Murphy's Law At Work

Musings of a Confused Mind

2008-05-25T19:20:00.007+05:30

I love Marvin.

For those of you who have the annoying habit of jumping to wrong conclusions, Marvin is my Macbook Pro and not a guy.

Leopard rocks. Again, do not jump to conclusions, Leopard is the Mac Operating System.

The reason for this announcement is the discovery of google blogger widget for Mac. It allows me to blog directly from Marvin without logging into blogger directly. It just provides basic functionality for now but I am hoping it will get better.

Past few weeks have been tumultous (once again).Why can’t I have a normal 9-5 life? Because I would hate it. I prefer things to be like this and a tad unpredictable.

A change of job, change of environment, adjustment to the new place. Let’s just say that the Piscean in me is at its most dominant in such situations.

And the next few weeks are going to be hectic again. Loads of work other than the office stuff going on. Next few weeks are going to be something to look forward to.

The upper management at my new job takes training of the associates pretty seriously. I have seen people groan saying "Not one more session on oral communication or written communication". What most people do not realize is that no two training sessions are the same as the personality of the trainer makes it different for each session. And learning never stops.

Two training sessions stand out from the rest:

1. Influencing Techniques: I realized how much my mom uses them consciously or unconsciously. Just as an example:
Mom: Son, get married
Me: Mom no. I am still a kid.
Mom: Ok then atleast get a haircut.
That's what my mom does to get me a haircut whenever I go home. Classic example of Influencing Techniques.

2. Leadership Development
Now I have a different view point of leader from most people. I believe Leaders are either born or become so because of the circumstances. One cannot train a person to be a leader.

I have had a fascination with entrepreneurs for as long as I can remember. Again, entrepreneurs, leaders, managers are confusing concepts.

Entrepreneurs by definition make for bad managers. A leader need not be an entrepreneur but vice versa is not true.

But as regular readers (if any) of my blog know, I really do not like discussing serious stuff. People assume I am not well if I talk serious stuff.

The thing that made that training session stand apart was a story of making split second decisions and making tough decisions. A story of leaders in the army. The story was “The Rope” by Capt. Raghu Raman. In hindsight, calling it a story/case study etc seems demeaning. So I’ll refer to it as “The Rope”. One can find it here

I am not looking forward to being sued for copyright violation. So the disclaimer that no word of “The Rope” belongs to me. “The Rope” is sole property of Capt. Raghu Raman. I would have liked to have his permission to share “The Rope” on my blog but I could not find any contact details for him. In case, he sees this, I request him not to sue me as I am under a huge debt already.

Jumping to the next thing I want to write about. The most abused word in English Language. SORRY. Do anything, just say a sorry. Repeat it and say Sorry again. A cab driver hit my bike from behind on one signal and said “Sorry”. Next signal, he again does it and says “Sorry”. The food delivery boy to my place messes up my order every day and says “Sorry”. A dialogue from Mr India comes to my mind "Soon people will commit murders and say Sorry".

For those who are not interested in sports, anime or movies, the post ends. Please leave a comment so as to motivate me to continue blogging once in a while. That is if you want me to.

Real Madrid win La Liga for the second time in a row. Yipeeee. The team needs just a more GOOD defender (good bcoz RM just sign defenders and not good defenders) and one CONSISTENT creative midfielder (consistent because Guti is not. And no I do not want CR7. I want Diego).

Euro 2008 is about to begin. Again, I am supporting Spain (I love their style of football. But then again I also love the game of Arsenal who have been trophyless for a while now). However, I think Germany and Italy are the strongest contenders.

RR win IPL against all odds. Goes to show how important the Leader of a team is. Gr8 show. IPL is here to stay. Atleast, it gives something to watch other than the K-serials.

Watched Strangers & Indiana Jones over the weekend. Strangers is a good concept but Indian Directors have something against making fast paced thrillers. It is too slow & hence, not gripping. Indiana Jones is ok movie. Not really as gud as earlier Indiana Jones movies.

Loads and loads of movies to look forward to this summer. The Dark Knight (Anticipation is driving me crazy. Batman movie directed by Chris Nolan with Joker as the villain. Look for a post on Batman in some time), The Incredible Hulk (Ed Norton plays the Incredible Hulk), Wanted (Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman. Promos look really good) and Righteous Kill (Al Pacino & Robert De Niro together for only the second time in Indian movie history. Need I say more?).

Time to sign off. Next post on Batman in a fortnight.

Blogathon Day 1, Sunday April 20 2008: Infrastructure-How can we improve the traffic condition in our city?

2008-04-20T06:07:00.011+05:30

The city in this case would be Bangalore-The IT Hub of India.Just to give you an idea of the traffic condition in Bangalore, everyone in Bangalore - the auto wallah, bikers, car users, company transport users & so on curses the traffic atleast once a day.

Traffic conditions are not just a well accepted excuse for being late but are also used extensively as an ice-breaker in discussions.In you are at a party, new to your company or a first timer in Bangalore,just walk up to any random group and say "Man what traffic !!".You would be accepted immediately as a fellow sufferer and a long heated discussion on Bangalore traffic would follow.The car owners will say bikers are at fault.Bikers would say the issue is with bus drivers and auto wallahs.Bus drivers and auto wallahs would pass the blame too. All this is apart from the usual grovel on condition of roads,one-ways,lack of a public transport etc.So as evident, traffic conditions form a huge chunk of conversations across the city.

Everyone knows what the Govt should do.They should provide nice,smooth,8 lane roads throughout Bangalore.Sorry not gonna happen in the near future.Public transport i.e. Metro would take a few years to get completely operational.

However I would say that instead of these long term projects, Govt can take a look at smaller issues to take care of the bigger picture e.g. Parking Space.The Govt should take a cue from the West and invest on building parking complexes.Say we have one such parking complex in the vicinity of MG Road. All the space on Brigade Road, Church Street etc that is currently being occupied as parking for vehicles would get free leading to widening of roads for traffic as well as reduction in traffic.Ofcourse this would mean that public would have to walk for some distance.I for one would not mind it and I think many others would not either. Most of the techies in B'lore could use the exercise anyway as they spend most of their time on their desks.

Better roads automatically result in smooth flow of traffic and less congestion. Now roads like Airport Road, 100 feet Road, Banerghatta Road etc are amongst the better roads in the city.The issue starts once you leave the main road for a side street.Here the citizens can take an initiative with societies pooling in money to build the 2-3 km roads.Or corporates can undertake it as CSR (I am not really sure if it would come under CSR but I am assuming that building better roads for the society can be considered CSR)

However,having better roads is just one part of the solution.Airport Road, Marathalli Bridge etc are areas that have good roads but are forever jammed.

Let me take an example.I used to go for work by the company cab.The cab had a capacity of about 15 people but on a normal day around 7-8 seats were occupied. Many people living in the same area would come to the office late by their own vehicle. Here I believe the willingness of the citizens with a little incentive from the Govt. can work miracles.If people are willing to use the company cab by going office an hour earlier than their usual time (& coming early too), the number of vehicles on the road would go down.One of the reasons why people prefer their own vehicles is the cost effect. In case, going by the company cab comes out to be more expensive than personal transport, people would prefer personal vehicles.Govt subsidy/tax cuts for companies operating their own transport would allow the company to cut the costs and pass on the benefits to its employees.

Traffic congestion is a given at the time of office hours.Hence it would really be beneficial if companies at can co-ordinate the cab timings amongst themselves.Lets take the example of Whitefields.If one-third of companies EOD is at 6, next one-thirds at 6:20 and the last one-third at 6:40 and similar timings for morning cabs, the number of vehicles on the road for those 20 minutes would reduce and so would the congestion.

Finally, the most in-vogue solution of the day-Car Pooling.A gr8 idea.For those who are not aware of the concept, car-pooling is basically a group of people with same/nearby offices can co-ordinate amongst themselves to go daily in a single vehicle.That would save costs for everyone of them, reduce fuel consumption and bring down the number of vehicles on road.However car-pooling is a bit tricky to implement because of lack of info.However, an online application might be the answer.CommonFloor.com an online web portal dedicated to making lives better in Apartment Complexes is planning to come up an web interface for the same.Here I would like to add the disclaimer that the promoters of CommonFloor.com are my batchmates from IIT Roorkee.However this post is not motivated by any commercial interests or marketing gimmick.This is just being used as an example of how carpooling can be implemented.Following is a sample UI of the application being developed by CommonFloor.com

Similar applications or communities on social networking sites would go a long way in helping with car-pooling.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize the point that instead of looking at big solutions of a big problem, there might be a number of small solutions which can each make a little bit of difference.The overall result would surely be one step closer to solving the traffic problems of Bangalore.Howerver, most of the above mentioned solutions would need full support as well as initiative from the citizens as well.A dedicated group of people with maybe support from a NGO could do wonders for this.It is my sincere request that kindly let me know if anybody is aware of such NGO. Also, if there is a group of citizens working towards this or interested in working towards this, please count me in.

blogathonindia,
blogathonindia1

Reservation Quotas

2008-04-12T01:03:00.001+05:30

Back after a long time. Seems like a different life. There have been too many happenings, so many changes.

It took some introspection on my part to answer the question, "Why dont I blog regularly?". I like writing.I havent been blogging very often, so it cannot be a case of "Writer's Block".The no of people reading my blog has never affected me, so why?

Guess its in the nature of a Piscean not to be too open.Maybe because I had decided that this blog would not deal with social issues,computer games,anime so on & so forth.However, that condition no longer applies.So I am hoping to blog a lot more often (fingers crossed).

So what have I been upto lately.I quit my job(That's why the change of blog title).Not that I got another offer or something.I just wasnt finding it fulfilling enough and frankly speaking it had become very monotonous.It just felt right to end that association.So I am now jobless by choice and on a sabbatical trying to get my life into perspective.

But the best news of the past 1 year or maybe longer is that one of the things on my bucket list is taken care of. Actually three if you count "Attending a live Iron Maiden Concert" and "Finishing a Death-By-Chocolate ice-cream all by myself".Now only about a thousand more to go. But getting back to the third thing......

The third thing was getting a Macbook Pro.Yeah people, I am now the proud owner of Marvin i.e. my new Macbook Pro. For those who cannot make the connection, the name comes from the Paranoid Android in Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy.C3PO and R2D2 were also close runners but Marvin's dry humor and sarcasm is unmatched.

However, this post is not intended to be about me.But being the narcissist that I am, couldnt help mentioning the few most important things.

Reservation. The buzz word for the past 2 years.Ever since Arjun Singh proposed 27% reservation of OBC, the nation (atleast the youth) have been up in arms."Dilution of brands","Unfair treatment" etc etc are the reasons being given.

Lets get this thing clear first of all. A nation which differentiates between individuals on the basis of birth might never achieve the true greatness it is capable of .Ability should be the sole criteria on which a person should be judged.Anything else race,sex,birthplace etc etc just brings down the standards and nothing else.

Not to say that I am against reservation.It is a well known fact that a discrimination in terms of opportunities has been there.If some people have borne the brunt of this discrimination, they fully have the right to demand preferential treatment elsewhere.

But as always, a good idea doesnt necessarily translate into a good implementation.Reservation has steadily become a way of gaining votes.

If I m not too wrong, there was a 22.5% reservation for SC/ST candidates in JEE 2002. Add 27% reservation for OBC and you have 49.5% reservation in IITs(I might be wrong here so any corrections are appreciated).So only about half the people in IITs would be able to say that "I am here on my merit, nothing else"? Now being an IITian I can say that the biggest differentiator between IITs and rest of the engineering institutions in the country is JEE.With a selection of about 8000 people out of 250,000, the IITs can very well stake the claim to having the Crème de la crème of the country (There is a minority who do get through on pure luck e.g. yours truly but that debate is for another day).Tampering with the selection process is pure blasphemy.So how about free competition for selection.Once a candidate proves himself to be worthy of a seat in an IIT, he can be given whatever the Govt wants.Low fees, all books, scholarship anything.

But if the Govt wants to continue like this, I have one request. Can we please have a heading on the gradesheets as well as the final degree which states the category of the candidate? If a candidate has the guts to mark a small circle on the OMR in the entrance form, he should very well have the courage to stand up for his decision.Sounds fair?
I am ready to bet that no candidate under reserved category will agree. After all, it would hit their credentials that they did not compete fairly which would translate into less opportunities to go abroad for further education,reluctance on the part of Private recruiters, so on & so forth.
Ohh wait, but the Govt is contemplating reservation in Pvt Sector too.They do have the best of minorities at their hearts.Who cares about the majority anyway.

SC (One of the few places in the country where logic & good of the people seems to prevail) has passed the bill with a few reservations (Pun unintended). The creamy layer cant take benefit of reservations. Totally agree. If one generation in a family has made use of the reservations for their upliftment,it shouldnt be allowed to do so anymore.
No reservations in post graduation.Again, agree. Once a person has gotten into top college for graduation on the basis of reservation,he shouldnt be allowed to use it for post graduation but this is where the loopholes begin.IIMs do not offer a post graduate degree. They offer PGDM i.e. Post Graduate Diploma in Management which holds its own against any MBA.BUT Govt might be able to claim that IIMs give out diplomas & force them to accept the reservation too.Lets wait & watch on this.
One observation on the part of SC that had me laughing was that the no of communities under OBC has steadily gone up since independence.So either the Govt discovers new communities which they didnt know existed OR the whole "India Shining" is a sham while in reality India is steadily declining in terms of social equality.

The statistic that I would really like to know is the
(No of Selections in general category)/(No of people appearing in general category) and
(No of Selections in Reserved)/(No of people appearing in reserved category)
to get a clearer picture.

All said & done, reservation in its current format is flawed. There are students in IIT Roorkee planning a "No CAT 2008" campaign. People think its their loss.I beg to differ.Talent will come out on its own.It doesnt depend on the institute, conditions or the country.And they blame us for Brain Drain....

As a sign of respect to my readers, no football (& no its not because of the fact that Real Madrid is out of CL), no cricket (not because of India's horrible loss) and no anime (not because Itachi Sama is no longer with us. R.I.P. Itachi sama.U'll always be in our hearts.sniff sniff)

Disclaimer: Couldnt help the last para.After all such things do define my blog.Topic might be serious but I hate being serious for one whole post.If some of that stuff is Greek to you, I apologize for spoiling ur serious mood

Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows: Unanswered Questions

2007-07-18T15:49:00.000+05:30

Two of us, me & Shradz got together to discuss the unresolved questions in Harry Potter so far. Nice timepass. Here is the outcome of approx 4 hours of hard work.

The unanswered Questions:

1. The Horcruxes
Dumbledore says Voldemort would have 7 Horcruxes: 2 belonging to the founders of Hogwarts, 1 the diary in Chamber of Secrets, 2 that he has destroyed, 1 being Voldemort himself. That leaves 1 more.
Dumbledore mentions Nagini as being the last one. However, cant the last one be Harry? After all, Dumbledore did mention in Chamber of Secrets that Voldemort transferred some part of himself in Harry without intending to (that's how Harry became a parseltongue). If Harry is the last one, then he has to die to kill Voldemort.
Or could it be both Nagini & Harry? Nagini was present when Voldemort murders the servant in the opening chapter of Goblet of Fire. She can easily be a horcrux too.

2. Snape-Good or Evil
Snape murders Dumbledore in front of Harry. Surely that settles it. Snape is evil.
But is he?
Dumbledore, the gr8est wizard ever. Could he make such a big error of judgement? Everyone tells him not to trust Snape but he does. I dont think so.
Wht if Dumbledore knew that Harry will never become independent, never discover his true strength if he was there. Harry is too dependent upon Dumbledore? Add to it that killing Dumbledore would put to rest any issues with the loyalty of Snape towards the dark side.
Towards the end of Half Blood Prince- Dumbledore says "Severus, please" before Snape kills him. Now lets see hw tht is explained in Deathly Hallows

3. Harry Potter v/s LOTR: Is Wormtail to Harry Potter what Gollum is to LOTR
Its an open secret that Harry Potter is greatly influenced by LOTR.
Harry - Frodo, Ron - Sam, Dumbledore - Gandalf, Voldemort - Sauron, Death Eaters - Nazguls, Order of the Phoenix - The Fellowship
Now when Harry lets Peter Pettigrew go, Dumbledore says something like "Wormtail might do a great service to you someday" akin to Gandalf saying "Who knows, even Gollum might play a role in the quest". I suppose Wormtail is going to help Harry get Voldemort and maybe dying in the way.

4. Harry Potter v/s LOTR/Star Wars: Dumbledore/Sirius going to return
Gandalf comes back after dying
So does Obi Wan
Well does that mean one of Dumbledore & Sirius is going to come back? At the end of Harry Potter 5, Harry asks Nearly Headless Nick about how people can return as ghosts. Seems like an innocent conversation at the face of it but Harry Potter fans know that even a single, innocent meaning line can have hidden meanings. I think one of them is going to come back as a ghost to guide Harry.

5. Dumbledore's smirk in Goblet of Fire
At the end of Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore gives a smile when Harry tells him that Voldemort is more powerful as he used Harry's potter to regain power.Now why would Dumbledore smile on hearing tht? He should be terrified, stupified, petrified, mortified thinking of the repercussions of the Dark Lord being stronger than before. Was it just Harry's eyes, or Dumbledore being proud of his student for once or something else?

6. The Prophecy
Is there a catch in the prophecy somewhere? Something in the fine print?What if Neville is destined to kill Voldemort after all? I guess Neville is the character who is gonna die and would be responsible for downfall of the Dark Lord.

7. RAB
Who is RAB? Is he Dumbledore's brother? Or maybe Sirius' brother?

8. What's behind the veil in the Department of Mysteries?

9. Does Harry learn any unforgivable curses? Does Harry become a killer?

These are just the major questions. There is a lot of unanswered stuff.

Now I just love to make predictions. Most of them fall flat but that doesnt deter me. So here it goes:
- Harry doesnt die, Neville dies & is responsible for downfall of the Dark Lord. He becomes the hero & Harry can go on living a normal life.
- Sirius/Dumbledore make a return
- Peter Pettigrew plays a hand in the downfall of Lord Voldemort
- Snape turns out to be the good guy

Saturday, July 21. Morning 5 AM. My questions will be answered. Only Time will tell if I am eligible for the post of Divination Teacher at Hogwarts. Maybe I'll take Shradz too.

PS: Couldnt help the extremely cheesy ending.

The Bose Effect

2007-07-09T14:33:00.001+05:30

Last weekend, I ended up in the Bose showroom with my flatmate who wants a new set of earphones to go with his N91. Now while he was taking a look at his earphones, I just drifted around taking a look at various Bose products & making a mental catalogue of gadgets I wish to own someday.Sorry but this is also not what this post is about.
And I saw something that defied one of my childhood convictions. The poster said "Necessity is not the mother of all inventions". That got me thinking and I realized that what the poster said is true. I mean people didnt need bulbs or electricity, they were perfectly happy with candles & gas lanterns. Are cellphones a necessity or a luxury?
However, my inner self also had a counterview.To quote Akio Morita from "Made in Japan",
people are not aware of what technology is capable of. Its upto us to show them what technology can do
Most inventions start as items of luxury and become an integral part of our lives later on. 24/7 net access, google, wiki, youtube would be a few examples.
Guess like most things in life, this also is in grey. But I still think that most inventions come from ingenuity of the inventor rather than out of necessity.
About the usual stuff starting with cribbing about life in Bangalore.Well, I finally realized two things about Bangalore.
Its next to impossible to find an autorickshaw driver willing to take you to ur destination on the first try.
A movie ticket on a weekend can be flaunted as a status symbol
Ohh and turns out my flatmate was "settling" for Bose earphones. Now he is going for some 10k earphones. (& here I thot I was being extravagent by spending 1300/- on my earphones)

I am back (Yet again)

2007-04-12T17:07:00.000+05:30

Long long time since my post. I was so tempted to shift over to a new blog, claim that its a new beginning etc etc and that now I'll blog on a regular basis. But I have said such things in the past and now I realize one thing. Breaks from blogging are inevitable in my case, some self-imposed others because of situations out of my hand. The last one was a bit of both. I'll try to be more regular from now on (Have already made drafts for the next 3 posts) but cant promise.

While going through my previous posts(sounds self-obsessed but I do it at times), I realized that my past few posts have been kind of serious. So to make up for them, I thought why not another post dedicated to the God of pessimism, Murphy. As one of my friends commented, everyone looks like an optimist in front of Murphy(even Guns).

The biggest positives of Murphy's Laws are that they are so true and omnipresent.For example,

Whenever something bad happens(which has been more than usual lately), I remember that "If anything can go wrong it will go wrong at the worst possible time and in the worst possible sequence". So it wasnt in my hand. Things were gonna go wrong neway.

Whenever I am writing some code and decide to put in some enhancements, the working code bombs.My inner voice says "Nothing is so bad that it cant get worse".

Basically, Murphy's Law help in having a laugh if things go wrong and move on.

On my last visit to Blossoms(that accursed place), I spotted a book on 'Murphy's Law for Doctors". Decided to take it for my bro who is pursuing MBBS. Here are some of the quotes from that book. They make my day everytime I think of them. Hope they have the same affect on you.

Murphy's Original Law: If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time and the worst possible sequence.

Laws Derived from the Original Law:

- If anything cant go wrong, it will

- Nothing is ever so bad that it cant get worse

- If there are 4 ways in which things can go wrong and you circumvent these, then a fifth way would develop.

- Anytime things appear to be getting better, you have overlooked something

- Most things get steadily worse

- When things go wrong, dont go with them

- Magnitude of a catastrophe is directly proportional to number of people watching and exponentially proportional to importance of the occasion.

- Probability of something happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability

- The Unspeakable Law: As soon as you mention something, if its good, it goes away
if its bad, it happens

- Negative expectations yield -ve results
Positive expectations also yield -ve results

- The less you do, the less can go wrong (This one I follow religiously)

- If what you are doing is working, keep doing it
If what you are doing is not working, stop doing it
If you dont know what to do, dont do anything

- Almost anything is easier to get into than to get out of

- If we knew what we were getting into, we would never get into anything

- Time it takes to rectify a situation is inversely proportional to the time it took to do the damage

- Those who can, do
Those who cannot, teach
Those who cannot teach, administrate

- To learn from your mistakes, you must first realize that you are making mistakes

- Hindsight is an exact science

- Do not believe in miracles, rely on them

- Law of inanimate Mobility: All inanimate objects can move just enough to get in your way

- Do not believe in miracles, rely on them

- If you need a straight line graph, obtain only two data points

- If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once

On a sombre note:
- Even the bestest of friends cannot attend each others funeral

- There are somethings so serious that you can only joke about them

But the best one goes to Mark Twain

If you do everything that your doctor asks you to do- stop smoking, stop drinking etc you still might not live a long time but it will certainly seem like a long time

Enough of plagiarism. At the same time, if you cant better something someone else has said already, why not use it with acknowledgements.

For the essence of my blog, soccer (grin). Last time around I was chided by Shradz on putting soccer gibberish on my posts. Soccer is the main article, rest all stuff revolve around soccer and not vice-versa.

Real Madrid winning the La Liga title - Sweet
First major title after 3 years of waiting - Sweeter.
Ending level on points with Barcelona but snatching the title from under their nose because of head-to-head record - Priceless

I know its cheesy & a bad take on the original MasterCard ad but cant help it. Now time to look forward to the next season. Soccer has a 2 months summer break (a few ppl would be glad, right Shradz ?) but that just means that I'll be focussing on F1 from now.

Shivaji released. Well I knew that ppl down South were movie crazy. Heard stories about movie stars being treated as demi-Gods. But this was my first time experiencing it. Everyone was going crazy. Ppl in my office have already seen the movie 4 times in its first week only. U have to c the madness to believe it. Want to c the movie myself but as expected no tkts are available.

Harry Potter 7 releasing in less than a month. Booked two copies- one for me, one for my bro. Thank God its releasing on a Saturday. Plan to go to Blossoms early morning, get my copy, go to CCD or Barista & read it peacefully in a single go with coffee. Looking for some company. Any takers ?

Turning 23

2007-03-01T16:58:00.000+05:30

A month since my last post. Its not that I didnt have things to write about. Just too tired or maybe too lazy. Cant really decide between these two excuses.

The highlight of the past mnth has been the visit to Ahmedabad to meet family after 8 months. I have been away from home for the past 5 years but this has to be the longest separation till date. Its the separation from loved ones that makes one realize what they mean to you, may it be family, friends or someone special.

Ahmedabad visits are always fun. Spending time with cousins (and I do have a lot of them), teasing the one who is getting married next (not me in case you are wondering),being a kid again with mom around fussing over me and taking long walks with my bro.

But this is not all. Visiting Gujarat or Rajasthan for that matter, is like stepping back into the real India. Let me explain

Having spent 8 months in a super-metro like Bangalore (Forgive me, I spent 1 yr in Kota & 4 yrs in Rke. Even Indore seemed like a metro after that), I have become used to the hectic pace of life and living for myself only on the weekends. A popular ad says "Slavery is not dead. We’ve just stopped recognizing it". This is too extreme but the gist is there.

These places have stopped in time. People go about their work at their own pace, not hurrying, living every moment. I remembered a dialogue from a Hindi movie "Badi Badi khushiyon ke peeche bhaagte bhaagte hum chhoti chhoti khushiyon mein jina bhool jaate hai"

And these places are a riot of colours. I mean, a guy in a pink dress with small mirrors (wasnt me, so dnt visualize it tht way). But didnt look out of place. After all, gujju marriages are known for their pomp & splendour. My mom tried her best to get me into one of those traditional dresses. I tried to talk her out of it but couldnt and ended up having one for myself (not the pink one. But a light cream one,without the mirrors and no, I am not putting up pics of me in that).

After all these years, I have gotten used to living away from my family but doesnt mean I dont miss them. Guess its like my dad once said "Ships are the safest in shipyards but they are not meant for it". Add to it that my mom starts getting cranky after a week because of my habits. So its better I keep these visits short.

And plz plz dont think I am depressed or something. Would I swap this way of life for that? Right now I dont think I would. I love the freedom, the responsibilities that come this way. I like doing what I am doing. These are just some things that came to my mind in Ahmedabad.

Moving over to soccer. Every time I see a Real Madrid match, I think they cannot play worse than this. Alas! they prove me wrong every time in the next match. The El Classico, Barcelona v/s Real Madrid coming up on March 11. I just hope we are not humiliated or all those Barca fans I have been making fun of since Real Madrid beat Barca will never let me hear the end of it.

And I m turning 23 today (or tomorrow or maybe I m already 23 depending upon when you c this post). My dad mails me saying Happy Birthday, time to get u hooked. For God's sake, I m still a kid !!

A year ago, I was being bumped around, being made the target on which everyone is venting his fury. This yr its going to be only two of my flatmates who cant even pick me up. Miss those times, guys.

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

Nothing good ever follows
"We need to talk" in a conversation
"but" in a sentence

Retrospection

2007-01-18T19:55:00.000+05:30

The worst thing we can do to ourselves is look back and ask the question What If ?.

Should we live in the moment or take a long, hard look at the future results before taking a decision?

But then isnt this some sort of vicious circle? If every decision we make is with an eye on how it is going to affect our future then why do we have to look back and ask What If ?

A confession though. I have always tried to be one of the In the Moment ppl and have lived on the philosophy of "Greedy Algorithm" taking decisions based what I wanted to do in the present rather than looking at the future. And so I have never had to retrospect.

But lately, the dreaded question has started to raise its head in my life too What If?.

Maybe, its not always good to live in the moment. And now faced with the choice of a lifetime - the harder way is to chase my dream however improbable it might be at the risk of a failure or the hard way which is easier than the dream. Heart says "go for the dream" and mind says "look at ur track record. U must be nuts to do the same thing over again and again".

Maybe, Some dreams should remain dreams only. To act as those unattainable carrots for us to chase.

Sigh, Life shld have a software like Butterfly Effect so we know where our choices might lead us.
But again, the uncertainity of what is coming next is what makes life interesting.

Funny, how 20 days ago I thot 2007 is going to be much better than 2006.

RM going down. 3 losses in the past 5 matches. Foolish President blasting his own players in public, a dictatorial coach. Another trophyless season is here.

Liverpool v/s Chelsea and Arsenal v/s ManU to look forward to this weekend.

Have been watching Boston Legal. Its the story of a Law Firm and its lawyers. Having been a huge John Grisham fan, I just loved the series. Season 1 is over. Now downloading Season 2. Something to look forward to.

2007

2007-01-12T12:08:00.000+05:30

It takes one comment, one line to see a person in a totally different light.
It takes one incident to realize that u judged a community too early
Sometimes u realize that u r a different person then the one u thought u were.

I missed my customary New Yr Post. As always, better late than never.

Arrival of 2006 was celebrated with a few friends on the banks of Ganga in Rishikesh.2006 was supposed to be the year of transition from college life to professional life.
I had experienced the uncertainities, the problems, the home sickness etc that come with change earlier. And assuming that I was more 'mature' and hence more equipped to deal with these things meant I wasnt too worried. As Chandler would have said "Could I be any more wrong".

But I have to admit, 2006 hasnt been all that good to me. Last semester in college was gr8 but there were some fights & issues that I could and I should have avoided.

And after 7 semesters of cursing Roorkee and wanting to get out asap, I picked out the worse possible time i.e. the 8th sem to realize that I will miss Roorkee.

The first 6 mnths at Bangalore havent been the best. I mean 3 accidents in 6 mnths. CMH hospital shld have offered me Frequent Patient plan.

To add to all of these, loss of HrishiDa (My fav Hindi movie director of all time), Zizou (The Soccer God), Michael Schumacher (Any introductions needed ?) made it the yr when I have to find new idols. Still looking, but these boots r not easy to fill. And I dont even need to speak abt how RM has been performing.

I have had worse yrs but I have also had better ones. Now every cloud is supposed to have a silver lining. Maybe I just didnt c it this yr or I'll realize it in retrospection sometime l8r. For the time being, 2007 offers a new beginning, a new hope. After all, that's the reason why we celebrate New Yr.

And also New Yr means Resolutions. I guess I'll continue my last yr's resolutions only. So same resolutions for the second consecutive year. Now to c those resolutions, I'll have to check my post for 2006 resolutions, which is not a good omen. But lets hope.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Yr 2007

Anatomy of a (former)Chat Addict

2006-11-21T22:45:00.000+05:30

Chat Addict - That's the nick name some ppl gave me. I have to admit that they were right to some extent. Some ppl say I still am but I know I have cut down a lot.
Reasons: Work pressure, Realization that I m wasting their time as well and bringing down the productivity of India as a whole or that my lead caught on the fact. Take ur pick

For chat addicts, the gchat feature was a boon. Yahoo doesnt come with an integrated chat & mail client feature and the chat msgs sent by someone just pop up out of the blue on the screen. As Murphy's Law goes, the msgs would pop up at the worst moment like when the lead is at ur desk and someone pings u "Cant believe that a lazy ass like u could be working". Agreed it could be a lot worse like "Heard ur lead is a jerk" but this one was bad enough.

Sometimes, u end up having totally arbit chats with friends. Like in a chat, the two of us started to come up with Hindi names for superheroes.

Superman = MahaMard
Spiderman = MakdiMard
Spiderman 2 = MakdiMard Dwitiya
Batman = BallaManav
Birdman = Chidimard
X-Men = Kaunmard

Another unusual thing was that because of my name, some random guy would pick up my id from somewhere, think of me as a girl and start eflirting. Well, if the guy is that foolish, I deserve to have some fun at his expense. Those 1 hr chats r the most fun ever. I still laugh when I go thru those chats in my chat history.

Having cut down on chats, I took the liberty to sit back and observe the status msgs displayed by various friends in the chat list.

The most common ones were lyrics from famous songs with Pink Floyd being the most popular. Comfortably Numb, Comfortably Dumb, We Dont Need No Education (status msg of student with exams arnd the corner) and a few more.

One friend went for shayaari status msg:
- Dil jit le wo jigar hum bhi rakhte hai..katl kar de wo nazar hum bhi rakhte hai..Wada kiya hai kisi ko hamesha muskurane ka, varna aankhon mein samandar hum bhi rakhte hai..

- Rabba mein itna bura nahin hota, agar tu bewafa nahin hota

Another popular category was that of ppl sharing their life experiences or just picking up quotes on life by someone

- Realize things before its too late. Have lots of friends before you are alone. Accept things rather than deny them. Love people before you lose them. Life comes just once. Love it while you live it.

- Friendship is not about how you forget but how you forgive. Not how you listen but how you understand. Not how you see but how you feel. Not how you let go but how you hold on.

- Perhaps the easiest way to lose something is to want it too badly

- Everything looks amazing when viewed from a distance, its the closeness to any place, situation, person or event that reveals its true ugliness, hopelessness, despondency or hypocrisy

- if only the doors of perceptions were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is...infinite

- It is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation

Some words on deadlines

- Deadlines r like horizons. Look beautiful from a distance but trying to meet them is impossible

- Deadlines r like monsters who look like innocent children from a distance

But my personal favourite category would be cheeky, humorous status msgs

- I slept & dreamt that life was beauty. I woke up & found that life was duty

- Coming to office on Mondays is bad. Coming to office on Mondays with lots of work is worse.

- Intelligence chases me but I m faster.

- Booze is the answer. I forgot the question

- A man got 2 wishes from GOD. He asked for the Best wine and Best Woman. The next instant, he got the Best Wine and Mother Teresa next to him. Moral of the story : Be Specific

- Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names

My Second Fav status msg till now: If electricity comes from electrons.... does morality come from morons?

And the best one so far: FREE TUTORIALS on "How to SCREW an easy exam paper ?" ... Services open ... 24*7*365 ...

The usual stuff:
Watched Casino Royale on Sun. Surprisingly, Daniel Craig looked good as Bond. The story is a prequel i.e. James Bond doesnt have 007 status at the beginning of the movie. Apart from half an hr of stretched love story of Bond (which is the norm this yr for superhero stories - Remember Superman Returns), the movie was good.

Wanted to see Dhoom 2 this weekend. But all tkts for the weekend were booked on Mon. A week without a movie.

Went bonkers in Blossoms- a book store in Bangalore. Wanted to buy 10 books but decided on 6. Convinced my friend to buy 3 of them. But with loads of work, no reading for now.

RM win in La Liga but draw in CL. RM is having an average season at home. Hope it gets better with time. Real Madrid take on Valencia on Sun, cant wait.

Officially Engineer now.

2006-11-13T11:18:00.000+05:30

Warning: This post might not be the usual post like the one on Murphy's Law or the previous post on Dentists. Instead, it might oscillate between philosophical to senti stuff.

Convocation- The culmination of a dream. Maybe the first real dream I had - To become a Computer Science Engineer from an IIT. Seems just like yesterday that I was at bansal's trying to remember the colour of fumes in chromyl chloride test and today, I am trying to get my code to work by any possible way.

But between that yesterday and this today, are the four years at IIT Roorkee. The highlights of those 4 yrs would be - the terror of ragging in the 1st semester, the false allegation of being the ragger in the 3rd semester, winning the bplan contest in 4th, Starting Chaos 2005 in 6th semester, the pressures of getting a job in 7th semester and establishing an Entrepreneurship Cell in the 8th semester.
These highlights were punctuated by seemingly never ending tests, quizzes & practicals. As I have quoted before "Experiences can be bitter but memories are always sweet"

After receiving the degree and coming back to Bangalore, I didnt feel the same elation that should come with the completion of the dream. Maybe this was one of those destinations where the journey was more exhilarating than the destination itself. In any case, I have to start looking for new objectives, new dreams. For too long, being a graduate was the only thing on the horizon. Convocation was the symbol to get over it and start moving ahead.

Alrite, enuff of the senti, philosophical stuff. Back to the usual updates.

Real Madrid beat Barca convincingly and I gloated to every Barca fan on chats, mails & SMS. 2 matches l8r Real Madrid lost at home to Celta Vigo and my inbox got full bcoz all Barca fans I had gloated to had the opportunity to get back at me.
|Sigh| Some people just cant use the opportunity to being the better ones by not gloating.

Schumi retired after this year's F1. Lost to Alonso but drove an amazing final race. Showed everyone who is the king. The media is divided with debates abt him trying to win at all costs, him being the flawed genius blah blah. Alrite just one question- Give an honest answer to whether you would have done the same thing or not, if u were in his situation. Schumi was not a superman although he certainly drove like one. Without him, F1 will never be the same.

Have been downloading lots of stuff lately. Podcasts, Movies, Movie OSTs, TV Serials and Documentaries. Just dont miss "The Departed" at any costs. Ranks right at the top with Scorsese's best. Dhoom 2 releasing this weekend. Some idiot already mailed me the suspense. Now I am in a moral dilemma whether to tell it to u ppl and spoil ur movie too or not.

Another Monday. Monday is the worst day especially if u r back from a holiday. The cartoon below captures perfectly what I plan to do every Monday but dont. Something stops me. Maybe my goodness or the knowledge that I will be able to use it only once (Cant have a virus on my PC every Monday. Not even the IT guys r that foolish). Saving it for when I need it the most.

Dentists

2006-09-27T15:18:00.000+05:30

The unfortunate accident I had resulted in me requiring Root Canal Surgery and quite a few visits to a dentist. Now this wasnt the first time I was visiting a dentist but somehow Dentists scare me more than say Heart Specialists. The reason is simple:

Doctors use tools like scalpel which inspite of being dangerous looks elegant. However, dentists use tools which resemble more like tools from a carpenter's workshop.
When doctors operate upon a patient, the patient is in a sedated state. He cannot hear or see what's going.
In the case of a dentist, well firstly the injection in gums hurts like hell. After that u c the tools of terror like miniature saws, drills at work. One can close his eyes but can do nothing about the sounds of these tools at work which resemble a constuction site. The difference is that you know that the construction site is your mouth this time.

All said and done. The dentist was a very experienced one and didnt give up inspite of all my tantrums (although the bill told my the reason behind this). Glad to put it all behind me.

Planned a Goa trip on the 3-day weekend. Tried to take everyone I know but ppl didnt confirm till the last moment. Last moment, everyone else refused and we 3 who started the project were the only ones left. As we were waiting for others to confirm, all buses & trains got booked. So the trip is in jeopardy now. Seems like first mover disadvantage to me.It is so tough to ask ppl to relax and have a good time.

On the other hand, saw lots of movies. Pyaar ke side effects is a wonderful movie. Watch to know what guys have to suffer. Miami Vice, Bas Ek Pal can be left unless you have lots of time to waste.

Soccer season gets off to a gr8 start. RM joint leaders with Barca in La Liga. The defence looks solid with only one goal so far. But not celebrating yet. Knowing RM, they can go from extraordinary to ordinary in mins and the season has only begun. But now I dont have to take all those barbs from my other soccer fans. This is a new feeling after the past 2 seasons. Lets c how long it will last.

Goodbye Andre!

2006-09-04T13:18:00.000+05:30

Tennis is different from most other games in respect that its an individual sport. In soccer, players might retire but the club is always there. Hence, whenever a tennis player retires, a void is created which takes some time to fill.

Last night, there were three of us watching Agassi v/s Becker in US Open. Agassi was 2 set down and was playing what would be the last match of his career. The whole stadium, in fact I think every Tennis follower was willing Agassi to win but it was not to be. No more Andre Agassi in action from now on.

First of all, I'll confess that I was never a die-hard Andre Agassi fan. Firstly, it was Pete Sampras
and now its Federer who rules in that respect.

But somehow its hard not to like Andre Agassi. The perennial underdog, firstly against Pete Sampras and then against Federer. The guy who has done it all & won everything in Tennis. A career spanning more than 20 yrs.

Sampras v/s Agassi was the rivalry of the last decade. It was fitting that they played against each other in the 2002 US Open finals after which Pete retired. Just two quotes that capture Agassi like none other

Pete Sampras:
"He's made me a better player. He's brought moments to my career that are like Borg and McEnroe. Those guys needed each other. I've needed Andre over the course of my career. He's pushed me. You know, he's forced me to add things to my game. He's the only guy that was able to do that. He's the best I've played."

Unknown:
"Agassi has known it all, the victories, the decline, the renaissance and victory again. His path through tennis is symbolic of life."

Just a thought from Sid. With the kind of genes that the children of Agassi & Steffi have, who will have a chance in front of them ?

Zidane gone. Agassi gone. There r rumors that next yr even Schumi might retire. Have to look for so many new idols.

Just an ending note. Saw "Lagey raho Munnabhai". Its an exception to the Law of Sequels. Even better than Munnabhai MBBS. We were laughing so loudly that the lady next to us requested us to tone it down so she could hear the dialogues. Munna and Circuit surely make it to Bollywood Hall of Fame. Cant think of any character other than Anand that I loved so much. Hope the series continues forever.

Sad but True

2006-08-30T20:30:00.000+05:30

It has been a long time since my last post. The reason not being that there is a dearth of stuff but various factors. A major factor was as soon as I started writing, one or other of my friends would pop up on some messenger.

Another factor was the fact that I had an accident. Not one involoving automobiles but a mishap. Two weeks ago, I fell into a ditch while coming from office. Dark nite, no streetlights and open ditches. Makes me wonder how can India still be the second most populous country worldwide.

Coming back to the mishap, well the ditch was abt 10 feet but thankfully was filled with water upto waist height. And my friends had to pull me out. I had a few injuries, the major one being on chin requiring stitches but otherwise in one piece.

Just one observation. Quite a few auto rickshaws passed the scene but none had the time to wait and help. If the same case would have happened in Bombay or Delhi, there would be a crowd ready to help. Guess, one more reason to hate the rickshaw drivers.

On and on these have been a very sad 20 days. To top it, the last two days have been even worse. Hrishikesh Mukherjee, my all time favourite movie director passed away. I dont think I have still seen a movie which touched me like 'Anand'. Dialogues like

'Zindagi badi honi chahiye babu mushay, lambi nahin'

and the last scene when Amitabh is shouting 'Baatein karo mujhse, Baatein karo mujhse' still gives me goosebumps even after seeing it an infinite number of times.

Hrishi Da will always be immortal through 'Anand' and other timeless movies.

On Sunday, Schumi lost to Alonso, Real Madrid drew and Barca win. The worse possible results for someone like me.

One bright thought-Life can only get better than here. It certainly cant get any worse (atleast I am hoping it doesnt)

The i-Ching

2006-08-01T10:45:00.000+05:30

Murphy's Law. The sole universal truth. Someday, Einstein's theory of relativity might turn out to be wrong, 2+2 might not make 4 but there wont be a day when Murphy's Law would be proved false.

I have already devoted a post or two to Murphy's Law. But for the uninitiated, I'll restate the original law:
Murphy's Law
If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time and in the worst possible sequence.

This is the original law for which Murphy won the Lifetime Ig nobel last year(Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize to understand its significance). Over the years, many more laws have been derieved from it. My favourite one being:
If everything in life is coming ur way, you are in the wrong lane
The complete list of such quotes is available through various books (worth purchasing) and maybe even online.

Over the years, Murphy's Law has been omnipresent in my life. It stays with me, even in Bangalore. Hence, I came up with my own versions of Murphy's Law.

Rickshaw Reality
The Auto Driver Law- If a rickshaw driver is charging you 100/- but u decide to walk for 2km and then take one, the next one will charge you 120/-.

Arrival of the bus you have been waiting for half an hour will be at the time when you board an auto and the driver starts to drive.

Destination Dilemma
Whenever you get lost, the first person you ask for directions will be another techie from out of the town

The first localite will tell you that your destination is 5 mins walk. After walking for half an hour, the second localite will say that the destination is still 3 kms away.

Training Truths
The fresher u feel in the morning, more boring will be the lectures on that day.

The toughest lecture of the week shall coincide with maximum no. of your friends popping up on various messengers.

Whenever you call the trainer to your PC for clarification, a few of your friends will send you msgs on YM for him to see.

Miscellaneous
The day you forget your iPod, Radio Mirchi decides to play 4 Kannada songs and 1 Himesh song during the half an hour cab ride to the office.

The day you make fun of the MD in cafetaria, he will be sitting at the chair immediately behind you.

And finally,
If you want to reply to comments on your blog, the word check will be a 6 letter word with letters merging in & out of each other like warwrt. On other blogs, it will be a 3/4 letter one like cat.

Saw POTC2 on Sun. POTC2 pales in comparison to the POTC (The Law of Sequels). The major difference being that POTC was a fun movie while the second is a more serious one. Captain Jack doesn't dominate the screen like in POTC. The presence of lots of slimy creatures acts as a turn off too.

Real Madrid gets Cannavaro, Emerson, Nistelrooy. Now all we need is a solid left-back and a creative attacking midfielder to challenge Barca. Cant wait for La Liga to start. However, no channel is going to show La Liga live. Instead, ESPN Star prefers to telecast the stupid EPL.

Another Ferrari 1-2. Mere 11 pts separate Alonso & Schumi with 6 races left. Go Schumi.

Beginning of another long week. 6 working days !! Seems like some form of Chinese torture.

The Other Side

2006-07-22T10:37:00.000+05:30

Times of India reports
"More than half the attacks reported for 2004 were in South Asia, which recorded 327 incidents that resulted in 502 deaths. The bulk of the incidents were reported in the divided Kashmir state claimed by both India and Pakistan. "

The Mumbai bomb blasts being the last one in this series of terror attacks being faced by India. The bomb blasts have resulted in wide criticism of the Governement,the intelligence agencies, comparison with Israel/US etc. Instead of reiterating those things, this post shall try to look at the problem from a different perspective.

As soon as a terrorist attack occurs, comparisons to Israel and USA are the first ones to pop up. Let us take a logical look at these two before reaching any conclusions

Israel -
Surrounded by hostile neighbours, a hawkish Governement ready to take retaliate immediately, unflinching US support but the biggest difference "The neighbours cannot strike back except with more terrorist actions". Hence, Israel is in a perpetual cycle of terrorist attacks and bloody retaliations.

US -
No hostile neighbours, unrivaled military and economic might, ability to spend billions on intelligence operations and continue against international opinion

A hypothetical scenario:
The public outcry after a terrorist attack on India made the Indian Government take action against the terrorist camps situated in PoK (which incidentally, the Indian Government claims to be Indian soil). Against all international opposition, the Indian Governement launches missile attacks and commando operations against the terrorist camps. However, the attacks lead to civilian casualities and public demonstrations against the Govt in PoK. The public anger was further fueled by religious leaders forcing the Governement into action. The result was an all-out conventional war between the neighbours.

I suppose no sane person would want this to happen. I have seen forums and blogs asking Government to take action. Let me ask, what kind of action are we looking for? The only possible action is trying to prevent such attacks from taking place through intelligence operations. Before, someone starts harping abt the failure of Indian intelligence operations, let me ask a question - How many of us seriously think that its next to impossible to place bombs in Mumbai's local trains or in Delhi's buses ? Considering the ease with which this can be achieved on a regular basis (and I dont suppose terrorists have any shortage of resources to carry out this), the following quote surmises the dilemma of an intelligence agent

"Our failures are known, our successes are not"
- Al Pacino, The Recruit

The summary of this being that instead of just blaming the Govt and intelligence agencies, we should take a look at the options available to them.

I am tempted to include the usual info on sports etc but that would spoil the spirit of this post. Maybe next time.

The Weekend of many firsts

2006-07-17T10:51:00.000+05:30

"Bahut kuch life mein pehli baar hota hai Mamu"

So goes the quote from Munnabhai MBBS. Well, this weekend was my chance of experiencing quite a few things for the first time.

No weekend, just Saturday
As long as I can remember, Sat was a fun day. In school, it was a half day and in college, it was a holiday. How we used to wait up for that Fri nite in college!!. But working life has different set of rules. During training, we have scheduled tests on Sat. This week was SQL but next week could be tougher than ever, JAVA.

Missing Lunch
After 6 hectic days of working, finally one day of respite-Sun. Even on this day, the guy who comes over for cleaning our apartment didn't let me rest. The door bell rings at exactly 7:30 am. I pull the covers over myself trying to ignore it and hope that someone else wakes up and lets me sleep. But my friends are even lazier than me. Result: I sleep in the afternoon and miss up on lunch. Must be a long time since I didn't eat nething b4 5pm.

Mud incident
We all have seen videos of rash drivers, who love to run through holes filled with rainy water and spraying the people walking around. Well, this was my first time to run into one of them. Me & Sandy had gone out for lunch and a guy in a Maruti 800 sprays us both. I had to suppress my instinct to shout something as ppl here might not understand English/Hindi but they sure know insults in both these languages. Ironically, the same morning I had seen a Michelin video on how next-gen radials would result in reducing the amt of water sprayed by such drivers.

Spelling Bee
Everyone must have heard of the Annual National Spelling Bee contest in USA. Well, this was my first time to see its finals on ESPN. The kids were mind-boggling. Last yrs runners up was Samir Patel, an Indian who was the favourite this yr. Then there was a 12 yr old guy who was ranked 22 last yr and had added 30,000 words to his vocabulary since then. 30,000 words !!!. I wont learn so many words even in my lifetime. Indian challenge ended at 4th position and the last 3 were girls. Finally, it was down to last 2 and they had to spell one word each out the 25 words for the finalists. They managed to go till the last 8 words. Finally, one of them made a mistake (just one letter wrong in a word that I didn't know half abt) and the last one got lucky. She got "Kundalini"(one of the 2 words I knew that nite, the other one being izzat) and other a word of German origin. Luckily she was German and was crowned the spelling bee.
Its an amazing show. See if u can get ur hands on it.

Otherwise, we were surfing channel and we realized one fact
ETC - Himesh
M TV- Himesh
V TV - Himesh
Zoom - Himesh
Its Himesh all the way this year. But I still think, the best music should go to RDB.
Another win for Schumi. The lead is down to 17 pts.
Madrid being associated with abt 50 players. Plz start buying. The speculation is killing me. With the Serie A scandal, the gr8est transfer market in soccer history is open.

Merci Zizou! For Everything

2006-07-11T09:40:00.000+05:30

The two opposites of Zidane's Career - The volley for Real Madrid in 2002 CL Finals and the red card in WC 2006 finals

Every world cup has moments which become imprinted on one's mind. In WC 2002, it was Batistuta crying on the ground after Argentina's first round exit. In WC 2006, it was Zidane's head butt. One moment of madness leaving a blemish on one of the gr8est careers in soccer.

Initially, I hated Zidane. As a life long Brazil fan, he denied us the Penta in 1998. But it also sparked an interest in Zizou. I followed him on & off when he played for Juventus and in Euro 2000 but in 2002, Zizou came to Real Madrid-the gr8est club on the planet. 2002 was an amazing year and to see Zizou in action was surreal. Soccer has seen many players who can dribble but no one like Zidane. He didn't dribble, he became one with the ball and the ball refuesd to leave his feet.

Then came WC 2002 and France were favourites with Zidane at his best. But his injury resulted in French exit in first round. Euro 2004 was again supposed to be his last tournament for the country and France were the favourites but couldn't get pass the Greeks.

WC 2006 and nobody gave French a chance. Brazil led by Ronaldinho were the favourites (again) but unfortunately they ran into France and Zidane showed that Ronaldinho is gr8 but Zidane is God. Finally, the WC finals and Zidane had a chance to do something that not even Maradona had achieved - Win 2 world cups. But maybe he decided to show in his last match that he was a human too, that he had emotions. If only he hadn't done what he did.

Still, Zidane remains at the top alongside Pele, Maradona, Di Stefano as the most beautiful players to play soccer. In the forword to El Diego - The Autobiography of Diego Maradona, the journalist says "Our generation weren't told that Maradona was the best. We saw him in action." We can say the same thing abt Zizou.

Farewell London

2006-06-28T16:44:00.000+05:30

London, Heart of the erstwhile British empire and the place where I spent my last two weeks. It all came together suddenly within a week and I was sent to London to be with dad who is here on a migrant visa.
The trip has been a wonderful one to say the least. Visiting the famous places of London like Madam Tussauds, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, London Eye etc and places of interest for me like 221 B Baker Street (Address of Sherlock Holmes), Stamford Bridge (Football Stadium of Chelsea FC) and Wimbledon has been a unique experience to say the least. Especially in the Stamford Bridge where the guide took us through the players' tunnel to the ground with stimulated crowd noise behind us.
Apart from sightseeing, experiencing the British lifestyle was in itself worth the trip. In my dad's words "There was some reason behind English ruling the world for over 100 yrs". I suppose the reason was the discipline and emphasis on education. Let me clear this up
1. Library access is free for everyone.
2. You get a 60 page paper for free although you have to walk to your nearest underground station to get it.
3. Free education for children upto 16
Free library is a boon for a book lover like me. I was able to complete the Artemis series which I started in B'lore last year and also read a number of other good books.
All and all, this trip has been a blast. Now time to go back and get ready for the next phase in my life as a professional.
PS: The photo is me at the entrance to Wimbledon Museum. The poem is If by Kipling

Sayonara Roorkee

2006-06-06T00:45:00.000+05:30

This post was supposed to be my last from Roorkee. But packing, saying goodbyes and other stuff took more time than expected. The delay after that can be blamed onto the dial-up at home or my habit of procrastination.
Neways, time to get out of college life and get a little serious. I shall be joining Manhattan Associates, B'lore from 3rd July. A different life, that of a professional awaits after all the fun at Roorkee.
However, Roorkee will always hold a special place in my heart as the place where I spent the best four years of my life. I know a lot of my friends wont agree with me saying but for me, a place is made by the ppl there. If I hadn't been to Roorkee, I wouldn't have met all the wonderful ppl - Bong, Joshi, Bond, Gabs, Bhandari, Bansa, Laskar, Bela, Sid, Lancy, Gala the list can go on & on.
I learnt a lot from these ppl and thru organizing various activities. I'll never be able to forget Corpostrat 04, Chaos 05, EDC, Chaos 06 and Metamorphosis. I'll quote something that I have already quoted once "Experiences can be bitter but memories are always sweet"
Sayonara IITR, Will miss ya

PS: While coming back from London, saw Mr Azim Premji on Mumbai airport. The gr8 man was alone carrying a small suitcase with him. Ran after him but he entered security before I reached him. Bad Luck or I would have had proof for this story

Go Naruto

2006-05-02T21:31:00.000+05:30

A disturbing thought came to mind at the beginning of the semester. This was after I had a job with Manhattan Associates, Bangalore and a full fun-filled semester to look forward to. But I was struck by the disturbing thought. Soon enough, there won't be any purpose in my life.

If anyone reading this(which I doubt, seeing that my last post didn't get ne comments) gets an idea that I have some issue with my future, that person is sorely mistaken. What I mean is that with LOTR movies over and only one more book in Harry Potter & Eragon series to go and no longer interested in movies, pretty soon there would be nothing to look forward to, nothing to wait for and nothing to discuss with friends.

But every cloud has a silver lining. In this case, the silver lining was the arrival of Japanese animations or animes in IIT Roorkee. As I am a sucker for animated stuff, the anime bug was bound to get me sooner or later.

Neways, the problem was amplified as lots of anime series were available and not just one or two. Each of these series belonged to a different genre. Full Metal Alchemist, Great Teacher Onizuka, Bleach, Kenshin, Evangelion to name a few.

However, the one that has the most fan following is Naruto. Naruto is a ninja-anime with Naruto as its protagonist. Its filled with stuff about friendship, loneliness and of-course ninja techniques. Dont want to give any more spoilers but watch it if u get a chance. Its awesome.

But now, I have already watched 150 episodes of the series and about 350 more are there. Its ironic that serials like Kyunki, Kasauti and other K stuff are 5 days a week while Naruto is a weekly one.That means 6 more years to go.

Semester exams are here. I want these exams to be the last exams that I shall be giving in this place. Hence, time to go and study.

Metamorphosis

2006-04-28T22:46:00.000+05:30

Metamorphosis, Term symbolising Change usually for the better. And also the name of Entrepreneurship Fest, that the newly established Entrepreneurship Development Cell, IIT Roorkee by four students from IIT Roorkee (me being one of them) organized.

One thing that IIT Roorkee lacks was an e-cell. This was what the four of us felt since our first year. Hence, we decided to take an initiative and start EDC as a students' body in IITR. Metamorphosis was to be our crowning glory, the last major event that we would organize in IIT Roorkee and maybe our legacy. Having organized various events before in our cult-fest and tech-fest, the confidence was sky high and organizing this was going to be a piece of cake.

Why the use of past tense in the above sentences. Because organizing a fest is different from organizing an event. Maybe there were commitment problems, overconfidence, unjust expectations but whatever the reason, Metamorphosis didn't make it to the standards we wished it to achieve.

However, it has been a learning experience to say the least. In the past month, I have seen and been a part of it all - Personality Clashes, Ego Issues, Questions on commitments, Bureaucratic Hurdles, Last minute ditches and a few more things that I might have forgotten. It is said that true friends are the ones you have the most fights with. I understand this statement a little better now.

Back to the usual cheery stuff. Barca v/s Arsenal in CL finals. Should be a cake walk for Barca. Schumi finally wins. Awesome race. Alonso trailed Schumi by 0.3 sec for almost 20 laps and made an error in the penultimate lap.

Summer time is here and lots of big releases are lined up. Da Vinci Code, M.I. III, X 3, Pirates of the Carribean 2 and a few more.

Feeling sleepy plus its a friend's birthday. Time to go and give him bumps.

Rang De Basanti

2006-03-15T02:20:00.000+05:30

The first thing u'll notice abt this post is the text colour. Just watched Rang de Basanti twice over the past three days and still not able to get it out of my head. If u're still not able to get it, I decided to put the post in saffron as a tribute to RDB and this was the colour closest to it (according to me).

I am a big movie buff (in case, u dont know it already). I realized this during the period of 2001-2003 when I was in Kota. I averaged atleast a movie a week during this time. The fact that this was David Dhawan's golden age (& Indian cinema's dark age), is testimony to my perseverance.
However, times are changing. Over the past few yrs, Indian cinema has produced gems like DCH, Lagaan (2 bright spots during the dark ages), Lakshya, Iqbaal, Ramgopal Verma's productions, Swades etc. RDB lies on the top of the list alongside Iqbaal and Lakshya.

The success of RDB lies in the fact that it deals with a real life issue and ends on a hard-hitting note unlike most Hindi movies. This was summed up by Bela as "It makes you think". It fills you with hope, puts a spring in your step.

However, I am still sceptical abt the long term effects of the movie. If real life incidents like Satyendra Dube couldn't shake up the student community, the impact of the movie wouldn't last for more than a month or so.

Currently, I m in Indore for my Holi break. Indore no longer holds the same thrill as it used to. Parents are out of station, most friends have left for jobs, higher studies or in some cases have been married. That leaves my bro who is busy with his upcoming exams. I am missing Roorkee for the first time. The Full Metal Alchemist and other animes are calling for me.

Other updates - Madrid is out of CL. However, so is Chelsea and Liverpool. Madrid is facing its third trophy less season. I hope the galactico era is ending at last. Lets hope the new mgmt thinks of Real Madrid as a soccer club and not as a corporate entity.
Alonso wins the first F1 race of the season. However, true hero was Kimi. He started last on the grid and still managed a podium finish. Hope this time, Kimi gets what he has deserved for a long time.

Signing off from Indore. Wishing you all a very happy holi.

Personality

2006-02-04T00:30:00.000+05:30

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant.
Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle.
You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs.

For you, comfort and calm are very important.
You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection.
You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

I swear, I haven't doctored this test. I got the link off Shradz blog and decided to give it a try. Now that I think abt it, everything I do - the way I talk, walk, sleep, smile as well as my sunsign etc can be used to tell me abt my personality. What's the use ? I suppose usually ppl know enough abt themselves to know their personality.

Interviews

2006-01-10T00:32:00.000+05:30

Interviews - The essential part of ne placement procedure. An hour which can give a totally different direction to someone's life. Ppl prepare for interviews cramming the usual questions - Tell us abt urself, Where do u see urself 5 yrs,10 yrs,15 yrs etc, Strengths & Weaknesses etc.
But the eagerness to project themselves as the most suitable candidates leads to some hilarious scenarios as well.

Mr X is going to appear in Oracle interview. A semester ago, he had to get his resume verified by the institute. In the column for Computer Languages, he mentions Java, even though he hasn't worked on it thinking that he'll learn it in the time before placement. Unfortunately, he couldn't because of one or the other reason. A day before interview he reads the basics of Java.
Interviewer : Which computer languages do u know ?
Mr X : Sir, I am comfortable with C++, have done a little work on Microsoft Visual C++ and Java but for Java, I use the textbook in case of ne difficulty.
Interviewer : Ok, so which version of Java you have worked upon ?
Mr X : Hmm, Hmm Actually, one of my friends installed Java on my PC in my absence and I have been using it as it is. So I dont know the version as such

Mr Y is going to appear for IBM. One possible question he has prepared is "Where do u see urself 5 yrs from now".The interview ends but the interviewer didn't ask this question. Instead, the interviewer asks "Do you have ne question on ur side regarding the co, the work etc". Unable to come up with a question at the spur of the moment, Mr Y asks "Sir, where do u see me 5 yrs from now"

Another place where interviews play an important part is CAT. I didn't make it through CAT but have been doing a bit of a research to help my friends who got thru. It turns out IIM A interviews are the ultimate in stress interviews. Here are a few samples

The student enters the room and before he can say nething or have a seat
Interview panel : What r u here for ?
Student : I am here to appear for an interview for the MBA program of IIMs
Panel : U don't know the name of the program u r applying for. Get out

Panel : Which is ur favourite book
Student : Love in the time of Cholera
Panel : Ok, What r the symptoms of Cholera ?

As the interviews continue, such cases will keep on coming. Lets c how many more shall be there

Happy New Year

2005-12-30T23:38:00.000+05:30

Another year goes by and time to catalogue the happenings in this year.

The year started fine with 7 of us working to make Chaos: The Gaming Carnival as one of the first cross country gaming event of its kind. This pursuit took the first quarter of my year as there was work to be done ranging from arranging of the sponsorships to getting the infrastructure in place. Fortunately, everything fell in place and the event became a huge success with 1200+ participants from across the country. In course of the event, we contacted Raptor Entertainment, a game development major in B'lore where I ended up doing my summer internship and started blogging. Chaos was certainly the highlight of this year for me.

After this, I have been blogging regularly. Hence, nothing new to put up.

10 of us decided to spend the new year camping at Shivpuri, Rishikesh. The place was awesome. The camp was at the banks of river Ganges,serene and peaceful but extremely cold. Played beach soccer and I am still tired. Lit a bonfire at night and had a blast singing at the top of our voices. In the morning, got out of there, came back and slept for 5 hrs flat.

Time to make new year resolutions (and this yr I intend to keep them like every yr)
1. Learn a foreign language (French/German)
2. Lose some weight (I know its a cliche but can't help it)
3. Get to know abt working of stock markets
4. Miscellaneous Resolutions like sleep well, eat healthy, do meaningful reading etc

PS: I forgot to mention that I got placed with Manhattan Associates, Bangalore.

Somewhere I Belong

2005-12-16T14:39:00.000+05:30

Time to go back to Roorkee after a memorable stay in Indore and Ahmedabad. Meeting ones family and friends after a long interval made the holidays a worhwhile experience. However, now most of my friends have left Indore for either PG or jobs resulting in me being confined to home for most of the time. Hence, was able to do a lot of reading like Interpreter of Maladies, The Godfather Returns, Elephants can Remember etc.
Now back to Roorkee for the placements. God knows where I'll end up. For the past few years, I have been in Kota, Roorkee, Bangalore with roots in Ahmedabad and Indore. Somehow I feel that each of these places have made their own contributions making me the person I am today. Let's see what'll be the next city in this list.

Signing Off from Indore. However for the bibliophiles, the review blog Literature & Movies is back online with a review on The Godfather Returns. Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to keep it updated throughout the semester too.

There & Back Again

2005-12-12T23:12:00.000+05:30

The title is inspired from LOTR and from the fact that I just came back from a one day trip to Delhi and will be going back again this Friday. Once again I have to endure the morning cold of Delhi.
2day I was flipping through the channels and came across a couple of odd things on Aaj Tak:
1. Aaj Tak was asking public opinion on changing the name of Bangalore to some weird South Indian name which I don't even remember. What's more, many ppl answered in affirmative to the change. I haven't got used to Mumbai or Kolkata and I might have to remember one more name.
2. Some time later, Aaj Tak praising Pathan's exploits in 2day's match followed by his rise from rags to riches. I agree that Pathan is probably find of the past few years and has the potential to be a very good allrounder but to remind us of his beginnings after every good performance, every man of the match is a bit too much
3. Finally, the breaking news thing that Aaj Tak does. Every day, Aaj Tak finds some trivial incident, blows it up into something huge as if 9/11 has happened. It bugs me but I guess to run a 24 hr news channel needs to do this kind of thing.
While going to Delhi, I saw a book titled The Godfather Returns. Being a huge Godfather fan, I had to read it at all costs. I have completed 3/4th of the book and surprisingly the book is good. Will discuss more abt it later.
Finally, I saw a trailor for a Sohail Khan produced movie named Fight Club. Now Bollywood has shed even the pretext of changing the name.Now we won't have to try and remember the name of the original movie on seeing the copy.
Real Madrid seems to be the key runner in signing Keane. Perez hasn't learnt from his mistakes. God help Madrid

Home Sweet Home

2005-12-10T02:12:00.000+05:30

Back from Ahmedabad and in Indore for the past few days. What have I been doing ? Eating, Sleeping and Reading. I must have gained quite a few kgs but no worries. The mess food will take care of it when I m back in rke.

Let me tell u something abt Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is my birthplace and most of my relatives stay there. Its a heaven for veggies. Anything u want - South Indian, Punjabi, Continental, Vada Pav and ice-creams. All available at economical prices. Infact I came across an offer that I havent seen newhere in India.

There's a pizza joint named US Pizza in Ahmedabad (franchisee of some US pizza joint). They have an unlimited offer going on. For 99 bucks, u get - soup, salad (from the salad bar with macroni, pasta etc. abt 20 choices), garlic bread, choice of three pizzas and dessert (vanilla with brownie). Stunned ? The best part is now. U can have unlimited quantities of all the above except dessert i.e. unlimited pizza, garlic bread, salad etc. I dont think I have eaten so much at a time. A single meal there sustained me throughout my day.

At first, I thought this was an anamoly. Then I discovered a place offering unlimited lunch package for 70 bucks. Replace above food stuff with curries, rice etc. This offer is fast becoming a norm there.

Back to the usual stuff. Almost everyone has been asking me abt CAT. This yr, CAT decided to go in with a paper tougher than usual with only 90 questions. I haven't yet calculated my score but my instincts say that I could have performed better. So lets wait and watch.

I also saw a show named Games Bond on Star One 2day. Its a television show where two Counter-Strike Clans come and play. For the uninitiated, Counter-Strike (or CS) is a First Person Shooter game with two teams - Terrorist and Counter-Terrorists. Terrorists have to bomb a target by planting explosives and Counter-Terrorists have to stop them. Amazingly realistic physics, weapons (Its the closest u can get to fire an AK 47, a carbine or be the sniper u always want to be) and team co-ordination. IMO, its the best game ever created. Being a CS player myself, I had heard abt the show and decided to c the episode. Incidentally, the episode was the annual finals. The show was crap. The teams indulged in mindless rhetoric like "We r gonna massacre u", "We're too good for u" etc. To top it all, their gameplay wasn't all that impressive. I guess the serial was made by someone who hasn't played CS. Its a bad implementation of a good concept.

Was going to write a lot 2day but had to attend a marriage 2day and am very tired. So going to sleep now. Will post more stuff later.

I'll end with the usual. I read Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies which is a Pulitzer price winner. Its a collection of short stories. Mental Note- I have to upload its review on my other blog. Currently reading Agatha Christie's Elephants Can Remember and Joseph Heller's Catch 22.

Sports - Madrid going thru another crisis. They have sacked another manager, their Sports Director has resigned and team is in disarray. They finished second in their grp meaning they r looking at facing Chelsea/Arsenal/Juventus/AC Milan/Inter Milan in the second round. Guess another trophyless season is looming.

Have to go to Delhi for a day 2morrow. The city is freezing and my train reaches at 6 am. But three and a half years in rke have prepared me well for this. Next post after coming from Delhi.

2005-12-04T15:35:00.000+05:30

It has been a long time since my last post. A lot has happened over this month like CAT, Semester Exams, B.Tech Final Yr Presentations etc. I remember redefining rock bottom in one of my previous posts. CAT and Semester Exams kept redefining it repeatedly. Most of my friends also faced similar situation and 2gether we were able to laugh and forget out problems. Everything got even worse with RM performing atrociously at home (they lost 3-0 to Barca). I guess I should prepare for another trophyless season.
Finally everything was over and our VII semester ended.Only one more semester to go. I remember that when I was in XII, our teachers told us repeatedly that we were going to face the world after XII. I was never able to comprehend the meaning of these words. Now with only 5 more months b4 we face the world (this time, it seems for real), it scares me whenever I think abt it.
Currently, in Ahmedabad to meet my cousins and get some good food. I guess the next post will be from Indore after abt a week.

Life it seems, will fade away.....

2005-11-10T21:23:00.000+05:30

The starting lines of my favourite Metallica song Fade to Black. This song is about the mental state of a person about to commit suicide. I am reminded 2day of this song more than ever, the reason being that a III yr student of my department committed suicide. I should mention that I didn't know the junior personally but incidents like this are shocking. Another disturbing fact is that this is a second such incident in the same semester with both students being from III yr and of the same department. Rumors going around say that the cause was that they had back papers in one or more papers but this seems like an extremely flimsy reason to me. Can't think of the mental state of a person who can even contemplate such a drastic step. I guess no reason is good enough for this.
Another thing that I am reminded of is a scene from the movie Saransh. Anupam Kher tries to take his own life but is saved. His wife tells him that Taking one's own life is the final act of a coward to which he replies that Who can be more brave than the person who decides to take this step. I don't know who I would agree with.

Life it seems, will fade away

Drifting further every day

Getting lost within myself

Nothing matters no one else

I have lost the will to live

Simply nothing more to give

There is nothing more for me

Need the end to set me free

Things are not what they used to be

Missing one inside of me

Deathly lost, this can’t be real

Cannot stand this hell I feel

Emptiness is filling me

To the point of agony

Growing darkness taking dawn

I was me, but now he’s gone

No one but me can save myself,

but it’s too late

Now I can’t think, think why I should even try

Yesterday seems as though it never existed

Death greets me warm, now I will just say good-bye

Sachin shines, Madrid disappoint

2005-10-27T21:33:00.000+05:30

Sachin's back ! This should be the headline of the week. Everything is well if Sachin plays well. Nobody curses the system, Govt. policies etc. Everywhere, cricket & Sachin are being discussed.

However, I m not a big cricket fan. I used to be cricket fanatic in school but not now, I just can't stand 10 hours of cricket in a day. Although I can see a good test series like the Ashes, India-Pakistan, India-Australia (in India) etc but ODIs are a strict no. Test cricket is the true test of a player's skill. I loved to see Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis operating in tandem and destroying the opposition. I hope Sachin continues this form into the test series as well.

The void left by cricket has been filled by soccer and F1. It was a miserable week as Real Madrid suffered two defeats in 3 days. I was unlucky enough to see one of them Madrid v/s Valencia.

Madrid has already lost Ronaldo & Baptista to injuries (I m still cursing Rosenberg for that). With Zidane missing a penalty (his first for Madrid) and being uninspirational throughout, it was a poor overall performance. However, there were two positives from the match :

1. Sergio Ramos is a pretty good defender. He made a few mistakes but as he becomes mature and adepts to the team, he should improve and become invaluable

2. Robinho. In this case, comparisons to Pele seem justified. Robinho is a gr8 dribbler and dribbled pass 4 Valencia defenders on two or three occasions. Although, he needs to work on his finish but that will come in time.

Now Barca is a point ahead of Madrid. Madrid has already lost an astounding 4 matches in La Liga already. Hope we are not looking at another trophyless season here.

One month to CAT

2005-10-23T21:43:00.000+05:30

Signs that an examination is just around the corner (atleast in IITR)

1. The weather will become just the ideal weather. Moderate temperature and maybe rainfall

2. Someone will get a book or a movie that u were looking for the past few yrs. Worst case- Someone will get a TV show, a sitcom like Friends or a Soap like Orange County which u cannot stop watching before completing

3. There will be no electricity at night when u start studying.

After a long absence, I m back. Many factors contibuted to this absence and time is not one of them. As I had holidays, I had lots of time but as IITR doesn't have internet in the rooms, blogging means coming 2 floors down to the bhawan CC and waiting for ur turn. This is too much work for a lazy guy in festive spirits and holiday mood.

Just next day after holidays, we had our mid-sems. 5 papers in 2 days. Sheer torture. It never ceases to amaze me that after every exam, I have to redefine rock-bottom. I mean rock-bottom should be an absolute term but I discovered that it isn't.

The question after mid-sems is what to do to get over them. I took one night off playing Counter Strike with a bunch of friends from 9 pm to 7.30 am. That was gr8 fun.

I remember promising that this post will not be a depressing one with the festive season going on. Hence, no further discussions regarding TS, CAT and studies.

I used the 10 days holidays to re-read Lord of The Rings. Over 1000 pages but certainly the book of the century. There is a law that Books are always better than the movies based upon them. So if u think that LOTR the movie was superb, read the book. Although there are many differences in between the book and the movies, I would like to point out a major one. In the book, Gandalf is the lead character with Aragorn being lost without him. The character of Aragorn acquires king like qualities as the book progresses. In the movie, the character of Gandalf is a bit overshadowed by that of Aragorn. Maybe because its risky to have an old wizard as the lead as compared to a young king.

On the movie front, saw Raging Bull *ing Robert De Niro in an oscar winning role. The movie is intense but a bit slow. I guess biopics are like this only. However, I prefer Al Pacino over Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro is good as a cold, calculating character like Vito Corleone in Godfather II. Al Pacino rules in roles requiring passion and communicating through eyes. I can't forget this dialogue at the end of the movie The Recruit when he looks at Colin Farrell and says You gotta give me one thing. I am a scary judge of talent.

2day there was a lively discussion between two of my friends abt why ppl pretend or why ppl fake throughout their life. The discussion started at the lunch table and continued after that too. I was a spectator throughout as I hate talking while eating. The inference was that usually ppl are so bound by the social system that they are unable to do what they really want to do. They have to keep delaying working on their passions till its too late. Hope I don't end up like this.

I just remembered that I mentioned an interview in my last post. The interview was for the post of Co-convener in our Techfest - Cognizance. When I got to the interview board, they politely informed me that the post was taken (I didn't get the logic behind it) and they would interview me for the post of Event Manager. The interview was a farce lasting only 2 mins. This might sound like a loser lamenting that he lost out because of a conspiracy.But as I am not doing nething for ne event next semester, maybe I could find time to do something which I wanter to do for a long time like Learn French/German or Guitar.

PS: Just tried posting comments on few blogs. Blogspot has started this thing of word verification. It is such a problem as sometimes the words are clustered 2gether making it difficult to distinguish the letters. Its almost like a Psychology Test in which u see what u want to see. One day I got lm with l and m so close that I couldn't decide whether it was l & m or h & n. Not to say that I failed the word verification. Made me think that am I some kind of online bot.

Can't Think of a Title for this one

2005-10-07T18:03:00.000+05:30

How would you feel if u see 5 months of ur patient work being destroyed inch by inch within 15 minutes in front of ur own eyes. It would tear you apart from within. I had the misfortune to have this terrible experience.5 months of hardwork, toil and satirical remarks from friends all coming to nought. Before you run away with ur imagination, let me specify the incident I m talking about. The incident being discussed is me getting a haircut.

About six months ago, I decided that I'll try a long haired look. After getting a haircut on April 16 (I remember the date because it was my bro's birthday next day and he asked me to get a haircut), I started this quest. Month by month, inch by inch I could see my quest becoming a success. There were many detractors with the usual statement being - This doesn't suit u or Dude! Get a haircut. But I liked the feel of having the long haired look even though it meant regular baths, combing hair every time u leave hostel and continuous barbs.

Then disaster struck. I had to appear for an interview. Firstly, I thought that I'll go without pretending and being who I am (that's what you are supposed to do in an interview) but then realized that the long hair might be a hurdle in clearing the interview. Hence, I had to go for a haircut and see six months of my hard work come apart in front of my eyes.

For the interview, I had to dress up in formals. With short hair and in formals, I was almost unrecognizable from my look of a day ago. The remark that stung me the most after that was a friend saying : Now you look human.

Now head banging to GnR, Maiden, Metallica etc no longer has the same fun as it used to be. Head banging reminds me that finally our campus has its own rock band "Drop Dead". Just last week we had their two performances with gr8 numbers like Alive (Pearl Jam), Fear of The Dark (Iron Maiden), Megalomaniac (Incubus), Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day) etc. Head banging was so much fun then with shoulder length hair.

Now I have 10 days of Dussehra holidays. I can't go home as I have CAT prep and the institute authorities have very kindly decided to schedule our exams the next day after holidays. But with most of my friends staying back with the same reasons, it shouldn't be that bad. Seems I won't be able to have home-cooked food before Dec.

Coming to food, the student's council for mess decided not to serve bread in the mess for one month to break the monopoly of bread vendors (some price hike or something). To add to it, we are being served daliya three days a week. I don't get this. Starving students to break the monopoly of bread vendors seems to be some modern day version of Satyagrah

It has been a long post but the coming to the most integral part. Movies. I say Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi. I found it to be an abstract movie with interpretation of conduct of characters varying from person to person based on his/her perception. But it is a good movie.

With Real Madrid making a strong comeback, the next week should be a perfect one.

Just One Last Thing : My neighbour, Bong has become a zombie since his eons old computer (having the processing power of a modern day calculator) has finally stopped working. Now he roams the corridor on our floor and enters the first open room. Once he enters a room, the room occupant is sure to lose atleast half an hour of whatever he is doing. With me being his neighbour, I suffer the most. But being a good guy (don't smile), I don't mind his habbit.

Calvin & Hobbes

2005-09-24T01:13:00.000+05:30

Convocation Day

2005-09-21T23:12:00.000+05:30

Finally, the day most ppl dream of since entering an institute was here. The fifth annual convocation of IIT Roorkee. Time to see the seniors I haven't seen for the past semester and some I might not be able to meet for a long time. The nostalgic stories of fun, pranks etc and time to move on and leave this place for one final time.

Some juniors and friends asked me whether I will come back to attend my convocation. This question made me think. I agree that Roorkee as a place hasn't been good. Horrible weather, long classes, lots of bureaucracy, no social life etc. But are these the most important factors in deciding abt a place ? In Rke, I met lots of the ppl who changed me for better or for worse. I had the most fun I think I could have had with friends. I remember a quote I read somewhere "Experiences can be good or bad but memories are always sweet". The summary being, I would love to come back for my convocation if possible and meet once again those ppl.

I was celebrating as Convocation meant one extra day of holiday or so I thought. The classes of Wednesday have been shifted to this Saturday. This means a single day weekend. This is pure torture.

I just received a story forwarded to me by one of my friends. Its a long one but very good one at that. Hope u like it as much as I did.

In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning disabled children. Some children remain in Chush for their entire school career, while others can be main-streamed into regular schools. At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, "Where is the Perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God's perfection?" The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father's anguish and stilled by the piercing query. "I believe," the father answered, that when God brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that he seeks is in the way people react to this child." He then told the following story about his son, Shaya:

One afternoon, Shaya and his father walked past a park where some boys Shaya knew were playing baseball. Shaya asked, "Do you think they will let me play?"

Shaya's father knew that his son was not at all athletic and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya father understood that if his son was chosen to play it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging.

Shaya's father approached one of the boys in the field and asked if Shaya could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates. Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said "We are losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning."

Shaya's father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya's team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded with the potential winning run on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shaya was given the bat. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible because Shaya didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it. However, as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shaya should atleast be able to make contact.The first pitch came and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya's teammates came up to Shaya and together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shaya. As the pitch came in, Shaya and his teammate swung at the ball and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game.

Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing short stop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base and shouted,"Run to third." As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming, "Shaya, run home." Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit a "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "those 18 boys reached their level of God's perfection."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash different ways of living and believing and then wonder why the world is going to hell.

Funny how I can be more worried about what others think of me than what I think of me

Murphy's Law

2005-09-19T20:20:00.000+05:30

Murphy's Law states that

"If anything has to go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time and in the worst possible sequence"

I suppose everyone can identify with this statement atleast once in his/her lifetime. The past two weeks have proved me that this is the most applicable law in day-to-day life.

Firstly, exams. Somehow profs are always able to find the portion I am not so good at and ask questions from it. The second part of the statement also cames true with 5 papers in 2 days. All the tough papers are on the first day and the easier ones on the second day.

The exams ended on Thursday. Thoughts of relaxing and watching some soccer crossed my mind but ESPN/Star Sports have stopped live telecast of La Liga (Spanish Football). With Real Madrid losing three matches in a week, my friends are not losing any opportunity to make fun of the Galacticos.

Continuing with sports, tennis has gathered many new supporters here with Sania fever spreading around. Federer was invincible as ever even when he played below par. Hewitt and Agassi both could take only one set each off him. Can't wait for Australian Open to start.

On the positive side, I watched the complete Lord of The Rings again. Somehow, we got an uncut version with one and a half hour of extra footage. Enough reason to watch the trilogy again. More than 10 hours later, I realized that LOTR is one of those rare movies in which eveything is perfect from casting, dialogues, cinematography,story, direction etc. Now I am back to reading LOTR again.

CAT preparations are going on at a decent pace. Quantitative Abilities is proving to be my nemesis in Mock CATs and I am working on it.

Time to go back and mug up some Quants and listen to some music.

Food for Thought !

2005-08-20T18:06:00.000+05:30

The election time is over and we have a new General Secy (Fortunately from our floor). Once again ten days of promises, permutations & combinations and double crossing comes to end. Just hope that the new team can put aside their differences and work for the good of the institute & the students.
I read a post on freedom on my friend's blog (http://comingback2life.blogspot.com). He has raised some questions abt the current generation taking freedom for granted and abt patriotism. Maybe the current generation doesn't feel abt it because we never had to fight for it and hence, we take freedom for granted.
Still continuing with the agenda of seeing good, meaningful Hindi movies. Saw Mr & Mrs Iyer. Its a very nice movie abt how humanity in people comes to the fore in face of communalism with both Rahul Bose and Konkana Sen being perfect in their roles.
Another movie that I saw again was Swades, certainly one of my favourite Hindi movies of recent times and the best performance by Shahrukh Khan till date. The movie always makes me think abt lots of stuff. Let me explain it by an example.
When I was a child, I used to watch BQC regularly. In one of the episodes, the guest personality was Mr Mani shankar Aiyar, current Petroleum Minister of India. Derek asked Mr Aiyar that in India, parents tell children that politics is a bad profession and tell them never to become a politician. To this Mr Aiyar calmly replied that this is the problem. If good men don't go for politics and bad ppl do, u can't expect politics to be good.
Isn't this quotation aptly applicable even now. Many of my friends are appearing for GRE and going abroad for further studies with an excuse that India doesn't have good enough facilities. But if the best people turn away from their responsibilities, how can anyone expect India to become great ?
This is a problem which is visible all around us. For example, Thomso IIT Roorkee's cultural fest. The current team for Thomso is easily the second best because the best people didn't go for any posts. It seems that Cognizance, our techfest will also suffer a similar fate. Do we still have the right to criticize ppl who work for these events ?
Neways, enuff of heavy stuff for now. Hope next post will be a light one.

Books, Movies & Poli

2005-08-13T18:40:00.000+05:30

I decided to see some critically acclaimed movies that I had put on the backburner in the last sem because of their duration or because I wasn't in a mood for the heavy stuff. The list also includes two Hindi movies, so here is what I thought of them

The Godfather II

I loved The Godfather but its not the best movie I have ever seen. The reason maybe that the novel was much much better than the movie and comparisons were inevitable. Godfather II has Robert De Niro playing younger Marlon Brando (the part from the book) and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone trying to cement his place. Robert De Niro won an oscar for his performance. The nasal, reasoning voice of Marlon Brando has been portrayed flawlessly by him. I still can't fathom why Al Pacino missed out on an oscar as I couldn't find nething to separate the two. The last scene where he is seen brooding & remembering the family dinner when he didn't want to become involved in the family business is just superb

Black

A long time since I sw an Indian movie like this. B4 this, I thought that Amitabh had given his best performance till date in Deewar (the old one) but I think this performance rates right with it. The role of a mentor for a mentally-challenged girl makes you realize that how much difference in one's life a mentor can make. I don't think that anybody else can come even close to challenging Rani & Amitabh for the awards this yr.

Masoom

I read the novel - Man, Women & Child by Eric Segal in the summers and decided to see Shekar Kapur's movie. Absolutely gr8 songs, presentation and performances. I guess its the only movie in which I liked Jugal Hansraj.

Next up is Muqbool, as soon as I can get it. In terms of books, still reading A Beautiful Mind.

Its time for politics in IITR as Students' Affair Council is to be formed. I see people involved in politics and can't help by wonder. Quite a few of these ppl, criticize Indian politicians accusing them of being two-faced, profit minded etc. But when it comes to them, they do the same double-crossing, buying votes etc. Another thing that comes to my mind from this. I know that ppl involved in various events bamboozle money. Same ppl are the most vocal in GDs abt politicians being corrupt. Can't understand this hypocrisy. I guess, somewhere I am thankful that Indian politicians are illiterate because a corrupt, illiterate politician is always better than a corrupt, literate one.

I think I am getting too senti abt this but this is what I feel. Neways, its raining 2day and I have a three day weekend. What else could I ask for ?

What's In The Name ?

2005-08-05T00:16:00.000+05:30

I m back after a long lay off. I hope I shall be able to be more regular in my posts now onwards.

Since the day that I can remember, my name has been one of the unique ones. I mean how many of you have ever heard of a guy named Supriy? Since my school days, ppl have been making unnecessary additions & deletions from my name. The most common variations have been Supriya and Supriyo. There have been some weird combos in which even I failed to recognize that I m the person being referred to like Supbix Shakh, Surya and the latest one in the voters' list of my hostel Suopriy. The last straw was when I googled for Supriy Shah and google asked me "Do you mean Supriya Shah"

In my school days, this used to annoy me a lot with my classmates making fun of me. Slowly, slowly I came to terms with my name and stopped being annoyed.

Some of you might be wondering, why I am blabbering so much abt my name. The most weird case happened on our journey from Indore to Roorkee. There were 4 of us and tkts had been reserved by Kaddy. The ticket attendant came, checked the tkt and asked where is the girl Supriya. We assumed that it was the usual mistake that ppl make but he refused to believe us. On closer scrutiny, we found that the tkt itself had name of Supriy as Supriya mentioned as 21 yr old female. The tkt attendant refused to believe the truth and I would have been penalised for impersonating myself. However, we showed him my insti id and he accepted the error. I wanted to kill Kaddy at that point of time.

I guess that was not the last incident of its type and there will be many more to come. But hey, uniqueness has a price to pay.

In the meantime, I was able to read HP VI on the day of its release and also To Kill A Mockingbird. There have been many more interesting cases too but that for the next time.

Friends, Cards and Kasper

2005-07-14T01:27:00.000+05:30

I realized one fact of life about a year ago. I feel closer to my friends from school days than most of my friends from either Kota or Roorkee. Let me clarify this statement in the subsequent paragraphs

I spent my whole school life in the same school. That means I spent 14 yrs in the same institution. In my school days, I was a lot different from what I am now in almost all things e.g my thinking, my hobbies, my perceptions to name a few. Things started to change when I went to Kota to prepare for JEE leaving the security of home. After that, I ended up in Roorkee for my studies. Throughout the course of my studies, I made friends and continue to do this even now.

Most of my friends from school remained in Indore and developed a different kind of personality. This resulted in a difference of attitude towards things, different interests, different perceptions etc. For example, most of my friends are not soccer or F1 fans, almost none of them listen to rock music, read a lot or surf the net. However, my friends from Roorkee and Kota share my interests, perceptions etc. Logically speaking, my comfort level with my friends from Roorkee & Kota should be higher than the one I share with my friends from school.

However, as I mentioned I still feel more comfortable around friends from school. The peculiar thing is that I don't differentiate between friends i.e. all my friends mean the same to me.
I don't know abt opinion of other ppl on this matter. Plz share ur opinion on this & also the reason behind it.

About the second part of the title. On Tues night, eight of us decided to meet at a friend's place for 3 or 4 hrs. The get together started a bit late at 10 pm. What is the best way to pass time when friends are 2gether ? Cards. We brought out the cards and started to play Flash

At 1:30 AM, we packed up and decided to leave. But my family forbid me to travel at so late an hour and so did families of most the friends too. Hence, we ended up playing cards for the whole night :D. It ended at 7:30 AM in the morning. To sum it up, it was a gr8 way to get to meet the friends and spend time with them (Although, I am pretty much sure that my family shall disagree with me)

Finally, to all the fans of our Kaspers. Now that I am in Indore, I get to surf the net late at night and my FG, Kaddy does that in the daytime. We don't get to chat enough to prepare a Kasper. Sensing ur disappointment, we decided to meet in person to compose the next masterpiece. However, we found that its not possible to compose a Kasper in person. We couldn't do it inspite of our best efforts ! Guess Chat Poetry can be done only thru messenger.

We apologize for letting you down. Once our colleges start, we won't be able to do so even more. Hence, our next Kasper could be delayed by a year. But we'll be back. We promise. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the programmers of Yahoo Messenger without whom, Kaspers wouldn't have been possible.

Indore Diary

2005-07-11T01:57:00.000+05:30

It has been a week since I have been in Indore. If I would have landed up straight at Roorkee from Bangalore, the culture shock might have been a little too much to bear. Indore is serving as a middle ground to ease the shock.
Our last night in Bangalore was the most awesome night of the stay. Office guys took us out for dinner and we had a blast. That was when I found out that 3 ppl from our office belonged to a Rock Band. One was bass guitarist, one vocals and one lead guitarist. I am so glad that we went to Bangalore instead of trying to remain at home.
Life at home has been decent at best. Firstly, my friends had seen all the movies and so I was left with no company for movies. Also, most of my friends have graduated now and were trying for admissions in respective PG courses with no time to spare. Soccer season has not yet started and so no matches.
But all is not that bleak. I get to spend time with my family, I get gr8 food and can fight with my younger bro.
After a week of lethargy, I finally got to see Sarkar. It’s a pretty good movie. In case any of you are interested, I will review it pretty soon on Literature & Movies blog (Link in my blog roll).
I got to see a F1 race 2day after a loooong time. McLaren have truly overtaken Ferrari as the leaders of F1. I know that Renault & Alonso are leading McLaren and Kimi but still I have a feeling that this year is McLaren’s year. Alonso has won 5 races this year. In the past two races, Kimi was punished by 10 positions in qualifying but still finished on the podium. In one race, there was some problem with Kimi’s tyres and he had to retire when he was leading Alonso by a comfortable margin. Add to this the fact that McLaren were favourite to win the US Grand Prix and it is clear that it is fate which is against Kimi.
Anyways, 2day the winner was Montoya. Since I started following F1, I have maintained that Montoya is one of the best drivers on the circuit but has never been able to do justice to his talent. 2day he proved his talent by leading Alonso for most of the race. Hope he continues in the same form.
I know this has been a pretty arbit post with me jumping between topics. Its more of a diary entry than a blog. Hope u ppl don’t mind.

Au Revoir Bangalore

2005-07-01T10:10:00.000+05:30

First Impression is the Last Impression

This has never been true in my case. Hence I don't judge people based on first impressions. But I made this mistake with Bangalore
I criticized Bangalore in one of my posts. I was new to place, a bit apprehensive and didn't know neplace to get good North Indian food. Add to this the chronic traffic jams and one ways, I concluded Bangalore was overhyped.
But Bangalore grows on you. Give it time and the only one place in India where u would like to settle permanently is Bangalore.
With time (6 weeks to be precise), I have fallen in love with this city. The positives that this city has far outweighs the negatives.
Firstly,the people.Everyone I met in Bangalore can be described in one word, cool. The office guys (Vidyuth, Sandeep, Jayanth, Ravi, Akshay, Aashray, Keshav, Joel and anybody I might have missed) with whom I could discuss movies, rock music, books,soccer, F1 and computer games (obviously) as easily as with my friends top the list. The young crowd means there is an informal atmosphere everywhere ( Ever worn a GnR/Cobain T-shirt to office ?).
Imagine spending summers under covers with fan turned off. That's Bangalore for you in summers. With temperature hovering around the 25 degree mark in May-June, u always feel fresh and full of enthusiasm & energy.
The only negative that Bangalore has is traffic. Jams are a usual occurance and every other road is a One Way. One ways should be renamed as Bangalores.
So what did I gain from Bangalore. Lots of things, namely
1. Got to know lots of gr8 people
2. Met people I had not met for 2 yrs or more (Rahul, Bhawani, Arun, RK Verma Sir)
3. Made my first e-mail pal
4. Developed the new hobby of Blogging :D
5. Got back in touch with school friends through chatting
6. Bought 35 books (My family is gonna be mad at me)
7. Discovered a FG (Fellow Genius)
8. Me & my FG invented and developed the latest genre of poetry, Kasper (my crowning achievement from this place)
and ofcourse I learnt game development (which was the primary reason for me coming here).
All this Bangalore experience would have been a waste without two people - Joshi & Raghav.
Joshi was with me in all the experiences. I can't thank him enough for that. He also woke me in the morning for office ;) or else... Thanks Joshi for everything
Raghav, well if he wasn't there, me and Joshi might have been the only two ppl and would have gone tired of each other :D.

Time to sign off from Bangalore and go back to IIT R for the last step of that journey. Au Revoir Bangalore. The new title of my Blog is as relevant to IIT R as it is for Bangalore

Book Meme

2005-06-23T16:41:00.000+05:30

Meme - an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

One of my friends on LiveJournal www.livejournal.com/~demonicdiaries tagged me to do this.
So here goes

As far as I can remember, I have always been a voracious reader. When I was a kid, I used to read comics (Nagraj,Dhruv stuff) and some classics. After clearing JEE, I had a month with nothing to do. At that time I discovered English novels and did not look back. I have read anything and everything that came my way ranging from Sidney Sheldon to Ayn Rand. Now I am moving towards more serious reading like GOST, Catch 22, To Kill a Mocking Bird etc and autobiographies.

Total No. of Books I Own: hmm around 35 (my own). Not counting comics & books owned by family members

Last Book I Bought: 27 books from B'lore :)). Last One is Straight From Dell

Last Book I Read: Dude, Where is My Country by Michael Moore

Book Currently Reading: Contact by Carl Sagan

Five Books That Mean A Lot to Me:
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Without doubt, the best book I've read. Couldn't keep it down. Had to complete it in a single seating. Missed classes but who cares. The lines, the personalities, the incidents. Everything is mindboggling

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
A book about dreaming and believing & following your dreams. Philosophy with a difference

Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Books about living for urself and standing up for what u think is right. Unforgettable characters like Howard Roark, Dagny Taggart, Fransisco D' Anaconia, Hank Rearden

Love Story by Erich Segal
130 page book touching u deep inside.

Sherlock Holmes
The series that got me hooked to reading. Still the best detective reads of all times

Harry Potter Series
Preference List - IV, II, III, I, V

Noteworthy mentions :
Harry Potter Series(IV,II,III,I,V)
(Pure fun and enjoyment. Anybody, who won't want to live in that world of magic ? )
7 Habbits of Highly Effective People
Chicken Soup for the soul
Lord of the Rings
Michael Crichton books (Sphere, Timeline,Jurassic Park, The Lost World)
1984, Animal Farm
John Grisham(The Partner, The Rainmaker, The Firm)

Wish List : Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Five People You Meet in Heaven, A Beautiful Mind, Pride and Prejudice

I tag everyone who reads this to put this on their own blog.

Third feather in our cap

2005-06-21T18:03:00.000+05:30

Firstly, let me apologize to our fans for the delay in our next composition. Instead of wasting our energies on all kinds of possibilities, we have decided to concentrate on writing 6 line poems. A 14 line poem is referred to as a sonnet and hence we had to find a name for this new genre of poetry. We decided to keep our modesty and humility aside for this one (how many times in ur life do u get to name a work on art on urself ?) and name it on ourselves. So henceforth, we will refer to our creations i.e. 6 line chat poetry as Kasper (Kaddy + Super). here goes our next creation

On a rainy day in June.

Thinking since afternoon

Seeing Joshi the baboon

Looks of a cartoon

Beware of this moroon
Has evolution happened too soon ?

Signed

Kaddy & Super

Your invaluable comments on helping us to further improve upon our skills (although as a dialogue in our fav movie goes Perfection is difficult to improve upon) are most welcome.

PS: For those of u who think we misspelled moron, it has been done on purpose to keep the rhyming scheme. Gr8 poets do it all the time. :)

Disclaimer: All characters and names in this work of art are purely fictional. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is fully coincidental. :))

Fate/Luck/Coincidences

2005-06-20T17:13:00.000+05:30

Every man has but one destiny - The Godfather

Is the world governed by some supreme power and the everything is predecided with 'luck' being used to enforce its will ? Or actions of a person decide how his life is going to shape up? I guess everyone thinks of these questions sometimes.

People believing in the former hypothesis are sometimes referred to as fatalists i.e. people believing in fate while the believers of the latter hypothesis can be classified as atheists. Some of you might be wondering about the sudden change of mood in my blogs from comic/humor to philosophy. I will tell u the reason behind this

I prepared for JEE in Kota as a student of Bansal Classes. However, I somehow also came in touch with R K Verma Sir and Dr B V Rao, teachers of Physics & Chemistry respectively at Resonance, Bansal's rival class. Both of them are very good teachers (perhaps in the top three of their teaching field) but more importantly they are one of the best people I have met. I did not study much with Verma sir but the little time I spent with me left indelible impressions about his personality especially his modesty and simplicity.

I know this narration is getting a bit lengthy but jsut bear with me for some more time

In my I year at IITR, I came in contact with Arun Sharma. We didn't seem to have anything in common but somehow we just clicked off. We used to spend quite some time 2gether. At the end of I year, he reappeared in JEE and left Roorkee for Kharagpur and we lost contact.

One night, I am just loitering in landmark in Forum (A mall in B'lore) and am stunned to see Verma sir standing just outside the shop. It had been 3 years since I had seen him and I had to be sure. But once I was sure, I had to go up to him and talk to him. Needless to say, he didn't remember me but still it felt good to just be able to talk to him even if for a few minutes.

Yesterday, i.e. Sunday I am just relaxing in my room reading a novel and there is a call from an unknown no. I pick it up (free incoming) and a voice from there says "May I speak with Supriy Shah". I was not used to being talked to like this on phone and replied "Yeah, Supriy here". And the voice says "This is Arun, I m doing my training in IISc Bangalore. Can we meet ?" The feeling cannot be put down in words but we ended up meeting each other and started up right after where we left 2 yrs earlier.

After these two examples,back to the original question. Fatalists will say Makhtub:It's written while atheists will say that all this was just coincidence. This is the real difference between fatalists and atheists other than their beliefs, isn't it ?

So let's have a discussion on this. I am not exactly a fatalist but I trust that there is something beyond normal human understanding that plays a pivotal role in outcome of the events. Some might call it luck, others might call it coincidence but I guess everyone believes that life cannot be defined totally using Mathematical equations or principles of Physics. Let's hear ur side too !

Bond Gets Shock of His Life

2005-06-16T11:16:00.000+05:30

For the uninitiated, we at IIT Roorkee have nick names for almost everyone. These nick names might be twisted names, describing certain aspect of the personality or may be just random e.g. Tarun Bansal being named Bond.
Yestrday, Bond tried to act like Bond by coming online on YM but being invisible. I can't imagine the shock he had when I sent him an IM. He started like "How did you know I was here". I told him intution but he didn't buy that. He kept asking and I kept deflecting the question. Finally, I had to tell him, how I did it? The solution was so absurdly simple that he must have been kicking himself as he lost a treat over it. :))
On another note, I completed Veronika decides to Die by Paulo Coelho. Its a very good book and almost as good as The Alchemist. I shall be putting up its review soon. After this, I have started Dude, Where is my country by Michael Moore. Its another of Moore's satire on George Bush's presidency with chapters named like "How to stop Terrorism ? Stop Being a Terrorist".
Bangalore having a very good market of second hand books has spoiled me. I plan to get few CEO books as well as some books I've wanted for as long as I can remember e.g. Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

Completion of III weeks at B'lore

2005-06-13T17:08:00.000+05:30

Well, another weekend comes up. This weekend, Ankit was going to be in Bangalore and stay with us.
On Saturday (we have a half day)we are working in the office. There is no electricity since morning but the UPS was standing up. We leave for lunch, come back and voila! the UPS backup is out. So no electricity and we ppl in the office start chatting while we wait for electricity. Swapped stories about college life, music interests, movies etc. There was no electricity till 3.30 and we left.
Back home, I continued reading Executive Orders by Tom Clancy. Its the biggest book I've ever read at 1358 pages and I shall be putting up its review on
http://superpassions.blogspot.com
Baveja arrived in the evening and we all went to MG Road to loiter around. There were a total of 5 of us and we had fun. Afterwords we came back and all 5 stayed in our room only. At night, we played cards till 4 am and went to sleep.
Sunday morning, we woke up at 12 noon, got ready by 1.30 and went for lunch. After lunch, went to Raghav's room because he has a TV and DVD player. Watched Munnabhai MBBS before leaving for The Forum to catch Mr & Mrs Smith show at 7.30 pm
Mr & Mrs Smith is easily one of the worst English movies I've seen. Except Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, there is nothing in the movie. Absurd storyline, lame direction and everything against it. So give it a skip unless u are a diehard Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie fan. Afterwords, ate at Pizza Hut and everyone went back their ways except Ankit & Sumit who stayed with us. Ankit will be with us till Wednesday and Sumit didn't want to go back so late as he lives at another corner of Bangalore. At night, watched Dil Chahta Hai on Ankit's laptop and went to sleep. Unfortunately, I ended up sleeping on the floor for past two days in a row. I managed to get my hands on Dude, Where is my country by Michael Moore. Will post the review of this book as soon as I complete it on the same blog that has been mentioned above.

PS: Bad news. Came to know that Bong was diagnosed with viral fever and typhoid. So he's been hospitalized in Hyderabad. Hope he gets well soon.

Poetry with a Message

2005-06-10T17:26:00.000+05:30

Here it comes. After a day of rest, the creative juices are back. With extremely good weather in Indore & Bangalore (cool, rainy) me and Kaddy get back together to pen the second chat poetry of our lives
Our first poem was just an expression of our feelings at that moment of time i.e. it was spontaneous. Now we are writing with a plan. So here goes the starting para of our latest poem

It is raining outside

Let us go for a ride

Or wanna have fun inside

I promise I'll always abide

What u wanna do, u decide

Signed

Super & Kaddy

The poetry is not yet complete. Once we complete it, we'll come out with a title and also what it means and stuff. This is just to satisfy the appetite of our legions of fans, who wait with abated breath for our work.

First Chapo in B'lore

2005-06-10T12:04:00.000+05:30

Finally, we managed to get hold of a senior in Bangalore. That too, Mr Amit Aggarwal. The big fish of the batch of 2003-04. We caught him one day in Forum, called him up the next day and party was finalized.

So yesterday, we met at 7 pm in Forum. While waiting for Amit sir to show up, I ran into R K Verma Sir, proprietor Resonance and one of my teachers in Kota while preparing for JEE. He didn't remember me (I expected that) but still it felt nice to meet him and talk to him after so many years. Finally Amit sir showed up and we four (me, Joshi, Raghav and Sir) went to MG Road for dinner.

There we decided to go for Chinese food and went to Three Quarters Chinese. Once again, B'lore traffic played havoc and it took us half an hour and many rounds of the area to find a place to park our car.Three Quarters Chinese is similar to an ethical Chinese restaurant with Indian staff but the whole menu had weird Chinese names for various dishes e.g. Chap Choi Tobanjan (Combo of Vegetables in Hot Garlic Sauce), Chun Quin (Veg Spring Rolls). Atleast they had given the names/description in English or we all would have been stumped.

The food was good but the bill amount must be astronomical. We all felt a little guilty but there was nothing we could have done at that point of time. Thankfully, Amit Sir is leaving B'lore till 28th so this will give us time to get this over this and be ready for him when he returns.

Our First Chat Poetry

2005-06-08T17:35:00.000+05:30

For those, who have been following my blog would have guessed that I belong the category of ppl who like to have their share of fun while working. So 2day in the evening, Kaddy and I were chatting. Firstly we teased Joshi and then Kaddy went for a coffee. After that, we compiled a poem on coffee on YM (Bet this is one use of Yahoo Messenger even the creators won't have thought off) So here it is, Supriy & Kaddy's first chat poem. Hope this is one of many

Free Coffee By My Side

Cannot keep my happiness inside

That coffee machine is my pride

Dreading the arrival of my guide

This addiction is the starting point of my slide

Always wash clothes with detergent Tide, Tide, Tide

Signed

Super & Kaddy

Some of you might think that this is junk or waste of time. But maybe after 20 years this poem will sell as the first poem written by Super & Kaddy, the greatest English poet duo of Modern Era. and certainly the first to herald the coming of a new genre of English Poetry - Chat Poetry

Amen

Mohan's Birthday

2005-06-07T10:50:00.000+05:30

Monday, 6 June was Abhishek Mohan's birthday. Me and Joshi called him up in the morning to wish him and he invited us to Pizza Hut (MG Road) for dinner and afterwards to movie, D. We agreed happily to this. We didn't know what we were getting into.

Reached Pizza Hut at 7.45 pm and had to wait for 15 minutes for the Ti ppl to show up (Mohan, Nema, Manu, Shilpaand a guy from IITD whose name I forgot to ask). That with us four - me, Joshi, m/c and Raghav made it 9 ppl. Ppl started to go berserk whild ordering and Mohan clarified that he won't pay more than 600 bucks. We agreed to this (why I don't know) and ordered as if we were starving.

In the end, Mohan ended up paying 700 bucks and each of the other ppl ended up paying, hold ur breath 75 bucks each. This is more than what me and Joshi spend in Pizza Hut if we go there by ourself. To rub salt in the wound, we could not go and see D as we were already delayed.

Moral of the Story :- Never go to Mohan's chapo in Pizza Hut and if u go, try and keep ppl under control while ordering

The Reason Gerrard shud stay at Anfield

2005-06-03T13:35:00.000+05:30

This is a post I came across in a Forum on ESPNStar on why Gerrard shud stay. gr8 Post

As a lifetime AC Milan fan, with a Liverpool supporting girlfriend, I would like to give you my view on Steven Gerrard and his future at Liverpool. Steven Gerrard: 24 years old, Liverpool captain, from Merseyside, a homegrown talent. Now, I believe most of you reading have played football when kids (some of you are probably still playing now, like me, in those cold Sunday mornings, in some local amateur league, sorting out the nets, the money for the ref, bringing home muddy boots for the missus' delight...). We all started in the same fashion and so did Mr Gerrard: in the streets and in the school playgrounds, with jumpers for goalposts, spending hours arguing wether the ball was or wasn't gone over a bar that wasn't there to begin with. Preferring a game of football with your mates to anything else that there was in life. And if we weren't playing football... we would be watching it. Whether you were a striker or a defender, whether you were good or bad, whether you were you or you were Steven Gerrard the dream was one for all of us: TO WEAR THE LIVERPOOL SHIRT AND THE CAPTAIN'S ARMBAND AT ANFIELD IN FRONT OF THE KOP You can change that to AC Milan and the San Siro if for me. I am sure every single one of you had that dream of putting on the Red shirt and the armband. Some of you probably still do! Well, so did Steven Gerrard. This is why as a neutral I can not understand nor tolerate the fact that the guy is even thinking of a career outside Liverpool! Can you? Being captain of your own team at the age of 24, playing Champions League football ... is that not enough? If Gerrard was to stay he almost certainly will be Liverpool captain for another 10 years. He will almost certainly win trophies in the next 10 years. He will be Liverpool greatest player during his nearly 20 years with the club's first team. He will be a legend. He will probably be remembered as the best Liverpool player ever. He will be what Franco Baresi has been to Milan. Does anyone know what Baresi did in the early eighties? Here's what has happened: At 14 Baresi joins Milan after Inter (where is older brother was playing) rejected him, how foolish of them! He makes his debut very young and in 1979 wins the title with Milan. A couple of years later Milan gets relegated from Serie A to Serie B. The club is in a mess having being involved in match fixing and the club's owner ran away. The club was in total crisis, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel was impossible. A few weeks later city's rival Inter make an offer for Baresi and Baresi's partner in the middle of the defence Collovati. Straight away Collovati joins Inter. A then very young Baresi (21-22) is made captain of a falling giant. He's regarded by most as the best young talent of his generation and the 1982 World Cup is around the corner. Staying with Milan playing in Serie B would probably jeopardise his chances of going to the World Cup. Joining Inter would mean playing alongside his brother and enjoying the race for title every season at a club flushed with money. Collovati had no doubt in his mind that the right choice was to join Inter. But what did Baresi do? The similarity with the Steven Gerrard's situation was so big I had to write this article. Liverpool are nowhere near as bad as AC Milan was in the early eighties. What should Steven Gerrard do? What did Franco Baresi do? I am sure most of you know what Baresi did but I'll tell you anyway: HE STAYED AT MILAN! He played for them in Serie B. He was so good he was picked for the World Cup squad anyway. Milan won the Serie B league and came straight up only to go down again one season later. More offers came in for Baresi. Did he regret his original choice? Did he join Inter, Juve? Did he? Of course he didn't. He played for Milan in Serie B again. That's what I call a man! In the following years with Milan he won promotion and then went on to win the European Cup three times (now better known as Champions League), he won the Intercontinental Cup twice, the European Super Cup 3 times, the Italian League 5 times (to add to the win in 1979), and played a total of 5 European Cup Finals. He became for every Milan fan 'Il Capitano' (The Captain, capital T and capital C). When he retired from football in 1997 the club not only organised a match for him in the San Siro where 85,000 paying supporters saw him and the Milan players play the likes of Maradona, Romario, Careca, Koeman, Mattheus but also the jersey with the number 6, the number he worn for so many years, was retired as well. No more Milan players will ever wear the number 6 (this week has been announced that the same will happen with Paolo Maldini's number 3 when he retires). Thinking forward should Gerrard commit himself to Liverpool for life? I can not see why he shouldn't be able to experience the same glory and all time legendary status. It all goes back to that one dream we had when we were playing in the streets. The day that dream ends football will end with it. I wish Steven Gerrard will realize this. By the way: how many of you knew who Collovati was? To Milan fans he's a traitor, that's all, who left the club in their hour of need. I have to wash my mouth every time I say his name. Baresi in contrast is an immortal.

Overhyped Bangalore

2005-06-02T15:04:00.000+05:30

Now that I have been in Bangalore for 10 days, it allows me to have a more objective look at the city. Is bangalore really what it is claimed to be ? Indian silicon valley. The fifth metro etc. The place where everybody wants to work.
I don't agree with these analysis. Yeah Bangalore is fun but there are only so many times you can go to Forum, roam on MG Road or Brigade Road. What else to do ?
Firstly, the plus points. The weather is gr8. Enthusiasm and informal work culture are surely a positive thing and the crowd and eateries too.
But the traffic is pathetic. I mean I have seen more traffic jams here in 10 days than in the last 10 years of my life. To cover 2 kms from office to home at 7 pm takes 45 min. Moreover, electricity problems. Whenerver, it rains electricity is cut off and we are left in the darkness. Is this what an international city is ? I don't think so
My analysis might be wrong. After coming from a place like Roorkee and hearing so much about B'lore, I might have been expecting a lot. But in this case, I got less than I expected

Liverpool - The Kings of Europe

2005-05-26T14:07:00.000+05:30

The big day(or night rather) was here. The Champions League Finals with Liverpool taking on the might of AC Milan.With no TV around, we had to go to m/c's place. A foolish auto driver gave us the wrong directions and instead of 10 km, we had to travel 30 kms to get there. Still seeing that final was worth anything.
The match started in a disaster for Liverpool with Maldini scoring in 53 seconds. It went rom bad to worse to worst for Liverpool with them trailing by 3-0 at halftime. Everybody wrote off Liverpool. But they had not accounted for Gerrard, the greatest player on earth 2day
In 54th min, Gerrard took a superb header to start the comeback. In 56th min, Smicer hit a 20 mts shot to fool Dida and the the comeback was complete in 60th min when Gerrard won a penalty and Alonso converted on the rebound. Liverpool had the advantage with Milan looking tired. But none of them could convert their chances and match went into extra time.
30 minutes of extra time followed. Milan dominated those two sessions but could not convert many golden chances the best one being Shevchenko's in second interval. Shevchenko missed out on a chance from a meter and also the rebound. This double save from Dudek showed that Gods were on the side of Liverpool.
Then to the penalties.Milan started them with Serginho going wide and Dudek saving the one from Pirlo. Liverpool scored both. Then Tomasson and Kaka converted for Milan. Riise missed his chance and it was down to Shevchenko, on whom you could bet ur life to convert a penalty
to save Milan. But Dudek saved that one and Liverpool became the Kings of Europe.
Another good news :- Gerrard has pledged his future to Liverpool.

General Life@Bangalore

2005-05-26T11:27:00.000+05:30

Someone once told me that Bangalore is called "The Garden City". After being here for a week, I think it is "The Bar City".Each and every street has atleast one bar and the thing is every one of them is full.
Another scene is in the South Indian food joints. All such joints are filled at all times. Seeing these scenes, Joshi remarked "People down here have nothing to do except eat and drink". I didn't remark that he also seems to have only these two things to do as I have to live 6 weeks with him.
Some people warned me that food in B'lore can be expensive. Well that's only if a person is not willing to move to South Indian cuisine.If u r ready to experiment with South Indian cuisine, food in B'lore is as cheap as anywhere. One way to live is save money on weekdays for a blast on the weekend. This is what we are doing.

I Weekend in Bangalore

2005-05-23T14:21:00.000+05:30

Saturday:
Had to go to office at 10.30. Left Rahul's place at 9 am and went to find accomodation. Could not find accomodation till 11.30 as commute was between two ends of the city and had to miss office. Found a decent place in BTM Layout, 5 minutes from office and took it.Picked up our stuff from Rahul's place and moved into our new room
Meesam, Raghvendra, Raghav, Lalit and us had decided to meet at Forum at 4.30 pm. So took a bath and went there. Forum is a mall in Bangalore. Unbelievable place with anything under the sun available. By the time we reached there, no tickets for Star Wars Episode III night show were available. So decided to see Kingdom of Heaven directed by Ridley Scott & starring Orlando Bloom. Window shopped in the mall for 8 pm and then went to MG Road for dinner. There went to NASA for dinner and time pass till 10pm. gr8 place with rock music blaring at ful volume.Heard Metallica, GnR, Iron Maiden etc till 9.45 and left for the movie.
The movie was a disaster.If I hadn't paid 130 bucks for it, it would have been the first English movie I would have walked out off. But had to stay put till the end with Ridley Scott out of my good books. It was around 12.30 already so we all went to our place. More misery - No electricity and hence slept in the heat with six people in the room.

Sunday:
Got up in the morning at 10. Me, Joshi & Raghav decided to catch Star Wars in Forum while rest of the guys went back. Unfortunately, only night show tickets left and so, moved over to see the movie in Symphony another hall. After the movie, hanged around Crosswords for some time, had our evening snacks at a Rs 11 street corner and left for MG Road. Covered the length and breadth of MG Road and Brigade Road. Found a few good used books shops but didn't have money so bought only three books. Will go back to check them out later. Nothing more in the night worth telling except that Bhawani got placed in Caritor and owes me a big party and I got scolded for not informing my number at home. But this is usual, isn't it ?

Accomodation Problems

2005-05-20T17:29:00.000+05:30

Today was a usual day as Daisy (the dog) was out and Joshi was subdued. Morning was lost in looking at still more PG Accomodations and afternoon in working. The progress till now has been pretty decent. The only event was m/c (Meesam) calling for the weekend program. Planned to see Star Wars III but detailed program has not been finalised. 2morrow office for only 3 hours then again search for accomodation. 2night going to Rahul's flat. Shall see what to do later.

Went to Rahul's flat after Manish Bhaiya and Bhabhi left. Went to Rahul's home at the other end of B'lore. Met him and his three roomies. These four have become more of Joshi's kind of people than my type if u get the hidden meaning. Anyways, night was fun as we had dinner and than went to sleep. Next day, office at 10.30 but before that have to find accomodation.

I Day at Internship

2005-05-20T13:37:00.000+05:30

May 19,2005
Morning: Joshi woke me up at 8 am. I tried to kick him but suddenly remembered that this was not Roorkee. So had to stand up grudgingly and get ready. At 9.45,we started for office and Joshi stopped to buy a SIM. One thing led to another and the old man at the counter yelled at "Educated People" in general and Joshi in particular. I was shaking with silent laughter but this was just one of many more such incidents to come. Reached the office at about 10.15 am and met the people. People are really nice with an informal atmosphere. The work is really interesting and we started working within an hour. There is one problem though. These people have a dog who is more of a wolf than a dog and he barks like anything. One of them had to escort us to avoid the dog.

Afternoon: Got up for the lunch break and went for a South Indian Thali. Haven't eaten so much rice in a single meal in my life. Went to work in a drowsy state and Joshi tried to act bold. Tried to run by the dog but couldn't. I once again was left shaking with silent laughter. After trying to run the program for about two hours (without success), Joshi had to call his brother. He went out to call and within seconds, there was barking of dog and shouts of Joshi. I leave the rest to your imagination. Don't worry. Joshi survived. Came back all shaken and shivering with me shaking with silent laughter. This shaking went on for the remaining afternoon.

Evening: Left the office at 6.30 pm and went to purchase a SIM for myself. For this had to get a photo. Went for digital photograph and decided to buy 37 photographs for 60 bucks but after looking at the photo, changed my mind to 5 photos for Rs 40 as no use having 37 copies of that photo. Purchased the SIM and went to see a few PG accomodation with Akshay from office. Here people are giving dungeons and cells for Rs 2500 per "head". Didn't like any PG and went back. Rest of the evening passed off without any incident. Hence, I day was good and filled with much more silent laughs than I would have thought possible

Murphy's Law At Work

Musings of a Confused Mind

Blogathon Day 1, Sunday April 20 2008: Infrastructure-How can we improve the traffic condition in our city?

Reservation Quotas

Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows: Unanswered Questions

The Bose Effect

I am back (Yet again)

Turning 23

Retrospection

2007

Anatomy of a (former)Chat Addict

Officially Engineer now.

Dentists

Goodbye Andre!

Sad but True

Tags

The i-Ching

The Other Side

The Weekend of many firsts

Merci Zizou! For Everything

Farewell London

Sayonara Roorkee

Go Naruto

Metamorphosis

Rang De Basanti

Personality

Interviews

Happy New Year

Somewhere I Belong

There & Back Again

Home Sweet Home

Life it seems, will fade away.....

Sachin shines, Madrid disappoint

One month to CAT

Can't Think of a Title for this one

Calvin & Hobbes

Convocation Day

Murphy's Law

Food for Thought !

Books, Movies & Poli

What's In The Name ?

Friends, Cards and Kasper

Indore Diary

Au Revoir Bangalore

Book Meme

Third feather in our cap

Fate/Luck/Coincidences

Bond Gets Shock of His Life

Completion of III weeks at B'lore

Poetry with a Message

First Chapo in B'lore

Our First Chat Poetry

Mohan's Birthday

The Reason Gerrard shud stay at Anfield

Overhyped Bangalore

Liverpool - The Kings of Europe

General Life@Bangalore

I Weekend in Bangalore

Accomodation Problems

I Day at Internship