be there before you and you will always achieve whatever your heart desires.

For me, that’s the most important lesson I learnt today…And in hindsight, if I hadn’t tried to rest early, would I have learnt this?
:)

The Fall and the End

2007-03-07T17:01:00.000+05:30

"There is providence in the fall of a sparrow..."

That was the tagline for the last HDC play. Never thought something would remind me of the same few words so soon...

After all, what providence can you find in a fledgling (I can't even call it a pigeon) falling from its nest, lungs quite likely crushed and trying most probably in vain, to breathe some air, to somehow increase the duration of its very short life? Maybe, it would have been better if it had died immediately upon its fall...It definitely would have been better had it not fallen at all...

As the strains of 'DJ's Breakdown' from Rang De Basanti fall on my ears, as I contemplate whether it would be better for me to solve a couple of Physics problems before I leave for my ASP.NET class, I also feel the pain of the chick's fall...I can imagine the Herculean efforts it must have taken for it to take that one more breath...I can see its mother watching a couple of friends as we tried to pick it up gently and placing it back in its nest - all of us knowing unconsciously that it was only a gesture to help the mother have a last look at its chick.

And yet, as soon as I stood on that chair, the mother, possibly feeling threatened by a human, flew away. I placed the chick on the nest and got down, but I don't think the pigeon ever returned to its chick.

It is in times like this that you realize you are humans...The pigeon will forget its grief and will soon begin to look for a new mate to give birth to more chicks...It will not wallow in self-pity nor will it linger in the past. For the pigeon, there will always be challenges around the corner - ones that it must overcome to ensure its own survival - everything else will come later...there will always be the promise of a better future without the sceptre of the past hanging on its head...

But what of humans? What about those who have undergone such innumerable sufferings in their lifetimes? Why can't we forget? Why can't we move on? Is this what it is to be 'higher' beings? Is this what humanity does to a living being? Is such a life of remembering depressing moments and lingering on the memories of lost opportunities worth living for?

I don't pretend to have felt all these personally in my life (a fact that I'm very thankful for) but I know these things do happen. It's only when it happens around you or to someone you know that you really sit up and take notice. And even though you wished you never knew about it, there's nothing you can do to forget...nothing you can do but move on with a heavy heart...wishing that time will mend the wounds and make the scars fade...

The Path Less Trodden...

2007-03-07T07:10:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wanted to break away – to break free from the moulds of convention and fly into the realms of the unknown…Have you ever called yourself a coward for believing in an alternate reality with you as its centre…Have you ever actually broken bonds that bind you and taken the path less trodden…If yes, what have you called yourself then – an escapist or a pioneer?

The world today seeks individuals, not institutions…that much is apparent enough. The truth is that everyone loves to see an individual rise from the depths of sorrow and agony…everyone loves to see that individual attain the heights of glory…and everyone loves it even more when that individual falls to the ground, encumbered by failed ventures and the burden of cataclysmic decisions. It’s like all other people in the world want to experience a pseudo life they could possibly never have got.

The world demands that you be different…it demands that you bring something new to the table, each and every time…That’s the only way you can possibly keep the world interested – by doing something new each and every time. (While writing this, I remember the scene from King Kong where Ann Darrow entertains Kong by performing calisthenics…It’s something new for the giant simian and that’s what keeps him so engrossed.)

This possibly goes against a previous post of mine where I say that people do not want to be unique…that they find it much easier to tread upon the path that others before them have taken rather than to discover new ones…and I still stand by that…But the truth is that this argument stands for the common man alone.

Great people are known for innovation, for their will to invent, for their thirst to discover and for their knack at improvisation. The competitive world of today basks in the glory of the limelight provided by such great men, and this glory (possibly undeserved) makes today’s world thirsty for more of the same. It is for this reason that the world demands and covets individuals who are different…it is for this reason that the world asks us to dare to be different from the ‘also-rans’…it is for this reason that the world coerces us to become great so that it may bask in greatness as well…and then as they say, this cycle simply goes on and on and on in an endless manner.

Blogging Perceptions

2007-03-04T08:22:00.000+05:30

I have been blogging now for the best part of the past two months and as is no doubt clear to the very few readers of this blog, I've always tried to make this blog an account of my thoughts instead of it being a sort of Dear Diary thing. However, despite my attempts, I admit that what I've done or have been doing during this time has had a clear bearing on what I've written subsequently in this blog.

So, what's the point of all this? Actually, what I'm trying to say is that your thoughts are only an extension of the things that surround you...of all the things that are happening in and around you. As humans and as busy people, you rarely get to debate on the merits and demerits of globalisation or WTO meets or political issues and propoganda on a regular basis. Your thoughts are usually encumbered with ways and means to handle all the things been thrown at you. So, it's only natural that your thought process becomes an extension of what you're seeing in and around you, i.e., your own life and its happenings.

That's why I've become inclined to believe that for a regular blogger, it is indeed hard to disassociate himself/herself from the real events that are occurring in his/her life. That's why a blog shall always be an extension and possibly a mirror of your own life, even if you don't want it to become a diary you never had.

Censorship is F**k

2007-03-04T00:23:00.001+05:30

This is an issue that I do feel very strongly about and once again its significance in things that are going on in and around me is emerging very fast. We talk about freedom and conscientious thought to support our actions and the need to put our beliefs into other people...yet we carry on with out senseless propoganda regarding moral policing and senseless censorship.

Here at BITS, this situation has cropped up yet again with the emergence of inter-bhawan (that's inter-hostel) data sharing and especially, the new DC++ hub. It's true that most of the junta, over the course of the last couple of weeks has made more than a liberal use of this software...and why shouldn't they? It's the best way in which you can get the info you need.

However, we now have 'certain elements belonging to the middle to upper echelons of the BITS hierarchy' trying to go forward with their one-point agenda - 'Such things allow users access to evils like piracy and pornography'.

Honestly, these people need a break. Of course, I don't admit they are completely wrong. There is indeed a grain of truth in what they are saying, but on certain levels, is their way of going about inspecting random computers and confiscating the system whenever something incriminating is found justified? I don't think so...

This is the age of information, where information is the only thing that is freely and easily available. You can't hide from this fact, nor can you ignore the fact that sealing one way of info exchange will subsequently open hundreds more aimed at the same thing...the point being that moral policing and censorship are now passé. If students want to go their hands on porn, they don't need the Internet or the network to get it. They can get it as easily from spending a few bucks on magazines, or even CD's.

The solution lies not so much in restricting the domain of a person's reach, or in censoring his activities but more so in instilling in him, a judgement of what is conscientiously acceptable... The solution lies not so much in moral policing but more so in giving the individual the necessary freedom and allowing him to make an educated choice as to the path he is willing to choose...

Eternal Rhapsody

2007-03-02T07:10:00.000+05:30

A new day...a new morning...a new belief...a new will...It's amazing what a night's good rest can do for you...how it can make you eager to rush out to the battlefield of your everyday chores and jobs with renewed vigour, enthusiasm and desire.

So whenever you are feeling low, get some rest and listen to the eternal rhapsody that sleep conjures up for you...it will leave you intoxicated, refreshed and recharged. No wonder then that a new finding endorsed the importance of sleep by saying that sleep is essential for the replacement and growth of brain cells. No wonder then that Jason Bourne, the fictional assassin, recommends rest as being the most crucial weapon.

Silent Surprises...

2007-03-01T21:41:00.000+05:30

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? Almost a week to the day I posted last, but I don't think anyone's counting the days now, ain't it? Actually, I did write something on King Kong the other day, but somehow that post was never destined to see the light of the day. At least that's what I am inclined to think...

This has indeed been a week of silent surprises...The Chemistry test went bad...that was a surprise in itself...Didn't think that I had prepared that badly for it...Then there was Manchester United's remarkable win over Reading - we were three up inside the first six minutes yet had to hang on for a win by the barest of margins...And yes, most importantly, Pilani witnessed a big storm yesterday night as it poured cats and dogs in a place which is supposedly on the fringes of the desert. Along with the rains, the temporary chill returned and sent everyone scurrying back to the comfort of sweaters and jackets.

There is something about the rains that make me sit up and take notice...Maybe it's the rhythmic melody of the raindrops falling on the ground, or maybe it is the earthy smells that pervade the air after the rains, or maybe it is something else...Whatever it is, there is no doubting how uplifting the rain is...It is as if the rain cleanses your very soul...it frees your mind...liberates your senses (if I say anything more, I'd start writing poetry and that's something I'm not too good at...so, let me stop while I'm ahead)...

Watching the rain come down and the wind howling reminded me of a time when seeing nature in such a wild form excited me so much. Don't get me wrong...it still does...but somehow that enthusiasm...that excitement is tempered by the encumbrances that life presents before you to place shackles on your mind and create bonds to ground the flight of your imagination. Someday again, maybe I shall feel the same excitement...the same thrill upon watching the rain...

So do I miss the thrill? I don't know. I guess, it's a question of giving up on some things to be able to do well in others. They say 'greatness is not achieved without sacrifice'. As one of the taglines of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King always reminds me 'NO VICTORY WITHOUT SUFFERING'. Maybe that's what I need to do...to observe these surprises silently and let them pass...watch them change but never wavering in my goal...never straying from my path...

Justified Text

2007-02-24T02:13:00.001+05:30

Nothing special in this post...Just wanted to say that justified posts do look much better...the blog entry looks more organized and if you can define 'clean', then it looks a lot cleaner.

Midnight Awakenings

2007-02-23T18:51:00.000+05:30

It's 2 o' clock now, and it seems the Goddess of Slumber has deserted me for the night. I guess that's what happens when you become used to sleeping 6-7 hours a day at the maximum. I slepts at 2000 hrs yesterday, hoping to go on a slumber spree and waking up at 0700 or something...but its 0200 hrs now and sleep now appears to be as remote as Mars is from the earth.

So now it's going to be nothing but endless waiting for the night to end and the light to come...

I Love Computers...

2007-02-22T21:26:00.000+05:30

Being a Computer Science student, you would expect me to say something on these lines, wouldn't you? But I think this statement goes beyond that...

When I opted for Computer Science at BITS, I did so primarily because I had little idea about the remaining branches of engineering. I seemed to be quite interested in electronics, but I had no idea as to whether I wanted Electrical and Electronics engineering or whether I should opt for Electronics and Instrumentation engineering. So rather than opt for a discipline which I had no idea about, I chose to go for something I was quite familiar with and whose basics I was quite proficient at.

But after that, it has been a different story altogether...

We were doing the part on Assembly Programming in our CP I (That's Computer Programming I) and all the related stuff and suddenly it hit me like a train running in full steam...I realized the amount of pains that inventors have to go through to make our interaction with the computer a lot simpler.

For example, imagine writing a program in all zeros and ones. As it is, fifteen opcodes are proving to be difficult to remember...What might happen if we have about two hundred machine level instructions to program in? It is during these moments when such thoughts come to your mind, that you truly realize that even the computer is a dumb box...which though capable of taking you on an unplanned trip to the most exotic places on this planet and beyond, is still only a result of man's superlative thinking and reasoning ability.

That's why I love computers...because they represent an inkling of man's ability to generate things that are better and more efficient than himself...because they represent the flight of man's desire and success at making things that can do what hundred men cannot do together in their lifetimes...

Anveshanam...

2007-02-18T09:41:00.000+05:30

The last post was about the activities that are taking place at BITS over the weekend. Well, it's time to add two more to the list.

First of all, there is the BASANT book fair at Akshay (the local departmental store) and from what I've heard, the collection is quite decent there. So, have to go there at some point of time before the fair actually winds up...

Also, the new quiz Anveshanam is here...I've solved the first two questions but the third one does look quite daunting and complicated...If anyone's interested, check out the link on the link on the SU site (Unfortunately, it's only open for BITsians I think)...

Weekend Blues at BITS...No Chance!!!

2007-02-18T01:01:00.000+05:30

Just back from watching a Manchester United match...Drew 1-1 with Reading in a game in which the team missed about six to seven clear chances...Some day other than this, the scoreline could well have been 5-1 or better...But still, we are still in the FA Cup and hopefully, Fergie will put out his best team in the return leg at the Madjeski Stadium.

Anyways, lots been going on here over the weekend, not the least of which is the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EMERGING MECHANICAL TECHNOLOGY – MACRO TO NANO, which in true BITsian style has been rechristened as EMTM2N. As a first year and as someone who is very new to such conferences, it was an eye-opener seeing the things held in perspective by some of the personalities conducting cutting edge research in this field. The biggest gain, that I believe I had from this, was a further proof of the need of interdisciplinary approaches to research. It's no longer enough to just know your field and hope to conduct research in it; it's essential to know about related fields as well, so that your research is not bogged down by some constraint or the other of your own making. The conference has its last day tomorrow, (or today should I say, since it's already past 12 midnight), and there is this special attraction - our own BITsian version of Robot Wars...So be there!!!

There was also the English Press Club meet in which all of us clubbers assigned ourselves to articles that we must write for the new issue of Fine Print (that is our monthly newsletter). It's an exciting time for the topics that we are trying to cover are quite varied and if I may say so myself, really relevant at this point of time on campus.

Tomorrow is another new day, but you can be rest assured a lot will be happening...Have to attend the General Body Meeting which the Election Commission is holding to review the work of the Student Union President and General Secretary...Should be interesting enough...

To be honest, who needs a workday when weekends are so busy???

The Arabian Odyssey

2007-02-16T08:22:00.000+05:30

This is a piece I wrote a while ago regarding my trip to the sands of Arabia:

You look out of a window and see red, everything red as if on fire. You strain your eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of any other shade except for that fiery red. But you fail miserably from your window high up in the air. As you go on, you get accustomed to sights at the ground level. You see dunes, monstrous on the ground, but tiny from the airplane where you are sitting. Stretching in a straight line like grand armies marching out to meet their foes in war and death, the dunes look like great, grim-faced, battle-worn warriors of sadistic and ruthless nature, who go everywhere in search of death, glory and nothing else. The clouds that you see surrounding you at that altitude of 30,000 feet above the ground (higher even than the world's tallest peak, Mt. Everest) appear red - such is the fire and the power of the desert.

Yet these glimpses are but a poor picture of the beauty of the desert landscape. It is not completely featureless as you initially are led to believe. After the initial shock of seeing something that has often developed the reputation of being a merciless graveyard that kills you slowly but surely, with your own eyes, you begin to decipher the vast desert landscape. You get few chances of taking a piercing look through the reddish-hued clouds and if you capitalize on those opportunities, you see rocks - ragged, monstrous and alone, standing like obstacles that have been created by the Unseen Power to hinder the free wind. There you see ridges appearing out of nowhere. These are brown-black in colour, appearing as if the sun has baked them to the point of being burnt. If you get the fortune, you can see the ragged, cruel cliffs and sheer rocks fashioning steep slopes. These precipices rise from sheer oblivion into the ridges which tower above the desert landscape. It suddenly dawns upon you that nature has fashioned these ridges, not for preventing infiltration by outsiders, but actually for keeping them in once they enter this domain. You may even see a vast mirage occasionally, but you know the desert. You know it is a delusion. You know that it may indeed have proved to be the death knell for many old travellers. You know all this, even from that high place where you are sitting comfortably and striding along with the swirling wind.

The sheer ruggedness and unfriendliness of the terrain is reflected in the landscape. Even the sky beneath the clouds looks red, not due to lights on the ground, but in fact, due to the red, hot sand. The lifeless desert peeks at you from beneath those clouds and you begin to belief that the region is indeed, a ruthless murderer of life. Yet, it is not so. There is vegetation, oh yes, it is sparse but it exists nevertheless. Thorny shrubs establish their realm in this region which support nothing else and you begin to wonder what the Unseen Power must have felt while creating all these.

Then you find the aeroplane is descending. Slowly but surely - in a matter of about ten minutes - you descend to about ten thousand feet. Now you begin to see the ground level more distinctly. You see a road winding down like a thin ribbon across the face of the desert. The road seems to stretch beyond friendly borders and onto the desert on the other side of the horizon.

With the airplane's descent, you know that the end of the journey is near. Soon you begin to see the city where your journey ends. You see houses - small and quiet. You see roads - wide, busy and beautiful. But soon, the aerial vision fades away. Your airplane lands and you step into the cool, air-conditioned clime inside the airport. But the situation on the outside cannot be more different. It is hot. The sunrays penetrate you like painful needles. The temperatures show the weather to be no hotter than 40 degrees, but you know it better than that. Mere statistics cannot convey the dryness of the air and the absence of a single, grey cloud in the sky. It is these factors that make the desert clime all the more unbearable.

Such is the first impression that you get of the Great Arabian Desert, the second largest plateau in the world. It is as if you have stepped into the realms of a whole new world that seems both ancient and modern, both rugged and sophisticated - at one and the same time. Such is the might and the rugged beauty of the desert that you half admire it and half fear it. Admiration, because you appreciate of the existence of such a different civilization only about two and a half thousand miles from your home and fear because you know now how cruel and lifeless nature can make itself.

That is precisely why; you want to modify the opening lines of Blake's poem and say-

'Fire, Fire, Burning Bright,
In the sandy desert's might,
What immortal hand or eye,
Made man, such an enemy?'

Incoherent Ramblings...

2007-02-16T08:03:00.000+05:30

There is something addictive about blogging...Once you start writing, you rarely stop forever...Even in your free time, as thoughts transcend the distance from inactivity to activity, you wonder whether and if yes, then how, you can put forth your thoughts on your very own blog. But blogging does help to clear your mind. Sometimes, just getting thoughts out of your system helps you to clear some memory space from your brain. I rather tend to think that this blog is my Pensieve (Harry Potter fans will surely know all about it) and whenever the number and extent of these thoughts become too overwhelming, I can write them and try to sort them out...And of course, besides all this, it does help in retrospection as you read what you wrote earlier.

But this post is not about the virtues of blogging...I'm sure that those of you who do visit this page, know all about it and as it is, I'll not bore you with this stuff. As the title of the post says, today's post is just a bunch of incoherent ramblings...

Even as I write this, it is 0800 hrs in the morning. It's been a while since I woke up and fog seems to have resumed its love affair with Pilani. The beauty of spending the winter in Pilani is the fact that every time you think the cold is lessening, it rears up its head again and sends the temperature plumetting a further four or five degrees. It's beautiful going out at this time of the morning though - the clock tower isn't visible from far and neither is the temple...You get the impression that you are somewhere else, and not at BITS.

So long then, see you. I'm sure I'll be returning to this space in a very short time indeed...

Break Away...

2007-02-11T16:29:00.000+05:30

Nothing really in the post to be honest...I'm putting up the lyrics for one of the songs that has, over the months, struck a connection with my mind...It's Break Away by Kelly Clarkson...

Grew up in a small town
And when the rain would fall down
I'd just stare out my window
Dreaming of what could be
And if I'd end up happy
I would pray (I would pray)

Trying hard to reach out
But when I tried to speak out
Felt like no one could hear me
Wanted to belong here
But something felt so wrong here
So I prayed I could break away[Chorus:]

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly
I'll do what it takes til' I touch the sky
And I'll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway

Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget all the ones that I love
I'll take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway

Wanna feel the warm breeze
Sleep under a palm tree
Feel the rush of the ocean
Get onboard a fast train
Travel on a jet plane, far away (I will)
And breakaway[Chorus]

Buildings with a hundred floors
Swinging around revolving doors
Maybe I don't know where they'll take me but
Gotta keep moving on, moving on
Fly away, breakaway

I'll spread my wings
And I'll learn how to fly
Though it's not easy to tell you goodbye
I gotta take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway

Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget the place I come from
I gotta take a risk
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway, breakaway, breakaway

The New Face of Nationalism...

2007-02-11T07:47:00.000+05:30

Came out of the workshop test today and it was raining cats and dogs outside...Of course, I love the rain (as is no doubt clear from my previous post) but it does become a bit constricting, especially when you are wary of letting yourself get soaked for the fear of falling ill during this weird phenomenon of weather change...So I took up the task of watching Rang de Basanti...a movie that almost the whole of the Indian youth seem to have watched (all my friends have!!!) except maybe for me.

Believe me three hours is a long time for me to sit at one place...I'm very much an active person...I must have activity in my life...so it was a remarkable task for me to sit through the whole of the movie at one go. So how did this happen? I might prepare myself for some brickbats and jeers when I say that the film, in its essence - especially when you see it as a stand-alone work from the point of film-making - isn't the greatest...The acting goes over the top at places...the story isn't watertight and the direction isn't foolproof.

But it's the message that struck the right chords for me...it's the emerging new face of Indian nationalism that made me sit up and take notice (even though the message is a bit convulted to satisfy the public's craving for drama).

Today we have come a full circle with our nationalism...There is no place in today's society for the nationalistic fervour which the freedom movement witnessed...In its place, a more subtle and sophisticated attitude has emerged...Indian nationalism has transcended from the collective strength of the community to the unique qualities of an individual...It is as if India today understands and encourages the power of the individual...It is like 'As an individual begins his meteoric rise, he takes with him his entourage - all the people who are with him...near him - and so the chain continues and the society becomes progressive once more...

It is not just about fighting now...It's no longer 'theirs only to do and die'...it's about making an educated choice...it's about deciding our own destiny...it's about the will to make a difference...it's about the desire to go forward...

A Weather Change...

2007-02-10T09:40:00.000+05:30

I'm just about loving life at the moment here in Pilani. As I compose this entry, I can hear the sound of the rain bearing down in a slow, steady drizzle on the roof of the hostel. I can smell the ethereal aroma of the ground soaked with rain to its core. I can feel the hair on my body pricking up in tingling anticipation as the wind - sometimes harsh, sometimes slightly milder and carrying more than a bit of chill - passes over my skin.

Only the day before today, I was cycling my way for a tutorial in FD III (That's one of the classroom complexes on BITS) and the whole world was swathed in the covering of dense fog. Visibility was about 15 yards at the maximum and as I went along the road, there was nothing to be seen except the road in front, the sidewalk and the surrounding hedge - no sign of the insti building nor of the bhawans (hostels)...At that moment, I found myself having this sudden urge to forget about the looming tests and just leave...leave on a journey...some journey...any journey...

Why then is the weather playing these tricks all of a sudden? I don't know, but boy, am I glad it is!!!

The Night Beckons Me...

2007-02-05T23:49:00.000+05:30

A Night Out!!! That's what waking long hours into the night is defined here by most of us in BITS. It is probably one of the most integral parts of spending your student life here...waking through all unearthly hours of the night, interspersed with regular midnight rendevouz to the All Night Canteen (ANC) and a liberal dose of full time 'masti' and 'dhamaal' (for the non-Hindi people out there, you could use the alternative words - fun and frolic - though they wouldn't convey the full meaning)...BITsian night outs are, well, just a part of the BITsian culture.

But it isn't just about these things, is it? For if it was, what would the difference between the day and the night be? Wouldn't the night be just as bright and welcoming as the day? Where then would the fear of the night...the dark...perpetrated through the days of childhood...go?

The dark is fascinating enough...But especially on these nights when midnight wandering becomes a custom, it assumes a more holistic meaning...

Never have I felt the pulse of life so strongly as I have during these nights, whether it be during my trips to ANC or during one of my sojourns to the temple lawns in the middle of the night. Ironic isn't it that I should be feeling the pulse of life at the precise time when the whole world is seemingly consigned to hours of dreams and pleasant slumber? Yet that feeling exists. It is as if the long labours of the whole day have come to fruition for each and every living being around and even as they sleep, the feeling of having earned the night's rest...the feeling of having done something productive during the hours of light...contributes to a whole sphere of serenity that descends upon the world as the hours of the night pass but which inexplicably passes on as soon as the first rays of light penetrate the gloom of the dark.

The night is dark...it is black...but doesn't black assimilate all other colours that it encounters without preference or so much as a second thought?

The night does the same for me...It makes my heart soar at the thought of another day well spent...it makes my mind look forward to the promise of another day approaching...but above all...it beckons me...to feel its serenity and dark splendour...unlike anything else I could find on this planet.

Do We Really Want to Be Unique?

2007-02-04T15:49:00.000+05:30

We usually classify people into different categories - extroverted, calm, quiet, reserved, downright introverted and God knows what else! It is indeed a very telling characteristic of the human mind that we tend to categorize everyone we've ever talked to - irrespective of whether that conversation spans ten words or ten thousand - into the above categories...maybe not exactly into the above but certainly into some group or the other.

Why is this so? Why is there this obsession with classification? Maybe it is there because such a classification assures us that we're not the only ones like ourselves. Maybe it is there for the same reason why people look to others...others who are achievers or are great in their own right...for inspiration because it lends a meaning to their lives...because it makes them believe they are not the only ones of their kind and there were, are and will be many others who will be similar in being, thought and mind to them.

It is at these times that I realize the full meaning of the statement that we all do tend to make out of habit, or just out of a wish to sound acceptable and true (even if some of us do not tend to make this statement, still every one of us must have used this statement at least once); that-

Man is a social animal

I believe from whatever I've observed of human nature that we just can't stand the thought of being alone in anything. We need the reassurance, time and again, about the validity of our actions in the eyes of our fellow humans. We need the reassurance of someone saying 'been there, done that'. Even the most individualistic person in the world seeks that because that assurance makes him believe that his life is being spent meaningfully. I challenge all those who would defy what I've said here. I challenge all those who say they don't care about what others think and do...I ask all such people who make those claims to look into their own souls and question themselves...I think the answer they get might surprise them...

That is why some people attain greatness...because they can marry their pursuit of excellence and immortality with acceptability in their fellow humans' eyes. Even those like Galileo whose greatness was only fully appreciated after their deaths, became great because they pursued the one thing that is ultimately cared for and respected by all humans - the truth. They ultimately became great because their work and their lives gained recognition in their fellow humans' eyes...

Boundaries and Prejudices

2007-01-20T07:53:00.000+05:30

Over the past three days here in India, and probably in Britain as well (I reckon from all the news that filters in), there has been a huge hue and cry over the Big Brother Racism Issue. To be honest, I’m neither a big fan of the Channel 4 show nor am I a sucker for juicy celebrity gossip. Still, it is hard to ignore all the latest happenings as they are being beamed from halfway across the globe, especially when the whole world is trying to polarize your opinion on the issue and make you believe that a great injustice, probably as monumental as any other thing seen in world history is taking place.

Now don’t get me wrong when I write the above. I’m not a racist, nor am I a proponent of discrimination in any form. In fact, I strongly believe that any form of discrimination, whether it be based on religion, caste, creed, sex or race is utterly despicable. It is the sort of thing that only a human can do to a fellow human and such incidents make us question whether we are really up and above the rest of the species on this earth.

Einstein once said:

It’s more difficult to root out prejudice than to disintegrate an atom.

And I think that brings us to the root cause of this whole issue and of all the other discriminatory issue plaguing our world at this hour. Too many boundaries exist – in our mind and in our cultural interpretations. That in itself makes us wary of anyone new, anyone who looks or seems somehow different from ourselves, enters our lives and the precincts where we live, work or play.

I dream of a world without boundaries – where the flight of an individual is not constrained by the nation he hails from or the conditions he has been born into. I dream of a world where we can all speak a common language, on a common forum. I dream of a planet unified, with every man and woman a part of the whole.

The Joys of Being Busy

2007-01-18T19:38:00.000+05:30

It's being a while since I entered the world of blogging (I do consider 15 days to be a while, especially when one does use the Web every day for a sizeable amount of time) and to think of it, just one blog entry in all these days doesn't do justice to the nature and the number of thoughts that have been running through my mind during these days. But having said that, what is equally true is that over the last few days, while I have missed updating my blog and all the related stuff, I have also discovered again the joys of being busy.

I am a student here at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani in India and truth be told, the schedule here is packed with so many activities - not just classes and friends, but sports, clubs and some all round entertainment in general. Now that the semester has begun in real earnest, as in classes taking a more serious air and the tutorial tests and evaluative components beginning to make their presence known, it is back to what I did last semester - spend most of the time catching up with the breakneck pace of all that goes on at the institute. Of course, it doesn't help when I admit that I am one of those students who are quite regular - I attend all the lectures and tutorials, so that does give me much less time to manouever.

However, to all those of you who might think that this is a bad thing or that this is too much to cope up with, I think that it is, on the contrary, the best thing that has happened to me till now. I've always wanted to test myself in adverse circumstances and stressful conditions. Over the years, I was often accused of being a choker, as having an escapist mentality; but I am glad to say that I appear to have shed that tag now. And of course, there are added advantages as well.

For example, let's look at all the events that the media has gone crazy about in the last fortnight: There was the hanging of Saddam Hussein, which to me, was a pathetic attempt at attracting viewers/readers on the part of the media. It is indeed shameful that a brutal dictator should be given so much spotlight that a gullible section of the society might interpret his image as being that of a martyr.

Then in India, there was also the small matter of the engagement of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bacchan. You know that the media has gone into overdrive with a story when the frontpage of these actors appears on the cover of practically every major national daily alongwith the details of the engagement. Pathetic attempts, at best!!!

Basically, what I am trying to put across here is that I was thankfully spared of observing all this stuff over the past fortnight by the mere fact that a re-entry into the BITsian life kept me busy and away from this circus. Never have I appreciated the beauty and the utility of busyness as now!!!

GO RED DEVILS!!!

2007-01-03T15:18:00.000+05:30

GLORY GLORY MANCHESTER UNITED!!!

I have never made a secret of the fact that I'm an avid football fan (that's soccer for all those who think 'football' is some other savage game) and a hardcore Manchester United fan at that. My support of the club dates back to 1998, when I first began following football. So, as a United fan, it has been a difficult pill to digest seeing Arsenal and then Chelsea (even Liverpool) winning things while Fergie patiently tried to create his third championship winning team at Manchester. And then, we had all these pundits tipping us to fall to our worst finish in the Premiership years this season.

And now at half-term, I can safely say, 'TAKE THAT EVERYONE!!!' For Fergie is back with a vengeance and so is Manchester United. Six points clear at the top of the Premiership with the nearest rivals Chelsea rapidly going on to earn the nickname 'Butterfeet' and the Champions League knockout phase beckoning, things are really looking up. Surely, we'll win some major honours this term.

Add to that the form of Ronaldo, Saha, Scholes and Giggs, you can feel why I'm so excited. And last but not the least, there is still the Wayne Rooney explosion to come!!!