Everything that doesn't matter

Things to do in 2012

2012-01-25T09:46:00.000-06:00

Graduate
Graduate
Don't get old
Take a vacation before the world ends.
See a lava lake.
Watch Sachin's 100th 100.
Burn my underwear in protest of unfair treatment of humanity
Escape the 2012 apocalypse (of course with a pretty girl. Who wants to live alone on an island?)
Repopulate the earth.

Trust: In Relationships and In Computer Science and Economics

2012-01-11T14:31:00.002-06:00

Trust is something we use everyday in our life without explicitly thinking about it. In simplest of terms, trust is that ambiguous quantity you refer to when you are doing a transaction with someone who you have insufficient information about.

This definition though feels inadequate when you take relationships into account, since you know the person you are dealing with. Thus a more fine grained definition is needed. Point to note here though is that even in relationships, you know the person and that assures you to trust them however you are still unsure about the outcome of your transaction. Thus the new definition though different needs to have a common thread with the previous definition.

So we define two separate definitions of trust, computational trust and personal trust, the names are more or less self explanatory. The difference between the two trusts as defined by researchers is that while a breach of trust in computational trust invokes a penalty, in personal trust it is forgiven and forgotten. Which is true since this is what relationships are built upon in an imperfect world. However, it should be noted that even in personal trust, breach of trust over and over again, reduces it. This implies that there should be a threshold in personal trust after which it would begin to decline. The threshold in this case would depend upon the original level of trust between the two parties.

In computer science the idea of computational trust may suffice in most cases, however this isn't suitable in economics where relationships are built over a long period of transaction between the service provider and the client. A personal trust with a dynamic threshold would be better suited in such scenarios despite the parties involved being software agents.

New Look

2012-01-09T16:53:00.000-06:00

Just changed the look of the blog, the old one was ..well old. Needed a fresh look, a minimalistic design which isn't too dark or in your face and here it is.

Caffeine and Memory

2012-01-06T09:55:00.000-06:00

Just read a very interesting paper on caffeine and how it affects our memory. Specially interesting since a number of us consume caffeine the night before an exam to mug things up or in other such instances when you have to be up all night. You probably already know too much of this stuff will make you nervy and will be no good but is it even fine to take in moderation. The answer suggested by this paper would be yes and no.

Effects of caffeine is influenced by more factors than you can think of including the time of the day, your personality, what kind of information you want to process and you gender for example. Might seem contrary but in general caffeine is better for long term memory tasks than the short term ones. Authors of this paper carried out a survey and experiment and the results show that while moderate amount of caffeine facilitated short term memory in females, contrary to popular perception it actually impaired the short term memory in males. However a higher dose of caffeine is good for both sexes.

Confused? Let's just say the paper suggests, either take no caffeine or if you have to take it take lot of it but then again not so much so as to make you restless and nervous.

Reference: The Effects of Caffeine, Impulsivity, and Sex on Memory for Word Lists, by Mary Ellen Arnold et al.

It's a New Year Folks

2012-01-02T14:50:00.000-06:00

Didn't realize it was a new year until the first day was over and somebody called me up. Well for the first time I did celebrate the new year and during the celebrations forgot why we were doing it. Unlike last few years haven't retrospected and made any list ....maybe sometime later ... haven't got any alone time yet.

One thing I wish though is that Sachin starts this year with a century again also that I finish my PhD. At least one of them is possible.

Well Hapy New Year

The Rediscovery

2011-12-16T01:53:00.004-06:00

This is one of those rare days when I feel like writing something .... anything .. and I want to write about my rediscovery of geology. I love geology and with every rock I hold in my hands, every mountain i see, every stretch of barren or fertile land, flowing or still water, melting snow it seems to grow. I wish I could be a geologist. That doesn't mean I don't love being a Computer Scientist, especially now that I am learning to like math and learning to see how beautiful it can be, but the earth fascinates me.

Just finished the book "Earth in 100 Groundbreaking discoveries" and it was captivating. The way our earth has come into existence, the way it functions is just mesmerizing. The most fiercest natural powers, the volcanoes the plate tectonics, the ice, the ocean which have terrorized people over all the history are in fact the powers which sustain life. The vast time scale makes us so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but more on that some other time. Last few days have been entertaining and enlightening in this aspect, so much so that after hiking illegally on protected islands, swimming in the ocean and getting bitten by poisonous fishes, the next thing I want to see is the lava lakes of Kilauea in Hawaii and Erta Ale in Ethiopia.

On a different note Lucky Ali's Aap Per Arz Hai is well just beautiful.

History repeats itself

2011-06-06T23:54:00.002-05:00

Once again I am waiting for the results of all those engineering entrance exams as eagerly if not more as I was waiting for them 9 years ago. The same goosebumps, butterflies in the stomach, fingers crossed. Reliving every moment of that anxiety and uncertainty.

Stories from the road - 1

2011-05-20T10:41:00.001-05:00

Woke up to the sound of waves of the bay hitting the rocks and sun peeping from distant mountains. We had breakfast and saw that the west wind was slowly dying. Finally time to go out and do something. We decided to hike up to the Angelitas. Wow! the hike up to the mountain didn’t look too much of a problem from the ground but boy was it difficult. Even more so with the scorching sun and no shade. We made it to the top after about 90 minutes of hiking. The view of bahia from the top was breathtaking, those last 90 minutes of sweat and exhaustion totally worth it. Once on the top we decided to dig out a geocache. It was a difficult one but after half an hour of hunt we finally found it. Had food and water and came down. Coming down was much easier. Once we were back we decided to find another geocache, this was an easier one, hidden in a boat and only took 10 minutes.

The next thing we did was set up a network between two of Dylan's neighbors. This was fun and we used walkie talkies to communicate between the sites :D. One of the neighbors offered us Sting ray burritos, my first experience of unusual food. It was a little different but totally edible :P.

For dinner we went to a taqueria and I had the best tacos of my life yet. Came back played the game of life watched Indiana Jones and went to sleep to wake up another beautiful day.

Rambling

2011-03-10T13:19:00.000-06:00

Rambling: A long meandering talk with no specific topic or direction.

If I write a blog entry everytime I think about writing one, I would average about 30 per month. Right now it's less than 1 per month.

I am making good progress on my research. All I need now is magic.

There is a tiny wild flower in front of my house. Its the harbinger of spring, grows at the same place at about the same time every year ( or at least the two years I have seen it there)

Euphoria's The Road is awesome.

Euphoria's Kaise bhoolegi mera naam is awesomer. At one point of time, the song constantly kept playing in my mind for 4 days non stop. Even while I was sleeping.

Indian bowling is not as weak as it is made out to be. Still very capable of loosing the world cup.

My randomness is very carefully planned.

Interference must die.

The one with the new year

2011-01-08T11:28:00.001-06:00

Bye Bye twentyten. Not a very nice end to an otherwise fine year and a poor start to the New Year. Reason ... I am lazy and forgetful to an extent not forgivable and I am no Sachin Tendulkar to start the new year with a ton.. This year though is promising and I already have my list up, a relatively short list. I hope this year gets better as it progresses and that I fulfill the promises. Cheers!

Andaaz aaj shayarana hai

2010-12-29T17:45:00.000-06:00

December ki is sardi mein,

jab thandi thandi hawa chali.

Hawa chali to ek kitab khuli.

Yaadon ki kitab, khwabon ki kitab,

thodi anban, thode jhagde,thode pyar ki kitab.

Kitab ke panno mein chhupakar,

rakha tha ek gulab.

Gulab ki pankhudiyon ke niche tera naam nikla.

Tere naam ko dekha,

to aankhon ke samne se,

apne ek ek pal ka karwaan nikla.

In palo ki kadiyo se,

ulajhti sulajhti chali gai do kahaniyan.

Hawa ki sihran ne bataya,

kaise in kahinyo se apni kahani bani .

December ki is sardi mein,

jab thandi thandi hawa chali.

Update

2010-10-22T23:40:00.002-05:00

Finally an update :). Have been seriously busy all this time and if you're following me you would notice every time the adjective before the term "busy" gets more and more elaborate. This time I have been seriously busy and I am loving it. I have a direction and I know I am making progress. Personally a few things are shaping up and fingers crossed hopefully they will culminate into something really nice. Its always a good feeling when you have a goal and you know what you are working for rather than just languidly following a shiny object.

A few things happened over the last few days. I finally took my first step towards learning LaTex. I wrote whole of one my homeworks in it and it was fun and am also trying to learn Beamer. :) . Before that I wrote a report on spyware for one my classes. I really enjoyed working on it and also learnt quite a few things. I have posted some interesting excerpts from that report on my other blog here. Hopefully it will be useful to people .In between all this I also gave a talk on Mahatma Gandhi at Dylan's church. While preparing for the talk I found a very interesting fact about Mahatma Gandhi. He wasn't a particularly good public speaker and this gave me a lot of heart :P .Thomas Jefferson again wasn't a very great public speaker but both of them went on to become leading public figures of their time. So people like me who fret at the very idea of speaking in front of an audience have history to look upon.

As I have said before and I reiterate I am really bad at concluding things so I'll just finish this one abruptly too. Adios!

Code Decay

2010-09-11T01:19:00.001-05:00

Ever wrote code which was working perfectly for a while and then just magically stopped working? Well we did. One part of the implementation of our code on the mica2 motes was over by the end of the summer and that was when both I and Josh took a break. When we came back and started getting the implementation ready for a demo it refused to work. It just refused to work. We don't know what the heck happened to it. When we left it there it was working and now it doesn't. We know nobody touched it or messed with it, so what happened to it. There seems to be no reasonable explanation unless we assume that our code was radioactive and it just disintegrated by itself. Josh named it code decay; while we were away our code was rotting.

So there we were, just one hour away from a live demo with a bunch of motes and non functional code on them. We tried everything even hard coding the data "just for the demo" but all we could get was random behavior. In the end we decided to go in with the original code with the hope that it will work. Fortune favors the brave as they say, the code kind of worked, and the presentation was so good (Thanks to my advisor) that nobody noticed the demo. Well it has been crazy last 3 days and I am glad the demo is finally done with. Looking to relax on the weekend and recharge my batteries, hopefully will get the implementation up and running and perfectly fit by next week.

Failed Predictions

2010-06-03T15:44:00.000-05:00

I was listening to a talk in the department today and the speaker started with some failed predictions in computer sciences. Man has always been making predictions about future and sometimes he fails miserably. I googled some of the predictions which went seriously wrong, not just in computer sciences but in other disciplines as well. Here’s my top 10 list.

10. Nuclear Energy is not possible says Einstein

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” — Albert Einstein, 1932

9. H.M Warner supporting music instead of dialogues in movies said nobody would want to listen to actors talking on screen,

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" — H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.

8. Germs don’t cause diseases.

“Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." — Pierre Pachet, British surgeon and Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

7. Who needs Xerox machines.

" The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

6. Inflation is over.

"In all likelihood world inflation is over." -- International Monetary Fund Ceo, 1959.

5. Nobody will ever need a 32 bits operating system.

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates

4. Rail travel is hazardous

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” — Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

3. Does your PC has 4 GB of RAM?

“No one will need more than 637 kilobytes of memory for a personal computer.” — Bill Gates

2. Everything which needs to be discovered has already been discovered.

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now; All that remains is more and more precise measurement." -- Lord Kelvin, speaking to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1900.

And the biggest fail of them all,

1. Who needs a personal computer?

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC).

Chain mail

2010-05-16T21:07:00.002-05:00

When was the last time you received a chain mail? May be today. I received one today which prompted me to write this post, this probably is going to be the most informative thing ever on this blog.

I have been using email for over 10 years and I can say chain mail or email is one of the most annoying things on internet and specifically what gets to me is how easily people are fooled by these scammers. Chain mail is the prime example of social engineering where these scammers take advantage of people's emotions. Below I list some of the very popular forms of these emails.

1. Earn money by forwarding this email.
2. Send this email to 10 people or bad luck will befall you.
3. If you love your mother send this email to everyone on your list.
4. Sick Girl(Little Kimberly Anne is dying of a horrible tropical disease)
5. Forward this mail to everyone and Bill Gates will give you $1000.
6. E-Petitions.

Beware! The chain mails are fooling you. I will tell you why any of the above claims won't work.

Some of them are insanely stupid like the bad luck ones. Read on for the others which involve money and the e-petition ones. In the absence of information such as physical address and phone number an email cannot be binded to a person, so any name on the list can be fake and still unverifiable. Anyone can easily put a number of non existing email addresses in the list without letting anyone know. It is not entirely impossible to receive the same email multiple times, so there will be enormous amount of repetition in a list. If you ever tried to email the person who originated the chain mail, you would find that it's a fake email address. Even if it was real, the ISP instead of giving money for forwarding the chain mail will delete the account for generating so much of bad traffic.
Chain mails are unethical. Chain mailers put pictures of people in distress and play with your emotions which compel you to forward these emails. Don't do that, not only is it unethical it is also illegal. Chain mails by US mail are illegal and although chain email is not illegal, it is against the terms and conditions of any ISP. If your service provider knew you were forwarding chain emails it could delete your account at its own will.

If you want to read further please see these links.

http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/chainletterhoaxes.php
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/chain-letters.html
http://www.theburleys.net/chain.html
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/10.11.97.html

Happy E-mailing!

A Random Walk

2010-04-13T09:45:00.004-05:00

Any ideas on, how do you do a random walk in real life? You do what we me and Dylan did yesterday. We wanted to go for a walk and didn't know where to go so we decided not to decide anything at all and leave everything to chance. We started from Alex's and on each intersection made a totally random decision on which way to go :), that's a random walk in real life and it was fun walking without purpose and no destination.

It's been almost a month and a half since I wrote here last that's because I have been keeping quite busy and sadly I don't fore see any respite in the next few days. Writing something was on my list for almost a week so I decided I should take some time out and write something..... anything.

Talking about anything, yesterday was a good day. I had a poster presentation and had to stand next to my poster for three and half hours which almost succeeded in breaking my back, fortunately the presentation got over just before the breaking point. Then we went to the "goat", had coffee and the free pizza at Alex's :). The Tradebot guy who sponsored the pizza was a nice one. I guess Me and Dylan were the only guys there without a resume. PhD students are so easily satisfied, they don't need no jobs, all they need is free pizza :P. Then we did the random walk thingy untill we ran into AJ and the broken car (unrelated events :P) and we talked about the "Rat Attack" in northeast India. That was something I learnt yesterday and I had no clue whatsoever about it. A cycle which occurs every 48 years. Every 48 years millions of rats come, no one knows from where and destroy all the crops. It has an interesting reason which I leave you to explore. After the discussion I went back to the lab and actually worked for sometime till I decided to call it a day and head home and guess what I met Jeremy on my way. Actually he wasn't in my way but you know you sometime have that urge to poke a mad bull and see what it does :P. I kinda like talking to him and listen to how a conservative Christian’s mind works.(..and you thought I had had enough of conservative Hinduism) Well God is one of my favorite topics and I can't resist talking about it. Every time I talk to Jeremy I learn something. How to be patient when someone is talking so highly of something you have zilch beleif in and then how to coerce them into your way of thinking. Was too tired after that so went home listened to Jason Mraz ... I love the geek in the pink live version..had dinner and slept ... to wake up the next morning and write this post. :)
Have fun everybody !

Busy Busy

2010-03-14T12:24:00.003-05:00

I probably am one of the greatest mismanager of time ever with the gift of making an ok schedule, the busiest ever. The last two weeks have been busy, but only because I wasted most part of them doing nothing. In fact I was doing something, I was thinking about working and about how busy my schedule is, and all this thinking makes me so tired, it makes me want to fall on my bed and snooze, maybe watch a movie, to be refreshed again to start thinking about work. Its actually a vicious cycle, I see a lot of work, then I see how little time I have, I panic, waste my time panicking and the result is even lesser time for work. In the end everything is left for the last minute slogging followed by a system crash. But, the next two weeks are going to be busy, seriously!! There is a never ending list of red flagged tasks, and a deadline almost every day. Thinking about work!!! PANIC ATTACK!!!! Looks like it’s going to be a long slog this time and no time for crash. GOD SHAVE ME! .... that's coz I can't find time to shave myself. The funny thing though is, now that I don't have much time,there is so much to write about :|. I'll write it all one by one, for now what I want to say is
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE, MAKE YOUR TIME.!!!! dont know what that is ;), keep guessing and wait till my next post.

My sweet little child

2010-02-28T16:57:00.001-06:00

As I had promised,I would be back with a couple of posts better than the last one. Here is the first one,Hope its good.
(Credits* :: Peeyush for insipration :))

Lying in your cradle
you shine like a star
I look at you
and then I look at the sky above
the darkness of the sky
and the emptiness inside
the prisoned thoughts then come out
as tears from my eyes.

Far away at the horizon
where the sun used to be
is the murky shadow of lies
which I refuse to see
the innocence of the race
has been crushed by its own stride
O my sweet little child
theres a bad bad world outside

Everyday I fight,the demons inside me
Tired and withered, not loosing my tenacity.
The burden of confidence, that I carry with me
and my own expectations,on the verge of insanity.
It tears me apart,taking down the ego.
Killing the love,and killing my soul.
I see you sleeping as I sit close to you
rocking your cradle,I see what I've accrued
Some things,which need to be taken care of
but i promise the sun
will always shine bright on you
Sometimes I may be gone,coz I don't know if I'll get through
But my sweet little child.
I'll always be there for you.

The one with nothing in it

2010-02-22T08:04:00.001-06:00

So I woke up early today. Not to study but to find new ways of spending time. As usual the first thing I did was to have a cup of tea. I have a small, lazy, dormant brain and tea helps me unclutter it and free up some space. Well, I just want to avoid saying I am addicted. So this fine morning I decided I should have an account on topcoder. Although I am just an average programmer but I want to see how do I compare against other people. That was one thing I did today and then I decided I should revamp my blog a bit, so I added my profile ( I read this somewhere, that if you have a profile on your blog, people connect to you while reading. Really? I don't know but no harm in just putting the profile up there.) and I also added the reactions below every post, so now everyone who thinks what a waste of time this blog is, can rate the post as CRAP. I also wanted to change my blog template but couldn't find one which could do justice to the theme of my blog. If anyone has a nice template please post a link in the comments, and ya my dear readers please post your comments, makes me feel good when I read them :). I'll be back soon with a couple of nice posts and not a filler like this one. You can go ahead and rate it crap :). Till then take care.

Arre bhai desai

2010-02-13T16:55:00.000-06:00

No I am not talking to someone with the name desai. It’s the way I like to pronounce desi, with the “i” as in shine. There is a reason behind this and the reason is that I am confused, I am confused why is ‘i’ not just ’i’ but sometimes ‘a’ and sometimes ‘y’. A great man once said, English is a phunny language and he got it absolutely spot on, at least for us the desis. Till the time I was in india I was quite happy with my English, I knew that I was one of the people who make India the largest english speaking population in the world (we also make india the second largest population in the world),I believed I had a neutral accent, and I used to have no difficulties making people understand me. That’s true for all of us. The trouble starts when the desi lands in amreeka and it starts with your name. I have a two syllable name “vimal” which I believe is not very tough to pronounce and so I fail to understand how can people not get it right. First day in the university, first class and the professor calls me vymal (again vimal but with an i as in shine), which was kinda funny, but I don’t have any problem as long as you can identify me with that name, so for the professor I am vymal. Unfortunately that’s not the end of it, people keep messing my name up sometimes I get called vamal , sometimes vimol and sometimes vimaahh, Embarrassing. But that’s okay because I don’t want to correct people everytime they make a mistake. Like one of my friend’s mother in law, she struggled with pronouncing my name for like ten minutes and finally we decided she would be calling me Jack. That’s just one side of the story, as much as it bothers us, it’s also embarrassing for others when they mispronounce our name, like this one time, a lady in a class was trying to explain something, she wanted to give an example and she asked a student what was his name. “Sanskar” he said. Now then, if vimal is so difficult you can imagine sanskar. After struggling for some time the lady gave up and apologized.

Now that you have come to terms with your new names, you want to go out to eat. But it’s not as easy, for some weird reason amreeka has turned all the world’s logic on its head. The innocuous cheeseburger is not what it says it is, it actually contains beef, certainly a no no for desis. You want to pay for what you had at the restaurant? The bill here is called the check and the currency note is called bill. San jose is actually called San hose-ay. Rubber is not eraser but something entirely different. The desi is Kompletely Konfuzed now and he wants to talk to people. To his horror however clearly he speaks he can’t make people understand him. Initially he resists but he has to give in and start speaking with the amreekan accent, he speaks with a heavy voice and tries to drag every word as long as he can. Every sentence is littered with more “like”s than actual words. The “Damn” becomes ‘Deamm’, ‘Focus’ becomes ‘fokis’ and “r” now comes on with a rolling sound, but that’s not all, he is so excited about the new accent that he starts picking whatever accent he comes in contact with. American, British, Mexican everyone of them. The desi is becoming kool but now the people around him are confused, why does this guy speaks every word with a different accent. By the time the desi realizes this, it’s too late. He is speaking crap and he can’t go back to his Indian accent. It’s not all about the accents though. Things are a little tougher for those of us who weren’t very attentive in the English class at school. A few days back a friend of mine, was telling me an incident how a guy was pronouncing veggie like a wedgie and how funny it was. Little did she know that I didn’t know what the difference was. A general apathy towards the use of prepositions is also one of our characteristic so many of us have a voice mail which says “ I am not able to pick your call right now”. These sort of things keep happening with us and there are two ways to look at these. One is to think that everyone is trying to pick on you, the other is to realize that this is what we are and how we are then why not just enjoy ourselves and enjoy our desi-ness. I always see the lighter part of it. If nothing else then my desi-ness is at least good enough for a laugh or two.

P.S I am a desi and I love being a desi, it is just a funny recount of my and my friends’s experiences and has to be taken lightly. If at all the D-word and the post in general is offensive to you, then be my guest.

Amrita

2010-02-01T22:46:00.000-06:00

It was a bright sunny morning I remember. I'd woken up early and decided to go for a walk. With no prescience of what was to follow I stepped out. There was the early morning chill in the air, but the sun was making it pleasant. As I was walking across the neighboring park, a girl sitting on one of the park bench caught my eye. She had a face so pretty that I haven’t seen before; I kept walking and kept stealing glances making sure she doesn't catch me staring at her. Her hands were folded down resting on her lap, her untied hair flowing with the breeze and she seemed to be staring at the trees in one of the corner of the park, she looked so engrossed in those trees that she didn't seem to notice anything else. I had passed the bench and left her behind when I decided to turn back and get a final glance. She was still looking at those trees; she looked on without blinking an eyelid. I looked at her, then at the trees. My failure to find anything interesting in the trees made me curious. I wanted to talk to this strange girl. I made sure that that my footsteps don't make any sound, I went near her and was taken aback when she said hi."Hhh How did you know I was here", I stammered, partly surprised, partly ashamed of being caught staring. "It’s okay, sit down". Still concentrating on her trees, she continued, "you know, there is a fabric in the nature, it’s over our heads covering all of us. When you were looking at me, I felt someone pulling it away from me. I felt it slipping off my head and that's how I knew somebody was here". I sat down on the bench beside her, still figuring out what she had just said.

"I am sorry I've been watching you for some time and I can't help but ask why, you are staring at those trees"."Which trees?" "Those” "Ah, those trees. How do you know I am looking at the trees"? "I just figured that because there is nothing else to look at there.” A slight wind was blowing and one of the strands of her untied hair had landed on her right eye, without bothering to remove it she continued "What if I say there are no trees at all there?"

I sensed the conversation was leading up to something, "I walk past those trees every day, I know they are there" I answered. "Then, close your eyes, thinking that the trees are not there". I don't know why I was following her, but I was, I closed my eyes. A few moments later she said, "Now forget that you ever saw those trees, unbelieve your eyes". I did what she said, I was curious like a small child, in the anticipation of learning a secret. I erased the memory of the trees completely from my mind. "Now can you find out if there are trees there?" Here I was completely lost, and as soon as I started with "What are you ..." in a very calm voice she said "You can".

The calmness of her voice settled me down a bit, and I started with the exercise, how could I know the trees were there or not. I couldn't see anything and I was finding it hard to concentrate because of all the noise around me. There was the sound of a school bus as it went past, a little child was crying at some distance, footsteps as somebody just jogged by, more footsteps, they sounded of school kids in a hurry, some children were on a swing, which was making a squeaking sound, a vendor seemingly very proud of his vegetables was shouting at the top of his vocal chords, finally some hustling of dry leaves, but they were of somebody sweeping them, no signs of a tree. I tried to listen everything again, concentrating hard. A slight wind was blowing, starting and stopping intermittently, every time it blew it would make a hissing sound in my ears, but there was another sound which I had missed earlier, every time the wind blew, there would be a sound of leaves, and this seemed to come from a distance, this certainly was from the trees. My eyes still closed, a slight smile spread across my face, not from the fact that I had found out the answer, instead I had found the question out. Things don't stop existing when we close our eyes, but with our eyes closed we need a different way to find them. Sometimes there are things, situations, feelings which don't present them to us in an obvious way, but that does not mean they are not there, they are there, we just need to find them out."Amrita Let's go", a little boy's voice, brought me back to earth. The little boy helped the girl stand up, held her hand and led her away. I watched them go, and drifted into the thoughts of this strange episode again, when an annoyance on my ear disturbed me. It was her strand of hair, which had broken off. I picked it up, blew it in the air and walked away.

My Love/hate relationship with water

2010-01-17T12:13:00.000-06:00

P.S: The post is totally symbolic, you might find it difficult to understand if you can’t relate to the symbolism, although it does make sense when taken literally too. I would be glad if people who it is written for can understand it.

I thought I hated water to my core, until one day when it touched me. Water in all its forms leaves an impression on me, gives me something to think about, sometimes I like it, at some other times I don't. Ironically I hate the touch of water but the three most important people in my life are water.

To start with, I hate water, because it makes me look up my brain and use it. I hate when it slowly starts soaking me. I am a Capricorn what else can I do, I hate changing my state, but once I am completely drenched. I start loving it, I like it when it tunnels down from the temple to the feet, making me fall in love with it, the way it is all over me, engulfs me in my each and every thought, water and water everywhere so much so that after one point the earth becomes the water.

The first time water touched me, I made every effort to escape. The first drop which fell on my forehead pinched me and went right inside and touched my heart. I don't know whether it felt good or bad, but it was different, mesmerizing in a way. Like the children of Hamlin, I swerved and swinged to the pied piper, but soon my stubborn self woke up and refused to get soaked. Water tried hard, tried time and again and by the time it succeeded it had already given up. I was soaked but dry, and that is precisely what I don't like. It exhilarates you when it splashes you but it’s gone too soon. Give me persistence, I won't mind if it’s not too spectacular. As luck would have it, water touched me again, perhaps to teach me one more lesson. You know howsoever you may like water; you can't hold it, you have to just let it flow and come to you. You can hold it in your palm but the moment you try to close your fist, it’s gone, and so it left me soaked and dry again. I thought I knew water by this time but it showed me a completely different side, but one thing was common, it made me walk away, then brought me back to fall in love with it and then walked away.
Water water everywhere not a drop to drink.

Status messages ...lots of 'em :)

2010-01-15T13:50:00.001-06:00

I havn't been able to come up with anything good for a blog post ... so I thought why not do a compilation of all my facebook status messages over the last year ...not all , i'll leave out the crappy ones. I do like my status messages a lot, and thats one reason I keep changing them every so often. Some of them are my own, some are borrowed, some are even stolen ..... but all of them are good :P

# Bad things happen when you give in to temptation. Really bad.
# You know what's weird? Donald Duck never wore pants. But whenever he's getting out of the shower, he always puts a towel around his waist. I mean, what is that about?
# what goes around comes around ...kyunki duniya gol hai
# Make the lie big, keep it simple,keep saying it.
# Coffee-makes you do stupid things faster
# In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move
# kehta hai kehta hai paani behta hai kuch kehta hai ... teri aankhon mein dikhta hai tere man mein koi rehta hai... kar kar jal thal har pal tera man kiski raahein takta hai ...khoya khudmein hai ya usmein ye kisse baatein karta hai.
# "Then, the fairy godmother, who was drunk, told the princess: 'Honey, sad endings are basically happy endings that haven't finished yet.'"
# Dear God, Please dont let the prof ask any question which I don't know.
# "Hum safar mein to hain, hum safar hai nahi."
# You cannot change w.r.t/for something/someone which is your priority. If you do, know that it has ceased to be your priority.
# Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe
# "Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called
# Just when you think you have your life under control, it smacks you right in your face

The opposite of "Yes"

2010-01-05T20:28:00.000-06:00

“Does it”. The voice demanded “Yes it does” he replied. “Please try to understand its gravity” a female voice from the back of the room said. He could anticipate the hope in the voice, he felt a sudden affinity to it, and he was familiar with it but failed to put a name on it. A glass of water and a few silent minutes later, “does it?” he asked again. Almost involuntarily the muscles beneath his voice box flexed and he muttered a “yes”. How did that happen? Why did he say “Yes” and what was it they were asking? “For god’s sake please say it.” The voice now almost pleading cut him into half. He tried turning back to see who she was but found himself blindfolded and unable to move. All he could do was listen and so he did. He heard her sobbing and he heard footsteps going towards her, he closed his eyes and with all his concentration tried listening instead he could in fact see everything. He could see a man comforting the lady. Could he see? He hurriedly ran his hands to his eyes, he was still blindfolded yet he could see everything clearly. He saw her face but again failed to recognize her. He saw a child clinging to the lady, who hasn’t uttered a word till now overawed by the situation. Unable to speak he wasn’t even sure if he was alive. He looked all around the room, although blindfolded he could still see everyone in the room. Was this a miracle or was he dead, the latter possibility scared him before he realized it was the power of human mind, if you feel something as strongly as he was feeling you could actually see it hear it and live it. Could this be the reason he was here. He knew everybody was waiting to hear just one word, the opposite of ‘Yes’ but as much as he tried he wasn’t able to say it.

Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-01T01:52:00.000-06:00

First post of 2010 wishes you a great and a prosperous new year. May all your wishes come true, may you always be with your loved ones and may there be peace in the world. These are my three wishes for the year and if you noticed I made a quick recursive call there ;). Non-computer scientists ..never mind :P, this is the qualifier effect; happens when you study more than you can digest and then you throw up these computerese words at unwanted places and unsuspecting people. So what I mean to say is hopefully this year all your programs would run in O(n) time, will be bug free, efficient with automatic memory recovery :D. Good, so now that I have confused you enough I must now bore you with some talk of new year resolutions. Have you made yours yet? I started making resolutions just last year and believe me it has been very effective. I made a long list last time around of resolutions and things to do, some of them were done/completed the others not so much, but I am happy with the overall result, I managed to strike quite a few off from that list :). All in all 2009 wasn't such a bad year at all, professionally, it was challenging and I quite enjoyed it. Personally though it left a lot to be desired, and one of my wishes which I so want to come true this year is that one thing that 2009 couldn't bring to me :) Amen! yeah so coming back to the list, I am going to start making the list again for 2010 and so should you. Trust me its worth the time spent on it. Once again "A Happy New Year to you and your family".

Jaane bhi do yaaro

2009-12-04T21:21:00.000-06:00

Few days back I had one of the dialogues of "Jaane bhi do yaaro" in my gtalk status message.The movie is one of my all time favorite and this post is dedicated to it. It had one of the most memorable and funny dialogues ever seen in a movie. Some of the scenes are particularly hillarious. Most notably the mahabharat one, this one is so famous that people know all its dialogues by heart. The other one which I like is the conversation of ahuja with D'mello's dead body. The phone conversation between satish kaushik and naseeruddin shah is extremely hillarious too. This is small list of some of the really funny lines from the movie.

mujhe pata hai, aapki aankho mein kya hai...ek model banne ka sapna
Thoda Khao thoda feko mazaa aata hai
good morning sir, good morning ashok.
humari baatein to nahi suni tumne? hain? behre ho? haan.
Kisi desh ki unnati ki pehchan agar kisi cheez se hoti hai toh woh hai gutter. Woh gutter ke liye jiye. Aur gutter ke liye mare. Marte hue unke aakhri shabd the, gutter
Commissioner D'Mello ki yaad main ek din ke liye sheher ke saare gatar band kiye jaayenge, isliye meri aap logo se prarthana hai ki aap log peene ka paani pahle se bhar lein
oye! oye tera puncture hai.
ye sports car hai , ismein austin ka pahiya kaise fit ho sakta hai.
abe shaant! gadadhaarii bhiim! shaant!
draupadi jaisi sati nari ko dekhkar, maine cheer haran ka idea drop kar diya hai!
oye chup oye, arjun singh!
dhanush tod diya, tees rupaye ka nuksaan kar diya, main nahi karta naatak waatak, bhaad mein jao tum sab.
this is too much. ye akbar kahaan se aa tapkaa!

Objectivity vs Subjectivity

2009-11-29T22:59:00.001-06:00

I've been thinking about it quite a lot of late and this is one of those questions which may not have a well defined answer or everybody may have an answer of their own. As far as I am concerned I am not yet able to make my mind up. Objectivity versus Subjectivity, objective thinking versus subjective thinking. I, in my own life try to be as objective about things as possible, objectivity for me is to be able to quantify things, to be able to explain the logic behind them, to be able to give a solid reasoning and to be able to take a decision based on facts, in other words it is the quest to explain the world around you in terms of mathematics, logic and science. Subjectivity, on the other hand is that fuzzy thing, the glue which holds the objective pieces, that undefined phenomenon which fills the gaps left by objectivity. Subjectivity is everything which is beyond logic, everything which cannot be explained.Although I try to be objective, my conscience is subjective, subjectivity comes naturally to me. I try to be a good person,I try not to hurt people, I try to do good things, but I don't know why. It just makes me feel good.

This was why this debate started wrenching my mind. Objectivity and subjectivity are totally contrasting things, and although I am an objective person, I cannot just disregard the subjective side of life. The conclusion I could reach, was when you are looking for a unified theory of everything, a theory which attempts to explain each and everything in the universe these two contrasting things will have to go side by side. These were my thoughts; I would like to know what others think about it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-23T18:55:00.001-06:00

Ahh ... so the thanksgiving break is finally here. This feels good ... The weather is fine, it's supposedly a holiday, and I am getting comfy in my little corner of the lab, sipping on the cup of coffee which I had left here yesterday night. Well fresh coffee is always great but I am good as long as it’s caffeine. I already have my To-Do list ready for the holidays which I am looking at right now. I have everything worked out, what to do, when to do, how to do. Hmm my holiday schedule looks pretty packed, so much so that its making me wonder whether it really is a break and if I already have a schedule what am I so excited about ..Duh. Maybe it’s because of the holiday season feeling or maybe because of the fine weather, maybe something good is going to happen or maybe something else, who knows. The thing is I am getting a teeny tiny break and that’s good. J

So.. have a happy thanksgiving folks.

Two random questions

2009-09-04T00:03:00.001-05:00

I will try to answer a couple of questions in this post, the first one was posed to me by someone and the second has been making me use my rusted brain again. Not very important but questions of life which make you understand more of yourself. Here they are.

How important a good conversation is for you? I was asked, and I wasn’t sure of the answer, moreover I w as in a hurry to be actually able to answer it. I thought of pondering over it later but as luck would have it, the answer brought itself to me. I had a couple of good conversations, let’s make it one and half, the second one was cut short in the middle, but they made me realize how much I like a good meaningful conversation, where people open up their mind for you, and show you a whole new perspective on any given thing. I found that I like it so much so that it gives me joy of an orgasmic level or joygasm as I call it.

The second question was how much do circumstances affect your behavior when you meet a person for the first time. In my opinion the set of circumstances does have a lot of say on how you behave with a certain person when you meet them for the first time and that first interaction, if not last makes a lasting impression. Think about it, recall the first time you met one of your acquaintances and recall the set of conditions and circumstances, now change those conditions altogether, imagine meeting the same person under a totally different set of circumstances. For me, it changes the whole equation, which makes me wonder, whether temporal feelings can be totally dominated by the surroundings. For you, it might not be so, nevertheless an interesting question.

Think

Hope

2009-08-08T21:21:00.000-05:00

Hi blog, I know I owe you an apology, but I’ve been busy with something really important. You know it and you understand it I know. Doesn’t it amaze you, how sometimes people leave all logic behind and try to make things happen, even if they are certain of a failure? Hoping for a miracle probably, but miracles don’t happen and hope is a pleasant delusion. Still, we hope against hope, we hope against logic, we hope in the face of all adversities, that’s us the humans. Human nature is sometimes more mysterious than Bermuda Triangle. If you have read “The Alchemist” or at least saw “Om Shanti Om”, you would know this quote “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it”. This probably may be the answer to my question, an unseen force pushing you, to go beyond what you think is possible, but it depends on how bad you want it, what you are prepared to loose, and whether you have your heart into it and at this point of time, I am looking towards the universe.

I am going to read “The Alchemist” again; I hope it works as a revitalizer. That word “hope” again, I don’t know how many times I’ve used it today, but then it’s become a part of my life for quite some time now. If by chance you’ve survived all the crap above and you’re still reading it, Congratulations!! You have the ability to go through nuclear winter and come out alive. By the way, if you havn’t heard Jason Mraz yet, you’re missing something. Surprisingly simple music and beautiful lyrics, the guy is amazing. Yeah, and I have moved in to a new place and I’m liking it here so far :). I’m really bad at concluding and I don’t know how to smoothly end what I’m writing so I’ll just stop here. c ya blog, c ya people.

Palau Islands?? ...what is that?

2009-06-10T09:54:00.001-05:00

Do you know what Palau Island is? Chances are, you don't or you didn't, before you heard that Obama administration was sending 17 of its guantanamo bay detainees to Palau Island. I am not much into world politics, but Palau Island? surely doesn’t ring a bell so I decided to search it a bit on the net. I first heard of it on google hot trends where it was the sixth most searched item today. Googled it and read some stuff on wikipedia and other places. Turns out, somewhere in the middle of Pacific the Palau islands is an archipelago of hundreds of islands, some of which have been inhabited by humans much before the Europeans started settling in US and Australia. It has a 4000 year old history. One of youngest nations of the world, it is a tourist place and has been the location of one season of the TV series Survivors. While I was looking up the map, I found quite a few such archipelago nations; Marshall Islands, Micronesia etc , quite an addition to my geography knowledge. Pacific is one place on the map I didn't pay attention to in my geography classes and its interesting when you come to know, that there are countries existing, you never knew.

Pittsburgh ...yippie

2009-06-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

Here I am in Pittsburgh CMU and I must say its a nice city . Looks more so, if you are coming from Rolla :D. The downtown is beautiful, and if you believe people here the view is second to none in US. Travelling from Rolla to Pittsburgh was quite interesting I decided to catch a greyhound to St. Louis (big mistake), woke up a little too early on Sunday morning, and reached the bus stop on time only to find that the bus was late. Finally the bus arrived and just as I picked my bag up, the driver opens the door and speaks in a Mexican accent, sorry sir, the bus is full. It took me a while to comprehend what he said, because not even in my most pathetic dream, I could have imagined that. Sorry, sir the bus is full, please take the next bus, at 7.10in the evening. In the next few seconds, my brain processed all my options and the result of what could happen if I missed the bus. "But I have a flight to catch in the afternoon; I can't possibly wait till evening." "Well, then sir, if you don't mind standing, I can take you to St. Louis." I had no other option, so I covered the 2 hour greyhound ride from Rolla to St. Louis standing, and the DTC experience back in Delhi came in handy. Since I wanted the receipt of the ticket, the driver drove me to downtown from where I had to take a Metro, back to the airport. While I was waiting at the station for the metro to arrive, a "shady" character came up (you know what I mean here) and started asking for money. Not knowing what to do, I searched my pockets and found a quarter and a dime, I gave that to him saying thats all I had. Thankfully, apart from a little confusion at the airport nothing else happened, rest of the day. I arrived at Pittsburgh in the evening and thanks to Shreyas, didn't have to wander around much. Found the dorm room pretty easily and so far so good. :) . Will come back with more updates later.

btw ... do leave your comments ;)

I dream blogging

2009-04-29T22:01:00.001-05:00

Its certainly not a time for a blog post, but I can't put it off any further.Last night I had a dream that I was writing my next blog post, which I think is the sign that one is due for sure.The dream was unusual because I still remember what I wrote. I think this happens to everybody sometime or the otherwhen you get this creepy feeling that you remember what you dreamt. Although I do remember a lot of my dreams but the details with which I remember this one is scary. Contrast this with that I often dont remember what I had for dinner last night.

On a lighter note, I recently got the honest scrap award from vaibhav. Thanks to him, coz I dont think my blog is good enough to have recieved anything like an honest scrap award. Thanks VB

No more presentations!!!!

2009-04-14T14:15:00.000-05:00

Finally no presentations for a few days ...I know I have another one next monday, but i have the weekend to start working on it. I've had 4 presentations in the last 3 days, and now I have started to wonder whether MBA would have been a good option rather than PhD.

It started with my advisor announcing an ill timed lab meeting. My presentation there ended in total humiliation, with my advisor dissecting each and every word of what I presented. I cannot thank my lab mates enough for coming to my rescue when my advisor was still not tired of inflicting more than an hour of disgrace on me.Inspite of all this, I had a lot to learn and take away and it helped greatly in the couple of presentations i had yesterday and the one today.

No more presentations till monday, and I have some time to rest before the harakiri of end sem and the final exams begins. May I rest in peace :D.

Its Different

2009-04-06T18:14:00.000-05:00

There's a lot to write, but no time :( , I want to write about the smokies trip, how we celebrated holi and i got thrown in the schuman lake, cricket and about jigar ;), but it's just that time of the semester :( .But, I still have something to write.. although completely out of context, but i do this once in a while, when I really feel the urge.. I don't really know what to call this piece of writing, but its here, and you decide for me..

chirago mein lau jal jal ke bujhi jati hai
dil mein jo hai bat vo zuba per nahi aati hai
dil chahta hai har lamha usi ke sath
har pal mein vahi nazar aati hai
kahein na kahein ya karein intezar
isi soch mein nikal gai sari raat
kaise kahein unse jo dil mein hai baat

khamoshi bhi humein dekhkar muskurati hai
per isharo mein bhi bat unhe kahan samajh aati hai
dil chahta hai har lamha usi ke sath
per samne ho vo to zuba ladkhadati hai
sambhalein dil ko ya rehne dein yahi haalaat
isi soch mein nikal gai sari raat
kaise kahein unse jo dil mein hai baat ..... :)

The question

2009-03-05T09:40:00.000-06:00

Its been quite some time since I wrote last, but there has been nothing much to write about except studies. Its again that part of the semester where the work starts piling up. This week I got a chance to go to a conference and it turned out to be very interesting. I interacted with the people whose papers I have been reading and networked a little bit too. Its amazing to see how critically these people think and how they dissect any given statement. The conference was in Boeing's campus in St. Louis and as I was walking the floor around the cubicles, it reminded me of my days back in CSC. The nostalgia brought with it the question, why did I come here? Sometimes the money and leisure win over everything else. But these are the times, when I am thankful to my short memory. When I don't want to think about something as tricky as this, I involve myself in some other activity and it is wiped clean from my small RAM. Although I know the answer, sometimes it becomes tough to convince yourself. Its like a naughty kid who knows what is wrong and what is right, but he insists on doing the wrong thing because that is more fun. Of late I have had at least a couple more of these tricky questions and the naughty kid just doesn't understand. While I buy him a pacifier you people take care.

An hour in a class

2009-02-05T13:00:00.000-06:00

I hurry to the class and reach a minute late. I have no interest whatsoever in the class, but I've taken it because its a requirement. A discussion on some obscure topic is going on. I quickly go at the end of the lecture room and grab a spot in the last row. I missed the India vs Sri Lanka match last night, so I open my laptop and log on to cricinfo.I start reading articles at cricinfo, finish all the new articles, check the time .. still half an hour to go, I pretend to look at the white board, its too bright cant look at it directly .. so i am back at my computer screen, alternating between orkut and gtalk, wishing somebody will scrap me or ping me. I write a couple of scraps but everybody seems busy. No reply. I check the time again... 20 minutes to go. I take a look around in the class, the girl beside me has her head down and is sleeping, another on my left has her head up and is sleeping. The chinese guy in the first row, just yawned. Thats bad, if you have to do that, you should be in the last row like me. Swearing on the poor guy, I scan the class again. One guy has his hand on his forehead, cursing the time he took this course.I see another one scribbling something on his notebook, I don't think it is anything even remotely connected to the subject. Not everybody looks uninterested though, there are two guys on either side of me. who are discussing something with the prof. I try to listen and understand whats going on. No use, they are using some weird words and terminologies I have never heard before. I check the time again, still 15 minutes to go. Holy Babe! Has time stopped moving? I curse everything. I've ran out of cricinfo articles to read, what am I going to do? It is then, when I hear the golden words,"Do you want me to continue or should I start the next topic in the next lecture?".
In a very low voice I say Yes, please stop. Others like me who are bored to death, shout a bit loudly. I thank them, and run out to get some fresh air as soon as I can.

From Vista to Ubuntu

2009-01-28T22:17:00.001-06:00

SO.. after struggling a bit I finally was able to install ubuntu on my machine. Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, I like that project name.I was toying with this idea of using linux for some time, and for some wierd reason decided to do it now. The problem though was that I had Vista installed already and I wanted to have a dual boot system, which made things a bit complicated.

It took me some time to figure out a way to clear up space for linux, and I think the shrink option in Vista totally sucks, compared to the earlier partitioning tools. In between, I had the scare of hard disk corruption, and the time when Vista refused to boot. Ubuntu LiveCD came to my rescue then, and I backed my data up immediately, before anything else went wrong.Ironically, when I had my data backed up, everything went smoothly. So, here I am, with both Vista and Ubuntu sitting hands inhand on my machine, but since I am a complete n00b with linux, I have to learn a lot. The only prior experience I have with linux is with the Knoppix CD which I used a couple of times, before I lost the CD. The transition has started though, and I expect to learn someting from this new venture.

The 25th one

2009-01-20T23:30:00.001-06:00

So.. I celebrated the silver jubilee of me last week.... for people with a high propagation delay of brain ... last week I celebrated my 25th birthday... and if I go by the person who told me I have a short life .. you will have to bear with me for only 15-20 years more. Did I hear .."NO... not that long" :D .
Unfortunately it was one of those days, I feel kinda depressed, get existential.. and most important start to use my rusted brain and think... and I better not talk about the horrible hair cut I had ... Well, it became terrible, until my roommates ..made it up a bit ... with the birthday cake and the "Happy Birthday to You" jingle.. hardly if ever it had felt so good. Thanks a lot buddies.
The only other good thing to happen was that I heard the voice I was dying to hear from ages….. not really, that was just to make it more dramatic, but yes from a very long time which looks like ages. I hope it’s a harbinger of things to come .

Spring 2009

2009-01-14T10:43:00.000-06:00

Vacation's over, and classes have started again. A mixed kind of vacation has come to an end, the first half of which was utterly boring, and the second half quite exciting. I finished some of the stuff I wanted to, and left some of it incomplete, so its been sort of good and bad.Spring'09 is here and people are back in Rolla. Quite a change, from the time when even the birds had deserted rolla, and it wore a haunted look.
Meanwhile, we went to the mattress depot couple of days back, where rubal's hope of finding a cheap mattress crashed, when he got to know that the cheapest one available was more than double the cost he was willing to spend.... which means he'll buy another of those air mattresses. Praveen is back from Florida too, and the environment once again as become comic and spritual (both at the same time) again. And Karan,... Karan has been busy ..and as usual I dont know where. ... I sound like a news reporter ..don't I. I know I suck at blogging, but I'll get better with time. .For, a long time I have been contemplating a haircut, but the cost, specially when u look at it in INR is putting me off .. ;), but I wont be able to do it for too long, coz its too messy now, and yesterday I even saw some birds circling over me ... I guess they mistook my hair as their nest.
Hope to see you next time with a brand new hair cut .... heres vimal signing off for today ..... oops that news reporter thing again.

Starting the new year....

2009-01-05T10:34:00.001-06:00

2009 has come, and it has crept in so silently this time, or maybe its just me who thinks so.Anyways HAPPY NEW YEAR folks.I sat down, the last day of last year and started retrospection, of how I started and ended the year, the result of which is a list, of what i want to do and how I want to do things this year.Lets see how far I stick to them.

It has been a little less than a week since the new year started, and to say the least, it has been great for me. Its now become a routine that I wake up after the noon, and then head straight for the basketball court at the schuman park, where we guys play cricket till the sun sets, the weather has been kind enough to us to let us play even in peak winter. Then chit chatting till 10 or 11, and then dinner...ahh as somebody said .."a guy's ideal life". Talking about dinner... it has been delicious indian food whole of this week... from chicken curry ...to aloo poori ...."majjaa ni life". I hope the year continues like this.

Back ........ yet again

2008-12-31T17:47:00.000-06:00

I always get the feeling of "coming back" whenever i sit down to write something on my blog, which in the first place should not be there, since this is my blog and I am supposed to be here. ..But this is the way I have been... and now after putting a lot of thought into it have decided to change my ways.For the first time in my life I have prepared a list of to-do things, lovingly called resolutions. One of them being "not" coming back to the blog, but staying here.
I had decided to start writing from the first day of the new year, but "shubh kam mein der kaisi". First semester is over and I am quite happy with how it went and what i learnt, and of course happy with the gpa too. The break is proving to be a little too much, and I want it to be over soon, to get going again. The lethargy which had crept in during the break, has to be wore off and I promise it will be done.... as for now I am not coming back, I'll stay here.

Of ice cream, rain and birthday parties which pop out of nowhere

2008-11-25T11:58:00.000-06:00

We four had our dinner and since praveen as usual was busy with his assignments, me, karan and rubal decided to have some ice cream from Mobil. So, what’s unusual about it? Nothing, unless it is 12 o clock of a November night, its 2 degree Celsius outside, it’s raining and its windy.

But if we want to have it, we just want to have it, so we packed ourselves up to brace for wind and rain, got our umbrellas and proceeded to Mobil which is about 10 minutes walk from 1300. It was allright till we reached there, but started pouring heavily while we were on our way back. We took shelter under the EE department building, when one wise man among us suggested that we run and beat the rain to 1300, lest it starts coming down even more heavily. And we started running into the wind with our umbrellas on our heads in the heavy rain. This soon proved out to be the worst we could do, as one of us had his umbrella turned inside out and all of us got drenched by the time we got home. But... mission accomplished and we had our icecream.

I and Rubal were in Havener's centre playing Table tennis, when we got a call that we have a birthday party in Jigar's home and we have to carry a bowl of rice, at around 8 in the night. Now which b'day party starts at 8? Anyways we got home, cooked rice and went to Jigar's home, sure there were a lot of people. It was a party allright, but the question was whose birthday it was, and nobody had an answer. Finally, it became known that it was Jigar's idea of having a get together, a good one at that. Although there was no birthday but whose complaining till we get Indian food.

Back!

2008-10-15T14:05:00.000-05:00

I am in the middle of a programming homework, a project and an assignment, I am stuck and I don’t feel like working anymore and that's one reason why I am back to my blog. I have been contemplating writing this for a long time. Each time I am free, I have two choices, either write a blog entry or cook something to eat to satiate the otherworldly noises coming from my stomach, needless to say I always choose the latter.

The last few weeks have been awesome, and I have been doing work like I have never done before. More so, because after a couple of years at CSC I had almost forgotten how it is like, to work. Each week I think, maybe I'll get some time off next week, to do the pending stuff, only to find that the next week is more packed than the last one. Working nights and sleeping at 4 or 5 in the mornings have become a norm, and this is coming from a person whose eyelids used to get heavy after 10 in the night.

BUT, this also has been a time of learning, ...learning and growing(not referring to my vertical growth), getting accustomed to the way of life here, and learning about the culture, the behaviour of people, there have been so many new things, things which make an individual grow, apart from the academic stuff.
Talking about academics, for once, I am learning by doing things and not by preparing for exams.

What have I learnt? I'll try to go over it one by one in my next columns.
I hope to return here more often.

Kalkaji to Rolla

2008-08-11T22:26:00.000-05:00

It was not until a couple of days before my flight that I realised I was going so far away from home, and many a times I felt like chucking it all and going back, but I was at a point of no return and decided that I should go ahead with what I was planning from more than 3 years.

Even after maintaining all the lists and packing my stuff in advance there were things coming up every now and then and before I could know it was the afternoon of Saturday the 2nd. Before leaving for the airport I decided to take a short nap. I reached the airport at around 7, met with rubal and karan, bid good bye to my family and went inside at 8.Although we reached there 3 and half hour in advance but still couldn't manage to find adjacent seats for the three of us.
Checked in the bags and cleared the customs, and here I was ready to embark on the journey.

We boarded the plane at around 10 30 and fortunately managed to find adjacent seats once inside the plane. The flight to Chicago was a long tiring one, and for the whole duration of the journey i kept checking the small screen in front of me to know how much time was left for deplaning. We three chatted for a while and then I started checking out the screen, There were movies, songs, TV shows and Kidstuff, after a while I settled for Peace Music. Dinner arrived after about an hour of take off, obviously I opted for Indian Veg and the quality was a harbinger of the kind of food i'll be getting in the US. The Airhostesses at American Airlines were hot, or at least as hot as one can be when on the wrong side of forty. Period. As I had already taken an afternoon nap, I wasn't feeling that sleepy so I decided to check what everybody else was doing.
The gentleman next to me was a software engineer from Cognizant and was going to Florida ,Just behind me on the isle was an oversized kid reading some novel. Most of the people were dozing off, trying hard to fit in their quilt. Its a cascading effect that when everyone around you is sleeping , you also tend to feel sleepy, so I decided to sleep too, checked the screen
we were flying somewhere over North Pakistan.

I woke up 2 hours later, people were still sleeping and I decided to watch a movie, picked up "What happened at Las Vegas", this cycle of sleeping, waking, watching movies ,listening to songs continued and a snack and a breakfast later we were hovering over Chicago, The night view of Chicago from the window was breathtaking and it looked like a Diwali night celebration of lights. Soon we landed at the O'Hare Airport at Chicago and before long we cleared the Immigartion and the customs. The Airport was huge and we had to take a train, to reach the Domestic Airport. Our next flight to St. Louis was 3 hours later so we decided to rest and soak in all the change slowly. Everything had become so different in a span of some 15 hours.We boarded our next plane at 8 in the morning, and soon after I started feeling airsick, luckily it was a short flight and we landed at St. Louis in an hour. It took us a while to figure out the baggage carousel, found it finally and took our luggage. We had contacted the India Association at the university in advance and they had a shuttle ready for us. The final part of the journey started, US was so different from India. we travelled the last 100 miles to Rolla in about an hour and half, although tired it felt good to finally be at the destination.
That was the journey, I'll be back with my first few days in Rolla in some time.

Last Day at CSC

2008-08-01T03:18:00.001-05:00

For the last day I decided to go to office a little earlier than usual and I was there by 9. A lot of new joinees were pouring in since morning and here I was running here and there to complete the formalities for the last day ,winding up things at office. "Winding up things at Office", much easier said than done.Not that its difficult to get things done at CSC, but because it also meant saying good bye to friends.

One standout thing which each of us will remember were the tea breaks. The tea breaks were not anything less than an occasion, often spanning close to an hour and two tea breaks in a day meant 20% of a weekday spent discussing something not even remotely connected to work. The topics of discussion ranging from management to appraisal, from needles to noodles, but never ever coming close to work. Senseless jokes and endless laughter were the order of the time. Neelam's PJs, Shelly's smile, Manish's wit, Nidhi's blunders, Pawan's photoshoots, Aman's blabbering and Balli's english made those 2 hours the highlight of each day, and its difficult to digest that I'll no longer be there in the breakaway. The lunch get togather and the chat meeting before lunch meant another hour of fun with friends and Office seemed more like college. Last six months at CSC have been one of the most memorable and fun time of my life, exactly opposite of what one would think of working in an MNC.

Most part of the last working day as I had thought was spent in running for exit formalities, but the farewell at the end of the day was a pleasent surprise, so much so that I couldn't think of anything to speak, although I wanted to. The farewell was warm and as good as any I have ever recieved, which was followed by the usual photoshoot. And here it was, my last day at csc coming to an end, the day for which I was waiting for so long, I now wanted it to last a little longer, so that I could gather as many memories in my mind as I can.

It dawned to me that I maybe seeing some of my friends for the last time, but such is life. I don't know when will I get a chance to meet you people again,but all of you have been special and I'll miss all you people. Cheers for the time we spent togather.

P.S : Special thanks to Shelly and Neelam

2008-08-01T03:18:00.000-05:00

For the last day I decided to go to office a little earlier than usual and I was there by 9. A lot of new joinees were pouring in since morning and here I was running here and there to complete the formalities for the last day ,winding up things at office. "Winding up things at Office", much easier said than done.Not that its difficult to get things done at CSC, but because it also meant saying good bye to friends.

One standout thing which each of us will remember were the tea breaks. The tea breaks were not anything less than an occasion, often spanning close to an hour and two tea breaks in a day meant 20% of a weekday spent discussing something not even remotely connected to work. The topics of discussion ranging from management to appraisal, from needles to noodles, but never ever coming close to work. Senseless jokes and endless laughter were the order of the time. Neelam's PJs, Shelly's smile, Manish's wit, Nidhi's blunders, Pawan's photoshoots, Aman's blabbering and Balli's english made those 2 hours the highlight of each day, and its difficult to digest that I'll no longer be there in the breakaway. The lunch get togather and the chat meeting before lunch meant another hour of fun with friends and Office seemed more like college. Last six months at CSC have been one of the most memorable and fun time of my life, exactly opposite of what one would think of working in an MNC.

Most part of the last working day as I had thought was spent in running for exit formalities, but the farewell at the end of the day was a pleasent surprise, so much so that I couldn't think of anything to speak, although I wanted to. The farewell was warm and as good as any I have ever recieved, which was followed by the usual photoshoot. And here it was, my last day at csc coming to an end, the day for which I was waiting for so long, I now wanted it to last a little longer, so that I could gather as many memories in my mind as I can.

It dawned to me that I maybe seeing some of my friends for the last time, but such is life. I don't know when will I get a chance to meet you people again,
but all of you have been special and I'll miss all you people. Cheers for the time we spent togather.

P.S : Special thanks to Shelly and Neelam

The Leaf and the Rose

2008-07-21T07:16:00.000-05:00

A thousand leaves got blown away by the wind, some fell on the pavement, some on mud , some on grass and one leaf fell on the ground near a rose. The leaf thought that he was the luckiest person in the world. He adored the rose,he was awe-struck by the beauty of the rose and smitten by its fragrance he fell in love with it,forgetting his origins, forgetting his roots, his past his limitations and his future.For a moment in the sane madness of love , the leaf forgot that he was no different from other leaves who had fallen of the tree,and that his future was nothing but to get buried in the ground with other leaves. He could not go near the rose because of its thorns and the rose had its own leaves , but still the leaf loved the rose's company.

There were nine hundred and ninety nine other leaves, but why did only that leaf fell near the rose, there must have been some purpose, some divine purpose, something that brought them togather.

The leaf lived his whole life in the moment of his love with the rose ,and his happiness was incomparable to anything in his lifetime. But a strong gust of wind broke it all. Once again the leaf got blown away, and blown away with it were all his dreams, his desires, everything that he had imagined. He saw his dreams crashing down,the image of rose fading away as he was swept away by the wind. Perhaps the wind will bring with it some other leaf to the rose.

In case you happen to read this and you are still interested, you might want to answer this.

Was the leaf indeed lucky to have loved the rose for that fleeting moment, or was he unlucky to have suffered the pain of a lifetime in return for a moment of happiness.

Friends

2008-07-21T07:05:00.000-05:00

Any personal blog is not complete without the mention of friends, and some events which are taking place around me at this time, have made me write the opening post about my friends. A google search for "friends" piles up a lot of formal meanings of this word (apart from the results for the sitcom) which , in my opinion is not the way to describe, a relationship as informal as friendship. I will not try my hand redefining what friends and friendship is, as people have their own definitions and my understanding and my perspective may not be right for everyone.

Though not many but I've had some good friends in my life who have helped shape my thoughts and my views, and to a certain extent have helped shape my life too. Pradeep, Yogesh, Varun, Amit, Shelly, Manish these are the people who came in my life one by one and have left a huge impact. I call them my best friends. Each one of them is special and different from one another and I would have loved to write about them in elaborate detail, but I know it would make others skip this portion, so avoiding it.

Sometimes it makes me wonder, how vast the meaning of friendship can be. A relationship with one friend can be so much different from a relationship with another friend while still being in the spectrum of friendship. Friendship sometimes also tends to be of varying degree, you maybe on the terms of great friendship with a guy and a girl, but in both these relationships there are different terms and limitations (This plainly is my point of view). I share a different kind of bond with each of my friend and cherish their company.

I haven’t had a great number of friends, those I have, have a special place in my heart. Time and circumstances will always force us apart, but the memories we share will be there forever.

Cheers!