Mashed Brains, Headshots and the Dorian Burnout

Delta Stereotypes

2012-02-26T11:59:00.001+05:30

They've changed over time, but everyone hasn't progressed at the same pace. This makes stereotypes different in various circles, communities, social outlooks, etc. These are a few I've noticed.

Old Engineer

Geeky/nerdy. Supremely frustrated, especially sexually. Intelligence: powerful, intellect: almost zilch. Works like a machine - prime logician, can write tremendous algorithms, but can't generate insights. Left brain is mightily developed, right brain is as good as a walnut. This causes a lack of personality. All appear to be the same.

Pros: Will always manage to fix malfunctioning household devices, calculate monthly shared expenses, will never have mental disorders/issues because - as said earlier - right brain doesn't exist.
Cons: The closest he comes to knowing what's "happening" in the world is "news", has very bad or no taste in books, music, films, art, etc. Looks terrible. Not experimental. Bad in bed.

New Engineer

Atheist, against the education system, non-conformist, probably knows more about cars than academic major. If working in IT servicing, attitude is indifferent and "I know shit about what I do, I'm just happy getting my money!", if not, is IT-Nazi.

Pros: Is pseudo-arts-grad, with the advantage of being logical and rational. Probably plays drums or the guitar too. Charming and well-aware of useful and well as useless things in life.
Cons: Thinks he's House or Sherlock (or Jeremy Clarkson) - an unconventional sociopathic dick. Though great and easy to fall for, almost impossible to stay fallen for.

Old Girl-Next-Door

The old-new-engineer cusps will know exactly what I'm talking about - women from those (shit) rom-coms. Cute, bubbly, carefree, preferably with dimples, with a fan blowing the hair from the front and time slowing down whenever she looks at you.

Pros: No of times chocolate/flowers will make things okay = infinite. Remember her birthday, notice her haircut, give her shit on Valentine's Day, and she'll melt in your arms like butter on toast. Will never "cheat", will give your "mush hormones" a run for testosterone.
Cons: Highly predictable, mundane and boring after a while, manufactured inability to experiment, takes ideals and principles to seriously, even if they're irrational.

New Girl-Next-Door

What the new decade is all about. Being the odd-one-out, the out-outstanding ("since we expected you to be outstanding and you were outstanding, your performance is barely above expectations and we can't give you a raise") one.

Pros: Is probably bisexual (or sexually bipolar - yes I've heard of dozens, though never actually met anyone; ping if you are one!), is ideal best-friend-cum-sex-buddy (no pun intended), highly experimental.
Cons: Will have at least one personality disorder, is impossible to please/satisfy, will probably go do your friends in an orgy to spite you. And, probably earns more than you.

Old Band

We're so past the high-school classic-rock era. We are MEN, we play alternative rock.

Pros: Drop-outs, melodically sound and know how to take the stage.
Cons: Technically incompetent, play the same shit again and again and again and again and again and again

New Band

We don't play gay alt-shite, we play Metalcore.

Pros: Technically extremely sound, utilize odd-time signatures, compositions are actually thought-out
Cons: Melodically incompetent, play the same shit again and again and again and again and again and again

Rocket, Li'l Ze and Benny

2011-11-26T20:24:00.001+05:30

An afternoon when we were in a "contemplating" mood, Kushagra and I decided to talk about The Relativistic Rocket. Before long, we found ourselves in the very familiar state of being muddleheaded, unable to solve a basic Physics issue.

Introduction to the Relativistic Rocket
Since the speed of light is the absolute limit at which anything can travel (apart from those pesky neutrinos), even if we manage to travel at that speed, there isn't much that we can explore, since there isn't much within 50-60 light years of Earth. On the other hand, if you invent a rocket that consistently accelerates at, say 1g, you achieve enough time dilation to last thousands of years in normal time, and hence explore distant parts of the galaxy, maybe even beyond.

The Problem
We didn't even get to the relativity part of it. We assume an ordinary rocket, with x chemical potential energy to propel itself (as fuel), and current kinetic energy 0. After a while, x-y is the remaining PE and the rocket has y KE. Now what if the rocket wants to stop? It has to propel itself in the other direction, and use up y equivalent of fuel to reduce KE from y to 0. So there is an effective loss of 2y of energy from the system, into the universe. In what form does it go and how? There is nothing but vacuum in space, so heat and sound are out of the question. The heat generated from the fuel burning is the same as it was earlier, since it's consistently producing 1g of acceleration in an environment with no other forces acting on the system. So where did that energy disappear?

The Glitch
Our problem was that we forgot Newton's third law. Rockets propel themselves by reaction - they expel mass out one end which, due to conservation of momentum, pushes the rocket in the other direction. So if they are to halt, they simply propel the shit into the other direction which zooms into space at great velocity, hence explaining the "loss" of energy!

More on the Rocket
Even in theory, a rocket like this isn't easy to build. As your speed increases, it gets more and more difficult to go faster because of ever-increasing mass. Another issue is "stopping", as we were originally discussing. As you slow down, you lose the relativistic advantage of time dilation, and hence you end up a lot older than you expected to be when you actually land, wherever you do. As for the fuel, well, you can only imagine how much will be required, even if you use some sort of photon drive graser!

Click here if you're intrigued and want to read more.

Lawful? No thanks, I'm Chaotic

2011-08-17T15:05:00.005+05:30

The only hilarious legal thing I knew about the US prior to the Google vs { Apple, Microsoft, Ericsson, RIM, etc } issue was the suing system they have. A patron sued a cafe for serving coffee without informing him that it was hot when he gloriously poured the coffee on himself. Well, actually he dropped it, but whatever. As far as I know they won the suit and got some million dollars. There was another case of someone tripping over a floor that was being mopped, and hence... well, wet. No sign saying "wet floor." File case. Sue. Win millions.
Apart from making me wish I was born about a decade and a half earlier and in the US, this led manufacturers and companies to smack uber silly "disclaimers" and "instructions" stickers so as to Murphy-proof their products or services. A packet of potato chips now reads, "Open and eat contents." A flight-stewardess (or attendant or cocksucker or whatever the "correct" term is) tells you to take the hook of the seat belt and slide it into the other, receiving end of the belt and tighten it around your waist. A nuclear warhead has the instructions, "Aim at enemy and fire." There's only one response that comes to my head when I think of all this, and that is :-/
The other infinitely amusing thing I learnt a few days back is the patent system, especially when it comes to intellectual property. People sue others claiming they're infringing copyright and then don't produce concrete evidence because it'll become "exposed". And when some people grep the vagueness which is supposedly copyrighted, the majority of results they get are stuff within // or /* */ (for the uninitiated, "grep" is basically a fabulously awesome tool to search text for patterns). There have even been instances of blank lines being copyrighted.
Personally I feel there are two possibilities of the current situation - one, it's just another hilarious set of lawsuits the giants will participate in, like poker. Probably something like the poker tournament in Casino Royale! Two, it's serious. It's going to cripple community development, open source propagation and liberal development. At the end everybody's going to own a bunch of patents for which they're going to charge everyone else rocketing amounts, and that's how they stay stable and happy (when somebody makes more money off licensed patents than their own OS, you know they really don't know when to submit!). Who suffers? The consumer, who has to indirectly pay for all the bullshit which is used everywhere anyway.
Re-affirming my tweet, and giving the first direct reference to what I'm talking about in this post (for those who didn't even realise this wasn't just a generic post, "sigh..."), go Google! You have the support of a massive fan-base, who are not biased and/or motivated by business. I can bet whatever else be true, nobody can nearly match up to that. But, kindly keep your promises! :)

Oh Calcutta

2011-06-11T23:33:00.001+05:30

The city of lights. Four hundred years old. The city you'll inevitably fall in love with, if you're patient and open-minded enough.

Where lethargy and procrastination are virtues, where intellect and passion runs on the streets, and where undue ambition is looked down upon.

The only city where I've been asked about my football jerseys or band tees (by someone on the road) almost whenever I've worn one. The only city where almost every form of music is alive - even though feebly - in some place and some form or the other.

The city that taught me how to be intelligent enough to attribute lack of ambition to too much intelligence - by arguing how there's really no point in life because you can never do what you like and you'll always question what you're doing if you do something you don't particularly like; hence, best to do nothing, read or watch and sit and contemplate and get stoned.

The city that taught me the meaning of melancholy - and how addictive it can be; that taught me how to look at things from different, archetype perspectives, how even a puddle of mud in water-logging rain can be aesthetically pleasing; how a dilapidated, old house can make you feel "connected" to it, defy all your logical and scientific instincts and somehow make you feel that it's alive.

The city where almost everyone loves and helps animals. Where cats and dogs on the street are family. The city which can make you feel nostalgic and sad just by having you think about it, imagine the roads, the trees, the ways in which it will always remain the same. The city whose name itself puts a lump in my throat, when I say it, even in my head. Calcutta. I wish I could hug you. I shall miss you, terribly. And no matter how much I have always wanted out, wanted to leave and start a life, I know that I shall always wish to come back, and feel "at home" again.

I love you. Thank you, Calcutta for bringing me up.

Purple Haze

2011-06-10T10:35:00.000+05:30

The gearbox clunks as I shift into fourth and speed down the wide road in the swift and smooth Cayman - built for those who find the Boxster a waste and whom the 911 finds the same. The trees are a blur as they zoom by, and I am high on the symphony being played by the flat-6. At times like these you are in dual states of mind - one blissfully static and where time no longer exists, and the other charged up and full of adrenaline, which temporarily makes you a race-car driver. As the turn comes up, I slow down, shift back into second and try to touch the apex, causing a bit of tire squeal and chuckling to myself.

As I walk past the gallery I stare in awe at the exhibits, wonder how little we know of the world - there are so many worlds, there were so many more, and for once I wish I could be immortal - for as long as I wished to be, Mr Manhattan, if you please. Just so that I could learn. My mind switches back to the time when I was in school - a history exam. I'm seated in the auditorium, not knowing half the answers and figuring out how the hell to get them from somewhere. I take my pencil and throw it at the guy next to me, who gets startled and looks menacingly. I ignore everything and raise my question paper so that he can see, and point to one of the questions I don't know. He immediately looks back at his own paper and continues writing. Just as I begin cursing him a rap runs across the back of my head and my answer sheet's taken away.

The audience claps as I enter the stage and bow to them. It's Bach tonight - Prelude. I always wanted to play the saxophone, be a jazz player. But some things aren't meant to be, and I now carry a massive cello to concerts. As I reach the bridge, I hear a faint giggling somewhere in the back seats. Bunch of idiots sharing a joke, no doubt. Why do they even come to listen?! I almost lose concentration, curse myself for it, and get back to thinking about what I'm playing.

I'm running and panting now. Across building rooftops. I sense thrill and excitement and am reminded of a scene from Memento - "Okay, what am I doing? I'm running. [Looks at person nearby] Am I chasing him? [Person pulls out gun] No, he's chasing me!"
I look down at my hands - I'm holding an M4 Carbine in them, so unless the other party has an RPG I'm definitely the chaser. I hunt for my victim with my eyes, spot him jumping across two buildings and going towards a dive-roll into a window. I stop, take aim... He turns around and says, "Sir, it's time." The scene starts fading, light starts seeping in through the sky, everything loses focus.

I am woken up. I see a blurry tray with toast, eggs and a cup of tea. I sigh and think about being back to perceiving the world with one badly damaged eye and a wheelchair. The only reason I don't want to die is because I still want to be able to dream.

20 Questions

2011-04-29T15:52:00.003+05:30

There's a short film called Arranged Marriage that had been posted and reposted a couple of times on Facebook when I'd written this note. I would rather the film had been a satire, with the same plot and script.

The reasons why "90% of marriages in India are arranged and only 5% of those have divorces" are these:
1. It's usually a family contract, you can't just violate it.
2. You're either too dumb to interact enough to find a suitable person for yourself and hence will be happy with whatever you have, or simply can't find anyone you think you can stick around with for your entire life and hence will just make do with what you get.
3. The fact that you had an arranged marriage shows you're submissive - instead of revolting and objecting to negativity or incompatibility, you'll accept it and adapt to it, because you're a douche.
4. If the thought of marriage is in your head before you even talk to the person for the first time, you're pretty much pre-initiated; you think of the person as a potential spouse right from the start. That mentality pwns even Freud!

As I watched it I felt the what-if question pop up in my head. Here's how I'd probably have responded.

Q. Why engineering?
A. What I really want to do is just travel, learn bits and pieces of the different things, cultures, traditions, lifestyles, histories, arts, etc existent in the world. But that's not a valid profession in human civilisation. I can't be a pilot because of my eyes. The music I play won't sell in India. I'm not really a true engineer. It's just what I use to earn my living.

Q. Do you cook?
A. Omelettes. And parathas at times.

Q. Do you eat meat?
A. Pretty much only meat.

Q. Do you have a problem with me being vegan?
A. Not if you're a person who relishes food, because then you're a vegan by choice and not by the stereotypical belief that plant life - for some moronic reason - is expendable but animal life isn't.

Q. I hope you watch movies?
A. I'm a cinephile. I actually maintain a spreadsheet which lists all the worthwhile films I've watched and has a personal rating alongside each.

Q. Music?
A. Ah well I don't need t answer that. Let's forget that you said, "music without lyrics?" otherwise I'll fill this entire page with arguments and justifications about how music is not about words - that's poetry. I don't even like vocals.

Q. Are you religious?
A. I'm ignostic - first define "God" or the "entity" that controls and then we'll discuss about its existence. Otherwise, I believe in Chaos Theory. Everything is just plain and simple randomness, which we try to control with our schemes and planning.

Q. Are you sexual?
A. Oh very!

Q. Do you drink?
A. I indulge in whatever I want to, whenever I want to.

Q. What are your goals in life?
A. I don't have any. The things I want to do, I don't think I'll ever be able to, which effectively makes them "dreams" rather than goals.

Q. Would you stop guys harassing a girl on the street?
A. Yes.

Q. If you see a child begging on the street, what do you do?
A. Discourage them as harshly and intimidatingly as possible, so that at least for a moment they fear the fundamental idea of asking someone for money.

Q. Would you live with your parents?
A. Are you effing crazy!?

Q. Let's meet again and talk some more?
A. I really don't think that's such a good idea.

My Eccentricities

2011-04-25T20:25:00.005+05:30

Some things that I just do. Because I'm odd.

I create imaginary figures out of patterns everywhere.

I always put notes the right side up, arranged in increasing order front-to-back, in my wallet.

I walk weirdly on coloured tiles - like xkcd very aptly demonstrates.

I randomly day dream about deep-cover-splinter-cell-stealth-agent operations.

At the end of a meal, I always put the cutlery I used parallel, facing down on the plate.

I always have warm showers.

I e-hoard.

If my bed-sheet has borders, they must be equidistant from the central axes.

I get goosebumps every single time I hear the cello or The Great Gig in the Sky.

At times I want to be melancholic. More often than not, actually.

NB: Link to the xkcd comic referred to..

Sherlock Holmes vs Hercule Poirot

2011-04-02T13:12:00.002+05:30

It's not only foolish to attempt to write such a post without being a person who's read and remembers each and every book of Doyle's and Christie's, it's also very risky because I might just get murdered tomorrow. But rest assured, I'm not going to put them in a duel and simulate the results in my head. This post is simply a factual one, maybe with a few opinions of my own sprinkled here and there!

Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Nationality: Mostly British
Virtues: Usage of inductive reasoning, brilliance, eidetic memory
Vices: Heavy smoker, uses cocaine
Other Characteristics: Very physically fit, judges morality himself, plays the violin

Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie)

Nationality: Belgian
Virtues: Usage of deductive reasoning, psychology
Vices: OCD, quite unpopular and not welcome
Other Characteristics: Very observant and clever conversationalist, leaves judgement to the law

Holmes is a very cinematic character - quite unrealistic to imagine in real life, with all those extraordinary Batman qualities all merged in one. Poirot, on the other hand, is an extremely boring one and has probably had more physical exertion while cultivating his vegetable marrows than the entire duration of his case-solving career. While the former observes and deduces mostly via physical evidence and inductive reasoning, the latter uses the art of conversation and psychology along with deductive reasoning and 'ruling-out'. This is probably the reason why I like Poirot's method of working more than Holmes'.
Coming to the mysteries, I won't say much, since I haven't read all of either character, but I'll say this much - of whatever I have, I've found Agatha Christie's mind to be more creative and capable of completely fooling even the seasoned reader with it's product, whereas Sir Conan Doyle's work is more intriguing and involving for the reader.

To end, I'll state that though I'd usually choose a Poirot book over a Holmes one to read, there is something else - hypothetically if I am to ever be in the presence of either of these characters, it will be Holmes, without doubt! But come to think of it, that's what makes Agatha Christie more special - while most series are based on a superhero, underdog and/or purely lucky protagonist (Harry Potter), she wrote an epic series based on a character whom very few people would actually find interesting.

The Sound of... Words

2011-03-30T00:55:00.001+05:30

Statistically, your chances of relating to the next paragraph are very likely, and that’s in fact the reason it’s been written that way. But in case you fall in the shallow region of the normal curve, you should read on anyway -twist awaits!

At times you might encounter certain people who seem generally incapable of appreciating lyrics. The way they seem bored and uninterested when a heart-wrenching song is playing absolutely infuriates you. The illiterate lot, you think to yourself, and decide not to pay attention to them; but the harder you try to away your sight, the more they enter through the corner of your vision, meddling with the pure and pristine emotions flowing through your veins. At a point of time you just wish they’d disappear, and maybe even you be involved in it, if you be having a trifle aggressive disposition.

The truth is, I belong to that category of people, and though it has a lot of sub-classification, I’ll at least defend my kind. We’re musicians, not writers. It doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate poetry, it’s just that we find it empty without music, like a glass with no water, a computer without a hard disk, a screenplay without dialogue. Now, of course, certain glasses may be exquisite and objects of beauty and admiration on their own, as may some computers be run on Live CDs, and some films be silent; but that’s not regular. We’re not right, nor wrong, we’re just different.

For us, every sound is a simply a sound. Syllables enter our ears as notes, embellished with dynamics, moods and graphics. We hear them as components of music, and our brain identifies them as such. It connects the dots, keeping in memory what has past, trying to predict what is to come, all the while judging based on experience and taste, both active and passive elements of what it hears. For us to “hear” lyrics, we’d either need to have a written copy to reference while the song plays, or listen very carefully, deliberately discarding the musical information, connecting each syllable with the next, decoding it into words that exist and make sense of it all.

The following “line” pretty much explains what it’s like for us to decode lyrics

IoncehadagirlorshouldIsaysheoncehadme
sheshowedmeherroomisn’titgoodNorwegianwood

Take note though, there are songs whose lyrics we know by heart, by virtue of singing along them since before we became illiterate and/or the songs being so popular and epic. In the latter case, you might find us singing the entire song without actually knowing a single word. I can personally vouch for this - I’ve sung Stairway to Heaven several times on stage when there’s no other vocalist available, and I still have absolutely no idea of what the lyrics are. For me, the words are just syllables - notes, that flow into each other, and dynamics. The song might as well have been in Japanese - I’d have sung it as well.

It’s not easy living like this - like a freak. You know you’re not “natural” - there are places you just don’t belong, and you have to avoid being there no matter what. It hurts, at times, to refuse close friends and loved ones when they request me to come along. Imagine an animal that can sense all the radio-waves that are flowing through the air all the time, or a child walking to school through a battlefield - shells blasting everywhere, land mines at any possible step, noise that makes him/her deaf. Would I sacrifice my musical instincts and senses to be normal - to be able to sit in a restaurant without flinching at the songs playing - to not have to carry headphones all the time, so as to remove unwanted ear-worms - to be able to sleep while there’s music playing in the background - to be able to comprehend and appreciate lyrics of songs when politely asked by acquaintances instead of just nodding blankly and “singing” false praise - and so much more?

Not in a million years :)

Mélancolie

2011-03-08T09:45:00.016+05:30

A list of fifteen most depressing films I've seen - all these films deal with at least one of the following: a melancholic/dark theme, not having a happy ending, grey characterisation.

15.

Twelve Monkeys takes place in 1997, after a deadly virus has killed 99% of the human population--forcing the survivors to flee beneath our planet's surface. This leaves the (other) animals topside, to rule the Earth once again. The scientists select James Cole, an imprisoned sociopath, to return to the past and gather information useful in the defense against this contagion. Once back in time, he is to investigate the mysterious 'Army of the Twelve Monkeys' and report his findings. Scientific, social, and political themes like time travel (and its inherent paradoxes and nested loops), mental illness, the nature of reality, animal rights, and the Armageddon-potential of unchecked technological advances are artfully and cleverly explored.

14.
District 9 is a 2009 science fiction thriller film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It was written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James. The film won the 2010 Saturn Award for Best International Film presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films,[3] and was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2010, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Editing.

13.

The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police.

12.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American romantic fantasy film scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction, nonlinear narration and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love.

11.The Machinist shows Trevor Reznik, a lathe-operator who suffers from insomnia and hasn't slept in a year. Slowly, he begins to doubt his sanity as increasingly bizarre things start happening at work and at home. Haunted by a deformed co-worker who no one seems to think exists, and an ongoing stream of indecipherable Post-It notes he keeps finding on his fridge, he attempts to investigate what appears to be a mysterious plot against him.

10.
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American drama film starring Robin Williams and directed by Peter Weir. Set at a conservative and aristocratic boys prep school, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students to change their lives of conformity through his teaching of poetry and literature.

9.
American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari).

8.
Requiem for a Dream follows the lives of Harry, Marion, Tyrone, and Sara, who are all searching for the key to their dreams, and in the process, they get flung into a devastating life of addiction. Harry and Marion are in love and Tyrone is their friend. Sara is Harry’s lonely, widowed mother. Sara’s dream is to be on television, and when a phone call from a casting company gets her hopes up, she spends the next few months bingeing on diet pills to lose weight.

7.
Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 American sports drama film directed, co-produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and starring Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman. It is the story of an under-appreciated boxing trainer, his elusive past, and his quest for atonement by helping an underdog amateur female boxer (the film's title character) achieve her dream of becoming a professional. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

6.
Mary and Max showcases a tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.

5.Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film which depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered organic robots called replicants—visually indistinguishable from adult humans—are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as other mega manufacturers around the world. Their use on Earth is banned, and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on Earth's off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and "retired" by police special operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt out expert blade runner, Rick Deckard, who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.

4.The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French: Le scaphandre et le papillon) is a 2007 biographical drama film based on the memoir of the same name by Jean-Dominique Bauby. The film depicts Bauby's life after suffering a massive stroke, on 8 December 1995, at the age of 42, which left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. The condition paralyzed him from the neck down. Although both eyes worked, doctors decided to sew up his right eye as it was not irrigating properly and they were worried that it would become infected. He was left with only his left eye and the only way that he could communicate was by blinking his left eyelid. The film was directed by Julian Schnabel, written by Ronald Harwood, and stars Mathieu Amalric as Bauby. It won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards, as well as four Academy Award nominations.

3.
Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella) is a 1997 Italian language film which tells the story of a Jewish Italian, Guido Orefice (played by Roberto Benigni, who also directed and co-wrote the film), who must employ his fertile imagination to help his family during their internment in a Nazi concentration camp. At the 71st Academy Awards in 1999, Benigni won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the film won both the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

2.
Schindler's List is a 1993 American biographical drama film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally.

1.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is 1975 American drama film by Milos Forman. It is set in an Oregon asylum, and serves as a study of the institutional process and the human mind.

Special Mention

Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (or Hachiko: A Dog’s Story outside the United States) is a 2009 American drama film based on the true story of the faithful Akita Hachikō, who was an Akita dog born on a farm near the city of Ōdate, Akita Prefecture, remembered for his remarkable loyalty to his owner, even many years after his owner’s death.

Till date this has been the only film which has actually brought out a tear from my eyes.

Hachiko

Musings or Real Issues

2011-03-01T20:47:00.009+05:30

I’d decided to write an entry like this quite a while back, but kept delaying it due to either being busy elsewhere or feeling that there more points for me to ponder over. After seeing Glut - The Untold Story of Punjab I decided to just spare a half hour and write down simply whatever comes to my head, at least as a Prologue to a more organised and fulfilling entry sometime later.
Note that everything in this piece is written completely from my point of view – it is probably the most subjective and maybe even controversial note I’ve ever written.

One point I’m sure everyone notes is dirt. It’s not about pollution, but rather about mentality. Imagine a one foot perimeter around a person – that’s their “clean” zone: every piece of junk has to be thrown beyond that perimeter. Wrappers are to be strictly thrown outside car/bus windows, the amount of spit-out pan masala can actually fool an unsuspecting individual into thinking there was a bloodbath a few hours earlier, junk from eatables is discarded pretty much in the same manner that a cow discards bowel movements as it walks on, unnerved.

The next issue that comes to mind is the lack of consideration. If you ask, “for what?” I have a ‘finite but uncountable’ number of things I can state. Let me try a few easily-explainable ones: Space. Be it physical, mental or emotional. It’s my room – you’re supposed to knock and not just barge in. It’s my room – if I hint at having had my share of your company for the day, kindly leave. Do not read my SMS/mails, ask before you just open the box of biscuits and have some – it’s not like I’ll deny, but I’d appreciate some courtesy! Don’t play one song at full volume on a repeat loop, exit your room and come back ten hours later – there are others living around you who really don’t want to be forced to hear the same shit for the entire day. If you enter a clean bathroom, why, why must you make it your mission to get it as dirty as possible by the time you leave? Why steal chairs from the mess, so much that there are now more tables than chairs? If you like having food in your room, at least get your old plate (thala) back next time round! Why leave it lying around the aquaguard?

Another related issue I’ve noticed and been irritated by is uber-judgemental attitude. Some people consider themselves to be a Godsent character connoisseur. They must pry into other’s lives, instantly make judgement based on whatever they find, and spread this judgement like the words of a prophet. I don’t understand the obsession with taking yourself as the ideal person and then extrapolating others’ qualities with respect to yours and judging them! Why can’t you respect individuality, others’ opinions, principles, ways of life and accept them as they are? If you don’t like them, don’t be friends with them.

Save maximum, spend minimum. No matter how bad that minimum gets you. Every penny earned is meant to be saved, unless it has to be spent. Why is money so important to keep locked up? People forget that money was invented as a means to have a generic exchange medium to take the place of the barter system. There is a serious lack of quality comprehension and appreciation, and in this process, people miss out on a lot of interesting experiences in life. I’m not saying everything expensive is worth it, but that there’s a reason they are expensive and there’s a reason they sell! And it’s not that everyone else has money to throw around. Brand value does take up a small fraction of the increase in cost, but not all of it.

Education and career options. First thing I never understood is the concept of “streams” in 11-12. Is it absolutely impossible for a sizeable portion of the millions being educated to want to know Physics and Literature? This same concept extends to the university levels too. Being a computer engineer, I’ve had about 30 subjects throughout 3 years, out of which at least 25 were strictly related to information technology. So when I graduate, I may know quite a bit about IT (which, I assure you, I won’t – but that’s my fault), but how complete am I as a person and an individual?
They teach us sex-education in the twelfth standard, by which (at least the male population) knows more than three positions you can have sex in, the Bases, and various stimulation options. Instead of teaching us what sex is, why not teach us the psychological problems one can face, the types of disease that spread via sex, those that spread via saliva alone, and those that don’t – what Herpes, Gonorrhoea, Syphilis are, how they are treated, etc. There’s nothing on the lines of masturbation – if it’s good/bad (yes, I’ve met people who were under the impression that it’s as bad for health as heroin), what are the side effects, if there is any “wrong” way to do it, etc. Drugs – just a mention on “don’t do it”. Why not? What not? Why people get addicted, what is the mechanism of a high, what is a hangover, how to get over it, nothing… A related issue exists at the homes of many people I know – the parents “control” what their children study and end up being. I thought they had their share of life and these “children” were actually adults, or at least adolescents? Don’t they have a right to decide what to do?
Throughout these years I’ve learnt things in this way – sitting in a class behind a desk while the teacher/professor harps on and writes on the board. Oh, and the books I was supposed to read but never did. Why aren’t there any models of demonstration, interactivity, outdoor instruction, etc? The reason why you encounter so many people who’re unable to speak publicly, express themselves, talk fluently in English, etc, is because nobody ever had to do it throughout their entire period of schooling. When I’d seen the video of Dr Walter Levin, a professor at MIT (Physics), I felt even worse for the way my education has turned out.

One last issue I’d like to point out may be a small one, but it certainly has a direct as well as an indirect impact on lifestyle. Haste. If there’s an inch of space between the car in front and mine, I will move closer. If I find one millisecond of a gap between two vehicles in a jam, I will ram into it and create further chaos. I will never follow the concept of lane driving, giving way, maintaining the 2 second distance, giving space. This shortcut mentality creeps in everywhere, and eventually everyone is just taking shortcuts to nowhere and getting caught in a web of mangled and incorrigible traffic.

Confession: it took me more than an hour to write this.

"The"

2010-12-13T21:35:00.011+05:30

I've come to a conclusion that most of what happens to you in life, is totally not in your control. A very small part of it is.

Some people refer to it as destiny, but since I'm an Atheistic Agnostic, I'm forbidden to use that word; hence I'll just call it "luck".

Yes, you're in control of what you eat, drink, wear, f*ck (okay, who), but how much of that actually reflects? Our entire career path relies on a set of exams - starting from 10th (for Gen-Omega or whatever they're called, I guess this isn't applicable any more), on to the following tree.

There are three broad possibilities, which I shall state in increasing order of likelihood:
1) Maximum Luck: Here you crack each entrance you want the first time you take it, get the ideal career, and "the" break before you even reach quarter-life crisis - which I already have, so this possibility is out of the question for me.
2) Moderate Luck: The general person's life... almost. For example (the one I can relate to the most because of the abundance of such people around me), you aim for IIT, get an NIT instead, aim for Amazon, get OnMobile, aim for Chief Architect in five years, become Project Manager instead, etc etc. But... you get the rewards for your sustained and un-dampened efforts and never-ending, blind enthusiasm which could never be brushed by cynicism or the pessimistic and envious words of your friends who said, "you're just not meant for it" and "the" Lady finally showers it all on you. No pun intended.
3) Minimum Luck: You know you can't make it big anywhere, it's not gut-feeling, it's more basic than that - instinct. Fact. Statistics. Experience. Grapes aren't sour, they're just out of reach. So you don't expect anything, in your mind the future is blank, it's just filled with what happens as it becomes the present. That way the worst that can happen is exactly what you expected - nothing. And anything above that is a pleasant surprise. See?! There's so much potential for positive energy in such a train of thought! And people say I'm pessimistic.

First, let me ask you - is it absolutely impossible or unheard-of for someone completely ordinary to suddenly become successful and famous? In fact, this modern society prefers temporary and short-lived celebrities and heroes. Villains too, actually. I can obviously cite numerous examples. JK Rowling, for one. I won't cite any more, so that that example sticks for the duration of the sinking of the next point which I'm going to make.

Why is it then that all of the "Be Positive", self-help and books on optimism are written by highly accomplished people? The answer is simple - they're the ones who belong to category one and believe that you get things and "the it" if you try hard enough and want them badly enough. And if you "believe".

The rest of the world, on the other hand, knows that it's pretty much luck - being in the right place at the right time is not a virtue, it's fluke. And even if you're holding the longest stick, you never know who might come along with a pole. Fair example - the cable guys in my area had a monopoly for God knows how many years. Oops, blasphemy. Okay, "who" knows how many years. In less than six months they were kicked into dust and ashes by the advent of dish television (Tata Sky, Airtel and the like).

So, I propose, to all those who belong to at least the third category and maybe the interested ones in the second, that let's research on luck, and capturing it. By the very theory stated above, at least one of us ought to hit a jackpot and find "the" breakthrough that benefits us all.

PS: Does anyone have chocolate? That they can give me, of course.

Perspective

2010-10-04T17:41:00.003+05:30

Allow me to define a spectrum, the two ends of which are the two contrasting ways in which you can look at this world.

Classical
In a nutshell, the whole world/universe is a common platform on which we live; and not just physically, but also spiritually. Imagine there being a universal set of characteristics, parameters, etc which define the universe in truth and entirety. One who knows the contents of that set is what we call to be "the wise" and "the enlightened", and hence philosophers as well as scientists are on an eternal search to obtain the truth(s).
Coming to individual sets - everyone has a set of principles, beliefs, opinions, facts, etc; part of which is a subset of that universal set (let's call this the True Part), and the rest is illusion - either different, wrong, or irrelevant (the Fallacious Part). Knowledge can then be measured as the amount of data in the True Part, and wisdom can be measured as the ratio of the True Part to the Fallacious Part.

Romantic
Some refer to this as post-modern and God knows what, but simply put: it's the belief that there is no objective truth. Hence the concept of the universal set is invalid, and everyone's individual set is all that matters. Its contents are not comparable to anything else, hence there is no true knowledge or wisdom. Everyone is right in their own mind, and someone else cannot judge since they're in a different mind.

The Problem
The classical view is quite straightforward and usually appealing to the "technically-inclined", since scientists believe that the simplest answer is almost always the right one. The romantic view is quite interesting and alluring, at least to me. But personally, I believe that either view is extreme. For example, from the classical standpoint, there is no scope for a "point of view". Everything is simply objective, it just exists. It's very valid for scientific theories, universal phenomena, existing entities, etc, but gets difficult to superimpose over emotions, perspective, principles and ideals, etc. Similarly, the romantic view is pure anarchy if applied to the social construct - every criminal is right in their minds, Phoebe is right in thinking that evolution is a truckload of crap, there is nothing that can be generally applied or considered.

The Solution - and More Problems
Use the classical viewpoint for certain things, and the romantic viewpoint for others. First question that appears on everyone's heads - how do you decide which; and who decides it? What is to be considered objective, and what subjective? It's not a difficult choice for certain issues, like a criminal committing rape is objectively unaccepted and a ruthless and unforgivable crime. But other issues, most obviously religion, euthanasia, the ranking of schools, etc are quite difficult to categorise.
In music, I believe maturity comes with appreciation and better comprehension; for example, I remember being asked by someone why I call instrumental pieces "songs", as they don't contain lyrics. That's the viewpoint of a complete amateur: the whole function of music is just to provide background accompaniment for a bunch of lyrics. As you progress, you realise that music's actually quite complicated and interesting, and an example path of maturity one could take is:

Pop > Alternative > Grunge > Classic Rock > Blues / Funk > Jazz

To press the point: the path shown is just an example! But the important point is - this is from the point of view of an amateur musician, for whom music is an integral part of life. A person for whom music is just weekly entertainment is quite justified in being "ignorant" and will probably prefer to remain that way, rather than take the pain of "educating" themselves, especially when they're not even interested. In such a case, the romantic view has to be applied: I cannot force my views on them, nor can I tell them they're utterly wrong. The only appropriate adjective would be "naive", and maybe "non-artistic", though the latter becomes slightly racist - not completely so, because an artist is expected to appreciate art, no matter what kind, even if they don't follow it.

The "bombshell on which to end the show" is - now there exists a new Truth Set, which comprises of two parts - the Classical Part, which itself comprises of the original two parts - True and Fallacious, and the Artistic Part, which is just a set of personal beliefs, and another relation between the two major parts, one that decides what fraction of the original Universal Set is compulsorily in the Classical Part, and what can be discarded as subjective information. The key to wisdom then, is knowing this relation.

Note: The "bombshell" line is owned, copyrighted and trademarked by Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of Top Gear.

Specificity

2010-07-19T15:16:00.007+05:30

Note: This post is regarding my interpretation of Chrisopher Nolan's Inception (2010), and it is not recommended that you continue unless you have watched the film and are open to alternate analyses of the film.

** SPOILER ALERT **

As Mohona said, Nolan probably hates having a fan-following, which is why he complicates his films four times over as soon as he senses people are beginning to understand it. Inception may be said to be a brilliant film by some, as it deals with several issues together, whilst handling an immensely complicated plot and technique; and with the movie cut-off just a few seconds before everybody would like it to, Nolan has successfully introduced a million possibilities, a few of which I'll be discussing here. Point to note though, I don't consider Inception to be an awesome film and definitely nowhere near his best, as it is way too complex, and artistically and romantically bland. "We're on a train, that's going far away" is a really lame line when you consider the script-writer including four freaking levels of dreams.

We know that the primary issue was of Cobb dealing with Mal's death and wanting to get back to reality - I should say perceived reality for the sake of "specificity"!
The simplest possibility that comes first to the head is that Cobb doesn't really care about the top spinning any more, which is why as soon as he sees his children, he forgets about the top and goes to greet them.

The second and slightly more abstract conclusion is that the main issue is not with the film but with the viewer: what is real and what is not? Are we actually living this life or are we imagining it on another plane? The Matrix problem. Add to it the fact that recursion is given so much importance in the film, which indicates that death is probably just "waking up" in another dimension, rendering the process and our understanding of the universe entirely our own perception - something I've always believed, in fact.

One thing I should add here is the "subtle" message being put across by Limbo being "down below" where nobody wants to go, infinite subconscious etc; and reality being "up above" where everybody wants to be. Tch tch, Chris, this is what happens when you write a film for ten years; your script isn't tight any more.

The last point I'll make before going into the main part of my interpretation is the fact that there's a possibility that the last two levels were in fact rigged by Cobb, with Mal shooting Robert being planned by him - she didn't kill him. Which brings us to the last level, which is not limbo. He deals with his wife there, gets Ariadne to give Robert and herself the kick and then goes into limbo himself, waking up in the beach where the Japanese guards find him - senseless and without purpose. It's Saito who sees the top, gets reminded of the truth, reminds Cobb about it, and then they shoot themselves back to reality. I'm not entirely convinced about this, as it has a few loopholes, but it still is an interesting theory.

Now coming to the main part - the ending:
What made all of us think that in the end Cobb was still dreaming - apart from the top - is his kids: exactly the same age, same clothes, same lighting, etc. Note that their voices and responses on phone - in the beginning of the film - are quite different (more mature) than those shown in the end.What most people (who believe that Cobb was dreaming in the end) will say is that the whole film was Cobb's dream. It seems nobody took to the idea that he might have been put in a dream somewhere in the middle of the film.

That's my idea.
Facts:

The last time the top was shown to stop spinning was in Paris.
In Mambosa, Cobb tries to spin the top but is stopped short by Saito.
Saito had told Cobb, "Just like inception" when asked how he could get Cobb back home.

Remember, Saito was very intrigued and impressed by Cobb's idea of a dream within a dream. It is my belief that then onwards, Saito was the actual head of the entire operation, and probably the architect of the main dream: which I believe started in the chemist shop, when Cobb tries that ultra-heavy-RDX and then wakes up. Or does he? According to me, it is within that room that Saito puts the entire team in a dream with Cobb in it, where Cobb thinks he's woken up (Fact 2), but is actually dreaming the entire thing out. Saito and the rest of the team, in this way, get to know how to conduct the entire operation on Robert later. Cobb dreams that he passes through immigration with no issues.
More evidence on the concept: The chemist's assistant tells Cobb, "They come here to be woken up... Who are you to say otherwise, sir?" and smiles at him. This is a very strong indication that the assistant knows a lot, and is trying to confuse Cobb even more (otherwise why choose to say it to Cobb? Why say it at all, in fact?), which is only possible if he is working for Saito.

PS: If you're wondering what I think is Nolan's best so far, I can't decide between Memento and The Dark Knight; though the latter's credit may be given to Heath Ledger's presence, brilliant performance and delivery rather than the scriptwriter/director's work.

Verbal Diarrhoea

2010-07-15T00:58:00.002+05:30

Sometimes we say stupid things; more so when we get flustered, especially due to a surprise encounter. This is just a list of things you would not want to end up saying to these people.

Steve Vai
Dude, I just love the way you wham that G-string!
Monica Bellucci
Just last night I masturbated while fantasizing about you!
Neil Armstrong
How much did they pay you for that scam?
Isaac Newton
What if it had been a really heavy pineapple?
Jawaharlal Nehru
I'd have "done" the same if I were you.
Nikola Tesla
How many times did you dream of remotely electrocuting Edison?
Sheldon Cooper
How did you ever get it up?

References:
Jawarhal Nehru - reference to Lady Mountbatten
Sheldon Cooper - reference to high-IQ sperm donation in Pilot episode

Virtual Heroin(es)

2010-07-06T14:55:00.001+05:30

Watching the Max Payne film had me wondering how an invincibly immovable childhood crush can be utterly destroyed by bad scripting, casting, and acting; and so I decided to write this, in dedication to all the video game heroines I can remember who have been memorable!

8. Princess Peach (Mario)

About Her
The beloved Princess of what is probably the most popular game ever in the history of mankind. With a strange affinity to pink and being kidnapped by a dragon genetically crossed with a turtle, she had genuinely stolen the heart of our little hero, for whom mushrooms were what spinach is to Popeye.

Too Peachy for Me

I despised this woman. I just couldn't stand her! Going through all that trouble just to have her thank me for rescuing her was really not worth the trouble. The fact that she kept on being kidnapped meant that she probably had some questionable photographs which she continually tried to retrieve back. And failed every time.

7. Chun Li (Street Fighter)

About Her
First appearing in Street Fighter II, she was the first playable female in the world of gaming, an icon for feminists and gamers alike; a very adamant and hard-to-beat opponent too, so much so that she was probably tougher to fight against than most other characters.

Chun Liya
For me she was like the Link Gun in Unreal Tournament 3: it doesn't matter whether it's you who has it or the opponent: you're dead either ways. AI can keep the rapid fire magnetically stuck to your frame, and in your hands it'll be going all over the place, like an excited kid trying to pee into a bucket a mile away. Chun Li had the most devastating helicopter kick ever, and I'd never manage to block it, and I'd never learnt how to do it myself.

6. Nina Williams (Tekken)

About her

She’s one of the few Tekken characters to have appeared on every release of the series, and also the only such female character. A cold-blooded assassin, she was a fearsome devil in Tekken 3, especially if you encountered her in the later stages.

Ni-naaa

This is another woman I totally despised. Her blows were totally unpredictable, hence impossible to block; she spat a horrible dust-cloud to irritate you, stamped on your crotch with her six-inch heels, and had this irritating triumph-move after defeating you. Ugh.

5. Faith (Mirror's Edge)

About Her

The main protagonist, Faith’s an excellent parkour artist who uses her skills to deliver physical communiqués across the city, and hence is a “Runner”. Throughout the game she investigates the event of her sister – who’s a police officer – being framed for murder. This is one of the few games which doesn’t exactly have a “happy” ending, and for that reason is one of my favourites.

Faith-al atthraction

I liked her: she was a no-nonsense woman who sincerely tried her best, in her own capacity, to do whatever she could to save her sister. It doesn’t matter if she failed; it’s her diligent and agile personality that is heart-rending. I still have a soft corner for her.

4. Ashley Williams and Liara T'Soni (Mass Effect)

About Them

Ashley: A truly loyal Alliance soldier, she is a hardened veteran who has no illusions about life and its hardships, and is brilliant on the battlefield.
Liara: A young Asari researcher, she’s been studying Protheans for the last fifty years and is completely and innocently taken by Shepard since his encounter with a Prothean beacon.

Ash-Li

I played the game twice, first choosing Ashley as the potential romantic partner, and then Liara. Honestly, I wasn’t deeply touched by either, but did appreciate the depth of both characters. Liara was a typical young scientist who was discovering love, and Ashley was not a very elevated but highly experienced soldier who’d found a companion in Shepard.

3. Miranda Lawson (Mass Effect 2)

About Her

An important character throughout the game, she’s a woman with no mother: her father had her artificially created using his own genome; she’s genetically engineered to be a specimen of human perfection.

Oh Miranda

She was finally someone I could like in the Mass Effect series. The depth of her character, hard as steel on the outside with intelligence that can raze through bone, yet confused and vulnerable on the inside; if you can ever get that far to know, that is. She hated being this ideal for “perfection” and hated her father even more. Priceless in battle, a delight to talk to (and look at) – once she withdrew her defensive cannons, of course.

2. Elika and Rosa (Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed 2)

About Them

Elika: Princess of the Ahura, worshipper of Ormazd and guardian of the Tree of Life, she is a character who is virtually your backbone in the game – accompanying you everywhere, saving you from death, helping you out in fights, assisting in long jumps, etc.
Rosa: Although she hardly has any screen time when compared to Elika, Rosa – the agile and adept theif – does serve as an important ally, even functionally, as she teaches you how to scale tougher, earlier-impossible walls. She’s a woman with whom Ezio actually seems to have a lasting relationship.

I-like-haa

Just look at her! When you’re around a princess who looks like that, runs barefoot and does all kinds of parkour you can ever imagine, and is wittier than Guy Ritchie, and all that without being over-the-top or unrealistic, you’re bound to fall for her and release Ahriman to get her back to life. Me, I would have released him just to heal her fractured leg if a situation demanded such.
I still smile whenever I’m reminded of the line, “I thought you’d lost your ass.”

1. Mona Sax (Max Payne)

About Her

A contract killer, Lisa Punchinello’s (notice the first names?) sister, and saviour of Max in the second instalment of the game, she is one hell of a character. Encountering Max on closing elevator doors in both games, she remarks, “Max, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.” She is quite an important and playable character in the 2nd game, the complex plot ending up with Mona pointing a gun at Max’s head, but her unable to pull the trigger and hence getting shot in the back.

“Watch my back, will you?”

The only character – real or fictional – dead or alive, to have ever made me go weak in the knees. The enigma, poise, charm, magnetic-pull, agility, voice, intellect, wit, personality... It was too much for me. I was more taken in by her than Max himself. I was abashed when I saw her die in Max’s arms in the end. Then there was a shining ray of light – play it on Dead on Arrival and she lives. I played it on Veteran again to unlock DOA, and then played it on that, all within two days, just to see her live. I still have the old install on my external hard-drive, which doesn’t work anymore, but I just can’t bring myself to delete the data.
She is the reason I am not looking forward to Max Payne 3. Gamers will know why.

δ

2010-06-14T13:47:00.003+05:30

There are certain alphabets which are a lot more commonly used, either as the main product name, or a suffix, to make things sound more interesting and funky! Some examples: F22, Ferrari F430, Porsche 911 GT3, Jaguar XKR, BMW M5, Yamaha XG Studio, Yamaha YZF-R1, BMW Z3, Suzuki SX4, Nokia N73, Altec Lansing BXR 1121, Logitech G3/ MX 518 (yes, you guessed right - now I'm just looking around my room and picking the names)

I've listed out my own version, in descending order of "funk". Post your own versions too!

Sequence One: Supernovae - used so much, they're almost clichés now.

X, S, Z, G, F, M, N, Y, R

Sequence Two: Red Giants - the next wave of the "cool" letters

T, D, H, Q, K, W, V, A

Sequence Three: Asteroids - these are just plain cold.

B, C, E, I, J, L, O, P, U

Stuff I Hate

2010-05-07T14:51:00.000+05:30

Wet patches on roads.
Sand on the road: I'm actually scared of it!
Dropping my pick and it bouncing off the floor right into the most inaccessible area of the room. Every-time.
Dropping contact lenses. And never finding them. They should engineer them to be opaque when not worn.
The absence of there being a law that when the lights are green, drivers can run over anybody still on the road.
The water turning cold just when I was getting comfortable.
Windows. Actually, "Microsoft *.*".
The prison-cell-blast-furnace-heat-chamber-hyper-oxidation toilets in the (boys') hostels of NIT Durgapur.
Having just one less power socket than I need near me (laptop, speakers, phone charger, guitar processor, table fan, mosquito repellent, blah blah)
Games without the manual save feature.
Games where I don't decide anything. (Exception: Call of Duty 6.)
Scratching while pocketing the 8-ball.
Forgetting to take the towel while going for a bath.
Limited disk-space.
Waking up, freshening up, dressing up, hurrying up, going all the way only to find there's no class.

This entry will be updated as and when the author wishes to add more data.

Acknowledgement

2010-04-22T16:57:00.000+05:30

I'm a different kind of Midas. He was an accidental alchemist. I'm an accidental coolant. Anything I touch instantly becomes cooler. And as a result, I become hotter.
Thank you, Durgapur.

The bed is always too hot to lie on, but since I'm a coolant, I can just roll about in it and make it cool. Isn't it simply wonderful?
Thank you, Durgapur.

The water cooler gives out water that's cooler by about 10 degrees. Outside temperature = 48 degrees. Therefore water temperature = 38 degrees. Body temperature = 37.5 degrees. Hence it's still hot water to drink, just less hotter.
Thank you, Durgapur.

I'm sure some alien has manufactured my table fan, because such AI is not humanly possible. It has hacked its own speed adjustments, and shifts to whatever speed it wishes to, whenever it wishes to. At the moment it is rotating at about 0.5 rpm. (A properly functional fan rotates at at least 150 rpm.)
Thank you, Durgapur.

When you're bathing under a shower, there is a time gap between one droplet and the next one falling on you, right? Of course you've never bothered to pay attention to it. But here, when I bathe, in between that time, my skin has already produced ten more droplets of sweat. So effectively, I'm bathing more in sweat than water. Ironic, isn't it? (Pun intended - the water is "ironic" too)
Thank you, Durgapur.

I'm sure I'm losing more weight due to sheer sublimation of skin molecules than due to bad diet.
Thank you, Durgapur.

Remember the standard-nine definition of infinity? "Imagine the largest possible number you can. Infinity is larger than that." That's valid for how-hot-it-is-here too. And the fan is now at about 5-10 rpm - blasting hot lava on my face.
Thank you, Durgapur.

Touch (not an iPod review)

2010-04-18T14:24:00.001+05:30

Foreplay
It's no mystery that the females of Calcutta are embarrassed (and some even offended) by the act of exploring their sexuality. Most would not even engage in any sort of intimacy before the guy has demonstrated his total commitment and never-ending love for her. That is a very weird situation for some (like me) who consider chemistry an important constituent of the parameters for judging whether something is worth the commitment being demanded towards it; in this case, how are we supposed to commit before we know what it's like? Unlike Mumbai, in Calcutta, you can't test earphones before you buy them, i.e., if you want to know what they sound like, first buy them, then tear open the pack and check if it's worth it - if not, well, your bad luck on choosing something based on how 'good' it looked inside the packaging. Those who agree with me about this being utterly stupid and pointless, should also see my point in the earlier case!
Coitus
Before I go into the term 'exploring sexuality', I will mention that nothing in my academic curricula or range of interests and extra-curricular experience entitles me to give 'gyaan' on the same, but to hell with it, this is my blog, I can bloody well express my opinion on anything, even if I don't really know anything about it! You're most welcome to comment and correct anything, of course.
Sexuality is a topic even most college-mates of mine would shudder from and consider me even more shameless and flagrant to discuss publicly. If any of you who think such are reading, I'll just tell you that I sincerely, honestly, and whole-heartedly don't care. Why something connected deeply with what is so essential to life is considered so dreadful, appalling, shocking, ghastly, even wicked and immoral, I utterly fail to see. Although "exploring sexuality" might imply to some the process of figuring out one's orientation, that's not what I imply here, although it may be a part of it. I mean something more general, that involves any kind of activity or contemplation related to intimacy. Contemplation includes what level of foreplay you prefer, how much aggression is 'good', how often you'd like to get physical, whether role-playing turns you on or off, is ménage à trois just fantasy or can you actually pull one off, etc, while activity is quite self-explanatory.
Climax
The unknown: How often have you seen a street argument between strangers turn into a brawl of sorts in Calcutta? Compare that to, say, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, etc. For those still blinking: Calcuttans are known for screaming their lungs out and scaring the shit out of your pants with their curses and threats, but NEVER do they actually raise their hands! The other cities mentioned comprise of the 'shoot first, ask later' type of people.
The known: I've never been greeted with a hug in Calcutta. Especially by the opposite sex. And I've always been greeted with one in any other city. Now that's either something seriously wrong in me: I somehow seem repulsive to the ladies here, or that's a general rule. Since I consider myself tolerably adorable, I know the first can't be true!
The absolutely unknown: Have you noticed that the rate of interactive crime is the lowest in Calcutta, among other metro cities in India? (Interactive crime being related to assault, battery, sexual harassment, etc) Theft is as good as any other city though, so it's not as if the criminals here are a lot more kind-hearted!
The absolutely known: If you're born and bred in Calcutta, how many times did your father, mother and/or teacher slap you for doing something wrong or pissing them off?
Something else: Headbangers? Thousands. Probably one of the most in the country! Moshing? Well, erm, that hurts..
Cuddling
The only conclusion I can draw from these observations is that the people here are touch-phobic. They are averse to any kind of contact unless either absolutely necessary or involving a (supposedly cute) kid; and poor souls like us have to bear the consequences of this tragedy!

PMS

2010-04-02T08:33:00.004+05:30

Not what you're thinking, but what I'd define as Personal Meridian Standard. Everyone does some common activity in the day, and the difference in times among the activities are more or less the same, like waking up, having breakfast, spending the day doing something, having dinner, getting ready for bed. The problem is, the day begins differently for everyone else.
For this purpose, let us assume that the daily schedule proceeds as follows:
7:00 am - Wake up
8:00 am - Have breakfast
9:00 am - Day begins
6:00 pm - Day ends
7:30 pm - Night begins
12:00 am - Sleep
Note that the times aren't precise, scientists can consider an error of +/- 30 minutes.
Let this schedule be called the Generalised Schedule. What PMS does is adjust your "time zone" in accordance with your actual day times and corresponds them to the GS. For example, my PMS currently would be about GS+2 (again, with an error of +/- 30 minutes), which means I usually get up by 9 am, my day begins by 11 am, night begins at 9:30 pm, and I sleep at about 2 am.

Last year (my second year in college), my PMS was more than GS+4! Which is why my attendance got f*cked, and I ended up with a 6.88 in the semesters.

Now we come to the interesting part: when we know that a particular set of people neither have any need to wake up early, nor are the early-bird kinds, would they have a PMS of less than GS+2? Logic tells you no, but it actually is counter-intuitive. It's better to elaborate via example here:

The Computer Science department of NIT Durgapur is by far the easiest-going among all. The attendance doesn't matter in most classes (in fact, half the professors don't even bother taking attendance), some classes are taken by currently-pursuing M.Techs - even in the 6th semester, they're the only department for whom a VT (Vocational/Industrial Training) is not compulsory after the 6th semester, there's probably not a single student whose CGPA is below 7, and more than 50% of the class have CGPAs above 8 (For comparison, in the 4th sem, the IT department had suffered 29 supplementary papers, 3 RAs, and 40% of the students had SGPAs below 7, while there was one single fellow who'd got a 9).

You'll still see the CS people get up by 9ish (GS+2) usually, even if they have nothing else to do after getting up. Ordinary people like us wonder what the hell is wrong with them, while a little bit of psychoanalysis gets you on the right track! It's the "been there, done that" syndrome. For us, having a first half off means sleeping till 10-11am, and that's a privilege! We relish it, make the most of it, and feel utterly ecstatic that day, so much so that everything seems to go our way without even drinking the Luck potion. For them, that's not a novelty. That's routine.
And that makes all the difference. This makes you wonder: would a life like that actually be worth it, or does the grass just seem greener?

Motorcycle Diaries: Chapter Two

2010-03-30T21:26:00.001+05:30

Valkyrie. I'd first come across the name in Max Payne, where it was used as narcotic abuse, also plot-wise summing up as the root cause of the death of Max's entire family. In Norse mythology, Valkyries were female warriors who had decided to die in battle. They are often portrayed as lovers of heroes, sometimes being accompanied by ravens, and at times connected to swans.

There was one particular motorcycle manufactured at a point of time in India which is still unbeatable, when it comes to raw speed. The RD-350. The Pulsar 220 (2009) comes right after it, claiming a top speed of 146 kmph. Keep in mind however, the following facts:

Most importantly, the RD-350 has two measly drum brakes, not something you want to rely on when you're sailing beyond speeds which most small cars in India can sprint at.
The last RD-350 was manufactured ages ago.
The RD-350 has twice the number of cylinders and half the number of engine cycles (being 2-stroke) as a Pulsar 220.

There have probably been as many variants of the Pulsar as all other Bajaj bikes combined - 135, 150, 180, 200, 220. We can club the 150, 180, and 200 together, with only minor changes in chassis and styling, the major focus being only on engine capacity. The 220 was a class apart, initially being Fuel-Injected, and spurting out 20 bhp of power. It seemed like a fair competitor to the ultimate beast until the Ninja, the R15.

Sadly though, the 220 had a lot of flaws. First and foremost, it had the Bajaj gearbox - something you have to stomp down on to shift gears, and where finding neutral is like searching for Red Rackham's treasure; not something you want on a sports-bike. The chassis was not very well-designed, which resulted in the bike being unstable at high speed cornering, something you definitely not want on a sports bike. The engine had fuel-injection, the supplier of whom was neither well-known, nor reliable. Being a large single-cylinder engine, the 220 was bound to get hot, and it did, despite being "oil-cooled" (for novices, the engine is very much air-cooled, it's the engine-oil that's specially cooled by passing through a filter exposed to the wind-drag).

For the Pulsar 220 (2009) however, Bajaj changed the chassis design, asked Rico for a clutch and gear system for their machine, threw away the fuel-injection and put in the largest carburettor available in the country, and increased the size of the oil-cooler by 30%. They did one more thing, however, which is what makes gives the bike the cherry on top: they reduced the price by a staggering Rs 15000!

Until trying out this behemoth, I was convinced of buying a Yamaha for myself - in all probability one of the FZ series. But once I lay my hands on this, I couldn't believe my eyes.. or rather, my left foot, at the smoothness of the gearbox! It was fantastic! The response of the engine is fabulous, the two disc brakes work splendidly, and are actually capable of throwing the pillion over your shoulder if used at full-power.

Although I still haven't fathomed even half the power of the engine, since it hasn't been run in yet, I'm impressed by the raw torque it delivers. I can reach 0-60 kmph in not more than 4 seconds flat (unfortunately I have to loosen the throttle there and stabilise at 65)! The stance of ride has been conveniently shifted to suit a more sporty position, with the brake and gear levers quite a few inches behind the 150 design, clip-on handlebars, and your back being comfortably bent forward while riding.

One thing I noticed is that electronics of the Pulsar are a lot more advanced than the Yamaha bikes. My headlight automatically switches off after a few seconds if the engine is not running; my ignition is inactive unless either the gear-lever is on neutral, or the clutch-lever is depressed; the turn-indicators deactivate automatically after a turn; etc.

All in all, I am satisfied, and I can't wait to unleash all the twenty-one adrenaline-rushed horses on the road! Look forward to a post when it happens!

< 2 s

2010-03-07T00:07:00.000+05:30

Although I didn't really have much idea of time, I'm quite sure it all took place in less than two seconds.

My driving is sporty, fast, and scary. But it's not rash, nor reckless, nor dangerous. I'm a driver who follows the 'look before you leap' policy very seriously. Most of the time, my eyes aren't on the road directly in front of me, but scanning for possible interventions that could intervene in the road directly in front of me, and cause me discomfort; which, I believe, is why I've been safe all this time.
But what is the probability of turning on a flyover and crashing into a crash that just took place? That's something I'd never thought of, and hence hadn't anticipated it to be there.

As I leaned into the next section of the PAS flyover, rolling at about 70 kmph, I saw a bike crashing into a cycle in the middle of the road, and screamed my head off, asking them to 'get out of the fucking way', but realised that there's nothing that can be done. As soon as the impact took place, I took the aid of the momentum and leapt off the bike, forward. Nobody wants to stay under a 150 kg machine decelerating from about 50 to zero in less than a second!

The short: I was in the air for about a second or two, bounced off the ground once, and finally came to rest at about 20 metres from the site of the crash.

The long: They say you see images of loved ones, thoughts rush through your head, a blinding white light too, as some state. I'm a scientist, hence the only thing that I felt was what any particle travelling at great speeds will undergo: an application of the Theory of (Special) Relativity: time dilation. Two seconds really felt like a long time! Let me break it up into phases that I can distinctly identify:
1. Silk Approach: This is the moment where I sprang off the bike. During this slice of time, I had just let go. I had no neuromuscular control whatsoever. I just saw the front fairing of the bike disappear below me. This slice of time was probably the shortest out of all.
2. Ingress: This slice starts right where I got back from semi-paralysis and my 6-years-old gymnastics instincts kicked in, my brain trying to figure out my orientation and configuration in space, trying to stabilise the haphazard turning through the air, and readying my body for the fall. I must say, it did a pretty good job, and prepared me almost totally. Even so, you must consider I was flying at almost 50 kmph, accelerating at 9.81 m/s^2 towards solid tarmac! At this point, another area of my brain was duly given the image of the driver flying off after a crash in Roadrash by its subconscious, and I almost smiled in amusement and also at the irony!
3. Mayday: I hit the ground, mostly on my back, trying to roll with the momentum of the fall, but since I wasn't completely ready, my right leg took a part of the fall too. As soon as the impact occurred, I bounced back in the air for another few milliseconds, and lost orientation again. This time the duration was too short for me to regain control and prepare for the second impact, but the first fall had already slowed me down to almost a halt, so it wasn't much to worry about. During this time, my brain was too busy coordinating muscular activity to think of anything else.
4. LZ: The final fall and roll: I came to a halt, sprawled on the road, and at this point my head was blank. In another instant, logic flashed back into my head and told me to get off the damn road in case a vehicle comes from behind. I somehow stood up, maintained balance for about 2-3 seconds, and then fell down again: partly due to shock, but mostly due to my right leg being non-functional. I got up again, and hobbled over to the side of the road, head still spinning.
5. Launch CSAR: Adrenaline rushing through my veins, I hardly felt any pain. But I couldn't use my right leg very well. I turned my ankle about and concluded that I was spared a fracture. Checked wounds, mostly light abrasions, possibly one laceration, and a sprain. That being done, it occurred to me that I must have practically killed the bike! Throughout the confrontation with the other biker and discussion with passers-by, all I was thinking about was the damage it must have taken. I somehow, very slowly, rode it back to my house, parked it, and went upstairs to dress my wounds, and inform the bike-owner of the incident.

The bike did suffer a lot of damage, unfortunately. The front rim is bent, handlebar is twisted, front suspensions are crushed, front-fairing is damaged, and rear-wheel-mudguard is broken, all beyond repair. They have to be replaced. Repairable damage: fuel tank is dented and gear-shift-lever is slightly bent.

The following terms are used in this entry. They are military flight terms:
Silk Approach: The act of bailing out of an aeroplane.
Ingress: The route of entry.
Mayday: Emergency call. (French: m'aidez- "help me")
LZ: Landing Zone
CSAR: Combat Search And Rescue

True Sadness

2009-11-29T02:21:00.004+05:30

I never really understood the phrase, "the saddest man is a goalless one" until I saw the emptiness myself. Emotions never were my forte, and still aren't, but I've definitely got better at identifying them, at least when it comes to myself. I may not know what "true love" is - apparently it's immune to failure - or what actual contentment is, but I know what real sadness is. And the word doesn't do justice to the feeling, I assure you. It's a lot more than just one syllable that doesn't even 'sound' sad.

It's depressing to not be able to pursue one's dream in life. It tends to haunt you for quite a while, sometimes a lifetime. The journeys to the past and hypothetical present/future visits never seem to cease to conjure up new ideas in your head. But what if I have no dream? Apparent intuition makes it seem like a rather comfortable way out, with no recurrent 'what ifs' in your head, but that's not true at all.

Did I never have ambition? I did, as every child does. I wanted to fly. My own personal aeroplane, not commercial airliners. Now that requires you to be a millionaire's ultra-spoilt kid, which I'm far from being. That fact hardly matters though, since my eyes are myopic, which instantly makes me unfit for aviation training and hence incapable of obtaining a pilot license, unless I surgically rectify my vision, which is not only risky, but expensive. Besides, by the time my vision would've stabilised, I'd be too old to enter an entirely new profession.
Music is definitely my utmost passion, I being one of the few who'd rather be blind than deaf. I can't imagine life without sound. That's what somehow drives me to live on another day, waiting for something to happen, someone magical to come along and pull me out of this singularity. The chances of that happening are a little too rare though - statistically there has been only one girl who has ever really understood me, and has been capable of tuning herself to the same frequencies as I; she'll know I'm talking about her when (and if) she reads this.

It's much easier to live if you're not a thinker. Easiest if you're not very bright. Your thoughts never wander, you never analyse things beyond a certain radius, you don't question, you don't seek answers, you don't look out the window unless you're taking a break, you don't wish you could get out of this body you're stuck inside for God knows how long and be free. The only depression you feel is for academic, monetary or romantic reasons (disregarding family, of course), most of which are relatively temporary and can be solved with some objective effort in a particular direction. Too much self-analysis leads to a lot of unwanted depression.

I have so many wonderful friends, both here and back at home, and yet I feel lonely. A sense of detachment prevails, and grows everyday. Each passing day makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing here. A world where a profession is required to survive, to barely manage to live. The necessity of formal education, a degree, a sustainable source of income. Animals live in harmony without any of this. I wish I was born in another era, decades earlier, when I could just pack my bags, leave in search of adventure and freedom. Not political or social freedom. Freedom of the mind and spirit. Complete independence. See the world, experience at least a zillionth of Nature. There's so much to see and imbibe just in one country, forget the world, forget the undiscovered parts of it, forget the galaxy, or universe. Sometimes I wonder if the 'soul living on' shit is true and if I'd actually be able to go wherever I want, unbounded by limitations of the physical world, once I die. The only two reasons that prevent me from trying it are - I have absolutely no idea of how to get back, if at all there is any such way, and hell, I feel lonely with so many people around me, I'll suffocate in vacuum if I'm a wandering soul!

Lost in the crowd. One in billions. Born on some day, lived a score as yet, to live a specific amount more, to die off. Unnoticed. Nobody cares. The universe barely shrugs off another mass of organised particles into entropy. What did I achieve? I don't mean fame, riches or anything of that sort (not that I would refuse either!). I mean a general sense of satisfaction and achievement. What am I doing? Where is this leading? Every day the sun looks the same, in a relative way; but I'm older, shorter of breath, and one day closer to death. (Quoted from Time - Pink Floyd). I'm losing time. Getting old. And doing what? Nothing.

All this within twenty three and a half minutes of Echoes flowing through my ears. I still have about a minute of psychedelia to spare.

Somebody please help me. Get me out of here. Make me happy. I beg you.

Motorcycle Diaries: Chapter One

2009-10-20T21:43:00.004+05:30

The Technical Motorcycle

There's one piece of information that you should be privy to before reading this: these chapters are not necessarily occurring in chronological order, but rather, on my own whims and fancies. This particular chapter is a rendition of an event that took place a few days back, and is in no way the prologue to my motorcycling interests and/or talents!

A motorcycle is defined as a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. A motor vehicle is a wheeled vehicle propelled by an engine/motor. A vehicle is defined as a conveyance that transports people or objects. Therefore, a motorcycle can be said to be a two-wheeled conveyance that transports people. That's the technical definition, and until this day, I never realised the significance of - and the utter frustration caused by - the simplicity of the definition. Till this day, I'd never ridden anything that's just a motorcycle, and nothing else. Let me start from the beginning.

Prologue
Atri and I had decided to finish off some typical paperwork in college: which involved payment of bills and obtaining/submission of forms and standing in queues and visiting banks etc. The local ATM machine was out of order: no matter what amount you entered, it'd say that it's invalid and ask you to enter the amount again in multiples of Rs 100. We were running out of time, so we decided to borrow a bike from a friend and visit the market area so that we could get the required cash to pay off the bills. The owner of the vehicle was asleep, but managed to vaguely point to the location of the keys, which we took possession of, left the room, and proceeded to straddle the "monster".

The Monster... (Not)
First thing I noticed: the ignition no longer had any "locking" mechanism, not even for the keys: they'd fall off any moment. It felt exactly like a man with a poliomyelitis trying to enter a woman who's a relaxin-oxytocin addict (excuse the obscene analogy, but it's MY blog). After a while I realised that there's a magnet on the keyring, which is meant to be stuck to the leg-guard while the key's in the ignition, so as to prevent the keys from flying off during vehicular motion.
Next, of course there was no battery, no rear-view mirrors, no properly functional brakes; none of the electrical connections worked, except miraculously the engine-cut-off (I don't know what it's called, Atri please enlighten by a comment). Hence it took me quite a while to figure why the thing wasn't starting (with such a machine, engine-cut-off isn't really something that'll come to your mind; it'll be more like fuel being over, the kick-start being disconnected from the engine, fuel tank having a hole, carburettor being missing, etc). Finally, we were off.
The handle bars defied my personal knowledge of the simple laws of rotational mechanics. Most of the times the bar pushed to the left, which means you needed to apply a clockwise torque (looking from above); but, at certain times, when the bike wished to tease you and test your reflexes and response-time, it suddenly decided to twist the other way. Just for a few seconds, and then it'd be back to pulling to the left. I'd recommend motorcycle manufacturers to install a toggle-able device of such a kind, so as to discourage drunk driving!
The gearbox was the best of it all. It's like a crystal ball. Unless you have a necromancer's powers, you'll never guess what gear you're on. What's more, the shifts were as smooth as rotating a camera lens. Normally, a gearbox is supposed to be a discrete machine: there are clicks at each legitimate gear shift, and the lever doesn't move in the same direction any more until the force's lifted - which basically means, if you press up/down, you'll only shift one gear. Here it was like roulette! It just keeps moving, continuously, effortlessly, without a flinch. You just have to know - by experience - where in between all that vacuum lies a legitimate gear shift.
Bikers will know what shit I went through to find neutral.

The Ultimate Climax
I'd bet Atri that the ignition had become so old it'd forgotten that it was supposed to behave as a lock, allowing entry to only a particular key. It had probably had a bad accident and was suffering from anterograde amnesia, or had simply gotten senile and contracted Alzheimer's. After lunch, we decided to test my hypothesis. I put in a random key in the ignition, and it turned! Atri was yet unconvinced: he said the outer shell was turning, but the actual mechanism remained intact inside. I kicked a couple of times and the engine revved to life. We looked at each other, open-mouthed and absolutely flabbergasted!

Someone should maintain a journal named "Wonders of NIT": this should definitely be included, and I vote for it to be in the top five!

Note: For privacy purposes, the name of the owner and the make of the bike are not mentioned in this post.

The Cat

2009-10-03T00:53:00.003+05:30

Sometimes things confuse you the more you think about them, and you just wish they'd fall into place magically. Nature itself baffles me beyond comprehension. At times it prefers symmetry and organisation, while more often than not, it prefers to be random. You never know whether something will follow the properties of resonance or entropy. While one law implies the amplification of the amplitudes of oscillations of similar frequencies occurring in proximity, the other implies the exact opposite: the tendency of everything to be absolutely arbitrary and haphazard.
The OCD-affected character in me has always worried about entropy. The universe is supposed to be comprised of a constant amount of energy, as it can neither be created nor destroyed. Every instant, the conversion of one energy form to another results in a significant loss known as dissipation. Since a fraction of any usable energy always dissipates into useless waste, it is clearly apparent that the total usable energy content is considerably reducing! If you're unconvinced, here's a fact: the internal combustion engine has an efficiency equal to about 43%, which means that about 57% of the gasoline you're filling in the tank is wasted in the production of heat, sound and pollution.
Uncertainty. Not necessarily the the position/momentum of a sub-atomic particle (Heisenberg), but in general. Take something as simple as the Thompson's Lamp. There is a mechanism that flicks a light-switch on and off every t/2 seconds, t being the seconds of wait in the previous toggle. Let the starting time interval be 1 second, when it's switched on. At 1.500 seconds, it's switched off, then on again after another 1.750 seconds, on again at 1.875 seconds, etc. What happens after 2 seconds- is the lamp on or off? Coming to Schrödinger's cat - a cat is placed in a chamber with a flask of poison that's shattered by the setting off of a Geiger counter detecting radiation due to a small amount of radioactive substance placed in the chamber. Speaking from the quantum probabilistic view, after a period of time, the cat is both alive and dead - which of course it not possible. The only thing it implies is - uncertainty. Until you open the lid of the chamber and see for yourself what the condition is, you'll never know. String theory. It's probably the last epic breakthrough in Physics, yet it not only assumes existence of multiple unknown dimensions, but also the existence of magnetic monopoles, which, if existent - I suppose - shall pretty much render all of the electromagnetism I've read in high school as nonsense.
There are so many variables in life that are simply unknown. Yet they just exist in the equation. And I'm not speaking mathematically per se, but rather, in general. How I wish someone would tell me what they are, where they exist, what their possible values or range could be.
Oh, I'm talking crap now..

Endlessness

2009-08-29T03:04:00.002+05:30

There are certain things in life, in order to get the fullest experience out of which, require you to go through the exact opposite for a relatively long period of time, which can in short be denoted as the "suffering period." I can think of two things at the moment: the absolute joy of relief is most appreciated when you have just recovered from immense pain or discomfort, for example, finally managing to find a working toilet and clearing your bowels during a phase of diarrhoea!

This post is concerned with the other thing I can think of: there are many instances of something having been bothering you for ages, and I really mean AGES, so much so that it is now a dormant resident in the rear areas of your brain; you know that it's there, and you've pretty much given up hope of finding the solution to it, so it's not so much a bother any more, rather a feeling of distaste, dissatisfaction, as if something failed you. Today I ALMOST felt the relief of finding the solution to one such bother of mine!

This is what has been bothering me since about class nine or ten (that's around 2003): what exactly is infinity? Is there a unique kind of infinity, or can there be many kinds? Is one more than the other? If so, isn't that very ironic, with respect to the definition? You might ask, why should I even think of there being multiple infinities; and if you're not a science person, I'd forgive you. The number of natural numbers compared to the number of rational numbers. The number of points in one centimetre, compared to the number of points in a kilometre. Simply put, are there more numbers or more even numbers? Seems simple, doesn't it: obviously there are more numbers. Point number one: they're both infinite. Point number two: even numbers are a proper subset of integers, hence integers CANNOT be a proper subset of even numbers, and hence, the cardinal number of the set of integers HAS TO BE greater than that of the set of even numbers.

Another thing that bothered me: we write a number divided by infinity as zero. Is it EXACTLY zero? Is infinity defined in such a way that it is this unbelievable, Godlike, massive impetus that shoves everything away into vacuum if divided upon by? Or is it the more mathematically viable, TENDING to zero? If so, then by simple algebra, dividing by zero makes the result GO BEYOND infinity. What the hell IS infinity then!?
Let's take fractions. 1/3. When represented in decimal form, we write it as
1/3 = 0.3333... (till infinity).
Now is this an exact representation? Let us assume it is not exact, it's less (it obviously can't exceed the actual value). Now if it's less, why not just add another few 3s at the end of the line? Or is it such that we've reached "infinity", we can't add anything else? Pretty weak thing, this infinity, then, isn't it? So it shouldn't be less, it should very much be exact. In that case, multiply both sides by 3 and you get
1 = 0.9999... (till infinity)
Now THAT, is obviously false. No matter how many nines you add at the end of the line, you'll never make it equal to "1". Makes infinity seem rather small now, doesn't it? Even if you add "an infinite number of 9s", you can't reach one. And it's big enough to annihilate everything in sight when divided upon by.

Where's the solution then? George Cantor. He brought out the concept of Degrees of Infinity. It must have been edited and touched up further later, because his original draft contains only two kinds:
1) Aleph-0 infinity - Countable infinites (you can count each element, and the number of elements are infinite, such as the set of integers)
2) Aleph-1 infinity: Uncountable infinites (you can't count the elements, such as the set of real numbers).
The interesting thing is: even though both, the set of natural numbers and the set of rational numbers belong to Aleph-0, without much thought, you won't realise that their cardinal numbers are actually the same! Think on it, if you will.

Well, here's where the sad part comes in: this doesn't yet solve the paradox about the "magical powers" of infinity, and the exactness. There probably exist varieties of infinity in that case too. Let's say the Alpha variety will give you an exact zero on dividing a number by it, and hence if you repeat the digits an Alpha infinity number of times, 0.999... becomes exactly equal to 1, and all repeating decimals become equal to their fractions, and we finally get the mathematical God: unbeatable, precise and all-powerful. The Beta-infinity is slightly less powerful, but a lot more useful while solving equations, we no longer need exactness. Everything "tends to" or "is almost equal to". Infinite geometric series can now be summed up using an approximate formula. Fourier series and transforms suddenly become crystal clear.

I think I'll continue my lazy search for a few more years, and if I find nothing, I'm going to drop everything and finally do something worthwhile in life: write a paper on Classes of Infinity.

Nightrain

2009-08-04T00:27:00.002+05:30

This is the first of (hopefully) a series of posts in which I show aspects of hostel life, especially in college; and how I simply love it.

Let me divide the entry into two parts, on the basis of the two ways of breaking up the title.

The Night Train

There are very few things I really hate in life; having to wake up early is one of them. I am an absolute opposite of an insomniac: I can sleep endlessly, and I love sleeping too. People say it’s a wastage of time, you should be awake and DOING something worthwhile instead. My argument is very simple and well-justified: for me sleeping is very much worthwhile usage of time. Not only do I enjoy it, but it’s also the ONLY activity that actually generates metabolic energy instead of using it up. I dream vividly and uncontrollably, of things I can never imagine; there’s no structure, no chronology, no system, no laws, no rules whatsoever. It’s as if I’m completely in control of everything while at the same time being in no conscious control. Now that’s what I call a high, it’s much better than what I get on any sort of dope. I love curling up sideways with a pillow between my knees, a bedsheet/blanket pulled over me, and what’s more, I feel refreshed and rejuvenated after a sound sleep.

The waking up early on Sunday was made up by an exciting and adventurous ride on Atri’s FZ-S (while he rode my Dad’s Blaze which I’d taken along), the only hitch being the speed limit of 50 kmph on the new engine. Soon after we returned home it started raining, which of course induced me to sleep off again. Skipping the dream details (nobody will ever be able to comprehend my dreams), I woke up in the evening to go to the station, to join the rest of the group to catch a train back to college. The train was supposed to leave the station at 18:20, it ended up arriving at 19:30. Having eaten five packets of spiced peanuts, we were hungry and irritated, but glad to find the train was quite empty: we found more than enough space for everyone and their luggage. The conversation in the journey primarily revolved around cars and bikes and at times first-year experiences, with me tying my hair up in a I-don’t-know-what-it’s-called to prevent it flying everywhere due to the fan right above my head. Oh, and the journey involved us chasing a muri-wala about because we were hungry and afraid his supply would finish off by the time he reached our compartment. And endless cups of coffee/tea.

The Night Rain

Three among us decided to take a taxi to college since they were carrying along a huge 15” CRT monitor, a CPU and other computer accessories. The rest of us got on to a bus, and I mean literally “on to”, as there was no place left inside: we got up on the roof. There were about ten or twelve of us, and about twice as many enormous bags. Soon after the bus started off, it started drizzling. No worries, I can always do with a few gentle, sporadic raindrops on my face, especially on a hot summer night. What made it worse was that it eventually turned into a darned gale, pouring cats and dogs, with the bus driving so slowly that passers-by were walking faster. The only thing you could hear atop that roof was the constant cursing and swearing by us: not even particularly directed at anyone. Just low-standard cuss words that inevitably and invariably end up pouring out of your mouth once you’re in a college like NIT-d and in company of fellow mates. Some umbrellas were eventually opened, which probably caused more harm than good: we obviously used them to cover our bags first and then ourselves, which caused both to get heavily wet anyway; they blocked our view, so we couldn’t spot low-strung branches and leaves of trees which ended up slapping our faces as if we’d intruded into a bathroom while a woman was showering. As soon as we reached college, we hastened to get the stuff and ourselves off the roof and inside, as soon as possible; so much so that a majority of the people didn’t pay for the tickets (not that I wanted to, I’d much rather have demanded five bucks for the horribly twisted route which we were taken via, especially when I was fully drenched and soaking wet). I don’t know why but in these situations I always end up being the scapegoat: the conductor caught hold of me and started blabbering about the fare. I showed him an offensive gesture, blurted some curses myself and gave him a piece of my mind, concluding with a lighter and more considerate line, “I’ll pay if you get everyone to” and managed to escape unscathed.

The whole experience should have been a pissing off one, but (not) surprisingly it wasn’t, we were laughing and cursing about it the whole time, even when we had maggi among insects crawling on the table and our stomachs growling. The only part that did bother me, in the end, was that fiasco got me an annoying allergy which I suffered throughout the next day: a red runny nose and infinite sneezes. I’m on two hundred milligrams of Cetrizine, highly sedated and sleepy. Which makes me happy: because I get to do what I love to: sleep. And I’m off.

End of "profession"

2009-06-27T12:17:00.004+05:30

No, I’m not talking about the recession. The quotation signs should tell you that I’m
actually referring to professorialism. And actually I meant the end of the
teaching aspect, but that pun was simply too good to not use it!

The Indian education system

Part One: School

I’ve been tolerating a teacher entering a class of about thirty students and blabbering crap for about forty minutes and then leaving, only to let another such asshole enter, the procedure repeating about eight times a day, five days a week, about forty weeks a year, for twelve
years. And the sad part is, it got worse with every class, as if this graph were being followed:

Nursery was really likeable. You could roam around the class, pick up objects, examine them; the teacher would totally interact with the kids. Junior school was good, the teacher personally knew each child and there would a lot of fun in class too. Not just boring lectures. Middle school was probably the worst. That was the adolescent phase, I guess, and I’d be sent out of class, given punishments, rapped on my knuckles, etc, for daydreaming; and I still say I was justified. Why the hell should I pay attention in a class which doesn’t in the least bit interest me!? I’m not meaning to insult any particular subject or teacher, all I’m saying is that I’m bound to have my own choices and likes and dislikes. And you make it all the more boring by continuously yapping on and on and on. High school was better than middle, because primarily it was hell tougher: so we had no time to goof about. We needed to understand and grasp concepts quickly; otherwise we’d be royally raped soon enough. That was the first few months to a year. Last year in school was enjoyable: not only did we know enough to actually comprehend most of the stuff, we had loads of questions unanswered, and it was fun to figure out the answers in tandem with the teacher and another couple of students. Also, the school treated us like grown-ups. It was like they knew that we’ve outgrown them, we were not in their control any more – not in a bad
way such as misbehaving, but rather in good ways - because now the end was creeping closer, and nobody wanted it to end, not the teachers nor the students. That’s what brought us closer I guess. The knowledge of departure forever from a place you’ve been in since childhood. Us moving ahead, forward in life, and them remaining behind, staying where they are.

Part Two: University
This was the biggest jolt of my life; sincerely and honestly spoken, without exaggeration. The first day was the culture shock: I was gaping open-mouthed at the crowd: so different from the school crowd, so un-approachable. It was like they formed a class of their own. Merging with each other, some bookish nerds, some showing-off pricks, some sluts, some absolute low-standard people, and certainly no-one I could find who was just normal. For a couple of days I was quite alone, till I met one guy who was somewhat similar in his thought-process and dress-sense and overall personality. We concluded that the student population in engineering sucked. Whatever small iota of motivation towards academics I had, I lost completely during the rest of the week, with gradual exposure to what professors and lecturers are. Their job included just the following points, and till date, I’ve found VERY few exceptions:

   1. Enter class at any time before the period ends.
   2. Take attendance; try to catch proxies to defend self-esteem.
   3. Open book/notes, start babbling, and writing on the board.
   4. Note down roll numbers of students who’re not writing, sleeping, talking, looking elsewhere, entering late, etc, so as to deduct ten marks from their paper later.
   5. Give a couple of assignments so as to seem sincere.

The Future

We already know that there are institutes across the world that record lectures given in class and distribute it around. Given the advancement of technology, I’m sure at least in our country, we can easily replace a teacher by an LCD screen. All a teacher needs to do is record themselves lecturing to the camera once, and then provide a copy of that recorded file to the class that requires it. Now, let’s admit, the attendance rule in our institutes is just means to ensure the
teachers don’t get embarrassed by too few people in class. Hence, you don’t need it once the teacher’s not present. This method will take care of several issues, as mentioned below:

   1. No more teachers being absent or entering late.
   2. No more interruptions in between class.
   3. No more teachers being harassed by students in class, either by ridiculous questions or activities – as for useful questions, the students never ask it now, so there’s no question of it happening later.
   4. No more attendance trouble.
   5. No more paying teachers for the same task repeated every time.

I tell you, this is a much more efficient, organised and effective method. Where’s my gain in it? I don’t need to attend classes any more, of course!

Back To The Future : Karn's version

2009-06-04T13:39:00.002+05:30

Well, that trilogy was really nice, and though I usually don’t enjoy science fiction films because of discrepancies and logical insufficiencies and also a sort of wanna-be feel to them, I really enjoyed this set of films! And here’s a sort of collection of changes I would make in my past and what the possible consequences could be:

Objective: To get serious with music instead of academics
Year: 2004
Change: Make myself join Amyt Dutta’s tuitions and maybe take commerce instead of science to avoid pressure.
Consequences – Good: I become part of a dream-band of mine, get famous just the amount I want to, have a true fan-base, and am actually satisfied with life.
Bad: I'm a drug-addict and depressive-maniac, and never have enough money to buy anything, due to the true devotion to music. I die of overdose.

Objective: To ensure quick money
Year: 2004
Change: Drop out, make a matchstick-men gang (obviously con parents into thinking I'm going to school)
Consequences - Good: Loads of cash, fun, excitement, girls, international travelling, and a hot reputation!
Bad: I can never think of settling down anywhere in peace, always have to be on the run; and am eventually shot to death by a plain-clothes CIA/Interpol agent.

Objective: Be born abroad
Year: 1950s
Change: Tell my Dad's Mom to get her heart checked and diagnosed with disease and hence be prohibited from aeroplane travel before they arrive in India!
Consequences: Dad never meets Mom, I'm never born: paradox! This should be fun!

Objective: To ensure even quicker money
Year: 2030
Change: See what new breakthrough technology has now changed the world, get the technical design from the inventor, get back to my time and "invent" it myself.
Consequences - Good: Recognition, Fame, maybe even a Nobel Prize, and obviously loads of money
Bad: What I didn't see in the future was that the inventor was an impostor himself, and was being tracked by the actual scientist-turned mercenary. Now since I'M the inventor, he kills me.

Revelation

2008-11-11T11:08:00.003+05:30

There is supposed to be a gradient among everything in life; the principle of continuity. And in that gradient if you look from a distance, you can find discrete differences. There are differences between animals and humans: Humans can communicate, they can group up and work together, and they know how to adapt, whereas an animal follows instinct. More importantly, humans have a certain sense of foreboding; they can foretell the consequences of their actions. Well, at least they are supposed to.

Similarly, there are differences in humans belonging to different classes. The absolutely snobbish high-class (the ratio of which is completely nil here) have certain methods and principles to life, as compared to the middle class, and the vastly different lower classes. But sometimes we make wrong assumptions, or maybe, have too many expectations. The high class, I’ve noticed, is least bothered about what goes on in others’ lives, they are simply concerned with themselves and their type, and keep themselves confined there. Hence neither do I know much about them, nor do they need much of a mention here. I’ve learnt to expect the middle class crowd, that is, where I belong, to concern themselves overtly with other people’s business, and make it a point to stick their foot in others’ lives and businesses. Not that I have much of a problem so long as no one sticks anything in where I’m involved.

Another thing that involves this vague topic is respect. Although this is an uncanny observation, it’s true: the lower classes have a lot more respect and know a lot more about respect than the middle class. It’s not as if they’re being oppressed or anything, I guess it’s remained in their blood even after so many generations. What seems to be true here is that our class have absolutely no inkling to what respect is, how one’s supposed to show additional respect for a woman, how sensitive a woman’s feelings and her self-respect are, etc. I don’t even want to touch the subject of their own self-respect.

What baffles me is that I fail to find an explanation. I am absolutely clueless as to why and how people find it so amusing to release a string of lines in a public domain which will hurt the woman concerned so much as to deprive her of sleep for days, and might even urge a weaker entity to contemplate murkier means. It’s not sadism, the people here are not sophisticated enough to even recognise that emotion. It’s pure amusement of discussing perverted possibilities of the released topic. Even if I do not question what gives them kicks, do they not know that it’s simply not right to stamp over the self-respect of a woman in such a way, and that the marks left in such a way are irreversible and permanent? Are they really people with total lack of consideration? Or is their IQ so low that they can’t foresee the consequences?

Witnessing such acts actually make me wonder whether I really am proud to be an Indian after all. I don’t represent the Indian community, I’m just myself. It’s the general people who do. A National Institute of Technology, after all, is a mini-India: it contains people from all parts of India. Do I really want to be here? Have I really achieved something, or is this penalty for something? Or is it simply a revelation of how fucked up the world is…

The Ultimate Dilemma (which side are you on?)

2008-08-29T12:30:00.003+05:30

Scene 1

You're walking up the stairs to your home, exhausted from the day's arduous work, tie loosened shirt dishevelled, and a face worn out. But there’s a smile on that face, for you know what awaits you. A warm and welcoming countenance opens the door, a refreshing cup of coffee already in her hands; she kisses you on the cheek and blows away all your fatigue. This is the time of the day you look forward to all the time; you get up each morning and slog yourself throughout daylight just so you can experience the bliss of your loved one embracing you back home on your return. But today there’s some melancholy attached, you’re experiencing an unknown sense of foreboding; you grab her by the shoulders and hug her tightly, whisper you much you love her and that you shall always be there for her. An inconspicuous tear rolls down her cheek as she clutches you tighter.

Scene 2

It’s amazing what just three pegs of blended scotch can do to your personality, break down all the socio-friendly “decency” instincts and let out your monstrous self. Two such bums, walking back with a sober prick are imminently dangerous!
“I hate your bloody girlfriend” you exclaim at the sober pal, “ Darling! Please don’t have alcohol, I don’t like it!”
“Shut up! I respect her feelings, she’s not comfortable with it, so I compromise” he retorts.
“And that’s why you’re a wuss” puts in the third.
“That’s how a relationship works! You can’t just have everything your way. There are two people involved here.”
“Yea, your girlfriend and your girlfriend.”
“That’s why it’s best to be single” you proclaim.
“Exactly. Enjoy life the way you want to, look at all the girls on the streets and the movies with no guilt, and never worry about issues or fights.”
“And in the meanwhile, satisfy your desires via one-night-stands and flings!”
“I’m going back for that!!” your pal screams and turns around.
“Dude! There are no girls at this time of the night!”
“It’s a one-night-stand with a glass of whiskey, my friend!”
“Wait for me!!” you shout and run towards him, while the sober one follows, grumbling.
You ask, “You know what the best part of such a one-night-stand is?”
“What?”
“Whiskeys don’t talk!”

Love Actually

2008-08-25T11:09:00.001+05:30

Many people believe that true love happens only once; now that’s a very weird concept, and highly impractical, because, tied along with that theory, comes another postulate (or corollary), that there’s “somebody special” out there for everyone. Let us do a bit of math: restricting the sphere of reference to ourselves, try to find out the chances of finding our “soul mate”. The current world population is about six billion. Ok, let us only consider Indians, since ninety per cent of us will not opt for a “parsdesi kudi”. Indian population, I believe is one-sixth of the world population, which makes the figure one billion. There you go: theoretically, you have one billionth of a chance that you’re with the person with whom you’ll truly fall in love! Of course, assuming you’re already seeing somebody; people like me don’t even have that billionth chance!

Let’s say we somehow manage to come across The Person. Now, we don’t have any inbuilt alarm system or detection agency which will make us aware that our soul mate is standing on the other side of the road! So that pretty much goes to waste anyway. Fine, let me assume that you’re ACTUALLY going around with the person of your dreams as programmed and destined by He Who Must Not Be Named (in order to remain unbiased). You fell in love, became koopli kupli, well and good; but let’s say you had a horrible fight, broke up, and decided never to go back to them. And in order to make that decision final, you started seeing someone else! So what happens now? Fake love? Or no love at all? You will definitely feel, after a while, that you love them and are in love with them. So is that simply an illusion which occurs because we’re human and tend to err?

Now comes the most important point: in the above example, you didn’t even realise that the first person you were with, was actually the destined soul mate, with whom you were supposed to fall in “true” love. Next, let’s say the person actually was an ass and the second person in the picture is actually a much better partner for you. For example, if you’re a guy, she’s hot, cute, independent, intelligent, cooks amazingly, great in bed, and thinks you’re the hottest and coolest guy alive; if you’re a girl, then he’s caring, understanding, has the perfect looks balanced between The Nerd and The Dude, does all the housework, loves children, has a great sense of humour, and is great in bed! So what will stop you from loving them and falling for them? And according to the theory, this is not true love, since it happens only once. I say then, in that case, I really don’t care about whether it’s true or not! As long as I’m enjoying myself, being cared for, and roaming around with Aphrodite, who wants “true love”?!

As is quite obvious from the tone of my discussion, I’m not one who believes that love happens only once, that there’s “somebody special”, and that He Who Must Not Be Named exists for sure. Love happens as many times as a person wants to and is ready to fall in it, and not a fixed integral value! When people get together and fall for each other, they end up subconsciously making each other compatible for each other, and that’s why their friends notice changes in them, whereas they deny it. No two people are a perfect fit. You have to compromise, adjust, and tolerate in order to be a pseudo-perfect fit. As for God, there is no way to determine for sure his existence by mankind, and that’s why I prefer not to use the terminology or symbolise in any way.

Classification (no, not Biology!)

2008-07-20T01:24:00.001+05:30

Although I consider myself quite an amateur in matters of music and guitar myself, I often observe that I usually have more knowledge and technical skill than most around me, and hence due to my gyaani-nature, tend to begin imparting whatever knowledge I have to those who’re interested and whom I feel can absorb and comprehend whatever I tell them; and I’ll admit sometimes I don’t pay much attention to the “interested” part!
Well anyway, what I’ll discuss here is something that people usually ask me as soon I finish analysing the genres they listen to, which is HOW exactly I figure out what genre a particular song belongs to.

Before I begin, let me clear a few controversial issues: firstly, I’m worse than a novice, so kindly forgive my improper usage of terms (such as genre, style, etc) and incorrect classification of songs in their respective genres; in fact, I’d be grateful if you could correct me on the same.

Now, to get on to whatever I understand about genres and styles. A genre is more like a wide division of a song or musical piece into a particular category that contains many subdivisions, which are styles. Rock, Metal, Pop, are kinds of genres, whereas Classic, Thrash, Alternative are some styles in the respective genres. Although Alternative music has reached a level of popularity and diversity to be classified as a new genre altogether, but I’m not very pro-alternative, so I won’t give it that much importance! Now the characteristics of a genre or style can be listed, but they’re not exactly very rigid, and it won’t remain music if they were anyway. That’s the entire difference between music and science: in science, an experiment is conducted, conclusions are drawn, theories are made, and the ones which explain most of the conclusions are considered for acceptance. In case there’s more than one successful theory, more experiments are conducted sooner or later to validate the correct one. In time, the “chosen” theory is proved to be flawed and incomplete and a newer, updated, more complicated one is out. That’s it. Science is laid out for us by nature. We can’t change it, we can’t even create our own exceptions to the rule, all we can do is utilise the natural properties and direct the application in useful ways for ourselves. And that’s where engineering comes in: the innovative mind that converts theory into something practically useful.

Music’s not like that. It’s not laid out for us. It IS us who create it. There are no rules, no natural properties. It is totally, completely and wholly imaginative. That’s why musical theory and practice aren’t very reliably connected. The founders of theory formed them on the basis of what the stalwarts used to compose and perform, and now beginners use them as basics. The only real help theory has brought about, is uniformity, a set standard throughout the world, such as: there being a musical octave in most instruments and scales, the staff notation, which is contains practically no conventional language, hence does not depend on the musician’s mother tongue etc.

Genres didn’t exist all along, did they? Eventually people had new ideas, executed them and they gave that a new name. Other bands/artists got influenced by that, modified it further slightly, and new styles got invented. So nobody made a set of rules that if a song contains certain elements, then it will be classified into a particular category. That’s a matter of perception: whether a certain song seems similar to another in style or not. That’s also the reason why cross-genres came along. One good example I can think of is Guns n Roses (before the Slash-Axl split). Slash uses heavy distortion and puts lots of solos into songs, even parts that can be called modified-riffs, Axl growls like shit, and their songs even have changing progressions, all these being characteristics of metal. Yet they sound typically hard rock, and are hence classified as such. Dream Theater is band which is too sophisticated in its approach and compositions to be regarded as bare metal, and they make quite a few soft songs as well. Yet Petrucci’s insane riffs and solos and Portnoy’s impossible swaying of arms in a million directions at once make them definitely the Gods of progressive metal.

I hope you got what I’m trying to say here. I don’t really know what to tell these people when they ask such questions! What, “listen to more stuff, you’ll get used to it!” or, “you’re just too dumb then”??

Why do they say cheater "cock"???

2008-04-17T12:31:00.001+05:30

Someone once asked me to provide tips on cheating during exams. That’s what inspired this post, but I’m not going to provide cheating tips in particular, I’ll probably be kicked off blogspot in that case! I’ll just give a short account of my take and ideas on cheating. But before you continue, please read:

WARNING: USING UNFAIR MEANS IN EXAMS IS ILLEGAL AND UNETHICAL, THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

Well, to begin, cheating is primarily of two categories:
1) self help
2) cooperation
the terms are quite self explanatory. Some people might prefer one to the other, but most experienced cheaters usually employ both means, and generally in that order too (at least I do). Now, there are various degrees of cheating in each case. As in, the skill level required, risks, chances of success, etc.

For example, the easiest self help is to maybe store formulae/derivations in your mobile phone - as either text messages, or preferably a picture, as I did (image attached) - and go to the bathroom to refer to them. The advantages are: no invigilator’s going to follow you to the bathroom! So the chances of getting caught are nil. The only risk here is of your phone being confiscated BEFORE the exam begins, as some examination centres do.

If your phone is with you, you could go to the next level, which is text-messaging someone you know while you’re in the bathroom. Drawback – you’ll be spending a long time in the bathroom! A riskier but faster alternative is calling them up; more risky since you might be heard talking.

Now come the highly risky ones: hiding text books/notebooks in strategic locations in the bathroom you’re going to be accessing. The biggest danger is of the janitor deciding to clean up while you still haven’t utilised your prize!

All the above methods were the easiest since they don’t involve cheating within the exam hall. The worst part of that is that you can only go to the bathroom a couple of times without arousing suspicion and that too, with quite a long interval in between. Unless you pull off a fake diabetic disease, of course!
So now I go on to the second degree: self-help in the hall itself. It’s quite the same, only there is now another complication involved which was non-existent earlier: the technique of viewing your chit. There are various techniques: one is to write it on the palm of your non-writing hand, and make sure your fist’s always closed! The advantage: no trouble of handling chits and no danger of invigilators finding them, drawback: if some invigilator decides to check hands, you’re dead.

If you use chits, the best way is to make small ones, and quickly take them out and fit them within the answer sheets. When there are too many chits, I usually organise them in order, number them, and make an index chit which contains the details of the information in each chit, its reference number, and its location on me (left sock, right pocket, etc).

Taking books/notebooks is immensely dangerous and I would not recommend it unless you’re very sure that your exam won’t be forfeited if you’re caught! We usually do it only in class tests and unit tests, not in semesters.

Now for the cooperation method; it’s much more exciting, but much less reliable. The advantages are that there are always chances of getting info, whereas in self-help, if you want something you haven’t written on your chit, you simply can’t get it, also, the more number of people involved in the cooperation, lesser the load on each person. In our class tests, there’s usually a genius kid at the right end of the bench, and the copying proceeds successively to his left! As in, the whole remaining bench (about ten people) is effectively copying from him, by copying from the person on their right. This isn’t exactly cooperation, this is simply scrounging! Cooperation is when there are no geniuses available, and we divide the work into five-six of us, and do each individual’s part (whether you study or convert your part into self-help is your wish, I do the latter usually). Now the techniques you can use are endless, exchange answer sheets/question papers (with answers you know written on yours), simply whisper, or use Morse code (if it’s multiple choice, of course! You can’t Morse a whole database system program!), if you’re in different rooms coordinate going to the toilet together, etc.

Anyway, I’m bored of writing now..

"Inner" Beauty??

2008-03-18T10:41:00.000+05:30

There was a sort of debate going on about how people judge on the basis of looks, and most of them were supporting as well as criticising that.

A lot of people were talking about “inner beauty”. Now that is a term, I think, that’s not only clichéd, but also a complete misnomer. “Beauty”, is meant to be superficial. It’s not something that resides within a person! How can you possibly see what a person looks like inside?! Seriously, how many of you girls would actually like it if your boyfriends came up to you with a line, “Hi, Darling. You’re so beautiful… INSIDE!!” Wouldn’t you much rather prefer him just saying that you look gorgeous today?!

Evolution has given me eyes, it’s given me a sense of judgement, and it’s given me hormones, and genes that control them and every aspect of my sexuality. Then, for heaven’s sake, I have every right to look at a good-looking girl and judge that she looks pretty! My point here, is not that one should judge ONLY on the basis of exterior looks, that’s obviously downright cheap. If I know that I’m going to have a continuous interaction with some particular girl, I’d obviously she rather be an intellectual type whose conversation is stimulating and controversial, so that we can talk. But on the other hand, if I’m just walking down the road and a girl passes me by on the side, what the hell am I going to do with the fact that she has brains?! Isn’t it normal human (or at least male) behaviour to wish for her to be someone (or have something) worth looking at? And I can bet you it’s not just male behaviour, girls also like looking at “cute” guys, though God only knows what their definition of cute is..

Absolute crap

2008-03-11T14:19:00.002+05:30

Sometimes there's nothing in your head
No ideas, no intellectual thoughts
But yet words crave to splatter out
Absolute nonsense, yet in huge lots

And nonsense it is that I speak now
Write, rather; no why or how
Blank on what to write next
Just entering bullsh*t text

Jack and Jill went up the hill
While the wolf was in sheep's disguise
And Mary lost her little lamb
Cinderella was figuring out her shoe size

The three little pigs recognized the wolf
And shouted, "It's him! He's here!"
Clever Mary thought they've found her lamb
So she ran towards them, with no fear

Brandishing her shepherd stick
She scared the shit out of Jill
Who threw the pail of water at Mary
While Jack was rolling down the hill

Jill's aim was never very good
So Cinderella was who the pail actually hit
The wolf took advantage of the confusion
And went to the pigs for his snack-bit

Little did he know Mary was right behind him
Who grabbed his neck by her stick
And then finally realized it's the wolf
So she beat him up till she was sick

Meanwhile Cinderella was tearing out Jill's hair
For creating a lump on her head
Jack started running up to her rescue
"I'm coming Jill!", he said

But Jack is Jack, so he tripped on a stone
Himself fell on the lost lamb
Sent the stone right over Mary's head
And right here, lost for a line, I am..

To be continued, if wished!

Parallel Universe(s)

2008-02-08T21:28:00.000+05:30

The topic first came up when a group of friends planned to perform planchett* and by some miraculous coincidence, had decided to do it on the exact same day when I was supposed to jam in with another pal of mine. So we decided to combine the two events, one after the other (jam-in first, of course!). Anyway, what I wanted to write here was the gist of a discussion that took place between the friend of mine who'd called me to invite me to the planchett event.
Ghosts, spirits, alternate worlds, undiscovered devices. I will not say I disbelieve in any of those, in fact I'm quite in support of the "unfound". But, neither will you find me showing complete faith in their existence either. One thing that's definitely bothered me all the time is the assumption in science that everything is well-defined, ordered and wholly expressible as a neat and clean mathematical function. Something else I've always wondered about is a bit more imaginable, but a trifle long to explain. The best way to start would be to ask you whether you believe life exists in other places of the universe. The big ambiguity arises here on the definition of the vital word: life. It depends entirely on your own point of view: either you're rigid, and don't classify anything apart from the life you've seen here on Earth as "life" (in fact I could give you something to wonder about on Earth itself: viruses. Are they living things for you or not?), or you're more like me: believe that life anywhere will have evolved according to the conditions present. Now, that instantly implies that there is quite a good chance that somewhere some life forms exists which possess sense organs that we don't, which in turn implies that there exist forms of energy etc which stimulate those sense organs and not ours. Hence, it is practically impossible for us to naturally detect such energies. A near-case example would be that of radio waves: unless Maxwell had discovered that electromagnetic waves travel in vaccum, we'd have never known the millions of frequencies that pass us every moment that don't affect us. Another, slightly more scientific and uncommon example is that of a neutrino. Noone really knows much about these tiny sub-atomic (I really do hope you know what an atom is!) particles, and the reason is because they have negligible interaction with matter: they pass through almost everything, possess no charge, a very very small (almost zero) mass, and travel at nearly the speed of light. Humans have still managed to detect this minuscule piece of shit, but that simply increases the probability of there being other unknown particles and forms of energies (or maybe energies themselves) existent.
Another sort of "theory" I'd once concocted was that of parallel "dimensions" (I couldn't think of a better word). Since I'd obviously never made any calculations or deductions, this concept is purely imaginary, and therefore even I don't know much about it! What it basically is, is that there might be another dimension where the time and space coordinates are the same, but the event isn't. As in: in some other dimension, someone might be sitting right next to you and talking to you, but here that person isn't there. The basis of these dimensions is mainly time. Time, since it is probably one of the two most simple yet troubling concepts in science (the other being entropy), and there's no way to experiment with it! We just manage to measure it's passage, and nothing else can ever be known about it except that it continues to pass at a seemingly constant, relativistically controlled rate. Now, there may be cases when two or more dimensions sort of crack into each other, for just a moment or so: sort of an intersecting phenomenon.
So what does this have to do with dead spirits and miracles and stuff?? According to me, there may be a chance that instead of us coming across ghosts, sometimes it might rather be a phenomenon of dimensions intersecting!! Sounds highly unbelievable and cock-and-bull, doesn't it?? But then, isn't it at least as feasible, if not more, than the theory that what we encounter are actually spirits?? Think about it!

*For those who don't know: planchett is the practice of attempting to call dead spirits using the Ouija board, where all the alphabets and numbers, and a few specific diagrams, like the sun and moon, are made, and people sit around it in the dark, with candles lit.

Sideways

2007-12-25T23:11:00.000+05:30

Looking at things from different angles: it’s an art; and a person who can look from various possible angles is a genius! That would the Utopian example of the free-size foot: that fits in every “shoe” around. A few days ago I was watching this video on Youtube which was a recording of Steve Jobs’ speech to fresh graduates in Stanford. He said many inspiring things and used three “stories” of his life to show how certain events which seem highly unfortunate and capable of causing damage end up actually helping you out. For him, in fact, they entirely altered the course of his life. So what’s that got to do with angles of vision? I’ve noticed something rather peculiar yet quite commonplace: almost all the successful people I’ve heard of were not vigorous academic stalwarts in their days. Neither was Steve Jobs: the owner of Pixar, instrumental in the invention of the Apple computers, and something else too, which you’ll have to excuse my memory for. He’d dropped out of college, and his reason was something very spectacular (for me: because I have always had the same thoughts throughout school and even now): why should I attend classes which I don’t find interesting or worthwhile? What’s the point of listening to lectures about things which don’t even evoke the slightest spark of curiosity in a person to learn more?

I’ll go on about perspectives after a short diversion: since I used the word “successful”, I think I should describe the context in which I used it before proceeding. Well, this is one of those words which have an entirely different definition for probably every person on this planet. For some, it’s earning a lot of money, or respect, or power, or all three. For others, it could be achieving some goal set earlier in life, or settling down and being a happy family, or maybe even simply enjoying life and taking it the way it comes along. That, quite precisely put, is the definition that I intend to use here- and most of the times: that the definition itself is variable. I would say a person is successful if they believe that they are. This description quite makes me lose my individuality, some might say, but that’s your own perspective again, which brings me back to the primary topic of this post.

Speaking from my frame of reference (mind: frame of reference is not synonymous to perspective. Perspective is the view of something, absolutely independent of surroundings and conditions which one is currently in, whereas the Frame of Reference takes these into account and is hence should be treated as a variable), I’ve observed most students these days (yes, even my batch mates) to be very objectively and exclusively materialistic. For those who got confused: one can be materialistic, most people are, even I am. I like luxury, good food, comfort, money! But that is inherent materialistic character. Different people are materialistic in different aspects and to different degrees. Now I used two other adjectives: objective and exclusive. By exclusively materialistic I mean that that’s pretty much all they care about, and judge everything, base the course of their lives, and take vital decisions on the basis of just that; and by objective I mean that they “measure” certain aspects and facets in a very discrete and numerical way, and quite about neglect the non-measurable or rather, seemingly unimportant ones; and hence form the public outlook or “trend” and disregard (in fact I think they never even consider) their own personal opinions in a somewhat deeper aspect. The simplest example I can give you is the choice of a college: they just choose the one that has the best placements, which received the highest pay-packet etc. It’s quite obviously perfectly measurable, and the people look at just that, and the disciplines which receive better packages and choose it. There forms the trend, eg, of Computer Science filling up before Information Technology, since last year CS had better placements, even though there’s hardly any difference in both the courses. And last year it had better placements because the students who were in CS were, in general, better performers than the IT crowd since they were higher rankers, because the year before last, CS had better placements, and so on… I hope you get the idea.
More on this later, if another day comes my way when I am waiting for the torrent to finish downloading and have tired myself of all the games I have!

A musician's enlightenment

2007-06-08T12:12:00.000+05:30

Well, it had happened during the western music rounds in a fest, we were in the green rooms. There was this band which had a good guitarist, drummer, and good enough vocalist too. But they were overplaying like shit. I hope you know what overplaying is: when you use your "talent", but it has negative effects, spoils the mood, the simplicity, and the feel of the song. It basically is done by amateurs for whom the ultimate aim is to show off everything they can possibly do, on stage. It was then that this friend, rather accomplice, of mine commented during their "practice" session (I'd prefer to call it the look-at-me-I'm-so-great session, but let's stick to the formal lingo). He said they're so good and playing so well, and all that jazz. And I lost it. I said something like, "Someday I really hope your pea sized brain gets to know what music really is."
Nobody can understand music, if anyone says they know all about something related to music (say even a single song), they're lying through their teeth. I'd say there are three phases a person can go through regarding music - I'm talking instrumentwise - the first one is, in fact, that where most of the people remain stuck for maybe the rest of their lives: a song consists of some chords, some notes, a few rhythms; pick them up, play them, and bravo, you've mastered the piece. I'd call this even below an amateur's level. The second level would be the realization that music's not just about the stupid technical data, it's not engineering, it's art! At that point then, the notes are not just notes. There's a lot more to it.
There's a mood to a song, the way the musician played it, what was in his/her mind, which notes have anger, sadness, happiness, contempt, prejudice, despair, hope, etc. In a good song, every sequence has a feeling to it. Being a guitarist, I can honestly say that when I'd begun understanding these "methods" of playing of each artist, I used to try and replicate them as much as I could. In some cases, I did succeed quite well, and in some I didn't manage to "catch" the aura. Then, as I matured, and got exposed to various different playing styles and genres, I spontaneously started developing a style of my own, which, since then has become more and more prominent and natural.
The third level, I suppose, would be the enlightened level: where a note, again, becomes just a note! Not because the musician doesn't know that there's a lot more to it, but because now that's like his/her reflex action. It runs in the veins and nerves. They don't need to realise the mood of the song, they're already in the song. Aptly put, they're submerged deep into it, far beyond the surface, where mere beings like us, reside. I sincerely hope I shall be able to reach this level, when I deserve to.

The first one

2007-05-20T11:57:00.000+05:30

Well, how I started this blog of my own is a bit funny, had seen a person's blog as a search result for the ranking of engineering colleges in India.. They were deciding on making some survey of their own, and I left a snide remark after reading it through. Just bothered about jobs, and software, and the "name" of the college, etc. No-one thinks about what life's like in those places. Some people, I agree, are of the type who'd just want to sit and work and they always have just two things in their mind, perpetually being worried about them, short term: about the next exam/class, long term: about the job placement. Weirdos. I'm sure there are many people out there like me (maybe even you) who just want to enjoy life. Why the hell should I slog my ass in a hi-tech company for 15 hours a day, get paid in lakhs, but never have time to even look out of the window! What'll I do with all that money? I just want a normal, decent life where I don't have stress problems, I earn enough to buy myself a new gadget every once in a while, own a bike, pay maintenance, maybe go for a holiday once a year, and put some of it in savings. And most importantly, what I want is time for myself to enjoy this one life that I have. To do the things I like doing, things I want to do, maybe just for fun. To spend time with friends (later, I suppose, family too) the way I do now (well, everyday!). If I can manage to get through a good enough engineering college, then why not? But not into one that destroys the four years that I spend there. Well, anyway, enough bitching!