Random Walk of Life

Moving Again

2008-10-06T11:42:00.003+05:30

This is the second time in the last 3 months that I am moving.

This time, I am moving to some kind of a permanent place, i.e. on my personal site.

I installed Wordpress there yesterday, and it seems to be behaving quite well.

So this blog, with all it's posts, comments and links has migrated to http://ego.randomwalk.in/blog

See you there.

New Hompage

2008-10-05T16:45:00.002+05:30

I bought myself some web-space at http://nearlyfreespeech.net. It's one of those sites, where you pay as you use.

They provide ssh access along with the usual ftp. And they support RSync. So pretty much what I needed for hosting my minimalistic site.

However, they run FreeBSD and not Linux (/me hides from theG). I wonder if it has got something to do with the FreeBSD Jails. If I am not mistaken, even Linux has similar technologies like the OpenVZ project and Linux-VServer.

Also, I bought myself a new domain name, http://randomwalk.in (In case you've not yet noticed, that's borrowed from the name of this blog :P )

So, my new homepage is http://ego.randomwalk.in.

Do drop by sometime :)

Resume, Webpage and More

2008-10-05T00:05:00.005+05:30

I am in the process of applying to universities, like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts.

Thus, earlier this week, it suddenly struck me that I didn't have a Resume. So far I have had to prepare a Resume only once, and that was when I interviewed for the IBM Extreme Blue Internship. And even at that time, I didn't made it myself. I edited the one made by Thamie, that too when half an hour was left before the Resumes had to be sent to IBM!

Anyway, that's a story for another day.

Thus, since then I never had a up-to-date Resume at hand. Never felt the need for one.

So, earlier this week, I thought of making one, using L^ATEX.

Now, this is one mark-up language, I used only for writing papers and technical reports (Yeah, my previous Resume, it was made using M$-Word).

The result of my effort however, was outrageously bad. Any word doc would have easily put this Resume to shame. Thus, looking around, and found this excellent guide to writing Resumes in L^ATEX.

When I tried it out, the Resume came out good, except for a couple of places, where I wanted the formatting to look a bit different. At this point, I must admit, I was not (and am still not one!) an expert when it came to L^ATEX. I had never used environments other than simple tables, equations, and figures. So, when I looked at this class file and found so many new environments, all of them custom made for Resume writing, I was overwhelmed.

I thought, may be I should tweak a few things here and there, and I will get the formatting right. But the results were worse than my first attempt.

Hence, having no other option (No, I didn't want to use M$-Word or OpenOffice for this), I decided to learn how to write new environments , and write out a simple L^ATEX template, which could be understood and customized with ease.

After a night out, the final product was something that met my expectation.

At two pages, this is what it looks like:

So, if you are interested in getting a shiny new Resume for yourself, you don't have to look any further.

The L^ATEX template is available here.
Your new Resume will look like this.
And, those interested in viewing the template on their browser, click here.

State of affairs in September

2008-10-01T00:33:00.006+05:30

It's been almost a month since my last blogpost. But no apologies. I spent time doing some really interesting things. Some of which I am going to write about now.

I started off by applying to the various universities in the United States. Yes, I have finally decided that it's time for me to look beyond what I have been working on and learn some-more, but I haven't yet made up my mind if I want to do a Ph.D yet. So thinking of MS for the time being.

My employer had a press release last Wednesday on 24th September, and the project on which I had been associated with for the past two years was chosen to be demoed. So I worked on recording the demo (I have grown apprehensive of the demo gods. They know only one set of laws formulated by this chap known as Murphy) and editing the video to add some animations (I was told that the press guys may not understand it otherwise). And I did all of this on Linux. You read that right. No Adobe Photoshop, no Windows Moviemaker, but plain good old Fedora9 with gimp and LiVES. I used gtk-recordmydesktop to record the demo. I also wrote a pyGTK tool to display the CPU-utilization when the machine was running some workload, which would also reflect the state of CPUs being offline/online and indicate the change when the state changes. I thought of using gnome-system-monitor, but sadly, it isn't aware of CPU-Hotplug.. at least not yet ;)

So yeah, I experimented with tools I had not used before and I wrote GUI code, which I never thought I would have to. And I did it not because I was really tired with CPU-Hotplug (as peterz put it :) ) but because it had to be done, and I wanted to give it a shot.

Other than that, the recent events happening in India, the blasts, the killings, the burnings, the one-sided media reports, all these made me question some of the ideas I had been holding on to for a long time now. And after spending quite a few late-nights trying to read various articles and opinions, looking beyond the conventional media, I found that there is another side of the story, which screams to be heard, but it's voice seems to have been muted more often than not in favour of the more-popular Indian-secular opinion.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat" , thus said Santayana. Most of these problems that are recurring do have an origin, a reason for their being. And to understand that, I have been doing my own little research, reading up articles and books. I am currently reading "India after Gandhi" by Ramachandra Guha. I found the book really interesting. Plain facts, neither too preachy, nor too dull. Also, it showered light upon quite a few things that I had not known about before like the Naga Revolution, the existence of a party known as Jana Sangh which was the predecessor to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the importance of Sardar Patel's role post-independence, a defence minister known as V K Krishna Menon and how the daughter rose.

Thus , September has been quite different that way.
Only time will tell what October has to say.

Work Travel Woes

2008-09-09T09:49:00.004+05:30

Over the past couple of weeks, I have realized that the stretch of road between beginning from CMH road, leading towards the Domlur Flyover(also known as 100 Ft road) and then extending to lead up till the Embassy Golf Links Business park( a part of the intermediate ring road), cannot withstand two things. Heavy rains and Heavy Traffic.

On Saturday afternoon, I was on my way to office, to finish something important, when my bus (201J) got stalled near the 6th Main Bus stop for 10 minutes. It was quite hot that afternoon, and more so inside the crowded bus, so I got down and started walking towards the flyoever. The cause for the traffic blockage then became apparent. Some vehicles coming out of the 6th Main road, were trying go towards the CMH end of the road cutting across the 100 feet road. At the same time, some idiots who were on the 100 feet road, wanted to take a right turn into the 6th Main road. There was a beautiful deadlock, and all the traffic from the Domlur Flyover to the 6th Main had come to a stand still. At the same time, the strech between 6th Main and 12th Main signal was completely empty for like 10 minutes! And I am sure ,this happens every now and then.

Yesterday, it rained a bit since the afternoon till late in the night. And when I was going home at night, I had to literally wade through the pools of standing water on my way out of the Embassy Golf Links Business Park to the Intermediate ring road. It's so disgusting to see such a reputed builder not planning for as mundane thing as heavy rain. But it's not just the private builders that are to blame. The Intermediate ring road was no better. If you had to get on to a bus from the bus stop, you couldn't do so without getting your pants drenched in puddles of muddy water that accumulate on the sides of the roads. This behaviour continued all the way till the 12th Main signal.

I wonder if there was any thought put into proper planning when East Bangalore was being developed. For all the hype and hoopla about being the IT city and all that, Bangalore seriously lacks infrastructure to deal with annual affairs such as heavy rains and daily affairs such as the heavy traffic.

Needless to say, having lived here for the past two years, I have only grown more disillusioned :(

Movies based on Books

2008-08-30T15:52:00.008+05:30

I have often heard people opine that great books don't necessarily translate into great movies, for whatever reasons.

In my limited experience, I haven't seen great many a movie based on a book that I have already read. In fact, I can remember only two of them. Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" was one, the movie adaptation of which I thought was abominable. The other one was Harper Lee's "To kill a Mockingbird",which I loved and also enjoyed watching it's movie adaptation equally, if not more.

Having said that, there are scores of movies in my list of favorites, which are based on or inspired by a book that I have not yet read. Examples in this category being The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, American Psycho, Sin City, the latest Batman Series to name a few. But I have heard people say that in case of The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption, the movie adaptations have surpassed their literary counterparts in depiction the underlying theme of the original.

So, coming to the topic of discussion, I wonder, having enjoyed some book thoroughly, is it possible for anyone to objectively judge it's movie adaptation? More often than not, the film writers and directors seem to take liberty in deviating from the plot-lines of the book, either to cater to the commercial interests, or to make it suitable for the present times and audience. When such is the case, can someone who already has a clear picture of the characters and the plot-lines of the book, accept some other portrayal with ease? Probably not. In such cases, it makes a bit more sense to accept the fact that the movie version, might not be the same as that of the book, since the director of the movie might choose to alter the premise slightly, and hence some of the alterations become inevitable. To quote a recent example, the reasoning Chris Nolan provides for Joker wearing the make up and the story about how he obtained the scars on his face in the movie "Dark Knight". But these minor deviations do not take away anything from Joker's portrayal as an anarchist psychopathic criminal.

However, there are times when deviations from the actual source appear to be too superfluous. At times they even act as a hindrance to the development of some of the characters. This is when the puritans tend to get miffed.

I have watched all the three movies in the Lord of the Rings trilogy long time ago, I totally enjoyed all three of them. For I thought that the visuals were astounding, the story was interesting, and most of all, it was a heroic saga and I am a sucker for movies belonging to that genre.

However, having finished reading the first volume of the book last week, I decided to watch the movie again, since I felt there were a few short-comings in the movie, especially in terms of the portrayal of some of the characters. For example, I felt that the characters of the Hobbits aren't all that well etched in the movie. In Tolkien's epic, Hobbits are not plain shorter versions of humans, but they're different beings altogether, who have a different culture and are driven by completely different needs and wants. Throughout the movie, Frodo comes across as a weakling who seems to have lines of worry permanently etched on his forehead. He doesn't seem to show any spunk when the Nazguls pursue him. One expects the Ring-bearer to be a bit more brave, especially since he is up against the Dark lord whom the bravest and the wisest on the middle-earth consider as a redoubtable foe. But when Gandalf tells Elrond that Frodo has a stout heart, I was wondering on what basis did he make that comment!

Also, the characters of Merry and Pippin come across as a couple of dumb mischief-mongers whose only contribution seems to get the fellowship into some trouble or the other. And the steadfastness of Sam Gamgee is rarely highlighted. In the book, the part of the plot where the Hobbits travel through the old forest, the barrow downs, their interaction with Tom Bombadil, highlights many of their defining characteristics, such has love for food and drink, capability to endure, capacity for stealth, dislike for conflict and so on. This plot is totally missing in the film.

The other glaring deviation, which I thought was totally superfluous was the extension of Arwen's character as the brave elf-woman who outruns and defeats the ring-wraiths, saves Frodo and later shares mushy moments with Aragon in the stealth of the night. Pray, why was this needed at all? More than anything else, it takes some of the credit away from Frodo, who in the book, shows remarkable resistance when allured by the Dark Riders at the Ford of Bruinen.

Peter Jackson has done a great job with the epic, no doubt, but he needn't have substituted some of original plotlines with an invented one, just to woo a particular section of the audience. The original one was far more cogent, and the invented one was definitely no improvement over the former.

That said, I still maintain that LOTR:FOTR is a really good movie, and if you haven't read the book prior to watching the movie, you will really enjoy it, like I did once upon a time.

Mumbai Meri Jaan

2008-08-29T08:36:00.008+05:30

I watched "Mumbai Meri Jaan" yesterday. It's a movie about the post-7/11 serial bomb blast experiences of a few Mumbaikars.

The movie is an honest attempt in filmmaking. It has it's heart in the right place. It does not try to be too preachy, nor does it try to place the blame on some one section or unit of the society. It's a movie which portrays in a simple manner, the pre and post blast experiences of a few people. It describes the problem, but does not venture out to provide any solution.

The movie has five parallelly running tracks, each showing the lives of different people. R Madhavan plays an socially conscious person, who has a decent job, opportunites to settle down abroad, but chooses to stay back, and prefers to travels to office daily by the local train instead of a car, which he can afford. Soha Ali Khan plays a modern Indian television journalist, who works really hard to report the news stories that have some kind of an emotional appeal, but in the process being apathetic about the emotional state of the people whom she's interviewing. In her opinion, her job is well done as long as she gets some salable "sound bytes". Kay Kay Menon plays a young self employed person, who is mostly seen idling at a small restaurant with his friends. He dislikes Muslims, and doesn't deal with the people from "Another community" (BTW, a short story by that name, written by R K Narayan, is one of my all time favorites), thereby losing out on a lot of opportunities. Irrfan Khan plays a immigrant from Tamil Nadu, who sells tea for a living, but is pretty much taken aback by the prodigal and nonchalant lifestyle of the "Rich people". And finally Vijay Maurya and Paresh Rawal play the two police constables. The former is a rookie cop who is frustrated when he realizes that he cannot change the "system", while the latter is an experienced cop, who has learnt the art of being a spectator.

We're shown how the lives of these people change with the serial blasts and how they react to it. Madhavan's character experiences post-blast traumatic experiences and cannot bring himself to travel by the train anymore. Soha Ali Khan's character ends up at the receiving end of the modern television journalism, by being treated as yet another Prime-Time news story, after her fiance dies in the train blast. Kay Kay Menon's character starts suspecting every Muslim to be an accomplice in the train blast, and even goes on to spy on one of them, Irrfan Khan's character plays on the fear-factor by setting up hoax calls, his way of getting back at the rich who he feels, look down upon him. And finally, Paresh Rawal's character begins to come to terms with the fact that by being a spectator, he hasn't really done much. There's more to life than "chalta hai".

The actors have done their job very well, especially R Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon and Paresh Rawal deserve a word of praise. One can really feel for what they're experiencing. I didn't find even a single shot as being wasted. The pace is moderate, but then, this is not a film that fits into the fast paced movie genre.

However, I thought that Irrfan story was a little bit weak. Especially, the scene where Irrfan's character realizes his folly, was a bit too abrupt. It might have been the editor's decision to snip any scenes leading to the development of guilt in the character in order to restrict the film within the 2 hour time frame.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I would rate it 3 out of 5. Compared to the few movies that have come out in the last fortnight, this one undoubtedly, is the best one.

Books Read in 2008

2008-08-27T22:33:00.006+05:30

This year, I have been reading more for knowledge than for pleasure. However, whenever time permitted and when the mood was right, I did lay my hands on books, some of which I had bought ages ago, and some bought at the spur of the moment to satisfy an immediate curiosity.

Anyway, the list so far looks as follows:

1) Just for Fun - Linus Torvalds and David Diamond: An autobiographical account about the person who wrote the first version of the Linux kernel, and gave it out to the world, which now hacks it, for pleasure or purpose. I enjoyed the book, except for the bit towards the end which got a little bit boring.

2) When Nietzsche Wept - Irving D Yalom: A book I gifted myself as a birthday present, this talks about a fictional interaction between Josef Breuer and Fredrich Nietzsche, and how the former helps resolve the mental issues that the latter is suffering from, and in the process, cures his own personal problems. It's a relatively unknown book, since not many of my friends have heard about it. The theory behind the birth of psychoanalysis that's presented in this book is quite interesting. The book does wander into the philosophical territory, but more than anything else, it goes on to show the human side of the brilliant thinker and a gifted physican.

3) Shantharam - Gregory David Roberts: My roommates gifted this for my birthday, and I took quite a while to finish this book about an Australian convict who lands up in india, interacts with the local mafia, and becomes a pakka mumbaiyaa. Good book, read it if you get it.

4) Prisoner of Birth - Jeffery Archer: Bought as an act of impulse when I saw the jacket photograph on the doors of Sapna Book house. A very "Count of monte-cristo" like story which has no surprises in store, but the execution is quite deft. Typical Archer novel.

5) First amongst equals - Jeffery Archer: Four ambitious MP's and they journey to grabbing the coveted post of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. In typical Archer istyle, it keeps you guessing asto who will end up with the PM position, until the last page.

6) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol: A prequel to GEB, I thought when I picked up this book long ago in Pune. But read it only after three years. Some of the puns are the wittiest I have ever come across.

7)The three biggest mistakes of my life -Chetan Bhagat: I made a mistake reading this one. Guess it was written inorder to be made into a stereotypical Hindi movie.

8)The Broker - John Grisham: Bought it at the Chicago airport, when I realized that "I am a strange loop" by Douglas Hoffstadler wouldn't keep me hooked throughout the 14 hour journey. I have mixed feelings about this novel. While the story was interesting in parts, the Italian lessons in the town of Bologna was really not that exciting. And unlike the Grisham novels that I have read in the past, this had little to do with courthouse.

Currently reading the Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien.

Back to my previous home!

2008-08-13T17:30:00.003+05:30

I am moving back from Wordpress to Blogger.

No, it's not because wordpress is bad or something. I am just bored and I want to move!

Anyways, I ended up changing the template of my blogger page. Which made me wonder, in the days of google-reader and other feed aggregators, how many readers do "visit" the blog-page?

Because as far as my blog is concerned most of my visitors read whatever I write(which is not very often) through one of the feed aggregators. Except when they feel the itch to comment on something, I don't think someone actually visits the blog-site :)

Transition

2006-12-29T01:32:00.000+05:30

Ok folks, I have started experimenting with Wordpress now. The transition, if at all is gonna happen, will take some time. I wish to make it a smooth one and slowly migrate over.

Here's the link to my latest post http://rand0mwalkoflife.wordpress.com/ (Note the '0' in rand0m)

Cya there, but keep watching this space for more.

Thanks and Regards
Randomwalker.

Maya

2006-12-25T15:12:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Merry Christmas :)
Opening Song: She will be loved - Maroon 5

Santoor! What an instrument. Listen to it and you begin to imagine the ripples in the clear pond. Slowly growing in size but at the same time, fading away. Slowly. Steadily. Wonderful Experience.

I first heard this wonderful instrument when Pt. Shivkumar Sharma came over to NITK in my second year of Engineering to perform for Viraasat. I loved that performance. So many strings vibrating in tandem, but vibrating in perfect harmony.

Earlier this week, I went beserk shopping some instrumental music. Bought off Desert Rain by Indian Ocean (truely earthy music), Krishna by Pravin Godkhindi and Maya by Rahul Sharma.

Maya is extremely soothing. It's a compilation of ten tracks, based on the theme of Maya, the godess of illusion in the Indian Mythology. The title track features Sunidhi Chauhan her volcals suitably complementing the santoor. Each track is a fusion of Santoor and some techno beats. All the tracks are good. My personal favorite is the one titled "Permeability". It sounds happy and light as compared to others which are sound slightly more complicated.

Wonder how would it be to play the tabla for these compositions. Should try it out sometime.

Closing Song: Kandisa - Indian Ocean.
Closing Mood: Extremely hungry imagining all the christmas cookies and brownies.

Participation

2006-12-18T09:50:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Relaxed
Opening Song: Soona man ka aangan - Parineetha ( What a song! )

A week back, I went on a trip to Nagarhole with my colleagues. It was a lot of fun. We stayed at JungleInn resorts which is very close to the Nagarhole forests.

That night, the resort folks had organized a tribal dance around the bonfire. A bunch of people from the Kuruba tribe sang tribal songs and danced around the fire. They used wooden sticks as props for their dance which was a tribal variation of the popular dandiya.

However, we didn't quite enjoy it. Standing there like fools and watching the tribals sing and dance was definitely not our idea of fun.At least not mine. So we started clapping and shouting, in order to have our share of fun ( It's only been a while since I've been out of college, so it wasn't unusual for me :) ). On seeing us behave like one of them, the tribals invited us to join them. Bharata and myself, we joined the tribals for the dance, and boy! I must tell you, we enjoyed it a lot. It wasn't very difficult or very artistic or something. Just a simple rhythm and simple steps to go with that rhythm.

This must have been the favorite pass-time of these tribal folks since ages. After a hard day's work, just get together and have fun singing and dancing. Their idea of socialization. What's important here is that, you won't really have a lot of fun unless you participate. Just sitting on a chair, sipping beer and trying to *find* beauty in the song/dance might not yield as much fun as participating in that dance might.

That's exactly the case with culture too. Unless you participate, it is very difficult to understand a particular culture, let alone appreciate it. True, these things are not invented by any one particular person. It has contributions from almost everyone. But what makes it work is the fact that no one bothers "who" contributed "what". The bigger picture is what matters. And this is the bigger picture which prompts people to take part and contribute.

So what about the ego?! Well, I guess it gets dissolved in the social spirit of participation. After all, ego is of any use only when left alone. It's utterly useless and predominantly pathetic in a social gathering :)

Closing Song: Lakshya - Title track.
Closing Mood: Hmmm.. Vacation. Smells sweet despite the bad cold.

Change!!!

2006-11-27T10:08:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: It's a new day of a new week :-)
Opening Song: Standing in Motion - Yanni

Change is inevitable.
The Proactive bring about it;
The Reactive adapt to it and further stabilize it;
And the Inactive try to resist, only in vain.

The inactive idiots sleep soundly, wrapped in their quilts of security and stability when the first winds of change start blowing over their heads. But they are so engrossed in the lazy music their own snores that they hardly catch these first winds. With time, these light winds grow stronger metamorphizing into a storm. The inactive idiots wake up in the middle of this storm and think that they are in the middle of a "Revolution".

Remember, o fame seeker, it's these idiots who stay back to write the history books!

Closing Song: Santorini - Yanni.
Closing Mood: Munir Lands the Plane - Yanni.

Love!!!

2006-11-17T15:37:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Just returned back from home.
Opening Song: None.

There are thousands and thousands of quotations on love. There are millions of songs and Zillions of stories and Gazzillions of movies on love.

And I am not sure which one of them to believe, because of so many reasons, one of them being the lack of experience. So I better keep my mouth shut about this kind of slippery stuff, but I feel like barking today. For no particular reason [probably theg's post has triggered something, which I am not able to concretely identify] I want to talk of one quote on Love.

Ages ago, I read this very powerful book "The Fountainhead" which had a great line about love -

"To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'."

When I first read it, I was like "Wowie! What a statement" without even half realizing how might it feel to be in love. I don't think I understand that now either!

I have been wondering, I have been thinking. I don't have an answer, but, you bet, I do have a question.

All's fine if you treat Rand's statement like a photograph. Look at it, appreciate it, turn the page and look at the next photograph in the album. But when you start thinking of Dynamic quality, you start wondering, is this statement always true?! I mean, will this statement hold good once both "I" and "You" have acknowledged the "I Love You"? Will knowing to say the "I" help, once "I" and "You" have combined to become a "We"? Shouldn't "Love" be the guiding light for "I" and "You" then onwards?

Arrrgh @$#!@#!! What am I even thinking?! Something about which I know absolutely nothing.
Where is the Mop, where is the Broom???
Let me shove this thought outta my Room...

Whoooosh!! Mop Mop Mop!!!

There - Swept away. Back to a clean state of mind again :-)

Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: In a hurry. Another trek. Charmadi Ghats this time!

Imagine

2006-11-03T18:38:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Weekend blues again...
Opening Song : None...

Fixed a stupid bug which had been creating a lotta noise recently. The fix was accepted in the -mm tree!!

Anyway, I was listening to John Lennon's "Imagine" the other day. Imagine (not the song, but the verb)
how Lennon would have written the song if he lived in the present day. He probably would have written an anthem for open source.

Something like,

Imagine a world so open,
Without any gates or windows
Where people love to share and care
Where knowledge freely flows.

Imagine all the people,
Living with the source.

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one..
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

One more of my stoopid imaginations!!!

Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: Running home for the weekend!

Weekend Mujik (Continued ...)

2006-10-30T19:04:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: New version is out... Gotta start porting everything soon.
Opening Song: Piano Man - Billy Joel.

Have you noticed that when you want something *very* badly, it's always out of stock.

Like yesterday, I went to Planet M, hoping to buy Switch by INXS. Searched the whole shop and finally found INXS. But no Switch. There was every other album of their's except Switch. Now my usual response is to walk out of the shop with a dejected face. But not this time!

Right next to INXS was James Blunt's "Back to Bedlam". Something that I had not planned on buying. But I wanted it the moment I saw it. For the past two days, the song "You're Beautiful" has stuck like some worm in my head. I simply cannot seem to get rid of it.

And then after a bit of browsing I also found "Piano Man - The best of Billy Joel". If you like Billy Joel, you gotta have this one. This has all my favourite songs including - "She's always a woman", "Piano Man", "We didn't start the fire", "River of Dreams" and many more.

Shakira! I don't know what's there in her music except the fact that it make me go "oo-la-la" everytime I listen to it. Bought off "Hips Don't Lie". Trust me, they don't!!

But the top buy of the evening was "Let's folk again" - A planet M Exclusive. It has some of the best folk songs by stalwarts like Dylan, Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, Chris De Burgh and others. It's a two CD Album and also comes with the lyrics book. Nice package.

Also bought off "Anand" DVD. I've been wanting to *own* this one for quite sometime now. It's one of my all time favorites.

I know I've spent a fortune on all these. But the knowledge that the music you are listening to is one hundred percent legal, is simply priceless!!

Closing Song: Kya mujhe pyaar hai - Woh Lamhe.
Closing Mood: Fresh!

Weekend Mujik

2006-10-27T17:54:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Weekend Blues!
Opening Song: Piano Man - Billy Joel.

I walked to office today. It was pretty early in the morning and there wasn't much of traffic. And had Radio Indigo to keep me company. The usual soundtracks played on the airwaves. One of them stood apart.So much that I made a conscious attempt to remember the refrains inorder to google it and find out more about that song.

It turns out to be this awesome song called "Afterglow" by the aussie band INXS ( Pronounced In Excess).

When I first heard this song, I thought it was some remix version of Bryan Adams' "Here I am". But it wasn't. It was something much more special. The percussion in the background reminds you of bollywood. But boy, the lyrics ... They are simply too good...

"Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way, I will sacrifice
Now I’m living in your afterglow

Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divide the thorns from the roses
It’s you who is closest "

Buy of the week is their album - The Switch.

Closing Song: Speed of Sound - Coldplay.
Closing Mood: Running home.. Weekend's here!!

Undecided yet

2006-10-26T18:41:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Accomplished - Patches posted.
Opening Song: Lucy in the Sky - The Beatles.

Ok, I am not quite sure what to write about. Haven't thought of anything. But I *know*, I will write something and in a matter of minutes the amount of junk here is going to increase exponentially.

Yup, found my topic. Or rather topics. Bangalore night life, Diwali celebrations, and Bridge on troubled waters. Dunno which one to expand on. I feel like a third grader who has been given a set of topics to write a full page essay on, but has no clue how to begin or end. Just a few bones here and there but the full skeleton is not yet known. Archealogy. Yeah, that's what those idiots probably do. Dig out a bunch of bones and try to fit them together and give it some weird name like pithecanthropus, whatever that means.

See! I have already filled up more than ten lines without actually writing about anything concrete. It aint all that difficult to fill pages.

Ok, Bangalore night life it is....

Just a few months back, one of my collegues got mugged when she was going back home from work.The time was somewhere around 10pm at night. Which makes me ask the obvious question, what was the Bangalore Night Patrol ( I think they call it Hoysala) doing?!

Now I know. They were all on MG road and Brigade road, waiting outside the pubs to ensure that there were no "drunken brawls" or "drunken drivers" on the road.

Hmmm, that's a nice way of showing your authority. Just catch hold of some damn guy and test his breath. The probability that he will test positive for alcohol would be extremely high. Fine him a coupla thousand bucks and thy job's done!! Thou hast done thy duty. And how!

If you are thinking that I am going to talk about Mr.Adam Biddappa's innocence, stop right there.

On then contrary, I feel today's kids are given too much freedom including the freedom to shy away from the responsibility that comes along with it. Don't you think that the reason why the police does night patrolling near the pubs might be because of the past experiences of "irresponsible" behaviour by these children of freedom??

I come from a society where one is expected to "earn" freedom by proving that you are capable of handling responsibilities. But I don't like this model. Because freedom is a fundamental right, and the "guardians" of freedom can always end up being the guards thereby screwing your happiness. That's definitely not the way to go.

But that doesn't mean that we start assuming freedom comes for free either.

Yeah, I know, I know. You are thinking, WTF is this guy talking about? Neither this nor that, can't he just stick to any one thing ?

My answer would be - NO. I cannot. Because I believe that life is all about striking the right balance between conflicting goals.

So now you would wanna ask, Ok Mr.Smarty Pants, how am I supposed to strike the right balance? Hmmm, you know what, if I knew the answer to that question, I would have just coded the whole thing up, compiled it, executed it and rested in peace. I mean WHAT is the point of living if you knew the answer to that? It would be like playing Age of Empires with god mode on. What's the fun? Satisfying your stooopid ego probably!

Yeah, so my take on night life at bangalore - It won't improve unless we are ready to behave as responsible citizens.

And having said that it would be of great help if we could have more policemen patrolling on ring road. I wouldn't want to get mugged like my collegue!

PS: Its so much fun to dump your mind's snapshot :D

Closing Song: Free as a Bird - The Beatles.
Closing Mood: I am hungry. It's dinner time!

Evolution Vs Revolution

2006-10-12T00:46:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood : Attentive.. Running stress tests :)
Opening Song : None.

This is what the Benevolent Dictator for Life ( read Linus Torvalds ) had to say about Evolution vs Revolution.

"Only stupid people think they should throw away old proven concepts. What happens quite often in academia in particular is that you find a problem you want to fix, and you re-design the whole system around your fix. This is how we get crap like microkernels. They have 'an agenda', and that's the _worst_ thing you can have when designing software. You fixate on some perceived problem, and the end result is that yes, maybe you fixed _that_ problem, but in the meantime you also generated a whole new of issues - usually things that were solved by the original approach. The UNIX/Linux approach is a very pragmatic thing - leave the things that work well alone. There's no point in re-inventing the whole system just because of some small perceived flaws... And many things _can_ be done without throwing out old designs. Implementation improvements are quite possible without trying to make something totally new to the outside. That's how things like the dcache come about, for example - keeping the standard old boring UNIX filesystem approach, while internally caching it in new ways, improving performance tremendously. Not throwing out the baby with the bath-water doesn't mean that you cannot improve the system. I'm only arguing against stupid people who think they need a revolution to improve - most real improvements are evolutionary."

Now I know why I love this field so much. Just love the idea - to evolve, to grow, to change, to adapt. Dynamic, eh? You bet it is :)

Who made the statement "Have your head in the clouds and your feet firmly rooted to the earth" ? I can't remember.
But, if you can't imagine how to do that, think of climbing a mountain, and you'll know how. :)

Closing Song: None
Closing Mood: My tests need me. Something not going according to the plan. Need some Change!

My World View - Postmodernistic

2006-09-28T10:03:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Normal da.
Opening Song: Some peppy thing on Radio Indigo

What is your world view ? Are you a Postmodernist, an Idealist, a Romantic, a Fundamentalist??
Find out at http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=23320

Looks like I am a Postmodernist! This is what the site said:

You scored as Postmodernist.

Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection
of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you;
even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation.
Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should
be subject to analysis.

Postmodernist

94%

Idealist

88%

Existentialist

88%

Cultural Creative

69%

Materialist

56%

Romanticist

44%

Modernist

31%

Fundamentalist

19%

Well, from the looks of it, I am more of a materialist as compared to a Romantic! Well, I always thought it was the other way around!!

I don't know, and I don't care!

Closing Song: Belly Dancer by Akon
Closing Mood: Didn't you read properly?! I don't know and I don't Care.

Mes chansons préférées de l'amour

2006-09-26T19:04:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Nice :) The patch has come out good.
Opening Song: El Condor Pasa by Simon and Garfunkel.

It's been a long time since I blogged. That doesn't mean nothing happened.
Infact lot has happened since I last posted. My first patch got published,
It fetched some good reviews, and some *not* so good ones.

I also went for my first trek. It was fun, the trek. We walked
from M.M Hills to Nagamale, and from there to Palar. 24 kilometers
altogether. Details can be found here.

Other than that, I also visited my hometown twice more.
And did the obvious - Sleep!

Sponsered Advertisement!
The Shastra contest is back with Priya's entry going great
guns. The key words this time are

-ThamesPortal    : Thamie anything to do with you??!
                                 Or is it Ma Sport Lathe?
-Zalecenia            : Hmm.. How about Alice Zane?!
-Autophytes        : Looks like I've seen this one. Biology??!
                                 Wait, Hot USA Type?
-Invernesshire    : Seen Irish nerv???! Awww, a missing 'e'!

Boy!  I still have a thing for Anagrams!

Ok, back to the post, this one is about mushy songs. Doesn't
quite fit in this blog, now does it?! I know, I know, but I seem to have
kinda developed a liking for some of these songs lately.

For four years in college, I've just been collecting
a lot of music, but listening mostly to the instrumental genre.
Even at work, I love my Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mae, Yanni. Probably
the lyrics distract me from coding ;). However, I wanted a change and for
the past two weeks I've been listening to songs with lyrics.
And guess what?! The mush songs seem to be the most relaxing ones!
With them, you just drift away, where the singer wants you to.
Like taking you back in time. Mmmm, nostalgia, smells sweet!

Here's the list of my favorites. In no particular order that is.

I want to spend my lifetime - Mask of Zorro Soundtrack.
I guess this one was sung by Mark Anthony. Vipin recommended it way
back in 2nd year Engg. But I was busy listening to Hindi Music back then.

Lady in Red - Woman in Red Soundtrack.
Don't know who the singer is. But it's damn good. One of the
first english songs I ever listened to.

I'm leaving on a jet plane - John Denver.
I had heard the Aerosmith's version of song back in college. Probably
it was the soundtrack of some movie. I remember Steve Tyler screaming
his lungs out towards the end of the song.

Love will keep us alive - Eagles Original.
A nice song from the Hotel California gang. The vocals are girlish.
I had the video of this song from their 'Hell freezes Over' concert.

That thing you do - The Wonders soundtrack.
Would have deleted this song, if Thamie had not made such a fuss outta it.
Thanks maccha, it's a nice song.  Also saw the movie "The Wonders".
They were truely  The 'One'ders.

Iris - City of Angels Soundtrack.
This has been my long time favorite. Though didn't quite know
who was the singer or the name of the song. It was played on
Radio Indigo today morning. Seems that original was by Goo Goo Dolls.
The one I have is Ronan Keating's version.

Sealed with a kiss - Bryan Hyland, The Wonder Years Soundtrack.
Got this one from the songs I flicked from our seniors. It's the mushiest
of them all. But boy, does it have that retro feeling! Awesome!!

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone - Notting Hill Soundtrack.
Bill Wither's version, this is one those songs which can put you
in a light-blue mood!

When you say nothing at all - Notting Hill Sountrack
Silence is Golden! Reminds me of the night-walk-in-the-park scene
from Notting Hill.

Love is All around - Four Weddings and a Funeral Sountrack.
I haven't seen this movie, but another *mushy* movie which has
this same song is Love Actually. Liam Neeson's story in that movie
was a nice one.

Bridge over troubled waters - Simon and Garfunkel.
What a song this one. It's certainly one of my all time
favorite. Abhinav Chaturvedi recommended it while we were
interning at Pune. Thanks dude, else I would not have listened
to this awesome duo.

El-Condor Pasa - Simon and Garfunkel.
Another one of their beauties. I am not sure which is the string
instument they use to create the opening tune of this song. Sounds
simillar to santoor. The song has a Mexican feeling, evident from it's
title.

Good Riddance - Green Day.
Reminds me of Lenon strumming on his guitar while we were sipping
hot tea. This one is considered to be a famous breakup song.
Suitably named :D!

She's always a Woman to me - Billy Joel
I had this song since ages. Listened to it only last week. The lyrics are
really good. One of those narrative songs with very little background music.

I just called to say I love you - Stevie Wonder.
Those who've seen Omkara, this is the *same* song which
Viveik Oberoi teaches Kareena Kapoor.
Only that the original version sounds *much much* better :)

Something Stupid -Robbie Williams version feat Nicole Kidman.
The original version of this song was sung by Nancy Sinatra. Another
of my latest discoveries. They played this song on Radio Indigo
this morning.

By the way, Bangalore has a new international radio station -
Radio Indigo 91.9 FM. Finally some good music in the airwaves.
A big relief for anyone bored with nasal "over"tones!!!

DISCLAIMER: The paragraph above is not a sponsered Ad
for Radio Indigo. It's just a token of gratitude for playing
great music. Keep up the good work guys! :D


Closing Song: It's Probably Me, Lethal Weapon Soundtrack.
Closing Mood: Good. Brilliant  infact, to get started with the locks!

Quality

2006-09-01T10:14:00.000+05:30

Opening Song: Pulp fiction Title track.
Opening Mood: Cool. Infact hangover from ZATAOMM.

The past few days of my life have revolved around only two things.
Locks ( all sorts of them ) and ZATAOMM. I wanted latter to be more of a way to relax so that I wouldn't dream of the kernel-code.

But, it proved to be much more than that. It was as if you are groping for something in the dark and you find something, which you just keep for the sake that you have found it. But later when you shed light on that find of yours, you realize what wonderful a thing you've found.

ZATAOMM is *the* Elixer which has to be sipped slowly inorder to savour it. Gulping it down in one shot might leave you with a dizzy feeling.

Anyway, this post is about Quality. The subject that we've been discussing all through our seventh and eight semesters through Software Engineering and Software Quality Assurance. I wish I had read this book back then.

The excerpt below echoes most of my ideas, only that it presents these ideas in a manner that's way more enjoyable.
So without much ado, I present before thee Phaedrus and his discovery of the qualities of Quality.

The world now, according to Phædrus, was composed of three things: mind, matter, and Quality. The fact that he had established no relationship between them didn't bother him at first. If the relationship between mind and matter had been fought over for centuries and wasn't yet resolved, why should he, in a matter of a few weeks, come up with something conclusive about Quality? So he let it go. He put it up on a kind of mental shelf where he put all kinds of questions he had no immediate answers for. He knew the metaphysical trinity of subject, object and Quality would sooner or later have to be interrelated but he was in no hurry about it. It was just so satisfying to be beyond the danger of those horns that he relaxed and enjoyed it as long as he could.

Eventually, however, he examined it more closely. Although there's no logical objection to a metaphysical trinity, a three-headed reality, such trinities are not common or popular. The metaphysician normally seeks either a monism, such as God, which explains the nature of the world as a manifestation of one single thing, or he seeks a dualism, such as mind-matter, which explains it as two things, or he leaves it as a pluralism, which explains it as a manifestation of an indefinite number of things. But three is an awkward number. Right away you want to know, Why three? What's the relationship among them? And as the need for relaxation diminished Phædrus became curious about this relationship too.

He noted that although normally you associate Quality with objects, feelings of Quality sometimes occur without any object at all. This is what led him at first to think that maybe Quality is all subjective. But subjective pleasure wasn't what he meant by Quality either. Quality decreases subjectivity. Quality takes you out of yourself, makes you aware of the world around you. Quality is opposed to subjectivity.

I don't know how much thought passed before he arrived at this, but eventually he saw that Quality couldn't be independently related with either the subject or the object but could be found only in the relationship of the two with each other. It is the point at which subject and object meet.

That sounded warm.

Quality is not a thing. It is an event.

Warmer.

It is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object.

And because without objects there can be no subject...because the objects create the subject's awareness of himself...Quality is the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible.

Hot.

Now he knew it was coming.

This means Quality is not just the result of a collision between subject and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!

Now he had that whole damned evil dilemma by the throat. The dilemma all the time had this unseen vile presumption in it, for which there was no logical justification. that Quality was the effect of subjects and objects. It was not! He brought out his knife.

Those of you who are interested to read more, there's an online version of the book which can be found here.

I am only half way through the book by the way!

Closing Mood: Calm.
Closing Song: IRIS ( Movie OST of City Of Angels).

Google Topper.

2006-08-31T16:37:00.000+05:30

Shastra , the techfest of IITM has a smart new competetion this time. It's basically asking you to create a webpage such that google returns the webpage as the top-search result for a certain search string.

Here's Nitk-Numbskull's effort for the competition. coecelanth zeppelin shaastra durbatuluk equivocate.

Random Walker wishes them all the best!

My One Week Vacation

2006-08-21T13:45:00.000+05:30

Vacation! What an interesting concept... or rather, should I say, an
alien concept!

It's been like four years now that I have taken a proper vacation.
Ever since joining engineering, I have spent my holidays either learning
a new language, or doing some project here or there.
Not even once in the past four years did I get time to wake up at like say ten
in the morning, order mom to serve breakfast, then ponder over the day's
newspaper and laze on my bed reading a novel or day-dreaming.
Instead, I chose to spend time in some obscure lab, either deciphering
protocols or designing them, or creating weird image editors and what
not!

However, this time, I got myself like a full week off from work, thanks
to a few people in the office. And I kind of needed it badly too. Recently
I had been seeing kernels compile and systems crash even in my dreams!!!

So I decided, I am going to relax like never before.
I took home with me my Thinkpad,and 2 novels - "Eragon" , and
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence" (ZATAOMM henceforth).
These were supposed to occupy all my attention for the next eight days.

Eragon was my first prey.Or rather, I fell prey to it!
It was Kripal who one day asked me - "Do you like fantasy?".
The exposure I've had to fantasy is like very limited.Other than grandma's
tales from Indian mythology and the three LOTR movies, I was a complete
fantasylliterate (to be pronounced as Fantasy-illiterate).
"I'd like to try",I blabbered.
"Then here's just the thing for you.",he said and handed over the copy of
Eragon.
"The author,Christoper Paolini is hardly twenty", he added.

I finished Eragon, and this is what I thought about it.

I got ZATAOMM as a gift a year ago. I've been trying to read the book for a
year now, but didn't quite succeed.
Even in these eight days, I managed to just get past the first 150 pages.
Not that it is verbose, but the material presented demands apt attention
and needs to be understood carefully if it is to be enjoyed.
However, I feel, this is the perfect time to read it.

Other than reading novels, I also visited my alma-mater , met the professors
there, got some offical work done, conducted a workshop on Introduction
to Linux Kernel Programming. Basically, had a lot of fun at the college.

I also got a chance to meet all my relatives. Had a party at my maternal
grandma's place. Grandma's prawn curry preparation was awesome.
I hogged till I was satisfied.
My appetite, has to be lauded though! I managed to hog so
much after a wonderful afternoon lunch. Diseal and Cherry's rock!
Anyway,we played cards that night, pulled each others legs and chatted till
wee hours.

Now that vacations are done, and I'm back, lemme get back to work!
I am missing it already!

PS: Next time, you see a guy carrying a Giordno Backpack,
and sporting a haircut akin to that of a ISKCON monk,
walking somewhere in the streets of Bangalore, shout (one of )my
(many) name(s) aloud!
I shall respond :)

Offer valid until the hair grows back ;)

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

2006-08-21T13:28:00.000+05:30

Eragon,the first book of the "Inheritance Trilogy" tells the story of a
young farm boy named Eragon and how his world changes since the day he finds a
bright blue stone. How gets to become the "chosen" one to be first among
the next generation of Dragon Riders,a race considered extinct.
Helping him in his pursuit are Brom,the story teller,
Murtagh a trustworthy friend with a doomed legacy,Varden the rebels,
Arya the elf and of course his dragon Saphira (pronounced as Saf-ea-raa).

The story is set in Alagaesia - the kingdom of a evil king named Galbatorix,
a former Dragon rider himself who had usurped the throne by betraying
his felow riders. There's a faction who call themselves Varden (The Warders)
who had challenged against Galbotorix's despotism.
So it's basically set amidst a raging war for supremacy.

The story consists of all the elements of fantasy.
There is magic, there are Urgals ( akin to the Orcs of LOTR)
the Kull ( eq. to Uruk-hai's of LOTR ), there are soccerrers and Witches,
there are Dragons, Werecats, Dwarfs and Elfs. There's also the ancient
language, the dwarven language to add more flavor to fantasy.Very similar
to LOTR (which I haven't yet read) probably.

Coming to the characters,

Eragon's a young farm boy who accidentaly discovers something which makes
him the next Dragon rider. Hardly fifteen, he is confused about his destiny.
His transformation from an adoloscent to a brave and manly dragon
rider is very well portrayed.

What's more endearing is the relationship between the Rider and his dragon.
You never feel that Saphira is a dragon.Paolini has made her very human.
She can relate to Eragon like no one else,counsel him wisely and also
display emotions when there is a need.In the other folklore, Dragons have
always been objects of fear, but in this one novel, through Saphira
you'll find them very much lovable.

The other character that stands out is that of Brom. Old, he
is but also wise and strong. A perfect teacher for someone who is destined
to be a Dragon Rider. He has many secrets, most of which are revealed
in the novel. A strong character and a well etched one.

Murtagh appears a worthy ally. He is a bit older than Eragon, but
is supremely skilled in the art of weilding the blade. He has his priorities
right and is wise. The only thing that goes against him is his flawed past.

Bad guys : We encounter in this novel the
Urgals - a monstrous species which are neither humans nor animals. Call them
brutes if you will. The Kull which are the elite among the Urgals are like
some eight feet tall and more powerful. Then we have the Shade, the main
bad guy in the book - a powerful man who has traded his soul with the evil
for power. He is very cunning and extremely competent with the blade.

There are others who manage to make an impact in their brief appearence
- Jeod (pronounced Jode) Brom's friend, Arya the egg carrier elf,
Orik the dwarf, Ajihad - the wise leader of Varden, Angela the witch,
Solembaum the werecat to name a few.

Out and out it is a very vell written book. Something which I would strongly
recommend to anyone who loves fantasy. You won't be dissappointed. I just
can't wait to lay my hands on the second book of the trilogy entitled "Eldest".

Dreams and Reality

2006-07-24T13:25:00.000+05:30

Opening Song:Beethoven - Pastoral Symophony
Opening Mood: Reflective

Dreams and reality, Romantics and the Realists,Foolish and the Practical - Such has been the distinction made between men since ages. Take any field you want - Art, music, science,sports ; There have been people who have followed the norms and there have been people who have broken them to create new ones... Did you ever wonder why? Why is such a distinction required at all?

I've been thinking about this since quite sometime now... I've been wanting to voice out my opinion since a long time now... I guess, I found my voice in "October Sky".. However this post is not about the movie, its about the distinction that our "society" chooses to make.

The world is subjective, lets face it. There is no point in trying to beat around the bush , trying to find out a perfect equation that will model the whole thing and tell you "objectively" whats right and wrong, good and bad. Judgement,prerequires you to possess some standard by which you can judge. Do we have any objective standards?? I guess philosophers and scientists have been trying to figure out an answer to this riddle since quite sometime now. Only difference being that, philosophers were sitting on their armchairs and playing around with words, and Scientists sitting in their laboratories playing around with their equations.. Good and Bad, are nothing but "subjective" interpretations of the underlying reality.. So should anyone tell us what is good for us and bad for us?

Take an example of your own life... Think about those instances, where you get a great idea, a brilliant one, and want to try it out, but you don't... Why? You are afraid of being termed as a fool by the society. You are afraid of being judged. You are more worried about how you'll live in people's minds rather than your actual living.. You could have tried and tested the validity of that thing yourself. But fear of failure stopped you. Fear, that if it fails, you won't have the courage to think "new" again.

Look around you,and you'll find people looking for security in life. Parents want their kids to go to the best schools, score high grades, get a good job which offers a fat paycheck, get a good life partner, and "settle down". Settle down, into a loop - a secure loop,which will guarentee you a secure life. But ask yourself, what would that secure life consist of? What about your dreams, your thoughts , your ideas? What about these intimate things which were yours and only yours, which define you, the reason for why you are the way you are? Let go of them? Let go,to live a life?

Whose life are you living? Your own or the one society has chalked out for you? When the society is talking about high grades, does it say anything about understanding the subject and loving it?

When it talks of a great job with a fat check , does it mention anything about job satisfaction?
When it talks about getting a life partner, does it consider something called "love"? Na.. Why should it? Or rather, how should it? You see, understanding, satisfaction, love cannot be quantified? They are subjective terminologies which can be understood by each person independently. On things like these, you cannot impose standards, can you?

The great things that exist in the world today, which inspire millions to live, were not created within the security loop. They were created due to man's passion for his work. Due to his patience to test nature, and the patience to endure. Due to his ability to enjoy and appreciate the beauty in all things.

You see, a good design has to be creative. And creativity cannot be instilled through injections, or formulae. It is inherent, inborn. Comes out of careful observation and passion. Implementation on the other hand, can be considered a science. After all, all science is nothing but the documentation of things that have successfully worked till now ( and also of those which haven't).

There are people in this world, who just live a life in the secure loop. They treat it as a punishment, some sort of a unwanted mundane routine they have to go through, inorder to remain alive.. Then there are others, who are so impressed with their thought process, that they keep on thinking without bothering to check their thoughts with reality. Mankind needs a combination of both. If you try and look back in your own lives, you'll probably find that some of the happiest moments came when you lived your thoughts.. When you realized them.

Thinking is one thing, and taking appropriate action is completely another. Do both, and you'll see life the way it was never before.. Stick to only one of them, and you'll miss out on the other..
To be happy, you need both O Brother...

Closing Mood:Reflective
Closing Song: Nocturne for Piano no 9 - Chopin.

Hack and Hack until it Yields!

2006-07-14T10:03:00.000+05:30

Opening Mood: Chirpy...
Opening Song: Chandu ke Chacha ne - Aasma ( on 91FM)

Hi.. Back after a long long time.. I was casually going thru my own blog yesterday, and I observed my own categorization of the blogs I read.. There's the Regulars consisting of Theg, N, Kripal, Barki, Numbskulls, wattever and many more.. Then there's the Not-So-Regulars club, who write very seldom or used to write some time back.. I saw the date of my last blog.. June-20th.. The day when bangalore traffic was the worst( Atleast for me!). And it's gonna be a month soon.. I was wondering if I had to put my own blog in the not-so-regular category... Naa, a post in time saves all that trouble...

Blame the corporate world for me not being so regular..

Yeah, the *big bad* corporate world, which makes it's employees slog to death untill the last ounce of energy is squeezed out... This pathetic monster , gives so much work that employees have no time to go back home and enjoy even the teeny-tiny joys of life, like going thru the newspaper, or watching pogo... And the attire.. *yuck yuck* Decked in formals, top to bottom.. With polished shoes on the feet and a smile( a fake one) on their faces. And speaking in polished lingo all the time..

My impression before joining the corporate world, was exactly the same.. However, in these six weeks, the corporate world has proved me wrong..

I work in an organization, that is nothing like what I described above.

There's flexi-timings - meaning you come and go as and when u want. As long as you get the work done, no body has any problems what-so-ever.. I haven't seen most of my fellows in the office for a whole week, but they were working... Working from home!

And the attire, I must admit, I was completely wrong in thinking about all those formals.. The first day, I entered the office *all decked up* and I see my mates in t-shirts,jeans and casual shoes... I was like, have I even entered the right place! To make it worse, my mentor comes to me eyes my formals and says , "We don't dress like this in here... :D" .

The work's even better.. My company pays me for doing what I love the most... Hacking an operating system, trying out all the stunts I want to and writing papers on the results I get!!! (Not to forget filing patents, if the *hack* is really innovative). The entire day, I spend looking at the code openly available, and trying to improve it - adding new features, helping my fellow hackers if they are stuck somewhere, and of-course , reading the LKML the place where you get to know what's everybody else working on... It's like absolute freedom... you get to choose what you work on.. Though, you also gotta take the responsibilty for what you code... But then,responsiblity is always the price you pay for the freedom and I have no hassles with it... And the best part is that your team members are distributed all over the world... Most of them even have other day jobs, and kernel hacking is just a hobby.. Most of them don't even have the computer science background.. But boy, can they code! One of the most-respected persons in the kernel scheduler domain is a doctor by profession!

When you like what you do, work ends up being nothing but play! As a result, I've had no time to post and crib about anything for the past four weeks... But I have no regrets...

Let's hope this honeymoon with kernel hacking continues forever!! Hack and Hack until it yields...

Closing Song: Gapuchi Gapuchi Gam Gam (what does that mean?? ) - Trishul
Closing Mood: Gotta go to work!!

Beam me up Scotty

2006-06-20T11:05:00.000+05:30

Opening Song: None
Opening Mood: Sullen

Its a beautiful Tuesday morning... I wake up at 6 AM.. The song "Here I am" rings in my ears, filling me with hope and joy. I'm ready another great day of my life, I tell myself.

I get into my track suit and go outside..

Kela #1: It rained yesterday. The ground's wet and slippery. Can't jog.

Chill out, I tell myself, there are better things to do... Like what? Hmmm, let me iron my clothes.
I look at the heap of my washed clothes, carry them to the ironing board and begin the job of an Iron-Man!!

Kela #2: The power's playing hide and seek. When it finally comes back, the voltage is not sufficient and starts tripping everytime I switch on the ironbox.

Ditch maga, you've already ironed a pair of trousers and a nice cotton shirt for today.. Find something else to do...
Aha.. my shoes. Lemme polish them... There, they look dark and shiny... I love formals!!

Kela #3: Just, wait can't you?!

8:45 AM ,I am waiting to catch a bus at the banshankari bus stand. Rohit and Vasanti are blabbering something on the Radio City, the music of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna(KANK) is being premiered on Mirchi and on AIR Rainbow *Yaaaawn*, nothing worthwhile.

Kela #4: 201J forgets to stop,somehow. 201G looks as if the people were always hanging from it. Cha, missed two busses.

201M arrives.. It's full, but what the hell, I've gotta get to work, I tell myself and struggle my way in..

It's full of people, who wanna get down at the next stop, but all of whom are buried somewhere in the back-end of the bus. They shove their way out pushing and cursing... I try to shove myself into the interiors. Radio City is doing their 9:10 routine.. Somehow, I manage to get enough space for myself... *Sigh of relief*..

I don't understand one thing. Why do you find so much free space at the back end of the bus, while it's always crowded near the doorway. Why can't people be cooperative.. May be we should start giving commuting classes, like we have those classes where they say -"Fork in the left hand, Knife in the right".

Kela #5: No sooner I start wondering about the commuting classes, than it hits me. All my ironing has gone waste :( My shirt's soiled; My trousers are muddied; My shining shoes, aren't shining anymore.. Kela #3 is finally realized!!

The bus moves at snail's pace... I begin wondering whether motion is what occurs between stops or is it the other way around... The flow of thoughts is interrupted by a certain high pitched nasal voice on the radio ( I don't remember whether it's 91 or 93.3 FM).

Kela #6: I switch channels. The remix version of the same song( high pitched nasal one) is being played here. So I switch to Rainbow(101.3, if you want to...) The RJ's delivering more of "Umm"'s and "aaa" than the dialogues.. Give me a break lady, Either start liking what you do or start doing what you like... Don't torture us and yourself by RJ'ing in such a pathetic manner.

The Bus finally reaches Silk Board, and I begin experiencing pain in my shoulders. It's 9:45... 1 hour for 7Km.. Ridiculous.

Stuck in the traffic,I manage to catch the sight of a plane flying in the sky... Lucky bastards, must be probably getting instructions on what to do when any mishap occurs -Wear the jacket, put on the mask, pull the string and jump outside....

I begin to see the practical demonstration of queueing networks...

To pass time, I start thinking of what can be done to alleviate this problem.

Start coming in early to the office.. Real early, I mean at 6 'o clock.

Or better, follow the US timing.. i.e. 9 P.M to 7 A.M

Buy a dozen of wrinkle free shirt with my first salary.

Somehow convince BMTC to put up 10 decker buses.

Work from home.. Small Office Home Office..

But this was the killer idea finally managed to hit me.. Start a new fund for research in teleportation quantum physics so that we could realize the idea of "Beam me up Scotty".. What say??

PS: I am sorry for writing such a sorry blog. I suck at cribbing.. Priya, Elixer, Barki - Guys, I badly need lessons here... But I am disgusted and extremely pissed off.. I managed to reach my office.. Yeah, thanks to god's grace I finally did; But at 10:45 AM...
Can someone please explain me why do you need 2 hours to cover 15 Km???? Or why should the radio channels keep playing songs of the jacket wearing-beard sporting-nasal singer-cum-music composer every ten minutes?? Sigh, Some questions have no answers...

Closing Song: None...
Closing Mood: Still sullen :(

On Demand Ad World

2006-06-13T09:22:00.000+05:30

Opening song: Saagar jaise aankho waali - Saagar
Opening mood: Calm and composed.

The company which I've joined earlier this month, is quite popular for it's TV ad's, which are not understood by the general public. But, I just love these ads, since most of them are funny in a weird way.

During the induction program, I got to chance to see a few of the ads that weren't on air in India.

One of them goes something like this.

/* Scene: A room, somberly lit. We see on screen two people. One on the couch, looking tense and wiping his forehead (tense guy). The other one seated on a comfortable chair behind a desk (the shrink). */

Tense Guy: I get weird dreams.
Shrink: What kind of dreams?
Tense Guy: Nightmares. I am being chased.

/* Scene cut: A group of men dressed in black cloaks are chasing the tense guy, who's running and gasping for breath. */

(Cut back)

Shrink: Who's chasing you?
Tense Guy: The customers, the distributors,.. Basically everyone.
Shrink: What do they want?
Tense Guy (looking very tense): Everything; Efficiently; Immediately...
Shrink: Hmmm... I see the problem. You are slow, outdated, unable to keep up and in constant denial.
Tense Guy: No - I am not...
Shrink (smiles, without missing the beat): See you are!

/* Scene fade to black. */

The letters "It's an On Demand World" appears.

It's a short ad of about 20 seconds, but it does leave a mark on the minds of the viewers...
Of course, you need to have an active mind for the mark to be inflicted, or you might just miss it!

Closing mood: Feeling sleepy.
Closing song: Jaanu meri jaan.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

2006-06-06T10:34:00.000+05:30

Opening Song: Subhaan Allah - Fanaa
Opening Mood: Recovering from a tiring Bus Journey...

Long back I had heard this quote by this bloke named Mark Twain who said, Truth is stranger than fiction. I laughed at it the first time I heard it!

Today, I present before you an interesting set of coincidences about this guy called Manu N.

Disclaimer: What is listed below is a set of true and verifiable facts.. It has nothing to do with the imagination of anyone ( Especially not the Random Walker). Some of them however may be attributed to the conscious choices made by Manu,the guy himself.

Fact #1: Manu N was my classmate in the Comp. Engg class of 2006 .

Fact#2: Manu N, is a die hard fan of the football club Manchester United, better known as MAN-U.

Now, as we all know, the "coat-of-arms" of this club features a Red-Devil... For the benifit of those who haven't observed it, I've included the logo at the top left corner of this post.

Fact #3:During the last one year while we were residing in EBGF, Manu had christened his Computer as "Red Devil" on the lan.

The connection was obvious!!! And FYI, it was probably the second most accessed comp on the lan after Vyasa's "Whacko", since it contained all the episodes of the popular sitcoms.

Fact #4:Cut back to the present day. Today is 6th June 2006. The day when the remake of the famous old movie The Omen will be released around the globe.

The movie is about this child who has amazing evil powers.
Kindly pay attention to the date. 6th june 2006 - that would be 06/06/06 or 6-6-6... The number of the Devil!!!

Fact #5:And now I present before you, the last fact and probably the most interesting one.Today is Manu N's Birthday! Yes dear friends, our Red-Devil will be growing older by an year this day !!!

Now you know, that Twain wasn't mincing words when he made that statement...

While, I allow all you conspiracy theorists to let your imaginations fly wild, let me take a moment to wish Manu A very Happy Birthday..

Closing Mood: Recovered!! Closing Song: Bindu re Bindu - Kunal Gaanjawaala.

Bye Bye NITK...

2006-05-30T15:06:00.000+05:30

Opening song: I'm leaving on the jet plane - John Denver
Opening mood: Nostalgic.

I was about 10 years old. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon. We were coming back from Mangalore from my cousin's wedding. Usually we take the route via moodubidre, but that eventful afternoon, we went via Mulky. That’s the first time I ever saw this college.. It was called Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC) back then. I told my mom, I wanted to study here when I grew up.. She smiled sarcastically.

Seven years later, I entered this institute as a student of computer engineering... Now, four years later, I’m leaving it...

Many of my batch mates became very sentimental while bidding adieu to the place where we saw ourselves transforming from idealistic teenagers to realistic adults.

How do I feel about it, after these four years???

I've enjoyed my every moment in this place... It was a mini city with a confluence of people from all walks of life. These four years, I have accumulated a lot of memories... I don't want to show any sort of disrespect to any of them by shedding a tear. But, deep inside, I do realize that I'm going to miss a lot of things.. Especially the wonderful set of peers, the surroundings, the beach....

These four years, wouldn't have been so much fun, if it weren't for a few people..

Thamie, Deepak or Dark Huge Ape - My accomplice for these four years... Thanks dude, for all those fundae you shared during all the boring classes... You revived my interest in Lit… I had almost forgotten amidst the preparation for JEE , CET and all that..

Shuaib and Vaiju, my exam buddies.... We studied less and kutched more... Exams were probably the only social get together we had.... Else, we would be enjoying ourselves in our islands of isolation...

My roommates, Karthik, Shivdeep, Pradeep thanks for bearing me for one whole year... I know it was difficult, with all my eccentricities, but you guys did a really great job!!!

Loco-Dons - Chakra,Adarsh, Prasanna, Shuaib, Madhu, Pammi, Sudheer... I never thought I would be a part of this fraternity... But I never said that destiny always agreed with me... It's definitely an honor to be a part of this fraternity..

Katti, Vishwa, Manu, Bhatta, Achar, Nisarg,Sathya, the rock stars of comps class... Great kutchers to have around.... The group discussions wouldn't have been so much fun, if not for you people...

Kavya, Nishka, PK, Archana - Thanks for killing that misogynist in me! I enjoyed every bit of my association with you people!

Madhu, Chetan , Sequiera, Kripal, Chetan Kulki,Balu, Reuben... I enjoyed flying in your elite company...

Seniors of mine, who ragged me, who inspired me, who advised me- Sandeep Yadav, Ananth, Harisha, Abhiman Chatra, Praveena, Pai, Vivin, Roshan, Bhupi, Lyn... Its a great pleasure to pass on the legacy which we inherited from you guys...

And my juniors... Wonderful people to have around - Dhaval, Akshaya, Mads, Kalra, saurabh jain, Swathi, Parkal, Prasad,Arjun,Subbu,Karuna, Priya... You guys rock... Just remember that the college won't work any wonders for you.. You guys are the magicians... Just wave that magic wand of yours and see great things happening...

Four years have gone by like a flash... The feeling is bitter sweet.. This one is to all those guys who helped in making it so special. Thank you.

I know there will be days, when I'll be all alone in my home/room/cabin or wherever, when there will be no power, when it'll be raining cats and dogs outside..... These memories will resurface then... I'll savor them... I'll savor them like a connoisseur....

Closing Mood: Still Nostalgic
Closing Song: On the Road again - Forrest Gump Suite.

You can't take this seat... It's Reserved..

2006-05-23T09:29:00.000+05:30

The game has been played for centuries now… Time has changed, players have changed, and even the rules have changed. However the objective of the game still remains the same.The name of the game, is – “The Power Game”.

It was the kings in the medieval periods, the Cardinals in the dark ages and the Colonizers in the Industrial era. The common denominator was, they were all hungry for power. The modern variant of this power hungry species is the nation’s politician. And it’s latest trick to remain in power – “Reservations in higher educations”, an effective implementations of the age old “Divide and conquer” strategy.

The very phrase “Reservations in higher education” creates in my mind the image of thousands of meritorious students across the country, treading laboriously along the path of knowledge to reach the Temple of Higher education. And when they reach there what do they find? Our politicians guarding the gates and asking them to show their caste certificates... Is this justified??
While these people are walking the hard walk, you see some people being pushed in push carts all the way from the beginning to the gates of the temple and let inside; just because of they have a caste certificate saying they were born in a backward caste. Is this justified??

I have nothing against any category or caste. In fact I choose to ignore the very concept of castes and categories as it is redundant in the globalized world where we are heading. My angst is against the policy and not on the people.

Let us examine the rationale behind the Reservations.

Proponents say, “Equality of opportunity” is one. Doesn’t it mean equality of opportunity to walk the path? Isn’t it already there? Who has stopped anyone in this country from trying to achieve what they want to achieve? Has our society in the past 50 odd years imposed any sort of condition that people from certain caste and category have no right to study certain disciplines? No.

The next reason they say, “Certain castes have been oppressed for centuries”. Right, ok. So let’s solve the problem by trying to eliminate the cause for oppression. What is the cause? It’s not that difficult to answer. The cause has been the act of categorizations and alienation of certain group of people based on their castes. So by imposing reservations, where are we solving the problem? We are in fact implementing the same policy, only the beneficiaries would have changed. In a few years, you may find these other castes claiming that they’ve been oppressed. It’s a vicious cycle.

One more reason given is “Majority our country is made up of people from backward castes.” So you want more reservation because of that?? Isn’t it a shameful admission that for the past 50 odd years, you’ve been asking the “minority” for support in order to uplift the “majority” and yet haven’t been able to make much improvement? And now, you are asking for more. Why? Does any of this make sense? The policy makers are already indebted to the people who despite getting no help from anyone, manage to make their ends meet by sheer hard work. Why do you want to snatch away the reward that’s deserved by this section of the society, and give it to someone else just because he was born in a particular caste?

The policy makers have presented a solution where in the number of seats will be increased so that the general merit students won’t be affected. But more seats means better infrastructure. Who’s going to bear the burden of that??

The most efficient solution, as suggested by many rational citizens over the past few days, would be to invest in primary and secondary education and improve the quality in this sector. Thus, make it possible for everyone to get affordable quality education. But our politicians are not interested in this. Because it’s a hard process and will take a long time. They have to show their progress report every 5 years, and if they go for this kind of a policy, their progress card would have an ‘F’ on it. So instead, they resort to short-cut methods to provide a lift service to the backward classes, instead of enabling them to climb the ladder of progress. However they forget that, once you provide a lift service, you always got to be there to ensure these people manage to keep pace with the others. Once their tenure is done, who is going to take care of that?

Friends, our lethargic attitude towards politics and policy makers is long overdue. Our job doesn’t end once we elect the representatives. We have to ensure that they “represent” what we stand for. Today it is the reservations in the higher education they are trying to impose; tomorrow it might be reservations in the private job sector. And the list will go on.

Hats off to the Medical students of the country for standing up against such an irrational policy. But we have to remember that they are not the only ones who are being affected. We all are and will be, one way or the other, because the quality is going to suffer.

Democracy might be a self correcting system, but it’ll take its own sweet time. No one knows how much that time would be. Hence the important question would be, are you willing to sacrifice that much time of your life because of such irrational policies? Think about it. It’s time to take a stand . It's time to act. Before it’s too late.

In democracy, all fools are equal.
Some are more equal than the others.
It’s because of such a more equal fool,
That a power hungry politician rule…

Say NO to any form of reservation.

Lost and Found

2006-05-18T10:02:00.000+05:30

Opening song: California Dreamin' - The Mamas The Papas
Opening mood: Positive

We take most things for granted, don't we? Only,once we lose something, which we took for granted, we begin to realize the value of it... Sometimes, it's a bit too late...

It was the tuesday night of 16th May. Having finished the Operations Research paper ( 2 bitches down!! ) we celebrated by watching Gangster. It was a ok movie, but this post is not about the movie..

The movie ended at 10. I had to get some notes from Chakra's place, so went with him, asking the rest of the guys ( Katti, achar, shuaib,satya and vaij ) to wait for me at the Saibeen bus stand. Chakra, unfortunately took a wrong turn which caused considerable amount of delay. I reached back to the bus stand, only at 10:20, and it was deserted. My pals waited , waited before taking off on the last bus available...

Now, the week had not been particularly great.. Many people do know, it was a week of kelas and bamboos for me!! So, here I was all alone at the saibeen bus-stand, at 10:30, with no busses, waiting to hitchhike a ride back to the college.

Luckily ( yeah, luck did smile once in a while), there was a press van which offered me a ride back to the college.

I reach the college, at around 11, pay the driver and walk towards the gate.. I could sense something was wrong. I felt my pockets and boy, did it send shivers down my spine... My cell phone wasn't with me!!! I ran after the press van, but it was too late...

One more kela, I told myself and walked back to the hostel... Dejected...

Now, the phone was not mine. I borrowed my roomie's spare set, since mine was conked. When, I told him that I had lost my phone, he was, surprisingly,very cool about it!! I called up Chakra and told him to check out at the saibeen bus stand , but no luck..

I called my cell-phone, and it was ringing.. I just hoped someone would pick it up, but no... To add to my miseries, it was on silent mode.. Nobody could even hear it ring...
I had to put it on silent in the movie theater and forgot to turn it back to normal :(

Wednesday morning, I go to the police station to lodge a complaint, and he asks for the Hostel Warden's recommendation. As my luck would have it, when I come back , the hostel warden wasn't there! I inform my parents and they too were very cool about it, despite the fact that I was negligent - something, which they usually don't excuse. Instead they tell me to concentrate on my exams... Yeah, I had Software Engineering on Thursday.

Everyone I met, expressed his condolences and stated that the probability of getting it back was very less, so I better forget about it... Thanks for those encouraging words.. I know you were only being realistic.

I cursed myself for taking things so lightly.. I mean, in 2 years, I've screwed up one cell phone, got the other one drunk on sea water, lost the back cover of my roomie's cell ( I was lucky to find it though) and now, I had lost it.. Nice statistics for a person who is gonna enter into the real world of responsibilities in a few weeks..

I call my cell again and again.. It was still ringing... Meaning, nobody had found it out yet.

Thats when the thought strikes me.. Why not try my luck one last time... At 10:45, along with Katti,shuaib and vaij, I go to the highway. We stop every Maruti Omni, with a hope that it would be the press van.

Somewhere around 11, a white Van stops. It's the same Maruthi Van. The same driver. I explain him the situation.

"Cell phone?" - He asks.
I nod my head.
He gestures me to hold on, opens the glove compartment of the van, and lo!!

There was my cellphone.. Intact.. just the way it was when I had lost it... I profusely thanked the chap.. He just nodded his acceptance.. I guess he was in a hurry.. He just sped away...

Good people do exist in the world.

I hope that the kela week has ended!! I vowed to be more careful about my things in the future.. Did it all happened just to teach me a lesson?? Whatever, I had learnt mine..

Only once we lose something , we begin to realize the value of it... Sometimes, it's a bit too late... Only Not this time :))

Ending Mood: Jubilant
Ending Song: Coward of the county - Kenny Rogers.

Lord(s) of the Ring

2006-05-02T00:41:00.000+05:30

Opening Song: Wonderland - Crazy Frog
Opening Mood: Ha, with a song like this in the background, you expect me to be morose??!!!

"....It’s something unpredictable, But in the end its right,

I hope you had the time of your life..."

Lenon was strumming his guitar... We were sitting in the living room of Lyn's house, sipping the evening tea, and humming the lyrics of this Greenday song on Saturday, 29th of April...

Shuaib looked at his watch -" Dude, it’s time to leave. Its 5 'o clock already and the ring ceremony is at 6!!”.

Boy, we really had to hurry to reach college, have a bath, shave and dress up in formals.

I wore a white shirt, a black pant and a red tie. (One red ribbon around my waist and a black hat, and my magician's attire would have been complete!)

We did everything at double the speed so that we can attend the ring ceremony "in time" at 6:30 (C’mon... we've not attended the classes in time, you expect us to attend this one in time??).

I was right about being in time... the ceremony began at 6:30! (It happens only in India...)

We were told to sign a pledge, and hear the words of wisdom spoken by a few lecturers (As if classes weren't already boring enough!). The chief guest spoke well. He managed hold us captivated for quite some-time [Sir, you really have the talent :)].

Shruthi Shastry, the GR, summarized the experiences of the girls. She was in her usual "natural - acting" mode (Guys, this is not an oxymoron... It’s a talent some people do possess). She ended her discourse saying - "I don’t know about the guys, but we girls have seen it all!!"... I really wonder if they have... I mean seen it ALL??!

Sahil Barua, spoke on behalf of the guys, and boy, I tell you that was one hell of a nostalgic speech... He took us down the memory lane, rather danced us down it... Ended the speech with the awesome line from DCH -" Hum dost the, dost hai, aur rahenge - Hamesha...” Yo! Dude, that we shall remember…

This was followed by the presentation of the silver ring. The ring symbolized our lifelong "commitment" to the alma-mater!! I did a wise thing by wearing it on my middle finger! (Well, I want to reserve my ring finger... for a GOLDen one!)

After this, the hi-fi junta got out their point-and-click devices and the photogenic junta posed... The survivors were shot again and again! People made sure that every female was covered at least once (Compsci’s refer back to the graph cover problem for the funda. IT people, as usual ask thy neighbor!) .

We decided to celebrate the "Engagement" at Kalash (With the kind of financial crisis we are currently in, you expect us to go to Palkhi?? Shame on you!)

Chakra and Balu decided to shoot the strong Mallya's Bird, while Reuben, Madhu and I asked Chetan "Dude, Life's calling... Where are you??” Somehow, Chetan chose to ignore the question... I think Shuaib owes him 200 bucks for his abstinence. The food... Na, I don't remember... I was too busy climbing (on) the rocks!

By now, I guess most of us were in the heightened state of consciousness... The "Films Club" was showcasing "Mohabbatein" (YUCK!!) that night... This was keeping in mind the volatile senti state the final years were in...

When we reached the SAC, I realized I had lost the back portion of my cell phone! Oops... That meant Shuaib and I had to go all the way back, searching all along the road less traveled, before we could finally find it under our table at Kalash. (Now that's luck...). I owe Gauri (Major) a "Munch" for borrowing his bike...

Anyway, we came back and danced like crazy... I had always enjoyed the movies from the hot film's club balcony, but this was really fun... Every arbit person came and hugged you as if you were going on a war and he may never see you again... For some reason, I reciprocated with equal generosity... I guess it made them happy... They then did a step or two (Don't bother which one... All steps appear the same in our jungle dance!) before going to hug the next available person.

Some people broke down into tears at the end of the movie... No, it was not the sentiments in the movie, or even the pathos caused by its screening that stimulated the tear glands... People just got senti... I guess they realized that the ring ceremony marked the "beginning of the end" of our days in this college. It was really difficult to console some of them...

I tried hard, but not even a single drop came out. (I mean, drop of a tear…) Well, I guess its waiting for the last day (I doubt even that!)

Well, I was back in my room at 3:30 in the night and chatted for sometime. But not for too long… I was too exhausted... I had never danced like this before... Mukesh was wailing on Pradeep's comp... I guess it was an invitation to sleep.... I slept... I dreamt... I had now become "Lord of the Ring"...

PS: I forgot to mention, Pattu got the golden ring for being the best outgoing student... Congrats dude... Sorry, but trivial things like these, somehow just slip out of the mind...

Ending Mood: Man, this song kicks ass...: D
Ending Song: Whoomp - Crazy Frog.

Time:9:00 P.M
Date:1st May, 2006

Hard Work

2006-04-28T11:15:00.000+05:30

So you thought there was some kind of a lift all the way up the peak of success???

Heights by great men reached and kept
Were not obtained by sudden flight
But, while their companions slept,
They were toiling upward in the night

-H.W.Longfellow

Well, think again...

Bored and Waiting

2006-04-26T16:07:00.000+05:30

Opening Song : None
Opening Mood: Its Redundant, Its Redundant!!

Hello, there... I guess you are as jobless as I am right now.. Since I am writing this thing without giving much thought to it, I hope you are reading it without giving a great deal of thought either...

I worked hard.. After all producing a 40 page report is not such a easy task.. Filling up the pages requires a lotta talent... Not everyone has it.. and Certainly not me..

So yeah, as I said, I had to work hard for it. And finally it was over yesterday. Exhausted, that I was, I still had to finalize the demo.

Again, getting a demo ready is not an easy task either especially when you don't have a great GUI, no flashy animations, and no Windows.. I mean to say, it is so easy, that it looks so simple and the evaluator can easily dismiss it saying "Is this all you did for one whole year???!!"

My demo, ( which I intend to believe that it is a work of art) requires you to run a simple shell script, which will do all the compilations, check all the dependencies, and produce a few graphs as output. Not a very hi-fy thing for a layman. But it shows the immense potential for saving lots of power if the operating system is given more fine grained control over the hardware...
[I know all this is greek to you, but I am jobless, so deserve to be excused.]

Yeah, so coming back to the potential, which my project work does posess, I just hope the evaluator sees what we saw.. I hate to tell it, but this is a subjective world my friend... [ Sorry Miss Rand :( ] Not everyone SEE's the same thing even ,when they all see the same thing.

So I carry my system, [ No autorickshaw :( ] all the way from the hostel block, to the department, hoping to get over with the demo.. I sit here, and I wait. I am eager , to show the potential of my project to the world [ Right now, the evaluator is the world to me].. Only to be told by the world that it's too busy today. So we shall have it tomorrow... So my wait continues...

There are people here, behind me, beside me... We are all in the lab.. Not everyone's waiting. Some are taking print outs of their project report.. Some are using the google talk [ That's one hell of a smart chat thingie ever invented!], Some are expanding their social contacts thru the forum created by this geeky PhD student from Stanford... Google translator has helped people cross the language barriers, and people can talk to people in any language.. Everyone seems to be happy with the fact that the demo has been postponed..

Yeah, I feel I should mention here that Vishwa, the knuth has managed to see "Top gun".. Though he could not really understand how Val Kilmer could play a negative character!! [ He saw "The Ghost and the Darkness" just before watching "Top Gun"].

And , for your information, I finally managed to watch "The Gladiator". So I hope,I don't have to go and hang myself anymore..

And "The Wall" and "Thamie" who refused to acknowledge the existance of Arthas and Frostmourne, kindly check these url's. They are as real as Mr Arthur and Mr Merlin.

I am running out of stuff to kutch.. But that does not change the fact that I am Bored and Waiting...

Closing Mood: Again, Its Redundant, Its Redundant...
Closing Song: None..

On His Blindness

2006-04-23T14:10:00.000+05:30

Opening song: None
Opening Mood: Delighted.. Solved SuDoKu in the Operations Research Sessionals!

I know I've been just copy pasting stuff , in the past few posts, but I guess I can't help it.. Not that I'm out of ideas or anything, they are very much there, but no time to put them into words ... I very much believe in what Michaelangeo said - "Triffles make perfection, but perfection is certainly no triffle".So I've decided to wait and write a neat post when I get time for it.

Now for some arbit fundae I know about the poet John Milton.
Conspiracy theorists say, he was a prominent member of the infamous "Illuminati" and in his masterpiece, "Paradise Lost" , Satan, somehow gets more prominence than God himself! No wonder, Al Pacino's character was named John Milton in the Devil's Advocate!
Anyway, this is a poem called "On his Blindness" by John Milton. Had it in high school, don't exactly remember when.. But loved it back then...

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,—
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask:—But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts, who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:—
They also serve who only stand and wait.

As we observe, Milton, (who did go blind) is really worried that he would not be able to utilize his talents to his fullest extent due to his disability, and hence,won't beable to serve God. In this angst , he asks "does God expect work from even those who are denied of light?". But good sense prevails and he realizes that God does not expect any living being to attribute their work to Him. Those who manage to face the situation, whether good or bad, and overcome it successfully, they render the best possible service.

There is a very strong sense of Karma in this poem. The last line, especially tells a lot about it. "They also serve who only stand and wait". Does it really matter what task we do, as long as we enjoy doing it? Should we try to do what we enjoy or,rather try and enjoy what we are doing?
Is doing just about anything and everything a compromise? I really don't think so.

As long as you believe in walking the path and enjoying the walk, the destination that you are heading for doesn't really matter. Because, you would have enjoyed the entire journey before you would have reached the destination. Hence , what's more important is probably, giving everything that we have in what we do.

I really can't help it ,I guess - Howard Roark's shouting aloud in my mind-
"Peter, before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done.But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences."

Closing Mood: Reflective.
Closing song: None.
2:10 P.M
23 April 2006

IF

2006-04-17T10:54:00.000+05:30

Opening Song: None, They don't allow songs at the digital library. Can hear the swirl of the fans though..
Opening Mood: I'm happy, Did well in sessionals,without preparation.

I was browsing the net for arbit stuff, and in the blog of one of my friends, found this poem titled "IF" by Rudyard Kipling..
I first saw this poem on Shivdeep's wall , two years ago when he was my roommate.. Its been sort of an anthem,for since then... I guess, I was reading "The Anthem" at the same time!

Anyway lets read it..

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

People might say, this is a passive preachy poem.. May be, but its a wise one.. Hence, a nice one..

Closing Mood: Happy..
Closing Song: Well , its complete silence now... Even the Fans have been switched off!!
11:00 A.M
17 April, 2006

Sleeping Child

2006-04-15T11:02:00.000+05:30

Opening Music : Tu hi meri.. - Gangster
Opening Mood : Light...

Well, I'm sitting here, at Nettin, the only nearby cyber cafe, as our institute Computer Center is packed with the first years playing some arbit flash games..
And right in front of me at Nettin, is this huge poster entitled "The Wonder of Life"... It has a picture of a sleeping child and the following wordings...

They are born with the
Innocence as we, as adults,
spend the rest of our
lives trying to reclaim.
They do not judge
or have trouble
expressing themselves.
Instead ,they appreciate
the wonders of life.
They are the best of ourselves,
magical creations of our souls
who live only to love
and be loved.

We watch every day
as they change,knowing
there is nothing we
can do to delay
this precious time..

Embrace the moment..

Its kinda strange I'm reading this now... Because for the past few days I've been reading this book called "The Tao of physics" by Fritjof Capra... where he tries to establish parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern mysticism.. In one of the chapters where he speaks about Zen, he makes a mention of the buddhist thought which says that the buddha exists in us when we are born .. And throughout our lives , we try to get back to the buddha state where we are all innocent and one with our environment.. Its kinda a process of unlearning, which will lead to a state of tranquility and happiness..

I'm not sure if the person who made the poster had a simillar thought in his mind...

( Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction seems to be of no help here.. )

But its quite strange that when you are thinking about a certain thing, you seem to encounter that thing at every walk of your life.. It's as if the nature know's what you are thinking about and is trying to stimulate that thought by offering related instances or examples..

Nature's one mysterious entity...

Closing Mood: I'm thinking...

Closing Song: Samjhona - Himesh Reshammiya

11:30 A.M

15 April, 2006

Thee - War( Hindi )

2006-04-12T11:07:00.000+05:30

Opening Song: Please Forgive Me-Bryan Adams.
Opening Mood: Happy, happy :)

VJ:" Aaj mere paas gaadi hai, bangla hai, rupya hai, izzat hai,shuhrat hai... Tumhare paas kya hai?"
RV:"Mere paas... Mere paas Maa hai...."

So here we are in the ground floor of our beloved NITK's 8th hostel block, on an hot monday afternoon, tryin to watch a movie, since our sessionals had been cancelled.
Vishwa, the knuth of our class, had not seen "Top-Gun".. Now , how shameful can that be?? 4 years being in the college, with a lan that's like the movie database containing
some of the classics in the history of movie making, and you did not watch top-gun?? P'thetic.

And Thamie ,my accomplice for four years, the man who can have multiple sarcasms without having to fake it, decides , we're gonna treat vishwa with "Top gun" this
afternoon... But what a shame?!! The college lan, which boasts of having the classics in the history of movie making, does not have "Top-Gun".. Each complacent
dunderhead, hoping to save some space on his disk and hoping that some other dunderhead would still have the movie, deleted the movie off, there by leaving us with
nothing else to do, but.....

"Machcha, we have Deewar da...", Thamie sends out the war cry..

I enter the room when VJ, the hero of the movie, the tall lanky chap buys off a huge building for his mum, only to find out that his bro, Ravi ( The chubby chubby police
officer) has a document for him to sign... [ Deewar reflects "The wall" of idealogies between the two brothers.]

Killer dialogues included

"Jao, us aadmi ka sign leke aao , jisne meri haath pe ye likh diya ki mera baap chor hai... Uske baad, tu jahan bhi sign karne ko bologe, mein karoonga.." ,

"Khush to bahut hoge tum aaj. Woh aadmi, jisne aaj tak tumhari puja nahi ki, woh aaj tumhari chaukat par apni maa ki jaan ki bhik maange aaya hai.."

and the most famous one of all -

"Mere Paas MAA hai..."

The movie is definitely hilarious by present standards. But what was more fun was that our Thamie was in one of those rare "I'm a 16 year old sarcastic school boy" moods...
Every time a killer dialogue comes up, Thamie pauses the movie and gives us a glorious display of his dramatic skills... His rendition of Nirupa Roy is too good.. Those raised
eyebrows, the mouth wide open, hands on the chest , taking deep breath before delivering a dramatic dialogue...Simply awesome.

We also came up with this theory that the path of a righteous hindi movie is very much decided by how much time is left in the movie.. The more the time is left, lesser the
chances of something good happening and greater the chances of things getting screwed up in the most unlikely manner.. And the lesser the time is left, greater the chances
of all sorts of miracles happening...

All and all, we had a good time, thanks Mr. Yash Chopra, the man who makes mushy-mushy movies these days,( This in no way implies that deewar was a serious and a
thought provoking movie)we managed to beat the hot summer afternoon sun, being treated to such a classic.

Please note that the title (Deewar) has nothing to do with the fact that Rahul Dravid is called "The Wall". So all you controversy theorists, don't let that thought even cross
your mind.

Highlight of the afternoon:

Thamie pauses the movie and putting up a serious face, " One day Pran and Amitabh Bacchan were waiting for a bus at a bus stop. The bus arrives, and the conductor allows pran inside, but not Bacchan... why???"
Me and Vishwa are scratching our heads,and ...
Thamie kutches " Praan jaaye, par bacchan na jaaye"!!

Final word: Thamie: " Machcha, we must watch more classics like these da..."

Closing Mood: Still happy :).
Closing Song: Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan.
Time:7:45 P.M
Date:10th April 2006.

Magic of Yanni

2006-04-10T14:07:00.000+05:30

Opening music: Nightingale-Yanni.
Opening mood:Reflective.

They say, sometimes when you don't know what you're looking for, but still continue looking, you are likely to find the most interesting of things.

That was true in my case.

Way back during by 10th summer holdidays, I was ramshackling my grandma's cupboard hoping to find something interesting inside. I found a lot of old utensils, some old photographs, necklaces of beads and a few music cassettes..Most of them were Mukesh's Dard bhare geeths.
But there was one cassette which surprised me - "Dare To Dream" by Yanni.

I had not been exposed to the world of western music as yet. So listening to Yanni was like some sort of an eye opener.. The music was so rich.. So many instruments being played in tandem, and how well they all synchronized.. It was like poetry , only without words but sounds..

I do remember most of the songs from that album. There was Once upon a time, So long my friend, A love for life, Face in a photograph, Aria, In the mirror, Felista and few more.. I simply enjoyed it. It was definitely a treat for the ears..

That cassette was quite a rage when I was in First year engineering.. I remember, borrowing the cassette player from Adarsh's room on those rainy evenings,when we could not go out to play, just to listen to Yanni's music.

During my next visit to bangalore, I bought the whole of Yanni's collection.. And it was, trust me , mindblowing ...

Some lovely songs like Keys to Imagination, Nostalgia, Nightingale, One Man's dream.. Songs are like anthems, which will inspire you , and lift your spirits whatever the initial mood be..

When I think of Yanni, I can imagine the music starting off with one piano , and slowly the violins emerge out of nowhere, and then there will be a magical flute, and the drums chip in, with some occasional clap of hands, and a sudden silence with the piano going solo again for sometime, but not for too long.. the violins come along, complementing, filling the gaps,creating a perfect balance between sound and silence.. and then there'll be a long pause.. You'll be waiting and suddenly the music follows as if nothing ever happened.. The pitch slowly rising, the confluence of the instruments, and you find that all the instruments are being played in tandem and there is a crescendo... My god, the experience is simply exhilarating..

It is said, that the ancient Indian mystics,especially the buddhists, used to meditate for hours together, to unlearn and empty their minds of thoughts so that it would be clean and fresh again for a refill.. In my case, the music of Yanni does the same. Switch on the comp, put on the headphones, load the xmms playlist with Yanni , just close your eyes and allow the music to lead the way. You don't need to think. The music creates the thoughts. The images are formed and broken, you see darkness, you'll see flickers of light and all of a sudden a bright beam of light
simply blinds you. This happens when the instruments reach the crescendo. The clinging of cymbals , creates the images of waves crashing against the rocks with great force and then slowly receding..

Whether it's the haunting oriental flute of "Nightingale" creating images of a samurai's sword swiping its way through the bamboo field, or the piano refrains in "In the mirror" reminding you of a wind chime slowly rotating about its axis , each sound fits in so beautifully and yet each one manages to create an identity of its own.

You simply cannot feel sad when you listen to Yanni. Atleast I can't. Either the songs are inspiring you to go ahead and dream big, or they are consoling you when one of your dreams hasn't come true, but they never plunge you into depression nor do they crib about losses.

I am no great connoisseur of music, but this kind of instrumental music makes me happy. Whether it is great or not, simply doesn't matter. Its good enough for me. And I hope in the future, it'll continue to be.

2:45 P.M
3rd April 2006

Introduction to what's coming.

2006-04-07T12:14:00.000+05:30

Life is one hell of a journey, and probably the only one worth writing about.. I had to choose a platform for documenting my experiences in this journey.. That's why I chose blogging.

I hope to write about anything that even remotely touches me, anything that makes me feel life's worth living, anything I find inspiring..

I hope to post lotsa tales, lotsa reviews ,lotsa experiences of my own as well as lotsa other interesting stuff which I may find while browsing the "web"..

I hope, the language wouldn't be a barrier in translating my experiences into words.

I hope I can translate even the most subtle feeling with minutest details...

I hope.....