2009

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? ;)
  

Take Some Time Out...And Listen

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...

Sports Journalism

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."

Detachment

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?

Me, Myself and More of Meself

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.

Language

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:

1. 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?
2. Interrupt involves the device interrupting the processor whenever it needs something to be done. Can you draw a parallel with chronic attention-seekers here?
3. 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?

Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

“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.

Vacationophobia

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

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

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…

A Moment for the Technologically Inept

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

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???

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

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...

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...

Faith...

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!!!

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 Borat 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.

The Thing About Reminiscence

"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

• 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.
  

A Curious Paradox

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...