Albert Einstein and me

Don't you believe me? C'mon!

Just for updating...

This is just to update all my readers that I have been selected by Intel Corporation but I am not really amused by the selection :-(
Does anyone have any contacts in the folowing companies:
1. AMD, Bangalore.
2. Texas Instruments, Bangalore.
3. Sybase, Pune.
4. Mentor Graphics, NOIDA.
5. Adobe Systems, NOIDA/Bangalore.

Please let me know.
(Using this space for some really important work for the first time!)

D-Day is here

The time is 2341hrs on 20th December, 2005 right now.
That means we are about to enter 21st December, a date which we had been waiting for since we joined the Masers programme in Computer Science at IIT-K. Placements kick off from tomorrow and that come as a huge relief.

First company: Google.
Expected Intake: Not more than 4-5.
1 Written Test + Upto 4 interviews!
That means my chances are bleak.

Let's move onto next company: Amazon.
Expected Intake: N/A
1 Written Test + Interview(s).
The problem is that they ask questions in Algorithms so I do not give myself high odds.

Next company: Intel.
Expected Intake: Upto 3.
1 Written Test + normally 1 Interview.
I am not sure if they have R&D work to offer.

And the list goes on...
What will happen, no one knows but I hope everything turns out well.
These are probably the most anxious moments in my life over the last 2 years.
Oh my god, mera kya hoga?

Mr. Hussain on Bollywood

Read in a ToI article yesterday:

MF Hussain: Bollywood is complete junk!

Mr. Hussain, have you ever looked at your own art? To me, bollywood still makes sense!

Congrats maestro!

December 10, 2005
First and foremost, my congratulations and best wishes to Sachin "The Master Blaster" Tendulkar for scoring the second most-awaited* century of his test career, the 35th century to take him past another legend Sunil "Little Master" Gavaskar. Not only did that mean a good record and good score for him, it also has put India in a comfortable position after the heart-break loss of Rahul Dravid's wicket.


The century did not come without any hiccups though. This ball from Fernando hit him on the chest.

Was reading The Hindu moments back and this is what I found there:

Behind the composed batting was a burning intensity which was in display when he showed his disapproval when Ganguly turned down a third run.

Some folks just cannot change their habits, come what may. Our dada is just one of them. He has been playing cricket for a time too long to be such a bad runner between the wickets. I have long been a critic of his game and one of those who have questioned his role in the team in recent past. Not that Ganguly is a good for nothing man, he is a world-class player with his own problems. Infact, in the current game, he has played a good knock by keeping things down at his end.
This, I am sure, is one of the most important games for Ganguly to prove his mettle specially against (world-class) spinners.

• Go on Sachin, conquer the world.
  
• Hey Dravid, prove it to the world that you are 'The Best' at whatever you do. I (We) want a 2-0 victory in the series.
  
• Dada, my best wishes are with you. Let's take Atapattu back to 1999 World Cup :-)
  
• Pathan bhai jaan, ek Wasim spell ho jaye?
  
• Kumble Jumbo, remember the 1998-99 seson here? It's the same Kotla pitch. So what are you waiting for?

All the best, Team India!
Go! Go! Go!

Oh boy! Did I mention the match is being played in Delhi, my hometown? Dilli meri jaan!

* The most-awaited one, definitely, was the first one.

December 14, 2005


Congrats Team India, that's the way to go!
We were bound to win, after all it was a brilliant team effort that saw Team India beat the Lankan lions so comprehensively. Keep going!


December 15, 2005

As soon as I heard that Dada had been dropped from the team, I said

"What? Howz that possible?"

After all, he scored a match-saving 40 in the first innings of the Delhi match which also included a crucial partnership with Sachin, and then again in second innings he scored a decent 39 (again a 81-run stand with Yuvraj).
Come on, give me a break. When this guy was performing badly, he wasn't dropped. Now that he has shown signs of getting back into runs, he has been dropped. This is complete BULLSHIT!
Some of the reasons that have been stated to drop him are:

• Does not score runs: Yes. But then you should have not included him for the second test either. Now that he has scored some runs (79 in a test match is not great, but not bad either), you are dropping him?
  
• Building a team for the future: My foot! Stop telling the lies and tell us what the truth is. How does Jaffer come into picture if you want to build a young team?
  
• Not a team player: Hullo.. Go and read the newspapers, the press coverages. His teammates were the first ones to protest against his removal from captaincy. His team-management skills were praised during the World Cup 2003, and now all that has disappeared into thin air?
  
• Arrogant nature: Did you not like his gesture of removing his T-Shirt at Lords, as a reply to some of the most arrogant England players? By the way, don't you like it when Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne cross the limits? Yes I agree he has some issues regarding this, but you cannot drop him for that now. We were the ones who stood behind him when he did that and encouraged him. Not his fault entirely. In fact, in my humble opinion, this is not a fault at all.
  
• Got any more reasons?

For the past 1 year he had done nothing much, but we had him on the team that too as a captain. Now that he has actually done something good and worth a place, he is dropped. What a pity!

The reasons to persist with him earlier and drop him now seem to be beyond cricket to me. Could someone please explain the reason(s) to drop him?
The selectors, definitely, are a Bunch of Jokers and I am very sad to include Greg Chappel and Rahul Dravid in the lot.
By the way, the Kolkata crowd better start behaving normally. Sometimes, you make us feel ashamed of you when you do that senseless stuff that you did in '96 and again in the match against South Africa recently. Get a life!


For the first time in 2 years, I support you Dada.

Cow-tipping!

This is a dedication to those who think their work (thesis or BTP or office project) is f*a*d (the most fraudulent word in English).

Natural Selection

A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

Cheers!

Humor in Uniform and Virtual Hilarity

Came across these recently. Could not resist posting them.

---

Our personnel officer, annoyed by the report from his secretary that troops and members of the staff were using the new copying machine for personal documents, posted this notice on the machine:

Troops are not to tamper with the secretary's reproduction equipment without approval of the officer in charge.

Picked from Humor in Uniform.

---

This one is for the geeks IIT-K is full of.

Picked from Virtual Hilarity.

---

Microsoft's Anti Spyware results

A picture is worth a thousand words. This one is worth many more.


Speaks (Shouts?) of the level of desperation of Microsoft to see Firefox out of the market.
God save Microsoft (I don't really mean that, but then I think of MS employees).

Linux and Open Source rock!
So does Firefox!
(I love to repeat this)

Google rocks!

I have become a huge fan of Google now. After all, because of their research and dedicated hard work I can show the world where my home is!! I mean, there has to be a limit to everything but Google is above all those limits.
I wonder how much storage space they have. Let us count:

1. Google Search: It is said that Google maintains a copy of (almost) the entire internet on its fileservers. Can you imagine how much storage that would require? I don't think you can. I can't. But these guys are doing it.
   
2. Google Groups: Usenet like newsgroups for people to discuss and solve their problems and issues. Amongst all the services Google offers, I like this one most.
   
3. Gmail: Forget Yahoo!, forget Hotmail. IMHO, Gmail is much better than them because it offers 2GB(!) of inbox size and also because it doesn't append those stupid footers at the end of the mails.
   
4. Google Earth: Oh this is where they take the lead. Infact, in this category, in my knowledge, there is no competition to what Google has done. C'mon, they showed me my home (yes I could see it very clearly) on my PC with a only few mouse clicks. They are GODS in this!
   I have attached a screenshot (see the oval there in the image?), but a clearer image can be seen here and the exact thing can be seen here (requires Google Earth to be installed on your machine).
   
   Infact, they are so advanced in this that they can show the 3-D imagery of the buildings in 38 US cities! Can anyone match this?
   
5. Google Maps: This seems less useful now with Google Earth out. Still a very useful service for PCs connected to not-so-high bandwidth networks.
   
6. Orkut: Needs any introduction?
   
7. ...and there's so much more that they are doing I will run out of space on this blog of mine.
   

For some more screenshots I took from Google Earth, click here.

Antaragni - 2005

This one is about the biggest festival I have ever seen, Antaragni, the cultural festival of IIT Kanpur.

The good part of this fest is that we get to have some real fun in the form of events like Quizzes, Crosswords, Extempore, Kavi Sammelan, Nukkad, Stage Plays, India Haat, Rock Show, Treasure Hunt, Personality Contest and Discotheque. Believe me, the atmosphere is electrifying (reasons stated later in here) and you just cannot resist the temptation to participate in or be a part of the audience in any event. The campus looks like a place to be which makes me think what the visitors would think of life here.

The general opinion of people who have never been to IIT about IITs is that these are places where people are either found in libraries or on the roads with their faces burried in books (or research papers). However, that's not true by any means of imagination. You can always find some people who find interest in studying 'only' but they are far out-numbered even in IITs. In fact, the number of people who are crazy about things like Rock Music, lets say, is much more here than the number of such people in my previous college, Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering (BVCoE), although that is so mainly because of the fact that the number of students in IIT is atleast 20 times the number of students in BVCoE.

Given that, some of these people with misconceptions about IITs sometimes go to IITs for cultural fests and that's when they get to know the truth about life in here. They see how we enjoy all the good things in life and equally appreciate things like Nukkad etc, which goes completely against the image of IITians they have in mind. In some cases, it goes so far that some people actually start thinking that life at IITs is only about all these cultural activities and that clearing JEE or GATE once and then spending some years on the campus (each year containing 3.5 days of Antaragni!) is all they need to do, which again is a myth. They do not see the amount of effort IITians have to put in to get up early in the morning to attend the classes, complete the assignments in time and in case of really motivated students, also do research work to get some papers to their name.

Coming back to what makes the atmosphere electrifying, among other factors the most important and beautiful factor is the set of babes who come to participate in and enjoy Antaragni. One of the reasons why all IITK students look forward to events like Antaragni and Udghosh is the number of beautiful females who come to the campus for about 3 days. Those of you who have read Chetan Bhagat's first (and very famous) book know what is it that makes such fests the most awaited events :p Not that we do not like the events, we just love all the events and are very interested in taking part in those events, but the reason stated above takes the front seat when it comes to "Why we love Antaragni (or Udghosh)?"

I would now give a very brief description of an event in Antaragni, called Mridaksh and then tell you something about it. Mridaksh - The Personality Contest is one of the most famous and looked upon events in Antaragni. You wouldn't believe how long the queue of people waiting to get the entry is. Cannot tell you more about Mridaksh because I have been a part of only two Antaragnis and both times the queue was so long that I dropped the idea of going inside. Now the reason why I told you about Mridaksh. One of my very good friends Monika has won the event this year. Haven't been able to talk to her because the event took place only tonight and I was busy in the Rock Show past 3 hours. Knowing her, I am not surprised that she won it, because she has the qualities in her to win such contests, but I am very sad that I did not wait in that queue outside to enter the Auditorium and see her win the night. Well done Monika! (You owe me a treat now :-p)

There are more good news. Another very good friend, Kaushik, secured 2nd position in the quiz contest. This result was actually very surprising because to me, he is the among the best in the game and if he doesn't win a quiz, it really says a lot about the winner. Though second prize is great too, but I know how dearly he wanted to win the first prize. After all, he lives quizzes. Would a normal person wish birthday to his best friend by sending a quiz, the answer to which is "Happy Birthday"? (Sorry Kaushik, I never wanted to mention it here, but could not stop myself)
This post is dedicated to Monika and Kaushik, for the success they have got. You make me proud, both of you.

All in all, Antaragni is one of the most beautiful things in my life and I am surely gonna miss the fun next year onwards (assuming everything goes fine and I graduate in time). I love you Antaragni (and also all the babes who come along with it)!

Just now came to know that Arjun's love life was spiced up at Calypso. He'll put up the details in his blog shortly (otherwise, I will).

Trying out Flock

I was just trying out this new browser, called Flock that I have come across.
Appears to be a good browser to me, at first look.

The best feature about it is, I can compose my blog offline and then ask it to publish directly, from within the browser's composer. So it is something like what 'Thunderbird' is for mail exchange.

Most importantly, it is based on the Firefox Engine, and therefore is very fast to use.
Firefox rocks! So does Flock!

WordSearch Game

Came across this addictive game on the internet today. The URL is here.









Have fun!

Oh by the way, I re-learnt the power of the famous technique of problem solving, called Hit-and-Trial. This post is a result of a post on the IITK Newsgroup asking how to run an applet in blogger, and to answer his query I picked this applet & tried to put it into my blog :-)

Big Fish and 12 Angry Men

Sounds like the title of a tale?
Those, actually, are two of the movies I have seen lately. Both the movies are great in their own respects. While '12 Angry Men' is a serious drama, set in a room, a small budget movie with hardly any camera effects, 'Big Fish' is a feel good movie, which takes you through a person's life, describes how he lived his life (and much more), captures the imagination of the viewer and leaves the viewer happy and sad at the same time. No doubt, both the movies are great in their own sense. I'll take some time and write a little about both of them one by one.

• Big Fish: The movie mainly is a feel-good movie to be watched specially when you are feeling a little lonely or just want to watch some light stuff after long gruelling hours of work (or anything mind-consuming like CS). The story revolves around a guy named Edward Bloom, what he goes through in his life and how he manages to cross so many hurdles along his way. The guy keeps telling his stories to people around him and most of his talk seems to be full of plain stories, full of adventure and drama, but hardly any truth. His own son grows sick of all this story-telling stuff and they separate for sometime, only to meet again when Ed Bloom gets seriously sick. That's when Will Bloom (Edward's son) comes back to live with him, and to take good care of the ill old man. While he is there, Will again has to go through all that story-hearing stuff, which kind of keeps driving him crazy. Finally, Will tries to find the truth behind these stories that his dad had been telling him since he was 5 years old. In the processes, Will meets quite a few people and gets to know about few more people who had been in Edward's life. The movie ends with emotion-packed drama, leaves you very happy, and a little sad. If you are not a dumbo, by now you might have guessed that Edward Bloom dies in the end, but not before making his mark in many lifes and making a difference to so many of them.
  Must watch, atleast once.
  My Rating: 3.5/5
  
  
• 12 Angry Men: A Gem! One of the best all-time movies, for me. The plot basically is that a boy is convicted for murdering his own father and after the hearing, a jury of 12 jurors is appointed to pass the verdict on the case. Now the verdict of the jury will be accepted only if the jury members agree on a unanimous decision, failing which the judge will pass his own judgement.
  
  So these 12 guys are seated in a room, and that's where the rest of the movie is shot, on a very hot day's night (which is cooler by no means) and most frusuratingly, the fan in the room also doesn't work (although as it turns out later, they did not turn it on the right way). Now these guys have to come to a unanimous decision, or discuss the case until either they come to a decision (i.e. Guilty or Not Guilty) or they are unable to decide and the case goes into the hands of the judge.
  
  The beauty of the movie is that each jury member has an important role to play in the movie. Some of them have their own opinions about people (basically prejudice) which influences their decision, while some jurors are unable to make their mind about the thing and therefore keep changing their decision too often, and there are some others who want the thing to get over by reaching a decision, no matter right or wrong, as soon as possible. Then there are those jurors who think very logically and are very dedicated to the task, and also there are those who do not want to reach any decision in haste, because it is matter of life or death for the accused.
  
  The movie takes a lot of twists and turns and at many points in the movie, I changed my opinion about the case. It is one of those movies which are the best mix of best of stories, appropriate direction and unmatched acting by everyone (almost) in the cast. By the way, one of the jurors reminded me (and my friends Nitin and Sachin) of Boman Irani, one of the best actors in Bollywood today and one of my few favourites.
  
  I have given below, my favourite piece of conversation. This Juror, whom I call 'A', stands up and starts speaking very aggresively to all other Jurors and tries to make his point. But one by one, all other jurors (except one, whom I call 'B') start moving away, thinking about the case and paying no heed to whatever he was saying. This makes him a little bit nervous and he kind of breaks down during his own speech, may be realizing that his reasoning on the subject is wrong. Notice how he modulates his voice, changes his expression and makes gestures during all this.
  
  The italicized part that follows contains spoilers. Please do not read it till you see the movie once.
  
  Juror A:
  I don't understand you people!
  
  All these picky little points you keep
  bringing up, they don't mean nothing!
  
  You saw this kid just like I did.
  
  Don't tell me you believe that
  phoney story about losing the knife
  
  and about being at the movies.
  
  Look, you know how these people lie.
  lt's born in them.
  
  What the heck? I don't have to tell you.
  They don't know what the truth is!
  
  And they don't need any real big reason
  to kill someone, either.
  
  No, sir. They get drunk.
  They're real big drinkers, all of 'em.
  
  You know that. And bang!
  Someone's lying in the gutter.
  
  Nobody's blaming 'em.
  That's the way they are by nature.
  
  You know what I mean? Violent.
  Where are you going?
  
  Human life don't mean
  as much to them as it does to us.
  
  They're lushing it up
  and fighting all the time,
  
  and if somebody gets killed,
  somebody gets killed! They don't care!
  
  Sure, there's some good things about 'em,
  too. I'm the first one to say that.
  
  I've known a couple who were OK,
  but that's the exception.
  
  Most of 'em, it's like they have
  no feelings! They can do anything!
  
  What's going on here?
  
  I'm trying to tell you.
  You're making a big mistake, you people.
  
  This kid is a liar. I know it.
  I know all about them.
  
  Listen to me. They're no good.
  
  There's not a one of 'em who's any good.
  
  I mean, what's happening in here?
  
  I speak my piece, and you...
  Listen to me.
  I... We're... we're...
  
  This kid on trial here. His type.
  Well, don't you know about them?
  
  There's a... There's a danger here.
  These people are dangerous.
  They're... wild.
  
  Listen to me. Listen to me.
  
  Juror B:
  I have. Now, sit down
  and don't open your mouth again.
  
  Juror A:
  Some of the time... I tell you.
  
  
  Must watch, see it as many times as you can.
  My Rating: 4.5/5
  

Draw-a-pig!

It is a funny title to give, but it just tells you what you are going to read about.
Came across a site today which claims to tell you about your personality, your traits and your sex life. The most interesting thing, however, is that they find it all by analyzing "your pig".

What you are supposed to do is to draw a pig, in the space provided.. Draw as much or as little as you like and then submit the picture. A little more work, and you get the answers to some of the most important questions about yourself. How much of that is true, and how much it should be believed is another question.

My PIG is here:





Do not believe the last deduction made from my pig's drawing!!! As I said, it is just a stupid piggy thingy.. Do not believe it.


Waiting for your pigs to join mine .
Post your pigs too!

Fire in the hole!

Confused what that means?
It indicates that a grenade is about to explode... More confused?
Okay how about, "I am dangerous"? Or "I'm on your side"?
Does all this drive you mad? It has surely driven us mad! ;-)
Well, these are some of the expressions used in the immortal game named Counter Strike.
I started playing it about a fortnight back, and already I have become addicted. Actually, not just me. I am accompanied by few more in following our madness(?)... "Madness of Counter Strike". These guys are (in alphabetical order): Arsenal, AtalJi, Billu Badshah, Bud, Chinmay, Cij, DDK, Hardrive, Hitler, Hood, Mangal, Neo, Ozzy, Sauron (that's me), Simha. Now that's a pretty long list isn't it?
Atleast an hour everyday, we play this game. Sometimes some of us are not present. In such cases, the BOTS come as replacements. So once the game starts, all we think of for atleast an hour is how to kill the enemy (or maybe, complete the assigned mission). Oh, it's a great atmosphere. We are all shouting, helping each other, dropping hints, developing strategies.. what not!
Once that one hour of game ends (which almost invariably is more than an hour), it is followed by a coffee session at a cafe joint near the arena (:-p department, I mean. Yes, we play the game in the department!!!). That coffee session is the time to discuss our moves, come up with new plans and also to laugh out the frustration caused due to some players' gameplay (which I won't discuss here). The night ends with more discussion about the game and how it would be like to play CS in a map much like our department, or maybe our hostel. One thing is sure, if hostel is chosen as the map and the terrorists have to plant the bomb, both the teams will choose the same location for both the bomb-sites: MESS and none of the players will try to defuse the bomb :-p
For a preview of the game, take a look at these:




















I have print-screened them from my machine. There's just one thing that I want now.. A CS-CZ version that runs on Linux (What? There's already one? I knew it would be there).

Counter Strike and Condition Zero rock!
Yes they do!

What keeps me busy?

You might notice from now onwards, that my blogs will normally be posted during the first half of the week (starting from today) and seldom would I write them on weekends. Seems to be an interesting pattern, isn't it? Normaly, people blog during the weekends when they are away from their work and spend time by doing all sorts of time-pass activities. Not me.

The reason for such patterns is the 'Weekly Reports' that I have to submit to my thesis* supervisor** every week. As he said, the report should be there in his mailbox on Monday morning. So here's my itinerary for the whole week:

Monday: Time to take rest. Have loads of sleep. Lying around. Listening to Rock music. Playing Anagrams. Thinking about the just-passed weekend and how I just managed to write something worth sending to the supervisor. Go to the lab and browse internet. Most importantly, waiting for the reply from supervisor telling me 'Start working for Thesis!'.

Tuesday: Get up early in the morning for TA duties. Once back from there, sleep throughout the day because of not getting enough sleep previous night. Get up in the evening, read a few novels and few non-academic books, lie around, go to the lab to browse internet & check mails. Most importantly, keep waiting for that mail.

Wednesday: Watch a movie (not too many). Think about how the movie could have been made better. What I would have done had you got the chance to go so close to that blonde in the movie... Start worrying because that mail hasn't arrived yet. It should have come this week atleast. Not to forget, keep checking emails very often.

Thursday: Get up late, because the worried get to my head very quickly and sleep is the only solution. Discuss with colleagues about what they did wrote in the last 'weekly' and how mine was more fraud than them. Keep waiting for the mail. Since it hasn't come till now, the tension starts to get to my head and therefore to feel better, I check the newsgroups for stuff to watch and feel better. All this while, keep checking the emails.

Friday: Last day of the week before the weekend begins. Although, I don't have any classes now, weekends still bring that feeling of holiday and lesser work pressure. So, most of the Friday is spent in thinking about the things I would like to do over the weekend. Sometimes, go to the city also to have a bit of fresh air in Kanpur city. It is essential, you see. The mail hasn't come. This means that the supervisor is not serious about my thesis work and is more concerned about them who just go and meet him everyday :-D . Wtf, I don't care. I'll take care of my topic and thesis myself.

Saturday: Saturday comes with a fresh air of happiness and joy all around. After all, the weekend has finally arrived! So I celebrate its arrival by sleeping till late. Getting up takes a bit of an effort but ummm., I guess I cannot just sleep for too long. That job is done best by my neighbour ;-) Anyway, so as the day progresses, I start worrying about the crooked 'Weekly report' that I have to send. What is it that I could have done thoughout the week, that will impress my supervisor enought to make sure that I don't get that 'dreaded' mail this week? Answering this (NP-Hard) problem takes up the whole day, and at the end of the day, I am nowhere close to getting that idea.

Sunday: The D-Day has finally arrived, but no clue about what to write in the weekly report. Saturday and Sunday are always spent in trying to come up with matter to write in weekly. You see, if there was no weekly report mechanism, I could have utilized 2 more days for thesis work i.e. Saturday and Sunday. But apparently, my supervisor wants the work to be too properly organised or may be has some other things on his mind. But why am I being targeted? Why me? I thank The Almighty for putting in a very sharp brain in my head because almost every week, I am able to cook up something to write in the 'Weekly report', which may not be very useful work, but good enough to be mentioned in something as insignificant as a weekly report.
Deep down in my heart, I know that I have not done the right thing by telling things that I have not done and, therefore, I decide that the coming week, I'll complete what I've written for the past week and also do significant amounts of work so that I don't have to send any more lies in the next weekly. After so much hard work, don't I deserve a good, sound sleep?

--
*Thesis: A worthless piece of so-called research that must be submitted and defended (which you can never do, because it is all crap) to get a Master of Technology degree. For getting Bachelor of Technology degree, the same crap is renamed to BTP.
**Supervisor: Someone wo is chosen to tolerate few thesis/BTP students for one full year (actually 18 months in case of thesis) and at the end, declare "Enough is enough, I'll sit with you and help you defend this crap to make sure your stay is not extended. I can take no more of you!"

--
This post is not what I always do, but sometimes this does happen. Most importantly, I would like to clearly mention that my thesis supervisor Dr. MC is very co-operative, helping and welcoming. It is infact due to this idea of weekly reports, that my thesis has gone ahead, although the speed is rather low right now. Sir, please do not mind it if you come across this post sometime although I will try to make sure that it doesn't reach you.
Hats off to Dr. MC!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day to all the Indians and all those who have good intentions towards the country.
58 years ago, on this very day, we were freed from the clutches of British Rule after almost a century of struggle and freedom fights.



I salute those who fought for India's freedom and also those who were not directly involbed in the struggle, but supported those who were! There's a famous saying in Hindi (which happens to be my mother tongue): "Yuddh mein JAI bolne waalon ka bhi mahatva hai"
It means, in a war, even those who shout for the fighters are also very important!

Now, I wasn't born at the time our nation was declared free and I haven't been following political happenings closely by any standards, but I do subscribe to the fact that perhaps we could have made more progress under the British Rule, than we did independently. And I don't say that for no reason.

• I have been in Kanpur for a little over an year and have observed the quality of life here. Can you imagine yourself eating a dish made out of vegetables which could have been bought from someone sitting on half-dry swamp and resting the vegetables on a piece of cloth. Mind you, the cloth also is rested on the half-dry swamp! Interestingly, the market that I am talking about here is never empty, sometimes very crowded. Goes to show the hygiene consciousness of the people.
  
• Look at the condition of roads in Kanpur. I study in IIT, which is one of the most respected institutions of the country. The road leading to it is terrible! However, undoubtedly, this is one of the best roads in Kanpur. Actual condition of other roads is left upto your imagination. I do not have the words to describe them.
  
• Forget Kanpur, its roads and its hygienics. Let's turn our face to more serious issues. You know what an ex-health minister of our country thought about AIDS?
  According to the ex-minister I am reffering to, the root cause of AIDS is not unsafe sexual habits. Rather, it is our desire to have sex (which is most natural to any organism). This ex-minister is well educated and has enough knowledge of sex and AIDS, so I was amazed to hear these words. Instead of promoting the use of condoms and making them most easily available, the government was trying to stop people from having sex! And they thought they would succeed at it?
  Come on! Grow up people!
  
• A panchayat asking a rape victim to marry the accused!
  
• Another panchayat asking a woman to leave her husband's house because her father-in-law raped her and therefore she was now her original husband's mother. WTF! What rubbish!
  

These are some of the issues that came to my mind as I was writing this post, but there are many more topics which are much more serious.

This does not mean that we should not have got the freedom in the first place. I love my motherland and am very happy that I was born and have lived in a free country. However, have we done justice to those who lost their life in winning us the freedom?

This is a time to look back, see where we went wrong, possibly try to rectify the mistakes and make sure we don't repeat them.

JAI HIND

Beautiful. Isn't it?


PS: I am ashamed to admit that I haven't done anything for the country till date and therefore I do not have the right to write all this that I have written. There's one thing, however, that I have done. I have always cast my vote and will always try to continue doing that. I request all those who are eligible to vote, to go and cast their vote during elections, now onwards. Atleast do the minimum you can do for your country.

Make your choice, in time!

It does not matter whether the task is herculean or trivial, whether you are unable to take the pain or its just another one of the blows you get regularly. What matters is whether you have support of your friends (or so-called friends) during all this.

Mind you, that really matters!

Don't wait for 'THE' betrayal.
Mark your friends asap, and try not to mix them with acquaintances.

Question: Who will you trust more?
a) A person who says in your face, "I HATE YOU" OR
b) A person who calls you his/her friend, but thinks twice (or may be just keeps thinking and waiting) before coming to help you, in case the need arises?

Yes I am getting emotional, but then this is my space and I have all the rights in the world to express my thoughts here.

[This post is really small, isn't it? ;-)]

Khoj 'pakara' ki

Okay I know the title makes little sense, but by the end of this post you'll know that its not so senseless. To skip directly to the 'khoj' stuff, click here.

It all started with the Student Guide* workshop organised in the ACMS (Advanced Center for Material Sciences). The feeling of being a SG started to sink in, and so was the pressure of responsibilty. The workshop consisted of a boring session with the Head, Counselling Service Dr. Onkar Dikshit followed by very interesting sessions with Dr. Alok Bajpai (Psychiatrist), Dr. Lilawati Krishnan and Mrs. Sharmishtha Chakroborty. In between there was a quiz also, which was kind of very well organized and was supposed to be very informative (instead, non-boring), but the purpose wasn't really met (although I won a chocolate :D). Anyway, it was then that we all SGs started becoming friends.

And then arrived the D-Day for which we had the workshop, the day when the newcomers were supposed to join. And mind you, they were all pouring in. Our job was to help them in the allocation of rooms, Library Registration, Computer Center (CC) registration, Academic Registration, DOSA registration, I-Card making, Bank Account Opening... Whew!

So basically, for most part of it, I was marked as one of the major persons responsible for anything and everything that needs to be done at CC, since I am from CSE department. It involved a lot of clerical work and little CompSci stuff. But I did not complain, since being in the CC means being in A/C cooled rooms all day :)

So on 25th July, when half of the new PG students had been called for CC registration, I rushed to the CC almost an hour earlier to make sure that all required machines are working well and to set them up for the registration of freshers. Along with me were Lakshminath, Monika, Palak and Sudeepa. They were almost as responsible for it as was I, Monika being the Asst. Coordinator was primarily responsible. So what we were supposed to do was login onto all the machines, start the browser and open a local URL (which, by the way, was very weird).

Now we four and some more SGs who joined in later on logged on to all machines and started helping the newcomers who had started coming in by now. While most of us helped them fill the form on the URL, some of us managed the management stuff by directing freshers to free SGs. So, basically, freshers were coming in and leaving at a good pace.

All was going well, when suddenly Monika comes into the lab from I-Dont-Know-Where and declares she has lost her pair of keys!!! And that she is sure that she has left them in this lab only. She also added that she'll treat the SG who finds the key-bunch for her as the key-bunch contained some very important keys. I looked around on the table near me and did not find the keys so went back to my job i.e. helping in form filling.
But suddenly I realised something... That I had given a bunch of keys to one of the freshers when he was about to leave the lab, thinking that it belonged to him. Little did I know that it could have belonged to Monika.


Now the khoj begins!
Sometimes, anger or being non-patient helps. This was one of those times. It had so happened that the person who had taken the keys from me, I had lost patience with him as he had made a few mistakes while filling the form and I had said to myself "Why don't people follow the instructions while doing things?". That's because this guy chose his IITK Id as 'pakara' when I had already told him that he should ask for my approval before selecting his login, but he did not and chose such an awful id.

Upon thinking a little more about it, I was able to dig out his name from my mind with the help of the login id pakara. I recalled that the guy's name was Ravi Kant Pandey, but I could not recall his branch. What helped most was the fact that we had called people branchwise, so we knew that we could search him by name by only looking at the list of students in those departments.

So Monika and myself, we went to the Counselling Service office and got hold of the list of students in IME, CE and LTP. The idea worked and from one of the lists we found out that he is from IME department and also noted down his roll number. We checked records and found out that new students of IME department had been allocated rooms in Hall-4 (incidentally, my own hostel). The next thing we did was, we contacted the Asstt. Coordinator of Hall-4 (Sumanta) and got the list of new occupants of Hall-4, sorted on Roll Number. This is all we needed to reach him.
Very soon, we found out his room number and were about to leave for his room when Monika came up with a brilliant idea that we should also make a note of the room numbers of other people from his college, who also have joined in.

So her and me, we walked from the counselling office right towards Hall-4 hoping to find out this guy who hopefully had the keys. To our disappointment, his room was locked and so was the room of one of his friends. Now are last hope was his other friend (second out of two). If we are unable to find Ravi there, then we are in big trouble.

God helps those, who help themselves!
Thanks to the holy spirit and Monika's mind, we got hold of him at his other friend's room. I asked for the keys and he gave me the bunch without any resistance. Burning with anger, I asked him why he hadn't told me in the first place that the keys did not belong to him, instead of taking them from me and carring them over to his room...
He replied, in a very soft voice, "Sir, maine dekha hi nahin ki yeh meri chabi nahin hai... (Sir, I did not notice that it does not belong to me)"

So anyway, we got the keys back after a long search. It was such a relief!
During all this khoj operation, Monika and myself got to know each other well and have been really good freinds since then.
A few days later, I came across Ravi and said "Thanks! :-)" to him. Know why? Had he returned me the keys that day, I might not have found such a wonderful friend.

All's well, that ends well.

--
*For information sake, I am a PG Student Guide (SG) in the Counselling Service (CS). CS is supposed to make sure that the new entrants feel comfortable and do not face too many problems during their stay on the campus.

My birthday cards

Though it has been a long time, since I celebrated my b'day, the memories are still as fresh as if it happened just moments back. It was a special birthday in some sense and I'll remember it all my life (atleast for a few years to come).

Anyway, I have finally overcome all hurdles to put up the cards I recieved this year. It doesn't include the card my dear sister Vibha gave because they are lying in my wardrobe at home and I haven't been able to scan them..

Click on the images to see full-size image. I have tried to blur some part of text, but if you can still read it, then... I suck at Image Processing!















These were given by a very close friend... You can read the name of the sender, can't you?
Oh they are so beautiful and full of feelings!









Sudeepa sent me the card right above and though I have shared it with you earlier, it makes me happy to put it up here again!
Now that is what I call a perfect card from a lovely sister to a caring brother!

And these cards make me so happy whenever I look at them. They remind me of the person who gave this card, which gives me so much joy that I can't express.
Thanks to both of you! And to all of you!

An update: As things stand now, it appears that my prayers weren't answered but it has not been confirmed.

Praying...

Na, not the cards yet...!
I am feeling a bit lazy these days so not writing the b'day card blog and to worsen things, I did not find uploading images easy (After being in Computer Science stream for so many years, if I have to face such a situation, then either I have been doing fraud all these years or blogger sucks with image uploading! And I think the latter one is true).

Anyway, what makes me blog today is that I have a wish in my heart and if that comes true, it will make me more happy than any other thing/event in recent past. Most likely, tomorrow I'll know whether that wish has come true or not and therefore I am very anxious, restless and excited. Have done some silly things, which my intutuion told me to do if I wanted to see it coming true.

Just praying right now!

Good deed

Yesterday I was not in the best of moods, but today it's totally different. I am happy, rather very-very happy because I did a good deed today. I donated a unit of blood today to someone who really needed it, but could not afford to buy one. I do not know who he is, don't even know his name but what I do know is that I made him feel better. Didn't I? And that is what gives me immense pleasure.

Once I had done that, I along with a few friends went out for a movie (Sarkar) but that did not happen because by the time we reached the counter for buying the tickets they had sold all i.e. it was already a HOUSE-FULL. Anyway, had a gala time as we hanged out at the shopping malls (looking at beautiful girls) and then spent some great time at Cafe Coffee Day after which we went to Treat. We sat in Cafe Cofee Day for more than 2 hours, the longest time I've spent in a food joint at the cost of less than Rs. 60 per person. Sitting there, we discussed some of the funniest and most embarassing moments in our recent past. It was fun but then we realised that we had spent far too much time than we were expected to so we got up and left in the best interest of all of us!

All in all, it was a great evening preceeded by a happy late-afternoon. Looking forward to many more evenings like today.

By the way, before donating blood I made sure that the needle used was a new one both times. Yes, I was pricked twice. First time it was done to test my blood against various diseases and haemoglobin count and the next time, obviously, for collecting the unit of blood I had gone to donate.
No risks when it come to needles! You know why, don't you?

Another thing. I recently recieved another set of birthday cards which are indeed beautiful and full of emotions. I wanted to share some pics of them here, but the file server on which I have kept them is down at the moment. Let's see if I can do that next time. Really beautiful cards!

Missing you!

I never wanted to post this but had to because I am missing someone very dear but do not have enough balance left on my cellphone to call that person and talk... Hence this post...!
:-(
Have lots of things to jot down but don't feel like doing that right now. Will share today's incidents sometime later when I am feeling better.

I have this bad feeling that I am going to lose a really good friend soon. Why am I so upset? Why am I getting these negative thoughts? I don't know... Do you?

Near death experience

Ok it wasn't so close, but I did panic when I realized I was going down!
Have been going for swimming for more than a month now, but day-before-yesterday I went in to the deep portion of the swimming pool. It was a nice, rather interesting, experience and I was really excited to reach the other end and then come back to the shallow part of the pool.
So to repeat my feat, I went into the pool yesterday again. Had no idea of what was going to happen. Reached the last point quite comfortably and was happy to have done it again. Then an idea came to my mind. Why don't I try to stay afloat without any support? And so I tried it.
First few seconds, it was okay as I managed to stay on top easily but very soon things started to get worse. Now I knew I was going down. And by this time, I had gone a little too far away from the pool walls so couldn't even cling onto any of them. So to save myself from drowning (in 20ft waters), I started to move my hands very-very fast in the hope that the force will bring me upwards but this caused a lot of splash and was noticed by some life-guards standing next to the pool. One of them ran towards me with a wooden stick in hand to help me. However, by the time he reached close to me I had managed to save myself. He growled at me, passed a few stares and left. I was happy and sad. Sad because I could have been drowned... happy that I managed to avoid it.
Anyway, by now all life-guards (4-5 of them) knew about me and were looking at me. Since I was at the deep end of the pool, I decided to go back to the shallow end to have some rest there. I practice breast-stroke style of swimming and in that you need a very good rythm of air intake and exhale. I generally do it very comfortably and smoothly without any hiccups, but nothing helps if it's not your day.
While coming back, I somehow lost the rythm in between and a few drops of water entered my mouth and went straight into my wind pipe... SHIT... As soon as it went into the wind pipe, I got restless, lost my balance and was again in deep waters, struggling for my life. Once again, I found myself far away from the walls. This time I really paniced and thought I was on my way to join my deceased neighbor but thank god I realised that it was no time to panic and that I should be helping myself... again. So with all my power, I pushed the water downwards and tried to come out once, so that

1. I can take one long breath which will hopefully make things much easier for me.
2. Judge whether I should go forward and reach for the shallow pool or should I try to go the pool wall.

As soon as I came out with the help of that one push, I inhaled as much air as I could. Once that happened, I knew that now I can handle the situation and so resumed my swimming movements. In a few seconds, I was back to normal, reaching for the wall. All this happened with a life-guard standing next to the swimming pool boundary right above me. He saw me go down, struggle and finally recover.
The moment I reached the pool wall and clinched it, the life-guard started shoutung at me telling me to go back into the shallow pool immediately and not to come back into the deep waters for the next three days.
I knew what happened should not have happened and therefore did not reply to any of his comments. I realized he was right in what he said, but was I really at fault? Later, that guard came to me and politely told me what happened should never have happened and what could have happened if...
I was very angry with myself, so to vent it out, I started swimming without taking any rest between the swims. After I had crossed the pool width three times to-and-fro, my hands started paining so much that I had to take some rest. During this time, I recalled all the events that had happened and decided that I wasn't going to do any silly things in the deep before I master the art of swimming.

Today when I went back into the pool, I stayed away from the rope dividing the shallow part from the deep part. Just enjoyed swimming in shallow and attended some under-water lectures by Guru Kaushik Ramajayam Ji. Also bunked a few of his lectures ;-)

Best trip so far

Last week I was in Delhi, my hometown. And I think, in the last one year, this was my best trip. Although at some points in time, I was sad or not-so-happy, but I think those moments were few and far between.

Some of the dates worth special mentioning are 24th June and 26th June. Obviously, the time you spend with special people has to be special. However, as they say, "Gods must be crazy". Something had to play spoilsport. It happened in a DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) bus. I was travelling in a bus plying on route number 901 when around 7 people got into the bus from Azadpur bus stop. It seemed to me that they were from two different but related families and they seemed to be from normal middle or lower-middle class. The male who looked most responsible bought the tickets for all 7 which means he spent around 50 bucks.
Before the bus had started moving, one of the girls (looked to be around 16 years old) in the family started feeling dizzy. So the male, who was also her father, got down from the bus along with her and helped her to drink some water. But that didn't help much. She was feeling no better. By this time, some people had started getting restless because the bus hadn't moved an inch in the last 10 minutes and some of them started shouting at the driver asking him to leave the families at Azadpur only. That was when, within myself, I started cursing the dilli ki junta for being so unhelpful. Ahh, but to my pleasure some people intervened and in a raised voice, said Unke 50 rupaye barbad ho jayenge (They will lose their 50 rupees if you leave them here). So it was decided to wait for the girl a little more.
Anyway, after a few moments, the girl was told to get back into the bus and was given a seat next to the window, in the rear half of the bus, so that she feels better (everyone thought it was the effect of heat) and things seemed to have settled down. But worse was still to come. And it came just when I wanted it least.
As I was waiting near the front gate of the bus to get down at Kingsway Camp, I heard the girl cry out loudly. I turned around, uncomfortably, and saw the whole crowd again staring at the girl.
Girl: Papa, papa.... papa (Dad, dad... dad)
Dad: Haan... Kya hai? Kya baat hai, bol (Angrily he replied, Yes? What's the problem?) At that moment I thought at least he should have replied properly in a polite manner. After all, she was his own daughter who needed his love and support the most then.
Girl: Papa, mummy... Mummy kahan hain? (Anxiously speaking, she asked "Where's mom?")
Then came the voice of a female.
Female: Kya hua... Yahin to hoon. (The female was sounding worried and said, What is the problem, dear? I am here right besides you.) It turned out that this female was the girl's mother and was sitting right next to her.

That is when I had to get down from the bus so I could not hear or see anything more regarding that incident. The girl, it seems to me, was suffering from a mental disorder or had some psychological problem. But whatever it was, I was a witness to it and it wasn't a good sight. It spoiled my mood. Thought about it till I reached my home and even after that. Something about it hurt me so badly that I kept thinking about it and till late night I could not even pack my bags to come back to Kanpur. Just got out of that in time to pack my bags, reach the station in time and catch the train but as you can see, I am still not completely out of it. Still remember each word distinctly... My week long journey that began happily ended on a really sad note. Still thinking how her dad would have reacted to what she said that I heard last.

I don't know whether I should be saying this. Gods may or may not be crazy, but they are really cruel at times.

By the way, the trip was the reason why I could not blog for so many days. No broadband internet connection at home and to add to my woes, my hard disk crashed :-(

How right I was...

I can't stop laughing... I just can't.
What I predicted about Parineeta was so true that even I am amazed. May be I should move away from the technical world (which I find soooo boring) to the world of predictions! If current trends continue, I could be more famous than Nostradamus. The movie turned out to be an absolute disaster and my friends who went to watch the movie were on the verge of pulling their hair out of their own heads. And when I came to know about all this, I rushed to each one's room and talked about the movie to make sure that they did not feel any better :-P

But the most interesting part about my previous blog was the first comment about it. Posted anonymously, it had some nice advice(s) for me. I am not very sure, but I think I know who she is. And I also know that she would read this post of mine very soon, so just wanted to say "Thanks!" to her. So, now I have another non-academic task to keep me busy today... to find out who posted that comment.

How busy I am...

Today I was busy the whole day... sitting in the laboratory and concentrating hard.
No don't worry, I haven't changed. Wasn't studying.
I was busy adding some features to my homepage and that kept me busy the whole day. In a way, I wasted the whole day but so what... nothing new ;-)
Anyway, some of my friends went to see Parineeta (don't go by what IMDb says 'coz it can be misleading sometimes) today but I did not go along with them because I didn't want to waste money (time, as I said, I always waste so that is not an issue). I expect them to come back either sad because the movie wasn't as good as they expected (I told them) or sad because its a sad & emotional movie! So either way, they are going to be sad! :-)
A good decision, isn't it?
They don't call me intelligent for no reason!

Welcome to Blogger!

Hi friends,

You might know I was blogging on MSN Spaces till now, but apparently anonymous comments are not supported there so I decided to move over to blogger. Moreover, blogger has a much better interface and now I don't have to do so much tantas for blogging.
For reading my previous posts, please click here.

So my blogging resumes, with a new-look and better interface.
All the best to me!