Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles

Sick :-(

2012-02-06T20:00:00.004+05:30

One of those times where you feel excruciating pain in both the ears and through the face, lose your voice, lose a couple of kilograms over the weekend and spin every time you stand. Damn genes.

Saturday mornings and a dog-eat-dog world!

2012-02-04T15:23:00.001+05:30

I have never really liked Hyderabad. It is not only the weather or the traffic but the very fact that it is in the middle of nowhere with almost no Tamil food unlike Bangalore where you have a Udupi restaurant at every street corner. There are no parks nearby, no places to really bike around without getting mowed down by a moron. The sun always beats on one's neck and you would end up fearing for life every time you get onto the main road mainly because of these gangs of dogs.

Back home in Madurai, in my childhood, my neighbours' dogs Saaliny, Subramani and Poornima clanged against gates and bared their teeth at the sight of me at any given opportunity. Once, the lithe and skillful Subramani weaseled his way out of a closed gate and chased me up the neem tree before my house. I had to rouse the entire street before the dog's owner came and told me that Subramani, who was being restrained from the pouncing, really had a thing going on for me. Even the stray dogs on road smelled my presence and Carpe Diem'd by barking their wits out. My wall climbing skills were put to general display, when a motherly stray dog whom I called Mrs.Norris, chased me through a series of ten houses. Pomeranians near my house, were generally snobbish, pampered and they looked down upon most people. If they were not seated on their cushy chairs eating cake, they were yapping at me while swiveling round and round with their little bodies. They did this so much that my neighbours asked me not to come to their houses as "Saaly" and "Jackie" became disturbed after my visit.

It won't be true if I can justify my cynophobia by telling folks I was a cat at some point of time in my eight births. This is because cats creep me out too, what with all the soul searching stare. I don't mind animals like elephants, hippopotamus or the friendly cow (Lakshmi) across the street. I recently read that human brain prepares the adrenaline even if it vaguely sees the presence of threat. It doesn't really put together the pixels before deciding to flee. Maybe this is why I get all prepped up to flee even at the sight of sheep, white gunny bags or anything that remotely resembles a dog at a distance.

When I was in Mountain View, I was shocked to see a flock of dogs as small as chickens lolling about in the Google campus. People brought their dogs to office and they usually had dog fences at their doors. All these dogs looked very well groomed and pretty like their Californian owners. Someone told me that dogs in the US never really bark and are very well trained. Somehow, the fact that the owners can be sued if their dogs bite a person greatly soothed me. I was having a mostly carefree summer with the only worry of mounting credit card bills. One particular day, I was carrying home a horde of things which were to become a part of the 110 kgs of I brought back from the US. On this day, among other things, I had gotten a jar of salsa, to modify it into Tomato thokku. I was waiting for my bus from Sunnyvale, when I suddenly felt something wet and soft on my ankles. I look back to find a monster of a dog, black and satanic, almost like the apocryphal buffalo of Yama, sniffing at my ankles. While a , "Here boy, come on boy" would have been an adequate response to deal with the situation, I yelled bloody murder and gripped a passerby's arm. This was a middle aged lady, who had come out for a run. The passerby now shrieked while the dog which got more scared than I did, jumped on its hind legs and held on to me. It was so close that I could see the white's of his eye above me. The dog's owner who had sent him to fetch a stick, came to us and pulled the dog off me. It took sometime to calm the dog and the passerby and I ended up apologizing to everyone. The dog, clearly traumatized, picked up the stick, licked a bit of the Salsa and set off mournfully onto the park with his owner.

To get over the fear, I once stroked a St.Bernard puppy named Simba, making sure the owner, a 5 year old girl, held his mouth close. It gave me waves of thrill like playing with fire. The next time I went home, it had grown up to look like a fatcow and that is the last time I enquired about Simba.

After self-destructing my health for the past half a year with oodles of food, late night TV series and no exercising, I have finally woken up. For the last two months, I have started walking/jogging along the hi-tech city road early in the morning. It is a pleasant place lined by Dell, Oracle and Deloitte offices while lie deserted during the wee hours of twilight. I have become incapacitated to enjoy this beauty without a bodyguard to protect me from dogs. My roommate, with whom I walk this stretch often finds me zigzagging to her either sides depending on the position of the stray. These strays follow us back home and get into a fight with the resident stray of our street for trespassing. Rest assured that I always finish my last mile with a sprint.

I have been jogging around the huge KBR park which is at quite a distance from my home, on Saturdays since last week. I found the stretch calming and soothing, not only because it felt so faraway from the maddening traffic but also because of the absence of dogs.

For once, I can walk free and feel the sun rays on my face. I could walk without the fear of inciting a dog fight or without worrying about my now reduced agility in climbing trees. Saturday mornings have been reinstated to their former glory! Woof!

Today's Google Doodle

2011-09-17T00:48:00.001+05:30

There was a mail at office some months before to suggest India specific doodles.

This was my idea :)

I am so so happy! :)

One year at Google

2011-06-24T12:29:00.011+05:30

One year at Google and I have already relapsed into the corporate mode. Looking back, I have realized how much I have changed in a year. There are three of such noticeable changes that I thought was worthy to blog about.

I am so much lesser contentious than I was. I don't voluntarily participate in debates, arguments unless and until the argument directly affects my happiness or has the potential to change the way I see my day.

If there is an incredible personal achievement, it is getting over my aversion for data/maths. Remember the days of CATs when I would skip questions with tables and graphs? In the past 6 months, I have discovered what had gone wrong. Since all those scary math questions always dealt with calculations and seldom with logic, I have been looking at them in a very wrong way.

My Google moment of the day comes when I am sitting in a meeting with a huge graph and I make interpretations on the fly. It feels incredible to sweep lakhs of data points, find logical inconsistencies and also decide which data would support my arguments. I am hugely indebted to this place for making me realize a knack that I have always had. As I do more and more of data analyses, I feel that it is a pity in all these years, math was always about how "fast" I find a product rather than how smartly I do it.

My idea about what to respect in people has changed oh-so-much. I just learned to distance myself from anyone who make me grimace at the start of the day. It is so much more easier to pretend some people do not exist than pick up fights with the said people to prove a point.

Most of all, these days, I feel genuinely happy for others when good things happen to them. I think this is because I am very happy with how things have worked out for me. Trust me, this is my biggest personal achievement coming from a family who thrives on maddening amount of competition, putting freakish amount of pressure on everyone they know!

On a happy note, this year, I got

1) 1 "Gold Award"

2) 2 peer bonuses

3) an opportunity to work from Mountain View campus for a month (People who will be in CA during August, please let me know)

Also, this happened today :)

Some nice things that happened last year!

The work-station

The food

The football!

FB post -2 Saturday Mornings

2011-03-13T11:05:00.002+05:30

Put the clothes in the Washing Machine
Remove last week's clothes from the line and dump in iron bag
Cut potatoes and put in cooker for lunch
Put three spoons of coffee powder in the percolator for the filter coffee
Stretch on couch and read one week worth of Phd,XKCD,SMBC, Oatmeal and Abstruse Goose
Read the FB walls of all those I have missed seeing
Fix up a massage appointment

Bask in the fact that it is only 9 am and there is an entire weekend along the way

=)

Something I posted up in FB long time ago.

2011-03-13T11:02:00.002+05:30

The Word Cynicism is derived from kunikos, a Greek word meaning “dog-like"

If only I get a penny every time I cringe at the following.

1) Howard Roarks wannabes-

I do not think you are cool because you think you are Howard Roark, personified . On the contrary, I think you are a jerk because you justify your jerkiness by quoting Rand. I hate the fact that you do not think about other people because Roark set the trend and the thousand others whom you don't want to care about think that is cool.

2) People who put Hrithik Roshan/ Salmaan Khan photos as profile pictures

Is it because you want the girls to know that you look like Salman Khan or do you actually want to meet girls who would think the smart guy in the picture is you?

3) The Niceones

I know you are not interested in any aspect of my life, so why bother asking about my job, my house, my kitten and my parents, before zeroing on the topic you wanted to talk me about.

4) Serial Taggers
People will read the post if it is visible on their feed. If they have time to attend quizzes about their names/dogs/vaastu shaastra/lovology, they have time to stumble onto your note/post . It is not really necessary to tag everyone on your friend list in order that the post catches their eye.

5) Mixed Cappers
WrItING LiKe this is NOT funky. It does not make you any cooler than the fake Adidas/Puma/Reebok shirt you are wearing.

5) EmotiConned.

:) - > ^-^ ? !

6) Men in Poetry

Please do not start blogs and write poems for picking up girls. I have known instances of blogs morphing in to cupid.coms where the hero wept to several heroines in poetry.

7) Re-Re-Viewed
Okay, you saw the Inception and the Black Swan. You don't have to review it on FB before your popcorn becomes cold. Yes, Yes we know you have a very expensive Android phone by which you can access the internet.

There are some more, but it being a very tiring day, I cease here

Feel free to un-friend.

Of Shruthi Boxes and Sunk Cost fallacies

2011-01-13T00:19:00.001+05:30

The unexpected discovery of the fact that my mother has donated my "Shruthi box" to the Hanumar Koil Bajanai, has brought back a flood of memories. The box had stood as a testimony of eleven years of struggle involving industrial quality yelling and slamming doors. In the ripe age of four, I was inducted in to a music class taught by this old man near our rice-mill, which made us refer to him with a sobriquet of "Rice-mill thatha". Three days after the first class, he sent for my mother and told her with deep regret that it was impossible to induce in to me the sense of tune and music. My mother was deeply up-fronted. She should have known better, as our genetic predisposition makes us sleep in the first rows of musical recitals.

She then decided that there should be someone who was a better teacher. She found another lady , who was very rich and taught music in the evenings because she was bored at home. My mother bribed me with a colouring book version of Thumbulina and dragged me to the said teachers' house. We hit off from the first day and my mother was convinced that she has gotten the best teacher around, impressed by the rows of "cups and shields" in the showcase. From then on, I had to finish school at three everyday, cross the road and go to this music teacher's mansion. The family had been one of the richest in Madurai, in the days of yore and the mansion was super cool with hidden corners and crannies like the one in "Five go to Finniston farm".

The best part wast that the teacher was an excellent cook. She would prepare the evening snack, just by the time I reached her house. She would craft mouth watering delicacies like Malai Koftha and other fancy North Indian stuff that no hotel in Madurai served in that time. I immediately started raving about her amazing voice and training methods at home and told my mother that I might even win that prestigious "Sathguru Samajam" thingy. I spent the next three-four years in her kitchen, where she taught me while she cooked. I sang "Ra Ra Venugopala" inhaling the cloves and chillies and rhapsodizing about good food.

Four years later, my musical talents were still hidden and my mother found me complaining more and more about the food she made at home. She decided that I would fare better if I were to change schools and start representing school in music competitions. This is how I ended up in TVS. This is how I stumbled into quizzing, where there were lesser girls who sang Aarahonam of Shankabaranam without batting an eyelid. My mother gave up on the school music and started entering me in her intradepartmental, under 12 music competitions. I sang something in Sahana (Remember it because it makes a pretty name :D ) and even got a second prize. There were only two people in the under 12 category, but hey, the year before my runner-up stint, they had canceled the second prize despite my singing.

My mother was a very optimistic person. Every time I was asked to study, I would offer to practice my singing, our own version of Morning/Evening raaga.She would sit before me with rapt attention. She would bring me hot water first, to clear my throat and would keep a jugful nearby incase I wanted it in the due course of my recital. In 1997-98, days Shruthi Boxes were like like the Louis Vittons of modern day dudettes and all the Music Jaambavans seemed to carry one. My mother bought me one and thought that it would do some good to my "image" as a singer than having a discoverable function of its own. We had absolutely no clue so as how to operate the device and it whined like a Moaning Myrtle when the dial was turned from one end to another.

This continued for a year and then, my mother decided I needed a shift of teachers who would "shape" me up better. I was then put into the able hands of one Mrs. Jayalakshmi whose husband was a violinist and who sang in All India Radio all the time.

To my disappointment, I wasn't offered succulent treats anymore and the teacher was rather too intent on teaching me the finer aspects of Kalyani and Mohanam. Now that I could see that there were no more inputs from her for my very bright culinary career, I started protesting to my mother about music classes and how she was wasting my time and the teacher's. This triggered off a huge war in my house which continued for the next five years.

I was then shifted to another famous teacher in my part of Madurai, Shruthi box et all. She was a strict disciplinarian and was known to deal cases like mine with an iron hand. Needless to say, I loathed those three hours every week and spent all my time concentrating on the clock before me willing it to move faster. We choked and stuttered thorough Paapanasam Shivan, Thaigaraja and Muthuswamy Deekshithar's Keerthanas. She would make me sing the demned Aarohanam/Avarohanam thing for an entire hour (I had been referring to the later as 'Arakkonam' earlier). She was the lady about whom you read only in novels; The ones who would never succumb under obstacles such as the girl who sat before her like a rock. In retrospect, she would have made it great in corporate what with that indomitable will, but in those times, I would fume like a short circuited Shruthi box.

After we ploughed through a single Ada Thaala Varnam for 6 months, my mother had given up on the vision of me going to a Margazhi Kutcheri . She came to this teacher and asked her to quit teaching me arcane Varnams and basics and get me started on songs that I would be able to sing in Navratri/Golu places and marriages. It was then we started more on the lines of Nalungu/Oonjal songs to be sung in the weddings.

Thankfully, when I reached my tenth standard, I told my mother that I would want to "Put total concentration in studies". We stopped the madness that had started 11 years before, wasting enormous time, money and energy and it stood like an unfinished government fertilizer factory. I spent my days at home blissfully reading Gone with the wind and P.G Wodehouse henceforth.

Till date, my (dis)ability to sing is a closely guarded secret, and one can find me in the dining halls during the times of Nalungu/Oonjal. Younger women with mellifluous voices have taken my place as the official Oonjal singer. The only time I sang after that was in this competition in one of the nearby colleges. It had a series of rounds, one of which was "talent" round, where I couldn't find anything worthwhile to put on the table. I sang (for 15 thousand rupees, I would have done a somersault if required). My friend, who is rarely shaken by anything and whose mother is one of the famous music teachers in Chennai was scandalized at my notions of Carnatic music.

Yesterday, my mother did an elaborate calculation to find how much profitable it would have been had she invested the 1000 Rs she spent on my Shruthi box, on Infosys shares. She was surprisingly flabbergasted that I have no notions of raga and is as numb as her to music. I explained her about sunk cost fallacy.

The hot news is that the next generation of my maternal family (my cousins) have started on music classes and the kid goes around yelling "Baarukkulle Nalla Naadu" over and over. I sincerely hope this musical pursuit, that has started with the bar, would raise up a bar and does not end in one.

Bicycle diaries

2010-12-05T18:52:00.002+05:30

Cyclists are the least respected species on the roads finishing right behind the stray dogs.

Functional cycling in Hyderabad is a myth unless one possesses a geared cycle.

If one is not mowed down by the ratty buses (which stop within whispering distance behind you), one might be, by the share autos.

The famous "Cycle gapla auto ootradhu" seems to transcend all linguistic and cultural barriers in the autowallah world.

After a fall, one loses trust over the cycle and always expect it to Murphy at the most critical time.

It is always better to get down from the cycle and roll it across the road in case of traffic jams.Waiting with ill-mannered, bellicose drivers who give a hoot for the traffic rules may make the one on the cycle very nervous.

The infinite undulations in Hyderabad speak thus: "What goes down, shall come up and shall break your backbone, while pedaling up ".

Never let the cycle zoom on the downward slope for the fear of cracking already cracked craniums . Hyderabad is NOT Madurai.

Exploring by-lanes is a bad idea without Google maps installed phones.

Cycle bells are useless. Portable loudspeakers MIGHT work.

If you can't procure one, yell at the pig who drives his fancy car like he owns the universe.

Also, don't hesitate to use the choicest words in your vocabulary when the said car owners reverse without knowing the existence of rear-view mirrors or the fact that they could actually turn their heads once in a while.

When in doubt, park.

Sigh, and take the share auto.

Not the best of times

2010-11-21T21:15:00.007+05:30

Bad luck comes in bouts I suppose. Here I was leading a reasonably peaceful life with my company , glorious food, the shiny new Macbook Pro and then everything started becoming skewed. It all started one fine Saturday morning after a month I joined. My room-mates being honest software engineers are generally over worked and don't manage to pull themselves out of bed until noon on weekends. I, having planned a nice "More Kozhambu and paruppusili" for that day's lunch sauntered merrily to the stove and lifted the benign looking vessel from the burner. 15 seconds later my finger had become swollen, thanks to the now not so benign vessel. It had turned out that one of my late rising room-mates had actually pulled herself out of bed that day and had made some kind of fry. The vessel despite being empty was virtually boiling hot and when clamped to my poor finger, had scorched it.

I have this paranoia about doctors. I have never been to a proper hospital in 8 years (not counting my internship at Apollo last year). This is partly due to the fact that I was raised up in a predominantly homoepathic household where belladona, rhustax, aconite and phytolacca rolled about freely. Having a genetic disposition for throat infection we clutched to our Bio 6 with fervor and scoffed at proper medicine. I was not even vaccinated for Hep C until I freaked out reading a Michael Crichton novel and hastily got the required shots. The second reason happened to be the fact that my father, having worked in the medical college branch of his bank, virtually knew every other specialist and I was in "Uncle" terms with most of them. We popped into their houses on Sunday afternoons for the rare cases of allergy or sprains and got ourselves redeemed for free.

Given the background, I naturally soaked my hand in water and nursed it with coconut oil for the weekend. After a couple of days, I opened the rather elaborate first aid box at office and found that Soframycin was listed under burns medication.

I was going around with Soframycined hand until I started noticing that my hand was not recovering and I was finding scales around the finger which looked like fungus. Then I did the unthinkable. I googled my symptoms. The only results I found for "Fungal infection after burns" were of autopsied cases which froze my blood. The next day I rushed into this Dermatologist near my house. He asked me to make a fist and pooh poohed at my fears. He even offered to show me photos of real second degree burns. Then he charged me Rs 400 for a 5 minute consult.

Having had free consults all my life, I gaped like a gold fish and returned home feeling like someone who had just been robbed out of the wits. I started using this egregiously expensive tube of medicine and went home for Diwali. Soon this burn started morphing into a full blown fungal infection which disappeared twice every seven days and re-morphed on other days.

I came back to Hyderabad armed with to-dos and not tos from this skin doctor friend of my father's and antifungal creams. The glitch is that he had seen my hand at its pink of health, literally, when it was raw and cherubic. This means he had to wait a week until our friend, the fungus, wiped away the rouge. I ended up spending sleepless nights with a hand itching like crazy and without being able to actually touch it. It started looking very ugly and the prescription behind the tube said that it was for "weeping eczema". I don't really know who the "weeping" referred to.

After all this happened, one day, I decided to cycle to office on a Sunday because I felt like drinking Pepsi and really not feeling like buying some. I raced gleefully in the beautiful bends and curves until I felt my cycle jilting. Shortly, I was on the other side of this small road completely dazed. My cycle was lying abandoned on the other side and I realized that I had practically been thrown up in air, not unlike the things that generally happen to "other people". I had sprained my elbow and not to mention the tennis ball sized bruises on all soft tissues. I went around wearing my bruises gallantly for a while recounting my adventure to the entire amused office who had come to know about the incident.

If this was not enough, that very night I casually took an ear-bud and stuck it inside my ear for the buds' intended purpose. Two seconds later, I became absolutely deaf. My working ear had blocked itself completely. It was complete silence and yes, a bit scary.

The next day I was yelling at my room-mates unable to hear my own voice. I convinced that things were not quite the way I want them to be and went to this multi speciality clinic. I told the receptionist that I wanted to see a general doctor, a dermatologist and an ENT specialist in no particular order. The guy looked behind me expecting to see two more people and when there was none, said that the ENT specialist was the only one on call that day. After poking with a gigantic needle inside the ear, she found a big wad of wax that I had pushed inside the ear unknowingly. More poking ensued with a bigger needle and when the last bit was unplugged, even the otherwise annoying traffic of Kothaguda junction sounded like Lata Mangeshkar's voice.

With new hope in my life, I resumed my day. Today, I found that the fungal infection had spread to my right hand. Now, I am just using all my self restraint to prevent myself from Googling. The plan is to go to the best dermatologist in place and scream for help. The first pictures I have taken on my Mac are of my mutilated hand to be sent home for additional consultation.

Not the best of times.

The way words swirl around the tongue!

2010-11-03T18:48:00.005+05:30

In a sudden spurt of enthusiasm- Here goes,

ஆங்கிலத்துக்கு இணையான தமிழ்சொற்களை கண்டுபிடிப்பது மிக இனிமையான பொழுதுபோக்கு. "rather" என்ற சொல்லுக்கு சொல்லப்போனால் என்று தமிழாக்கம் தரலாம். " I would rather drink a coffee now instead of tea later" என்பதற்கான தமிழாக்கம் "பேசாமல்,பின்பு டீ குடிப்பதற்கு பதிலாக ,இப்பொழுதே காபி குடித்து விடலாம்." இங்கே rather "பேசாமல்" என்று உபயோகிக்க படுகிறது.

நேற்று போக்குவரத்து நெரிசலில் சிக்கிகொண்டபோழுது பக்கத்தில் நின்ற மினி பஸ்சின் மீது "சிற்றுந்து" என்று எழுதபற்றிந்திருந்ததை கண்டேன் . அப்பொழுதுதான் ஏன் பஸ்ஸை பேருந்து என்று அழைக்கிறார்கள் என்பது புரிந்தது. இதில் "உந்து" என்பது வேர்சொல் (root word?). ஆனால் உந்துதல் என்பது "stimuli" or "acceleration" or "encouragement". ஒரு வாகனம் முன்னால் உந்திசெல்வதால் உந்து என்று சொல்கிறோம். பெரிதாக இருப்பதால் பேருந்து என்றும், சிறிதாக இருந்தால் சிற்றுந்து என்று கூறுகிறோம். இது "noun from a verb"க்கு நல்ல எடுத்துக்காட்டு. எனக்கு இன்னும் லேப்டாப் என்பதின் சுத்த தமிழ் வார்த்தை தெரியாது. மேலே சொல்லப்பட்ட வகையில் யோசித்தால்" மடிமூடி" என்று தமிழாக்கம் தரலாம்.

இன்னும் பல தமிழ்வார்தைகளுக்கு மிகச்சரியான ஆங்கில வார்த்தைகள் இருந்தாலும் அவை என்னவோ தமிழில் ஒலிப்பதுபோல் ,தோன்றுவதுபோல் ஒலிப்பதும் தோன்றுவதுமில்லை. ஒரு சிலநாள் முன்னால் தியானம் மோனம் என்பதற்கு நிகரான ஆங்கில வார்த்தையை என்னால் பல நேரம் முயற்ச்சி செய்தும் யோசிக்க முடியவில்லை. எழிதாக "A state of deep concentration", or "profound passion" என்று சொல்லலாம். ஆனால் "it does not ring the same bell". இந்த உபயோகத்திற்கும் இணையான தமிழ்ப்ப்ரயோகம் என்ன என்பதும் தெரியவில்லை . "தலையில் மணி ஒலிக்கிறது" என்று சொல்லலாமா அல்லது "காதில் மணி அடிக்கிறது " என்று சொல்ல வேண்டுமா என்பது தெரியலவில்லை.

ஒரு சில வார்த்தைகளை "onomatopoeic words" என்று கூறுவார்கள். அந்த

வார்த்தைகளை கூறும் பொழுது அவை எந்த செயலை குறிக்கின்றன என்பது

தெரியவரும். "buzz of a bee", "Whirr of the washing machine", "babble/gurgle of the flowing

stream" - இவை அனைத்தும் அந்தந்த ஒலிகளை நினைவுக்கு கொண்டு

வருங்கின்றன . தமிழிலும் இதை காணலாம் "தேனீக்களின் ரீங்காரம்" "சலசல

என ஓடும் நதி" "சல சல என என்ன பேச்சு ? ". இங்கே சல சல என்பது "babble"

என்பதின் மிகச்சரியான தமிழாக்கம். It feels quite the same, doesn't it?

While one can potter around, botch up, splatter and flatter in English, தமிழில்

தில்லாலங்கடியாகவும் , குறுக்கெழுத்து புதிர் போடும் திறமைசாலியாகவும் இருக்கலாம்.

ஒவ்வரு வார்த்தையும் ஒவ்வரு மொழியின் அழகை கண் முன்னால் நிருதிக்காட்டும். கம்ப ராமாயணம் தெரியாவிட்டாலும் ,

அந்த அழகை ரசிக்கும் அளவுக்கு ஒரு மொழியை தெரிந்து கொண்டால் நம் மொழிப்பற்றை நினைத்து நாம் பெருமை கொள்ளலாம்,என்பது என் தாழ்மையான கருத்து.

Duck's back and a deaf ear.

2010-11-01T22:06:00.004+05:30

The recent hot news in my family seems to be the fact that my little cousin failed to make it to the top three in the jumbled words competition.My visibly distressed grandfather nudged in snide remarks at all the possible time intervals, while my cousin shook it off like water on duck's back. When my mother, who happened to be his doting aunt, pointed out his lack of interest in knowing Enid Blyton, my cousin stuck his lolipopped tongue at her, and immersed himself in Pogo channel.

My grandfather is the most amazing/amusing man I have ever known. He is almost like Peter Pan, stuck at 16. He talks about Macro-economics for full 15 minutes; Tells me I owe him everything for making me read "Robert Louis Stevensen" when I was 8; Reads "Phantoms in the brain" with as much enthusiasm as my room-mate; Understands Wodehouse; gets gored by a bull after wearing a black T-shirt (which happened to be the bull's non-favourite colour); walks 8 kms a day; makes a zillion in stocks; talks how my company (everyone's company to think of it) will go bankrupt in two years. He is too good to be true. If there be a Mannaarkoil mafia, he would be The Don.

My grandfather's subtle remarks amused me more than it amused the kid. It included facts like how I missed the Nobel in medicine by refusing to take it up as a profession. This was the man, who thought I had a shot at Olympics too, (in gymnatics, mind you), when I hung upside down on a tree at my back-yard. He even got me an ice-cream that day.

Contrary to the expectations that kids these days are more sensitive, my cousins seem to have taken it for a fact that thriving in my family filled with over-accomplished relatives, needs a lot of selective deafness. One has to wade through a sea of criticism, not give into the genetically inherent intolerance of criticism and restrain from hitting the roof- Tasks that are so Herculean that makes The Family impossible to stand each other without fulminating into violent arguments of whose kid stood the most likely chance to get into Harvard or get a Nobel (Oh, of course). I remember being the same age as my cousin and being asked what "half into half" was. I thought it was one and when I did, the crowd erupted with joyous throes of how they knew I will not clear JEE. I remember being weepy and heavily upset when my mother took it as a personal failure in her mathematical training of me.

My cousin after being asked what 10/2 was, replied that it might as well be four, but he liked to deal with "big numbers" not trifling things like tens and twos. Having said so, he munched on the Murukku my grandmother had made and listened to my Grandfather's horrified banter with not as much as a quirk in the eyebrow, and ran away to play guns.

When I listened to my cousin's very convincing argument of how his C grade was oodles better than "Samyuktha's A grade", I knew, Nobel or no Nobel, the kid will make it big in the corporate and will sit on his billions one day to laugh at people who had known trivial things like what 10/2 was; Also at people who had cried for not knowing what half into half was.

Quirks!

2010-10-15T23:29:00.007+05:30

This was a tag I saw somewhere sometime before. Now that I really want to write something, I am taking it up.

1. I obsess over things that I might lose; Even a lost hair clip worth two rupees can cost me a couple of days' sleep. I used to have an emotional attachment towards my pencil box at school. I remember bursting into tears over my lost Camlin Flora pencil in ninth standard, with an amused class looking on.

2. I like routines. The fact that I seldom keep them does make me plan and replan and re-re plan the next day’s work. I like to spend time in planning, though I know it won’t be of any use. Many a day has been spent drawing colourful time-tables for exam preparation while not actually preparing for one.

3. I always lock the door. It comes with years and years of spending my time alone at home. My parents would call up every afternoon after school, asking me at least three times to lock all the three doors of my house. When I grew up, they would get extremely irritated by my perennially locked room.” Well, so you reap” would quip the wise men at this point. It still happens and my irritated room-mates would have to knock every time they come back into the room.

4. I like pictures of colour splashes and photos of crayons more than anything else. I had the biggest Crayon collection ever, when I was a kid.I stock up markers/ highlighters of all colours at my desk. I also like the colours in Google, the bouncing ball logo, as well as the bubble patterned room in my floor.

5. I hate when people crunch/munch/glug near me when I am irritated. I had a mad urge to grab the popcorn off this random person sitting next to me in “Inception”. While others were gasping at Nolan’s masterpiece, I was paranoid by the incessant munching.

6. My coffee has to be perfect. It has to be scalding hot. I’d rather not drink coffee than to drink ones that are less perfect. I loathe CCD/Barrista coffees.

7. I always press the “a” in my keyboard a nano-second before the first letter and hence chats with me will have a lot of typos like “amdurai”,”asid”.

8. I pick up useless details to an astonishing level of precision. As long as the detail is absolutely unimportant, it is bound to stick on to my mind for the next 20-30 years. The moment people say that something is important, that part of the brain automatically switches off and I let the important details float over my head like a hazy cloud.

9. I am always at a loss to know how conversations should be ended, while chatting/mailing/smsing. I try to ‘smiley’ my way out but always feel bad when they don’t “smiley” me back. Weirdness.

10. I am practically phobic of social gatherings. I always end up freaked or depressed after the gazillion weddings/conferences I have been to in my life. I don’t mind talking to a huge crowd, but standing amidst one would push me down in dumps at least for a day.

We are done. Anyone who still blogs, can take it up. :-)

Life and everything

2010-09-26T12:37:00.002+05:30

After ‘successfully’ completing three months in a corporate environment, I sat down to make the mandatory self assessment for the performance cycle. Despite getting stuck on the first line, I noticed that my outlook on life has markedly changed.

1. Internet will destroy mankind one day. I desist from adding up the hours that I spent before the computer lifeless and jaw slack, flicking through a zillion webcomics and wiki entries for I really don’t want to know and stop doing it.

2. If internet does not complete the job, Facebook will deliver the knock-out blow. I don’t want to start on how easy it becomes to lose track of time stalking random people, seeing photographs of friends’ of friends tickling their dog or making funny faces. It is much more interesting than to simply get the hell away from the computer and pick up a book. The little blue globe emanating the number of updates every 15 minutes does not do any good; Really! How else would I know a status such as “ma frenz’s fren saw a cute lil mouzie in zeir home”, and the other multitude of internet denizens ‘liking’ the same, after I did!

3. It is very easy to develop psychosomatic illness when one works. One just needs to decide that he/she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before and sit through the day, moaning out to the entire floor, graphic and violent descriptions of how the head feels. Also, it is very easy to keep staring at the knees and sprout a terrible limp at 5.30, just 15 minutes before the aerobics class. This pain magically disappears while walking a kilometer to procure gingelly oil for the day’s dinner.

4. In three months, I have noticed how mindlessness becomes equal to adulthood. Somehow monotony is an acceptable norm. As I said sometime before, pushing oneself off bed every morning actually becomes the most difficult job of the day.

5. It is slightly frightening to see how easily one can lose the will for the bigger picture, the will to read Wodehouse, the will to blog, the will to solve crosswords. Instead it is so much easier to be sucked in to the vortex of Chick-lits and get entertained by all those stuff that needs only a lifeless form to press the play button.

6. Start exclaiming “Dude” when ‘morally’ outraged. One of my friends actually went back to his chat history, to see if I had said “Dude” in the course of a stirring conversation.

7. One starts to know the importance of similar backgrounds, and people who can think on approximately the same lines, share phrases from the same language and appreciate curd rice as much.

8. If there is a slight consolation, it is the fact that I haven’t started consulting Anita the psychic, Paul the Octopus and the other wise oracles of the Facebook about deep dark mysteries of my life . Maybe it means I still have vestiges of sanity left, or maybe it is just because I can’t go about the day after Anita calls me “Uttara, Sweetie”…

9. Filter kaapi and non tea bag chaaya is how coffee and tea should be drunk. Learn fellow humans that no froth is equal to the froth obtained by continuous back and forth transformation of fluid from a tumbler to a dawara and vice-versa.

10. I learnt a few days ago that how I work will slowly start defining me and how important it is to model the way I work on someone I respect. It is good to be inspired by people or maybe other little things. What matters is to stay inspired. It gives hope and makes one wait for the “And then, ...” part of the story from the “Days rolled by…” part.

What is in a name!

2010-09-12T15:08:00.003+05:30

I was glancing at all those paintings the kids of my colleagues made when they came to "Bring your Children to work day". What caught my eyes were the names more than the paintings themselves. I think these days parents go to a great extent to be creative in naming their children to arrive at such awesome names like "Aadhvik" or "Amogh" and somemore that I forgot but had meant to note down.

Most of the Tamizhians do not have a family name. Our meek looking initials, when expanded become a nightmare. Infact, I remember shuddering during my ED class on the prospect of writing Uttara Madurai Ananthakrishnan in those 5mm specifications.I am pretty sure that it would have taken the entire A2 sheet.

We should admit that our grandparents were deeply religious and faithful to their grandparents with whom they shared their names. In the annals of my family history I can see the following going on in an infinite loop from times immemorial

My Father's name: Ananthakrishnan Srinivasan

His Father's name: Srinivasan Ananthakrishnan

Thankfully, I put a stop to this loop by just being a girl. My father's brother was cleverly named; after his maternal grandfather. He was called "Bakthavatsalam". Until I was 10, I was under the notion that he was very rich because his name was "Pathu-latcham". The girls were not spared. My maternal aunt was Vengadalakshmi which was a name that ran in the family. I recently found that she managed to change her name to a rather unfrilly, nonexotic " Vidhya".

I think our parents were too busy in planning our IIT-Stanford eductation that trivial things like names did not matter. They pulled up the first name that came up and stuck on to that, without perspiring over Menakha Gandhi's book of Indian baby names. In fact, I am called Sandhya at home because I was born when Sandhya Rajagopal was reading the evening news in DD. Quite a QED, you see.They stopped short of proceeding to put the same in my birth cetificate because of another uncle's intervening at that point to grant my given name.

My friend Bhageshvar, who beheld the name Bageshwar before being numerologically transformed, says that he was named thus, after an apple juice company in Shimla. Or some similar story involving apples and Shimla where his parents had gone on for a tour. Srivatsan prefers not to be bothered how his name originated and but is extremely thankful that they didn't add his Sub-caste's insignia to the end. I bet that his kid might be named Tesla, given the penchant. But let us wait and see, it might be Fourier or someone equally complex,in the real sense of the word!

Oh where has the age of Thirumalai Nambis, Varadharajans and Ramasubramanians vanished? In a few years from now, we will be calling kids in two letters; say "Ta", "Ra", "La", "Nu", "Mi", that sound quite like The Hindu Crossword clues.

Whatever might be the case, all names all equal, but no name is equal to Arul Mozhi Varman. People, go ahead and take it up. Not only it is a challenge by itself, but it willl seperate the Tamizhan from the Indian. Arul Mozhi Varman Ananthakrishnan. What melody, with alliteration and all!

Circumstances

2010-09-05T00:43:00.003+05:30

Often, I wonder at the way circumstances impact a person. If it is not the opportunities inherent in these circumstances, it might be the prejudices that are born out of them. We learn to read people, start thinking about unspoken words in pregnant pauses and also learn to manipulate and deliver what others want. Those prejudices that are born, take shape and grow with every false smile, every polite conversation and meaningless sycophancy, mostly to project ourselves as someone others want to see.It is rather scary to see how our prejudices prevent us in taking a rational decision and believe in people who will in turn act on their prejudices.It is just a probability that our illusory persona had made them lean towards us. Conversely, their mind would have probably learnt to sniff out one false twitch of muscle from another, again by circumstances, that they would start repelling us before we do.

It is actually amusing, how in this age of free thoughts,we let the people in circumstances shape us up rather than the free thoughts themselves, which lie dormant under the buried layers of experiences we have accumulated.

End of the day, if we get to bed knowing that our sense of identity had withstood one more day, we should feel lucky.

Or proud.

On Tamizh

2010-08-14T15:36:00.000+05:30

Recently, I discovered that my ears have become extremely sensitive to Tamizh. Be a random snatch of personal conversation on the elevator or a kid sqawking "Enakku Vendakkai Vendaam" in the super-market, I find myself turning and noticing them. Often it becomes embarassing to blurt out, "Tamizha?" after knowing very well that vendakkaai cannot be Kashmiri or Russian. When I stumble upon surnames like "Varadharajan" or say "Ramanathan" at the intra-network at the office, I start noticing them in a different light; as someone who might know the impact of Senthil- Goundamani culture on every Tamizhian's life or someone who would prefer (or even secretly prefer) to down in gratefully, the Sambar Idly every morning instead of cold milk and toast.

For the past 10 years, I have never skipped reading Ananda Vikatan or Kalki and now, my only contact with Tamizhnadu comes from face book. I am scandalised that I don't even keep track of the upcoming Vijay blockbusters, or the next TV channel that captain might have started in Tamizhnadu.

Also, it is amusing when there is an incomprehensible pause after I say, "Hey, I am Uttara and I hail from Madurai". A couple of seconds later, eager to push the conversation back on to tracks, I volunteer helpfullly "But hey, I studied in Coimbatore.." Amusement escalates to irritation when people say "Oh, I thought you were Tamil".

Tch-Tch, 500 crores on Ulaga Tamizh-maanadu. Tis time they start thanking Rahman, Kamal Haasan and Rajinikaant.

Of College

2010-08-02T15:19:00.002+05:30

Nowadays I see a lot of posts on FB on how much people missed college and all that. It is rather strange that not a single day goes by without thinking how lucky I was to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Maybe this is because of the amount of bureaucracy and the yarns of red-tape that strangled out every bit of good memories I had about the place.

I hated the rampant indecisiveness, lies, meaningless rankings, more meaningless questions, sycophancy and insistent comparison with MIT. I couldn't digest the fact that they squatted on the laurels that we had 50 years back and were still proud about them; only about them. I hated our denial of our knowledge based incompetence and all that beautiful engineering made as blanched as possible. I can never forgive them for censoring and making us to redo the entire newsletter or making me get a trillion signatures just for booking a hall.

If not for anything else, I am so glad that I will never be forced to find loop-holes in every single rule just to survive in the system. I shall have my equal shares of depression at work, but it would never be because someone made me stand for 6 hours to get a signature.I am so glad that I will never be yelled at because I missed the USA (in brackets) beside the PhD, even if is for a notice that asked people to reduce the consumption of hot-water.

I will never miss CIT. In fact, I want the administrative part of the college to fade in to a distant memory. The only thing I shall be thankful is for the fact that it toughened us so much, to the extent that all of the CITians are as thick-skinned as rhinos in deflecting abuses from every insignificant person; a skill as important as proficiency in C.

What I will miss, is the memory of my fellow college-mates, who along with me trudged through the mud and like me, survived the ordeal . What I would want to remember is all those who loved engineering despite all the fore-mentioned and still found peace in making their projects work even when they knew that some imbecile would swoop in to claim credits.

*end rant*

Ego Post Smirk

2010-07-16T00:29:00.003+05:30

After a long long time, I had enough patience and time to sit and solve The Hindu Crossword. Took two hours, but the rush of finishing it is AWESOME. Here you go. Answers with explanations!

Across

1 Would the salesman soar to a theme repeated in music? (7)- reprise {Rep+rise}

5 What a query seeks (6)- easy one- answer

11 Invigorate with some Payyoli venison (5)- container clue- liven meaning invigorate in “Payyoli venison”

12 Alumna, o'so peculiar and inconsistent (9)- Anagram of “Alumna, o'so” - anomalous

13 Desolate place made famous by Eliot (9)- wasteland- eliot ‘s work-googled

14 The girl about to return is so thin (5)- good one- she+return (er)= means sheer

15 A hoodlum would add a plug to it (4)- Ugly- Don’t know how it fits, but got it from the rest of the letters

17 Old instrument found right in the middle of broken oil can (7)- good one- anagram of oil can +”r” for right=clarion

21 One male, out-of-date, in a deadlock (7)- (one=I) + (male=M) + ( out of date=passé)= impasse= deadlock

22 Strip the skin of poacher's first slippery swimmer (4)= Peel J (poacher’s first=p + slippery swimmer= eel)

26 He would lead a novice into drug (5)= pilot (Got it from he would lead. Guess has some pot funda to it)

27 Relatively smaller fish, a subordinate (9)= underling= sub-ordinate

29 A German terrorist, heartless and losing head, reformed by university official (9)- Registrar- complicated, got from university official and the other letters

30 Say hello, get to receive a note (5)- Awesome one- get+note (musical note =re) greet meaning say hello

31 Go back escorting girl on a pleasure trip (6) = Outing! Go is back and hence is g & o, and pleasure trip. Guess nitu thing is slightly dumb

32 Commercial poetry unfavourable to one's interests (7)= adverse! J brilliant one. Commercial=ad+ poetry=verse)

Down

2 Part of the roof whereunder one may overhear talk (5)- eaves [Basic civil engineering to rescue and also from the eavesdrop thing]

3 Money put up for a curdling agent (6)- rennet- it is a cheese like thing. Money is “re” and then found cheeses starting with re.

4 POW camp that put gals at jeopardy (6)- anagram of gals at= stalag [Prisinor of war camp]

6 Craft of Biblical survivors (5,3)- easy- Noahs ark

7 Everything, with a bit added, is nutritious (9)- awesome one- (everything= whole)+(a bit=some) = wholesome

8 Place to relax with others around Oregon (6)= resort , from place to relax

9 Weapon for a second grade, depressed shooter (7)= good one-> (second grade=b)+ (depressed=low)+(shooter=gun) = blowgun

10 Venetian attraction, first of dories in a churning lagoon (7)= (first of dories=d)+(lagoon) anagram= gondola

16 Publicity for a Chaplin film (9)= limelight!

18 Enthusiastic supporter of division at home accepts appeal (8)= partisan(Got from meaning and division=part)

19 Draughtsman's tool (1-6)= T square (ED!)

20 Voyages of a student involved in brawls (7)= flights (Fights+l) got from the meaning of voyages and fights

23 Spectacles include harbour in Portuguese town (6)= OOOH visual clue! Spectacles=OO, put (harbor=port) in it. Oporto is in Portugal said Google!

24 Admired — dead or otherwise (6)= adored. Sort of container

25 The accent of a born blackguard (6)=brogue (got from other letters. Apparently it is a shoe, can be considered as a blackguard)

28 The things revealed when kismet is reversed (5)=kismet reversed= items J

Shame!

2010-07-06T13:38:00.003+05:30

It being an awesome day, I took a long walk to my bank that is a couple of kilometers away from my office. After finishing all that I had to be done at the place, I was about to cross the road, when I saw this little girl, not more than 4 years old trying to cross the road. She was obviously a road-side dweller and should be one among those who live under the bridge near Cybertowers. The kid was frantically trying to cross the road and didn't realise there was a bus that was coming whizzing towards her. I was right on the divider and was petrified. I kind of screamed at the kid and she stopped on the other side of the road as the bus grazed past her. Again, almost unperturbed by what was an extremely scary encounter, she tried to cross the road , when a guy with a CTS bag, stopped and held the girl back.

By this time I had crossed the road and in my broken Hindi asked her if she was out of her mind. The CTS guy parked his bike and took her across the road, while I walked back all shaken up.

The girl was tiny! By normal standards, she would be in kindergarten using Crayolas making stick diagrams for her parents to put up on the refrigerator or their office desks.

Something about all this is incredibly sad. And knowing that I can't really do anything to change any of this makes me feel like a piece of insignificant lint.

What is the bloody use of having a government that doesn't bother about children begging on roads? It is a travesty of the entire concept of pursuit of happiness, democracy and all those big political words.

Life seems to be ruled only by probabilities. We are what we are because some dice seems to have been rolled that way.

What a shame!

Milman-ed and Halkias-ed

2010-07-05T19:36:00.002+05:30

Something happened today that made me realise that I need to stay in touch with engineering. Running at 10 km/hr, I was trying to figure out for twenty minutes, how the heart beat indicator on the tread mill works. Somehow, I couldn't quite figure out where the transducer was and I couldn't imagine it to be on the running pad. If so, imagine how sensitive the sensor should be and how much of amplification needs to be done.

The intrigue deepened when I noticed a small sticker proclaiming that it housed a wireless receiver. I can't imagine how a wireless receiver will work to retrieve heartbeat from a moving target. Even if it is a receiver, there *has* to be a transducer! Communication has never been my forte, but imagine the noise cancellation and the processing that needs to be done even to indicate in a fluttering colour scheme the heart rate of a very dynamically moving object.

Unless one has actually worked on a bread-board with transistors, he/she would not realise how tough it is to make the darned thing amplify. Compound this with VLSI techniques which can house millions of transistors in a small chip, designing it, testing it, give it an error tolerance. Multiply all this with the task of detecting microvolts of heart beat. Trust me, bio-signal processing is one of the toughest areas to work on.

Somehow it works out to be beautiful, isn't it?

Rain

2010-07-01T21:16:00.001+05:30

First rains in new places are special.

Sitting in this bubble, I didn't realize that it was pouring outside. Scrunching up my face on the glass window and leaving nose prints all over the sheer glass, I felt that someone had pressed the mute button; for I could see that it was pouring and yet, it quite didn't feel so.

I wish I had been sitting on the fifth floor watching the rain, from above, rather than second handedly in the first.

First rains in new places are as special as the first days, first book and the first quiz. In Coimbatore I remember coming back after engineering drawing classes to the rather deserted mess when it started pouring. The first pang of loneliness struck and slowly ebbed down as I gulped down the rather sugary tea.I remember dropping my A2 sheets in the muddy water outside and after feeling too good to sit and redraw the elevation and side-view figures, I submitted the frayed ED sheets the next morning. Not unexpectedly, this went unnoticed.

Today's mute rain shall remain in my mind for quite sometime, though I didn't have the wholesome excitement of meeting my ED professor the next day with my wet frayed drawing sheets. But, it is rather scary that in this phase there is nothing to be scared about and also, nothing much to look forward to except for the endorphin induced moments of euphoria.

The Emperor's new clothes

2010-06-20T22:31:00.001+05:30

The glitzy malls, extremely over-priced coffee shops, watches priced at least a six thousand rupees, shoes, make up, accessories, purses, more accessories; the money and the people who buy in a wave of their hand somehow do not equate to the rest of the country. How has purchasing power escalated so much with a huge part of the country struggling to go to schools? I am sure everyone has an opinion about making a difference, but strangely, the hordes buying pretty pink shoes to go, perhaps, with their pretty ponies, speak of losing ground and identity; amidst other things. Do all objects nouveau make a person more than what he/she can ever be, as a person?

Where is the child who cries out about the Emperor's new clothes?

*Muse*

Reminds me

Doing No Evil

2010-06-18T16:15:00.010+05:30

I have always had a thing for lifts.When I was little, the ones at my Dad's office in Madurai had very unsightly grills, almost never worked and yet, were highly revered. Even today,when I stand in glass walled escalators or the ones that are as large as rooms, my brain kicks in to an awe mode. The sudden jilt in the pit of my stomach when I go up one brings back a lot of memories of all the other things I used to fancy as a kid; like new Enid Blyton books or fresh Tinkle Digests or long pink pencils that had a pony tail like fluffy thing attached to the end. Though I have outgrown the pencil attachment, I still fancy the lifts.

For this particular reason, I was strangely excited to see a dedicated lift "lobby" out here at Omega building in Hyderabad. Omega stands in the hi-tech city as one of those massive buildings and strangely without any indication that it housed Google inside. Not many people know about Google being here, and definitely not the fact that, this is the second largest office after the headquarters at Mountain View.

My mother with all her good intentions had wanted to me stop wearing "those vulgar jeans things" and in her sweet(not!) own way had insisted on formal cotton Salwars. There I was in a neat, largely CIT-ish salwar and waiting with enormous anticipation of my "office buddy" to walk in. People kept zipping in through the glass doors, with long confident strides and were clutching their laptops as they tossed their heads stylishly.I knew things were going to take a ninety degree turn and be absolutely phase shifted the moment I saw the signature colourful Google on the walls.

It was like a Harry Potter-waiting-for-sorting-hat-to-call-out-his-name moment. Surprisingly, this was the first thing given to me in the office.

Though they call this thing as a Noogler cap, which all the newbies have to wear, this contraption is generally known as the beanie. Readers of this blog should know my historical association with the beanie .

I am not going to rave about the office though

it is absolutely rave-able.

The cafeteria menus I have sent out to friends have created quite a stir and people have just stopped short of threatening murder and have limited themselves to send in hate mails.

Somehow, all this luxury is overwhelming. I have not opened my purse ever since I came to Hyderabad. So, today when I went to watch Raavanan at this hi-fi theater, I was rather amused to see that I couldn't bring myself to buy a can of coke as I have gotten the "every-imaginable- drink- is- free- at- office"notion etched in my mind; in a week at that! Boy,life is going to be tough later on. I should refer to my "no-fan" pages at CIT, occasionally, to keep in touch with the grim reality that lurks just outside the impermeable bubble that Google is.

Outrage

2010-06-12T09:54:00.004+05:30

After languishing in my last holidays I am all set to go out to the big bad world. I was sitting in my uncle's house this morning before my flight to Hyderabad. A chap came to the house to perform "Dharpanam". I was sitting before the computer ignoring the wrong pronunciation and the hasty ritual to satisfy our buggy moral code. And suddenly, this chap barges in to my room and discovers that he could impress me with his wisdom.

This particular guy, relatively young in mid thirties, happened to be an M.A in Sociology (at least he claimed so) and was apparently doing his PhD. He clung on to my vicinity like poison ivy and started a diatribe on Indian Culture.

The strong points of his outrageous argument ranged from how girls should get married at 20 and not a year after that. He claimed that MNCs and other organisations have brought about the degeneration of Vaishnavism. I was politely nodding my head thinking about how many Heshey chocolates he would have devoured from unknown nephews in the Amrika. He was telling me that software was a bane to India because it ruined the Brahminical society and perhaps conveniently overlooking the fact that it was those software sons and daughters, working 15 hours a day in faraway lands, who were making his purse fatter by the day for the wrongly performed Darpanam. I was politely nodding so as not offend his sentiments when he started talking on how awesome Sati was.

At this point, I shook my head in disbelief. It wasn't his pretentious, unbelievably pompous statements, but the very fact that all such crap comes out of a person who seems to have a doctorate in Sociology.

Why is that the patriarchal society considers itself educated because it lets its females to go out of houses and complete an education? Why is the notion that after 21 years , I have to feel lucky that I am not married and on my way to change diapers. It is this same society that boosts the over inflated egos of IIT-ians of the male variety? How is that I am any lesser than a frigging guy mugging Salivahanan and calling himself an engineer in Nagarcoil. It is the same creed of half-baked religious bigots who consider massacring women and children over issues of temple as a service to lord. God, if he exists at this point would sit and guffaw over these people's arguments.

These are people who have cocooned themselves safely in the wraps of ancient wisdom. They are the class of Indians who claim to be educated and yet yap about Sati and purity of blood. They have neither learnt the scriptures nor know the meaning of any of them. These self impudent posers take it upon them to protect their purity of blood. Last time someone wanted pure blood millions of people were dead. A truly educated person would have the humility to accept all men are born equals and lucky to be themselves, thanks, to the disposition of the genes. They should admire God or whichever superior entity for not twiddling with their DNA making them a dolphin or a penguin fluttering in the oil spill.

Why can't they for once acknowledge that everyone has a right of pursuing his/her owns happiness, albeit the created equal business. I was sick and simmering with rage as the guy ploughed through his arguments that were as impudent as the man himself who claimed to be so wise enough to find girls of 21 who might not retort back at him.'

When my grandfather, 78 years old, acknowledges everyday that he is open to newer ideas and listens to TED talks on behavioral economics with glee, why can't these pretentious people stop hailing men who made it through IITs and then, advising me to get married?

Indian Culture has always survived and shall, without people who take it upon themselves to protect it. I sincerely hope there are thousands of Indian women in the world who could go ahead and discover their potential just to prove all these people wrong. I sincerely hope these women raise their sons to respect women for what they are, else it shall all be Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles.

Shortest post ever

2010-05-30T22:27:00.002+05:30

Uttara B.E.

The Double Decker Pencil box

2010-05-19T00:47:00.004+05:30

My little cousins(Aged 6 and 7) almost rolled on the floor in a shopping mall asking my aunt for this double decker pencil box which looked hideously green and had a Donald Duck squawking all over. I guess they are in the phase of life, where their social status is determined by the coolness of the pencil box. The more decks it had, the higher you go up in the scale of respect.This double decker pencil box also had a hidden "half decker",if I may say , and guess what, a separate sharpener for crayons as well. There were four tiny buttons which when pressed made secret compartments to pop out. No wonder my cousins grovelled before my aunt to get them one as it would make them as popular and cool as Ajith Kumar and Ilyathalapathy Vijay in their respective classes.

Only in the bill counter, we found that each one was priced at Rs. 300 which was outrageous by any standard. Oh, yes, we had to get each one a separate box, because the concept of sharing would spell death knell to the pencil box. As it was impossible to remove the boxes from their iron clutches, we had to get them.

After toppling a couple of mannequins,my cousins were practically thrown out of this dress shop we went next. After a while we heard a sudden ear splitting scream, only then to realise that the kid had walked through the immaculate glass doors and had smashed his nose. Note that this nose had raised huge concerns in the womenfolk of my family who were desperately waiting for some kind of mass to emerge from his face while he was a baby. Our family is pretty nosy, literally; apart from the fact that we go out of our way to poke our rather big proboscises in all the things unconcerned to us, we also use it to smell food from a kitchens, miles away to fantasise how perfectly it should be cooked. Considering that the nose has played such a big part in our evolutionary adaptation through ages, no wonder a button nose raises a huge concern among the elders of the family. Coming back, the kid hadn't really broken it, but the impact had quite shaken him to remain silent and shocked for a good five minutes. And then, he went back to wailing for a packet of Jelly.

In just two days, my cousins had the double decker boxes; only difference was that the decks were dismantled in to parts. They claimed that the boxes had a little accident. They tried to reason that that they can still use the box, each deck of it, as a sort of open shelf, to store crayons and paper bits.

I simply love the feeling that these days I am not the one who gets the smacks in an outing and there is this pair of destructive siblings who can be instigated to go for each others' throat exclusively for my general entertainment.

I love my cousins; especially when their motto is collateral damage.

House M.D

2010-05-06T20:15:00.008+05:30

I have a huge fascination for the human body; Mostly the brain, but the rest of it is darned good as well. I simply adore the way how perfectly it is modeled and how intricately it works. So, when I listen to a TED talk about brain, or read something fascinating on how the body, as a machine, interprets the signal around it, my respect for evolution whizzes way out of the sky.

Look at the visual system and how much processing goes on in it. Take eyes, colour perception, and look how easily one can explain convolution with that! Think of the micro-litres of dopamine and endmorphin that goes to the reward centre, giving you a high every time you do something great.

That is why I LOVE watching House M.D. Somehow, I really dig to the way, the doctor arrives at a logical explanation for everything. It is also humbling to see how an itsy bitsy error can make the body short circuit. I love the cackling of static in the title song. Maybe it is because I see the body as a giant device simply teeming with electricity!

After slogging four years with pointless breadboards, usually trouble shooting experiments and not really doing them, my respect for the medical profession increases by the day. My HOD, the DSP one was really a good teacher; I just didn't like the methodology. In our Communication (and DSP) lab, all the 12 batches would stand numbly waiting for her to come and unscrew the little troubles our circuits popped at us. She would come, look at our feeble readings and would know "exactly" where the trouble would be and voila, the output would manifest itself on the CRO. For those hopeless cases where magic didn't work, there was the usual line, "The breadboard is bad".

My hatred for Communication lab appears to stem out of the frustration rather than anything else. I guess I couldn't accept the fact that I didn't know enough communication to set right a non-working experiment, and the fact that I can afford not to know and live with it, made it look very un-challenging and hence, I spent the lab time on a chair in the corner, whistling away.

The point I am trying to make is, trouble shooting is awfully difficult as one has to *know* the subject, find what is wrong, and then has to find ways to set the wrong right.

Looking back, I would have loved to be a doctor what with all the troubleshooting and diagnosing , but, would have LOATHED the eight or more years of work learning how to do it.

This also teaches an important lesson, that most things are beautiful superficially, until you start looking at the nitty gritties, when one starts dealing with equivalent circuits, integration, derivations in case of electronics. Ask me any day, I would have told you that my dream job would have been a psychologist, but hey, I would have had to remember biochemistry, names of medicines, not to mention the hard and yet the mandatory part of listening to others talking :P

So, don't you think it is wise to look at beautiful things, see their working as a giant moving picture, rather than delving deep and then not see them as beautiful anymore as all that digging takes the edge off the beauty? May be it is great to read about the brain, but ask me to mug the names of neurons in the frontal lobe of the cortex, I would have started another blog to crib how horrible medicine was! Oh wait, may be I wouldn't have blogged at all, I wouldn't have had the time!

Postcard Picturesque

2010-05-02T22:43:00.006+05:30

What is so great about travelling with friends is that there are no fixed plans. And you can search so much to eat raw mangoes with chilly powder. It is so weird to walk to doddabetta and immediately rush to the Molaga Bajji counter and the stick Kulfi stall without bothering to feel the rush of someone who has seen almost quarter of Mount Everest.

It felt so good to just feel the non-photoshopped pulchritude of green colour that the tea slopes offered. At Kodanad viewpoint, I realised why the Bliss wall paper was called so.

The best thing about Ooty is the lighting- A bright, yet not so bright,something of "am-choking-with-rain" and as if penitent for its rude blinding brightness down in the plains.

A walk in to the municipal market at Ooty to buy a bagful of plums and peaches, sucking the home made chocolate off the raisins embedded in it, and strolling through the ancient streets standing to take a whiff of tea outside a tea shop, felt much better a deal than missing the botanical gardens.

Makes me wonder how it would be to grow up in places like this, without having hair stick to the back of a sweaty neck; with most of the things looking so untouched by the grime and sweat. They make me long for a week in one of those cottages. I could snuggle up on a cozy sit-out and read all day, or take a blanket to spread it on the lawns to just lie down and watch the fluffy clouds. For a person who has spent a lifetime accumulating stuff in various shades of blue, it should feel so vividly azure and unforgettably peaceful!

P.S- Click on the pictures for a better view..

How (wo)man maketh an engineer!

2010-04-29T22:58:00.006+05:30

After enormous analysis, we found that that my final year project was more of a computer architecture based project and not quite DSP as we thought initially. But it being a po-ta-to, po-tah-to difference, let us not dwell on it further. My role in the project team , took a sudden upturn when the job of documentation fell on my head. Only then, I realised that I hated the word "Alignment' more than anything else in the English language.

After 6 rough drafts and hanging around the HOD's office for 5 hours, we were cradling our absolutely stunning thesis in our hands. I came back to my room drenched from the sweat that the 37 degrees outside blessed me with.

I switched on the fan , only to switch it off an instant later. Because it screeched like a mother of God Banshee. It is very hard to describe the vile sound, but it made the hair on the back of your neck stand electrified. It is the legendary sound that French would have used to polish people off, had guillotine not been invented.

At the moment the world looked bleaker than ever for the fan was the fountain of my happiness. It was with the fan, I strutted around and infuriated my fellow CITians in the boys hostel on how posh and luxurious our place is.

As ever, it was a work for stupendous man. I rolled up my non -existent sleeves and pulled up the chair on to the bed and climbed over the wobbly dangerous blade. My resourceful room-mate who sleeps under that particular fan pleaded me not to fiddle it, as the fear of the fan falling on her head would be a bigger torture than the absence of it.

I knew the solution was coconut oil, but I couldn't quite imagine where it had to go. I tested the fan trying to locate where the sound came from. There seemed to be a hairline crack in the place the blades were fixed, and I presumed the oil would drip down the interiors where I imagined some kind of ball bearing mechanism to be.

I pour a little bit of "Parachute" carefully and my room mate screamed that I was dripping all of it over her laptop and scuttled to remove it from the dangerous trajectory. After we spent 25ml of oil, she asked me to come down so that we could test whether the squeaks still persisted.

My room mate, stared up for good two minutes, before nodding her head knowingly. She told me "A four quadrant motor should do the trick". I assumed it to be one of those irrelevant engineering tangents all engineers come up with occasionally. Then she switched on the the fan.

It felt like it was raining grime. A cocktail of cobwebs, grime and coconut oil splattered on us. (My room mate had just come out taking a shower after she had been targeted by the college crows). There was oil all over the walls. Last time I had seen such a mess was when my mother tried to make "seedai" at our home and all of those "seedai"s exploded on to the walls. The screeching was at its peak like fingernails on the blackboard.

What does one do while in a fix? Google. And bingo, there was a wiki page instructing us how to repair a screeching fan page. We pumped our hands gleefully in air, and looked at it.

This was those rare moments when you had to acknowledge Murphy more than anyone else in the world!

The page refused to load and stopped at the first instruction

"Switch off the fan and wait for blades to stop"

My room mate looked at me and said "See? I told you! You aren't supposed to fiddle with it!"

If Google fails a person, it is time to call the father. My father is an expert on "Coconut oil and its application", enough to publish paper, as for centuries, coconut oil has solved most of the problems in my family.

He asked me to unscrew the cup like portion carefully and look for a shiny rod, which he told me was a part of the ball bearing mechanism. I followed it, perched precariously on the chair. He then asked me to pour the eternal panacea over the rod.

Losing faith in the coconut oil, I wanted something with a higher Reynold's number. My eyes fell on the "Close up" tube lying on the table. I asked whether it would do the trick, my father was outraged that his offspring should come up with such dumb idea. He told me that the tooth paste would perhaps short circuit and make the fan burn or do something equally egregious. Now that pouring the oil was a bigger problem as I couldn't tilt the fan so much to pour it over. So I take up a spoon fit the edge in one of the groove and pour oil through the spoon which again became enormously messy.

I came down and with a bated breath, I switched on the fan.

There was a splatter of a bigger blob of slime this time. And before my heart sank, I realised that my powers of hearing had returned. There was quietude. The birds chirped; The lark was on its wing; The snail was on its thorn; And ALL was jolly well with the world again.

These are the times when one "chooses" to play engineer!

Off I go now to read for my "Parallel Recursive Convolution based on recursive formulations of block pseudo circulant matrices" viva tomorrow. And that folks, is the official end of Under Graduation!

Angaadi Theru

2010-04-22T14:50:00.004+05:30

Raw misery is the most powerful emotion; the one that grips you and wrenches you. It tells you what a sissy you are. It terrifies you in to believing that you have been enormously lucky for just being born as the person you are. It makes you realize how extra-ordinarily fortunate you are to have met the persons whom you were inspired by and more fortunate to be able to dictate your circumstances.

Misery defines life.It teaches you to cry through a movie, realising how rampant and contagious misery is.

Misery is power. It teaches you to live.

Ten Insightful Questions

2010-04-05T22:16:00.004+05:30

1)What exactly is Probability Density Function? Don't give me the equation etc, or what it is used for. I need to see it happening, like how I can "see" Fourier Transform "happening".

2)How have I almost finished four years of engineering without really wanting to know the above?

3)How is it that I *ever* managed to pass all the communication subjects without "seeing" any of the probability stuff happening?

4)Why am I getting the notion that my juniors(budding electronics engineers) herding cows in farmvile all day long are going be more prepared for the life outside college than those who know about the probability stuff?

5)Why don't I remember the name of any of the books I used in my first or second years? (except for the very few memorable ones)

6)How is that I refer to them as the "green book", "yellow book" than by the authors' name?

7) How do people get 82 comments in facebook for just changing their profile picture?

8)Why does my teacher give me 0.5 / 10, for not mentioning the words "Global optimum" in a properly written genetic algorithm question?

9)Why is that I really, really feel like blogging when I try to study the effects of cross section area of the target on radar reception?

10) How on earth can this happen ?(Note the subject) And also is this the proof that grading system is crap? ->

Oh, the last few days

2010-04-03T10:36:00.002+05:30

Yesterday my mother asked me to come to my grandparents' farmhouse near Ambasamudram. Apparently it is the "season" there and the waterfalls is at its peak glory. I was told that I could spend two whole days lounging in at the almost deserted waterfalls, eat Patti's food (the best chef in the world). They told me that if I got bored with the waterfalls I could come back home and wade in the pristine Tamirabarani that flows behind the house, with my little cousins.

I even had tickets.

I decided to stay back in 37 degrees temperature, in a deserted hostel, eating lumpy rice at NSK mess because it is too hot to go anywhere else.

May sound a bad deal, but I don't want to let go of these last few days. CIT *feels* the best when no one is around! I like the deserted calm that settles when people go home and when I could take a walk with my best friends in the long long stretch between the gate and the temple without having to duck the EEE or the Chemical staff as on normal days..

VathaKozhambu and Enna Kathrika back in Ambasamudram cannot be matched.Yet, here I can make ice tea from the hostel in huge party Fanta bottles ,bring it over and glug it down sitting in the empty tennis court or the Students Union office poring over RK Lakshman comic collection we bought yesterday..

And sit in royal bakes talking about Genetic Algorithms and how fascinating the schemata concept is, over the fourth lemon soda of the day! And bring the roof down laughing trying to draw analogies for the same from CIT

And I can talk on nothingness and ramble on.

Ooh, the last few days!

Credit not on cards.

2010-04-02T20:44:00.001+05:30

One of our college blokes has gotten a call from one of the reputed B-Schools of India, after a mind boggling CAT score. We were rather amazed by his brazenness when he wanted to show “Brahma” as his “Extra-Curricular” activity. It is rather rich when it comes from the chap who found the clubs, and why, even the college too un-cool for his level of sophistication. And it is also terribly amusing that he needs to prepare a passionate talk on how he poured his heart and soul for Brahma. He couldn’t turn up despite our repeated requests because we were all so over worked and so badly wanted help.

It is not about what Brahma was or how it went on, but is about how boldly people can demand us to “coach” them about Brahma to get through an interview. I am wondering if the system is filled with loopholes to let people fib their way through anywhere. So, what happens to the rest of the people who waited for 8 hours to get a cheque in a random office literally watching the paint dry.

In a different way of looking it, I rather pity these people who are so desperate to embark a career in a field that ought to be built on the “strength of character”(Now, why am I putting it in-between double quotes)

When people can “create” passion in two days, credit is so easy to “take”, isn’t it?

Ta Da~~!

2010-03-28T22:53:00.001+05:30

Here is it. The product of all our work.

http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=mq3svv5yvrd

Please have a look at it and let me know :)

இச்சைகொண்ட பொருளெலாம் இழந்துவிட்ட போதிலும், I can always blog and rant!

2010-03-28T02:26:00.003+05:30

The only thing I shall miss about college is the clubs. Somehow, I have hung around in the LC and QC rather than anywhere in this place. Clubs were the only source of happiness in the dreary routine of college. Needless to say, I found my friends for life out here, spent all my time with them. I have met wonderful people, learnt so many things and found the urge to try giving back as much I learnt. I have missed out on the classmates bond part because of all the time I spent with the club. I have never regretted that and shall never do so either.

Thanks to the club that I have had a notion of what real strength is. I have had incredible seniors,a lot of them who could see so many good things in people. I have had friends who could give people chances without prejudices. There is always so many things to learn and know.Maybe this is why all of us didn't mind kicked about so much to get signatures for getting simple things done.

CIT is divided in to two types. Most of people come from really rural places with very limited exposure and their way of seeing things would absolutely contradict with the second type. Among the second there is always a bunch of dudes and dudettes.

The people who come to the clubs are mostly the very motivated bunch of the first type and the really talented second type. The second bunch come in, flit by for sometime and never return. They pick up their remaining pieces of torn bullshit coolness and return to their Chetan Bhagats or marks or swear words mostly after a debate or so

Most of the college gives only the dramatics club(read dance club) and the music showdowns full houses.

The problem with the college is that we have learnt a bit too much of acceptance than we ought to hav.e We have never fought for anything and have made peace with everything that came our way, be it the struggle with burnt IC's or the other zillion sub standard things. We have convinced ourselves too much that after CIT anything might be good and that it builds character.

In this process, most of us have lost the will to fight- against the self imposed odds as well. There aren't any exceptions and there have been a very few people I know who can look at anything without a bad memory associated with it.When there is self propounded limits to look at things, people start getting contented with their limited views and lose the urge to learn. It becomes easy for them to crowd up and look at people who actually can do something, with scorn.

I have seen and heard about tremendously talented people in the LC of the past. I really don't know what made people to get so intimidated at the mention of the club. Maybe it was the prospect of them not relating to the club that made them lose out on all the opportunities that it had for them to build perceptions. It could have helped people a lot to see things differently.Most of them chose willingly to look upon with suspicion rather than giving the "peter" club a chance.

For the last two years, we wanted all those who didn't want to take a chance to give LC a shot.We felt that there was absolutely no point in having an organisation that would meet to assert its superiority over the rest of the college. The notion of English being 'kewl has been so deeply rooted that it has been a terrible time for us to prevent the folks from from thinking so. I have come to the point where I have absolutely no patience for empty heads with just a huge attitude and fake accent. I have been fortunate enough to have seen so many humble people with great attitudes, that I can smell out with distaste, "Me only Englees" wannabes at a mile's distance.

After spending so many good hours on the club, which I have always considered as investment, I feel so letdown.Right now, I am so 'clung' to the club, that it is rather painful to let go. After what happened today, I was terribly upset that people could turn so vile and disgusting. It will break my heart if I am going to see someday people running away from LC all over again because of excessive 'exclusivness' and I have a sinking feeling that it is very possible.

Damn!

Lessons learnt

2010-03-26T08:36:00.000+05:30

Last few days were perhaps the busiest, but the most awesome days of my life. We were working like possessed over Srishti (the college magazine). We spent some 19 hours, almost daily, in editing and designing. I realised two important facts while I was at Srishti. I *love* working IF the work is interesting. If someone gives me a 100 page communication book and asks me to read the entire thing by night and promises me that I would get a 12 lakh per annum job the next day, I know I would not (cannot)do it. When forced to, I sit, crib, rant, get furiously ugly over petty things and steam over and over again that I am wasting my time. But it consistently turns out that most of the things I really like doing are not my frame of work and hence it is extra work. Maybe it is because I am simply all hardwired inside to do absolutely things that are not “work”. You see, it has this magnetic fascination about it that no one else would be willing to spend time on it and naturally, it would be my duty to take over. But the pleasure of doing it is so nice that it kind of makes up. I wonder if Srishti had been the main work and engineering was not, maybe I would have wanted to work with the communication book :P

We learnt quite intuitively certain things while we were on with the magazine- The concept of writing to audience. I can’t put random pieces that are probably very well written but is not something that people would take time to read it. So if someone comes to me with a very well written article but with a caveat that it is introspective, I probably would not want to put it down in the college magazine, for people don’t want to read such things. Say, if you are reading this particular post, which is not funny or is entertaining, it means that you are just interested in what I do and with what priority I am perceived in your amygdyla (okay, this is taking it too much I know, but couldn’t help slipping it in :D ). In a sample space of 3000 people, not 10% of them will care about what I really do, unless it is something that absolutely involves them.

It is the question of how well people relate, and say, nod their heads with a tiny memory flickering somewhere in their mind when they see an article. We work so very hard to just to make this memory circuit complete. I was standing with the very first copies and looking very closely as people read the back wrapper. I was waiting for ten seconds and there it was; the first of the unconscious giggles. I gave a huge sigh of relief and knew all shall be well.

It is great fun to design. We poured over hundreds of pictures in deviant art trying to find which one would be the coolest on the cover. We found inspiration in a doodle that gave us a brilliant cover. (I have a feeling that this might be a fan rant, but please let me rant). Wrapper is 75% of the magazine. Tis the stimulant that would want to make an average CIT-ian to thumb through the rest of it; Trust me, a very difficult job.

Second important thing that I learnt is that pseudo-coolness is bullshit. It is stupid to deem oneself as unreachable or thinking in a high plane. Thinking in a different plane would not make a person as cool as it would take him/her to bend down a bit and tell the lesser mortals what exactly they mean. Time and again I get furious when folks here crib about CITians not being ‘classy’ enough. What they don’t understand is that class has absolutely nothing to do with the people they are or the people they can become someday. When an overwhelming majority come from really underprivileged families, we should be proud that they at least try overcoming their circumstances in which they have grown up and not crib about how they can’t appreciate Calvin or even Harry Potter. And again, if you have a great taste it is so good for you and it also *does not* mean that others are any lower because they can’t appreciate what you do.

English is just a medium like any other. If someone feels so good about themselves, they would probably not need to be the master of any language to let the other people know that they are cool. By knowing good English, we just have a key to appreciate a lot more things, just as a person who knows Spanish would have. And hence, by knowing more languages, we are just opening up vistas of learning and the learning, by itself, isn’t complete without using the language. So there is absolutely no increase in the kewl-ness factor by *not* knowing a language and it isn’t something to strut about.

And thus, we are done and eagerly wait for the reaction from the crowd. Needless to say, I am wrung out, sleepless and hollow eyed. All the hard work and shunting between the college and design place five times a day in 40 degrees, wouldn’t matter if people are going to like the magazine. Srishti was an amazing experience. I shall post the link for online version sometime J

2010-03-22T23:11:00.001+05:30

Oops Accidentally sent a mail with my blog id to management. Gotta lie low.

Power of Strangers!

2010-03-10T22:56:00.003+05:30

It has been my constant wonder how each person is so different from each other. It is the random acts of kindness from people un-known and in various parts of the world that probably negates all the awful things that happens around. It is these acts that doesn't make the earth to implode and putting an end to all its creatures.

It is also fascinating how some people are so horrible while some others come in at the right time in my life and make the amazing journey far less bumpy than it would be. Though people keep telling me sordid stories about strangers and how big-bad the vile world is, I have somehow made wonderful friends online, mostly through this blog.

It is nothing short of wonder that all these strange people, half of them I have never seen, have helped me so whole heartedly. They have cheered me up when I was depressed, truly felt happy for me if I had done something well, cricticised me and in essence have chiseled me in to a much better human.

Beyond this blog, there have been so many people online, true and just friends who have held on to me. When Google asked for an internal reference my seniors started this huge campaign of finding a CIT alumini in Google. A lot of people replied telling me about their distant cousins or an ex-colleague whose contact I could use if I wanted to. In fact, I had one of my seniors who had passed out much before I joined the college to know how he could help me with the process. When they could have just deleted the alumini mails without opening them, they actually do read them and bolster me with all their support.

When I wanted to apply for Eindhoven, one of the friends I made online, commented and reviewed and chiseled my SOP to a near master piece. I thought it had been perfect before I sent it across to him, but it went through five or six trials of editing. He looked over each comma and each word, established why I had used that particular sentence in that particular place, enhanced it and polished it so many times. I am very touched by this particular fact that how he could spend so much time on a person whom he doesn't know beyond this blog when some people out here in my college make it a point to be particularly vengeful and nasty to me. How can such people of both extreme live in the same world, yet they do !

Yesterday, I was sitting in the lab tearing my head over my final year project. It is a rather complicated mathematical project involving pages and pages of derivation. We had gotten stuck at a very critical point where in I needed to find this cryptical A ,B , C and D matrices that were very necessary to proceed with the project. I had mailed the author a dozen times, but the mail bounced back ruthlessly. The paper that referred to the project was an un-published Masters's thesis which means I would not be able to get my hands on it.

I suddenly remembered that another friend I made in the blogdom, studied in US and he would have access to all the online libraries. I mailed him in Facebook and by morning, he was telling me my options and was willing to help me find this. He was even willing to call up the Peurto Rico University and ask the librarian to send me scanned copies. It was awfully sweet of him go to this extent to help me with my project despite his tight doctoral schedule.

Another person actually sends me a ProQuest id and a password saying that he had obtained it from someone else! I know him just by a few quizzes and hey, even the closest of buddies would not want to take all this trouble.

I took another chance and slipped a mail of to this Peurto Rico University, to one of the library directors asking them how I can access their online journals. I was not expecting any reply to this, but Voila, Anti-Murphy law worked. The director had mailed the staff advisor of the student whose Masters thesis I wanted and hey, look who was the staff.. The author who I had been trying to mail. I got a surprise mail from him, explaining to me what I wanted to hear. He has promised me to send the paper I needed in two or three days.

Now look at this. When I suggested asking this professor to my project guide, she nonchalantly told me that no one replies to mails; at least she never did when someone inquired about her papers.

Seriously, such differences in human character may be the sole reason that makes life interesting. It is also a perennially nudging force that would make me pass on the kindness to someone else. No one would gain anything in anyway to help me around.Yet they do it without any expectation because this is how people are programmed by default, unless they choose to change it! As long such people are around, with their spontaneous kindness, I can still survive the horrors of life like DSP lab and survive there. Maybe, here, I learn the cue how not to be nasty to people. Ah, life is a book, isn't it ? :P

After all, the quality of mercy is not strained !

VTV

2010-03-06T22:45:00.002+05:30

Gautam Menon’s stories have stopped being stories. They are vague memories put together in a movie format. Somehow it reminds me of my blogs. They are extremely personal, and hence you cannot argue with a person who is staunch to bring it on to screen.

A good idea would be to stop making all the heroines to have a common trend. There is at least one song where people, especially the roadside dancers of the US do their high squiggly bit. Menon’s movies are extremely similar and he tries to impart the classy touch, what Sujatha tries to do. The high ingrained taste of the characters, at one point become extremely tiring as you get to know all the director wants to do is to lead us believing that they are awesome people who read a lot and have awesome tastes unlike the lesser mortals.

For example, dialogues like “Oh, am on facebook always. I love the word game. I am so addicted to it” screams, “Oh, common people, I know English, and hence I stay online in Facebook, forever and play word games that a 5 year kid can do. I am so smug, ain't I?”

There is this bit about how Maths is so much fun, right from the heroine’s mouth. This movie isn’t even a travelogue. It is a bunch of awesome wide blue stretches with an extremely good looking heroine wearing awesome sarees. They are generally very calm, controlled of their life and are very sure about what they want. Trisha was bang on track, except when she skids out of rationality and gives a limp reason why not to go on with the awesome hero.

I used to like the strong heroes and heroines of his movies. Now am getting really bored. I hated the ending not because it was sad but it was pathetically weak.

You can spend the two and a half hours looking at Trisha pirouetting around with those gorgeous Sarees framing her absolutely enviable slim build.

If Mr.Menon wants his movies to be enigmatic let there be enough substance to make up the character. We can’t have two English speaking dolls moving around without an aim and re-iterating what they want every second without having a clue about it. If he wants to tell us how life is, let him do so showing all that things we do rather than allusions of pseudo cool-ness.

5/10- Only for Trisha’s build and the blue wide stretches, especially the Allappey ones.

Jimpojiums

2010-02-20T23:35:00.006+05:30

Time and again I tell myself that I should stop going to all the "national level symposiums" like they are called. But my insatiable need for money makes me go these places. For instance, today, I spent half a day vying for a Best Manager event and ended up winning it. One of my friends told me that the prize money was Rs.2500. I was pretty happy and ended up building a detailed list of all the things I could do with the money. The list was so elaborate complete with dinners, pending treats, books and tennis racquets.

Later, she told me that they had given only Rs.500 as the first prize. I was practically shattered as good ole' mother earth isn't very gentle on persons who fall down from castles in air. I had to travel one and half hours across the city to go to this place in a crowded bus. I spent three hours between the prelims and the finals doing nothing. In all I spent some eight hours for 500 bucks and came home with a morbid headache; the effects of which I am still reeling under.

This happens in most of the symposiums these days. I have gotten immensely tired of having to shout myself hoarse to get the money.Most of the symposium organizers have huge sponsorship and the "execution" problem. Somewhere along the link someone mishandles the money and the block makes the rest of it to trickle into nothing. This also makes the front-end folks look bad.

The problem with the symposiums, even the ones conducted in my college is that there are always huge inter-departmental politics. Each department has its own quiz, own best manager at the same time. . In any symposium they have this "best manager" event, which is basically an apti, followed by some management rounds. Most of these symposiums have a common theme. Girls decked up in Saree, college super decorated, a lunch, a must watch paper-presentation and that is it. There are super phony talks of "how symposiums help students in their pursuit of being the perfect engineer"

I remember walking in to the rest room of my hostel two days before the symposium to find a bevy of girls trying on their sarees and accessories. Apparently, it was a dress rehearsal. The departments don't have a proper lab, or a library, or proper teachers but somehow find a need a for a 'Department Saree'. It is generally a huge source of controversy as no girl ever likes what another girl buys had she offended her in a slightest way even ten or twelve years back. So there are multiple shopping visits. Multiple self appointed fashion gurus take it on themselves to see if the chosen Saree would fit every one's complexion. Finding such a Saree takes half a semester and the rest of the semester goes away on bitching how awful it looked when compared to the other 'departments' sarees'. So these are our standard girls trying to be the dolly doll, while there would be wired up organizers tearing around madly to actually get the things done. The only 'organisation' our dress rehearsal ladies generally put together is perhaps the accessories and the pookolam. This travesty happens in my college's symposium year after year.

A couple of months ago, I went to this best manager thingy in another Coimbatore college The place where I went, followed the routine and was complete with rangoli, pookolam etc. It was apparent that they had spent enormously on the decorations, each department trying to outdo another. This place was extremely far from civilisation and it would take two hours for CITians to reach there. So, I was shortlisted for the second round of best manager in two departments having their events in two adjacent seminar halls. I went in to one, and found the place stuffed with boys. There wasn't a single girl. And then, I realised that the department must be some variant of Mechanical Engineering. The guy on-stage was struggling to talk for a minute on the topic "computer". I thought something was wrong and then found that they actually gave out topics as such and yet, the folks were not able to ramble. Mine was "time". I rambled on, as it is the only thing I do well, and the room full of boys were mortally offended for some unknown reason.

I told the organiser that I would be going to the next hall for the next round there and left the place. After half an hour, I get back to this place to see that the people were done with the events. I happily assumed that I had won. Little did I know that they actually had one more round and had conveniently forgotten to inform me. I had apparently gotten more points in the one round I had talked than the guy who won had gotten in two rounds put together. This is exactly the issue with the symposium organisers. A lot of participants put in a lot of effort, run around to get signatures for On Duty, lie through teeth to the staff advisors, tutors, wake up at 6 am, catch a bus to get to the place. And when they are treated with such mis-management, it really hurts. The best part in these symposiums is the revelry that is on after the event gets over. They get drunk, they bring in Saavu Kuthu folks and dance like their Ilaya Thalapathi Vijay. The symposium hang-over extends for some ten days after their great organisational display.

And in this case, I had lied to my HOD about coming there and then bumped in to her judging a project presentation event. The idea of having to live in constant dread of her screaming at me coupled with all the money that was denied and the entire day going down the drain made me rage like a mad bull. But it was pointless to scream at a drunk guy with drums beating at the background over the phone. I kicked a stone nearby and howled.

The purpose of most of these symposiums is to develop organisational skills of the students. Yes, doing things amidst all that mediocrity surrounding a student is very difficult. I have been through the ordeal and am still trying ways to cut the bales of red tape. I know it is very very difficult. But, when it comes to putting up a good show despite all the superficial glitter most of them fail miserably. My college is not an exception. When there are too many people involved in this with no clear demarcation of duties, it becomes a very un-organised mess. Not to mention the pain of dragging around a God damned Saree. If there are going to be some 7 departments in the college, I don't understand why each one of them have to conduct a separate quiz, a separate management event and so on. Most of the paper presentations are farce, as the folks copy and paste the first thing that comes on to Google. It goes unchecked and a lot of people get to put things like "Blah Blah processing experiment done on a blah blah processor" on their resume. The original experiment would have taken four years to complete and a super computer to work on. It is a shame how badly people copy a professor's work word to word and present it as their own. More shameful is the fact that the organisers don't even bother to do a double quote Google check on these papers. And the worst part is that most of these papers get a huge cash prize as paper presentation is supposed to be the flagship event.

A plea to all the future symposium organisers, including the ones in my college. Please reduce the number of events and improve the quality. Conducting 15 events per department does not mean that your department is oh-so-awesome. It just means that you are putting a lot of people in to a lot of unnecessary trouble. You make very deserving organisers to lose face before angry participants like me. And all those treasurers who go on to buy bikes, cars and laptops with the money swindled in the symposium, may you be be born as a IC chip in my lab in your next birth. You can continue not working and get burnt as well. (Also put the working people in trouble) And for the management, please stop trying desperately to instigate lousy symposiums. Folks will get placed in CTS, or TCS even without such grand displays of their organisational capabilities.

I am just too tired. My mother pointed out that it was a nice thing to win. I am already saturated with most of the quizzes and it really pains to waste a whole lot of time that could have been put to better use, even sleeping.

It doesn't make sense to fight for 'glory' anymore. Screw honour. Give me my money. Else I will shake my angry fist like our dear Captain Haddock.

And oh yes, this post is not aimed at any particular college. This is a pained rant of a very painful person who was(is) unfortunately, greedy enough to have attended most of these comical symposiums. This is a disclaimer lest I get comments such as " How can a CIT stinker talk to Us this way" or " We upper, you middle berth"

Stiff upper lips.

I had a dream, that one day...

2010-02-17T12:40:00.002+05:30

Sometimes I think that I am rather blessed to have been in the places where I would have the most fun. My school, for example, had the best system in the world to teach.

First, they did not compel us to attend class. That opened huge vistas of learning, for I could sit in TVS’s awesome library all day and read random books. Second, they had brilliant books in the syllabus. I have often raved about my Geography books to all the people I see. The book was hefty, almost a 1000 pages. It was essentially a travelogue written by various authors as they travel through the particular country. So I didn’t have to study anything titled “The Soil and Vegetation of South America”. Instead, I read about the author’s time there, how he visited the Brazilian plantations, or Argentina’s ranches. I read about the revolutions that happened in Chile, and what Buenos Aires meant. I also read about the author’s heart madly throbbing as the daredevil drivers of Peru whizzed through the hairpin bends to take him to Lake Titicaca; and about the football clubs of Brazil or how Quinine was invented. I also travelled with the author in a trains, horse carts, bikes and cycles. It was when I first heard of Motorcycle diaries.

I saw the world with all the fine details through the author’s eyes. It was the same treatment for all the continents. I must say that it got me the knack of storing in my mind very fine details (a command of absolutely useless information :-P ). The author would talk about the famous Jazz musicians, basketball players, composers, artists as he roamed around the streets of the world. Imagine what a transition it would have been for me to switch over to normal blacksoil-redsoil Geography books in tenth standard.

The third thing about TVS was how they tested us. For one, there was nothing called the “book back” or “end of the chapter “questions. 1000 pages were presented to us in all their glory, and if we loved reading we could ace any exam. The tests’ patterns would be kept as a secret. We had crossword puzzles, jumbled words, filling up fan-charts in Geography, all testing our trivial pursuits. We were given maps of random cities across the world and we had to figure out which city that would be based on the map. This necessitated us knowing important landmarks, statues or streets or canals, anything that would give us a clue which city that would be. We then had to write notes about it! Venice, Rio de Janeiro come readily to mind.

We would be asked to write an imaginary train journey from the West Coast of America to the East or through Russia in the Trans-Siberian railway. So we had to write things like, how the colour of grass changed which meant we were in the Prairies or how we have to adjust our watches for the changes in the time zone. The more descriptive we were, the more marks we got. Oh, that was the time when people actually read the answer papers. I even remember writing about getting a mink coat during one of the Siberian railway questions.

Coming to the point, in one of the chapters, I once read about a country called Netherlands. I don’t know who wrote that particular chapter, but he had done such a good job of it. The chapter started with the story of Hans and the dykes, proceeded to tell us how the Dutch managed to tame the sea and build a whole new world out of it. Then it went on how the author borrowed a bicycle and went around the country side. I saw the windmills, the endless rows of tulips. My mouth salivated at the description Edam and the Gouda cheese. I read about the author’s tour of a dairyman’s house. He talked about the Dutch people’s determination and their way of having fun. He talked about the pristine country in such a way that I fell in love with it. So, when Air India asked us to write about a country every Indian should visit, way back in ninth standard, I wrote passionately about The Netherlands. I won the contest and was rather hoping that they would take me there. But, I ended up going to Singapore.

So, some months before when I was searching for a topic to do my final year project, I happened to notice that most of the bio-medical engineering stuff came from this university in a place called Eindhoven. I casually checked their biomedical engineering department and sort of whistled after I found the type of work they do there. That night I sat and thought. I shook my head, cleared all the unholy engineering thoughts. But the next day, I searched for the pictures of Eindhoven. Then, I sat to write down my statement of purpose. Four months since then, I stand closer to the place of my dreams. I have been accepted in Bio-imaging and modelling course in The University of Eindhoven.

It is a huge thing. Every ten minutes, I get this nice surge of hope and the azure blue skies, and backpacking across Europe. I am piping it down. I am waiting for the information about the scholarship before I make a decision. In case the scholarship does come in, I have to close my eyes, think of the bicycle tour of my author and make a decision.

May be this phase is the distinct pause everyone makes, before they widen their eyes and talk about their dreams with a warm smile tugging at their mouths.

Yet another TED talk

2010-02-15T00:13:00.000+05:30

This is an excerpt from a TED talk by Eve Ensler.It is titled "I'm An Emotional Creature." I was laughing all the way through especially in the third paragraph.

" And it happened because I met a girl in Watts L.A. I was asking girls if they liked being a girl, and all the girls were like, "No, I hate it. I can't stand it. It's all bad. My brothers get everything." And this girl just sat up and went, "I love being a girl. I'm an emotional creature!" This is for her:

I love being a girl. I can feel what you're feeling as you're feeling inside the feeling before. I am an emotional creature. Things do not come to me as intellectual theories or hard-pressed ideas. They pulse through my organs and legs and burn up my ears. Oh, I know when your girlfriend is really pissed off, even though she appears to give you what you want. I know when a storm is coming. I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air. I can tell you he won't call back. It's a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature. I love that I do not take things lightly. Everything is intense to me, the way I walk in the street, the way my momma wakes me up, the way it's unbearable when I lose, the way I hear bad news.

I am an emotional creature. I am connected to everything and every one. I was born like that. Don't you say all negative that it's only only a teenage thing, or it's only because I'm a girl. These feelings make me better. They make me present. They make me ready. They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature. There is a particular way of knowing, It's like the older women somehow forgot. I rejoice that it's still in my body. Oh, I know when the coconut is about to fall. I know we have pushed the Earth too far. I know my father isn't coming back, and that no one is prepared for the fire. I know that lipstick means more than show, and boys are super insecure, and so-called terrorists are made, not born. I know that one kiss could take away all my decision making ability. And you know what? Sometimes it should. This is not extreme. It's a girl thing, what we would all be if the big door inside us flew open.

Don't tell me not to cry, to calm it down, not to be so extreme, to be reasonable. I am an emotional creature. It's how the earth got made, how the wind continues to pollinate. You don't tell the Atlantic Ocean to behave. I am an emotional creature. Why would you want to shut me down or turn me off? I am your remaining memory. I can take you back. Nothing has been diluted. Nothing's leaked out. I love, hear me, I love that I can feel the feelings inside you, even if they stop my life, even if they break my heart, even if they take me off track, they make me responsible.

I am an emotional, I am an emotional unconditional, devotional creature. And I love, hear me, I love love love being a girl! "

The Plath Path

2010-02-06T04:41:00.000+05:30

Reading Sylvia Plath did me no good. I should have known. The riveting story hooked me on and I was through the book in half a day, breaking in the middle only to yell at a friend and then proceed with dinner. The book was haunting, drowning me inside with the details and the images. I was glued on to it and felt hopeless and bleak. I said over the dinner table that I could see a lot of my stories in the damn book. I stoked the cover and handed the open book across the table. My bosom buddies read the passage that I asked them to read and refused to give me the book back. They told me that I was an idiot and cited the book as one of the reasons that they were getting yelled at.

I love putting myself through misery. This is why Plath's novel hooked me with a vice like grip. I sank in to it, wallowed through the melancholy, un-described unsettling sadness lingering in every page of the novel. There is this mysterious feeling through the book, just like a morning you would wake up and know instantly that you would have a horrible day ahead.

I loved a particular chapter when the protagonist's head fills up with all the things she thinks she has failed at, in her life. Whenever I feel like drowning myself in sadness and stay in bed all day, I vehemently make a list of things that I have failed in my life, from the most trivial ones such as getting kicked off from the basket ball team. I go on and on finding how I have been wronged by the world, until I eat and then all the sunshine comes back to me.

The perpetual morbidity runs only in Rohinton Mistry books. He is by far my favourite Indian author. Plath's novel could have been only written by an extremely sad person. Three hours in her shoes, if you are the type to 'crawl through the lines', you will end up hating yourself. I didn't cry reading it. I wasn't horrified like I was after A Fine Balance.I just puked. Last time this happened was after I watched 'Requiem for a dream'. No, it was not a tad disgusting. It is like a whirlpool that will swirl your insides and telling you terrifying things that might happen to you any day. It will whoosh you through the deep horrifying things that you have been kidding about yourself. Think of a person deciding to kill herself and writing graphically how she went on with it. I just couldn't help feeling sick. Not because I can't handle it, but, again, it was deeply un-settling. Imagine, in Sylvia'a words, "Wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air". Can you see the imagery of total isolation? And a trance like feeling of not letting anyone near you, yet watching everything through the translucent detachment. Four hours with this book will make you see it and live through it. It is hell.

Some quotable quotes:

"I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty.Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo"

"I felt like a race horse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like a date on a tombstone"

"Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing."

I feel washed out. It is 4.00 am now, and I haven't slept yet.

I know I will feel awesome tomorrow though, after tennis. The endorphins, as one of my friends pointed out, is the best thing that can happen to man. The awesome kick after I hear the healthy thwang of the ball hitting the bat bang in the middle, with my face flushing and heart pounding, can drive out any ghost with which Sylvia Plath tried to haunt me.

Will end with her words "I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am"

I am, indeed.

Lab-our

2010-01-30T00:28:00.003+05:30

I should say that my condition at the DSP lab has marginally improved after my very brilliant batch mate rejoined us. He had been estranged from our group last semester by the weird ways of fate. I jumped with joy when I heard that he was back in our batch which isn't without a reason. It takes a huge responsibility off my shoulders and I can happily resign in a corner and look interested whenever necessary.

It has been quite sometime since I went to lab, thanks to Saarang and Pongal holidays. I was rather careful in taking all the necessary accessories such as ID card, shoes, new record, my usual stock pile of apology letters and so on. In the recent terrible times, apology letters are a must if you want to survive in this place. In fact, I had to expend two of them even before the day started. One stating that I was very apologetic for attending Saarang and not the soft computing class like a good girl ought to have. And another because I manged to find my department library book only this morning which is a full 12 hour after the dead line.It being a terrible mistake I sincerely apologised, so that I would be let to do the lab experiment later in the day.

Now, you must not mistake my apparent enthusiasm to attend the DSP lab. My attendance was in a precocious state and I had to attend it yesterday to make the lab attendance creep over 50%.

At 1 pm, I told myself that all I had to do was to keep my head low, let my batch mate take over and spend rest of the time doodling. So as soon as the door was opened I scuttled away to a safe corner where I could seat myself in the only stool my lab had. As you might know, my department people take vindictive pleasure in making us all stand for three hours over a completely useless experiment. Now that my batch-mate is back, I don't even bother to read the procedure for some arbitrary detector that wouldn't work anyway.

When my observation was corrected without the usual grimaces, I actually thought that Communication and DSP lab was going to be good. I went back with a smug smile at a chap.He had affronted me earlier by telling me that he was taken by surprise at my appearance in the lab.

So I lost myself in the monotonous drone of the radio receiver experiment that someone was doing. I was watching the antennas twisting and turning, happily in the middle of the lab. I managed to pop in to consciousness occasionally asking my batch , "Has something come?" only to be replied with grumpy glares.
I kept repeating the same for quite sometime when my soora-puli batch mate broke his stony silence asking me "What do you expect to come?".

A catch.

After some quick thinking I answered "Oh, whatever we are supposed to be looking for."

Feeling clever I went back to my ideal state. I was lost in a remarkable trance which was broken only at occasional intervals by the goofy people on the other side of the table who were bursting in to giggles. I was so happy as it would be my first communications lab without getting in to trouble.

"65!"

They generally refer us by names in labs and by numbers when one is in serious trouble. Being the above mentioned number, I went swishing to their table looking apologetic, as 'apology' is the only word to cool down the seething masses. The female glared me and asked me where my 'skeleton' was.

I bit back the urge to reply wittily as sarcasm gets quite lost with these people.

"Eh? Ma'am, it was a C experiment"

"Where is your skeleton?"

"What skeleton are we to submit for a C experiment if we have not finished it?"

She gave a huge hoot of laughter. I sighed and told myself that it was going to be a long day. She nudged all her friends knowingly and said "See? See?". They all saw and nodded. What they saw was not of my interest, but when they circled a big red 'a' in the attendance register, I was alarmed as it was the sole reason I was attending the lab. I started bleating and adrenaline surged. I protested "What is wrong?"

Apparently, one had to write "Aim" in black pen in a blank record sheet and submit it as the 'skeleton' instead of the printout.

I was fuming as I went back. Then, something miraculous happened. They actually called "66". This is not quite possible as my batch-mate is something sort of a legend to them, and he is literally the "face" value of our team. Being bone collectors, they asked for the guy's 'skeleton' as well. Poor chap had written the whole of theory for all the experiments except one. He had assumed that one need not write anything for part B, if the 'skeleton' had been written for part A of the same experiment. They gave him a big fat "A' as well. A's are not pretty sight, I tell you, unless they are on your grade sheet .

I had the vindictive pleasure that, finally, I was not the only one wronged by the big bad world!

I met up with the CEO of this really cool company today. He was telling about a program they had organized. He selected first years, gave them ID cards, e-mail ids, small room in their office. He mentored them, and let them experiment or build all the things they want to inside the company. One of those kids won the IEEE best innovator award after coming to the fourth year. I had goose pimples.

I couldn't stop thinking about my profs in IISc who built things from scratch and customized it the way they wanted it to . When will the dumb college people realize that it isn't worth dragging a final year in the 8th semester and make him/her do something that is absolutely worthless for the person's life. What is the point of wasting 2.5 hours in trying to tune a 15 year old tuner, trying to get a very stubborn output? Maybe I should re-write the aims of all my experiments as "Testing my patience". Is it really worth fiddling on a breadboard wasting 3 hours over IC's that don't work and finally faking the readings just to get over with it?

Amidst all this, it is very tough to be apologetic, like every CITian is made to feel these days!

Salinger and Saarang

2010-01-25T01:07:00.001+05:30

I am just back from my annual pilgrimage to IITM Saarang. I was also reading Catcher in the Rye, this evening for the second time. I am enjoying the book so much, now that I am in final year. Some quotes were so brilliant, and sounded so true that I have quoted them here. The paragraphs in red would illustrate why the quotes were 'so true'.

"What I mean is, lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most. I mean you can't help it sometimes. What I think is, you're supposed to leave somebody alone if he's at least being interesting and he's getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice."

Indeed so. With servo-motors and visual tracking systems explained on a tissue paper inside CCD. It made enormous sense.

"At first he only used to be kidding when he called my stuff bourgeois, and I didn't give a damn — it was sort of funny, in fact. Then, after a while, you could tell he wasn't kidding any more. The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs — if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do."

I am wondering on which side I was. The Delhi girls were from IIT. Had better suitcases and obviously more intelligent. I saw that most IITians, almost all the girls, had branded back packs. Almost all the shoe racks, had a couple of Nike shoes in them. Maybe IIT promises such big things that people don't mind spending outrageous amounts on branded stuff. Or may be they have not grown up in households where 75 year old grandmothers save up polythene bags to reuse them.

These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing. They always want you to shut up when they shut up, and go back to your room when they go back to their room.

Intellectual conversation in college is an oxymoron. At 20,I feel that I and people around me , except for a very few, have clearly defined principles. Most of us have not figured out who we are and our ideals are those that have been incorporated by family and friends. It is so true that it is pointless in arguing with people who cannot be changed and who refuse to see reason! Interesting revelation to see that people whom I thought were hopeless were more profound than I have ever been. A slap on smugness. :P

You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I'm positive, in fact.

And I thought IIT-M was perfect. It was, last summer. I even found an un-posted mail about IIT.

"It's nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father's farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle. I mean it's dirty to keep yelling 'Digression!' at him when he's all nice and excited. I don't know. It's hard to explain."

Going off-tangent and hitting upon a rather surprising thing to talk about is what that makes conversations interesting. I love it when people rave passionately about anything they know. Sadly, it is very tough to find what people love and to nudge them in to that path. And more sadly, most people prefer to bitch about my insistent ranting on things I love, than to stop me and ask me to shut up outright . My cold-shouldered school mates fare way better than these folks. At least, I developed this hyper-sensitivity of knowing when to stop when people turned cold.

"The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You'd have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn't. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn't take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart. I'm not kidding"

Phoniness isn't restricted to movies. Cries of "Dudde...", tons of make up and 55 Rs Black Forest cake at CCD, comes readily to mind. And sophisticated phoniness is so non-dudish, that one doesn't realize that it was phoniness until much later. Natural charms and bull shit.

I stood in Landmark fondling all that I wanted to buy. It ached to put back the 'Wolf Hall' and 'The case of exploding mangoes' after I discovered that I had spent more than 2000 in the pointless trip.

I wandered in to the last shop in the least expensive corner of Spencer's. In an almost empty shop, I fell in love with the beautifully crafted leather wallet. The old light-eyed Muslim gentleman over there, stated an outrageous amount for the same. I got it for less than half the price that was stated, but my heart went out to two of them, sitting in the empty shop and hoping for customers. How bleak it must be for them. They looked like characters out of a Rohinton Mistry novel- Haunted and Given up.

I stood in Landmark's stationery shop half an hour later, gawking at the pillar full of 'post-it' notes in various sizes and colours. There were amazing organizers, leather bound notes, beautiful pens. It is a pity that I don't use any of them in same the way I appreciate their handsome-ness.

I stood thinking what I would buy people if I had the money and who would appreciate what. I took out the leather travel organizer mesmerized. It looked so perfect and I knew to whom I would give that too. Same went with the showcase full of cross pens. I stared at the swiss-army knife and thought about the most beautiful tool-set complete with a winch and a torch I had seen the day before at an another over priced shop. I generally put in enormous time in deciding what to get people, apart from the occasional impulsive binges. It makes me very happy, when they get surprised. Landmark's stationery shop is a paradise. In fact, it was so paradisaical that only when I realized I didn't have enough money to buy all that, I realized how clever the marketing is!

And on phoniness, a man in his 60's was screaming at a porter, who ran behind him cowering and begging for twenty more than a hundred. The man thundered at him, in the upper-middle class Sanskritsed-English. The poor porter looked like a dwarf compared to the towering man and was having two huge suitcases on his head. I don't quite know who was cheating on who, but at that moment I really appreciated my Dad. He never bargains with fruit-sellers or porters though he knows that he gets cheated out of his wits all the time. "It is just a coffee's price..", he would quip when my mother would start on indignantly.

"Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake."

I listened to a friend raving about beautiful cars and then saying that he wouldn't buy a car even if he had the money, for there would be much nicer little things that would make his life perfect. We were sitting in the Besant Nagar beach with the gang and watching the waves. Beaches soothe me, like humane horses.

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."

And hence this post; Even if it isn't history or poetry.

Semi-Awake and want to blog.

2010-01-19T01:29:00.000+05:30

Certain times in life, one feels immensely nostalgic, thinking of the times that rushed by. It is hard to digest that there are only three more months and all this life will be a post card picture. There are so many occasions when I want to freeze moments and clutch it so as not to let it slip by. But prudence tells me to let them go, for nice things don't always last long. Wouldn't be wiser to look at what destiny hands over to me without comparing it with my carefully preserved post cards?

I cuddled on to bed watching a movie and drifted off to a dreamless sleep. When I woke up I realised that this hasn't happened in over a year. At one twenty am, Jan 10, 2010, world suddenly looks surreal. It is probably the Goan Sunset wall paper. Everytime I see it, I hush and think it up as yet another post card picture. Sometimes, I feel I will give anything in life to be woken up every morning by the fiery mass of orange yonder in the sea.I want to sit and watch the waves crashing.

Am going back to sleep.

Madurai-d

2010-01-16T22:29:00.003+05:30

Shopping in Madurai is not a very easy task. For one, the 'town' like we call the streets around the Meenakshi temples simply teems with tourists and the faithful devotees. The temple, as we all know, is very huge. Unless, you have someone, like my Dad, pointing out details to you, Meenakshi Temple will be yet another boring wait in long queues. There is Amman Sannadhi entrance, where you can do all your shopping. It is this huge stone structure where you can find a bunch of accessories (read plastic and gold plated earrings) shops, tailors, copper and brass ware sellers. There are also book stalls that sell 12th std, 10th std 'guides', Prathimic, Madhyama, Rashtrabasha Hindi books . Thinking of it, do people still write those exams? It used to be a rage in my times. I even passed Madhyama in second class, when I was in third standard. I remember translating long Hindi paragraphs to Tamizh as my mother had made me chose Tamizh instead of English. I quit writing this stuff later, as we found TVS's Hindi was enough to get away with bargaining for auto, in Bombay. My Hindi is dysfunctional. I tend to pull out Sanskrit words in the middle or switch over to English. Well, my Sanskrit is way better than my Hindi :D.

Amman Sannadhi Entrance

So, coming back to the point, shopping with my mother is even more difficult. She tends to bull-doze her way through the crowd, unmindful of what or whom she hits on her way. She squints happily at the boards of the textile shops, with her tongue stuck at one corner. She generally points out to anything that is bright orange or yellow and asks me to admire the same. We generally break in to a raging altercation near Amman Sannadhi and shout our way through the clamour till we go near the old book shops or until something bright catches our attention.

Today, my mother wanted to go this amazing place she had found sometime ago.It was a shop in 'Valayakkaara Street', which is a place filled with wholesale shops, selling all the girly stuff. like its counter parts in Chennai and Bangalore. My mother in her mindless solitary meanderings had wandered in to the dingy street and had practically walked in to a place of her dreams. My mother has this thing for these imitation jewels. She practically buys stuff by dozens, wears them a couple of times and throws them off. Apparently, this place was so mind-bogglingly awesome that she wanted to put this under 'secrets handedthrough generations' category and pass it on to her only offspring.

However, the task was not very simple. My mother, sadly, doesn't possess my acumen for useless information. Tried as she might, she could not remember the name of the shop. Now this street, where we found ourselves standing, had some 50 shops on the either sides.I pointed out to her that it would be a good idea to leave. She didn't budge. She walked through the entire street once, clueless. Then she told me that the shop's name sounded

"Different..Beautiful.."

Most of the shops had names like 'Bajrang Mohan', 'Reshma Fancy' .
They all sounded "Beautiful and Different" when compared to Madurai-sh names like "Meenakshi Coffee Bar" , "Parameshwary Textiles".

She waved them off and barged in to the nearest store. She tried explaining the specifications to an irked,busy Sethji who blatantly said "This is not the place."
My mom said "Oh, I know that. Do you have any idea, which shop might be the one?"
"This is not the place" he repeated and went back to haggling with a huge bunch of customers in rapid fire Hindi.

She was not the one to be deterred. She came out with a new inspiration. She started standing before each of the store, looking carefully at the shop owner for a minute, and the architectural details for another minute. She stood silently (which doesn't happen often) trying to stimulate a Déjà vu. She went on in this way, until an amused shop owner happily called out to her...

"Vaango Maami...Are you fine? It has been a long time since you came."

My mom jumped with glee and went inside the shop , raving "How much does this one cost? And this one? And that one?". The practically empty shop's attenders welcomed her and they just stopped short of rolling out the red-carpet. I was rather happy that the ordeal was over, but at that point, my mother whispered in to my ears "See, this is not the place. But these guys welcomed me so much that I wanted to give it a try".

I sighed. She came out clutching a small pack leaving a disappointed crew, who had been hoping that she was a top-buyer. Then she went around cocking her head at each shop, in various angles to fit the picture in to her mind.

She shouted "Oh, this is the one!"

I echoed "Brilliant, lets go inside."

She said "No, no, this is the shop that was close by. Ours should be somewhere around here."

Finally, after eons of head-tilting, she got all excited and pointed out a crumbling structure and hurried nearby, almost running "There it is!".

The shop was closed.

"See? See?", she said.

I saw nothing and looked at her.

"See? 'R.R.R' . I told you the name was different".Saying so, my mom wandered happily outside the street squinting all over, leaving me gaping.

We, as family, are legendary. :)

Yes, thats her..Seeking Déjà vu

Love this one. Look at it , so tall and trusty!

rant

2010-01-16T01:50:00.005+05:30

Its almost 2.00.
It is better to work than to sit around and muse.

Got this from Sharanyan's FB album.

Candy starts tasting like bad coffee after a while, I guess.Gives you a bad coffee hangover too, but it doesn't make you to quit drinking coffee would it? I believe in strangers. Its just that everyone stops believing in everybody else after a while.

I still believe in strangers. So many incredible things have happened by strangers.

Just that strangers don't remain strangers, and hence, the candy becomes just 'good' after a while.

Stays that way for eternity.

I still believe in strangers because strangers like me for sometime

I want to go back to TVS, catch the 6.00 am bus, cut class and read. I want to attend more quizzes with Suchi, Karthic and Adi. I want to gawk at Jikki and Nattu for getting their names in young world.I want to meet Namboodari ji and attend his malayalam accented Sanskrit classes. I want to sing "Arivumigum Sundaranal" every morning. I want to go to Jaya Miss's math tuition again and feel like a whiz. I want to be comfortable.I really need that incredible hope TVS used to give me.

Sigh,I know I can't.

I will eat the strangers' candies when I know I shouldn't trust a man with a black coat and a black hat.

Dumb world

Muse

2010-01-14T10:43:00.000+05:30

Have I got this right?

And is it Bharathiyar?

It has been popping in my mind since yesterday.

பழயன கழிதலும் புதியன புகுதலும் புனலாய் பொங்கும் புது யுகம் காண்பதற்கே-

Pertinent observation

2010-01-12T22:57:00.000+05:30

My Dad calls me up every morning. The conversation always lasts for 12 seconds or less. He calls me from his office land line at 6.30 am. He goes to office at 6.15 am. the actual time the office starts is 10.00 am.Yesterday, I was just about to sleep, when he called me to say good morning..

My mother goes to office at 10.45 am, while the actual check in time is 8.00 am.

A fine balance, indeed.

The Squabble

2010-01-10T23:04:00.002+05:30

Crazy Busy. Couldn't resist posting this though :P

Do you think you can fight for what you believe? Are you the strong headed person who can go to any extent to prove yourself right? Do you feel smug after you finish arguing? One and all, are requested to buck up from the laid back life and get ready for the fight. Throw your thoughts at us and let us find out how good you are at bickering. Let us pull each other’s leg and find who is better in defending the blows. For, this is going to be the place to contend the big and small issues. For, this is going to be

The Squabble!

(Which the Literary Club, Proudly presents, of course)

For I, II and III yrs

Topics: (Any one of this lot)

1) Indian Students harassed in Australia. Is the issue really about racism?

2) Was 2009 Good for India?

3) Are we tampering with Nature a bit too much?

4) Does a separate state for Telangana leave Hyderabad in a bad position?

5) Is legalizing prostitution an end to trafficking of women India?

6) Is our middle-class nationalism illustrated by our lackadaisical response to all the social evils around us?

7) Vajpayee:Victim or the villain?

8) Did internal differences cost the lives of Mumbai Police men on the night of 26/11?

9)Obama's Nobel justified? (Special Points to those who defend this :D )

Some tips:

1) Research ALWAYS pays

2) Don’t think you can get away with just good English

3) Confidence and Stance matter

4) Read up, Quote and Strategize

5) As always, Think Different

LH 219 at 5.00 pm on 10.01.10(Monday)

2010-01-04T23:37:00.000+05:30

And finally, I got my beanie, Google.
I sat on the swing outside my room, happily flying high. It has been a while since I felt so calm.
I owe this to all those people who popped out of nowhere and helped me out with a lot of things!

Smart Aleckness

2010-01-01T23:20:00.000+05:30

Growing up with boys has its own advantages. One tends to get very amused at the sarcastic, smart-aleck comments that the chaps come up with. One also gets to easily identify the ‘non-lewd-plain-sarcastic-commenting’ very easily. Sometimes, one has to acknowledge that some of these comments are pretty funny as well, rather than mortally offending.

A lot of these college guys are the ones we girls generally tend know. This fine art of passing sarcastic comments is fondly called in Tamizh as “ootradhu”. It does not qualify to eve-teasing anyway. It is more like a rag, rather than a virulent remark. Some of them are doled out to assert the guy’s ‘smart-aleckness’ rather than anything else. The way the girls react to it, by getting very offended at a pretty harmless remark, tickles these chaps to no extent.

Four years in CIT has made me immune to these on-the-way-you-see-a-girl-and-hence-you-need-to-comment-to-have-a-good-laugh-with-your-pals (whew!) comments.

But sometimes, when am quite cranky, I react. And boy, these people get quite shocked. The imminent pleasure you get out of shocking these chaps out of their wits is almost close to sadism, but it is quite funny, really :-). They get back what they deserve for these uncalled ‘witty things’. I have seen guys getting this extremely shelled look after getting back some of my ‘good-ones’. I grin at them happily and my bad mood gets restored.(ok, this sounds like showing off, but trust me, I have an awesome reputation for shocking people out of their skins. I even have stuck out my tongue at chaps staring at me :P )

So, when I was in my first year, I was to adopt timid feminine virtues and bear the mild yoke. But, hailing from Madurai, the kingdom of sharp tongued females (Refer to’ Paruthiveeran’ for more details), I found it very difficult to keep my mouth shut. I got in to a lot of scuffles, yes, but it was more with my peers rather than with the seniors. I guess I got lucky, never to have been ragged maliciously.

By the second year, with my newly acquired senior status, I was all ready to dole it back, in huge chunks at that. It is not the fact that by being in second year, one can get away with smart aleckness, but one tends to get over the frightening senior images, and get the sense of, ‘Oh, our boys’. It was in this sense I was standing at the store, buying soap.

Me-“Oru pears soap kudunga” (Give me one ‘pears’ soap)

Some mechanical final year, over my shoulders- “En nee pears than pottu kulipiyo” (“Why , you bath only with pears soap?”)

I was in one of my bad moods, after having found a free bathroom after an hour’s wait and then, finding the conspicuous absence of a soap bar which made me give up the hard fought place. So I turn 180 degrees to this chap and say

“Pinna Nee enna Surf Excel potta Kulipa? ” (Oh,so you bath with surf excel eh?)

The guy jumped back at the temerity of an insignificant second year germ, a girl at that. I vividly recall the guy’s face. Oh, it was such fun.

After coming from NIT’s Cultural fest in my third year, I was hugely inspired to bring my cycle to the hostel. I thought I could go for long cycling trips in the broad, heavenly Avinashi road. I also thought that it would aid me to get better food. What happened to the cycle is a different post altogether, but initially the entire college, including the warden found it pretty amusing. I didn’t quite mind people staring at me whizzing past in the down slope between the IT block and the stationary store, but I didn’t do such feats in conspicuous day-light. I chose twilight when the cold would start to set in. One fine day, I decided to go out early morning, to some place on my faithful cycle. It being a Sunday, my early morning plan shifted to some 8.45 am, but I still decided to take my cycle as it would save me a long walk. I got out of the hostel to find that for some weird reason, they had shifted the final years’ mess to the first years' mess that was on my way outside the college. Being the peak breakfast time, there were clumps of our fellows, meandering happily in their shorts towards the mess. I was rather irritated that my route was jammed by human traffic, so I was navigating my cycle’s way through the clumps cautiously.

All of them stared at the spectacle very amusedly (thinking back, it should have been hilarious, yes). I was preparing myself for a wise aleck remark, and there it was. One guy gleefully shouted behind me “Try a scooty next time. You would look much prettier on that.” I braked the cycleto a halt, and gleefully shouted back, “I will, can you pay me the money for petrol?”. Think of it. There should have been some fifty people on the road. There was a huge hoot of laughter. I cycled on happily.

What made me write this post today was that I was in a pretty cranky mood. I was battling a terrific headache after my nap was interrupted by the multitude of new year wishes. I was trudging along to Krishna bakes for a tea to clear my head. No, this time there was nothing really funny that warranted a good-one from the fellows. A stupid bunch walks by and for no reason, tried some vague cinema-song comment on me. In my normal state I shrug these off, as such dumbness don’t deserve my time. But today, having all my time at hand and with my crankiness rocketing up, I stopped right there and turned heel. I kind of marched mutinously back up to them and asked “What IS your problem. Better think up something funny, so that we can have a good laugh together, now” I went on in that vein, at my sarcastic best for a good three minutes.By the end of it I felt quite refreshed.

Gee, it felt so brilliant to take it out on someone. I went to KB in an awesome mood, grinning about the poor chaps, who probably didn't mean a thing. In fact, I felt a bit sorry for the kids. It should have been juniors. But what heck, after all, life is all about “Blistering barnacles”. Quite made my day :-)

Yet another New Year Eve post!

2009-12-31T22:35:00.002+05:30

This year was full of questions. Half of those were at me. The rest were for me to figure out.
Most of them went unanswered, since I started hating people when they kept asking me things for which I had no answers. Answers to those questions that were answered, popped out of nowhere. They led to more questions. All of them just hang around there frozen in the December cold waiting for destiny to swoop in and clear them up. Oh, it is not as sucky as it sounds to be! :) What is life without a quest. Mine will be for answers.

I don't even remember last new year. It is all foggy. This year seems like time travel. It rushed past so fast, that I had to run along without taking a breath. All I remember the early 2009 is May, when I stayed at IIT. Those solitary walks from GC to Velachery, iced tea at Gurunath, Mango Juices, wonderful Mudita - all of them stay pretty vividly. I discovered a mail I wrote to a friend when I was at IIT that I had forgotten to post. I read it after some five months, and it was so nice :)

Brahma came in and I remember coming to my room every night at 8.55, having left at 8 am and crashing down. I remember the day sitting in Chandru's house taking questions all night watching the rest of the gang dropping off one by one. All those days we put on our best smiles haggling for thousands with one 'Regional Manager' or another. We were swearing so fluently that the effect took quite sometime to wear off! This will perhaps be the busiest year I had at college, for I was in the thick of all that happened.

Post- Brahma, so many beautiful things happened. I walked around in air , smiling and taking time to smell roses. Questions were just beginning to spring . They caught me full on by the end of the year. Strangling me, frightening me. They became haunted my nightmares, made me weep.But things always felt much better and brighter after a good nap. Things cleared up a bit towards the end, bringing in hope for more of questions to get cleared.

I don't have any nostalgia. All I want to be nostalgic about, will stick around with me for quite sometime. I still have three months to take snapshots and store them up.Every year's end brings back the memories of un-kept resolutions. This year I have none, for my mind is so crammed up with events and details :)

I hate these impersonal forwarded Happy New year messages. The people are so lazy to even type one on their own and they randomly forward it to everyone. My very nice and sincere Dad, who is technologically pretty impaired makes it a point to religiously type out a 'happy new year' message and send it to everyone in his mobile phone. He is the only one in my small family to take celebrations seriously. I am very sure, he would wake up at 5.00 am tomorrow morning, like he always does, waking me up with a 'Happy New Year, sandhoshama iruppa'. He would push the phone to my very reluctant mom .We would gruffly acknowledge each other and would go back to sleep. :)

The best thing that happened in the year, is that they finally changed RF systems design after a mass representation. It came as a great news while we were in lab doing an image processing experiment. Yay!

Years are just bookmarks. All I believe in are chapters. Am towards the end of the old one. My new one has not begun yet.

To finish off, those haunting lines of Poonkuzhazhi

அலை கடலும் ஒய்ந்திருக்க

அகக்கடல் தான் பொங்குவதேன் ?

நிலமகளும் துயுலுகையில்

நெஞ்சந்தான் பதைப்பதுமேன்?

வானகமும் நானிலமும்

மோனமதில் ஆழ்ந்திருக்க

மான்விழியாழ் பெண்ணொருத்தி

மனதில் புயலடிப்பதுமேன் ?

வாரிதியும் அடங்கி நிற்கும்

மாருதமும் தவழ்ந்து வரும்

காரிகையாழ் உளந்தனிலே

காற்று சுழன்றடிப்பதுமேன்?

How dark! How haunting and enigmatic.. Kalki is wonderful!

Second post of the day

2009-12-30T23:04:00.001+05:30

Ah, what the heck, I know am getting addicted.

What made my day.. Ta da.

Cappachino
French fries
Jeremy Wolfe
G-mail Tamizh
Arulmozhi Varman
Vallavaraiyan Vandhiyathevan
Canteen Mirinda
Thenga thovayal

A friend said "pat,pat" over g-talk. That felt so nice :D, like getting gold star in kindergarten!

Am so pricelessly jobless, except for reading Ponniyin Selvan of course, and hence this sudden blogging influx. Fear not, from the new year day, I will be so bashed by Tennis that won't write so randomly..
Anyway folks, pip pip!

P.S: Not able to resist this... ஐ யாம் க்ரின்னிங் லைக் எ செஷயேர் கேட். :P

Taamil post :D

2009-12-30T16:36:00.005+05:30

Okay, here goes. After discovering how to type tamil in gmail compose, have attempted writing in tamil. It has been quite sometime I wrote in Tamil. Last time was writing a shopping list for my mother. The last serious one was a story writing contest in 8th std. It has been almost 8 years. So please pardon my awful spelling mistakes if any!

பொன்னியின் செல்வனை போல் ஓர் புத்தகத்தை தமிழில் நான் படித்தது இல்லை. வகுப்பு அறையில் இந்த புத்தகத்தை நான் மிகவும் ரசித்து படித்து கொண்டிருக்கிறேன். இன்னும் சிறிது நாளில் நான் கல்கியின் அணைத்து பதிப்புக்களையும் படித்து விட போகிறேன் . தமிழில் புத்தகம் படிப்பது மிகவும் அரிதாகி வருகிறது.

நேற்று நான் காண்டீனில் மதிய உணவு சாப்பிட்டு கொண்டிருந்த பொழுது ஒரு பெண், டென் போயன்ட்டர், மிகவும் மிடுக்காக வந்து "ஓ டூ யு ரீட் டாமில்?" என்று கேட்டாள். வந்த எரிச்சலை அடக்கி கொண்டு , "ஓ எஸ், இட் இஸ் எ பிடி தட் பீபில் டோன்ட்" என்று சொன்னேன். நம்ம நாட்டில் மட்டும் தான் தமிழ் தெரிவது அன் பாஷிநாபெல் ஆகி விட்டது. இதில் ஆச்சர்யம் என்னவென்றால் இந்த மக்களுக்கு ஆங்கிலமும் உருப்படியாக தெரியாது, ஹிந்தியும் தெரியாது. மொத்தத்தில் மொழிகளின் அழகை பார்க்காமலேயே கடைசி வரை காலம் தள்ளுகின்றனர். இதில் பெற்றோர்களின் பங்கு மிகவும் அதிகம். தங்கள் பிள்ளைகள் தமிழ் தெரியாமல், எழுத்துக்கூட்டி படிப்பதை மிகவும் பெருமையாக சொல்கின்றனர்.

ஒரு முறை டிவி-யில் வந்த வினாடி வினா போட்டியில் ஒரு ஒன்பதாம் வகுப்பு படிக்கும் சிறுமி திருக்குறளை முடிக்க முடியாமல் ஒரு கம்ப்யூட்டர் பரிசை தட்ட விட்டார். அந்த பெண்ணின் தாயாரை விட என் அம்மா மிகவும் வருத்தப்பட்டார். என்னிடம் அந்த திருக்குறளை முடிக்கும் படி வினாவிய பொது தட்டு தடுமாறி "தொட்டனைதூரும் தூறும் மணற்கேணி மாந்தர்க்கு கற்றனை தூறும் அறிவு" என்று சொன்னேன். மெதுவாக சொன்னதற்காக எனக்கு திட்டு விழுந்தது. என் அம்மாவிடம்," அது எல்லாம் இப்பொழுது யாருக்கும் தெரியாது" என்று சொன்னேன். அவள் அதை நம்பவே இல்லை. இரண்டு பெரும் ஜி-சாட்டில் வந்த மக்களிடம் இந்த குரலின் ஆரம்பத்தை கொடுத்து முடிக்கச்சொன்னோம். அதில் இருபத்தி ஓரு பேரில் இரண்டு பேர்கள் மட்டும் முடித்தனர். என் அம்மாவிற்கு இது மிகவும் வியப்பாக இருந்தது. தற்பொழுது உள்ள முட்டாள்தனமான போக்கை நினைத்து மிகவும் புலம்பினாள். ஏதோ அன்றைக்கு என் தலை தப்பித்து.

நேற்றைக்கு கூட, பொன்னியின் செல்வன் படித்து என் சகாக்களிடம் " "இளங்கோ" என்றல் லிட்ரலாக என்ன என்று தெரியுமா" என்று கேட்டேன். முழித்தார்கள் :) ! "கோ என்றால் கிங்..இளங்கோ இஸ் "எங் கிங்" " என்று சொன்னவுடன் அவர்கள் யாரும் நம்பவில்லை. நல்ல தமிழ் பெயரை கேட்டால் மிகவும் சந்தோஷமாக இருக்கும். என்னுடைய ஓரு நண்பனின் பெயர் "இளமாறன்". நான் "ஓ, எவ்வளவு நல்ல பெயர்" என்று சொன்ன பொது, அவன் எனக்கு எதன் அர்த்தம் தெரியாது என்று சொன்னான். " இள-எங் மாறன்-சன் " என்று சொன்னவுடன் , "யா ரைட், ஜஸ்ட் எ பில்லியன் இயர்ஸ் எங்" என்று பக்கத்தில் இருந்த இன்னுருவன் சொன்னான் :-)

நான் இரண்டாம் மொழி ஹிந்தியும் , எட்டு ஆண்டுகள் சம்ஸ்க்ருதமும் படித்தாலும் ,பாரதியார் கவிதை, வயிரமுதுவின் பாடல் வரிகள், ஆண்டாள் பாசுரம், சுஜாதா நாவல்கள், ஆனந்த விகடன், கோகுலம், மதனின் ஏன் எதற்கு எப்படி, சுஜாதாவின் ஸ்ரீரங்கத்து தேவதைகள், கற்றதும் பெற்றதும், துப்பறியும் சாம்பு , அமெரிக்காவில் கல்யாணம், கல்கி ... இவை அனைத்தும் என் வாழ்கையின் மிக முக்கியமான அங்கங்களாக இருந்தன. இவை யாதையும் காணமல் சேடன் பகத் படிப்பதால் மட்டுமே தான் பெரிய ஆங்கில வல்லுநர் என்று சொல்லிகொள்ளும் கும்பலை நினைத்தால் சிரிப்புத்தான் வருகிறது. இன்னும் சில வருடம் கழித்து குழந்தைகள் அனைவரும் பஸ் போர்டை படிப்பதற்காக மட்டும் தெரிந்து கொள்வார்கள். இவர் அனைவரும் பின்னால் பொறியியல் கல்லூரி வந்து கோனார் தமிழுரை போல் இருக்கும் புத்தகங்கள் மட்டுமே படித்து கடைசி வரையில் தமிழ் தெரியாததை பெருமையாக சொல்லிக்கொள்வார்கள். அடுத்த முறை அந்த பெண்ணை பார்க்கும் பொழுது மறக்காமல் "Complete: தொட்டனைதூரும் மணற்கேணி.. " என்று கேற்க போகிறேன் . என் அம்மாவிடம் சொல்வதற்கு நல்ல கதையாவுது கிடைக்கும் . Sheesh!

The Agenda

2009-12-28T13:32:00.004+05:30

Disclaimer: Very big post..

I guess the ranting should be stopped and things really need to be done.

There are around 18 clubs in CIT. I must say that about 10 are pretty active, each having its own fan following and culture. Literary, Space and Quiz are very active. So it is a common sight to see almost all the members of these three clubs come to the other two clubs as well. These clubs are great ways to pass good things on. They are fairly clean without any politics. The only person in these three club who might bite others heads off would be me, but I tend to be pretty harmless most of the times. Other fellows are very very decent, extremely talented and motivated. It is an interesting fact that most of us opted to sit out of zeroth day placements.

In the course of our numerous Bonda stall and over the canteen table discussions, we have analyzed and re-analyzed what is wrong with our college. This seems to be the only thing we whine about. As each of the brilliant ones come from one psyched out departments, it generally very soothing to listen to their problems, swathed in, what would sound as the luxury of ECE. We have talked about it so much that it was so difficult to contain the whole lot of us in the students union meeting :-). We were shushed only by the Bondas that were offered at the end of a pretty frenzied session. Tangents apart, we kind of have narrowed the major problems from the students’ side to be

1) Lack of exposure

2) Hence, lack of appreciating good things

3) Nil reading

4) Hence, very poor writing skills

5) All this compounding to not reading good engineering texts and hence not being to appreciate good profs

6) Studying just for a job and hence studying only for marks which isn't much of a study

7) De-motivation by bad-bad profs.

8) Occasional Spurts of motivation down the drain as well by the general hostel syndrome

9) Hopelessly averted to certain subjects like yours truly

From the management side

Okay, let us assume that doing something about this aspect is beyond our control and hence I cease to waste time typing

I think certain things can be done by the clubs on their own instead of sitting around and mopping about the sad state of affairs.

For one, the art of appreciation needs to be drastically improved. One of my friends pointed out to me sometime ago that it is hopeless to make people see beautiful things as beautiful. I think that is not so true. If one ends up talking so much about something, people might actually get interested to try out the experience at least once. If the beautiful thing is so beautiful, it will naturally be accepted. There has to be a person or a medium in which people should be exposed to good things. Accepted or not, is a different question. This experience will linger in one corner of their brain. Someday in their life, they might actually appreciate it. I take it from my own experience of having been dragged to music classes for around 10 years in my life. I hated every second of it, but now I am able to appreciate, to a certain extent classical music.

We once had a P.G.Wodehouse appreciation session in the Lit Club. This was after we realized that the lineage of Wodehouse readers ended with our batch and hence we wanted to do show people what to look for in a Wodehouse book. Not that we succeeded greatly, but people did give it a try before giving up after a few days.

Take the robotics session, or the 'contraptions' session that were on, in the space club. The joy of making the robot is definitely not the robot itself. It is the incredible experience of sitting around an unfolded news paper with a great deal of nuts, bolts, resisters, multimeter et al and soldering it. Even if one person in the group ends up doing the donkey work, the other people sit and talk of all the mundane engineering things. And when the guy who is working throws up his hand in despair, we would all get back on to the robot and try working the problem out. This is something like switching controls. One gives up, the other says "What is the big deal, let me give it a try now" . The other would gladly hand this chap the soldering iron and take the guy's place in the conversation of 'All things Engineering'.

So, by the time the robot gets done, people will have the reluctance to let go of the experience and crave for more challenging ones. This team work is a great motivation (which also explains why solo robotic teams generally never exist). After the robotic workshop was over, people from all the branches, competed left and right in robotic competitions around the city. So this is not just a good deed for the month. The club effectively made people like engineering, a task that was not done by the teachers.

What I propose to do with the first years and the second is to set up an intensive writing workshop. This doesn’t mean cornering them near the central staircase and dragging them in to the sessions. A better way would be to go to classes and scare them in to believing that they won’t get placed in MNC’s if they can’t ‘communicate’ well. This also goes by telling them how valuable writing would look on their resume. This year’s bunch is pretty enthusiastic and hence I believe only a wee bit of nudging is needed. So the creative writing workshop spans over four weeks, where we plan a day every week. We rope in the junta, give them proper id card or validation to give an authentic feel and expose them to good writing. We pick up hilarious blog posts, have animated reading sessions (Boy, all this generally happens in pre-school, but trust me it works in college as well). So initial sessions will focus on how great, writing and reading can take a person. We tell those stories of our glorious seniors: IIM success stories, MNCs, Amrika and all that goodness. We make them write, give them gold stars, winning points and all that back to school, feel good methods. Then we put them on to a bit of reporting, class incidents and things. We show them serious writing and the rest of the genre. In the process, I plan to buy Enid Blytons , Indian authors and circulate them.Blyton first, Wodehouse next. One step at a time you see. We are dealing with kids who come from remote places. We can't force them to understand the subtle British peerage jokes or even butlers just like that!

The rest of the two months would go in to taking the Junta for the culturals all around. Sarang for a starter is a great way to scare people off to do something about themselves. Am going to screen great TED talks with subtitles as much as I can. This is in my hypothesis that people generally like watching screened shows, rather than actively participate in a debate or a JAM. It will be really really great if these kids start building their own opinions, which is what that matters in the long run of things. They really need to get away from the stupid books and look at things that don’t carry marks.

As far the other clubs, I heard people are planning to distribute as much of the MIT-Open courseware video lectures, NPTEL video lectures from IISc and IITs and Stanford Engineering everywhere program. We have a huge collection of almost all the subjects after days of maniacal downloading in the systems labs. I for instance, have complete Stanford’s Fourier Transforms and applications (With solved assignments, term papers), MIT’s electronics and circuits, NPTEL DSP, MIT- algorithm development, MIT- Introduction to psychology. I will be done with the whole of brain and cognitive sciences in a while. So we are planning to put them all in DVD’s or hard drives and spread the joy of good teaching! In this process we hope folks discover the beauty of sarcasm and witty lectures way before we did.

We are also plan to slander Bakshi, Salivahanan and co in the meets as much as possible.Even Bakshi seems to be pardonable, but I wonder how people read Salivahanan, a tasteless soporofic "Konar Tamilurai". Again, getting the message across would be to tell them that they wont get a super-10 lakhs p.a job if they learn crappy books. Knowing them, this should work. Money, is a big motivation.

We have come up with the idea of uncensored online newsletter and the censored paper ones. Though it is extra work for us, should be enormous fun :-P . The deadline for the newsletter is blaring as well as the work on the magazine, which we have not started. Ah, well, I will run around all semester doing things. The niceness of the tasks and the satisfaction of finally getting the A.O to sign something compensates for all the unpleasantness around, I should say!

(Too long to edit and nitpick for typos and grammatical errors. Consider this one more of those impulsive posts )

An 'Engineered' wrath

2009-12-27T01:42:00.004+05:30

Three and a half years of attending classes in this college and pushing myself day after day for that sacred 75% attendance has been one heck of a character building exercise. All the pointless communication I managed to mug to pass the exams lingers like this wisp of Agarbatti in a hidden corner of my brain. After 7 semesters I can now strike out, with enormous confidence the 'Communication' part in the title of my Bachelors.

What strikes me so awfully is that this place has not only de-engineered me so much, but has managed to permanently put out this occasional high I used to get out of making my codes work. Teachers after teachers whom I respected and loved, retired faster than I passed through semesters. Gone were the days of brilliant classes where the professors were good enough with their stuff to afford being witty in class.

All this comes up with tremendous sadness after watching this video lecture on Fourier Transforms and applications. As the Standford prof rolls out more and more brilliant things, all I can think of is the sickeningly green coloured Ramesh Babu book, where Fourier Transform was for people who were good with integration . I am just awestruck with how much we are being denied in engineering by this stupid educational system which has turned a job at a software company the sole aim of learning.

We drag ourselves to finish the lecture somehow, pass the semester somehow, finish the labs somehow- all the 'somehows' growing exponentially by the day, letting the system and letting ourselves to rush through the giant farce called engineering. Why is that we churn out so much of mediocrity and worse, hire it back in colleges to destroy hundreds of other engineers.

Every parent wants his/her children to go to the famed American land with roads paved in gold. Thanks to software,a majority of upper middle class in South India, and almost all of the Tam Brahms have lived in Amrika at some point in their life. Is this not enough to make our parents freak out? All that tons Hershey chocolates and the Dove soaps hoarded back, comes with the story of how great my son/daughter is, because he earns in dollars. and fear not, you kid can be too, if you push him a wee bit more.

We all have been through that terrible-terrible ordeal of getting in to a 'premier institute in South India', like our SoPs scream after three and a half years. We have been rubbished, tormented and in a lot of cases brainwashed enough not to appreciate good stuff anymore.It was in one of those, how fucked-up-we- are- all- by- the- system conversations, a friend of mine brought upon the fact that how many Indians shine in this subject called computer architecture in the US universities. He then made a quick calculation and found that his screwed up computer arch prof had actually made 3000 odd people loathe the subject in his career because of him being an absolute moron. Even if there had been some 50 people who had really liked the subject, despite the prof, he made them give up on it by resorting to the age old, if you- dont- kiss- my- ass, thou shalt- get- a -D grade technique.

It has become so easy to become an engineer. B.E is so cliched that a commerce student or a literature student would warrant a 'wow' from me for having the guts to stand up against his/her parent who would have willingly spent lakhs to put him in to an engineering college. It is a vicious circle, isn't it? You somehow have to go to the US or crack CAT or at least do a PhD for they have invested so much on you.We are not the ones who have 'peer pressure' concept to get insane. Oh yes, there is a lot of scope to 'research' in these colleges where out parents put us to fulfill their duty.Does it matter to them that people here shamelessly bribe each other for a pathetic doctorate.

Let us face it, bad teachers are too big a memory to move on and develop a love for the subject. They stand over you, haunt you with their monotony, sadism and worse, their fucked up 'notes' and 'teaching'.They may tut-tut with you and sympathise with you for not getting a job in a software company.They were trained for software themselves and that is what they couldn't get even when the company had recruited by lakhs.They simply don't know or want to know that there is a better book called Resnick and Halliday to learn physics from. They can't acknowledge that by knowing physics, even people like them would have become good engineers.

My parents always tell me 'It is your decision' but it wouldn't stop them from secretly fantasising about an onsite project I would end up on, or the day I would give my GRE. It would be their turn then to distribute the chocolates, shampoos and deodorants like the rest of the clan. No one really cares about learning anymore, do they?

For this one reason, I really admire those few of us, who had hung on, despite being terribly crushed by the system that valued CGPA's more than their problem solving skills. My rock stars, as they say in the Intel ad, are not be those who make those path breaking devices. Mine are those who survived the mediocrity and without any prejudice, love engineering for the sheer beauty of it.

I pray not to live on the day to see my lab assistant turned senior lecturer become the HOD of my department. I live in the hope of getting away with my remaining sanity intact. Glad that I at least know enough to know that there are so many fascinating things I don't know. This, I consider as my biggest achievement in my tryst with engineering.

One cold night...

2009-12-22T14:39:00.009+05:30

It was a really cold Coimbatore night. People were huddled in to bunches in the deserted corridors of the IT block. Some were leaning against the wall in half stupor. The girls were exchanging their interview experiences for the hundredth time. There were snatches of conversation about Avtar and how the 3-D glasses were not quite good in 'Kanagadhara'. Some laid their heads on the arm rests of the chairs outside the classrooms seeking solace in the music wafting from their mobile phones. There were worried

speculations, constant "Oh,I screwed up" whines in all the corners.

The entire lot turned very worried by 7 pm by the apparent delay of results. Their friends started popping in from the hostel to be in the thick of things.Then it started raining. One of the famous drizzles of Coimbatore, which have a tendency to kick up some nice petrichor and horribly cold winds.People started shivering and started huddling against each other in the corridors.

The corridors were dimly lit and it gave this surreal feeling of train compartments at night. The ones standing inside tut-tutted at the ones braving the cold and standing out in the open.7pm became 9 pm. The entire crowd was getting hungrier and irritable by minute. The guys had tucked out their 'interview' shirts and had untied their ties which was hanging limply from their shoulders now. All the prim, prompt smart interview look had gone. It had been replaced by the dishevelling expectation plastering their faces.Some of them cursed that the HRs might be hogging in at Jenny leaving them in the cold. 9 pm became 10.

My head was pounding mercilessly. The previous week's insomnia was striking back with retribution. Things started looking all fuzzy and I assumed that some circuit in my head was malfunctioning. It was maddening to stand pointlessly even after knowing the results.Half asleep, I drifted from one huddled group to another talking drunkenly and more incoherently than usual .

Then, the results were out. The crowd came on to the quadrangle and the HRs stood from the first floor announcing the results. There were joyous shouts as each name was announced. People erupted in to whistles and loud hoots at each name. People hugged each other in joy, beamed as they climbed the steps, briskly all their tiredness gone. Some people broke their friends' backs as they frantically tried to get away.

There was joy. It is sometimes extremely gratifying, to see people feeling so happy however cynical one may be. It felt so good to see a person, a very deserving one at that, whooping and looking upwards to heaven just for a second and scrambling on to get his letter.What sounds so ordinary to some people might bring extra-ordinary changes in others lives. It is all a matter of perception about what is really a biggie and what is not. For a lot of people in my college who come from very humble means, getting a job means making a change in their family's lifestyle.This day is what they would have constantly imagined as they trudged through Salivahanan,Bakshi and oodles and oodles of other crap.

For a lot of people it is their nightmares getting over and for the others it is hope. And in their hope, there is such infectious happiness that my cynicism dissolved. As I walked up the stairs, I shushed my throbbing head for a minute, closed my eyes and let the cold air strike me. Santa had arrived. :-)

Prediction for Sunday

2009-12-20T02:44:00.004+05:30

I will wake up tomorrow with the following symptoms- Throbbing head ache, extreme irritability, massive mood swings and venting out spite like a Hungarian horn tail. I would snap at my friends, gut half of them and feel viciously wronged by the world. Later in the evening I would swallow my tiredness, drag myself out of bed and go to the first meal of my day. After the food goes down, I would probably be whistling cheerily and walk along the lovely Avinashi road.I would see the sun set in to a huge ball of fire from the Hopes Bridge, despite the incredible din of the traffic. (Yes, am a sucker for sunsets; the orange gets me). I would come back to hostel, cheerily, and start reading The Hindu. So this would remind me of the fact that I am broke and have no money whatsoever to buy any books online. I would saunter out only to see my fellow college mates religiously mugging for IBM campus on Monday.

This would make me madder, because of my lack of interest and at my deep concern about something called future.I would go back inside and immerse myself in to House.M.D (Brilliant Show, I tell you.) Half way through I would feel bad about chucking medicine, for I seemed to have accomplished oh-so-muc(s)h in Engineering. I would start writing by midnight, give up, save it and go back to House M.D. I would get insane by three and start writing a post like this. I can feel the irritability creeping in.

Sigh,madness. Working days are madder I tell you. I am skipping food like that is nobody's business and have been living on one meal a day. I have been up till 5 am, every day since last Sunday. And to think that I am not even in IIM to justify that! Reason tells me that I am wrecking my delicate metabolic pathways and I might end up with a dozen ailments by over-working my over heated brain.The Socratic question is which would be the first to get me. My dear old peptic ulcer? Or some kind of sleep wrecked permanent brain damage?

I need to take control. This hedonism isn't doing good.Tennis anyone?

A world without Hobbes?

2009-12-15T00:36:00.014+05:30

We all know Calvin is God. There can't be a better work of fiction than Calvin. The beauty of this comics lie in the way it takes every tiny bit of our life and comments on it from the view of an extremely smart, wise-ass six year old. Calvin is always right, is immortal and makes people swear by him.

But, do we all like Hobbes as much as we love Calvin? We have seen Calvin pictures, Calvin quotes,Calvin is bound to appear alone in a lot of fan pictures, I don't think Hobbes does that. We simply can't think Hobbes without Calvin.I guess it is the price of being the sidekick.

Hobbes, is the alter ego; the wise one; the rational one that warns Calvin of the consequences, but never stops him from doing those things. It is not surprising that we tend to overlook the importance of Hobbes, because he is like the rest of us; he is not Calvin. But, there cannot be a person (or tiger) more special than Hobbes. He is not like the rest of us, simply because he means a world to Calvin. The best part is that Calvin often doesn't realize what Hobbes means to him, as much as we do. And then, there is Hobbes to goof up, to be the homicidal psycho jungle cat and to make up tiger verses. This gives the opportunity to Calvin to play the grown one and comment on how tigers are stupid. If it were not for Hobbes' patience to point out the obvious to Calvin, we would not have had strips like this. We would not have Calvin if there isn't a tiger to pounce on him every time he comes back from school.

Hobbes is similar to Calvin, as both of them do not know the world, and what lies ahead of them. Calvin is our restless spirit, craving for recognition, impulsively wanting attention and talking the mind out. Calvin is all our unsatisfied dreams, our pursuit of happiness. But, Hobbes, is reality. Hobbes is synthesized happiness and cosmic contentment. Among the duo, it is Hobbes who actually knows what it would take Calvin to get what he wants, and yet he wouldn't say it out to Calvin, for he knows the present is good enough for Calvin, however awfully he cribs about it.

Hobbes can comfort Calvin with just the right things to say. He is Calvin's punching bag. Calvin knows intuitively that Hobbes is the strongest of the two. But Hobbes prefers to lie low and let Calvin take up the limelight, for he seeks contentment near the fireplace. He lets Calvin to discover the joy of goofing up, which is very important, in this world full of over cautious paranoid people. He does offer to do Calvin's homework and takes his baths when Calvin whines way too much. Hobbes points the way, Calvin choses not to take it. Hobbes looks at the right path, sighs and runs behind Calvin, the opposite way.

Life cannot exist for Calvin without Hobbes. An emotionally unstable, deranged, insecure yet over confident single child always tries to hurt itself. There needs to be a Hobbes on whom Calvin can take it out, be rude at, snap and advise pretending to know it all. Else Calvin will perish; succumb to mortality and ordinariness. He would end up knowing the proper definition of the pronoun.

Had the choice been given to the duo, whether to have it Calvin and Hobbes or the other way around, Hobbes would have never wanted to flip a coin like Hannah&Barbara did. It will always be Calvin and Hobbes, because Hobbes would want to give Calvin the simple joy of taking the spotlight, for Hobbes' idea of happiness is just a field full of sunlight. We simply don't know what it takes to be the faithful accomplice!

It is not a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy, but let us still go exploring!

P.S: This is to a friend of mine, who pulled up a hysterically sobbing yours truly from one of the worst attacks of depression, by telling me all the things I wanted to hear and letting me to be incredibly rude in return.

P.P.S : I know the punctuation and grammar is all messed up, but it is 2.30 am and I wanted to get this out of my system.

Moody, Murky

2009-12-14T23:29:00.001+05:30

If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not;
And if forgetting ,recollecting,
How near I had forgot!
And if to miss were merry,
And if to mourn were gay,
How very blithe the fingers,
That gathered these today!

--Emily Dickinson

Beautiful, isn't it?

I don't know what to do.

Krishna

2009-12-12T23:01:00.004+05:30

Most of the things spurned out of Krishna is brilliant. Krishna is something like the country side to the English Poets, Sir Galahad to Sir Walter Scott, or um, the innumerable aunts to our man Wodehouse.

Krishna is poetry. As mellifluous as it gets when you roll your tongue at the name. The best songs of the century have been composed about Krishna. The romance, the enigma, the frivolous child he was, he left so much for imagination. I guess it made all our best poets go berserk, with all their imagination and spurn out lovely songs.

In all my Sanskrit years, I have had at least two whole lessons talking about how beautiful Krishna was, like we weren't already in love with him. There was one in my 12th std, particularly difficult poem with a lot of tongue twisting. My teacher set it to a beautiful tone and then, it became lovely to tongue-twist our way through it. It went

"Karunaruna Tharunamaya Vipulayatha nayanam

Kamalakucha Kalashibara Vipulikruthapulakam

Muralirava tharalikrutha Munimaanasa Nalinam

Mamakelathi Madachethasi Maduradaramamrutham"

I would translate it, but not doing so, lest you would come and beat me up for being hopelessly cheesy. :)

Krishna is the most favoured costume in the tons of fancy dress competitions that happens around the country. They put the kid in to misery with all the rouge and lip-stick. But it is always adorable to see these little ones coming onstage wailing like there is no tomorrow and when their mothers have to rush in to scoop them on to their arms. Well, the spirit of Yashoda lives on!

Bharathiyar of whom I am quite a fan of, was quite enamoured by Krishna that a lot of his best works were inspired by Krishna. One is described here. Another one of my favourite is "Theeraadha Vilayaattu Pillai". The list moves on to "Thaaye Yashoda", one of the MOST brilliant pieces ever rendered. I don't know who the author is, but every time you listen to it, especially in morning raga, you are bound to sink in to and swim. Consider it like eating a chocolate waffle cone with unexpected chocolate chips in the middle. "Alaipayuthe Kanna" made famous to the mass by the song in the movie, is generally sung by the junta smiling and thinking about their own beloved. Alaipayuthe's pallavi is the best of the lot. These songs would not stir anything inside you, unless you know the meaning of the lyrics. Listen to K.S.Chitra singing Krishna Nee begane . I wish I knew Kannada to understand the lyrics, intuitively! And how can we forget the Thirupaavai? If you are in to hardcore Tamil Literature or have been tortured in childhood days to mug thirupaavai, you would not forget those immortal words. Naachiyar Thirumozhi by Andal is all imagery. A fifteen year old, with that fiery passion, goes in to precise details about how she wants her wedding with Krishna to happen. However, the immortal lines

vAraNam Ayiram SUzha valam Seidu

nAraNan nambi naDakkinRAn enRedir

pUraNa poRkuDam vaittup puRam engum

tOraNam nATTak kanAk kaNDEN tOzhi nAn

became famous because of the dumb movie, where they compare our six pack hero to the lovely Krishna of Andal's dreams. Humph!

The list goes on to my latest obsession is with this song by Purandara Dasa called

"jagadOddhAraNa ADisidaLe yashOde". It sounds so natural and yet surreal in the context of Yashoda treating The Man, Krishna, with all her motherly love. The lyrics go,

jagadOddhAraNa ADisidaLe yashOde

jagadOddhAraNa maganendu tiLiyuta suguNAnta ranganA AdisidaLe yashOde

nigamakE silukada agaNita mahimana magugaLa mANikyana ADisidaLa yashOde

aNOraNIyana mahatO mahImana apramEyana ADisidaLa yashOde

parama puruSana paravAsudEvana purandara viTTalana ADisidaLu yashOde

Google saves the day, as usual. I found the meaning in a carnatic music forum.Though it is not quite the same as "knowing" the meaning, it does make the listening experience more meaningful.. I am all "awww" reading it!

Yashoda played with Krishna, who is full of virtue and care taker of the whole world himself, thinking that he was a mere boy and her son!

Yashoda played with Krishna, who can not be caught even with the vedas (who is beyond the Vedas), who is bigger than infinite, gem among all the children.

Yashoda played with Krishna who is smaller than an atom, bigger that the biggest and beyond limit and immeasurable.

Yashoda played with Krishna from Pandarapura vittala who is best among men and beyond the realms of norms.

Look at the initial part of every line: Yashoda playing with little Krishna like every mother does and then it goes on to negate the simplicity of the act! Try this is in morning raga as well. I was in tears.

Krishna has always been portrayed as this very intelligent, cunning chap. I guess, he has captured the fantasy of poets like no other mythical character has just because of his intriguing craziness. Admit it,more than half the good stories in Mahabharata has a bit of Krishna in it. I am not religious. I am God fearing at occasional bursts of guilt or when there are exams, but at normal times I generally consider myself 'agnostic'.

I generally go ga ga over anything that is crazy, and hence Krishna. Tis not because he is this God figure, but because he qualifies as the single most interesting man, the romantic hero in the Hindu Mythology. Fundamentalists, please pardon me for my insolence, but am not offending your religious sentiments. Come on, it is time we realized we did have our own Lochinvar, with less chivalry and more humour content!

Finally to end the rave, I remembered this flash fiction written by Suchi a long time ago, of the same name.

“Krishna! Krishna!”

He called out to her frantically, longing filling his wide blue eyes.

She did not come.

He could not hear her crashing her slender white arms against the walls of her prison, a huge dam.

He still rolls from his depths and crashes against the shore, so that he can be reunited with her.

I told you, anything Krishna is beautiful.

There is this concept of Chiranjivins in Hindu Mythology. Those who are immortal. It has people like Hanuman, Vyasa, Ashwathama in the list. According to the legend, these people are immortalized in our thinking, for example- Every time you solve a problem and tell yourself "bravo", Vyasa is born as your stroke of intelligence; Everytime you are in college thinking of how to get back at people Ashwathama is born and so on.

If this is true, Krishna should also be a Chiranjivin. He lives on, born every time Sudha Ragunathan croons in to my ear singing, or when I turn my head on seeing a chubby cheeked kid dibbling on to its father/mother's shoulders or all those mesmerizing renditions of "Darshan do"/ Meera Bhajans in the countless places around the country.

For Krishna is romance; For he is beauty.

"Maittunan Nambi Madhusudan Vandu Ennaik

Kaittalam Pattrak Kana Kanden Tozhi, Nan. "

Sigh Yes, Me too.

What it takes to be girls

2009-12-07T21:44:00.006+05:30

My mother has often told me that she had always wanted a boy. Even after twenty years, she quips to say every now and then, "If you had been a boy, we could have been happy without fear when you are alone". I would argue furiously that I am an educated adult who is perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I have a mobile phone, I am not foolish enough to get beguiled by strangers on train (once she used to fear they will get away with the doped biscuit act). She would just wave it off and say, "Whatever" and proceed on to call any of my friends (I move in a predominantly male sphere) and ask them to 'take care' of me.

This phenomenon is not localized to my living room. I have seen 70 yr olds worrying the same about their middle aged daughters. A girl-is-a-girl-is-a-girl concept props up every now and then. Every female who is reading this would have at least one experience of a parents not 'letting' them go alone in an auto or a taxi at night.

I tried to list out some of the logical and imaginary fears that any parent with a girl child will have to face.

1)Pscyho killers

2)'Eve' teasers

3)Folks who dupe their girls

4)Fear inculcated by a stranger (who meets all the well qualified, adult etc) criteria getting raped and murdered in some part of the country

5) Fear inculcated by reading all that horrors that happens to girls who were given 'too much' freedom.

6)Media

7)Potential violation by every male stranger the girl gets to meet because the stranger is a male

8)The boy about whom their girl constantly talks about

9)The boy with whom their girl constantly talks with

10)The natural instinct of worry that gets ingrained the moment the girl is born and which gets evolved as the girl grows up. (This is usually fueled a lot by the other members of the clan, friends and colleagues)

I might have missed out a lot of other major issues. I can argue a thousand ways how I am far too intelligent and far too smart to cause my parents any of these worries. But reality sucks. Go to blank noise project and welcome yourself to the world of the educated financially liberated women telling you tales that shouldn't have happened if the am-too-intelligent clause had worked. The whole point about getting 'eve'teased or being 'stared at' is not the ugliness behind the act. It is the righteous anger and the sense of helplessness that comes up once you are in the place. I have heard innumerable lectures from my mother about 'good touch' 'bad touch' concepts ever since I was five; Mind you, I have spent some 90% of my socialising and playtime with boys ever since I was three, and YET, I feel extremely angry and upset that someone out there who does not know or would not care to know, about who I am or what I think, would leer disgustingly at me. The initial goosebumps turn in to this anger , because I would not want to scream at the guy and tell him to bugger off publicly. In short, I would be ashamed to tell the world that some random male in the world treats me as an object of his disgusting lust.

I once told my friend how creepy it was to sleep in the upper sideberth, right next to the door. "Oh,I hate that berth",she told me,"Someone actually tried groping me". It is not about the sordidness of getting stared/groped. It is the unnerving, reflecting nature of it that will make one scared, for a long time to come.

Let us get away from this and look at the same problem, in a way that is magnified by a million times.

I viciously argue about feminism and female rights cocooned in the safety of the literary club, with those who think it is just a bogus. To those who think it is, look at this talk on TED by Sunitha Krishnan. My take on feminism is not about the job raise that was denied to a woman though she is deserving in a corporate world, or the opportunities denied to the girl because she is born so!Also, it is not about how the world with all its 'eve' teasers treat the multitude of educated women who despite nurturing the unpleasantness of the experience even after years, would have reeled back in an hour to get on with life.

It is all about women who have undergone the most bestial violence because they have been unfortunate enough to be born in an unfortunate family. It is for those women who have been trafficked against their will, sold by husbands and fathers for alcohol and money, sold by mothers who themselves were dying by HIV. It is this class of humans who have been ostracized by the society not because they killed somebody (who, in fact,is mostly accepted back in the society, with considerable fear) but because they were raped in ways that can never be imagined by us. These class of women, often treated as the lowest rung in the society can never reel back from the physical and the mental trauma, the society has inflicted upon them.

So, all you guys out there, who think it is stupid to have anything called 'upliftment' of women, please open your eyes. We are not talking about your class mates, your lab partners, your girl friends or the outspoken girls whom you hate . It is not about those girls who crack CAT or get a Stanford admission or get 1500's in GRE or who beat you in semester exams.

We are talking about the millions of women who are going through things that we, as educated kids/grownups would have never been exposed to by our educated parents as it would be categorized as graphic violence. There can never be a movie or a book that can be made to make you guys empathize with these women are who are violated in the ways that is beyond description and yet, have to move in the society who talk about that concept of feminism, which never includes anyone like them. All I have to say is ,wake up. Do watch that video. I was moved enough to write this non-whiny post.

Coming back to our parents and problems, am very sure the parental instinct gets fired when they keep listening to stories like this. I am not saying that ALL their fears are justified and girls do need to book the ladies quota coaches in trains. When certain things cannot be changed, it is the best to optimize the problem and work on it slowly, until there is a certain level of confidence that their girl with all her sanity preserved, can sense danger with that unique instinct that she as a member of the female species has evolved over millions of years. This is this instinct that makes a girl dislike a person immensely by noting the slightest flicker of his gaze and that which tells her that her guard should always be up while with that chap. It is up to the girl to develop that level of trust with her parents to make them believe in her ability to use this instinct, pay heed to it, act prudently enough to seek help and equip herself with what it needs to get away.

When this happens, the parents will still fear for the safety of their girls, but they would know that she can handle it.

Sense and Sensibility

2009-12-06T17:11:00.011+05:30

Talking with Such is so exhilarating. We just realised today that we have known each other for 8 years, ever since she was 14.Bespectacled, she was probably the only girl taller than me at school!I always convinced myself that was because she was a year elder than me. :D

I said,"Wow,am amazed that you have put up with me for 8 years!"

And before this came on screen I get a message "Wow, I have put up with you for eight years?!"

I have been grinning about it all day. One amazing thing about Suchi and I is that we lose contact for months together, get immersed in our own troubles and wouldn't want the other to know about them. We somehow meet up online months later, talk of inconsequential things and end up with the trouble talk.The point here is,I and Suchi always feel a lot better after ranting and bitching about the characters causing misery.

I and Suchi fall in to this weird category of girls. Who are girly enough to find solace in this anchoring, endomorphin releasing talks and not girly enough to have ever exchanged tips about accessories :D.I think we have been able to put up with each other because of the space we give ourselves during the times of misery.

We have met a very few times, her house being very far away from mine, and the fact that she was in the afternoon shift. This implies she would come to school, when I left. But she would be there always by 10 a.m, my peak out -of- the- class time. So I would watch her curiously in the library where I would be lurking behind a fully stretched newspaper and she would be writing a test or doing her assignments meticulously. In the enormous library TVS had, I would warily watch her as she seemed to be in my territory more often than an afternoon shift person should be. Suchi never changed. Her handwriting never did. I think we are a typical case of people who built a relation mostly online and the bigger deal here is sustained it for eight years, which is a huge thing for me!Suchi gave me this little stuffed tiger thing , with brown glass eyes for my 16th birthday. The tiger looks nothing like Hobbes, often looks mournful or angry depending on how I am at that moment. But somehow, I love it.

Oh Suchi, has not been there always. May be she was, but I didn't want to seek her out.She has not been my best friend ever, but heck, I know that I can always ping her and say that life sucks and she can hear me out! I never thought I can get along with a girl all my life. Eight years later I realize,it was not possible to live without doing so. There should be someone who likes Jodha Akbar, or talk about how men are crazy and to talk on how exhilarating cooking can be. A long time ago, Suchi acted as my biographer :P, which shows up as the first link when people search me online. It is just that none of the predictions came true. None about her and none about me either. Though have grown up, in to what people call young ladies, we still are the same girls: The one who trips over wires and falls face flat when the selected teams are asked to come up on-stage during quizzes and the one who went through the worst and came out of it unscathed. The former sits on a terrace and watches the sunset, the latter watches the snowflakes by her window.

I and Suchi love puzzles. We solve people. The rest of you, ha, beat that!

What makes Virtual World a reality?

2009-12-04T18:22:00.009+05:30

I was talking with my aunt, how my cousins were deeply rooted in to the cartoons. She pointed out that she was thankful that they were not playing video games. Now, this is certainly a thing to muse upon. If there is one thing that generally makes men talk so passionately, it is video games. I don't refute the argument that girls do play video games. They certainly do, but girls' video games saga generally starts by some form of male influence, a sibling perhaps, or male friend. They usually play these games to irritate the sibling or to find what is so sexy about the game that makes their friend rave like no tomorrow . The interest generally peaks during middle school, and wanes out by the time they come in to higher secondary.

Somehow, most of the video games target boys. I have known many frantic gamers right from school, who sustained their interests through college and even after it. Somehow, this virtual world provides them the solace that according to them, is something that is inexplicable to girls, a 'guy thing' at that. I tend to imagine, it should be on the lines of the shopping rush, girls get in say, Commercial street or Pondy Bazaar or the happiness with which girls pick out presents for people.

From what I know, a lot girls prefer the Mario type of games that reward them with gold coins, blinking hearts etc. These games are generally 'frill'y and give this illusion to girls, who prefer the romantic notion that these games provide them. A knight in the form of Mario or Dangerous Dave, go through poisonous bushes, or magical fires and finally swoop in to rescue a girl or some form of a hapless creature. These games gives the girls the feeling they associate with pink colour, unicorns, not to mention the things they are made of; Sugar, spice and everything nice!

In days when desktops were a rarity, Roadrash was such a cool game and guys used to stand in queues for hours to get their turn for the joy of tumbling in to the 'Pacific' or getting thrown away in the 'City'. It was such a challenge at that time, to exhibit how good they can swerve their bodies in tune with the biker on screen!Guys did play Mario, they still do. But they mature out of it in five days. They progress on to the macho stuff so much faster than they ever would, from Harry Potter to Wodehouse.

I have grown up with boys all my life. I used to sit with this huge group of my juniors in the last seats of the school bus. It was those times when this game based on WWF was so famous. I used to wonder if this game gave this geeky , bespectacled kid a sense of macho that he can't ever imagine in real life. It didn't seem so! For, there was an another guy, top athlete, one who tore madly around with a Pulsar (when he was in class 9!). The Pulsar would probably bring him more sense of masculinity than a WWF game would. I bet it was a bonding thing,like Cricket, Football (why, even quiz) and was considered to be the unique 'kewl' language they spoke in.

What amazes me is the violence in all these games. When I played 'Dangerous Dave' some twelve years ago, on a DOS computer, I would be able to see the fire as distinguishable pixels, which was not quite menacing. Dave just would flicker a couple of times when he stepped on the poison ivy, before restarting the game. When I played 'Hitman, The Silent Assasin' , seven years later, I was amazed by the amount of detail that goes in to depicting the way people died. The person who gets killed would fall backwards, flaying his arms in obvious agony, before collapsing with a puddle of blood around his head. If it was a headshot (which fetched you extra points), he would collapse in to a heap, stone dead. A great deal of planning went in to choosing the perfect weapons. When we discussed my friends preferred to use this plastic cable to "wrrring" the neck of the victim, which was supposed to be a better method as it was stealthy.The portrayal was so vivid, that we could see this bad guy suffocating and kick his legs desperately. I consciously stopped Hitman as I started seeing red blobs in real life, after playing continuously for seven to nine hours. When I came to college on of my friends was incredulous that I had played Hitman in my life. He simply couldn't accept the fact that I had liked Hitman at some point in my life, because it sounded so unlike me!

I also knew this guy, who was so rabid that he used to blast all his money buying original game DVDs as a tribute to the designer. He would describe in detail the pleasure of wading through each stage, enjoying each moment, unhurriedly, without thinking of winning. Now, this is a common trait. Guys take pain to learn the game, figure out the nuances, device stratagems and then, start thinking about proceeding to the next stage. Somehow, for people who claim not to have enough patience to sit and read a book,putting so much effort in to a game just means that the game gives them a great deal in return.

Let us take counter-strike, one of the most popular games in the Engineering colleges. The game that made men bond like the thickest of thieves. It is deemed as a great honour to be in the College Counter Strike team, as much as the college cricket team. I hear that this game is very short, and involves killing. But it neatly names the people who are killed, as terrorists, which justifies our people's animal instinct to kill. I have never been asked to play counterstrike with guys considering they take me willingly enough in all other guy things they do. They say I lack the 'skill' and I would bring down the 'team' and would be dead as a Dodo in five seconds after the start.

There are people who play Counter Strike or Red Alert, for half an hour and come back looking practically high with happiness. I know a person who claims that a game of Red Alert relaxes him to the same extent I claim my expensive 350 bucks head massage does. And,there is this concept of sharing the pain. Each one in the team thinks of the terrorist as a common enemy, usually a freaked prof, and imagines to blow him in to smithereens. Each department has its own obsession. Mine prefers to occupy the lab and break in to delighted 'Whoops' over FIFA. I have often felt that playing football virtually is stupid. Yes, you can't blow up a guy's brain in real, you can't drive a formula one car for real, but, heck, you can grab a ball, your gang and play the same thing on a real field! Yes, I understand, you cannot be your favourite footballer, but you can be yourself!

I guess,the above statement negates the essential concept of the virtual world which just tells the world with its hierarchies to damn itself. Gaming is restating; A reassurance and breaking the way one has defined himself. I hate gaming because it makes Mafia war makers rich,because it asserts the 'macho' concept time and again, because it is a 'guy' thing and oh, because it has the potential to turn my little cousins away from reading Enid Blyton .

But I do approve of gaming because,the fact of picking up all the worldly troubles, pack in to a big tight bullet and use it to blow a bunch of bad guys is way better than packing it in a glass of whiskey or a pack of cigarettes. Satiating the animal needs doesn't sound as bad as dying from lung cancer or liver failure. Not everyone can play Calvinball, can they?

Flashy fiction

2009-12-03T23:21:00.007+05:30

Desperately boring time at the hospital with just a mobile phone at hand drove me to write flash fiction. Very cheesy and very stupid ones, but for a person of many words, this is a tough job :P.

This is a sms conversation. (yes, we are weird people who use dictionary mode and don't say c u l8r) Other person is sitting in CTS pre-placement talk.

Me:You know what, let us try flash fiction

Friend : Ok, Go ahead, am way too sleepy. I will be the arm chair critic.

Me: Here goes, "They sat in the hospital looking at the match on TV. They thought about lunch, money, medicine. The door opened and called her. They watched her go in shivering. They flinched at the wails and went back to thinking about lunch,money & medicine."

Friend: Way too long, and way too tragic. Decide on a plot.

Me:It's flash fiction! Open to interpretations! Next one coming up "A lifetime of merrymaking;Nights of whisky and gin; All was fun- The food and the sleep. She called him her brilliant bright guy. Now, the doc shows her the bright spot on the MRI screen, that caused his stroke"

Friend: Groan, stop attempting poetry and tragedy.

Me: Okay! Last one for now " He was so happy. So was she. Their first baby; in different ways. His first delivery as the trainee doctor and her first born. The baby seemed to radiate enough happiness for all world. Little did they know, 38 later, he will grow up to be a EEE prof in CIT. "

Friend: lol and stop the madness!

I did :-). No offense meant, but all the people with an inkling of EEE in their life have been abused at one point in life. Either they turn in to psycho profs and make sure they pass their inheritance on by de-engineering the the multitudes of innocent fledglings or become great men with all that character building.

I was reading Davidson's principle and practice of medicine. Very good read. Psychiatry is fascinating. I have already found symptoms of 5 mental disorders in me. I will call it 'The final year syndrome'/'Where is the bloody light at the end of the tunnel' Syndrome.

2009-12-03T18:24:00.002+05:30

non compos mentis :-|

How to name this?

2009-12-01T23:38:00.003+05:30

Results are out. I am ranked 6th in class :-).. Lol, I write this and get 8.4 GP! Yes,Ladies and Gentlemen, this is called Engineering in India.

Back

2009-11-30T12:59:00.002+05:30

I waltzed in to the main block. After all, my last four months in the place. I grinned benignly at my department. Whistled my way around the corridor. Waved at a few people (who all asked me why I am not placed YET).

Then, I saw her. My heart spewed out hatred. I don't quite know how to describe the feeling. It is like you know, the first cringe you tend to have seeing the fine printed Electromagnetics book the day before the exam. Actually, it was like the feeling you reserved for things whose picture you would put on your desktop and use the stressbuster hammer/electric saw on it. I cringed like when one takes a bite of ice cream and accidentally bites ones own tongue. I don't quite have enough adjectives for this, but trust me, it is exactly this aversion I reserve for a DI question paper full of tiny numbers. Ugh.

I went to Jenny five minutes later for the Masala Papad.

Ah, college.

Post Midnight Musings

2009-11-30T00:34:00.004+05:30

L Life can change in two months. It can twist, turn and make you feel like the insides of a mixer.

· Value of people depreciates with time. People tend to get tremendously bored sooner or later.

· Engineering has been a copy-paste life, blah, except for semester exam answer sheets, of course.

· I wonder what is this deal with 75% attendance.It is a pain in the neck to waste the day with infinite possibilities, sitting in class!

· I just realized I have done 41 papers in 7 semesters. I whistled and said a prayer.

· It's going to be darn tough pulling myself to class and sniff, to RF circuits design.

· TED ROCKS! I feel wiser in the 45 videos I watched in two days.

· Why do they call it electives, when there is nothing remotely 'electable' in the list.

· I read that there is this amygdyla part in your brain that triggers emotions related to everything you use or everyone you see. Say, you don't have any emotion for a piece of lint, but you react with a warm smile to a nice unexpected Good morning message, or when you see a person after a long time. Mine went "KAPHUTT, BLEAAARGh" when I passed through the DSP lab today.

· Fear not, I will turn to zen and write a book, "zen and the art of working in DSP lab". Ah, chuck it, I will take chocolates to lab and trigger my dopamine instead.

· I should stop worrying about things in life.

· I should stop feeling inadequate. I love Calvin, I can't be that bad.

· You know what, I like life when it is full of care. Standing and staring doesn't do any good.

· I love twilight. I just wish I can sink in to it and become a speck in the oblivion!

Lazy day

2009-11-27T16:58:00.004+05:30

I spent the day looking at the inbox at occasional intervals.

Rest of the time, I plugged cotton in my ears and slept dreaming of emails. By afternoon, I was so bugged with life, that I decided to make Maggi.

Now don't think making Maggi is an easy job. To philistines, it may appear to be a mindless job;A two minute deal. But to people who like Maggi crafted to perfection, making it in the itsy-bitsy cardboard box containing the electric cooker , is a sacrilege. Question arises at this point, why cardboard box? Partly because it is a transmogrifier and partly because hostels don't look upon residents having electric cookers with benevolence.

There is nothing like a pan to make Maggi. Cooker makes it soggy. It is okay, if you like Maggi like a soup and add loads of water to it. But you just can't to make proper Maggi soggy, as a shapeless mound resembling Sambar-rice. The laws of universe wont allow it.I hate it when Maggi's strands entwine with each other or become is this mush mash. Ideal Maggi should be like the curly strands of Little Lulu. It should be perfectly cooked,not even a bit more than it ought to be. It should be separable in to individual strands, so that the curls hang out beautifully from your mouth when you take the slurp the top part from the fork.

Maggi tastes best when it has extra salt and less of tastemaker. Tastemaker is the best when eaten alone on a lazy afternoon, when there is nothing else to eat. It has these tiny sugar crystals in it that is worth the effort :D. Tomatoes should not be added to it. It makes the Maggi soggy. The only thing that is recommended with Maggi is onions deep fried to golden colour. Makes it taste the best.

So I made this perfect Maggi, cooled it down under the fan and then ate it with profound satisfaction. It struck me that I will have only Nissin's mug noodles (that has corn floating in it) for the next four months, unless of course, the mouse beats me to it.

I discovered that kids today liked everything to be made in watchable form. I was watching Heidi( in Tamil, Ugh) with my uncle's kids aged 6 and 7. I told them I will get them the book and it was fun reading from it! I explained how beautiful it was to read about the alps and little Heidi. They thought I was an alien and left the room shaking their head sadly. Sigh so much for imparting wisdom.

Anyway, received news late evening that the beanie takes one month for delivery. RIP!

Ant trouble.

2009-11-26T09:34:00.003+05:30

By the weird twist of fate, an ant entered my ear yesterday. It chose the midnight hour for its adventure. I attributed the weird tickling and pain to the inflamed sinuses. Only when I felt the insides swelling weirdly , with a mother of God pain, I realized that it was an ant. Needless to say, I went ballistic. I googled for a remedy and the forums advised me to pour oil in to the ear. I am not going to talk how unpleasant the endeavor was. Right now, both my ears are plugged and I can't hear a thing. I now know, what silence means :-)

Instant Gratification? Like it ever happens

2009-11-25T11:45:00.005+05:30

Substitute Beanie with THE e-mail!