Oh... did I mention 'reading novels'..

I have never been as jobless and topicless as I am this instant, thanks to the one month vacation and intense heat in chennai which made me change my decision and stay at home. Being at home 24-7 is not that bad after all. I mean when and where else can you keep yourself busy trying to keep yourself busy. Nothing can be more heavenly than waking up without letting the alarm ringtone kill your blissful dream, spending more than an hour taking bath without worrying about getting late to college, reading novels, having breakfast in the morning time and not during the lunchtime, reading novels, watching a relaxing movie on the TV, reading novels, playing solitaire on a high speed PC, oh... did I mention reading novels? Undoubtedly 'reading novels' tops any person's "Things to do this vacation" list. Well it did top my "Things to do during my last sem of college" list. Some of the ones I managed to read last sem were...

1. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts- The much hyped very greatly written 933-page novel. An amazing start, engrossing storyline, in-depth description, thought-provoking philosophical one liners but sadly a very hindi-movie-ish, cliched and over-stretched ending.
2. The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur- This book is anything but inscrutable. Trackless, cliched, unrealistic and filled with PJs.
3. Uncle Fred in the springtime by PGWodehouse- Partly amusing but couldnt make me laugh out loud. You can easily visualize it as a classic comedy. Not really my kinda comedy though.
4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho- Plain Philosophical crap. I dont care if the "soul of the caravan can speak to the soul of the desert" or if "the horse knows the language of life".
5. To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee- A simple story of a simple family which describes the complicated nature of human behaviour. It teaches the important lessons of life in a very beautiful way. Indeed a masterpiece of American literature.
6. One night at the call center by Chetan Bhaghat- Blech!! Warning:Donot read this book if you donot want to puke. They should put a "For children under 5 years of age" tag on the book.
7. The Kite runner by Khaled Hosseini- An epic of fathers and sons, of friendship and brotherhood, of faith and betrayal, of sins and atonement. One of the best books I've read. Unputdownable and undoubtedly a must read.
8. Acts of faith by Erich segal- Another favourite of mine. This book is about religion, hope and faith and how they can greatly influence one's life. A must read for today's stereotyped youth.
9. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller- Amazing 'Laugh out loud' PJs but sadly no storyline.

Visitors to this blog, please suggest some good books. You must have guessed that I usually like no-nonsense book with a deep thought-provoking story. Philoshopical books are a sure no. I have never read a romance novel but would like to read one. Meanwhile Ill continue playing solitaire to pass my time :-) .

"You've been tagged"

I turn on my computer, I wait impatiently as it boots up. I go on line, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: "You've been tagged."...lol just kidding... was watching the movie "You've got mail". What a lovely movie. Anyway I dont wait impatiently to hear that I've been tagged. Actually this is the first time.

I've been tagged by humbl devil

Honestly speaking I had no idea about this tagging business. The phrase "You've been tagged" sounded something like "You've been caught red-handed". A Ctrl+Alt+W for 'Tagged' gave me nothing new "Adj : Bearing or marked with a label or tag". Didnt really help me. A google search on "You've been tagged" took me to many odd blogs with such tagging posts. After a lot of research I finally found out the meaning to this phrase. Here I go now.

One of your scars, how did you get it??? On my left eyebrow, fell down the stairs... no matter what my eyebrows never match...
What do you want more than anything right now??? An SUV
What is your favorite smell??? smell of nature
Do you get scared in the dark??? never... I love wandering off in dark
Coffee or energy drinks??? energy drinks.. coffee sucks big time.. and even it fails to keep me awake.
If you could eat anything right now, what would it be??? a large cake (provided my mom makes it and provided I dont gain even an ounce of weight)
Who is the last person who made you mad??? Mr. Ogden Nash (name changed to avoid another violence)
What is the best way to tell someone how much they mean to you??? hugging
What is the one number you call often??? I am too stingy to call someone and too lazy to give missed calls
What do get complimented about the most??? Lemme see.... well ironically I get complimented for all the bad habits I have
Where were you born??? Inside a hospital...
What do you want for your birthday??? Please refer question no. 2
What would you do if alcohol became illegal??? would drink it even if I were a non-drinker.. feels just so good to break the law...
Which is your favourite finger??? Ring finger... I love wearing rings...
Do you like your handwriting??? No... but surprisingly others do...
What is your favorite lunch meal??? dal-rice and Thayeer sadam( curd rice)... Indian food rocks
If you were another person, would you be friends with you??? no..:-)
Where is your second home??? there can be only one home
Do you trust others easily??? I dont even go anywhere close to trust
What was your favorite toy as a child??? my green teddy
Do you un-tie your shoes when you take them off??? yes.. how will they come off then?
Thing you ate??? food :-)
Are you too shy to ask someone out??? no... I just say "please go out"

Saying "I dont know" helps

My vivas got over today, it was the last viva of my engineering career. Man, what a joke it is. Its the same thing every year. The college gets over a few days before the vivas. Students buy books, get mass-xeroxs on the last day of college and start studying one day before the viva. They flood the corridor outisde the viva lab and wait for the first batch of students to come out after their viva and ask for reviews. The reviews range from "Arey external sahi cool banda hai" to "Abbe sala kholke maar raha hai".

Over the past four years Ive learnt that there are three kinds of people. Firstly there are people who are god-sent techies, true engineers. Second come those who are not techies but somehow manage to read 5 reference books inside out and say things like "Arey that answer is in the 3rd para of page 384 of that ref book". Thirdly we have people who dont study a thing and dont give a damn too. The external can also be of two types: one who asks direct questions from the book and second who asks random "general" questions which you will never find in the books you read. These 5 types of students and profs can make some interesting combinations. If the prof is asking direct questions, the first and the second kinds get away while the third gets screwed. If the prof asks "general questions" only the first kind (sometimes even the third) survives.

I certainly dont come under the first category. I am partly second(say 40%) partly third(60%). If the prof asks very direct basic questions i am saved but if high funda techinal ones are asked I am screwed. One bad thing about me, I never say "I dont know". Ill put in my maximum creativity and come up with my own invented answer. This can be good or bad depending on the prof. Some profs appreciate your creativity but some "jealous ones" dont.

Recently I tried creating my own solution for a link breakage problem in a ring topology network in an IEEE 802.5 LAN and the external says with a smirk on her face "you are just throwing things, its a technical subject, dont guess". I felt like throwing things at her..literally. Why dont they encourage creativity? So what if the answer is absurd. Every scientist's first try was absurd. This way I end up getting less than my partner who never opens his mouth. I guess someone has truly said: "Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish". From now on ill try my best to say "I dont know" rather than babbling some stuff and save my creativity for other things like painting or this blog. Now I ask myself the question "Will I stop babbling crap?" I would say "I dont know":) (I do learn but dont change so easily)

P.S
May 17th, 1310 hours;

I just finished studying that chapter of LANs from two different reference books and I found out that my "creative" answer to that linkage problem is very much possible (acc to the book Leon Garcia). And all I get for this creativity is some stupid criticism.. #$%£$*

Just another furore

This is probably the 4th or the 5th time I am writing a post criticising India for raising public furore for silly matters. Burning effigies and shouting slogans have become everyday news here in India. The furore over India losing the world cup has not yet got over that poeple are out with a new one. Sometimes I wonder if there are people employed just for such protests. I think there are. Dont people have better things to do? dont they have a job? Dont they have other things to worry about?

India seemed to have made just another public national enemy. An Indian court has issued arrest warrants for Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty after he kissed her on the cheek at a public event to promote Aids awareness. This incident has now been termed as “highly sexually erotic” and “transgressed all limits of vulgarity”. If people here care so much about our Indian culture why do we celebrate Valentines day when it has nothing to do with our tradition. If this incident can be termed as vulgar you should probably take a stroll around Marine drive and Band stand in Mumbai. You should also see all those stupid lip-munching scenes in our hindi movies. You can get a better meaning for the word vulgar.

Richard Gere is now condemned to death. So much for getting involved with charities which look after HIV-infected people and orphans as well as other AIDS prevention groups in the country. According to me the actor certainly shouldnt have done any of that 'kissing' but creating such protests over that seem very silly speacially after he apologised. Our Indian lady didnt seem to have any problem with that too. And the media too should concentrate more on the actual news rather than spreading grapevines (My god I dont know what the news channels turned into during the abhi-ash wedding).

college in one post

Out of heaven a.k.a colony .....travelling .......'399'.....Bhakti bhavan......."Wheres the entrance to the college?"...... no more uniforms..........trying to look my best the first day.......just to find boys shake hands with babes wearing low-waist jeans:)........fifth floor.......... lift not
allowed for students.........Chalega, excercise ho jayega (thinking-What the "$#£).........lectures (read sleeptime).......... aiming the 8:20 bus........... catching the 8:55 bus instead.........reaching just in time for the second lecture (sometimes the third)..........defaulter .........assignments..........'chapofying' some random text written in timbuktu...........practicals ............ bathroo
m sized labs ..........losing new pens............stealing other's new pens .........term tests......."What!!we have a test today??" .......friends.........timepass .........PJs (poor jokes)........10:30 break....... tiffin boxes........ hundreds of 'em......... ambrosia .........canteen .......endless laughter ......birthdays .......... contri gifts .......treat ..........travelling 3 hours for a 1 hour treat..........realizing how much I hated
travelling ........ 26th july........5 hours walk in rain through floods.........trekking..........yogi hills........ matheran ........overnight stay....... night outs .........mobile phones...... sms forwards ..........non-veg(not food) ........finding that one special friend finallly........talking for hours on the phone .......on topics ranging from Iraq war to alien invasion........ online chatting........
birthday again......in search of a perfect gift ........calls at 3am on the day of exam........really great time....... some stupid misunderstandings....... crap.........killing the friendship in the process.........'moving on'.........orkut........ vivas........"I am not very sure sir" ........ still getting 20 out of 25....... final
exams........classes notes mass xerox ....... phekhna..........rumours of exams results already out.........fests........CAT........ flash cards.........only 5 boxes ........presentations ...........on the spot preparation .........impromtu speech....... project ........project group's day out.......... a great team ........ some ups.......lots downs .......lots more lessons learnt ........vodka......late night parties........ cocaine...... :)jus kidding

WHERE ELSE BUT COLLEGE... Do I have to say I am gonna miss it...

(the last three... Even I AM not into those things:) )

Fans or Fanatics???

I am not much into cricket but I am certainly aware of the drama that plays around it. SriLanka thrashed India down by 69 runs and knocked it out of the World cup tournament in the first stage itself. Our dependence on Bermuda for getting a back door entry to the second stage just tells us how hopeless our team's performance has become. This has turned the lives of our players upside down. Earlier, they were the super heros; now they are looked upon as criminals. Earlier, they were busy going around endorsing all types of products; now they dread to step into their own country. Earlier, policemen were deployed outside the homes of players to keep the adoring fans out; now, the policemen are there to protect the players from violent attacks by those same fans.

When a small kid can underperform in his final exams because of the pressure put on him by his parents, how can you expect our players to perform well in the matches with the whole of nation continously looking over them with highly expectant eyes. I dont understand why we Indians view the cricket matches as a battle between nations and not as just a sport. Why are we worried more about the world cup than the innumerable other problems we are facing as a nation?

Is it becuase we all are hopeless optimists who are just ready to mistake dreams for reality? Or may be we all are just gullible; gullible and naive enough to become prey to marketers and advertisers. You certainly know about many of Pepsi's very famous campaigns like 'The Blue Billion', 'Oooh Aaah India, Aaah Yaa India' and 'Men In Blue'. This hopeless optimism is nothing but the creation of advertisers who well took advantage of our gullibility to promote their products even those as small as biscuits and hairoils. I totally fail to understand why someone would buy a certain hairoil just because shewag endorsed it even with almost no hair in his head. And whats with this whole "Buy this shampoo and go on a date with John abraham" thingy? Why would I want to have a dinner with a total stranger?

I guess our players deserve this humiliation for trying to earn some quick bucks by endorsing so many products and appearing in so many ads promising the dream of world cup even after knowing that they are just average players. Sadly Consumers are stupid enough to buy products endorsed by sportstars and filmstars. Our Indian cricket team may have failed the worldcup but we Indians failed as a nation by being so naive ,petty minded and childish.

no point doing...

Things I see no point doing and wonder why the others do it...

1. Travelling all the way from one country to another just to get baked under the sun in a cricket stadium from where the players dont look any better than a bunch of ants, when you can sit in your house coolly and watch the match with your friends and family on a big flat screen TV getting to see the slow-motions from all possible angles.

2. Driving all the way to and from your gym when jogging that same way to and from your gym might help you burn more calories than you would inside the gym.

3. Working out (jogging or walking) on a treadmill for 1 hour when you can always jog or walk around your neighbourhood for free for any amount of time. I've always wondered...Why do people make use of electricity to rotate the belt in the treadmill for burning calories when they can instead burn those same calories to rotate the belt and generate electricity?

4. Travelling from your place to a big temple in another state and standing in an endless queue just to get a glimpse of the god's idol when god is everywhere (even inside you) and all you need is some peace of mind and a pure heart with strong conviction to pray.

5. Going to a music concert and standing 4 km away from the stage not even getting enough area of ground to stand on and enough volume of air to breathe when you can rather throw a party with loudspeakers blaring those same songs on your backyard and dance your heart out.

6. Buying a music cd of 10 songs costing more than 300 bucks when you can download those same 10 songs from the internet and burn it into a cd and print out the front and back covers and add it to your music collection.

7. Buying a 200-page book for 500 bucks from crossword when you can get the same book from the streets of VT for less than 70 bucks. (Who gives a damn about piracy..)

8. Going to Essel world and sitting on the most chilling roller coaster ride when you can sit on the back-seat of a rickety public transportation bus and ride through the roads of Mumbai.

The Painting...

Finally a painting after such a long time. This vacation while I was rummaging through my study table, I found my water-color cakes I won as a prize when I was 8 years old. I couldnt resist giving my painting skills a try. I was painting again after 6 years. Well... The painting of the boy isnt entirely mine. I took the picture from one of my childhood's short-stories book. The rest is photoshop. The poem on the right is the one I wrote a long time back called "Is there a way out?" and the pictures on the left were taken from the net.

I would like to thank my neighbour aunty for lending me her painitng brush (she let me keep it too). I would also like to thank a very good friend of mine Mayuresh for scanning the picture for me. :)
(Click on the pic to enlarge it)

The Racism Within

Celebrity Big Brother moved from being a just another TV entertainment to an international race debate. Indian actress Shilpa Shetty won the British reality TV show after enduring alleged racial bullying that sparked off a nation-wide furore. Ever since that she has been branded as an international anti-rascism icon. Apparently this is not something new. You probably know about the recent Arcelor-Mittal merger, where the very idea of racism aroused a strong feeling of hatred and anger towards the West. Undoubtedly we Indians are the biggest targets of racism in the world. For a country that lived through more than a 100 years under the "White's rule", we have always considered ourselves as victims. However, when it comes to racial discrimination, knowingly or unknowingly we Indians are big hypocrites.

Our idea of racism is a well defined color code. White is superior and beautiful while Black is inferior and not even close to beautiful hence undesirable. Just look at our fairness creams ads and matrimonial ads in our newspaper and youll know just how obssessed we are with the skin color. Dont stay black or else youll remain unmarried and jobless, instead use our whitening cream, turn fair in a week and boys and jobs both will come begging to you, so claims our fairness products' ads. Try spotting one famous black model or actress in India and see how terribly you fail. Recent reports that immigrants from Africa were being denied housing clearly shows our attitude towards color.

Color apart, racism in India can also be discussed in the context of caste discrimination. Caste discrimination is very much alive even so many years after its abolition. The many recent horrifying stories on the injustices done to the dalits across the country by the so-called upper class people justifies the point. Not to forget the religion and language barrier. The Madrasis dont get along with the Punjabis and a hindu getting into a mosque or a church is considered as a blasphemy. Its even more shocking to see young people, the so-called future generation of India practice racism and castism. Its really disheartening to see some of my own friends join online communities like the brahmin community or the mullus or gujjus community.

Why dare to stand up as one nation when we cant see our own compatriots with equal eyes? Why is it that we are developing on all grounds but yet refusing to grow out of underlying social malpractices? Are we really developing without morality?

Race against time

Clockstoppers, Back to the future, Star trek, Kate and Leopold, Minority Report, The Terminator. The idea of travelling forward into the future or back into the past has always fascinated science fiction writers. It certainly had fascinated me when I read the novel "The Time machine" a very long time back. Who wouldnt get fascinated? Wouldnt it be cool to be able to go back to the past and prevent some terrible mistake from happenning and also be able to travel to the future and see whether you really succeed in winning the person you had a crush on (Instead of depending on crystal balls or tarot cards)? Time travelling is still an unsolved problem in physics. But amazingly, some weirdness of the quantum world now suggest that time travel is possible - at least in theory.

People have been suggesting ideas for time travel since centuries, but it was Albert Einsten who laid the foundation for the theoretical possibility of time travel with his theory of Special relativity. But first lets define "Time". There is no particular defination for time (you'll probably just look at your watch when someone says 'time') but Time has been designated as the fourth dimension of our universe, the first three being length, breadth and height (space that is). According to Einstein's theory of special relativity, time slows as an object approaches the speed of light. This has been observed in real life too. A high precision watch was sent on a space shuttle and when it came back it was back by fraction of a second. if one were to move away from the Earth at really very high velocities and return, more time would have passed on Earth than for the traveler. In this sense it is accepted that relativity allows "travel into the future". But the problem lies here. It is almost impossible to travel at a speed anywhere even close to the speed of light.

Lets consider you are in a race. During the race you discover a hidden shortcut. You take the shortcut without anyone noticing it. so you reach the finish line earlier than the others but because the others dont know about it, you win. Similarly there has to be a way to fool the universe, some kind of a shortcut to make you look as if you are travelling really fast. Physicist Kip Thorne believes that there could be some type of tunnel-like structure existing in the universe that could be used as a time travel portal. This tunnel-like structure is called a wormhole.
You know what a Black-hole is. Black holes have a huge gravitational pull that nothing can escape from them, not even light. The centre of a black hole is an infinitely dense point, called a singularity, where the laws of Physics no longer apply. Einstein's equations prove that such a singularity doesn't just end in a single point, but creates a tunnel that goes right through and opens out on the other side. Now this other side is somewhere else in spacetime, either in the future or in the past. Such a tunnel is called a wormhole. Unfortunately these things are still a hypothesis and there is absolutely no evidence. But you never know.

No matter what, problems will continue to exist like the very famous 'grandfather paradox'. What if you went back in time and prevented your grandfather from meeting your grandmother so that your mother was never born? Then you would never have been born... and so on. And also the 'Parallel universe' paradox. How can see yourself in the future or past when you are travelling? How can you split yourself? You cannot travel and not travel at the same time. But like I said you never know. Man has been able to invent things which once could be seen only on Dexter's Labroratory. Man has been able to prove my most favourite law of Physics - "Matter can neither be created nor destroyed" wrong (You probably know about Anti-matter). Anyway, Ladies and Gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts, I bet we are not far from days where we would enter into a Time-machine or a Teleportation-machine (Desperately waiting for this one. Eh! how much I hate travelling).

The Ultimate justice

The year 2006 ended with a rather gruesome spectacle of Saddam's execution shown in the news almost 24-7. Saddam may have lost his life now. But he died the day he was caught (Dec 13'03) by the US forces, hiding in a small hole, dirt smeared face, umkempt hair, vulnerable like a beleaguered cat. Was this the same man who waged a decade-long war against Iran? Was this the same man who killed over 5000 Kurds using chemical weapons? Invaded Kuwait? Killed 148 Shias? Was this the same brutal dictator who once ruled the Middle east?

It all ended the day he was brought to US as a trophy of an overhasty, catastrophic and mindless war. Why the need of such a ruinous war against Iraq in the first place? According to the US it was because Saddam was an evil dictator who violated the human rights, violated UN resolutions, had weapons of mass destruction and had ties with Al Queda. True but not all. Yeah he indeed was an evil dictator, violated human rights, caused a genocide. He deserves this punishment. But If Saddam had been evil since the beginning why did the US continue supporting him, giving him intelligence information and military equipment after he used poison gas against Iraqis collaborating with Iran and hailed him as a great leader until 1990? On Nov 2002, Saddam allowed UN weapon experts back into Iraq. If Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, why hasnt the US found them yet? If he indeed had weapons why didnt he use them when he was attacked by the US? Leaving all this apart , does it make any sense to sacrifice over 3000 US soldiers and over 30000 Iraqis just to catch a single person? You dont need to be a humanitarian to say no. I now see no difference between what Saddam did and what US is doing now. Anyway, a beast is a beast and it should be brutally killed for all the brutal killings it did.

Surprisingly India condemned Saddam's execution calling it unfortunate. Unfortunate? A brutal tyrant was killed for all the atrocities he committed. I see nothing "Unfortunate" in that. But they say that it will just sharpen the already worse Shia-Sunni divide in Iraq. Theres a point. But wasnt Saddam the one who killed Shias and deepened the civil conflict between the Shias and Sunnis. Avenging him for that is kindof justified.The Vatican denounced the execution as "tragic," Kuwaitis and Iranians celebrated the death of the dictator who led wars against each of them. Reactions to Saddam's death were varied. While some strongly supported the execution, others condemned it. Some, however wished to see him brought to trial for his other actions alleged to have resulted in a much greater number of deaths than those he was convicted for. Isnt " The Ultimate justice" supposed to be "Unanimous"?