The Daily Chime

Reminder

2010-09-29T23:45:00.000-07:00

This blog has moved to http://www.coolshankin.com/blog/ A new post is up on it. It's on Kashmir issue. http://www.coolshankin.com/blog/feed/ is the RSS feed.

New site ... yet again

2007-08-24T23:52:00.000-07:00

Hey people,

I have moved to a new site. Please leave a message with your email address to know the URL

Moved

2007-07-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Hey people ... i am moving from blogger to wordpress ... the new site can be accessed at http://shankar.sastry.name/blog/ or http://www.employees.org/~stilgar/shankar/blog/ URL for RSS feed for posts is http://www.employees.org/~stilgar/shankar/blog/feed/ and for comments is http://www.employees.org/~stilgar/shankar/blog/comments/feed/ Regular updates will happen on the new site.

I am with Famous

2007-06-17T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am not a voracious reader or anything, but I do read book once in a while. Off late I have been visiting a few book stores in Bangalore, now that I have a lot of time at my hand. While I don't read much, I do want to score brownie points in my friends' good books. It works this way. Every time anyone asks me about having read any book, I casually reply, "it's by this guy right, Vikram Seth? I haven't read it, but I want to." It's like saying, "I know about it." It is important to show off at occasions. All of us at some point of time do like to associate ourselves with someone famous or learned, and be in sync with their conversation.

We all want to be famous, some of us do get that fifteen minutes of fame. At other times, we strive to move with famous people. For instance, at any wedding in South India, people crowd around the bride and the groom to be at the helm of the proceeding. It is not that they are needed or something, it is just the hurried running and gulping of headache relief pills that some folks seem to enjoy. And listless old men, who what don't want to miss out on the action, too chip in with advise on performing rituals.

Ever wondered why once in every 6 months, a while after she died, new characters kept emerging from nowhere saying they slept with Princess Diana? It's the 'I-want-to-be-with-famous' syndrome. No one can confirm or deny it, they might as well make something out of it. It could have happened. Diana's sure gone. She can't speak.

Do you remember high school cricket? Good old days where only one of us got to be "the best" player, and rest of us cling to him in all games and always wanna be in his team. Yup, its the same syndrome at play. It should be noted that such a system promotes the hero-sidekick relationship among the students. I have observed such relationships on couple of occasions outside the television. Its fun to 'watch' such things in life actually :). With new rules (link) in schools operating, with boys and girls no being allowed touch the people of opposite sex, I see no reason why the hero-sidekick culture won't present itself as a norm. After all, it is the duty of the hero to show the right way. This reality also mimics television. Among dozen others, Batman and Robin stand out clearly as a leading Hero-Sidekick example. As it turns out, both are ... well ... gay. Arguably at least. Hence, the likelihood of fears among conservatives that it promotes homosexuality is not that unfounded (link).

Also, I believe, there is a difference in you being someone's sidekick and you idolizing someone. In the former case, you blindly follow what the other person does. In the latter, though you agree with the principle at a bigger scale, you change the rules to your needs. If you are thinking about most common example for hero-sidekick relation, you need not look further. The most famous entity is God himself. He (Capital H) is the Hero, fundamentalists are sidekicks. Associations with 'famous' God is the "thing" in claim to fame! Like George Carlin says, "up on the mountain, when no one was around, God gave us Ten Commandments." (link), every religion sets out rules formulated thousands of years ago. The sidekicks follow them blindly. Brilliant, isn't it? In fact, people said to be closest to God, that is priests, are in the highest strata of the society. This hero-sidekick relationship is not exclusive in most of the cases. In a certain case, there are hundreds of Gods and equal number of sidekicks, there is no problem of 'promiscuity' there.

God is famous. We all know that. Lets come down to earth. Did you know that Scientology boasts of 10 million memberships by the end of 2006. It surprising that a religion (?) arising out of a science fiction novel can attract so many people? With its foundations lying in alien invasions, volcanic eruption, hydrogen bombs and soul clusterization (link), how the hell did people even find it acceptable? With John Travolta and Tom Cruise following it, isn't it hardly surprising?

Comments on blasphemy, religion and related issues won't be answered. The questions, if need be, can be directed to Richard Dawkins. Yes, he is very famous, and I am with famous.

My previous attempts at Humour
But, not so seriously
What your status today
Peg's law

Nostaligia or Making the most out of your Undergraduation

2007-05-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

Four years of hostel life changes a lot of things. Though I see myself as the same person as I was when entered IIT Madras, I kind of know that I have changes a lot in these four years. This post will reflect what I have learned from the four years of my undergraduate life. It is unfortunate that many us miss out on so many opportunities, while some of us explore a part of it. And there are very few, if any, who make the best use; I so envy them. I wanted to write this while at IIT Madras, but laziness got the better of me.

Statuary Warning : Long post

The Tech. Part

It was only in my final year that I indulged myself in the robotics, robotics-like activities because the courses I took demanded them. My college has a fairly active "hobby club" which caters to people with such interests. In fact, the robotics club started in my first year. It now provides a reasonably good platform for the students to start their work. What many of us fail to realize is that when you get your hands down and dirty, science and technology can be fun too. In the final semester, I was involved with a project where a miniature model of a lift had to be made. To be frank, it was the first time that I actually learned about handling micro processors, assembling mechanical components and electrical components together and actually put some of the workshop skills to use. The best part of the whole deal is the fact the you get to know people better, you interact with lot more and make more acquaintances. I can only wonder why I chose to distance myself from such activities in the past.

After the first year, it was only a matter of time before many more clubs like Physics clubs, Astronomy club popped up. I am sure that those involved in their functioning would have had loads of fun. Mostly, I was part of the Programming team in IIT Madras in four years. It was amazing being part of that. Met awesome team mates and that even took me to Tokyo. As part of the technical festival called 'Shaastra', projects such as building a hovercraft, tensegrity tower, remote controlled aircraft etc would have been an immense learning experience. Yet again I stress the fact that it is the people who you meet during the period that you value the most.

The Management Part

Many people miss out on being volunteers and coordinators for different events and facilities that help massive cultural and technical festivals (Saarang and Shaastra respectively) run smoothly. It is a common misconception among students that by being a part of mangement, the "fun" of Saarang and Shaastra is gone. That is true only to an limited extent. Given the ample number of events that take place, and given that fact that there are only a handful of event which really confined to your interests, you are not missing out much. Work on Saarang and Shaastra begins months before the actual event. During the run-up when you are loaded with tonnes of work other than acads, it is very satisfying targets falling one by one during the entire course. It is a pity that many of us take academics so seriously that it is considered a 'waste-of-time' to find yourself doing "other" things.

I have been a 'volunteer' three times and a 'coordinator' five times. Each time, I have had great fun being a part of both technical and cultural festivals. More than half the people I know in IITM can be traced back to acquaintances I made as part of the organizing team. In 2006 Saarang, I was part of the Production team which ended up being a great group to hang out with. After that, I was part of the event "how things work" for Mechanical Engineering Department's technical festival 'mechanica'. I was forced into it, but I have to thank all those who forced me into it because the people I got to know were the most enthusiastic bunch I had ever seen. Also because, I managed to win "how things work" in the following shaastra. In other occasions too, I have always loved being responsible for whatever I was in-charge of. Any youngster today, I would advice him to be both technically inclined as well as be ready to work on cultural activities to earn a wholesome experience. Plus, a coordinator in Shaastra would mean 400 bucks worth of freebies and 900 bucks in Saarang :)

It is often complained that students more time of computer these day and less on social interations. I think more such activities undertaken by the institute will help in building Social interation skills among students. Instead, today we find the Dean reducing the number of days of Saarang as it not in academic interest. Earlier, a real show-case of Indian Culture was observed in the name of "Bharath Utsav" in IIT Madras. Again, as it was not a part of academics, the entire fest was canceled six years ago.

The Acad. Part

In the final semester I took a course named "technology and development" taught by Prof. D Veeraraghavan one of the most eminent profs in Humanities Department in IIT Madras. In one of the classes, an old student of his, an alumnus of my college's electrical department, gave a small talk. He had done is Ph.D. in social sciences unlike his peers who stayed on in core engineering. That talk was an eye-opener for me on research in Social Sciences. He explained about indigenous cotton seeds, imported cotton seeds and how it affected the rural textile industry as the looms were designed for indigenous harder cotton seeds. Frankly, until then, though I had often wondered, I had no clue as to research in subjects other than science and technology. It is true that IITs (and all engineering colleges for that matter) provide a one dimensional view of education, ie technology. A "full-fledged" engineer from my college will have completed just 12 of 180 credits in non-engineering subjects. This is a dismally low number. It is sad that people don't realize this.

Apart from numerous (a lot more than even MIT actually) core engineering courses, we are given a free choice for two courses (free electives) from any department. Also, we several have a minor streams which are designed to different from our engineering Major. In my opinion, these options aren't enough. But, many fail to consolidate even on this limited choice. For instance, almost three-fourth of computer science students opt for operation research as minor as it complements some of their courses. Though I appreciate their enthusiasm, I have to remind them that the whole point of minor stream is to do something different from the regular routine. A lot of students end up taking courses from their own department in the 'free-elective' slot. They are simply not making the most of what the institution has to offer.

I should refer to Steve Jobs speech in Stanford convocation where he talks about "connecting the dots" on his calligraphy course which he later used in Apple mac OS(youtube link , text link). I would advise any fresher to explore his options completely before resorting to "safe" choice of following the herd.

The get-together, treks part

This is one part, where, I don't think many would have missed out. I have been to places in last two years of stay. Traveling, photography are cherished by all. It is inevitable that people end up in a clique of 5-6 people who constantly hangout together. It is in treks and traveling that people with common friends get together and have the time of their lives. The network of friends grows very fast on such occasions. Hopefully, I will go to one more Himalayan trek that is being planned now :) When you travel, invariably, you have stories to bring back and envy a lot of people.

The treats part

Chennai, though the climate sucks, is blessed with beaches. The treats, get-together, parties happen a lot across the east coast. When it comes to choosing colleges for your under graduation, I would recommend a place on the coast, a big city preferably. A city a lots to offer. Chennai, for instance, has places like Tanjarine (sizzlers), Don Pepe(mexican), Eatalica (Italian-American), Pupil (formerly Veronas, Junk food heaven), Buena Vista (on East coast road, for secluded beach with nice stuff ;) ), New Yorkers, Lil Italy etc. It's no use lamenting about the city not being as "cool" as Bangalore (in every sense), enjoy the place while you are there. Make sure you visit all the eat-out places

The LAN part

Gaming, surfing, movies on comps, sitcoms etc form a integral part of any hostel life when it is connect to LAN and internet. You gotta enjoy all of that while it lasts. When you watch movies in CFD lab meant for academic purposes late in the night because of the AC to beat the summer heat, the experience will remain imprinted in your mind for a long time.

Bottom Line: Be tech savvy, be geeky, be cool, have fun! Believe me! All of them can happen at the same time

On a personal note:

I am headed to Pennsylvania State University (PSU) for Ph.D. in scientific computing in Computer Science and Engineering Department. I am sure I will miss the name 'coolshankin' three months on, though i hate it as of now. Many of my friends have told me that all I have to do to tell them my email address and the name will stick. If that happens, I will surely hate the name all over again. :)

I am sure a lot of people will hate me for saying this, but I will say it anyway. When people have no reason to meet, they don't. Though we all promise that we will keep in touch, it is only once in a while that we actually bother to mail the friends. When there is a reunion, there simply isn't any common topic to talk about. The conversations are mostly formal. Given orkut, facebook and gtalk, I am sure people will make an attempt to keep in touch. After convocation, I got no idea when I will be meeting my friends again. Perhaps in US or perhaps in India itself after one, one and a half or two years. By then, all of us would have moved on and meeting over the net will also be a rare thing.

It is a fact that though we all keep promising that we will keep in touch, in the end we all tend lose touch. To know whats happening with my life, you can always see my status messages and read my blog posts :) :P. After a lot of complaints from friends and family alike, I promise to take more pictures with myself in it and post them at flickr, orkut, picassa or wherever. It was great knowing you all

I am reminded of a song by Amy Grant which goes, "Oh how the years go by, oh how the love brings tears to my eyes ...." It's very apt here. Don't mind the video .. listen to the song.

I remember my first day at the college when my dad was about to leave me and I was missing home already. I was thinking, "I can't believe this is happening". Couple of days back, when I was packing stuff in my room to leave home I was thinking again, "I can't believe this is happening." Emotions were exactly the same. How good a place can be measured by how happy you are while you were at the place. How good a place can be measured by how sad you felt when you left the place. I think the latter is more appropriate. Lemme know what you think.

Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur Videos

2007-04-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the videos I took in Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur. We lived in Hilton Tokyo Bay which is on the Disney Resorts. As it can be expected, the whole place is a fantasy come true. This video was taken on the Disney resort line.

Shamisen is one of the Japanese stringed instruments which gives a rather bass sound similar to that of percussion instruments. This video was taken during the opening ceremony of ACM's International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC).

This folk dance was also part of the opening ceremony

These acrobats performed some good stunts during the closing ceremony aka the acm world finals celebrations.

This performance by the Scandinavian was easily the highlight of the show making nearly 30 successful pickpocket/watch stealing attempts while on stage. With his excellent presentation skill he was the talk of the party. No one knows if the last part of the performance (not in video) was staged but he managed to take a man's undergarment with just couple of strings (of course, the pants were in place). The victim claimed he had no clue how that was done (obviously he would say so). Observe the host steal the tie and the belt. He couldn't take the tie of one of the volunteer because it was tied with a double knot, he reaveled right after.

This comedy juggler performs mostly in Las Vegas and is supposedly one of the most watched comedians on You Tube. Here he performs a keyboard piece using ping-pong balls and also juggles the ping-pong balls in his mouth.

This video is from Kuala Lumpur Tower where the artists performed for some five minutes. Traditional Malaysian music.

Postcards from Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur

2007-03-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

For the whole of last week, I had been to Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur for ACM's International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals. The contest did not go as favorably as we would have hoped. We secured 44th position among 88 teams. Nevertheless, we (me and my teammates with our prof.) had a great time in Tokyo and also in Kuala Lumpur as transit passengers.

People:

Just as we landed in Narita Airport, the customs process was smooth. No long queues, no wait for baggages to arrive and only 10 minutes wait for the train to arrive. We boarded the train and after a couple of minutes, our prof. realized he had left his back pack in the station. Couple of people assured us that the bag wont be taken away by anyone. As we got down from he train to go back to the airport station, couple of women called up the station and asked them secure the back pack. I can only wonder if such helpful people can be found outside Japan. We did not even ask them for a favour. They just noticed us talking about it and came forward to help us. Japanese are known for their manners and helpful nature. We had already got a glimpse of that in just 30 minutes of our arrival. This was not just an isolated incident. Through the four days, I never had trouble traveling in Tokyo. Of course, I had the map of railway system there; even otherwise, some people actually walked me to the place I wanted to visit. Many of them know reasonably good English. Those who didn't, try their best to communicate with the limited English they knew.

Train Network:

In Indian cities, we don't have a train network. We just have a line or two running from north to south or east to west. I was impressed by the network they have in Tokyo. Over a hundred stations and many junctions. They have many lines run by different organizations, intersecting at different stations. More efficient than any bus service in India, they provide the best means of public transportation. Electronically controlled trains means no delays. They have arrival times like 7:14 PM and are seldom late, not even by a minute. With a map in hand and aided by annoucements in both English and Japanese, its hard to get lost.

Some trains have zillion ads which are a visual overload. No complains as long as keep the prices low. Strong currency of theirs, Yen, makes a small stay in Japan very expensive for Indians. It will cost an average Rs 300 for two hour commute in the city involving changing the lines at the 'junctions'.

Here an interesting observation. On escalators in subways etc. people with lot of time on their hand move to the left, while people in a hurry climb the stairs of the moving escalators on the right. This norm was followed almost every where.

Girls:

Close to 10 people asked me about girls in Japan claiming they are drop-dead gorgeous. Well, here's my opinion. It is great to them all working. The ratio to women to men is more than 1 during the work hours. Women look real good in the business attire. When it comes to how hot, sexy or beautiful they look, i am saying the ratio is as mush as it is in India. It is not that apparent in our country because of poverty. If you dress all Indians up in good cloths, we will find as many pretty women as in Japan or any other country for that matter. It is not a magic that, all hot girls spring up in MG-Brigades. It is just that they have money to spend on looking good. Kimonos look awesome by the way.

Asakusa:

Given very limited time we had on our hand to spend, I managed to steal some to go to the Buddhist Temple in Asakusa. Never having been to a Buddhist temple before, I have no clue of the customs that are followed there. If anyone knows what they are, please explain them to me. I got to capture some good pics of the place. Bought some keychains and other Souvenirs for collection.

The Entrance

Shopping Arcade

5-Floor high Pagoda

The Temple

Pagoda Again

Adjacent Structure

They used the ladle to wash their hands

Similar to Mangalaarathi in Indian Temple I guess

The above pic: I have no idea what it is. They took a brush like stick and looked at the number there and then opened the corresponding box. In there was a manuscript in Japanese. I am guessing it is some sort of astrology or prediction of fate or something

This was outside one of the structures

Ginza, Akihabara:

They were the two other localities we visited in Tokyo. Akihabara is famous for electronic goods shopping while Ginza is top notch locality for premium items like Gucci's etc. In the streets of Tokyo, people follow rules. Pedestrians dont cross the street if the pedestrian light is red and automibe wait for the pedestrians to pass. Given that mass transporation is on trains, there is hardly any pollution traffic on streets.

Automobiles

Got to see some interesting stuff there.

I got myself a caricature from the artist :) Sponsored by IBM

Kuala Lumpur

We had a 24 hour transit in Kuala Lampur. Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) hits you as you enter it. It is damn beautiful. Rated as world's best airport in one of the ratings, the architecture of the place makes you rant on the hapless situation of Indian Airports. Chennai Airport is dirty to say the least. Both Narita and KLIA are well maintained, clean and organized. KLIA is way better though.

Awesome Architecture

We visited KL tower and Petronas towers while in Kuala Lumpur. Got a bird's eye view of the city from 84th floor at KL tower. Brought some souvenirs from here for collection. Some pics follow

Bird's eye view

Petronas from KL Tower

Traditional Music being played

KL Tower

Petronas ... just outside

:D
To make some people envy me, I am posting pic of the place we stayed in Japan and Kuala Lumpur and also the desert I had on one of the days there. ;)

Hilton Tokyo Bay

Holiday Inn, Glenmarie Residence, Kuala Lumpur

Next Post:

Unable to upload videos on youtube because of the newly authentication process which isn't working all that well. Will upload some videos of the events organized by IBM after the worldfinals. It includes some Japanese music and a comedy juggler who played key board with ping-pong balls and also juggled the ping-pong balls using only his mouth. Will also upload some traditional Malaysian music as well.

Peg's Law

2007-02-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

Reacting to my latest status message, "If it's Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, why not cool cool shankin :P", Kaka suggested I start a cult named cool cool shankin and art of blogging* . Jokes(?) apart, it has been two years and surely I qualify to be called a veteran blogger. Coincidentally, it is my fiftieth post too. Do check out two of my favorite posts in last year (here and here). People loved this post as well.

For a light post after a long time, I present some of the quotable quotes by me in the last year.

Quotable Quotes:

Pride:
(On being asked about certain position of responsibility in my hostel)
"I am in fourth year, I dont have to work"
(I wasn't that lucky)

Envy:
(No reference to context required)
"Even he gets chicks!"
(No comments)

Gluttony:
(Chat transcript that repeated over 30 times in the 7th Semester)
Maro: Ascendas
Shankar: How can I say no to that?
Maro: Peace, leaving in 5 mins
(Ascendas is a food court that is open (used to) 24 hours.... my visit is usually between 1 am and 2 am)

Sloth:
(On being a Quality Management System Co-ordinator (QMS Coord) in Saarang without having to do any work)
"In 4th year, all I care is Grub (food) coupons and free entry into pro. shows (professional shows)"
(I was successful :) )

Lust:
(Near Monkey Falls.... looking at all dressed up women)
"What is it with Indian women, its like .... they are born with cloths"
(I know thats sexist and cruel, but one is surely gonna a laugh at it. I am not really that bad a person. trust me!)

"Three most wanted Ws - wine, weed and women....hmmm.... wine and weed can be brought with money. Women ...... that too!"
(Really, it's just a joke)

Averice:
(On being asked to share food coupons I got from being a QMS Coord)
"I don't want to part with my hard-earned money"
(Eventually, I had to :( )

Wrath:
(on being ridiculed for celebrating blog birthday last year)
"Get lost!!! People do celebrate blog birthdays. "
(I may have used more provocative phrase other than 'get lost')

It has been two years since I started the blog. It's been great. Over the last year I have been less geekier then the year before, wasted a little less time, a bit more studious, a lot more serious owing to app, have had funnier status messages, blogged on both serious and fun issues and also, unfortunatly, chickless.

Past few months have been excellent. Been to Hampi, Goa, Coimbatore, Pondycherry and Delhi already. And I am looking forward eagerly to Tokyo in Mid-March. Hoping for a fun filled semester ahead. This blog will keep you informed.

In case you were still wondering, Peg's Law is a mnemonic for the seven deadly sins.

*Update:
I respect Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as a person who has influenced many lives in a positive way. The status message did not intend to offend anyone and should be taken in jest. No offense meant.

Hampi, Jog, Goa, Coimbatore

2007-02-16T13:42:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pics from places i have visited in last two months which are Hampi, Jog, Goa and Coimbatore. Most pics are here courtesy my brother, Srikanth. Hampi is a world heritage site declared by UNO. One look at the ruins scattered all over the place (350 sq kms) , you will know that it will take days just to see all the ruins present in there. Click on the pics to get a larger image.

Hampi

The famous Stone Chariot in Hampi. The stone wheels could rotate.

Water Canal System way back in 15th Century

Queen's Bath

Trading place (?)

Disfigured Narasimha Statue

Vittala Temple (from top of a Hill)

Gopuram of one of the ruined Temples

Elevated Stage

Market Place

Delicate Balance

Scattered Ruins of temple perhaps

Queen's Palace

Arches inside Elephant's Stable

Jog Falls

A burning tree near Jog Falls (Don't ask why, what etc. I have no clue)

Jog Falls looks lot more majestic than what it seems in this pic

Goa

From the 'DCH' Fort

Trek Near Coimbatore at a place called Top Slip

I thought the structure blended well with the surrounding woods

Bald Tree

Silhouette

Missed Flight, Delayed Flights and Air Deccan

2007-01-30T01:19:00.000-08:00

Update:
I have written about things that are wrong with South India too (2 or 3 posts at that). Please do not treat this post as some kinda "North vs South" post. No offence meant.

At the end of last post, I wrote about on a week long travel for a programming contest in IIT Kanpur and Coimbatore. The programming contest went great; we came second (lost first place by three minutes). If the documents come through, my team will go to Tokyo for world finals of the same event in March. Wish us luck :). But the journey as worse as it could get. The journey was well planned to accommodate delays with our flights and trains. If anyone even hinted on what could happen with delayed trains and flights, i would have remarked, "surely, you are joking Mr. Murphy"

The journey to Kanpur and back well planned. Flight from Chennai to Delhi, Train from Delhi to Kanpur and retrace the same route back. Chennai to Delhi flight was delayed by twenty minutes. That did not effect me at all. The flight was suppose to reach Delhi at 6:45 PM and the train was at 11:50 PM. The flight was delayed nevertheless. Took a taxi to New Delhi railway station, hunted out a decent restraunt in about 40 mins, had my dinner and went back to the railway station. The train arrived on time. I was surprised about pre-recorded messages over the public announcement system in New Delhi railway station for delayed trains. Never heard such pre-recorded announcements in Bangalore or Chennai Railway Stations. I figured, if Laloo and Nitish Kumar keep adding train from Bihar /Jharkand to Delhi, this was bound to happen. Next day, when I woke up, I was told that the train is late by about 3 hrs to Kanpur. The contest was on following day, so no harm done here either. For the record, both the train and the flight were delayed.

Return journey was eventful to say the least. The plan was simple, leave Kanpur by 9:15 pm train, reach Delhi at 4:10 am, catch the flight at 9:00 am and reach Chennai at about 11:30 am. I reached the Kanpur Station at about 9 pm. The board display the train delay by 30 minutes. After that, it become 1 hour, then 1 and a half hours and finally the train arrives at 11:30 PM because of engine failure at Laknow, it was running on Diesel Engine. It leaves Kanpur at 12:30 am. Owing to initial delays, it stops at every station to let the "on-time" trains pass by and the train is pushed back further on schedule. I wake up at 7 am and co-pasangers tell me that train wil reach Delhi only at 11:30. I grew increasingly frustrated as a train makes a stop for 1 hour to let seven Rajdhani express pass. Missing the flight was inevitable as the train is limping towards Delhi. Finally, it reaches Delhi at 12:30 PM.

I rush to Airport to find out that only the taxes in the flight ticket can be reimbursed. I made inquiries about cost to fly to Chennai. Thankfully, I had just about sufficient money to travel to Chennai. I find that Go Air has one ticket left but they do not accept Debit Cards. I rush to an ATM and by the time I get back, that ticket is taken. Yet again, I go back to ATM and withdraw some more to book flight for a little costlier Air Deccan. The flight was suppose to leave Delhi at 7:55 PM. Tired and frustrated, I wait all alone for about 4 hours in the Airport hoping nothing worse happens. But..... it does.

I wait for an Hour or more in the Lounge, waiting for Air Deccan to announce boarding. The flight is suppose to leave at 7:55 pm and at 7:50 they announce a delay of 30 mins. I wait for 10 mins more, and get on the bus. The bus goes to the Aircraft and they say that it is being cleaned, please get back. The bus comes back, I wait for 10 more minutes in the bus and then it goes to aircraft again. This time we (me and other passengers) board the air craft. Again, they announce the delay of 30 minutes to correct a technical snag. Fifteen minutes later, they annouce that they are going to abandon the aircraft. I don't know, but I have never heard of air craft being abandoned and passengers asked to change airplanes. I mean, It's not a bus. We get down, board the bus again and the driver leaves us at domestic arrival. Even before I could inquire about being dropped in domestic arrival, all the other passengers leave the bus. Having no clue, I follow them. The CISF refused the permission to go out of the same gate. Meanwhile, some other passenger start shouting at the helpless Air Deccan official without getting any work done. Left without any choice, we get out of airport and get back in through the departure gate. We were reissued boarding pass and went though security check again standing in the queue for over an hour. When the plane took off, it was 11:30 PM. It was suppose to reach Chennai at 10:30 PM. Despite asking for a complementary food after all this, the air-hostess refused. I reached Chennai at 2 am i guess, and I was in my hostel by 3 am.

I also happened to read the Air Deccan's cost cutting techniques in one of their in-flight books. I find it "ok", if they don't serve food in a 3 hour flight, or rent their spaces in the cabin for ads. But, they also claim that they keep the planes flying as much as they can to avid the rent to paid to the Airport to keep the planes. This time the technical snag was found and air deccan is fairly new, three years. What about next time? Most of disasters that happen is due to poor maintanence of the Aircrafts. I would mind paying thousand bucks more if they can assure me that the plane will not crash. I am really apprehensive about flying in a low-cost airline again. Not matter what, Air-Deccan in particular is out of question. They claim 98% flight run on time. On time is delay of up to 2 hrs. The average flying time in India is 2 hrs. People take flight to save time. These low cost carriers simply do not serve the purpose. From what I hear, this is not an isolated incident. Air Deccan has had their expertise in annoying passengers since their inception. The funniest one being a Techie who received an sms saying he missed a flight even with a boarding pass in hand. Seriously, do not even consider flying Air Deccan when you plan a journey.

Some other experiences from the travel:

In the first flight from Chennai to Delhi, I happen to sit beside a Navy guy working in Car Nicobar islands. He kept a good company. Beside him was a woman in her 40s. She was sitting up-right though out the journey. The navy guy asked her to lean back when she talked about a accident she had some years ago because of which he can't lean. If she does, she can suffer from a shooting pain in the back which last last upto a week. It was indeed a sad way to begin a journey. Then in the next train to Kanpur, I was with a family in which an elderly couple were talking about a case of cancer that one of their relatives in suffering from. Apparently, it was a cancer int he stoamch which had spread to the liver. The patient had under gone 12 operations and a chemotherapy. Though I did not speak to them, I did keep me depressed until i went to sleep.

In Kanpur, to go from railway station to IIT Kanpur, I boarded a bus. I paid 10 bucks for the ticket, and the conductors gives me a ticket for 1 buck. I asked him for a ten buck ticket. He claimed that what he gave was a ten buck ticket. I showed him "Ek Rupay" and "Re 1" written clearly there. He argued back saying that the minimum fare is 3 bucks, one rupee ticket got printed by mistake and it is worth ten bucks. I argued with him for nearly five minutes telling him that he was corrupt. He did not listen. I ended the argument saying him and i both know that he was cheating. Seriously, I have had such experience before in Bangalore but it been with 1 rupee tickets. It has never happened in Chennai. The conductors are too prompt. But here, I was cheated off 9 rupees. I may be generalizing here, but the fact that South India is more developed than the north doesn't surprise me at all after this incident.

Coming back from IIT Kanpur to railway station, i hired an auto. Mid-way two policemen stepped in and got out when their destination had arrived with paying the driver. When I asked driver about it, he replied, "Kanpur hai, kya kare? (it's kanpur, what can i do?)" I have never seen traffic cops or any other cop do this is Bangalore or in Chennai. India is lawless, but North India is way more lawless than South India.

Had been to Coimbatore (another venue) for for the same programming contest couple of days later. Then Hampi and Goa for the new years. After that to Coimbatore again for a trek. Saarang happened in my college for last 5 days. Will post pictures if possible. Till then, cya!

PS: Never travel Air Deccan

Placements and Professionalism

2006-12-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

Update 2:

@everyone .. about the bussiness analyst question

The reply he got was an arrogant "you are not suppose to ask me questions, I am suppose to". Would a little reverence to students hurt?

all i am against is arrogance of the interviewer. yes, the candidate must have done his homework.

"they should be well aware that none of engineering students have any clue of what business analyst is" etc are suposrting statement meant to justify that the interveiwer should not have been so surprized that he had to resort to the arrogance.

Update:
To my friends who have been placed in companies mentioned here, please don't get offended. I just thought speaking out against it will change things for better next time around.

The first session of placements in IIT Madras comes to an end today. There is a break for about two weeks for the inter-IIT sports meet after which they resume once again. I was disappointed by the lack of professionalism by some of the highly regarded companies here during the last two weeks. In fact, the unprofessional display was unexpected by some of the companies that had come for pre-placement talks (ppt) over the semester. There those handful of companies which refused to reveal their compensation packages even when the questions about it was raised during the question answer session. A mere hand waving "competitive package" was announced by them. It annoying when that the one thing many look for in a ppt (yeah, it's the money.. who cares about job satisfaction and social life anyway ;) ). This disregard to professionalism was shown by relatively unknown firms.

It was during the placement week that many of the renowned companies also let us down. It all began with Deutche Bank. Citing reasons of being unavailable during the first week of December, they were allowed to come for placement well ahead of the scheduled placement week. As it was one of the high paying jobs, no one complained. The shortlist was announced and interviews were scheduled at Park Shereton hotel. One of my friends, Ashish, who was short listed was interviewed. Being from an engineering background, non of us knew what exactly a 'business analyst' was all about. During the interview, he asked them what a business analyst exactly does. The reply he got was an arrogant "you are not suppose to ask me questions, I am suppose to". Would a little reverence to students hurt? They should be well aware that none of engineering students have any clue of what business analyst is. Their unprofessonalism (if there is such a word) doesn't end here. They shortlist three candidates to the final interview and have given the offer to only one student among them. The other two students still are unclear whether Deutche Bank is hiring them or not. Its already been over three weeks since the interviews. The students have had a few telephonic interviews. They offered them summer internship before joining the bank as a full time employee based on their performance. Even that isn't clear yet. From what I hear, Assistant registrar in charge of placements is very much pained by Deutche Bank. Also, The interviews stated at about 4 in the afternoon and went on till 12 in the night. They did not have the courtesy to offer at least the three students some snacks.

Shell was another company I was unhappy with. They came it with the offer of placements to all branches here. They asked all the interested candidates to fill in their online application form which easily took all of us 1 hour to fill. This was in the middle of the semester. After all this, they shortlist only the students from chemical and mechanical engineering. It not about the one hour that every one wasted, but about the communication gap between HR and Technical group which let us down. An internationally known company shouldn't so crass in its approach.

As my friend informs me, Fair Isaac cheated IIT Madras' placement office. It was agreed upon that those who cleared the prelim examination and appeared for test for r and d division will also be considered for other divisions. But, those who had cleared the first round of test but not the r and d round weren't even short listed for other divisions. When one makes such a small promise, why is it hard to keep them?

Yet another company was transocean. Two were almost offered jobs and other two waitlisted. During one the placement days, all four of them were flown to Bombay for interviews. As it turned out, it was a mere formality. The two were given the appointment letter, the other two were rejected. If the decision was already made here, why were the other two flown to Bombay (one of them is my room neighbour btw) missing a whole day of placements here? All they did was simply take away the chance finding a job the next day.

I don’t know about other (if any) unprofessionalism displayed here. But from where I see it, most of them were easily avoidable. If employers expect respect from employees, there is nothing wrong in employees expecting the same from the employers.

I am off on a week of travel (no sight seeing unfortunately :( ) for couple of programming contest Friday: Chennai - Delhi, Friday / Saturday Delhi - Kanpur, Sunday / Monday Kanpur - Delhi, Monday Delhi - Chennai, Tuesday / Wednesday Chennai - Bangalore, Friday / Saturday Bangalore - Coimbatore, Sunday / Monday Comibatore - Bangalore .... thursday is the only day of the week i wont be travelling at some point of time. Wish me luck for programming contests at Kanpur and Coimbatore :) Will reply to comments when free. I find Chennai winter cold, it goes to 6 C in Kanpur these days.

Taken for Granted

2006-11-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

Earlier last month, there was a request made by freshies in my college about a mathematics test being postponed by a week so that it doesn’t fall right after the diwali hols. It was scheduled on Monday following the diwali weekend. Even before the request letter signed by freshies read the mathematics department, the authorities turned the request down (as far as I have been informed). In my opinion, the request was quite a legitimate one. After all, diwali is the most celebrated and biggest festival in the country. If students want to have a good time, I don’t understand their problem. I’m sure that no American or English Universities schedule their tests right after Christmas. The holiday season is what it is supposed to be - Holidays. What is annoying is the fact that it is the same authorities who complain about brain drain later at a different occasion. How the hell can’t such a simple request be fulfilled? If the “brain” is not even allowed to enjoy what rest of country takes for granted, you can’t blame them for trying to get out of this place.

It is not an isolated incident that I am complaining about. We have had Industrial Design test to write on Gandhi Jayanthi. We have been forced to write Engineering Drawing Exams right after sweating it out on Fitting Workshop for four hours. There was one lab in which the in-charge wouldn’t let us switch on the fan or open the windows (it was close to 40oC) because it would affect our readings. None of us could see how though, it was a completely enclosed system.

There are always those Profs who demand respect rather than command it. Somehow the “Indian culture” put a teacher on a pedestal. From what elders have told me, “They ought to be respected, no questions asked.” Such a respect is not advised to any other profession. That leaves a little wonder why there isn’t any dignity of labour in our country. A ‘level’ of a cobbler, for instance, will remain low forever because no one ever asks anyone to respect them. But a teacher, oh no, they have to be respected. I may be grossly wrong here, but from what I see, over the ages Brahmins have been teachers and are always respected simply because they are teachers. After thousand of years, we cannot wonder how the whole social (caste) hierarchy came into existence. We are not taught to respect anyone on how well they do their job but on what they do, no matter how miserable they perform their job. Why isn’t it clear to some teachers that students are going to respect them provided they teach well, and not just because they are teachers?

Over my stay in school, every year I have seen some teachers who tried be “forgiving” to students on their birthdays. They tell them, “I am letting you go because it’s your birthday, otherwise ….” Come on! It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the birthday is effectively ruined. Thankfully, I have never been at the receiving end of this, but some of my friends were. Let me not get started on beating (read physical torture) that some of the teachers in my school were “famous” for. Also, every one of us would have been victim of imposition sometime or the other during elementary schooling.

My friends have their exams in Bangalore starting the day after Christmas. Perhaps, the authorities find Christmas and New Year parties against Indian Culture. Whatever the reason, these people (like Mathematics dept.) have forfeited their right to talk against brain-drain as such people are driving cause for brain-drain to begin with.

And yes, before I forget, lemme tell you that Pizza and other delivery people cannot come into our campus. It is not that they cause nuisance in the campus, there are tones of other vehicles coming in and going out everyday but because it’s a residential zone. There is a gate through which the bikes don’t have go through the residential zone, and can reach all the hostels. But even that is a big deal for authorities here to allow them to come in. This issue, hopefully, will be resolved soon.

Please note that I am not saying many teacher, Profs and authorities are that way. In fact, I respect, in the true sense of the word, almost all teacher who have taught me, not out of compulsion but because they do a good job. There are those few who, unfortunately, make life difficult for us when all it takes is a little effort to make it simpler. And I don’t respect such people no matter what their profession is.

To end on a positive note, our Mathematics Prof had absolutely no problem in postponing the test for a week. All it took was an oral request. :)

Language, Religion and Everything Else

2006-09-21T01:59:00.000-07:00

Couple of friends of mine and me had an argument which was kicked offby this peace of news. My reaction, just like many others, was, "wtf?" We all know how the government had done such a mediocre job is building new schools. The right to basic education is being denied to scores thousands of people in the state. Yet, the government goes out of the way to destroy the existing school. This clearly shows the sign of its irresponsibility. Yes, the schools were given to permit teaching in only Kannada as the medium of instruction and they did flout the law. All that govt. had to do was warn them and remind them about the condition on which the permit was given. It wasn't necessary to take the extreme step. Let's face it; English is the language in which science is best taught. International standardization for scientific terms has existed for long time. Social Studies, on the other hand, is best taught is the native language. When you learn about a society or about a culture, the native language obviously has the richest vocabulary to express the ideas. It was wrong on the part of the schools to have taken license for schools to run in Kannada medium and flout the rule. I can only say that, it's now fair if the govt. gives permits to existing schools either as Kannada medium or as English medium provided the schools follow the necessary norms. Though many may hate to admit it, English medium is a necessity and not a luxury in Urban India. In rural India, perhaps, native language works the best.

There had been a constant worry among Kannada activists that the language is losing importance. Some of them have taken extreme measures to burn English hoardings in Bangalore to encourage Kannada. This is not acceptable. Kannada Activists have every right to encourage Kannada, but they have no business to discourage English or any other language like they did. There are ways to popularize Kannada and other regional languages. For instance, a good comic book for primary kids and good novels to a high school kid goes a long way in developing interest and enthusiasm in a language. You can't enforce a language on someone and hope that it popularizes it. You have to develope a natural inclination to a language. The fact that locals are offended by "outsiders" are encroaching Bangalore is laughable. Different kinds of people coming into Bangalore has added diversity and richness into the culture of Bangalore. And remember that the Indian culture we talk about has again evolved over 20 centuries. If we have to retain our identity, we have encouraged it, not prevent people from coming into Bangalore. IT is blamed for "infesting" Karnataka. Remember, IT contributes to 25% of GDP of Karnataka. Given 50% comes from agriculture, the share of IT is phenomenal. It’s up to the govt. (indirectly, the people) to use them.

Regionalism took its tool on our debate. points about how Tamilians never speak in other languages, and how accommodative Kanndigas are as they are "allowing" people to stay in Bangalore were all made by my friends. I did not agree to the fact that Bangalore was decaying because of presence of other people.

The topic of the debate swayed a little bit to how tolerant, in general, Indians are. My friend claimed this has lead to our downfall in some sense. We talked about how foolish India was for not trading POK for Lahore after the '71 war and other passive attempts to counter terrorism. Speaking of recent comments by Manmohan Singh , I acknowledged the fact that a stronger stance was needed to counter terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise. Then the debate turned to religion. And that's what prompted me to write this post.

At this point I made it clear that I don’t find my life very different from a Christian Indian or Indian Muslim. I don’t consider myself a Hindu and that I am an atheist. I don't want to assume a narrower Identity. I am a citizen of the world first, then India, then my state. This according to them was being too benevolent. They said, "We have to serve our people. One has to be a Village/Town's person first, State next, country next and then the world." They claimed, 'Indians have this tendency of giving a lot to the world and not getting as much in return by being benevolent and tolerant to others.' Despite the obscene portrayal of Hindu deities by MF Hussein, he was felicitated by the Indian Govt. Govt. was blamed for appeasing the minority for votes (obviously) and splitting the majority and successfully make a living out of it. They claimed that because of the India being a secular nation, political parties are able to use the mantra of "divide and rule". That is, appease the minority, get their votes, split the majority, get half their votes and win election. However, it isn't clear to me how the majority is split. Both of them went on to claim that India will be more peaceful nation if it officially a "Hindu state".

I was taken aback. What sort of a country (and democracy) is it when you don’t have a freedom to choose the religion you want to follow. They went on to claim that Secularism hasn't worked anywhere in the world. I claimed that it obviously wasn't true. It is only in India that Secularism has worked because of Hindu Muslim conflict. The only other place where a bitter war is being fought in the name of religion (between two religion) is Israel which isn't a secular state. Source 1, 2. The rest of the world is quite peaceful secular or not. It is easy for Hindus in India to say make India a Hindu State. What about the minority. Why should they be subjected to the torture of having to follow a religion not appealing to them. India is a free country, a secular country. For a country as diverse as ours, that’s the best.

I was baffled at this point. First, they say that my priority of considering myself citizen of the world first is screwed and second they want to make India a country which bound by laws of a rigid religion whose rules cannot be changed easily. The topic of Narendra Modi was also raised. I called him a cold blooded murderer and a terrorist. This was agreed upon. Then came the issue of conversion, Christian missionaries and of course Graham Steins. One of my friends claimed, he can justify the killings of him and his two sons.

---
He Explained:
It is against the Indian constitution to coax anyone into converting his religion. Graham Steins did just that. He went to tribal area, spoke to people over there. Introduced then to Christianity. Offended a lot of people. He deserved to die.

I answered back, "how the hell can you justify him being killed for that? What was the fault of his two children? Would you kill Osama's children? The intention of the missionaries is to spread Christianity. They do a lot of social service. If they can inform people that that is what Christianity is all about. There is nothing wrong in asking them to convert as long as he doesn't force them."

He started, "Ok, killing his children was wrong but he still coaxed people. Its against constitution"
Me: "Coax is not a crime. It is surely not wrong. Constitution is wrong there. It should be changed. It can be changed"
Him: "Nothing is right or wrong in abstract sense. I follow what constitution says. I accept it as a norm"
----
My opinion: Great argument in rhetoric, hardly holds any weight otherwise.

I asked him if he thinks what missionaries is doing is wrong, does he approve of what ISKON is doing? He replied, "Yes, there are spreading Krishna Conscience, not Hindu conversion." Logically speaking, since Krishna is Hindu God, shouldn't an ISKON follower imbibe certain (not
all) Hindu customs and traditions? Isn't this a hypocrisy? You can't approve what Iskon is doing and not approve what Missionaries are doing.

He went on to speak about how he insulted people over there and that there is a written proof of that. He offended a priest in the tribe who ran away from the place and that aggravated people. I asked him, "If he was insulting them at their face, how did he even hope to convert people." He answered, "lets not get into logistics of that." He told me that police and ministry wouldn't help the tribe and hence they asked Dara Singh to kill him. He said, "Dara Singh, in a way, helped them." At some point I asked him the source of this information. He said that it was in a book by Arun Shouri. Why didn't that surprise me? He is from BJP. He is obviously going to bend facts in Hindu’s favour.

Even then, how does it justify him being KILLED? His view was that Indians have been insulted by Graham Steins' actions. I questioned him if he believed Christianity was an Insult. He said, "no". He also stated that such action were "necessary" for Hindus to retain their identity. At this point I was totally agitated. He had just claimed killing was a necessary and not just that. He wanted it to happen once in a while. He continued, "tribal were threatened by him, they killed him. I don’t support the killing. But, it is justifiable." I made the usual clichéd argument about no one having a right to take a life. I also firmly said a big NO to capital punishment to Dara Singh or to Osama.

What kind of a religion supports violence? Isn't the intolerance expressed by my friends totally against any religious beliefs? I asked him if he supported Osama Bin Laden's Killing. There is a parallel here. He merely claimed they were different cases altogether. Seriously, Bin Laden is killing because he feels his religion is being threatened. Dara Singh did the same. Isn't what he did a Hindu jihad? Just that in other religions there is no name for religion sponsored killing. How can anyone who supports what Dara Singh did, not support ehat Osama is doing? They are being hypocritical.

All of this happened between 1am and 5am. Raising my voice of several occasions and repeating many times, "how can anyone ever justify killing?", I was waiting for an answer. I still am.

[PS: Ironically, this post on a heated argument had to come right after my post on lack of social interaction in IITM]

Of Lost Times and Lab Slots

2006-09-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

Picture this: Two people, moving in the opposite directions on the same road happen to bump into each other and start with the formalities. They are absolutely not related to each other but for the fact that they had been classmates in college twenty years ago. "Hey, how have you been? What are you doing now?" "I am fine. I am working in....... What about you?" "I am working in ......" "I did not expect to meet you like this." "Me too." "See you around then" "Yup! Good bye!" As they slowly drift apart, both of them can't help but wonder, "What is his freakin' name?"

I'm pretty sure this will happen to me. After having been in classroom with 110 students for over three years now, there are at least 60 of them with who I have not had a 'decent' conversation with for over a minute. It is not that I am an introvert or they are introverts. Almost every person I know in my college agrees with me. Despite many students in a class, out social interaction is highly limited. All of us tend to form groups and our own circle of friends and don’t venture beyond that.

The generation which I am proudly a part of is one which thinks it not courteous not ask for a treat on ones birthday, and not snatching a bag of chips from a good friend is sign of a person not having his priorities right. All of this does paint a rose tinted picture of a close-knit generation. At the same time, one has to remember that the geeks we are, we also use orkut to ask our neighbour if they are going to mess. Tech Savvy or not, we all do crave for a much closer correspondence. For instance, be it vicarious, we mail each other "hey, listen" and not "hey, read this".

In my first year in college, three of us (other freshers) were put in a room in our hostels. All of us wanted our privacy and we did not like this idea initially. To be honest, life seemed a lot more fun those days. There were no computers in our rooms as there were just too many people in there. Internet wasn't provided in our rooms then. When 2nd year came, almost all of us had computers and progressively out social interaction got confined to the hostel mess.

Even orkut really can't come to rescue. I find ample number of scraps that go, "What a relief from Chennai's hot climate, no?" If you ask me, talking about weather is indirectly saying, "We are left with nothing else to talk about buddy. I have given up trying to think about things to talk about. But ...I don't want to give up talking altogether." I honestly hope I don’t resort to weather predictions and global warming to bridge the communication gap.

By the end of my third year, a mega mess was built for all hostels to dine in a single place. As far as I have seen, this too hasn't helped in building a good interaction. Somehow, it in contrary to our disposition to smile or even acknowledge the presence of the person whom you are sharing a dining table with. Among some reasons given to start the mega mess, or Himalaya as it is called, two were to increase inter-hostel interaction and reduce rivalry after certain incidents in inter-hostel competition. Unfortunately, the former is not happening and I’m not sure about the latter.

The best conversations I have had with my class-mates have been in lab hours. Be it, dumb charades in Milling and Shaping workshop or endless debates on whose performance is worse in the tests. Being is fourth year now, we have no labs and all of us are engrossed, if I may use the word, in our rooms with our computers and the B-Tech Projects.

Still, we all do, desperately, if may add, to fit in. There are those nine point "the" ones who join orkut's 'iitm give-up junta' community. If there is one non existent quality in us that conquers all, it is humility. I don’t know why, it is a weakness in us to confess that we have done well in tests. I really don’t know what to believe when my friends' gtalk status message says "f***ed up" and they end up getting one of the highest scores. There are others who constantly use swears to "express" themselves. Those who think that’s cool, I have one piece of advice. When you call someone, please don’t couple 'b***nc**d' and 'saala'.
[PS: I started the post before the notice of reflections organising a GD tonite on "Social Interaction in IITM" was up on the notice board]
[PPS Don't try to fit in and say, "you have already started working on project, I haven't even started"]

Photographs that Shook the World

2006-08-30T06:39:00.000-07:00

This has been one of my most difficult posts to write because of the gore image the photographs portray. I have been eager to write this post for a quite a long time. A couple of hours of googling and wiki-ing was good enough to collect all the information I needed. Almost all the pictures here can easily convince you that a picture paints a thousand words.

The photograph above, by Steve McCurry, can easily be recognised as it was much hyped by National Geographic Channel. The haunting green eyes of the girl haunted the whole world since the time it appeared on National Geographic Magazine cover in 1985. It is the first picture that come to our minds when talking about refugees. Torn apart by civil war, the plight of refugees was brought forward to the rest of the world through this very photograph. More info. here

The Pulitzer prize winning photograph above was taken by South African photographer Kevin Carter. The shocking picture of a sever year old girl 'resting' for a while before going to the refugee shelter for food being stalked by a plump vulture brought attention to the gravity of Sudan's famine in 1993-94. The photographer managed to shoo the vulture away, but no one knows what happened to this little girl. Burdened by the sight of so many sufferings in Africa, the photographer committed suicide 3 months after the photograph was shot. In his note, he says "I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky." More info. here

This pic. is in the forefront of all anti-war campaigns. This was June 1972 when a South Vietnamese plane "mistakenly" dropped its flaming napalm on South Vietnamese This girl was also found and she is fine with image being used to discourage war. Unfortunately no one's listening.

South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a shot to the head, one of the most chilling images of the Vietnam War. Photographer Eddie Adams, who won a Pulitzer Prize for this photograph, said the execution was justified, because the Viet Cong officer had killed eight South Vietnamese. The furor created by this 1968 image destroyed Loan's life. He fled South Vietnam in 1975, the year the communists overran the country, and moved to Virginia, where he opened a restaurant. He died in 1998 at age 67. Loan 'was a hero,' Adams said when he died. 'America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him.' (Source)

When LIFE ran this stark, haunting photograph of a beach in Papua New Guinea on September 20, 1943, the magazine felt compelled to ask in an adjacent full-page editorial, “Why print this picture, anyway, of three American boys dead upon an alien shore?” Among the reasons: “words are never enough . . . words do not exist to make us see, or know, or feel what it is like, what actually happens.” But there was more to it than that; LIFE was actually publishing in concert with government wishes. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was convinced that Americans had grown too complacent about the war, so he lifted the ban on images depicting U.S. casualties. Strock’s picture and others that followed in LIFE and elsewhere had the desired effect. The public, shocked by combat’s grim realities, was instilled with yet greater resolve to win the war. (Source)

LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White was with Gen. George Patton's troops when they liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp. Forty-three thousand people had been murdered there. Patton was so outraged he ordered his men to march German civilians through the camp so they could see with their own eyes what their nation had wrought. (Source)

Finally a glimmer of hope. This is Tiananmen Square 1989. A hunger strike by 3,000 students in Beijing had grown to a protest of more than a million as the injustices of a nation cried for reform. For seven weeks the people and the People’s Republic, in the person of soldiers dispatched by a riven Communist Party, warily eyed each other as the world waited. When this young man simply would not move, standing with his meager bags before a line of tanks, a hero was born. A second hero emerged as the tank driver refused to crush the man, and instead drove his killing machine around him. Soon this dream would end, and blood would fill Tiananmen. But this picture had shown a billion Chinese that there is hope. That's the power of ONE. (Source)

I really don't know what effect Live8 concert had on African Debts. But I do know that the cries of Darfur is falling on deaf ears because of lack of oil in that region. UNO has declined to call it a genocide. Perhaps we dont know how many deaths will take till they know that too many people have died. I hope it will not take a disturbing photograph like above to divert the world's attention to Darfur.

Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Review

2006-08-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

Book: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
Rating: 5+ Stars
Publishers: Wordsworth Classic Series
Cost: Rs. 100

Undoubtedly, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (UTC), by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is the best book I have read so far. This book deals with slavery as its central theme. Wiki tells me that UTC is the second most selling book of the nineteenth century after the Holy Bible (and deservingly so). The book can keep you engrossed for a long time. I have tried to minimize the spoilers in this review. I can assure you that no matter how many spoilers any post can reveal, it simply can’t ruin the fun of reading the book by yourself.

The story presents itself in the house of gracious host to enslaved African Americans. Arthur Shelby, a kind hearted gentleman, is the ‘owner’ of several slaves including the protagonist Tom. Being under terrible debt, Shelby decides to do away with some of his slaves. The first chapter, ‘in which the reader is introduced to humility’, is one of the most powerful pieces of writing on human values. The fact that being a ‘Christian’ means possessing sublime virtues which often lack in common people is well reflected. Tom is described as a true Christian for his sheer diligence, dedication to work and for his humility. He is respected by his ‘owner’ to a great extent. Reading first few pages leave you feeling bitter about the fact that Blacks were looked upon as mere objects that could perform work mechanically and that a few of them who had innate qualities were looked upon as ‘features’ that made them sell for a better price.

The language in the book is highly complicated because of the relatively longer sentences used. The innocuous looking 300-350 page book cannot be finished in a hurry. The archaic language also holds the book to high standards of English writing. The language demands reverence. With some effort, if one is able to get through first three chapters where Black pronunciations, like ‘tis’ for ‘this’, ‘tat’ for ‘that’, are extensively used, the readers can look forward to an amazing experience.

In an effort to pull himself together economically, despite great opposition from Mrs. Shelby, who is as warm hearted, Arthur decides to part himself from Tom. Around the same time, George decides to flee to Canada so as to escape from the hand of a new owner who is not at all likely to be as noble as Arthur Shelby promising his wife Eliza (and their baby boy, Harry) to take her back once he finds freedom.

The story progresses of these two fronts. The story of Tom’s fate of being transferred from place to place subdues the other front of the family’s quest for much sought after independence in Canada. The family’s struggle against their trader’s relentless effort to capture them is plotted extremely well. The trickery, deception and self-centered nature of the trader have been stereotyped, but the build-up is enticing nevertheless. Tom, meanwhile, is passed on from trader to trader, until bought by another Shelby-like host Augustine St. Clare.

The author hasn’t left any stoned unturned when it comes to introducing characters in the novel. Every character has at least a paragraph dedicated to exploring his past to boast about. All relevant aspects of their lives are brought forward by the author. This has paved way for more insightful observations in the novel for common reader like you and me.

The book also illustrates how callous the slave traders have grown owing to the fact that the New England’s society expected them to be so. Incidents of death of a slave or any other major loss to them would not touch the cold-hearted traders emotionally. The description of how carelessly the mothers are separated from son and daughters, husband from wives, brothers from sisters, etc is rich with emotion. Again, the past of the slaves involved has been looked into with a great detail.

Tom lives a relatively easy life for a slave under Augustine. The novel is blessed by the presence of Angelic little girl, Augustine’s Daughter, Eva (Evangeline St. Clare). It was because of her persistent begging to her dad that Tom was bought by him. Eva manages to bond with every one in her house including the slaves insisting on the fact that all of them deserve to be loved. Her mere presence captures the attention of the readers. Augustine’s cousin, Ophelia, who is prejudiced against black, is bought a slave girl named Topsy by Augustine just to show the blacks also have emotions holding them together. Six year old Eva teaches a lesson or two to all in her family about treating slaves a people who need to be understood and loved. Everyone, including her father, is moved by her cherubic nature.

The book is also a grim reminder of the fact that religion is contorted to every possible extent in order to suit the selfish motives. A priest justifies slavery by quoting from bible that things are meant to be the way they are. Africans are meant to be slaves, Whites are meant to rule over them. And that is the word of the lord. After a couple of confrontations between Augustine and his cousin Ophelia, Augustine gave a huge and immensely powerful monologue on Christianity being misrepresented, manipulated by masses and appalling disregard to human values by the so called priests. In my opinion, the monologue was a little too long.

Contrary to expectation that a slave warehouse filthy, crowded little place for slaves to stay temporarily before being sold, the writer has described the place to very luxurious. The intention was, however, to make slaves cheerful so that they can be sold at a higher price. Of course, slaves were given no choice but to indulge themselves in parties and celebration that happen despite their vehement refusal. The author has made painstaking effort to bring out the real truth and motives behind every action taken during slave trade.

By bizarre twist of fate, Tom is sold to merciless plantation owner Simon Legree before spending many days in a slave warehouse. Legree despises the very fact that Tom reads Bible and has a firm faith in Christianity. He is ill-treated in the plantation for helping fellow slaves, and also for not renouncing Christianity. He helps Cassy and Emmeline, two sex slaves owned by Legree. This causes Tom to be further looked down upon by his owner. The book ends on semi-happy and semi-tragic note with some reunions and some sorrow (which I don’t want to reveal).

All in all, it’s a great book. I am compelled to give 5+ stars for it. At Rs. 100 – Rs 130 under different “classic editions”, this book comes dirt-cheap. It’s worth a lot more. And also, I would like to thank Venkat (aka Tak) for suggesting the book in the first place. The e-book is also available here.

Indian Summer Ads

2006-08-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

Over this summer, I had access to what we usually don’t, television. Being kept away from television, I hadn’t seen ads for a year. This post is a sequel to a post of mine about a year ago. This year, I was surprised that Pepsi and Coke did not come up with ads lashing out at each other as fervently as they did years before. Also, the quality of ads were not as good as they used to be. I can only name a handful of ads which are worth a mention.

Monster com’s ad about ‘being caught in the wrong job’, in my opinion, is the best ad of the summer. Unlike jobsahead’s rather pessimistic ad campaign of taking about its site when a batsman gets out, both naukri and monster have chosen an optimistic (a better) outlook. Naukri’s “Hari Sadu” ad (H for Hitler …) is a close match to the monsters. Over the years as well, these two companies have come up with good ads like “Aladdin: he is gonna be rich” among others. I think positive tone to the ads is very important in luring people to such sites.

HSBC’s ‘world local bank’ ad and the slogan ‘understanding your needs better’ is yet another example on how abstract advertising is a great idea. A simple issue like torn jeans being stylish for the daughter and a completely opposite view of the mother brings about the idea that the bank changes according to your need. Earlier this summer, HSBC floated another ad (animated) with months of years making up a car or a house. Though it would have made a great idea for a hoarding, it was ordinary on television.

Sania Mirza’s question-answer session turned out to be one of those ‘good-to-watch-ones-irritating-the-next-time’ ads. The worst in the bag of soft drink ads was Aamir Khan’s ‘thanda samosa’ ad. It is unlike soft drink manufacturers not to come up with good ads especially during summer.

Running up to the foot ball world cup, several ads were featured on football. Adidas ad on two young boys choosing their teams has a touch of brilliance. Also in the context is a well done ad by Maruti Swift, the one with the car playing around with the foot ball. There was one more ad by adidas or nike in which a foot ball is passed around in two lifts until a trophy is captured using the ball. That was choreographed extremely well.

Again, the ads by soaps, shampoos and detergents haven’t explored outside their domain. There are as boring as they can get. It can only take a genius to come up with ‘nihar mein hai kudrat ki sakhi’ for a coconut oil product. We will have to wait and watch before any other product comes up with ideas like that. Till my next vacations, no more television ads on this blog.

What's Your Status Today?

2006-07-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

My college, for some reason, calls monthly tests as 'quiz'. In our even semester, quizzes usually happen in second and third week of February around the time of St. Valentines Day, much to the disappointment of some students if i may add. My status on yahoo messenger (ym!) and Google talk was “Quiz is my valentine, ever heard of sleeping with the enemy?” As I had expected, it received much attention. Couple of my friends asked me a while later about my valentine, I had no hesitation in replying, “It didn't show me any love, but it did screw me.”

Of all the things a messenger client offers, the best one is the advent of status messages. I can arguably (and proudly) claim that I was the first in my college to start the culture of status massages. What started off as a true status like 'off to mess', 'off to classes', 'mugging' etc. transformed into an obsession. I have been constantly changing my status messages for over a a year now at least twice a week. And it has always reflected my state of mind. It's as much fun as blogging. I am a trend setter :D

For me, it all started with U2 (my fav. Band) being nominated for 3 Grammies for one song, Atomic Bomb's 'Vertigo'. My status message changed everyday. From 'U2 has an edge' (the guitarist is called 'Edge') to 'U2 are god, it is not hype, it was the feedback' (Their earlier names were 'hype' and 'feedback') to many others. And these 'efforts' did pay off, U2 won all the three Grammies it was nominated for.

What I love about status messages is that they make a good conversation initiators. There have been several occasion when I have commented on my friends status messages and they on mine, and conversation had moved on to something more mundane like bomb blasts and terrorism. Many of the status messages I see are good attempt at light humour, like, for a TV starved hostel student, 'home is where the television is' by Maro. There are others which mostly are like thought-for-the-day status messages or quotable quotes.

Touched by Descartes' “I think, therefore I am”, Venkat scribbled the same on his gtalk. Following which I changed my status to “You are not thinking, therefore i am.” Answering to Maro's 'yay weekend' on a rather eventless Friday evening, Mahesh announced 'won't last, the weekend'. During a Quiz week, the altruistic me presented 'All the best' as my status. But all my friends conveniently forgot to wish me back. Only when it was changed to 'All the best, i expect you guys top wish me back you know', I got some response. :x

Many status have a deep rooted funda. Like Venkat's 'gotta go see about a girl', from acclaimed movie good will hunting. What prompted to him to that seemingly unimportant line from movies is that Matt Damon refers to his girl friend in Stanford when the line was uttered. And he was moving off to Stanford this summer for his internship. Just days before end semester examination, Maro's 'no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun' (Pink Floyd, Time) brought out our real status on the exams' preparation. Timely status like 'its a beautiful day, don't let it get away' (U2) on a nice Saturday morning or 'Sunday, bloody Sunday'(U2 again) on a blistering Sunday in Chennai also reflects our jubilations and dejections. Reeling under the heat of Chennai, inspired by my favorite poem, the highwayman, my status was

Day is a torrent of inferno among the gusty trees

Sun is a treacherous galleon lurking in the hot summer breeze

I hope the ac man comes knocking, knocking, knocking...

There have also been those which talk about status themselves like, 'this is my status message', 'why should i put one', 'status quo' etc. Its not that we are oblivious to current affairs or gossip. During the pinnacle of reservation protests, me and babba howled

we don't need no reservation

we don't need no caste control

all in all Arjun Singh is just another prik in the wall

The day paparazzi announced the engagement of Nicole Kidman to Keith Urban, the heart broken me confessed, 'Nicole Kidman's engaged...no regrets, i can do better.' (should thank Baaju for cheering me up :P)

Lastly, I feel it would be great if this culture spread across the geeky world. That was make us a lot more cooler, don't you think? Also, thanks to the slogan generator i had this rather cool status, “Lipsmackin' Thirstquenchin' Acetastin' Motivatin' Goodbuzzin' Cooltalkin' Highwalkin' Fastlivin' Evergivin' Coolfizzin' Coolshankin”

God is Untouchable

2006-07-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

This my reaction to this piece of newsClick the pic for larger image
Previous cartoons (IITM centric): 2, 1

Ruskin Bond

2006-06-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Book: Collected Fiction
Author: Ruskin Bond
Rating: 4 stars
Price: Rs. 395
Publishers: Penguin

Couple of months back, I bought a book written by Ruskin Bond titled “Ruskin Bond: Collected Fiction”. Ruskin Bond, from what I know, is an author who is known to all the Indians but only occasionally do you find people who have read his works. Browsing thought the shelves in Odyssey, Adyar in Chennai, I happen to notice the thick book (900 pages). It has about 75 short stories and 5 novel/novellas. Having read a handful of stories, the book looked promising enough to give me a good time. Sure it did.

In one of my previous posts, this is what i had to say about the stories:
"Yesterday, I was going through some of the short stories of Ruskin Bond which are set on rural India. The mundane background which every Indian can connect to, in his stories, takes you into times and minds of the characters. His stories revolve around serendipitous encounters which leave a lasting impression...... The stories narrate about a chanced meeting with a stranger, finding something that fascinates him about the stranger, and in many cases the stranger is lost in the wilderness of the crowd. Anything could fascinate the narrator, from a coy smile of a little girl to benevolence of a thief."

One word that describes his language is 'simple'. One can effortlessly run through the pages without having to look into dictionary or pause to digest a paragraph. The hold in the language is quite apparent when you notice that stories take you into imaginations without much difficulty. One thing that he does the best is describe nature. Any reader will be baffled by his description which can boast of mind blowing personifications, metaphors and attention grasping words. Most of his stories lie around jungles, ravines, hillocks and many of gods creatures, big or small.

Many-a-times narrated in first person, the central theme of the stories is usually held by a young boy yet to be 10, or an adolescent. A child's simple pleasures like running along a stream, watching a sunset, observing a tree tremble against gusty winds are all magically brought back to life even as we live in this material world. I shouldn't deny the fact that all of his stories remind us to get back the excitement packed inner child in us and rediscover those simple pleasures. Some of his stories capture the youthful enthusiasm in adolescence, the desire to unravel the mysteries that lie behind the obvious. In an otherwise dull train journey, the main character, in some of his stories, decides to take a stroll outside the bound of the railway station of a forsaken village. The discovery of life and other means of livelihood brings as mush amusement to the readers as the character himself. When speaking of Ruskin Bond, ghost stories can't be left behind. The chilling stories are sure leave you stunned for quite a while. My favorite story in the entire collection happens to be a ghost story called, 'face in the dark.'

The collection also features two novellas called 'Room on the Roof' and, its sequel, 'Vagrants in the Valley'. Based on similar genre described above, this can be seen as several short stories put together. The plot starts with a young adolescent, Rusty, escape from the stifling atmosphere of his Anglo Indian guardian. Out of the cage, he meets some Indian friends when he start indulging in their lives, tastes his first Gol-Guppa among lot of other things. The story blossoms into Rusty inching towards forming his goals. 'Vagrants in the Valley' picks off right where 'Room on the Roof' left off. Along with his friend Kishan, Rusty travels in the pains of the north India leaving a lasting impression on the reader's minds.

I personally did not like the other three novellas written by him named Delhi is not Far, Sensualist and A Flight of Pigeons. They were based on completely different genres. A flight of pigeons narrates a story of young English girl during 1857 mutiny. In Delhi is not Far, narrator describes his relationship with a streetwise and a prostitute. Sensualist talks of an old man's exploits of all kinds.

Short Stories that should be eagerly looked forwarded to be read are: the eyes have it, Sita and the river, time stops at Shamli, the haunted bicycle, escape from Java and many others. The final verdict: this book would make a great birthday gift to 12-15 year olds.

Trek to Tada

2006-06-16T01:21:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year seven of us had been to trekking to a waterfall near the town of Tada in Andra Pradesh. Quite easily, we had the best time of our lives that day. What began as enthusiastic bunch of students looking for a good way to kill a Sunday, ended on a high note with memories that would last forever. We started from our hostels at 4:30 AM by a taxi to CMBT and then to Tada by a bus bound to Nellore. Tada is about 75 KM from Chennai; roughly 2 hours journey. In the town of Tada, we hired a rickety auto for Rs 400 to drop us to the base and pick us back later in the evening.

Amidst all the anticipations from the trek, we saw a temple (under construction) with a quaint architecture. It belonged to Kalki Bhagwan. We couldn't resist making out first stop to take some pics. Couple of snaps later, we got started again and headed towards the base of the hills.

On our way, I happened to notice an auto carrying rural folk towards the town of Tada. It was a sight begging to be photographed, but I couldn't take the camera out in time. On the back of the auto were four middle aged women dressed in Saree. Each one of them wore a Saree of a different colour. The bright red vermilion power on the forehead, the gleaming bangles, the shiny necklace, the sitting posture and the colour contrast in their dresses gave me a glimpse of a conservative India whose sight is not common in urban India. This aesthetically rich view is perhaps the expectation from any tourist coming to our country. Inside the auto, were men folk who were carrying, from what i can guess, agricultural implements, mud pots etc. A crude turban on their head, traditional dhotis accompanying plain shirts are again instances of finding orthodox scenic beauty. The place was set against vast fields and clear blue sky. The pleasing picture lasted only a glance as our autos went fast past each other.

We made our last stop before the base to appreciate the picturesque view of the hills we were about to conquer [:-p] . The view of hut below stands out, in my opinion, among all the photographs I took. The lone tree also made a good photograph.

As we set out for our trek, the place was simmering under the hot sun, as were our expectations. We walked for quite some distance until we reached a stream which became our first resting point. The cool water of the stream so sweet to taste that out aquafina water was proved to be “no-match” to it. The water was very gentle, not turbulent, providing a wonderful 'time-out'. Crossing the stream we reached a Shiva temple. The temple, covered with dry leaves, bared an antiquated look which stood against a sylvan background. We inquired with the priest if there is a 'sangam' of two rivers for the Shiva Temple to exist, his answer was 'no'.

Marching through muddy trails left by hundred others who had been to the 'summit', we reached a stream studded with several hundred boulders of different sizes. Owing to the time of the year, the stream did not carry much water. From tiny pebbles to massive boulders, each one seemed unmoved for a long time. This was of course down-stream.

Climbing higher and higher, the terrain did become steeper, waters more turbulent and hurdles more difficult to cross. Eventually, we reached the top and arrived at the first falls. Thought not exactly breath taking, we were humbled by the sheer size of the boulder and the diversity that nature had to offer.
Climbing higher, we reached a small place where the water was prudent. We had lunch and then got to the site which was out intended 'summit'. The giant wall like hills beside us forming a 'v' shaped valley and a narrow but deep body of water against us led to the second falls. A striking contrast to the temperature outside and the that of cold water was unexpected. The water inviting us to swim was hard to say 'no' to. If there is ever a reason to learn swimming, then it is to swim to falls and feel the water pounding on you back and chest. Camera couldn't have been taken closer to the falls.

This was not the last. We decided to climb higher upon learning that there is a bigger falls up ahead. Assisted by some signs (man-made) and some creepers hitched to trees beside steps-like-arranged stones, we made it to the most absorbing scenery of all.

We then decided to head back to the base. On the way back, I got to capture these mesmerizing photographs of water showers from top of the hills. The calm waters made a slow and continuous sound draining itself into the river below. We were right under the cold natural showers.

The way back was more arduous then we thought it would be. Tracing the way back proved more and more difficult with every step forward. The base camp did not seem that far the same day morning. Sweating profusely all through, we made it back after over 12 km of walking up and down. To make matters worse, we had stand in the bus from Tada to Chennai for over 90 minutes. It took us two days to recover from the trek.
Check this for more pics.
Trekkers: Bharath(Nama), Manohar(Muggu), Maruti (Maro), Ravi (Cavi), Ravish(Bulby), Shyam(Peter) and Yours Truly....
Also check this for a post on our trip to Hogenakkal

But, Not So Seriously...

2006-06-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some 'not-so-serious' questions which i have pondered over and haven't found answers to in quite a while. If you do know the answers, lemme know.

Where are the pretty girls in trains or buses in which i travel? I never find them. I have traveled, like a million times, between Chennai and Bangalore, never have i seen a pretty girl in my coach. How the hell do they travel? The reservation list is devoid of anyone between 18 and 25. Damn my luck! Do they always enjoy the luxuries of first class, airplane or something? It could be true, they seem to find all comforts way too easily. They jump queues, get away with parking tickets, shed some tears and 'earn' a free ice cream and what not. As George Costanza puts it: Pretty women; they get everything.

What's with the ISO9001 certificates? All it says is, “document everything you do, you will in our privileged list.” If you have knowledge about an impending disaster or of all the things that can go wrong, write it, announce it and have your fifteen seconds of fame receiving the certificate. Everybody seems to have those certificates anyway. If am not wrong, there will be a day when matrimonial sites' profile claims, “my life is ISO9001 certified, my whole lifestyle is documented here. Interested?”

Why do drivers honk when the signal is red? Or when the LED display shows 10 seconds for the light to turn green? Which school do those people come from? I can read people, i know when to stop and when to move. Is it because of what Jerry Seinfeld claims? Men try to impress women. They call out for them. This man is running out of ideas. Look what he is doing to get attention!

When will the older generation realize that weekends are meant to have fun and not to rest? They tell me on Wednesdays after a tiring day, “you don't stay at home on Sundays, that's why you tired now.” Why do I need to remind my parents every time that I have 'plans'? Just like any average, conservative, god-fearing south Indian family, my enormously inquisitive family wants me to be a 'nice' guy. What's the point? It is the bad ones who get to have all the fun.

Why are the big names in bollywood movies always Malhotras, Saxenas, Sharmas, Mishras or Guptas? Its high time we have reservations for the other 'lower' names that are being under-represented. No wonder south Indian names don't sound so cool! Give us a Sastry as a successful lawyer, and we will show that we can be the handsome hunks of the country. Why can't a Murthy be a protagonist who is the apple of everyone's eyes? More on that here (funniest blog post ever).

What is a conductor (or maestro) doing in a opera performance? What signals can he possibly send to the ones who are actually playing an instrument. To me it looks as if he is struggling to cover himself with a blanket when he lies down to sleep.

Why are all the shampoos and detergent 'new and improved'? When were we using the 'old and ineffective'?

Why is a couple congratulated when the wife is pregnant? I totally understand the gesture when the baby is born, it does take some effort, but not anytime before. Come on, it not like it can't happen by accident. And it doesn't take big efforts either. Believe me when I say it's been done to death. **

How come some of us don't understand that the 'proposals' they are talking about are actually 'pick up lines' and that dating doesn't mean falling in love? In one of the threads on Orkut dating community: How did you propose the first time? Huh? First time? Dude, there aren't many Ross Gellers in this planet you know. Orkut dating communities are treat for anyone with a great appetite for laughter.

When will Americans get rid of the notion that anti-war is anti-American and absorb the notion that George Bush is an Idiot? Perhaps George Bush himself can figure them out! Both of them. He can't be that dumb.....or can he?

Why does Bangalore times try to spread an unrealistic culture? One of the issues spelled out, “youngsters today spend about Rs. 250 everyday on eat-out and joints like cafe coffee day.” Whoa!!!!! Not everyone is a biological offspring of a Malhotra or a Saxena. There are still those people who never find the need to fill the secret pockets in their trousers, let alone finding one of their drinks or their service appalling.

Talking about what I find, appalling, it is the grotesque paintings of Picasso. How do people find it appealing instead? Deemed ineducable, he must have spent his entire life time in solitary confinement. He absolutely had no idea what a human being looked like. The only reason the paintings remotely resembled a human being is because they walked on two legs and had exactly two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears, but brutally out of proportion.

Why does everyone call me coolshankin? It is not just with one friend circle but everyone. I know that the ID is pretty lame, but it is just my email address (at least before i started blogging). When people can't get around teasing me, they just call me 'coolshankin' and smile. Helpless, I smile back. In my defense, it sounded “cool” way back in eight standard when i made my yahoo id.

Lastly, of many who read this post, why is it that only a few leave a comment? Every post I write, I manage to send offliners in yahoo and send messages over gtalk and spam the orkut account announcing the “publication” and asking for comments, yet only a handful leave a comment. My site meter shows over 30 visits, but only 5-6 comments.

If you have any questions nagging you or answers to some questions above, do comment. This post is no way intended to offend Picasso, his fans, Seinfeld or any other great artist in the same way as Sony did not intend to offend Christians with the release of The Da Vinci Code and as Aamir Khan did not intend to bring down the name of Gujarat with his noble request to help people which BJP has a problem with. Everything must be taken in jest. That raises a couple of more 'not-so -serious' questions, doesn't it?

** "done to death" was Elaine's reaction on having babies....as an afterthought, that paragraph was rather unnecessary

The Da Vinci Code (Movie) - A Review

2006-05-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

[Assumes that reader has read the book]

Rating: 3.5 stars

Let me begin by saying, the movie simply doesn't come close to the book, a good movie nevertheless. And that the two of the most amusing parts of the movie are the disclaimers shown at the beginning and the end.

Jokes apart, This was the movie which boasted of double Oscar winner Tom Hanks as a cast member and double Oscar winner Ron Howard as Director. Tom Hanks doesn't fit into the role of a learned professor, esp. with the long hair. Clearly, the role belonged to Harrison Ford, George Clooney, or Nicholas Cage. The movie follows the outline of the the book quite closely with certain details missed. For those Indian audience who haven't read the book, the French accent might put a considerable strain on the ears to grasp the dialogues. The movie, being set in the dark, might make you uneasy at times.

The book explores the past of Sophie for quite a few pages. The fact that Sophie was one who should have been cracking anagrams, given her experience in the past, and Langdon had to play a significant role only later formed the solid reason for Langdon to stick to Sophie in her trail. The movie hardly uncovers the past of Sophie which i thought was pretty important. Description of Architecture is unmatched in the book which no movie can ever come close to. The movie has omitted the first cryptex which opens with *****. In my opinion, the this could have easily been included in the movie without consuming much time. The details of pagan rituals and practices have also been overlooked. Perhaps, a three hour movie instead of a two and a half hour one would have sufficed for a reasonably comprehensive coverage of the book. The topic on golden ratio wasn't even brought up in the conversation. The book , at least for me, aroused interest in knowing history. To quite an extent, it made Langdon look 'cool' with all the knowledge he had and with his interpretation of symbols. The movie fails to do so (but that's not what a movie is for anyway).

Silas' role was portrayed to perfection. The zeal in him was well displayed by Paul Bettany. Some of the scenes involving him bring you to the edge of the seats. The movie is fast paced, Just right to keep the attention of the viewers for 150 minutes. Thought the movie doesn't give enough time to comprehend the difficulty of the clues and the lateral thinking involved in solving it, it does provide a good weekend entertainment value. Teibing's assertion about Jesus Christ's life is also worth a mention. Thankfully, the movies doesn't get into the romance between Sophie and Langdon. It has also carefully avoided the Hindi movie ending of the book and made it a lot less sentimental.

Bottom line: It is worth a movie ticket. It is watchable only once (if one has read the book or not).

Do comment if you have anything else to say.

Reservation Issue

2006-05-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Over past two weeks, protests against reservation being given to OBCs has intensified drastically. In my earlier post (on reservation), i wasn't too 'keen' on talking about politics involved in the whole issue. This post will reflect the hypocrisy of MPs in our country. To begin with, out politicians claim that the reservation is being 'awarded' to OBCs for their upliftment. They believe that OBCs are under-represented in higher educational institutes in our country. They have absolutely no statistics to prove that though. Why is it that MPs are against reservation in parliament? Quite clearly, OBCs are underrepresented there too. I was wondering why this point was raised during any debate for over a week now. I was happy to find one banner echoing this point couple of day earlier in TOI. The arguments in favour of reservation hold good even in this case. It goes without saying that when MPs themselves are at the receiving end, no arguments, however strong, fall on deaf ears. They are the same MPs who vehemently opposed women's reservation in parliament. It has not even been allowed to be tabled in parliament till now. Before even a speech is made, politicians walk out of the house with all the rage in the world. Condition of women, no doubt, is worse then SC/STs or OBCs. Why aren't the concerned politicians ignorant in tackling that issue before?
[This does not mean i support reservation for OBCs or women in parliament.]

One of the ridiculous argument made in favour of the reservation is that our education system fails to identify the real merit, so anti-reservation activists' claim of merit being diluted in a fallacy. The simple answer is to change the education system. Reservation will do no good. One of the bloggers goes on to belittle IITians saying

“Our exams often generate and encourage stupidity and push forward the least talented of the lot. I am not an IIT student, and will not pretend to know much about the CAT since I didn’t crack it, but it is rather interesting that almost none of our wonderful IIT-ians (for whom such pitted battled are being fought) have made any earth-shattering discoveries or inventions. “

It cant be helped when one chooses to remain oblivious to science and technology development in the words. For the starters, the founder of Sun Microsystems was an IITian, Vinod Khosla, which developed java. Many of the students have research publications before they complete engineering. To really make a progress in Science and Technology, we need money. Indian government is apathetic towards research, so most of the IITians turn to USA for research. Indian (not just IITian) contribution to science and engineering has been very significant. The fact that Indian research institute aren't doing well can be attributed to poverty and not the lack of brains. With reservation around, more brains are being denied the much deserved opportunity.

Both Kamal Nath and Arjun Singh are clueless as to the “plight” of OBCs in the country. In the interview with Karan Thapar, their immature rhetoric in dealing with questions fired at them makes me angry with the government for their choice of such irresponsible ministers. A year ago, i was so proud to be in country where both prime minister and president have a PhD to their name, but the government as single body gets the whole country down. NSSO's figures indicate that OBCs are getting their share of the cake. Why, then, is the whole issue of reservation bring brought up? Our Prime Minister hasn't even taken a stand on reservation yet. It is not the so called dignified silence, but silence of defenseless politician.

Reservation will also affect the OBCs themselves in a negative way. Students will be discriminated against. Complacency will creep in. To give you an example, when attendance is not taken in a class, be in 5 point someone or 9 point someone, many students bunk. It a natural tendency to do so. When a student knows that, by caste, he will be admitted to a premier institution, his preparation will fall short. The year I got through JEE, the 9^th ranker in reserved category was 1900^th rank in general category. Even after sixty years, if the gap has not been bridged, reservation is not the way to go.

Some protesters ask, “what more do upper caste want? They have 50.5% seats for 15% population?” No, those 50.5% seats are not reserved for us. Its up for grabs for every one including SC/STs and OBCs. In 2003 , rank 1(SC/ST) (less than 10 in GE) in JEE chose a seat in General Merit. He was hailed. I don't see why? All he did was snatch deserving candidates' seats. It's not just one seat. If he had chosen Branch A, one person would have had to settle for branch B, some other person for branch C and so on.

The government is simply not addressing the issue of extending primary education to all. (which is a fundamental right btw). Even reservation in private sector is on the cards. If reservation is required at every stage, a question begs to be asked, “if reservation is needed at every stage, doesn't that mean they are just not good enough?”

Songs from the Past

2006-05-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

I consider myself very fortunate to be at a place where music flows unlimited on the LAN. Sometimes the best part of the day is when I get back to my room and listen to endless music. Over last fifty years, several legends have left a lasting impression with their music. I have often asked myself, “Which is my favorite song”. Answer to that has not been just one song. When others ask me this, I usually reply, “with or without you”, by U2. The fact is that a whole lot of songs spring in my head when I think of great songs or best songs ever written.

In the movie Ray, a biography of Ray Charles, he talks of country music as best form of music because of the stories they tell. True indeed! The ballads they churn out are mesmerizing to say the least. The song “The Gambler”, by Kenny Rogers, is easily one of my favorite country ballads. This song brings out the advice from a gambler.

You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.

What’s intriguing about the song is that the advice is given by a relatively disrespected character in the society and yet it makes all the sense in the world.

Yet another country ballad I love listening to is “Traveling Soldier”, by Dixie Chicks. It’s a simple song about a soldier who befriends a girl so that he could write letters from Vietnam. The need for a friend when you are lonely is powerfully delivered. “You are my best friend”, by Don Williams, reminds you what friendship really is with some timeless metaphors.

You're my bread when I'm hungry you're my shelter from troubled winds
you’re my anchor in life's ocean but most of all you're my best friend

Turning over to rock music, the song that I find to take me to a different world altogether is “Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan. Wiki tells me

There are many theories about the meaning of the song. One interpretation is that the song allusively recounts Dylan's early experiences with LSD, and this is supported by the prominent use of the word "trip" in the first line of the second verse.

Every time I listen to this song, I am in a completely different world. Knowing me, I am pretty sure I will never try LSD. I am guessing this song will be the best vicarious experience of LSD I will ever have. I particularly adore this stanza from the song

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

When speaking of rock, the psychedelic Pink Floyd can’t be left behind. Among so many gems they have produced, the best one, in my opinion, is “learning to fly”. This song best describes how it feels like to fly:

There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation, A state of bliss

“Free to decide” by Cranberries is one of my all time favourite songs. There are two groups of which I like every song that I have heard, Cranberries is one of them. The other is U2. Coincidentally both the groups are Irish. The rebellious “Sunday, bloody Sunday” By U2 is the song that moves by senses. This anti-war song is a fitting tribute to the victims of Bloody Sunday in Ireland on 30^th Jan., 1972. **14 people were killed (including 6 minors) and 13 others wounded by British paratroopers after a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in the Bogside area of the city of Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Many witnesses, including bystanders and journalists, claim that those shot at were all unarmed.

**quoted from wiki

“Tears in heaven” by Eric Clapton was written by Eric Clapton and dedicated to his son, Conor Clapton, who died a 4 year old by falling off from the 54^th floor. Ever since I got to know this, the song has always given me the blues. Beautifully written song…..

The romantic song “Top of the world”, by Carpenters scores high on my best pop music ratings. The song is made all the more romantic because of the infatuating voice of Karen Carpenter. I cannot find a word better to describe her sweet voice. It’s a real pity that the world lost Karen to Anorexia Nervosa when she was in her 30s.

One of my favorite bands, Bee gees’ “stayin’ alive” is a disco classic. I don’t find anything great in the lyrics though. It just speaks about ‘staying alive’ in the busy, turbulent world that we have created. What I love about the song is its pulsating tune that can get you on your toes anytime. “The winner takes it all” by Abba is a poignant song on break-up. Arguably, it is one of their best works.

“Bridge over troubled water” by Simon and Garfunkel is another song interpreted as a song on pleasures of using drug. The silver girl in the song, some believe, refers to the needle used to inject drugs. Others believe the song is about friendship and how friends lay themselves down like a bridge over troubled water. Paul Simon clarified about the silver girl in the song saying, "My girlfriend at the time was particularly saddened upon finding a few grey hairs in her brush, lamenting that she was getting older. I wrote that lyric as a tribute and inside joke to her. I don't know how the heroin connection rumor got started. The song is basically about friendship." It’s ironical that this song on friendship led to their break-up owing to disagreement on who should sing the song.

“Radio ga ga” by Queen is a song on the advent of television and its role in bringing the radio down. Other songs in my all time favorite list includes “stairway to heaven” by Led Zep, “Piano Man” by Billy Joel, “Solitary Man” by Neil Diamond, “Riders on the storm” by Doors, “Sweet Surrender” by Bread, “Thick as a Brick” by Jethro Tull, "Reelin' in the years" by Steely Dan and many more.

If anyone hasn’t heard any of the songs above, he is missing out on lot of entertainment. Please do comment on your favorite songs and who do you think has the best voice. Among male artists, in my opinion, Freddie Mercury takes a clear pole position and infatuating voice of Karen Carpenter among the female artists. My favorite bands are U2 and Bee Gees. Lemme know yours.

Reservation: Its no morality

2006-04-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

A week back, I was a part of team which conducted an event called “how things work” in our departmental techfest, Mechanica, in IIT Madras. Being a relatively small techfest, the participation was not too high from outside institutions. With over 70% of participating teams from the home college, it came a little surprise the most of the teams selected to appear in the finals were from IIT Madras. Just then, some of us were wondering if we should reserves two out of eight places in the finals for the teams from other colleges. I opposed this stating that any form of reservation deserves to be scrapped. The suggestion was immediately taken back and we had eight best teams participating in the finals.

The current attention of the media is focused on the reservation of seats to OBCs in IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and many other respected educational institutions in the country. Clearly, this is a political gimmick to gather more votes for the upcoming legislative assembly elections in several states. I am not too keen on talking about politics right now; this post will mostly spell out the frail logic of reservation being followed in

India

All of us know that reservation to SC and ST was given right after its Independence. It is also a known that BR Ambedkar himself suggested that the reservation be withdrawn after about ten-fifteen years. The introduction of reservation was to kick start the development of the socially oppressed. The intention was perfect. The execution may not have been very pleasing, but should have seen a partial success. A significant number of families must have been able on stand on their feet back then.

Today, it’s a different story. If one is found to have been given admission because of the reservation, his value comes down to zero. It is a fact the creamy layer reaps all the benefits from the system. The deserving ones are, more often than not, left behind.

The year I got through JEE, the 9^th ranker in reserved category was 1900^th rank in general category. That was when I felt that reservation was “justice denied” to hundreds of deserving candidates. In my opinion, a person by virtue of coaching classes alone and no work input, can get close to 6000th to 10000th rank in JEE. If the student happens to belong to SC/ST category, he will be admitted with open arms to IITs (having got within top 50 ranks). This is unfair. Close to 4000 student would have worked hard to get into IITs of which 1500 would have been turned down because of lack of seats. To find their own peers who have hardly put any effort to get into the institute, because of reservations, is outrageous.

It is also seen that most unsuccessful students (academically) in IIT Madras are those who have come thought reservation. It is common to find that they have been failing a lot of courses. There are exceptions though, but only a handful.

Couple of years back, there was debate regarding reservation in private sectors in Maharastra, I recall having seen ‘the big fight’ (NDTV), where supporter of reservation argued that reservation doesn’t mean a compromise in quality of professionals and that SC/ST students are not a compromise on merit. Let’s get this straight. Seats are reserved for primary education, acceptable; seats are reserved for secondary (high school) education, again acceptable; reservation in plus two, doesn’t decide the future in a big way, acceptable. At an under graduate level, reservation is certainly not acceptable. If they are not a compromise on merit, why are they demanding reservation even in private sectors? They have sufficient reservation in government jobs, and number of their posts in govt. sectors is largely unfilled.

Any form of reservation is a compromise on merit. When it was done sixty years earlier, it was done with a purpose. With the purpose defeated, it’s all downhill from where I see it. Now, I think, it is time for SC/ST to come out and say, “We are good, we don’t need any reservation, don’t spoon-feed us.” What do you think? Seriously, look beyond cast, creed, religion, regionalism or wardrobe malfunction….there are number of other things which demand immediate attention.

Strangers...they are indeed strange

2006-03-05T02:01:00.000-08:00

When a stranger approaches you, how would you react? With doubt or with trust? It was the new year’s day, 2006, about twenty minutes past midnight. I was at my cousins place when we decided celebrate with a visit to café coffee day. Bangalore too was quite dismal when the clock stroked twelve on 31^st December with only a handful of shops open during the hour. But, the cheerful crowds on the streets kept our spirits high. As I was driving on the infamous Bannerughatta Road (for being the worst road in the country on NDTV polls), I had roll down the windows to shake hands with the enthusiastic crowd having a great time on the streets. It was then that my cousin warned me not to roll down the shutters. He reasoned that chain-snatchers and pick-pockets are active during the festive time. I argued that most of people are out here to have some fun. “Why not join them?” Some three to four minutes into the conversation I pointed out that anyone’s reaction to a stranger is simply trust or suspension. If it’s former, both are likely to benefit, while if it’s later, any mutual benefit is highly unlikely.

I then narrated this incident which happened to me in Coimbatore a month earlier. From young age most of us ‘taught’ that by definition, from our ‘learnt’ elders, that auto and taxi drivers are here to extract all your money. Being in Chennai most of the time, I wasn’t new to bargaining with auto drivers who are notorious for charging to the extent of 200% of the actual fare. We (my friend and I) decided to take a taxi to reach Amrita University, which is some 25 km from the city railway station. Before we could place the luggage in the trunk, the driver, a very old man, changed from neutral to first gear without using the clutch. I smiled to myself sensing a rough ride. The drive turned out a lot finer than I anticipated. Through the bumpy roads, the driver was slow enough to get us there in one piece.

On the way, I asked him about some nearby tourist destinations (which I, sadly, couldn’t visit). It was clear in an instant that the driver just loved speaking. I did not know Tamil, so my friend had to translate the parts that I couldn’t understand. On the way we stopped at a petrol bunk, where I paid 100 rupees for the diesel. He told us about a waterfall and a dam near the university on Kerala – Tamil Nadu border which was five kilometers away. Coimbatore, I found out, was right next to the Western Ghats. As we drove nearer to the destination, the serene atmosphere, nostalgically reminded me of Kudremukh (some pics here) which was in the heart of Western Ghats. The picturesque view of the hills around resembled closely to those in Kudremukh. I distinctly remember a hill that stood like a conical pyramid. The blend of the fresh green grass and the dry yellow grass added to its appeal. Just as I was beginning to get a sense of the place around, the taxi had to stop for railway crossing for about half an hour. It was then that I got the glimpse of the clouds engulfing the hill tops as I was getting out of the taxi. The view was indeed breath-taking. Away from the heat of Chennai, the place was pleasing to anyone. The tracks on the foothills, hill themselves very imposing and cloud on the hill tops looked straight out of a painting.

The two trains came and went. After this, we completed the formality of signing registers etc. to stay for couple of days in the university. The taxi bill came to Rs 250 which I promptly paid. It came to me as a surprise when the driver returned Rs 100 back reminding me of the payment in the petrol bunk. All I could think was why are people so presumptuous when comes to judging the taxi (or auto) drivers on their honesty. By nature, I trust people; this gesture gave me all the more reasons to do so.

Unimpressed by the incident, my cousin continued to defend his side while I did the same on my side.

Yesterday, I was going through some of the short stories of Ruskin Bond which are set on rural India. The mundane background which every Indian can connect to, in his stories, takes you into times and minds of the characters. His stories revolve around serendipitous encounters which leave a lasting impression. The taxi driver and his honesty will be cherished for a long time. The stories narrate about a chanced meeting with a stranger, finding something that fascinates him about the stranger, and in many cases the stranger is lost in the wilderness of the crowd. Anything could fascinate the narrator, from a coy smile of a little girl to benevolence of a thief. Reading the fiction, I sensed a déjà vu. I was reminded this little encounter in Bangalore about four to five years back.

It was the beginning of my 11^th standard, fresh out of 10^th standard board examination, and also fresh into preparation for IIT-JEE. A ninety minute eventless ‘journey’ was part of my daily routine to travel from my coaching institute in South Bangalore to my uncle’s place in the North. Leaning against the window, if I was lucky enough to get a window seat, staring into the city of blinding lights (forgive me, I’m a big U2 fan) and watching the bus conductor battle through the impatient crowd was the only adventure I could be a part of.

There was this small stretch of about 2 km, which I usually had to travel by ‘local’ auto for just three bucks. It was about ten in the evening and I was running a little late. Mechanically, I got down from the bus and headed to the ‘local’ auto stand. In a bid to save the precious one buck, I was inquiring the auto driver about the fare.

Just then, I heard a voice coming from inside the auto, “forget about three rupees or four rupees, come inside, I will pay.” Confounded, I said, “huh?”
“get into the auto…”, he sounded very friendly
“but three….”
Before I could complete, he said, “I told you I will pay.”

Seeing no danger, with couple of more people in the auto, and a busy street, I got in. The twenty something man sounded very excited and in high sprits. On the way I learnt that he was doing research on Tuberculosis in a research lab nearby. I have absolutely no idea what makes anyone so upbeat. He was more cheerful than I can ever be. He asked me my name, still confused, I replied, “Shankar”. “Ok Shankar, I’m _____(I don’t remember). So, what are you doing here?” I gave a brief intro. His excitement overpowered the noisy auto probably running on kerosene. I told him my stop will arrive in couple of minutes and have to get off. He said, “Ah…its ok just gimme your phone no. I will call you sometime.” He hurriedly took out a dairy and wrote my number down. He looked like a professional.

Then, the auto stopped at the petrol bunk where I was supposed to get off. I was paying three bucks as the stranger ‘more than just’ insisted the he will pay the driver. I couldn’t utter a word clearly. The auto driver asked me (in Kannada), “aur kodtara?” (Is he paying). I said, “yaako gothilla” (I don’t know why). He shouted from inside, “get home safely, I will take care.” Others in the auto were smiling, I will never know if they were smiling at me or at him. I said, “Fine” and crossed the street towards my uncle’s place. Blissful that I saved three bucks, began wondering who that person was……and I am still wondering…

Blowing Candles for the first time

2006-02-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

The day is here……my blog’s first birthday. The daily chime. Technically this should have been my 366^th post, lapse of enthusiasm, lethargy and lack of creativity has reduces that number to 30 or so. But….I have survived for a year. Considering most of my friends who have given up on blogging or have 5-6 posts for the whole year, I am standing tall among the ruins. Click on the links below to go to my favorite posts.

Feb. 22 happens to be birthday of Scouting movement founder, Baden Powell. I was in scouting movement for a good 5 years. That doesn’t include stint as a cub in my 4^th and 5^th standard. I did have excellent time as a scout in my school. Long live scouting. “Be Prepared” scouts.

My favorite post in the blog is “Prized Possessions”. Unfortunately, it has not seen any comments yet. The post began as an attempt to write for saarang’s production coordinatorship but ended up something totally different. Following closely behind is “My Mondays to Fridays” I was happy that Ashwin aka Baswi aka bus found it as best of all my posts. My first three posts, “The sound of music”, “Assimilative Indian culture” and “Game theory...what have we got to do with it?” are among my favorites too. As a newbie in blogging, I guess I was budding with ideas. On a serious note, “Resposibilities..forgotten” was a post on plight of victims of govt. misadministration.

The most publicized posts of mine have been “Message From dean Students” and “Why did saarang have a bitter end?” Ended up spamming a lot of people to make sure the “message” reaches everyone.

Last year,

Things that have improved,
Not a teenager anymore…..a lot more mature ;-)…still gonna be 18 till I die!!!
Photography skills…scroll down the blog to check it out
Avg. no of movies watched in a month
Collection of music and more entries into “must watch” movies list.

Things that have been the same,
Readership of the blog……1 all along, that’s myself.
No. of girlfriends and Cgpa…..these two go together…acads and babes have the same T9, check it out
Still as big a fan of U2 and Bee Gees.

Thing that have declined,
Attendance in the class
Avg. no of sleeping hours
Time spend doing anything productive
Respect for Saarang newsletter....reduced it to page 3.

I hope to post more frequently in my blog this year around. It wasn’t my New Year resolution, may well be the birthday resolution. Thank you all.

Why did saarang have a bitter end?

2006-02-05T05:28:00.000-08:00

Read this post before the comic strip. I know this comes a week too late, but wanted to put it up. I admit that this is not as good as the previous one, do comment anyway. This is what must have happened about 50 years ago.....to make things clear, calvin is the person who pulled the plug the other day (at the led zep concert).

Bitter End to Saarang

2006-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

All’s well that ends well. What if it doesn’t end well? Doesn’t it leave a bitter taste for a long time? Well, that’s how the cultural festival of IIT Madras ended, on a bitter note. Earlier, I had posted a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon on the dean pulling the plug on saarang. Little did we know that someone would pull the plug while scaling the last few steps of stairway to heaven. Talk about Murphy’s Law…..
City of Chennai has a ban on live performances after 11 pm. With good reasons, exception of about 30 mins could have been made on Saarang’s last day. One of them being, its distance from the main city, the other being, a tribute band coming all the way from California to play here. For those who don’t yet know, when only a couple song were left to be performed, the band, Led Zepillica (A led zep tribute band) was driven out of the stage, right in the middle of a song. Not just any song, but the song, “stairway to heaven”. What most of us are upset about is the fact that a foreign band was treated that way.
It’s not just shame on IITM but also on India’s name for the disrespect we’ve shown to the artists. I will not be surprised if any other Indian band expresses reluctance to perform in the college or a foreign band to perform in India. With such stringent rules, who would want to perform in the country? With such disregard to the art, we will make more enemies than friends. No matter what state of mind one is in, it simply doesn’t justify the lack of hospitality towards the biggest guests of the evening. How can anyone forget their etiquettes when over five thousand people are looking forward to have a wonderful evening that will conclude saarang on a high note?
It was the also timing of the incident which raged the audience. Speakers and lights went down right when final part of the arguably best song ever written, ‘Stairway to heaven’ was approaching. The person responsible, I am sure, is clueless about how popular the song is and that almost half the fans would have been waiting for this particular song for over a month. Someone must ask him to give the song the respect it deserves and the artists the admiration they deserve. Isn’t it a little too obvious that any performer would save the best for last? ‘Stairway…’, ‘Kashmir’ and ‘Whole lotta love’ being the last three songs that were suppose to have been performed will not come as a surprise to any rock music fan. Keeping all of these in mind, I really don’t see a reason why such a distasteful act was needed.
We all have to be a lot more open minded than what we are. It’s not just about rock show. When it was suggested that a Hindustani musician would perform during saarang, it was outright rejected because this was the heart of carnatic music. Why can’t our people be more open minded in accepting other forms of music as well? What we have now done is showcased our narrow mindedness to the rest of the world.
Now that all the damage is done I would like to apologize to ‘Led Zepplica’ for the way we have presented ourselves and hope that they leave India with lot more pleasant memories.

Green green grass of Kudremukh

2006-01-06T03:30:00.000-08:00

A month back, I visited the place where I did my twelve years of schooling, a place i stayed for my first sixteen years of my life. Here are some of the pics I took. Western Ghat are one of 18 hot-spots of bio-diversity in the world (UNO recognised). Kudremukh is in the heart of western ghats. Eastern Himalayas is the only other hot-spot in India. The iron ore mines in Kudremukh has been ordered to shut down ro prevent any further destruction to the eco-system. It should be seen as a major step in India's effort to environmental conservation. Here is the glimpse of the forest that surrounds Kudremukh.

Hanumangundi Falls.....

Inside the Bhagwathi Forests....

Amidst the trees.....

Picturesque, isn't it?

Bangalore to Bengaluru

2005-12-14T03:33:00.000-08:00

Bangalore will be renamed Bengaluru in about a year. The usual stuff of “what’s in a name?” is running around the news channels these days. TOI reported that move will help English accept the words ending with a vowel in its dictionary. The local historians claim that this move is for the sentiments of local people. Yet another reason is that the officials couldn’t find any other way to celebrate the anniversary. Instead of the concentrating on core issues surrounding Bangalore, they sought a superficial one. No one promised that International Airport will be completed, no one promised that roads will be improved, no one promised that Bangalore Mysore express way will be completed. When there are million other things to look forward to, we (its actually, ‘they’) chose to look behind to please people.
Bangalore has always been Bengaluru to local-ites. When I speak in Kannada, I always say ‘Bengaluru’. Every one says “namma Bengaluru huduga’ (our Bangalore boy), when Rahul Dravid scores a century or Kumble or Srinath take five wicket hauls. It the same with Mysore (every one calls it maisuru) and Manglore (Mangaluru). The claim of the name being changed to protect regional, cultural or linguistic integrity is baseless or should I call it hilarious.
Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkata, Madras to Chennai is OK in the sense that the number of syllables doesn’t change. But when you are adding extra syllable to make it Bengaluru, it gets painful. Let me not get started on Thiruvananthapuram. This is perhaps the longest proper noun I have written in this blog. We all have nicks in our colleges just to get rid of the extra syllables. It’s like carrying a few extra pounds.
Why don’t they just go back further in the history and call Bangalore, Bendhakaluru. That was indeed what it was called years and years ago.
It is still Bombay high court, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras. Changing names is a hassle, which not every one wants to go through.
In my first year in college, we had to be volunteers for NSS. In the intro speech, the head talked about our country being India in some places and Bharat in others. We, as NSS members, are responsible to make Bharat India. I really did not like the metaphor of comparing the under-developed India to Bharat. Just because it’s not English doesn’t mean the word should represent something that lacks richness. Change or no change in name, Bangalore is going to be the same. The Kannada name, Bengaluru, will neither make it inferior nor will it make the language superior. I don’t see a reason why the Kannada activists find solace in making people call the city by its local name when the city has an international brand image. It is not going to make people learn Kannada, we will still call the city Bengaluru when we speak Kannada. Others simply can’t pronounce it, will not take the trouble either.
Alas, I should say that it is just the question of getting used to. It may take about 5-6 year for the name to sink in…till then it will be the good old Bangalore. I like the name chennai, but not mumbai or kolkata, the older names were better. I don’t think, Bengaluru will ever be my favorite.

Lonesome day

2005-12-08T03:20:00.000-08:00

This is going to be one of those dairy entries…could get boring.

It happens to me every Sunday; I wake up at about 12 mid-day, have my lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon in front of my comp, not meeting anyone and by 6, I am terribly depressed. Not having gone out the whole day takes a big toll on me. The thought of Mondays’ classes further brings me down. All I have to do is, wake up early and go out and meet people. Saturdays are fine, I go to a movie, maybe sometimes go out, or even order pizza.

Yesterday was one of those days when I was terribly depressed, you would know if you had me on yahoo messenger. The previous three days were very hectic, was out getting thing ready for saarang ad that was shot day before. With three days of meticulous planning for the impending night-out, nothing could possibly get wrong (okay, exaggerating a little). Was out of the campus couple of times, surrounded by noise and people all around me, time went past so swiftly that all of it seem unreal to me now.

All of a sudden, I am alone in my room with only Winamp to keep me company. After the night-out, I slept at about 8 am, woke up at 12 and just couldn’t pull myself together. The thought of being alone in my room haunted me for the rest of the day. Spent my time blog hopping, must have read about 20-30 blog posts by the end of the day. With only music and internet to keep me company. I updated my blog after a long time. This was the only thing I could that could keep me engaged. Most of my friends having gone home, the whole day was eventless. Sometimes I did get sms on my cell phone, but when I opened them with all the expectation and excitement of, perhaps, someone wanting to meet me, the message read, “Download latest Tamil / Hindi tunes….”

There are some songs which make me cheerful like “wish you were here”, Pink Floyd or “take it easy”, eagles or “you can run, but you can’t hide”, Phil Collins. Those songs did a little good. I probably heard “wish you were here” five times yesterday.

At about 9 pm, I got some respite from loneliness. Met one of my friends and decided to go out to shakes and cream (an ice-cream parlour near my college). We left the room at about 10:30 pm; thankfully it is one of the few places open till 12 midnight in Chennai. The city sleeps very early. We were back by 12:30 am and I felt a lot better thanks to two of my friends.

Today I am feeling a lot better, just the question of getting used to being alone, but I still can’t wait to get back to Bangalore and spend some time there. Three more days to go…..
I don’t know if there are others who get depressed this way. But it certainly is a painful state to be in.

Blown out of proportion

2005-12-07T02:53:00.000-08:00

Over last month or so, media has pursued three cases of suicide in Indian institutes of technology (IITB, IITKgp and IITR). What’s bothering me is the fact that media like to pin point the smallest of the faults in IIT system. The three suicides have made it to the headlines on number of occasions. Much has been said about the stress levels in IITs.

Little do people know about four suicides in same hostel in NIT Suratkal (Karnataka) this year. Yes, four suicides, two of them apparently in the same room. Hardly any media coverage was received for this bigger incident. In fact, some kind of a puja was performed in the hostel after the four incidents. We learnt about this from students who had come here for the technical festival, Shaastra. The reasons for the suicide range from being rejected by a girl to being bad in academics. Does it not deserve some coverage by the media?

Now we have three stray incidents in IITs, the press is going gaga over it. Even the blogosphere is all over IITs. I have seen number of blogs written about how IITians always think about the extra point five CGPA, having two midsems and an endsems, puts undue pressure on students, relative grading is an added burden and tons of other points. These are true only to some extent. It’s definitely not true that we are in front of out books all the time. In front of the computers, yes, most of us are. Over 80% of the under graduate students here study only a day before the exams just like most of the students in every other hostel in the country does. There are a bunch of people who are extremely sensitive with the issue of getting lower grades, who are forever engrossed in their book and who do not miss a single class. I am sure such “characters”, if I may, exist in any other college. A handful of incidents don’t reflect the real life.

There were others who expressed their dismay over the fact that only killing of Dubay and Manjunath was highlighted by the media just because they were from IIT and IIM respectively. Media sometime glorifies these institutes and sometimes brings them down. Nobody is ever going to get the true picture if this happens. Even our attitude should change, when Manjunath’s story was being ignored, people demanded it be covered because of the fact that he is from IIM. We should learn to treat an even as an event, not as an event in IIT or IIM.

The big IT dream of Bangalore......Over?

2005-11-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

I feel at home in Pune, roads are as bad as in Bangalore - Azim Premji

Pune, please don't go the Bangalore way - Kiran Karnik

On NDTV, a recent poll on worst roads in India revealed Bannerughatta Road in Bangalore as "The" worst road in the country. NDTV also aired a show titled "is the IT dream of Bangalore over?" hosted by Srinivasan Jain. The recent rains in Bangalore exposed all the weaknesses in the infrastructure of Bangalore. IT.in got washed away because of the rains. The city was crippled in just two day because of nominal rain. I will not be surprised if, in about 3 years, IT industries move out of Bangalore over this issue.

It is disturbing to see the lack of commitment in our politicians. When it comes to development it is them who prove to be the major road block. We have Hong Kong, who in order it sustain economic growth, constructed a whole new island for an Airport. And we have politicians of Karnataka, who despite having all the resources have half-heartedly given an 'OK' for the new Airport in Bangalore. I don't understand what the fuss is all about. Repeated delay, corruption etc. etc. made a perfect recipe for the decline in the infrastructural facilities in Bangalore. In just over a year of formation of the new government, the roads in Bangalore have gone from good to bad to, now, worst.

IT industries contribute to 25% of the state's GDP, provides employment to about 3 lakh people directly and many many more indirectly. All that the government had to do was give them good facilities, which BTW is the duty of the government. The the NDTV's show, Former PM Deve Gowda absolutely had nothing to defend against any of the questions asked by the people present. What he said made absolutely no sense to the context of the discussion. I don't seem to understand the 'funda' of improving the villages. Where will the money come from? The answer is, of course, from IT industries. When we know we have a potential advantage with IT sector booming in Bangalore, why do we neglect them.

Deve Gowda, who has seldom been productive is adding oil to the fire with his comments on Narain Murthy. Deva Gowda is costing Bangalore a fortune from his unreasonable comments.

The fly-overs in Bangalore take forever to be completed. The congestion on the roads is unbelievable. A short spell of rains, and the power is cut for about 2 hrs. A mere 14 Km ride from takes 50 minutes. Public transportation is not great either. I hardly have any idea when will the law makers wake up. Metro Rails required endless debate before being passed. It is a necessity and not a luxury.

Bangalore is no longer what it used to 4 years back.

My last post as a teenager......abt english pronunciations

2005-10-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Five years from now, you will be the same person except for the books you read, tapes you listen to songs you like etc etc. Going by the trend I should have transformed myself at least 4 times already. Frankly, I don’t feel like I have changed at all. Probably, a person who has sees me after a long time would be a better judge of that. If anything has influenced me change over the years, particularly last 3 to 4, it would be me getting addicted to Friends and Seinfeld or me listening to music till wee hours of morning on Saturdays and Sundays.

What I will be writing on now is my opinion on people trying to correct pronunciations. It was in my 12^th standard that one of my English teachers gave a small talk on how English has changed over centuries, i.e. from Shakespearian time to this day and how “alive” the language is. On the other hand, we have Sanskrit which is deemed very sacred and not allowed to be touched upon. The language is “dead”, nobody speaks in Sanskrit today.

English has changed so much that what was considered wrong 10 years back can be considered correct today. The growth in the number of people speaking the language has enriched the language all by itself. Complicated language alright, flexibility is a feature which makes the language a global one.

While English is at one end, Sanskrit is at the other. With all the rigid rules and inflexible grammar no one speaks the language. Well, from the opinion of many, thanks to the rigidity, it is the only language which can be implemented on a computer.

It is painful when “learnt” people try to correct a pronunciation. “It is not de-velope but di-velope”, “not clo-th, but claw-th” (I don’t know phonetics, hope you get the point). English is spoken by so many countries that several accents cropped up. I don’t understand which pronunciation the ‘learnt’ people call correct. The way the English speak, the way Australian speak, or the way American speak. The language has a universal acceptance. We Indians have our own accent which I think sounds great. We may not pronounce the words exactly the way English do, but the pronunciation is legitimate. It is wide spread, the entire geographical area and also the number of people, when you consider is phenomenal.

All I am saying is, “let the language grow and take its own course”. A pronunciation is correct is considerable or sizeable number of people use it.

I also don’t get when people say, “proper noun can be pronounced anyway you like.” Seriously, it my name and I want it pronounced the way I want it to be pronounced. Other words can be pronounced the way people in a region can pronounce it. Indians have a unique tongue, the way we pronounce our words is correct. Proper nouns however have only one correct pronunciation. This is where, in my opinion, linguists have got it all wrong.

We always have people saying, “go the Indian way.” Why no apply it languages too. If we are really proud of our culture, we should let it influence English too and watch how our culture as well as the English language grow.

Message From dean Students

2005-10-11T04:23:00.000-07:00

Somehow , our dean(students) had come to conclusion that saarang causes students of IIT-M to take up drinking and smoking in order to become co-ordinators of various events and depts. of saarang. He talked about banning saarang for 2 years so as to curb it down. Now, no one knows how how came to that conclusion and frankly he was being 5 year old when he was speaking to us that day.

After a while...

2005-07-29T04:12:00.000-07:00

The thing on television that young kids enjoy the most is ads. Probably because of frequency of changes in them, it has attracted the attention of young and old alike. Despite the hectic schedule almost everyone takes a second or two appreciate a good ad or shout at an annoying one. The range of emoting one goes through is almost comparable to frustrated Microsoft Windows user, an avid racer watching F1 (may be a bit of an exaggeration) or a potato couch watching Seinfeld. Having spent almost three months at home, and having watched trucks of ads on television, I guess I am qualified enough to comment on them.

Beyond doubt, among the ad recently shot, my favourite one is Richard Gere’s visa ad, the one with letting birds free for good luck. The beauty of the ad is that it appeals to every one, be it a teenager or a senior man, be it rural folk or urban. In my opinion, it has a perfect stage setting to imply the acceptance of visa card in every nook and corner of the country and also the ‘visa power’. Recently, I tasted the ‘Indian’ pizza at pizza hut. Being hell bent on always the “cool” veggie supreme or extravaganza, Indian pizza was hardly a choice before. The very moment I tasted the Indian panner pizza, I sensed something Indian in it. It brought me a content smile on my face. It was the taste of spicy masala. This ad gave me the same feeling. Call it superstitious, the ad has its traditional roots and it also pleases PETA (I certainly do support their cause). Some of my friends called this ad meaningless, my reply is: I appreciate creativity more. It is the key.

When it comes to the battle of best slogans or punch lines, it is visa’s strong competitor, master card which bags the honour. “There are some things which money can’t buy, for every thing else there’s master card.” This carefully worded slogan and equally carefully directed ad gets your mind off the material world and yet sells ‘a money card’. ‘Five generations in one photograph, priceless’. Both visa and MasterCard ads build a strong connection to human emotion. Well, if you are selling a debt trap, you better be good at that.

Staying in rivalries, a biggest hit back ad is definitely Pepsi’s “grow-up” tonic. Thumps up’s hideous campaign of Pepsi being kid choice certainly didn’t see this coming. Though Pepsi took a lot of time, the reply was a tight slap on face of Thumbs Up. One of the Coca Cola’s directors called Pepsi’s ad assault distasteful asking them what they are trying to prove. People in glass house… If you remember it was sprite which blatantly ridiculed every ad, it was thumbs up which stared the war… why was he throwing stones? Talking about creativity, the ads of sort drink change more frequently than any other ad. Good, bad or ugly, it is a necessity when you are trying to sell fertilizer to 15-20 year olds.

Going back in time, the best insurance ever sold is easily ‘jin chackcha jin’ of ICICI bank. The tune is recognized by absolutely everybody who’s anybody. Same goes without saying for AR Rehman’s airtel tune and Britannia’s ‘ting ting tiding’. How many of you remember captain cook’s ad back in 1992-94? The one with a woman in 30s comparing captain cook’s salt to ordinary salt. The ad was nothing exceptional; it was made funny by the actress herself with some unforgettable hilarious expressions. That ad didn’t need any pinch of salt. Ads like fevi quick’s take on a tam fisherman cling to the memory forever. There are two Maruti Esteem’s ads which I particularly loved. I don’t know why many of us don’t remember these ads. The one was with father driving the esteem with son’s pathetic marks card and yet feeling relaxed. The other one was about games owner and drivers play to get behind the wheel. The owner wins the battle by letting the driver pick the pen he had intently dropped. It takes a little time to make a lasting impression on mind. It was scientifically found that music can rekindle old feeling and bring back the good old days. Old ads make me nostalgic too.

Naughty ad of Tata Indica, boxing glove, belongs to “you can watch it once” category. Anything more is a catastrophe to my peace of mind. The most annoying of all is Nokia’s wide screen phone ad. I don’t know what model it is, I switch channel as soon as the cacophony begins. They are kind of ads which make you not wanna buy their products anymore.

Thought Hutch’s dog ad was brilliant, it ended up selling the dog more than the Hutch connection. Whatever the stats, creativity always counts. If you have seen the latest ICICI bank ad, it is indeed worth a laugh. It’s about wife complaining about husband’s ‘working late’ habit. When she finds out ICICI banks are open till 8 in the night, she comments, “I thought you were the only one working late.” Point taken, “ICICI employees work late. Little did they wonder that it will keep people off from working for ICICI bank. Sometimes ads spill out a different meaning than what it is intended to.

This was my three month commercial break. Unfortunately I wasn’t paid for this. If anyone has any other ad in mind, do comment.

Saarang 2005

2005-05-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hey, This was the article I submited to the saarang cores for my selection to the saarang's Production co-ordinators form. I did get throught. Here's the article...

Saarang 2005
___________

A Legend has it that, ‘five years from now you will be the same person except for the books you read, tapes you listen to, movies you watch and things you aim for’. Well, it has to be rephrased to “five days from now……” All you need is a right time and right place. Needless to say at this point of time, after having read the title, that the place is IIT Madras and time is saarang time. Each and every saarang has proved to be the time of ones life.

With so many events to choose and variety of spices of life accounted for, Saarang 2005 proved to a feast for people from every walk of life. Starting from the classical music show to the rock show and the jazz show, the shows were enjoyed by the young and the old alike. Different shows strengthened the testimonial of vastly diverse Indian culture. Light Music Show by KK and the choreo nite being the most attended show infused more energy into Saarang.

Despite the instance competition, fun was all what saarang was about. Student from all over the country set higher and higher standards for all the events including, what is considered ‘not so popular’ (but in saarang everything is popular), classical and semi classical music competition. All time favorites, the speaking events like JAM and debate, pulled bigger crowds and loads of fun for audience as well as participants. Quizzes need a special mention. Arguably, IITM quizzes are the best in the country. These elevated its standards, in each of the five quizzes. The informal stall had its share of fun too.

What is noteworthy is the fact that all this was conducted by students themselves. Planned or Impromptu events, like that of show by French Band Matmatah, the students were on their toes (The show by Matmatah was very well received, by the way). The preparation of next saarang are already on board, be prepared for a wonderful January ahead.

Why Saarang is in wrong Hands?
_______________________

‘Tried, Tested, Trusted’ is common slogan to look for in an organization. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about Saarang. This is because some of the coord-ships have never been tried. Consequently, they were never tested and simply cannot be trusted. As one of my friends expresses himself, “how can I know which co-ord to apply for if I do not know the core?” The very beginning of not announcing the core members makes the very foundation of saarang unstable. PR cores have hatched an evil plan to scan saarang through www.tehelka.com

Saarang runs around rampant corruption. If attempts are made to contain this….saarang just won’t run. Coordinators strive hard to breach the system, get away with culted money right under the noses of cores. With no motive now, it is matter of time before the co-ords lose the enthusiasm. When transparency creeps into the system, the system breaks down.

Coming back to the story of untried coordships, the novel idea of production desk is one of them. Effort to bring in people with same skills together might not go in vain, although ambience, videography and photography do fall hopelessly out of place. Attempt to pool people together who think saarang is in wrong hands is in itself the first nail in the coffin. In the second place, the fact that PR and Media is somehow not under the same shelter, makes one think if its coilation parties that made the cul secs. Them and their jumbo cabinets. It is much like the Indian Government. Indian govt, by the way, is quite successful, it not transparent.

An IP claims ladder to the cul sec has been broken, no GA, PA etc, only facilities. The acceptance that the ladder existed lets the junta look down upon the hands that rock the culfest. Lets wait to see how saarang works out.

On Choice on ads on bigger TV channels or smaller ones.
________________________________________

When confronted with the choice given the app. form, the pick mainly depends on the plans on promoting saarang. While the locally popular TV channel popularize the shows locally and bring in more competitors from the region around, the bigger channels makes the country aware a fest of this proportion. Local TV channels help in nurturing a naïve regional talent but fail to gather cream of the country. Local TV channels bring in quantity and to some extent quality of competition. With a proper blend, it is possible to have fun as well and nail biting competition. The publicity in south India through local TV channels can be phenomenal.

Nationally popular ones like MTV or Channel [V] will succeed in bringing the best in the country to saarang. But, these channels focus only on the ‘fun’ part of saarang. There is moderate threat to quality of competition. With bigger channels, saarang comes in line with popular fests like Mood Indigo.

In my opinion, bigger channel is a better options for the ‘pros’ listed above and for the fact that IIT Madras has to extend its brand image. Local TV channels might bring in local people the quantity is limited for several years. Saarang won’t grow. With bigger TV channels the quantity will always come in. Quality too will grow along (with a good focus on it). If the student community of IIT Madras is aiming at a saarang, say, 5 years from now, the obvious choice has to be bigger channels. Since our primary aim is to promote IIT Madras as hub of all Lit. activities. and not to tarnish the image of this college (as best only regionally) . I would consider bigger channels to be better option.

These Articles did get me my name in Production's co-ordinators list. Busy time ahead.

Embarrassments

2005-04-29T04:38:00.000-07:00

Quite surprisingly, endsems haven’t taken a toll on me. I have been sleeping at about 3 in the morning everyday, waking up at 8, and yet, I feel perfectly normal. Thanks to some sleep in the afternoon, nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I was gazing at the ceiling lying on my bed thinking of what to blog on. Having got two holidays before the next endsems, I certainly can afford to blog for sometime.

This happened to me when I was in my 10^th standard. In my school, whenever I was to receive any appreciation for my “contribution” to scouting movement, I would end up making fool out of myself. To receive a certificate, as a scout, you are expected to march down the stage, facing sideways to the audience, go across the stage, make a perfect left turn in front of the principal, move one step forward, a scout salute (three fingers) and a traditional scout left hand shake and then only you are the proud owner f the certificate. Of the three-four times I have received any certificate of appreciation for scouting, inevitably, every time I would make a mistake in one of the steps above. The most common one being the right hand shake instead of the left hand shake. Of course many would make the same mistake. But in my patrol, I used to be the only one.

This incident is not about me receiving the certificate or anything, but about the camp itself. My presidents’ testing camp was held in KV Pangode in Tiruvananthapuram. A scout is smart, so they say. The smartness comes in the way they press their uniforms, the way they polish their shoes, the way they move around confidently etc etc. With all the arrogance in me, I decided to pack the uniforms for the camp myself. It was the first day of my camp. Into the holiday mood, and with all the enthusiasm on first day of the camp, it was a quite jubilant scene in the class room we were allowed to stay.

All of us were wearing uniforms and I took out my shoes. What I saw was two shoes, which don’t make a pair. One of them was a Bata make and other one was Action make. They were indeed of different sizes, 8 and 9. Both were black all right, but one had a grainy finish and other was plain. I took me nearly five minutes to realize that no one was playing a prank on me but it was all my foolishness. Fortunately, one was for the left foot and the other right foot. Having absolutely no choice, I had to resort to getting ridiculed by my friends and wear those pair of shoes.

Well, only friend from my school, whom I had told about my shoes, noticed the weirdo in me. Students from other schools didn’t notice a thing. One of the scout masters, however, did observe the maniac in different shoes. He went around telling every one about it as I passed by him time and again in the camp. Only a highly observant detective would have noticed it anyway. I was relieved after a day in camp when no outsider was pointing a finger at me.

Needless to say now, that I did not get the President’s award. None in my school did. Fact is, we had no certificates to prove our service oriented minds. But I have a reason to blame my failure on. My shoes. Thinking back, I was quite smart to have walked in the camp with those set of boots on. Surely, one would find such crazy chaps in comedy movies with humour gone haywire; I guess I deserved an award just for that. Scouts are smart, not always. That’s it.

Prized Possessions

2005-04-16T04:24:00.000-07:00

I was looking at saarang applications forms which asked me to write an article on any item on curio stall. I was thinking of things I had, which were worthy of being presented to a museum. Only a few things crossed my mind.

Several years back, I and my bro had an interest in philately and coin collection. Ok, it was my brother alone. I was just curious enough to look into the collection he had. Though our collection didn’t grow, we did have a prized possession of any soldier. Yes, it is a military medal. It was given to my grand dad during the Second World War. He was in army until he retired before joining postal and telegraphs dept. Being in army and, more importantly, being on the victorious side, he got to advance through several African countries before reaching Europe. He tells me about those days when every soldier in his battalion was asked to change their names to sound more Islamic (Obviously Mr. Sastry wouldn’t work). I do not remember what exactly he changed his name to. Only way to guess which country they were in during arduous voyage was to look out for signs on the biscuits. He also talked about dense African jungles and how water was the only means of transportation in getting through them. He had talked about time when once in a week, on a Sunday I guess, soldiers had to chase dogs and shoot them. I kind of hate this but soldiers have to follow orders. Among so many things, I am thankful for the fact that he never described how war ravaged the countries or how he lost his friends (obviously he would have) in the war. I have absolutely no inclination in asking him about it. When he vividly describes some of those day, he talks about exciting parts of being in armed forces. I guess only my grandfather says this: “unfortunately, the war ended…….” He continues, “……one more week, I would have been in Paris, the most beautiful city in the world.” I once asked him, “What was his contribution to quit India movement?” He laughed before he replied, “I was with a huge crowd, and I threw a stone and broke a lamp post…that’s it.”

The war gave him two medals and a ribbon. The ribbon and a medal is lost now, nobody except him knew its value. The medal is still with me… safe. The army thought him great deal of discipline. He is 80 now, still shaves every day, gets up 5 in the morning and very strong for his age. Hardly 10 years back, he could walk a lot faster than anybody in our family. I my uncle’s home where he and my grand mom stay, he is the most reliable morning alarm.

Coming back to story of stamp and coin collection, at the same place where we found the medal, we also found coin in form of a ring; it is called ‘thooth moor kaas’ in Kannada. I haven’t seen such a currency coin anywhere else, would be interested in knowing more about them. We also found a 10 paisa copper coin whose material value was more than coin’s face value. It will wonderful to know more about them. It is hard to find genuine coins today. The older generations in my family did have such coins. But, they some how failed to learn the value of those antiques. What is more saddening is the fact that some people even today do not understand the value. Any historic article is condemned in the name of religion by hardliners. I am speaking of Taliban destroying Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. In the name of development, the past is forgotten. There are number of historically important articrafts in my state of Karnataka, but it has no takers when it comes to maintenance, not even the government. Its not about having a retro wall paper or a retro Winamp skin. Possessions for which some people craved for years before is now ignored. From what I remember, the people of Bhaghat Singh’s village have preserved the pen using which his hanging judgment was passed. It is time we value them more than we value the sweat shirts or bubble gums chewed by Britney Spears (yes, the bubble gum was auctioned for a short time on a web site before was removed).

Prized possessions like cherished memories stand out in our minds. Maro was asking me if I would feel emotional when I leave this place. My answer was that I did not feel that way when I left my school or college. I will feel the same when I leave this place. Now when I think of it, of course, the cherished memories are the biggest prized possessions one can have. More than the lost medal and ribbon, my grand dad has bright memories of his days as a soldier. It keeps him young. We have our memories too. Hopefully our minds remain young.

Here's my manifesto

2005-04-01T04:21:00.000-08:00

Hostel elections are round the corner. Every aspiring secretary is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to his contribution to the hostel. It’s funny some times when every aspiring secretary is made to work like a dog while looking for votes. My friend once told me that this is the time when any request made to the secretaries are actually heard by the aspiring secretary and positively ‘fulfill’ them. Activities in and around the hostel peak during the summer. Every unkept (if there is such a word) promise by the previous secretary is answered by the contestants. In my hostel, new garden is being built. As an icing on the case new cycle fence is also being constructed. The administration and previous secretary had their own reasons for why this work wasn’t done last time around.

When one reads the manifestoes of every secretary, it is hard not to notice the fact that we hardy have any powers. They include points like ‘door stoppers for every room’, ‘shampoo holder for the bathrooms’, ‘door mats for bathrooms’ and other really really tiny stuff. Nobody ever has any concrete point in their manifesto. I remember reading about student body in IITM hardly has any powers unlike in other colleges. Quite evidently this is true every at a grass root hostel level.

Almost every evening leading unto the elections, we are disturbed by the contestants for their ‘manifestos’. It’s sickening when they try to explain every point. It is like they make us feel 5 years old. They go on to say ‘door mats, so that you can keep the bath room clean when to enter it after a game of cricket……blah blah…same point, 5 minutes’. Are we really that dumb not to understand the purpose mats? The ‘trivial’ manifestoes take at least 45 minutes of our time. At the end of it all, our lives don’t change, no matter what promises are kept. Secretaries are just consolation we are given.

Beginning of every academic year, in all hostels a formal general body meeting (GBM) is held. Our elected representatives head the meeting. The year’s expenditure on all hostel related issues are discussed. For instance, buckets for bathroom are bought from this allocated budget. All 250-300 students share the cost. Here’s how a typical argument goes:

Secretary(S): we need Rs 260 fro 20 buckets.
An arbit guy (G): why 260?
S: because each bucket costs 13 bucks
G: are you sure?
S: of course
G: but you are buying 20 of them
S: so?
G: you might get them at 12.5, have you enquired?
S: 13 is final
G: we are not ready to give 13, bargain for 12.5

Probably somebody should tell him that at 12.5 each person saves 10 paisa. This kind of arguments happens through out the GBM fro about 5 hrs on a good thursday evening in the month of August. Some other regular arguments include, “why can’t cricket team adjust with 3 bats instead of 4?” After much effort, we might end up saving only about Rs 30 for the whole year.

Suppose entire money is not spent, what happens? Well, it goes to black hole called hostel account. I know that over past 5-6 years no money has ever been taken out of it. In fact, our hostel has about 6 lakhs (or 3 lakhs) bucks it. This year, the institute had decided to spend some of it on hostel renovation like garden, cycle shed etc.

Our hostel elections are on 4^th of April. May the best deserving candidates win.

So near......as always.....very far

2005-03-29T01:42:00.000-08:00

India lost a winning battle……again. What I am tired of seeing is the lack of commitment from the Indian cricketers. All we had to do was bat out the entire day. By the standard set by Indian batsmen over last 5-6 years (individually), that should be a cup of tea. With fine examples set by captain himself (of not being in form for I don’t how many years) I don’t foresee any improvement in cricket.

Individual strength of each Bangladeshi cricketer could be say 10, but team strength comes out quite close to 110. With India, it’s a different story. Individual strength could be at average of 50, but team strength doesn’t cross 200. New Zealand may not have big stars, but their team strength matches to almost all teams (except Australia, who seem to have both individual strength and very very strong team strength). I am tired of comments from experts about India being too good on paper but mediocre as a team. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar are easily one of the best batsmen in history of cricket; Anil Kumble is easily a legendary in bowling department. In onedayers, we had the most successful opening pair in form of Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar. The big question remains: how do we manage to lose despite having these players?

Bigger question asked every time: why should only Sachin or Kumble alone shoulder the batting and bowling responsibility?

I see a major flaw in selection system which allows any player with just one good innings to retain his place for next twenty tests. Even the best players in Australia are sacked if they do not perform. We saw captains resigning after both ’99 and ’03 world cups after their teams’ poor performance. Having not won a single multinational tournament after Nat-west, we still have the same team as we did three years ago.

We do not learn from out mistakes. Repeated urges to improve fielding quality of the team has fallen on deaf years. In fact only two of the current cricketers focus on fielding. We do not stick to a standard batting order. The way our captain gets out in predictable. Why can’t India set up fast tracks? We need to win test matches abroad too. Indians adopted kookaburra balls long after almost every other test playing country recognized it as a standard.

Our bench strength isn’t strong enough to fill the void created if any senior player gets injured. Why shouldn’t regional level cricketers be exposed to higher standards of training? Why should the initiative of calling the county teams to India or state level teams to rest of the world be a big decision to make? Why shouldn’t one dayers be played at regional level too? There are several ways of improving the quality, but none of them are implemented. All I can do is hope that India wins the forthcoming one day series. All the best for the team. May the better team win.

Change the system

2005-03-24T02:39:00.000-08:00

It has been some days since I have updated my blog, been busy with a set of lousy tests. I have been sleeping at about 3 for last few days. It is a disappointment to have tests based on memory rather than your understanding of concepts. Every night before the quizzes, most of us in the institute usually mug our way into the quizzes. It is the same with the entire country. Our education system stresses more on memory than our understanding. This is the marked feature of Indian exams, especially in social studies’ question paper.

A couple of years ago, I happened to see a comment on Indian education system as ‘trying to find out what you don’t know rather than what you know’. This indeed is very much true in my opinion. Academic excellence depends too much upon what you do on last day, and not on interest shown during the year. The marks you score is highly irrelevant to the knowledge you posses. It doesn’t do justice to most of the ‘lateral’ thinking students.

That’s the reason why most of the achievers in the world have been those who have not followed the crowd and shown their presence by their shear brilliance. Did you know that Picasso was remarked ‘uneducable’ by his teachers? Edison also shared the same fate as a child. Despite knowing all this, only a handful people voice their opinion against this. Only creative geniuses have the courage to go all out against the system. Some of them come up with ‘another brick in the wall’, which, no so surprisingly, has been the most influencing song. Our system kills any creativity that one has cultivated. (I do believe creativity can be cultivated; if one has right eyes or ears for it.)

We Indians excel at all places as technicians, but not as designers. The answer lies in the roots of our system which inherently curbs our thought process. None of these can change if year after year the questions remain ‘state five advantages of biogas plant’, ‘give six reasons why 1857 revolt failed’ or ‘what kind of crop are grown in eastern part of Africa’. Why is it the only academic success is seen as the real one and not sports or music?

It shouldn’t be surprising to find most of the world’s richest being school or college dropouts. Why is it that we don’t find people with interests varying from building your house from scratch all by oneself, in philately or other hobbies? I think the reason is curiosity is ruined by the system at a young age itself. What do you think?

Grass is greener....

2005-03-18T00:58:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for a purpose to do something, don’t look. Why not do the things just for the love of it? Having gone through nearly two year of training to be an engineer, frankly I find engineering not at all amusing. I think when something is done for a purpose, it loses its charm. All around me, I find this unquenchable thirst for marks, making me wonder where exactly do we stand in our desire to become the best. Some of my friends run from pillar to post to get the extra two marks on their answer papers.

After parting from the stream of pure sciences, two years back, today I find those subjects more fascinating. Whenever, a challenging question comes up, I leap into it and probe into the solutions. On the contrary, if any good question on my engineering discipline is given, it takes me long time, if at all, to have a glance at the problem. It is just a case of ‘grass is greener….’, is it my interest (or lack of it), or is the thirst for marks that makes me avoid the topic altogether.

My main interest lies in algorithms. Some of my friends ask me if I practice programming to join a software industry. My plain answer is, “no, I just love spending my time on them.” For every task that is done, the crazy little thing called purpose is sought after. (Yes, I am listening to the queen’s song). Coincidently, the ‘crazy’ little thing called love is not looked for when it comes to choosing your professional life, its all about monthly pay check. We end up doing something which we have no passion for.

It is common, at least in India, to see parents discouraging kinds from spending time on drawing or sports. Its status remains, ‘not worthy enough to make your life.’ Any nurtured talent in the kid is lost.

Bhagwagita says that don’t think of the result when you do anything, just dedicate yourself to it. Most of us may not have an eye on the results, but we do hope for the results to follow. I seldom find people doing something from which negative (or no) is assured.

This is a lousy topic to write on, everything had been said a million times. That’s probably because it has been ignored million times. I end here stating my stand that I do believe that everything we do need not have a purpose. Hope I have not bored you. I am bored writing this. That’s why it is smaller than my other blogs.

Winds of change II

2005-03-16T04:23:00.000-08:00

Sequels are never successful. With exceptions of LOTR and Harry Potter, none of them have been as successful as the first one. Why? Because they are usually no different from the original movie. This is my first sequel to any blog. This is indeed not different from the previous blog but for the fact that I have different examples. Yet I write this. I am not sure about how this will be received in comparison with the first one. If it’s received as well, “boy, am I talented or what?” If not I am just another guy who can’t make sequels.

50s saw the rise of rock ‘n’ roll. People wanted something more than the sound of jazz. 60s was phenomenal for rock ‘n’ roll. White did have reservations about the music, branding it as black’s music. Artists like Elvis did break the barrier and went on to become legends. 60s also saw the birth of politically conscience song writers in the form of Bob Dylan and others. By the 70s, world grew tired of the politically conscience lyrics and wanted something totally different. It was the turn of Aerosmith, The Who, Kiss etc to take on the world with their wild acts. Both on stage and off stage. The act of breaking guitars on stage popularized wild acts on stage. With people asking for more there was no turning back until they got way too predictable. 80s saw ‘moderate’ rock evolve and flourish. Yet again, it was wiped out as teen pop bands saw their fan club spreading. Nothing has happened in 00s as yet, I do see a musical history happening in a small time. Let’s wait and watch!

‘Old is gold’, so they say. In fact this is told only by older generation. It is them who don’t accept any change for good or for bad. Change could be as small as adding some fans in the workshops, the request is outright denied. Their usual reply is, ‘last batch suffered more, you are lucky, be happy.’ I wish I could answer back to them saying I agree last batch suffered but that doesn’t mean we have to suffer too. I hate when they say the music I listen to is crap. Ones or twice is fine, but not every time. They like the thing to be done traditionally, even when the same task of assembling components can be done hundred times more efficiently on a computer. The knowledge we earn on doing it the either way is one and the same.

ATMs are so convenient, aren’t they? A year ago, our ATMs had the facility to pay out mess bills. It was disappointing to learn that our hostel officials did not trust the technology. They asked us to produce the receipt every time bill is paid through ATM. They didn’t seem to understand that the whole convenience of ATM is lost.

Except for one or two forward looking Profs, institute doesn’t seem to be interested bringing in e-learning. Had our politicians been any younger, India would have been so different!

It is interesting to see ads on television which target younger generation, like Pepsi or Coke, they change very frequently. This is obvious when our generation is open to changes.

Alas, things do change, slow or fast. It is true when they say only thing that doesn’t change is change.

Winds of change

2005-03-14T02:21:00.000-08:00

MTV president was asked, “Why MTV was that popular?” His reply was, “It is like an amoeba, it keeps changing.” Point noted. It is change which keeps us going. Every moment you learn something new, your perception changes, and your attitude changes. Compound this to one’s life time, one would have changed completely many times over. When I was freshie, I happened to go through a notice which said, “Five years from now, you will be the same person who are, except for the books you read, tapes you listen to, the friends you have…” I thought it was a good way of putting the point across. Little wonder when Newton and Leibniz came up the concept of ‘rate of change’, it changed the world.

Every afternoon when I get back to my room, I switch on my computer. Eagerly browse though LAN to find something new. And when I do, I am exited. I change my wall paper quite frequently. Winamp skin doesn’t remain the same for over a fortnight. I selected my frames for my glasses just because it looked different from the rest. I am library volunteer in my hostel, every week there are at least two students asking me if new set of book were bought.

A new game show on television is always looked forward to. A novel idea is received handsomely by the people. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with his idea on web-based email, it virtually revolutionized the communication system. Google’s development of Gmail wasn’t yet another email client on the web; it changed a lot of things.

My humanities professor talked about how technology has changed the way how people react, how people interact, and how it has brought about changes in every person’s lifestyle. You get an email now, when will you reply? Class’ unanimous answer was, “immediately”. Instead of an email, if it was a snail mail, reply took about 1 or 2 days. Just because email arrived fast, out tendency is reply quickly, not so with the snail main.

Good or bad, change is inevitable. One shouldn’t be surprised when anti-incumbency is a major concern for a ruling party in a democracy. The real reason why certain successful leader was toppled over is simply the ‘change’ that people were looking for.

Our hostel mess council meets twice or thrice in a semester to change the menu. The quality of food doesn’t improve anyhow, but change is always welcomed.

I love the slogan, ‘maggie hot and sweet chilly sauce, it’s different’. Captures anybody’s attention! People are obsessed with change, that’s why all our soaps and detergents are always ‘new and improved’. I am wondering when we were using ‘old and obsolete’ products. Some of us change our cars every 3-4 years just for a change, or try out a different genre of music once in a while. All of us love surprises, don’t we?

My mondays to fridays

2005-03-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

Does it ever work for you guys if run your watch, say, 10 minutes fast? It never does for me. I have tried it several times. You have your alarm clock 15 minutes fast, it rings at 7:30, you know its 7:15, sleep for some more time end up waking up at 8. That’s what I don’t like about watches, it doesn’t wait for anyone. If it is fast, it remains fast. If it is slow, it remains slow.

It works for my room neighbour though. He is kind of guy who believes in running with time and all, not running behind it. It is good in a way. He has his clock about 10 minutes fast, lives by it. The thing is, he is so engrossed in studies and all that he probably doesn’t know that his clock is fast. He could be one of them who presume others are also living by his watch. This is not good. It is obviously very irritating to be woken up at 7:10 when you want to wake up at 7:15. It happens every day during our quizzes. When I sometimes think about it, it is not as bad as it looks. I mean, all he is doing is pulling me up. At least he is not the Indian frog who is trying to get the other frog down or something. He is a very soft person. He really is. I really wouldn’t want to scold him early in the morning for waking me up early, I just thank him instead. I think it’s phony to do that. I don’t want to be that way. I appreciate those who freely express themselves. I really do. But I am not one of those. This is all society’s fault. What I mean is, law gives you freedom of speech and all, but society prevents you from using it. What good is such a law?

Sometimes I do happen to wake up at the right time. I run to the bathroom with brush in one hand and tooth paste in the other. I don’t know why I never carry them in the same hand. It is a lot easier that way. Anyway, in my defense, our brains don’t work at those early hours. After I brush my teeth, I run to the mess and gobble the stuff up and run to class. Same is the routine of most of my friends. My neighbour, however, doesn’t fit into this routine. We all then rush to the class on our bicycles and all. The day begins.

This routine won’t last long. I know. Our dean has an idea of a mega mess serving food to all the hostel residents. The building construction has already started. It will be completed by end of this year. This has been out dean’s pet project, much like Atal Behari Vajpayee’s golden quadrilateral project. He was looking forward for this from the day we entered the institute. If you have read other blogs of mine, you would know that I love to have something to look forward to. Dean loves to look forward to his project. It is very good. You cherish every moment of your life that way.

Back to mega mess, I and my friends believe that when the mess is built, going to our breakfast will be an adventure on its own. It is not as close as hostel mess. I don’t intend to say I hate adventures or something. In fact I love them. But you can’t face an adventure everyday of your life. The pace of the current schedule is lost. You can’t run to the mess. You have to park your cycles first, take your food, and then get back to the business.

We reach our class, usually five minutes late. Some professors don’t care while others do. That’s peculiar with Profs, you can’t predict them. Some of them smile when we are late, others frown. It would have been nice if their reactions had been left behind just on the face. But some Profs take it to their nerves. They really do. They arbitrarily wave their hands and all. I don’t follow the sadistic pleasure they derive out of this.

After some fight, we usually get our way and sit in the class. I don’t know if it is because they are old or something, Profs don’t realize that we are hardly paying attention to them. When they do realize this, they make their best effort to come up with a joke. All of us laugh; yes we do, but sarcastically. It is too phoney, but they deserve it. Yet again I fail to understand Profs; sarcasm just isn’t enough to tell them that their joke sucks. I don’t mean to say they are dumb or something, but that’s the way they are. Some of them talk about morality and all. Why??? All of us may not be morally straight. No matter how immoral we are, we don’t deserve to hear the lousy speech.

Day passes, we have our lunch, and afternoon passes. Those who have afternoon free end up crashing for an impending night out. I like having aftees free. It is not like I am million times more productive or something. But I like to have my own time, for instance, to write a blog.

Then the evening comes, sports kicks on. Activity level is the highest between 5 and 7. That’s what I love about sports. It’s addictive. What is addictive is fun. It is much like alcohol or cigarettes. There is a difference to point out, alcohol and cigarettes are acquired taste whereas sports are instantaneous, like a candy. All of us may not have sporting spirit and all, but that doesn’t prevent most of us from enjoying it.

Dinner is served right after. Yes, at 7. It is crazy, don’t you think? It is our Profs who made the decision. We are forced to abide by it. We are asked to respect our teachers. I don’t get the elders either. Why should we respect someone just because he is our teacher? I don’t mean they don’t deserve it or something, some of them really do. But they are one of us who happened to teach. They picked their profession just like all of us did. If they picked teaching thinking of the guaranteed respect package, trust me, they don’t deserve any of it.

Evening consists of all the activities. It is mostly senseless conversation though. Some of us play games over the LAN. That’s the beauty of technology. It brings people closer even when he is in the next room. Late night activity is usually individual with their computers, like me with this blog. As I end this I shall resume reading ‘catcher in the rye’.

this blog is dedicated to...

2005-03-09T04:20:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks back, one of my friends was cribbing how screwed up or worthless his life was. I told him that I have a song for him. Out of nowhere he comes up with, 'is it a love song??????' He reasoned that i had said, 'i had a song for him'. Thing were settled after about 2 minutes. If you are curious, the song was 'always look on the bright side of life' by monty python. I would love to dedicate this song to him on MTV. (No offence to Channel [V] or anything, but mtv fits, ask sting and dire striats why.)

It's so lame to just dedicate a song to sombody! You can simply dedicate anything to anybody, Industries to nation, roads to a person, songs to a string of people, the list is endless. I lived in a place called Kudremukh for the first sixteen years of my life. A person who designed the place must have been an absolute moron. There is a bus-stand right inbetween a school and the playgroung, there is sewage plant in fornt of a jain temple, practically no foot path, church, mosque and a temple are way on top of three different hill making in inaccesible, the administration building and the iron ore mines are on two opposite sides of the town etc etc.

Way back in '99, a dam (named 'lakya') was dedicated to the nation. Lavish party was organised for the iron and steel minister in this pretext. The irony is that, only slurry out of the mines are dumped into it. Come on, our nation deserves much more than that! Right now the industry in middle of a major issue of pollution and being located on a national park. It is in the verge of getting closed. I guess mother India did teach the mines a lesson.

Request shows on radio or tv for every one is like 'been there, seen that'. The most painful part of the shows are with the dedications. They range from grand mothers to girl friends. It is hilarious when the RJ or VJ himself doesn't know the song he is playing and people go about dedicating the songs. Even if it's right with most of us, you can't dedicate 'everything about you' to your mother, or even better... to your girlfriend. ( the song is actually '...i hate everything about you...' by ugly kid joe). I love it when an RJ stops taking dedication and even then the guy on phone is persistent on dedications. I pity the guy, he is being denied what can be done without anybody's consent and more importantly, for free.

From what I observe, dedications on a book are usually given to dead people and for a song, the limelight on a living person. To add a twist, some book are dedicated to just the memory of the dead guy, but not the guy himself. And for something as arbitrary as a dam, it is dedicated to something as arbitrary as a nation. For some reason dedication on a book is strictly restricted to author's family while a song could go to the prime minister. For something as massive as oscars or the grammys dedication go only to the parents. It can easily be inherited back, you know. Fans do get their part sometimes. The exact share of dedication to the fans is always unknown.

Some do believe the dedications help you to tell a person that you care. Yes, things are so easy when someone else does them for you. Plus, dedications are easy way to get out a situation when you owe somebody something. All you lose is a phone call. Dedications do go to the special someone. That is the easiest way to get out of all your debts!

Alas, habits die hard, we will continue to be stupid. But thats what makes this world a livelier place to live in. By the way this blog is dedicated to all its readers and the dedicated bloggers.

Tech talk

2005-03-07T03:30:00.000-08:00

My friend, two days back, was asking us on what we look forward to this semester. We were talking about uninteresting courses we have this semester. Thanks to the administration of IITM, we have been enjoying with our LAN and Internet for about 6 months now. What the diro and other admin people have done is given us a thing or two to look forward to. It could be a movie, a song or even your project, technology has always guided us through. This time around, it has kept every one occupied. With vested potentials of LAN known to all of us, not a single minute is spared in this institute to use it to the maximum.

If anyone has visited my profile here, you find one of my interests to be algorithm and programming. I have enthusiastically taken part on all online programming contests I have got my hand on. I use internet to look out for tougher problems and better competition. It’s wonderful for all of us to wake up every day, and think of something challenging and ponder over it for the rest of the day. Internet is always an answer to any project, any presentation or any assignment we are given.

The story has a bitter part too. In the humanities course of mine, the free-rider attitude was talked about. It’s simply something in you that says you alone cannot bring the system down (or up). That unfortunately is problem with the LAN here. Not everybody shares files that are worth sharing, because of which all of us are losing out more entertainment. What people don’t understand here is that every individual can make LAN better. Share files, people! That’s what LAN is for.

Yet again there are other set of people who open files over LAN itself causing comps to slow down, the irritated user then stops sharing his files. This is further emptying the LAN. This is just a food for thought: the free rider’s attitude is what making India such an unclean place to live in and such a corrupt nation to be ashamed about!

We and our IPs

2005-03-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

What occupies a small, but significant, part in an IIT-M ians life is making graffiti on the notices on the notice board. In an effort to be different, we call the notices IPs, standing for internal publicity. The fact remains that hardly anything we do deserves publicity, except acads of course.

IPs fall into a set of categories like lost, lost and/but found, literary or sports events, extramural lectures and misc. As I was saying, ‘lost’ IPs usually involves losing cell phones, wallets or cycles. I am sure you would agree here that these don’t deserve publicity. IPs of ‘Lost and found’ category are rarely seen, but come with strings attached: ‘Treat expected’ Yet again, does out greed need publicity? If anything quality needs publicity, it’s honesty. That’s exactly the reason why politicians, though shameless, are popular.

To be frank, the lit activities do set high standards here. Those standards are set by not more than ten individuals. Lit skills of an average IITMian don’t deserve publicity either. Next in the line are extramural lectures. Is it something that WE do? Obviously not.

Misc category is better not talked about. Those are something that an average IITMian maggu doesn’t care about. Before concluding this, I must tell you that a misc IP is not ignored when the reference to grade cards is seen. IPs from NSS are keenly read by all the freshers. An innocent outsider would definitely find that the social service minded people are just the freshers, who are sure to turn anti-social in following years.

Talking about graffiti, as a fresher, the unknown destroyer was elevated to the standards much higher than any writer known. Little did we know that it gets predictable after some time, annoying after some more, chocking after a little more and inexpressible as it stand now.

IPs that are stylish are the first targets of this destroyer. In an older blog, I had talked about how easy it is to find fault with others. This quality in all of us is easily reflected on our notice boards. Not coincidently, this is not a quality that requires special publicity. All that is done is rhyme what is written with certain anatomical parts which aren’t uttered by her majesty, the queen. I am not so sure about the king.

All said and done, it is these IPs which brings the whole student community together. This includes (the minority) hard workers too. The jobless ones are always united. That’s the first thing we read in the morning before reading newspapers and last thing we read before dinner. A new IP is like a boring magazine, but one that is eagerly looked forward to. The destroyers continue to prey, the others continue to crib. This crib of having to read the graffiti somehow goes under publicized, while this is the only thing that requires publicity.

Almost Famous

2005-03-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

“…Then daddy came in to kiss his little man, with gin on his breath and the Bible in his hand, and he talked about honour and things I should know it really didn't matter how far I go…”

A country music fan will immediately recognize this as a song from the great Don Williams. This is the thing about celebrities, them and their conversation with their elders or parents. My question is, has such a thing ever happened to you? Have your parents ever taken you out for a walk and given you the words of wisdom? All that I have seen is my teacher shouting at top of his voice asking us to be ‘ideal’ and we students seldom paying attention to it.

About 6 months back, I was watching an interview given by Richard Feynman after receiving his Nobel Prize for Physics. He happened to narrate a similar story in his childhood. He talked about advice given by his father when he was young and how practical his father was then. Yanni shared the same experience in his concert in India or China. "...The best things in life are inside each one of us...blah blah..." I am still wondering how much of these stories are actually true.

I have never had such a talk with my parents, nor have any of my friends. Perhaps that’s the reason why none of us are famous ;-) All of us are good at blaming others for our misfortunes (not fortunes) anyway. Trust me, the easiest thing on earth to do is find fault with others! “It’s all because of you man”.

“...I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be. So what do you do with good ole boys like me?...”

PS: The last lines are from the same song, ‘good ole boys like me’ , Don Williams.

Resposibilities..forgotten

2005-03-01T02:13:00.000-08:00

In the material world, any economic decision taken, the environment ends up being the victim. Ecology is seldom a concern when it comes to ‘development’. In one of my previous blogs, you may have read about the course I am doing called ‘environmental and resource economics’. Some of the facts here are straight from the course content.

I don’t know how many of you know about endosulfan poisoning in Kerala, here’s what happened there. Have a look at the link http://indiatogether.org/2004/jan/env-endosulf.htm . Kerala govt. had ordered aerial spraying of endosulfan pesticides in mountainous terrains of Kasargod district. Unknown even to scientists that drastic consequences were inevitable in 20 years, the program was welcomed by every segment of the population. Villagers looked at this as signs of progress. Coupled by biological food chain and the natural soil movement, endosulfan tracked its way into human metabolism. People were taken aback by the extent of damage it caused. Economists were reluctant to stop the aerial spraying (it was started in 70s; effect was seen in the late 90s). The damages included physical and mental deformities, diseases of central nervous system and many more. After a long fight, Kerala govt. did impose a ban on spraying but all this was in vain. A private agency claimed endosulfan wasn’t the cause and successfully lifted this ban. The people continue to suffer even today. Please look at these links too.
http://puggy.symonds.net/pipermail/india-ej/2003-October/001039.html

http://www.makingindiagreen.org/pr3.htm

Many of you would know about the Minamata disease caused by slow mercury poisoning. This link will provide the necessary information. http://rarediseases.about.com/od/rarediseases1/a/102304.htm Mercury was disposed off into the sea by Japanese industries. As in case of endosulfan, it penetrated into the human system and caused havoc. The symptoms here included (I quote from the web site) “Individuals began to have numbness in their limbs and lips. Some had difficulty hearing or seeing. Others developed shaking (tremors) in their arms and legs, difficulty walking, even brain damage. Others seemed to be going crazy, shouting uncontrollably.” Thankfully, Japanese are more sensible (or responsible) and took the necessary action.

Any decision that favours natural environment is taken only after much hue and cry. All of us are aware of the decision by UP govt. to close down industries around Taj Mahal. This came after persistent warning from experts and only after the damages on Taj Mahal were visible clearly. Why is it that Delhi buses were forced to CNG only after the city became infamous for being fourth most polluted city in the world? Even today more than 20 year old vehicles are running on roads. Victims of Bhopal Gas tragedy are yet to receive their compensation. Country like USA, which consumes maximum share of resources, and still hungry for more, refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol!

Frankly, I am quite impressed by India’s ambitious project on interlinking of rivers. But I have a strong concern for the ecological impact it can have. It is a simple rule that when you are unsure about the consequences of an action, do not execute it. I wonder how many have actually thought of its influence on natural river flow. Can it end up drying some of the bigger rivers in the country? In every lecture on this project, engineering challenges are dealt with. But environment is forgotten practically every time.

Here’s an encouraging fact, eastern Himalayas and Western Ghats are included in 18 biodiversity hot spots of the world. Sadly, I guess, these are two of the very very few natural pockets of forest reserves we have.

With this blog I wanted to bring the plight of Kerala’s people to attention. I hope concerned authorities take the appropriate action

A time to think

2005-02-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

Review on 20-20cricket: it is for those who find short stories too long. Hey, this is 21^st century, except for me and some of the other jobless,……..sorry did I say ‘other’, …..some of the jobless people around me and of course, the person reading the blog, the universe has no time to waste. With the entropy probably reaching its maximal limit, and every law of physic being broken by yet another physicist, I can’t help but wonder, ‘are we ever going to look back’?

I am just back from watching a Stanley Kupric movie, killing kiss. Trust me, that was awfully slow. It was just an hour long, yet I couldn’t wait to get out of the hall. A year ago, hostel was so much fun. After LAN and Internet arrived, time seems scares.

Let’s assume that the damn 4^th dimension didn’t exits. It would be awkward, wouldn’t it? There would have been no time, and that’s why we would still strive hard to finish thing ‘in’ time. Time or no time, mathematicians would have ‘assumed’ its existence anyway. That’s the beauty of mathematics; it can make a fool out of anybody!

I know quite a lot of friends who are up all night, trying to set the balance right between academics and 24 hrs. Some smoothen the edges out through periodic night outs, some others have already burnt out. Quite frankly, ‘fun’ part in lost in the wilderness of time or the lack of it.

My day began at 10:30 am, up half the night thinking on what to blog the next day. Alarm rang at about 7:30, and surprise!!! I had time. When I woke up I realized it was a bit too less to crash for 3 more hrs. Anyway, I ran to the bathroom with a brush in one had and tooth paste in the other. I found monkeys had all the 'time' in the world to ravage my washed cloths…again, the same set of cloths which I had washed second time. As my mind wandered around thinking of strangling the monkeys, I realized I had no time even to think of that, let alone chocking them.

Then, in my humanities class, a video was shown on Indian govt., which in the name of conservation is snatching the very livelihood of tribes in northern Karnataka. The video was 52 min long, all of us were restless to get back to hostel even as the clock was striking 11:50, the scheduled lunch break. Would it hurt any one of us to stay back for 5 minutes?

The Byrds sang, ‘a time for this, a time for that….. n things…’. Are they kidding? A time for everything would mean a segmentation fault.
Tip: Those who do not know about the segmentation fault, google for it.
Whoever named it ‘the time magazine’ is a genius? Obviously, when we don’t have any, why not buy the magazine, serves as moral support anyway.

Then came my ‘Dynamics of machinery’ class. I would say he is the only prof in the institute who would say that he has enough time to cover the syllabus. What an eternal optimist! He left us in about 30 mins, 20 mins ahead of actual finish. I was working on my previous blog when my neighbour, Boxer, knocked, asking for an hour on my computer to do an assignment. I asked him to come back after 2 hrs as it wasn’t extremely important. Half an hour later when I offered him the computer, he said he had already completed the work in Animesh’s comp. Reason: he did not have time to wait.

Why do we have time zones? Probably cause its so precious. It is allocated to every country. Einstein claimed time was relative. Get real, it’s absolute, nobody has any of it. Finally I thank my readers for the time they spent on this blog. Please don’t ask yourself, “was it worth it?” or “was it worth the time?”

Game theory...what have we got to do with it?

2005-02-23T04:31:00.000-08:00

Mathematics, if done for hours, can be frustrating. Think about engineers, in every professional major course, we have mathematics at an application level. That isn’t all that interesting. Thankfully we have Humanities course, which is like a stress reliever. Environmental and resource economics is an interesting course. The title seems like a contradiction of sorts. How can an economist think of conserving environment??? Well, environmental economists claim they do.

The course began with a generic overview of economy. We were given a small glance at the problem of “the prisoner’s dilemma” in game theory and its relevance in making economic decision. If you already know the problem, couple of paragraphs can be skipped.

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Here’s the problem, two prisoners are given the choice of denying or confessing to a crime. The consequences of their decision are as tabulated

If A and B confess, both get 3 years.
If A confesses and B denies, A gets 0 years and B get 5. (Vice versa)
If both deny, each get 1 year

The catch is, they are not allowed communicate.

Look at this from A’s perspective, he is better of confessing than denying, simply because maximum sentence in confession is just 3 years while for denying costs him 5 years. One can safely assume that B would think on similar lines and confess. Both of them end up spending 3 years in jail. 6 man years are lost. The sub-optimal strategy was the result of lack of communication. If both had denied, only 2 man years would have been lost!

Some economic decisions are taken in isolation, which could often result in sub-optimal strategy.

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I hadn’t paid attention to this until the saarang JAM competition thinking it’s just a theory. The moderator conducted a round in which, the buzzers between two participants were exchanged. Consider speakers 1 and 2. If speaker 1 buzzes, speaker 2 has to point out the error. If speaker 2 fails, 1 has to point out the error. Here speaker 2 wins 10 points and speaker 1 wins 5 points if speaker 2’s objection is sustained. When speaker 2 fails and speaker 1 points out the error, speaker 2 loses 5, and speaker 1 gets 10. If both of them fail, speaker 2 loses 5, and speaker 1 looses 15.

It is interesting that in order to pull down speaker 2 by unnecessarily buzzing, speaker 1 also has to lose. We end up in lose-lose situation. If every one follows the rules and buzzes legitimately we have a win-win situation. This is much like the prisoners dilemma, looking for a ‘win-win’ situation rather than a ‘lose-lose’ or a ‘lose-win’ one. One might think this was an obvious situation, it’s a game, and rules have to be fair without loop holes. My point is that the idea of ‘win-win’ strategy being more optimal is reflected well here.

About a year ago, the administration of IIT was deciding on shuffling the 1st year students of different hostels. Most of the students, including seniors, did not want this. At some point, I thought about boycotting the institute student body elections if our ‘fate’ wasn’t known by then, though I didn’t express it.

I should call myself irrational here. Boycotting elections would, in some probability, result in ‘fractured mandate’. Had that happened, student community in general would have been a loser. Further more, if we were indeed shuffled, we would have been losers again. I was looking at a ‘lose-lose’ (or a ‘lose-win’, shuffling wasn’t certain) option then. Fortunately, no one got shuffled (except sarayuites) and we all did vote. That was ‘win-win’, wasn’t it?

An abstract mathematical concept integrates itself to daily life without us realizing it. It’s surprising, isn’t it?

Assimilative Indian culture

2005-02-21T22:11:00.000-08:00

This was an article i wrote about a year ago, will be published in the next issue of Bharati (IITMadras), I don't see any signs of the magazine hitting the hostals, i decided to make it my blog. Upon the suggestion from the editor, the title 'composite culture in india' was changed to 'assimilative indian culture'

Assimilative Indian culture
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Few countries in the world have such an ancient and diverse culture as India's. Stretching back in an
unbroken sweep over 5000 years, Indian culture, down the ages, has developed in to a highly composite culture which has been enriched by waves of migration which were absorbed into the Indian way of life. The assimilative culture has manifested itself into a strong force. This manifestation is the result of co-existance of so many different cultures that were fused into ours in the course of time. As a result out culture became enriched.

The source of different elements of the Indian culture is not unique. The dynasties like that of Aryans, Mugals etc. have infused diversity in our culture. The roots of Indian civilization stretch back in time to pre-recorded history.

Indus valley civilization is one of the earliest knows civilizations in India. The prosperity of this civilization is well known. Even in the 4th or 3rd millennium BC, the urban developement, that had taken place was phenomenal. Roads were built perpendicularly, vast granaries, brick built houses were very common. Though it was mainly an agrarian society, its advancement in urban planning is undisputed. Recent excavations have shown remarkable similarities between the current indian culture and the indus valley civilization. Recent historians and research suggest the the Aryan (vadic) civilization and Indus vally civilization are one and the same.

Our culture is, to large extent, influenced by the aryans. They intermingled with the people, and gradually associated themselves with the social framework. They were the ones who developed the language of sanskrit, which even today is considered to be the most organised language. They composed the hymns of the four vedas, which are the fundamental base of hinduism. Hinduism constitutes eighty percent of today's population. Earlier, vedas were written on the banks of saraswati and then on the gangetic plains owing to a natural shift that dried saraswati river. Ramayana and Mahabharata is thought is have been written during this period.

6th century BC saw the rise of the two significant religions in the country, jainism and buddhism. Their popularity spread owing to their message of non violence and practicality. In the Third century BC, it was the turn of the Mauryan empire to hold the rule in the country. They extended their empire over the entire sub-continent. The greatest king of this empire, Ashoka, converted to Buddhism later in life and spread the message through a script called Brahmi.

In 326 BC, Greeks tried and succeed in invading India. Through the passages of time and wars, Greek established their supremecy. The interaction between the two cultures resulted in a change in art form. Sculptures made during that era mark a Greek influence. After Ashoka's death, the Mauryan empire perished.

4th century AD saw the Gupta empire rule the nation. Hindism consolidated its position. This era saw the emergence of the classical art forms and development of various facets of Indian culture. This age registered considerable progress in literature and science, particularly in astronomy and mathematics. Aryabhatta, who lived during this age, was the first Indian who made a significant contribution to astronomy.

Meanwhile, South india remained largly unaffected by the changes in the northern part of the country. Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism established themselves comfortably. The great dynastyies here were the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, Chalukyas and Pallavas. The dravidian Architecture flourished during this period. This region was propelled by the trade links with the African nations. New sea routes were discovered for the development of trade. Arab traders permanently settled down in Kerala. They were allowed to practice their religion. This further led to the enrichment of the 'Indian Culture'. St. Thomas brought christianity into the country during this period.

The impact of mugal reign in India is phenomenal. Our life style changed in every walk of life including the cloths we wear, the language we speak, architecture, of which Taj Mahal is the best example. This was not just one sided. Even the Islamic culture was influenced by us. Urdu, for instance, began to written in the devanagri script. Islamic Sufi cult and hindu bhakthi cult made their presence felt. Followers of Guru Nanak, who founded the Sikh religion, soon became popular. The co-existence of hindus and muslims brought more glory to the Indian culture. The mightiest king of Mugal empire, Akbar himself set an example by getting married to a hindu princess. Marathas played a significant role in shaping the Indian culture. Though their kingdom did not grow in size, they had a considerable hold over their region.

Final intruder into India were the Britishers. French, Dutch and portuguese had their eyes on India, but succumbed to the power of Englishmen. The effect of British on the nation need not be told. However, it is important to mention that foundation of industrialization and commercialization was laid by them.

The need for public awareness on the independence triggered the wave of social reforms. This brought major changes the social outlook of the country. Festivals were used to campaign for the Public outcry against British. For instance, Bal Gangadhar Tilak popularised Ganesha festival in Maharastra. Even to this day it is celebrated in a large scale in that region. Social reforms in society took place during that period.

Our culture did not decay as a result of wars, battles or invasions. The influx of their culture preserved our culture and helped it grow. To this day the people are fascinated by the composite culture of ours. Emerging sceanario of our composite culture is tough to predict. The growth of our culture is unparalleled. Truely our culture symbolizes unity in diversity.

The sound of music

2005-02-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

I love listening to music, my friends would know. Infact, most of our friends define being 'cool' to be directly related to the amout of music one listens to. Talking about my g-g-generation, the genre of metal and heavy metal are by far the most popular ones, anything else is way too kiddish. What I don't seem to understand is the fact that in the effort for being popular among the friends, many of us miss out on so many flavours of music. I should say with a heavy heart that, most of the 'pseud' people i know refuse to even explore the other genres of music. There is always an attitude against 'settling' for pop or rock. What happened to jazz, what happened to raggae, or country?

I live in the campus of iit madras, hostal zone is the most happening place around. As expected, one would find noises of all kind, no pun intended, through the corridors of the hostal. Among them are the rythm of handful songs which are echoed in almost every room. To name a few, 'for whom the bell tolls', 'nothing else matters', 'master of puppets' from metallica, 'parnoid' from ossy, 'trouper', fear of the dark' from maiden and finally 'november rain' and 'sweet child' from gnr. Though gnr is rock, it is still cool, no questions asked. Why doesn't our taste of music grow beyond this?

Our culfest, saarang, is the time when all the geeks of the institute just freak out. The rock show is the most 'looked forward to' event. I was among the crowd too. ;-) I was disheartened to observe that the 'fans' were interested only in metallica, iron maiden or megadeath. No doubt they are great bands, i like them too, but there are plenty of other good stuff that one can listen to. Why are we Indians so reluctant to accept any change? The change which i am refering to is not just with respect to music, but also, for instance, infuence of western culture.

I recall an avid music lover and a metallica fan telling me that the symphony orschestra actually screwed up the S &M concert. What??? I am under that opinion that symphony had made the music only richer. First time i heard the album, i was amazed at how a talented musician can blend two entirely different spectrums of music.

French band called matamatah performed a set of rock numbers during saarang. The songs were of the eagles kind. The crowd absolutely loved them. Yet again, i was shocked to hear 'chicken s**t' as a comment from one of the 'true' metal fans.

Several people have told me about their liking for one perticular group, floyd or maiden for example. They have gone on to say that they can't get enough of them, they listen "ONLY" to them. People, get a life!!!