FIAT LUX

What’s in a Number: Reviewing klout.com

2011-12-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

My uncle, a senior executive in a PSU, was at my home forChristmas and he introduced me to an important management adage: “What cannot bemeasured cannot be managed”.

klout.com is a social media analytics company which measuresinfluence of users in the social networking world. To put it simply, it checksout your profiles on twitter, facebook, google+ etc to come up with a popularity score tomeasure your social charisma on the web.

If you have not used this yet, then the first thing that youshould do is go to www.klout.com. There youwould need to link all your social networking accounts and see the websitechurn out a number. To your surprise, the website can spew out a number with anaccuracy of up to two decimal places.

Klout gives you some more scores namely True Reach,Amplification and Network Impact. They sift through your social networkingactivity and observe the number of retweet, mentions, followers and followingon twitter. As of now it is unclear what they observe in facebook. They have abunch of ‘scientists’ and engineers who refine the algorithm which produces thenumber.

Fig: A snapshot of my klout profile

Klout has this interesting feature called klout perk. If you are popular enoughand klout identifies you as an expert in a particular field, you might be givenperks by companies who would want youto use their products. For example, if you are an influencer with tablets,Amazon might gift you a Kindle Fire so that you might use it and possibly talkabout it on the web (positively or negatively). This is a truly innovativefeature(who minds free goodies :) ).

Inspite of all this, Klout has been under a lot ofcriticism. What I find most annoying about these scores is the lack of non-vaguedefinition for all these terms. For Example, the definition of Amplificationsays “Amplification is how much you influence people. It indicates how likelyyour audience is to respond and how close you are to your entire network.” MyAmplification score is apparently 37. I have no idea how good it is. I don’t evenknow the maximum score possible. Themoment I saw klout report card, I got reminded of indiblogger. Indiblogger is a network of bloggers inIndia. They come up with Indirankevery month for all the bloggers in the network. Their blog metric seems muchmore reliable as they have measurableparameters (like alexa rank, google page rank, frequency of posting etc) whichthey use to bring out the score. I might not agree with the idea of scoringblogs on these parameters; however I think they do a good enough job in findingout the ‘reach’ of each blog.

Another thing which I find irritating in klout is the +k feature. It reminds me of Zynga’sMafia War on Facebook. Every day, each user would be given 10 +k points which they can go anddistribute among friends. This is a very non creative way of having userengagement and might be detrimental in the long run because if you can increaseklout score by spending your time on klout.com(rather than on social networkingsites), it is not a good scoring mechanism then.

Also, klout has onlyadded facebook, twitter, google plus andfoursquare in their algorithm. Photosharing websites like flickr and Bloggingplatforms like blogspot, wordpress etchave not yet been analysed. These websites are definitely an indicator of aperson’s influence on the web.

Then why has klout received so many eyeballs? For one,everyone likes numbers. Numbers have an enigmatic pull. How many times have youfelt tempted to click on links which say “10 worst songs of 2011” and the likes?Klout has used this attraction to the maximum and has got a good user base in alittle time.

Also, klout caters toa genuine business need. There are a lot of companies which are mulling the ROIof their efforts in social media marketing. Klout promises to give them anumber which they can use in board rooms to justify to their bosses that themoney spent in social media is showing the desired result. It also promises tobe an effective tool in recruitment process for the social media industry. Inthis world of supply and demand, let us see how klout survives.

P.S. - Now that I blogged about klout, will I get some brownie points?

The Christmas Playlist

2011-12-24T09:24:00.000-08:00

The following is a compilation of contemporary versions of classic Christmas carols.

The Christmas Playlist includes:

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Relient K
Silent Night - Sixpence None the Richer
First Noel - Toby Mac & Owl City
Joy To The World - Chris Tomlin
O Come All Ye Faithful - Jeremy Camp
O Holy Night - Kutless
Do You Hear What I Hear - Carrie Underwood
Angels We Have Heard On High - Sixpence None the Richer
Hark The Herald - The Fab Four
Away In The Manger - Cristy Lane

Selling to new India: Bose gets it right

2011-12-23T22:13:00.000-08:00

India is changing. If you have any doubt then go to a tier 2 or tier 3 city, visit a mall and see the number of people trying to ride the escalators with mixed feelings of fear and elation.

However, there is a sense of intimidation in all these shopping malls. This feeling is even more prominent in the smaller cities and towns of the country. Even with the burgeoning middle class pockets, the sight and smell of malls and high end shops seem inviting and uninviting both at the same time.

So, when I (a small town boy) went to Croma store, which didnt feel as 'posh' and where one was allowed to play around with the gizmos, I was bound to stumble across something interesting. I moved around in the store fiddling everything that could be fiddled with. Suddenly, I noticed this particular section of the store where all the Bose devices were kept. I had heard a lot about Bose (who hasn't), but had never used any of their products before. When I saw people trying out headphones and speakers at the Bose counter, I thought I should give it a try. I put on one of the headphones. Ecstacy.

What followed was akin to a guy stalking a girl. I would go to Croma store again and again to test the device to convince myself that the hefty price tag was worth every penny. Finally I decided to buy the thing.

However, when it came to buying the headphones, I decided to search for an exclusive store and was surprised to know that they had one in Forum Mall. On my previous visits to Forum, this showroom of Bose was nothing but invisible.

Premier Companies, take a cue. Keep the fancy showrooms in expensive malls, but your customers (the new ones) are not going to find you there if you don't 'open up'.Consumer electronics stores are seeing a transformation. Lets see where it goes from here.

Flipkart exits price war. Is it too soon?

2011-11-22T04:59:00.001-08:00

Recently one of my friends (chocophilix) pointed out on twitter that theprices on Flipkart had risen. I went ahead and checked the prices of books that I have bought or want to buy and this is what I found:

Fig: Flipkart vs Infibeam

In general I could see a 5 to 15 percent price difference ofFlipkart from Infibeam. However, this price difference has been observed onlyin the book selling business (the first segment in which Flipkart entered). Theconsumer electronics business still shows a congruity in prices among theonline stores.

From the time it has started marketing through televisionadvertisements, Flipkart has become a household name. Their service isunanimously considered the best among all the online stores currentlyfunctional in India. However this price rise came as a surprise as Flipkart hadjust started attracting eyeballs of the non-geek India.

It would be interesting to see whether the cost conscious Indiancustomer be ready to pay the extra 10% for a better service. The case indiscussion becomes more relevant because of the unique cash on delivery modelwhich the Indian online retail industry has been promoting. The cash ondelivery model negates the perceived risk from online shopping and obviates theneed for better service.

Is it too soon for Flipkart to end the price war? Time willtell whether this is a cyclic change or a clear differentiation sought by Flipkart.Looking forward to your comments.

The Four Letter Word

2011-11-08T02:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I saw this movie called In Time. Set in 2161, the movie talks about a world where humanityhas been genetically modified such that they cannot get older than 25physically, and their currency has been changed from money to time. There wouldbe a clock running on each person's arm. The time shown on the arm is theamount of time left before the person dies. A person would die as soon as thetime runs out (if they don’t happen to die of any other unnatural cause beforethat). Every transaction of goods or services is through transfer of time. Aphone call costs 1 minute of life, for example. The clock starts when a man ora woman achieves the age of 25. From the point, their physical features remain thatof a 25 year old for the rest of their life. Father, Mother, Grandmother, Albert Einstein, everyone is 25years old in this world. However, their "real age" might be incenturies (reminds you of inception right?).

The plot of the movie requires the father of a pretty girl(who falls in 'love' with the protagonist of the movie) to pay some ransom forhis kidnapped daughter.

Now here lies the dilemma. If this was a normal world, thefather would pay anything to get his daughter freed. You cannot take anythingto the grave right? However, in this world, it is theoretically possible tolive for eternity. So can he waste his money (time) to save his daughter? Willhe shorten his life to save his daughter? Will he do that out of 'love'?

LOVE

Here is one word which has puzzled me beyond words.

Is it a state of mind? Wikipedia calls it an emotion. Dictionarydefines love as “A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitudetoward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractivequalities, or a sense of underlying oneness”. Isn’t that a little less romanticthan what one might like?

What do you mean by'falling' in love?

Is it dependence? Was Mother Teresa looking for dependence?

Is Kasab capable of love? What do you mean by being ‘capable’?

Is it a Verb? Noun? Interjection?

Can we really truly love someone without having an ulteriormotive?

Isn't love the righteous cousin of jealousy and guilt?

Is it lame to even discuss love?

Here is the blog post by my college junior which inspired me to write my share ofconfusion on this topic. Comments are always welcomed and in fact demanded.

The Other Salman Khan

2011-09-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

This Salman Khan doesn’t like removing his shirt for no goodreason, has 3 degrees from MIT (BS in Mathematics, BS and MS in Electrical andComputer Engineering) and one from Harvard( MBA) and has left his job at ahedge fund to teach school kids.

Salman Khan is a Bangladeshi American born to a Bangladeshifather and an Indian mother. He started of his teaching career when he startedhelping out his cousins in their school curriculum. He started posting 10minute video tutorials on YouTube so that his cousins could have a look. Overthe time, he started getting a good number of hits on his videos. So much sothat it caught Bill Gates' attention. Now he has a $2 million support fromGoogle to create more content and translation of content to other prominentlanguages of the world.

He featured in TED in2011 where he tells how a hedge fund analyst got into teaching kids.

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education | Video on TED.com

I have been viewing some of his videos on finance andeconomics and they have been really enlightening. It is kind of eureka feelingwhen you come across something like this. It was as if you were looking for it allalong but didn’t know where you might stumble across this thing.

Check out his webpage for some insane number of videos: http://www.khanacademy.org/

My Father doesn't like Reliance Fresh. Now I know why.

2011-07-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

As a kid I would often accompany my father on his weekly trip to dhan-mandi(local market). I would sit in the rear seat of our good old Bajaj Chetak, with my arms wrapped around my father’s belly and my mind wandering in the chaos of narrow streets sprawling with hawkers selling bizarre things, stray cows having lost all sense of direction and poor customers finding their way in this pandemonium.

Today, I went to the market again with my father. This time we were travelling in our bike, the rest of the surrounding however seem to show no difference. My father has been a vocal critic of reliance fresh, big bazaar and other multi brand retail stores. It would often seem counter intuitive to me. Today I was to learn, why it wasn’t.

The most surprising thing I noticed while travelling through the mandi was that my father was getting greeted by random shopkeepers along the way. Whenever he would stop to buy a thing, he would have the customary round of bargaining and a convergence on selling price (based on na tera na mera principle). While my father was dealing with an onion merchant, selecting the onions from a tokri full of onions, a tiny little girl nudged him from behind. She was three, maybe four and was the cutest little girl. She had coriander leaves (dhania) in her hands and she was pleading my father to buy a bunch of leaves for five rupees. My father looked at that girl and smiled for seconds at length. He and I exchanged looks. I promptly took out 5 Rs from my pocket and placed it on those tiny hands. My father started to ask “School nahi gayi aaj?”, but she had left by then, too busy to be bothered by such banalities.

We moved on to another hawker. She was selling vegetables. My father asked for 1 kg of ladyfingers and the lady said with much authority “Mai do kilo de rahi hun”. He had to beg her to put only 1 kg. My father motioned towards the spot where that lady was sitting and told me that there was another lady who used to sit here(The lady who was sitting then was the niece of that lady).He always bought vegetables from that lady. She died of heart ailment a few months back. “Bahut dukh hua sunkar” my father said.

We kept on moving through the mesh of hawkers sitting on the floor and selling fruits and vegetables. While I was there I sensed a great loss which my generation and I are moving towards. We are probably going to miss out on a whole set of real friends while we are busy living our virtual lives and considering reliance fresh as our best alternative for shopping. What a shame.

Books I read this summer

2011-07-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

The following is a list of books which I read in that past few months. These books weren’t necessarily read in >30 degree temperature. Some were even read under a rajai ( all in 2011 though). I liked the title to be this way.

· Tuesday’s with Morrie

Author – Mitch Albom

Genre – nonfiction, memoir

My rating – 4/5

A few months back I was talking with a friend of mine on her birthday and in the middle of the discussion she told that she wanted to call up everyone whom she cared for and tell them how much they mean to her. Further ahead in the discussion I found that it was Tuesdays with Morrie which had brought this desire in her mind.

Tuesdays with Morrie is a real life account of the last few days of Morrie Shwartz, a professor of sociology in Brandeis University, Massachusetts. Morrie is diagnosed by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and is destined to die a slow and painful death. The author, an old student of Morrie, hears about his condition and decides to pay him a visit. The author has penned those conversations which he had with his teacher before his teacher’s death.

The book is written in a much uncomplicated manner and touches one’s heart and one’s beliefs in a profound way. This made me think a lot about how I want my life to be. And I kept thinking about these things even long after I finished the book. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to venture into nonfiction literature.

· Long walk to freedom

Author - Nelson Mandela

Genre – Auto Biography

My rating – 3.5/5

I came across this thick book while I was browsing through the politics section of the library hoping to stumble upon something interesting. I was instantly attracted towards this book. I have a bad track record with long books. I still decided to read this book even if it demanded an extra effort.

It is a beautiful read. Nelson Mandela portrays himself as an ordinary man who grew over the years and started doing extraordinary things, one thing at a time. What is most striking about this book is the irony in the manner in which Mandela describes his childhood in a primitive society with linguistic brilliance in an alien language, English.

Sadly, I couldn’t finish this book. Library deadlines to blame.

· Animal Farm

Author – George Orwell

Genre – Fiction

My rating – 3/5

A satire, this book revolves around the lives of an animal colony aiming to achieve utopia. Initially the animal farm is run and maintained by humans. However, the animals have a strong desire for freedom and self governance. They overthrow the humans running the farm and lay the foundation of self rule. What follows is a pig led tyranny.

The novel is a satire on socialist way of doing things. The book was insightful and the author very skillfully proves the pointlessness of a communist form of governance.

· Tipping Point

Author – Malcom Gladwell

Genre – Nonfiction, management

My rating –2.5/5

Although this book has remained on top of the charts in nonfiction category, I was not impressed much. The book talks about how a few actions by few people at the right time can lead to massive change. The book tries to bring out the 80/20 rule in essence, which says that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. A corollary says 20% of the people are responsible for 80% of the work that happens in this world. This book puts forward good many numbers of examples to drive some point. However they are incoherent and long winded. I didn’t like the book much. Many others like it though.

· Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy

Author– Douglas Adams

Genre – Fiction, Sci-fi, Humor

My rating – 4.5/5

This is probably the most amazing book I have read in a long long time. It will be an offence to call it a book. It is the magna carta of modern day humor. If you have spent hours reading abstruse goose or other similar web comics you should definitely lay your hands on this book. Douglas Adams is a genius. Go grab a copy.

· 1984

Author– George Orwell

Genre – Fiction, Politics

My rating – 4/5

Big Brother, Room 101, Thought Police, Thought Crime, Unperson, Memory Hole, Doublethink, Newspeak. If you have ever read any of the above terms before, it is because it was mentioned first in 1984, a dystopian novel written by Douglas Adams. The most fascinating thing about reading this book was that I was reading a book written in 1948 about a fictional state in 1984, in the year 2011. The author imagines a ‘utopian’ society run by ‘the party’. It is a chilling book and would surely leave you restless and grossed out at times.

A compelling read.

· The Slap

Author – Christos Tsiolkas

Genre – Fiction, drama

My rating – 2.5/5

I received this book as a gift from the Matrix club, BITS Pilani, for doing a book review. The book is about how a slap from an adult to a kid (who is not his own) leads to complications in various people’s lives. The novel is set in modern day Australia and has a very contemporary setting to the whole story. However the author has gone overboard with profanities and sex which was avoidable and did no value addition to the story.

· Second Degree

Author – Prashanth John

Genre – Fiction, memoir

My rating – 2/5

This book came into the market during the post five point someone delirium. The author is an alumnus of the first PGPX batch of IIM Ahmadabad. The book starts from his admission into the PGPX batch and goes on till the placements at the end of the course. It has been written on the lines of other campus memoirs like Five Point Someone, Anything for You Ma’m etc however it lacks the much needed masala and humor to make this genre worth a read. The only reason I bothered to read it till the end was because it talked about IIM A and I am ready to read any nonsense about a place where I want to be someday.

· Audacity of Hope

Author – Barack Obama

Genre – Nonfiction, Politics

My rating – 3/5

When our country was busy getting charmed by anything and everything Obama did during his visit to India, one of the television anchors mentioned in passing about the book which he wrote about his life before he became the president(Letters to my father) and how good it was. It got registered in the back of my head, but I never remembered the name of the book. While I was browsing through the books on display during Basant book festival at Akshay this year, I came across Audacity of Hope and mistook it for that book. Audacity of Hope turned out to be a serious and OHT commentary about American Politics. Initially it was very difficult to make sense of the book; however, with grit and determination (boosted by the guilt of spending my money without confirming) I read some chapters and liked it to an extent. Obama has knack of summing up his arguments with appealing one liner. Obama is a good writer and I would definitely like to read his other books.

· Chronicles of Narnia – The lion, the witch & the wardrobe

Author – C.S. Lewis

Genre – fiction, mythology

My rating – 3/5

I always wanted to read this book. But by the time I picked it up, I was definitely over-aged. The clear black and white nature of the story didn’t appeal to me. I am sure a 12 year old me would have loved this book.

· Love Story

Author – Erich Segal

Genre – fiction, romance

My rating – 3/5

A friend suggested a few days back. A very thin book(76 pages), I finished it in a day. It is a classic love story. Boy meets girl. They have a tussle initially. Eventually boy falls for the girl and vice versa. What I find most appealing about the book was the relationship that the boy shares with his father. Read it if you have a few hours to kill.

Monsoon wish list:

· Banker to the poor – Muhammad Yunus

· Geek Nation – Angelica Saini

· The World is Flat – Thomas L Friedman

· Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

· Diary of Ann Frank – Ann Frank

· Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

4 Years 42 Things

2011-05-18T07:13:00.000-07:00

APOGEE rocks.
Number of people who do not know bathroom manners are >= 1/12. #blackthunder.
How cheap are you on a scale of 0 to D (D referring to a certain person who takes extra interest in your belongings at the end of a semester)?
More the number of vocal chords, the better a cricket match.
There is a pelican drawn inside glider’s club hangar.
Top of the clock tower is the coolest place on campus. Figuratively. Literally.
Kramer is the best sitcom character.
Switchfoot \m/s
Maida is used for making structure by Informalz and for making Bhatura by mess bhaiyas.
Back IC in the night is the best place to celebrate birthdays.
There exists a club which is responsible for making medals for fests.
Khetri is haunted.
CSK has the highest win percent.
Illads are narcissists.
There is a magazine in library which tells you about the latest television hindi sops.
Taste of Maggi is dependent on the place where it is served.
You are bound to receive the same gift again by then end of four years. #PigeonHolePrinciple
There is a secret underground kitchen in cnot . All paneer dishes in cnot are made there.
Never let truth come in the middle of a good story.
“Dude!” sounds more genuine if pronounced with a heavier base.
CGPA matters.
C6:A7::Joginder Sharma:Dale Steyn
Slap bets is the coolest form of betting.
If you are good at something, don’t do it for free.
MAMO is rigged since B dude is not allowed to participate.
All conversations end with “Lite ra!”.
The guy who fixes electric poles knows more about three phase current than I #ES1.
Everyone in last four years has played a prank or has been played with.
Cricbuzz updates faster than Cricinfo.
At any point of time, the number of BITSians inside Forum Mall, Bangalore >=2.
Ego is directly proportional to CGPA. CGPA is directly proportional to Ego. #chickeneggchicken.
My biggest enemy on campus – Segmentation Fault.
Bitsian Tshirts - Wardrobe Malfunction.
Malai Masala at UCO redi is the best snack on campus.
EEE CDCs are over hyped.
Don't give advice to your students - they may listen! #shanb.
Every semester passes faster than the previous one.
Every batch seems worse than the previous one.
Pappuji wears false teeth.
Museum is the Disneyland of Pilani.
There exists a mafia which tears off nets from windows at the end of 2^nd semester.
is the right answer. Maybe you are asking the wrong question.

Cricket World Cup 2011

2011-04-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

Cricket is a unique sport. Cricket is:

· A game which can be played for five days as well as for a few minutes.

· A game which can be played with a book (book cricket), leg(leg cricket) or even with a writing pad(used to play with a writing pad after an examination in school days).

· A game which can be played on a beach, on a roof top, on a narrow ‘gali’ or on a computer.

· A game whose rule book can be more amount of information than all what is learnt in RepWri.

· A game which can lead to stone pelting in player’s houses.

· A game which can make more than a billion people press the pause buttons on their lives.

Cricket is perhaps the most complex game possible. Try explaining LBW to someone who has no idea about cricket and you will soon realize that an average Indian must be really smart to call an impact ‘plumb’ in a matter of seconds.

Cricket World Cup is big and it being in India makes it ginormous. This world cup started with India as the favorites, for the first time. India always had a good side(atleast since the start of 21^st century). They always had players who could grab victory from the pits of defeat single handedly. However they never seemed to work in cohesion. There was an unknown missing piece. A lacuna. MSD and Kirsten found that missing piece in the past few years and presented before the country, a team, which could replace the legacy of the Australian team of the post 1999 cricketing history.

Thanks to the generous administration at BITS Pilani, we were privileged to watch the match in the auditorium with two thousand fellow students. I have not seen many cricket matches in the stadium. However, I can still say with some amount of confidence, that the atmosphere in the audi can be termed as The next best thing to Wankhede. With face painted people carrying flags, bottles, hooters etc, it was bound to be an exciting show. Mrinal Manuj with his sticks and drums (“DhaTa DhaTad Tad.. Oye ... DhaTad Dhatad Tad ... Oye ”) made it even more special.

The match started with a toss drama. On retrospection, I am glad that India lost the toss after that, ‘coz this gave the opposition no excuse whatsoever. The first innings was a typical one day innings with runs coming at its own ebb and flow. Zaheer Khan &Co. did a really good job in initial over. A bowling figure of 5-3-6-1 in a cricket final is every bowler’s dream. Till the batting powerplay of SriLanka, my hopes were riding very high on an Indian victory. They batted really well in the last few overs and the game was poised to be memorable, be it a victory for India or a defeat.

The start of the second innings was tragic. It was as if I took a shot of the bitterest drink possible. Sehwag(btw write Sehwag in MS Word and right click to see the spelling suggestions) got out on the second ball of the match, without scoring a run. If this was not bitter enough, Sachin followed in the 6^th over and I tasted bile. My instinctive reaction was to stand up and leave. Some people left and my only motivation to stay was that I wanted to occupy the seats these guys left. Next few overs were torture. Have you ever imagined how a person, who is sentenced to death, would feel minutes before his execution? I was staring at an imminent collapse. However, history was to be written in a different manner. Before going to the match, Narula(Dada) told me that he has a hunch that Gambhir would play well today; that this might be Gambhir’s day. And so it was. Gambhir played one of the best one day innings I have seen. I have seen Sachin hit many centuries. I have seen the NatWest final. But to stand in front of a bowling attack having Malinga and Murali in it, requires courage. This is a bowling attack which can be likened to a shark. They usually smell blood and take the 10 wickets in a jiffy. Gambhir stood his ground and along with Kohli he managed some fire fighting. Kohli departed and to the surprise of everyone Dhoni came in to the ground. Blah Blah Blah(I’m sure you would hear this tale uncountable number of times in the days to come)…4 to win from 11 balls.

Image Courtesy: Siva Subrahmanyam

When Dhoni hit the last six over long on, I got numb. I realized that this was going to be the best world cup final that I would EVER be witnessing. My imagination fails me in giving a picture of a world cup final which can possibly be better than this one. What followed the victory was a constant joyous screaming in the audi which continued for hours at stretch in the streets of our campus, to be paused only by ocassional crackers. One of my friends Rahul pointed out that people wouldn’t have been as happy when they got job offers in campus placement. I nodded my head in affirmative as I didn’t remove my tshirt when I got my job. As it has been pointed out by many through facebook status messages that 2007 batch saw the T20 victory and CWC ’11 victory, I can just feel lucky. I remember that day in 2007 very vividly and I will remember 2^nd April till my memory lasts.

Lessons from BITS Pilani – First Impression

2011-03-24T03:57:00.000-07:00

Hype is perilous. I almost made up my mind to hate BITS Pilani for the first impression it offered. When a starry-eyed teenager successfully clears a competitive exam and reserves a berth in one of the premier institute of the country, he does not expect a dull, almost ghostly, set of morbid concrete structures to stare back at him when he enters the campus.

However fate had it that the first day on BITS Pilani campus was destined to be the worst day of my BITSian life till date. On a sultry morning, early August, I got on to a Rajasthan Roadways bus from Jaipur, having no idea about the time it was going to take for me to reach Pilani (If I were asked how much time it would take, I would have probably said 3 hours). The journey was an ordeal. By the time we reached Pilani, I resembled a marathon runner (the ones who fail to win, not the happy ones). And this was when the authorities felt it was apt to take a photograph for the ID card which would last with me for the next four years (even beyond).

The misery had just begun. The room which we booked at CEERI guest house never got booked and my parents and brother had to stay in the hostels for the next few days. Also, there was no electricity and it was impossible to sleep, less because of heat, more because of the murder of the hype. Hype is perilous.

The first impression had been created, and it was surely not a very positive one. The serious "interactions" with the seniors didn’t help either.

But things took a turn by the time the first music night arrived. During the music night I felt for the first time that college life had begun. After meeting different seniors and getting a hang of how things worked, there was no looking back. I was awestruck by the sheer magnitude of things undertaken by students. I realized that it is people (The ones who live and the ones who lived) who make BITS Pilani. I understood that it is an imperfect living organism and not an inanimate masterpiece of a sculpture. I fell in love with this place in spite of all its flaws.

I learnt my first lesson. Never let the first impression be the last impression. Be it with people, places or organizations, patience in judgment is a virtue.

Lessons from BITS Pilani

2011-03-24T03:46:00.000-07:00

Gold is purified by putting it in a high temperature furnace. Neither am I gold (more like shiny copper), nor did I get purified, but while studying in BITS Pilani I did feel the heat. From the very first day on campus, when the campus was devoid of electricity, to the first day of placements, I felt the heat, literally and figuratively.

I often try to remember the state of mind in which I was when I came into this college. I never imagined anything close to what I actually went through. Maybe I never imagined.

I wish to write an account of what I learnt from my few years in BITS Pilani. Lessons from BITS Pilani, a tribute to my alma mater.

Connection Timed Out

2011-03-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

Today the corridors of joblessness experienced the biggest tragedy of the semester. They were disconnected from LAN for more than 12 hours. It was marked by a period of extreme confusion and zombie-like behavior. The inmates of the Disneyland of Pilani went through the classic stages of grief:

Denial – “Hey it would not be gone for long. It will come back. It will come back”
Anger – “ Fish Fish Fish!!!”
Bargaining – “Atleast DC should have been working. I am not asking for anything more.”
Depression – “ My life is so sad, hey please pass on the newspaper”
Acceptance – “Damn it!! Lets play cricket!"

Expecting the spread of the jasmine revolution( it was started by jobless (I mean unemployed) people of the countries, here at pilani we just have joining dates which are a good number of months away), the authorities took evasive action and revived the central nervous system of our bhawans by afternoon. Peace.

Cricket on Campus

2011-02-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Day before yesterday I witnessed yet another nail biter in the common room. It was an addition to the numerous amazing cricket moments which I have witnessed in my last few years on campus. Here is a brief account of three such cricketing moments which I cherish the most.

YUVRAJ SINGH DEMOLISHING BROAD FOR 6 SIXES:

It was my first year and I was in Krishna Bhawan. The first T20 world cup was going on and Inda was playing against England. The innings was reaching its completion and I decided to peek inside common room to see the score. I reached in the middle of this over where Yuvi had hit Broad for sixes in the first two balls of the over. There was a unique buzz in the common room. It was as if ever y one knew what were to happen. With Ravi Shastri screaming through his mouth piece and Flintoff trying all field arrangements, Yuvraj kept on hitting. By the time he had hit 4 sixes, everyone was standing on their chairs. The shouts from common room had forced the ever curious BITSian to leave his AOE/CS match, his lacha, his ghoting and his what-not to witness something unique.

And before Yuvraj hit the last shot out of the park, the common room was full and people screaming at the top of their voices. It is an amazing experience to scream at the maximum possible volume and still be unable to hear one’s own voice.

T20 WORLD CUP FINAL 2007:

The T20 world cup in 2007 was crazy. For the first time we witnessed a super over. We thrashed the mighty aussies in the semis. And we braced ourselves for a faceoff with our arch rivals; Pakistan.

I was doing Engineering Graphics in that semester. I had to miss the Australia match for the EG test the next day. The match was aired in the audi and it felt really cruel on IC’s part to have scheduled the test in the middle of the world cup. India won a sensational match. The final was on a weekday and was starting at around 6 in the evening. People started pouring inside audi and started ‘reserving’ seats for their wing/club/dept. There were people with empty water bottles, blue jersey, face paint (tricolor) etc. The atmosphere was, as commentator’s often put it, electric. India went in first with the bat. I don’t remember what happened in the innings. All I remember is that the match was evenly poised after the Indian innings.

The innings break came and none of us were ready to budge from our seats. It was the biggest mass mess bunk which I remember (although it was told later that the messes would remain open even after the match, but did we really care for food after the match?)

The match resumed and the balance tilted slightly towards India by the middle of the Pakistani innings. However, the danger was still lurking large. Misbah-ul-Haq was on crease. To give a little background, Misbah is the tragedy king of Pakistani cricket(at least during 2007). He would take Pakistan out of impossible situations and give them hope. And then he would kill that hope in the most merciless and trivial fashion possible.

He comes and shatters the Indian bowling attack by hitting Harbhajan for 3 sixes in an over and tilting the game in their favor. Before the end of last over, Pakistan requires 13 runs to win the cup. Joginder Sharma is given the ball. Joginder Sharma, the slow slow-medium pace bowler that Indian cricket team had discovered during that world cup, starts the historic over with a wide. On the second bowl of the over, Misbah hits a six. The equation reads 6 from 4 balls. Then comes the anti climax. Misbah tries the Dilscoop and finds Sreesanth waiting for a catch. We win.

The audi was screaming at the top of its voice. People started running out of the audi on to the roads. I also ran out. At distance we could hear firecrackers burning. I loved being on campus that day more than ever.

SACHIN’S 200:

It was in my 3-2. That particular day we were having our Database Systems lab. By the time we entered the lab, Sachin had scored his century. I and Prashanth discuss the possibility of Sachin making a double century. For the initial few minutes we fulfilled the formalities of downloading the labsheets and opening SQL server. However, cricbuzz.com and cricinfo.com were where our hearts lay. Sachin kept on making fun of the South African attack. In the lab, there was a visible restlessness. Everyone had their favorite cricket websites open in their browsers(multiple websites for some). It was as if people's cricketing intuition told them that this was no ordinary Sachin innings. By the end of 46^th over Sachin was on 196. By now the lab lost all its respect. People were clapping for every single run that Sachin took. Some people even left the lab (on the pretext of going to the washroom) and went back to their bhawan common room. The less brave sat back and endured the most annoying cameo by an Indian batsman. Dhoni was treating the bowlers as if they were from an under-14 school squad and for the first time ever he was booed for doing that, coz on the other end, the little master was a little away from the historic double century.

The final over came, Sachin took a single and became the first person ever to make a double century in One Day Internationals. People were clapping and silently screaming in the DBS lab. I was ecstatic.

Watching cricket in campus has been one of the best stress busters. The unique rivalry seen in the common rooms during IPL is worth mentioning. Will miss all this.

Image Courtesy: www.cricinfo.com and www.planetcricket.net

The Human Network Software Engineer

2011-01-26T20:25:00.000-08:00

If I were to draw a graph on my life with time as the x axis and success as y axis, I would end up drawing a sinusoidal curve. The best part of it is that I have always hit the peak when it mattered. With regard to my BITSian life, the two major peaks include my entry into BITS (a hefty BITSAT score) and my exit (getting placed in Cisco Systems).

Getting placed in Cisco is something which I dreamt of the whole of last semester. During Practise School, I used to live in BTM layout and my PS station was in Marathahalli. Every day while travelling on my company bus to office, I would cross the cisco campus. One random day, while sitting in the bus, I prayed a small prayer, asking God to help me get a job in that company. And before I could realize, this start became a habit and I found myself uttering this one line prayer every day. It’s funny and amazing how things work out. Praise God!!!

The popular view on campus and the monetary benefits has forced me really hard into using my dream job option and sit for another company. However, I am a religious man and I think if God answered my prayer, it must be His will that I join cisco. Let His will be done.

R.I.P. 2010

2010-12-31T03:44:00.001-08:00

When I was standing in the church, savoring the initial few moments of another year, little did i know that, for me, this was going to be the most exciting of all the revolutions that the planet earth did previously. Of all that I have learnt over the last year, the realisation of my quarter life crisis has been the prime.

I am a nostalgia junkie and have a fetish for recording my happenings in one form or the other. Hence I have the obsessive habit of writing memoirs. And hence this post.

2010 was an year which I might probably not easily forget. I am sure all my fellow compscites who had their 3-2 in 2010 will agree. I remember those freezing days of early January when we had one more thing to talk about other than the weather; 3 idiots. “Give me some sunshine” was a phrase which suffered from death-due-to-cliché-isation. It was the coldest winter I ever faced.

Come the end of January and we were all (A7ites) neck deep in the puddle of assignments. The night before the first PLCC(Programming Language and Compiler Construction) assignment submission is highlighted with the brightest color possible in my memory map. An hour before 12PM(submission time), with Prashanth trying hard to make the code closest to a spot from where a miracle might not seem something too much to ask, I was sitting on the floor of his room with my head dug deep between my legs. This was just the start to a semester where after a point of time, I used to feel glad to find myself and my wingies alive when I woke up. In the middle of all this, SRT’s 200 was a breath of fresh air. Watching or rather following a match in a lab was annoyingly unique.

APOGEE 2010 was another thing which has left a strong impact on me. It was probably the fest which I enjoyed the least in my BITSian life. Ironically, it was this fest which taught me things which no B school can teach in a manner so emphatic. Now when I look back and remember the unmanageable, overflowing crowd for Brainteasers& Wordstock and Bulb, I wonder how popular we ( Informalz (hypothetical long-distance hi-5 guys :P) ) are.

The other highlight of the time on campus was those three days when everyone suited up. There were people who looked beautiful, others who were sheer clumsy, but they were all happy (very happy, sigh). The number of photographs taken in those 3 days must have been a record of some sort (atleast in Pilani :P).

By the time I left campus on 15^th May, I had enough of it. The heat, consys, mess food etc was too much to bear. And off I went, first to home then to a vacation in Kerala followed by my half a year hiatus at Bangalore.

When I arrived in Bangalore in July, I was excited. The few initial days, where one tried to find out every little details of their own PS station and their friends', went on well. Pilani rarely crossed my mind. However with august came the realisation of solitude. It was extremely frustrating to find myself away from the entire hustle bustle on campus. August for me meant department (Informalz) recruitment and nothing more. On the contrary I was trying to come to terms with a life which demanded order and its close sister, boredom. I realised that one feels most lonely in a crowded place. All malls look and smell the same. After sleep, traffic eats up your time the most. The cost of a meal is not directly proportional to its taste. Office people crack the poorest joke. Coffee is bliss. DC++ is awesome. Loose Change is as hard to get as in Pilani. And much more.

The final few days of this year in Udaipur have been the best I could have asked. The time at home and the time with my old friends was really refreshing.

2010 is over. I find myself older. I want to thank God for this year.

Silent Night!

2010-12-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

Christmas carols have always allured me into enjoying them like how kids enjoy a candy. I just can’t get enough of them and they always, always bring a smile on my face. With the Christmas season which is ON!!!! (yeah!!!!), I am in for some musical days.

“Silent Night” is one carol which is sung and known by almost the whole English speaking population of this world. The following is a beautiful video along with the song; an adaption by Sixpence None The Richer.

Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon Virgin Mother and Child

Holy Infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

This song celebrates the wonderful night when Christ was born into this world. A celebration of the birth of a tender little child. A celebration of descend of God as human into this world. The birth from a virgin. A miracle!

Silent night, holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight

Glories stream from heaven afar

Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!

Christ, the Saviour is born

When the world recieved its saviour, the nature rejoiced. From the angels to the poor shepherds, there were a selected few who knew that this night was the awesomest night the mankind would ever see.It must have been really exciting for those shepherds, those wise men and for Mary and Joseph.

Silent night, holy night

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from Thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace

Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

The second line of the stanza which hails Jesus as "the Son of God" and "Love's pure light", is the foundation of christian faith. The first phrase gives us hope and the second gives us a peace that passes all understanding.

Fun Facts:

The song was originally written in German(Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht) by an Austrian priest named Joseph Mohr(check this for the german version). For two years this poem was not yet a piece of music. On the eve of christmas in 1818, Father Mohr approached Franz Xaver Gruber to give music to the song he had written. And in one evening, the most sung carol ever, was composed.It was sung for the first time in the christmas mass of 1818 in Nikolaus-Kirche (Church of St. Nicholas) in Oberndorf, Austria.

Video courtesy: youtube.com

Lyrics courtesy: The lyrics are in open domain now, however thanks carols.org.uk for making it available for copy pasting.
Fun Facts courtesy: Wikipedia.com and carols.org.uk

Will Facebook Die?

2010-11-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Sean Parker: You know what's cooler than a million dollars?

Eduardo Saverin: You?

Sean Parker: A billion dollars.

I recently watched the movie The Social Network and thoroughly enjoyed it. It also forced me to think about the social networking sites once again (previous post). I also recently came across this video on facebook which cribbed about the numerous facebook cliché.

The awesome run of facebook has inspired many a budding entrepreneurs and nerdy programmers. However, is facebook merely enjoying its honeymoon period, is something which I ponder upon often. We Indians are very familiar with orkut. Orkut was the facebook of yesteryears. However, it is approaching its termination at a fast pace. There are multiple reasons suggested by people about the orkut debacle. Some point out the flaws in its security and privacy settings. Some other argue that it was facebook which killed orkut. For me I believe it was the latter which forced me into shifting from one to the other.

But over the past few months I have started getting ‘bored’ of facebook. After having used facebook for some time, I have started identifying a pattern in the way people post stuff and react to it. There would be the usual videos running around. Then there would be these status messages about life, love, exams, music, friends, picnic, something being awesome, something being sucky, beatles, tendulkar, girls, rajnikanth, alcohol, college, football, placements, birthdays, miss you, love you, sitcoms, congratulations, cricket, etc. There would be these fortune cookies, horoscopes, ask a psychic, which bitsian insect are you and hell lot of other quizzes and apps which become really annoying. Every person makes it a point to meddle around with his relationship status. Well I think you can see the video which I mentioned before to get an idea of what I am saying.

The point is that Facebook has become predictable. The number of things which can be seen on your wall are a subset of a very small universal set. My wall looks more and more like a notice board nowadays. The reason behind this sudden decline in interest is simple. The universal set was always small. If at all, it has just grown and not shrunk (facebook is trying really hard). Initially, it was the “sense of wonder” which had gripped us when we first came across social networking. The idea of having the power to create one’s own image in a virtual world was the driving force. However, once the image has been formed now, the whole idea looks lame.

So where are things heading to? Facebook is coming up with a new unified messaging product (more). @facebook.com is going to be the newest entrant in the email industry. This clearly shows that facebook is now tilting towards a tried and tested internet product, Email. It has to leverage the 500 million user base, before they get really bored with it, and has to make itself an inevitable part of its user’s life ( which its current product doesn’t seem to do; at least not for me).

Taking another view to the whole discussion, let us assume a scenario where Zuckerburg would have remained less ambitious and would have settled for the millions (instead of billions). This would have meant that Facebook would have still run on a university based networking model. Although the revenue would have been way lower than what it is currently, it would have been assured of a loyal user base (college kids are passionate about anything related to their college; try me) and a sustained growth. Eventually, Facebook and other social networking sites would primarily cater to the demographic age group of 15 – 25 year old people. Taking this into consideration, the previous facebook model doesn’t look that bad after all.

My suggestion to Zuckerburg would be to take the “God wants you to know” quiz. I heard it is awesome.

Image courtesy: http://www.kk.org

Quote courtesy: http://imdb.com

Misfit Ministers, Vision less Ministries and a Stunted Growth

2010-11-11T00:27:00.000-08:00

A. Raja is either a big crook or has some misplaced nerves in his cranium. There have been reports which have claimed that he has cost a damage to the exchequer worth Rs 1,60,000 crores. To give you a contrast, the official figure of CWG budget is Rs 15,000 crores, i.e. 9.375 % of the damage which Raja cost. So, if Raja had not done this, we could have hosted CWG 10 more times in 10 different cities or could have fed millions, or could have reduced our fiscal deficit by a considerable margin.

It is so disheartening to see that even after such serious allegations; A Raja still thrives as a minister in the centre. This can be directly attributed to the multi – party coalition government evil.

A look at A Raja’s profile would tell you that he studied law and is an advocate by profession. Now this is where I lose track; He was apparently made a minister because of the ‘dalit’ tag which he carries with him. I fail to understand that why a ministry like the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was allotted to a person who is an advocate. India is a world leader in information and technology and has the second largest mobile phone subscriber base. This field is undergoing immense changes which could be calculated on a per minute basis and the financial matters associated with these industries are unique and has no precedence in any other industry. It would have done a world of good if we had an engineer or an economist or at least a person who knew what spectrum meant, to have been running the ministry.

So the question remains; what criteria decide the person for a portfolio. I understand that portfolios are distributed among allies. But, can’t a party decide whether there is someone from their party who is ‘capable’ to handle a particular ministry. Why does the Indian democracy see the allotment of portfolios as a reward to one’s political achievements? I’m sure DMK could have found an able candidate from its party(or at least from their supporters) who would have met the criteria I mentioned before. But Mr. Karunanidhi was more interested in gratifying his own family and his immediate political crutches. This is a trend which could be seen across all parties irrespective of their ideologies.

Another thing worth noticing is the preferential treatment given to different ministries. India would not have seen many law ministers who had an engineering background, or a Hindu Minister heading the ministry of minority affairs or an urban technocrat running the rural development ministry. However when it comes to ministries like IT & communication or health etc people seem to relax the allotment sensibilities.

The way A Raja has handled his ministry; it has reiterated the fact that we need specialist ministers. We need ministers who have the ability to conceive visions for their respective ministry.

If we could somehow get the first cabinet of our country, which had people like Nehru, Sardar Patel, Ambedkar etc. who were people with conviction and a master of their own fields, back into the present India, we could achieve more… much more.

What if Obama led India and Manmohan Singh led USA

2010-11-07T06:19:00.000-08:00

The Indian media is going gaga over the Obama visit. And over a few dances and town hall meeting with students, Obama sure has won some hearts. I happen to see the arrival of Air force one on Delhi airport live on TV. It was really heartwarming to see the way Barack Obama and Dr. Manmohan Singh greeted each other with a hug.

It is really surprising to see the various similarities which Obama and Dr. Singh share. Obama was raised by a single mother, most part of his life whereas Dr. Singh lost his mother and was raised by his grandmother. Obama had to move to Indonesia when he was quiet young. Similarly, Dr. Singh moved to India after the partition. Both studied in one of the best universities in the world, Dr. Singh in Oxford and Cambridge and Obama studied in Columbia and Harvard. Both had no political involvement till quiet later in their life. They both have served as professors some point in their career.

However this is where the similarities end; Obama being one of the best orators of all time and Singh being one of the best economists. This made me realize the irony in the history. The United States of America is going through probably the worst economic crisis since its independence. However, when Obama was running for President, recession was yet to haunt his country and he mesmerized his country and the rest of the world with “Yes We Can”. His ideas promised to take US to another level. But lady luck was against him and his country and from the day he was sworn in, he has been on a damage control of biggest magnitude.

On the other hand, India is on the verge of something exciting. “Change” is the buzz word here; where all the ingredients of a financial, social and Cultural Revolution are on the platter. Dr. Singh can in a sense be called the architect of modern India ( I might be biased). However, given his age and his serene mildness at dealing with things, it might be better if we have a younger extrovert leader at place. BTW Prime Minister in Waiting( conditions apply), Rahul Gandhi is just 9 years younger to Obama.

This takes me to a hypothetical world. A world where Obama leads India and Dr. Singh leads the United States. It was Dr. Singh who got India out of bankruptcy (ya, the whole country) two decades ago (more in one of my previous post). His wisdom with financial matters has a proven track record. USA currently needs a leader like him who could orchestrate a comeback for them. On the other hand, it would be so great to hear someone tell the rich and the poor, the farmers and the IT professional, the slum dwellers and Mukesh Ambani, and the whole country, “Yes we can”. A leader like Obama could work wonders to our country.

Irony, my friend.

(Photo Courtsey: AFP and AP)

Asian Games 2010, Guangzhou

2010-11-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

The Asian Games 2010 is almost a week away and we are yet to hear much about it. One might say that this is the Chinese way of doing things. Is it just me or is that Guangzhou doesn’t ring a bell other than the recent references to the Asian Games. Somehow, I thought Bangalore is a global city and would have felt surprised if someone from outside India would have shown unfamiliarity with its name. However on a closer look (googling), I found that Guangzhou is double the size of Bangalore and its economy ten times .

This Asian Games is slated to be the biggest ever. ‘Ever’ ,both in past and future because of some restructuring initiated by Olympic Council of Asia.

Given below is a head to head comparison with our own Delhi Commonwealth Games.

	Commonwealth Games 2010	Asian Games 2010
Venue	Delhi, India Quick Facts: Capital of India Second largest city of the country. Population – 12.25 million ( excluding NCR) GDP of city - US$24.5 billion	Guangzhou, China Quick Facts: One of the Five National Central Cities. Third largest city of the country. Population – 10.33 million GDP of city - US $133.5 billion
Budget	Official Estimate – US$ 2.6 billion Unofficial Speculation – US$ 6.8 billion	Official Estimate – US$ 17 billion
Events	272 events in 21 categories	476 events in 42 categories ( Higher than Beijing Olympics which had 302 events in 28 categories)
No. of Countries	71	45
No. of Athletes	6,081	10,156
Venues	Main Stadium – Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. In total 12 competition venues.	53 Competition Venues
Baton/Torch Relay	Travelled 70 nations of the commonwealth and the whole of India.	Expected to travel 21 cities in Guangdong province and 2 cities off Guangdong province.
Major Controversies	Expenditure Explosion Child Labor and other issues. Collapse of hanging bridge. Game’s village Hygiene prior to the event Ticketing irregularities	Air Quality (Government control over the local media prevents many exposures)

Credits: Wikipedia

The Time Traveler's Wife

2010-11-04T19:33:00.000-07:00

This is the debut novel of Audrey Niffenegger. This has been adapted as a movie as well. The whole book uses a beautiful alternating first person narration. It’s a story about a couple Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire. The major theme of the story runs around the chaos and romance caused by the genetic disorder which Henry suffers from, which makes him time travel.

BACKGROUND:

Most of the part of the novel is set in the last 3 decades of 20^th century. The major selling point of the novel is the non linear flow of events. The author had a daunting task of making the story make sense to the reader and she succeeded in it. The story also makes references to real life incidents like the 9/11 attacks. In all, it is a love story of a young girl and an adult man and also a love story of a young man and a young lady. The catch being that the male and female were the same in both.

PLOT DESCRIPTION:

Henry DeTamble suffers from a rare genetic disorder which takes him into an involuntary (sometimes voluntary) time travel. The disorder showed itself up for the first time when he met with an accident in which his mother died. After this he had been time travelling over the years to known and unknown places in known and unknown times. In one of his time travels he meets his future wife in her childhood time. One major roadblock in time travelling was that whenever he time travelled and reached a destination, he would always be naked. So when he met young Clare, he asked her to get clothes for him. She fascinated him so much that he visited her often.

After a brief lull of a couple of years, Clare meets younger Detamble in a natural chronological event. The story keeps on making switches from one time to the other and narration switches from Henry to Clare but the general flow of the story matches Clare’s life.

What follows this is a chaotic love affair between Henry and Clare, marred by complications like abortions, scandals etc.

WHY READ:

The author has succeeded in blending two completely different genre, science fiction and romance, in a graceful manner. Her take on time travel actually makes the story devoid of paradoxes which plague time travel theories. Her use of multiple first person narration gives the story two strong characters to delve upon. The story is like two threads entangled all over each other; the chords representing the life of Clare and Henry. By the end of the story, the two threads get disentangled and everything starts making sense. The success of the story lies in its narration style. It is a compelling read.

WHY NOT:

The book lacks a definite storyline. Initial part of the story is interesting till the point where reader gets to understand the concept but after that the story lacks a definite sense of direction. The love story becomes over frustrating with repeated incidents of abortions and several other things.

My RATING : 3.5/5

To learn more about the rating, refer to this.

Dr. Manmohan Singh - A Role Model

2010-11-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

ACT I

SCENE I

(Chamber of Admissions Dean, BITS Pilani. )

Enter Prof. X, Prof. Y, Prof. Z, STUDENT

Prof. Y: Tell us someone whom you consider a role model.

(Awkward silence)

STUDENT: (Nervous) Pardon?

Prof. X: Who is your role model?

STUDENT: Lalu Prasad Yadav.

(Thunder strikes in the distance. Curtains dance under the influence of wind gushing in through the windows. )

Prof. Z: What?

Prof. Y: What?

Prof. X: What?

(Student scratches his head. Bites his finger. Swallows the bile juice back. Hopes to get swallowed by the earth.)

It was one of those few moments when I could hear myself speak; when suddenly my mouth was no longer under my control. The interview was for selection of top 20 candidates for applying in the prestigious Aditya Birla Scholarship (the interview was conducted due to the ambiguity of status of ranking of board toppers in the application process). Here in front of me were some of the most reputed professors of the institute and I had to justify in the next few seconds as to why I considered Lalu as my role model. I took a deep breath and conjured an answer. I told them about seeing a documentary on Lalu which showed how he rose from being the son of a farmer to becoming the railway minister of India. This reply did keep them from probing me further; however I had stumped myself for sure. No offence Lalu, but you are not good enough to be my role model. That day marked the beginning of my silent leisurely quest on finding a role model.

Over the past few years nobody seemed to fill that spot. I had nightmares of being asked the same question again in some interview. However, over the past few days, I found my answer in the form of Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Till a little time back I used to consider him Sonia’s side-kick. A puppet Prime Minister. I had heard about his stint in the finance ministry in the early 90s however it never caught my attention much. However my recent penchant for knowledge, soul searching and random wikiing during my practice school semester made me stumble across the Wikipedia entry on economic crisis which India faced in the early 90s and the start of liberalization.

Let me tell you the story of India. A story of rags to possible riches.

Just before Manmohan Singh took charge of country’s wallet, Republic of India was on the brink of bankruptcy. The fiscal deficit was as high as 12.7% of the GDP. Our foreign reserves were barely enough to pay for 3 weeks’ worth of imports. A timely intervention of IMF (in lieu of gold) saved our neck. In return for 67 tons(!!!!) of gold, we received a loan of $2.2 billion. The then government, led by Chandrashekhar, which took the loans and sold everything we had, lost its power in the center within few months. The elections took place in the month of May and June 1991 which was marred by the death of Rajiv Gandhi after the first round of polling. The congress won the elections and Narsimha Rao was brought back in the party from a near retirement. He became the Prime Minister of India amidst the death of Rajiv Gandhi and a crippled economy.

This was the point where Narsimha Rao took a brave decision of keeping the seat of finance minister out of the hand of any political big shot. He requested IG Patel, ex-governer of RBI and the then director of London School of Economics and Political Science to take over the finance ministry. But he declined. He chose Dr. Manmohan Singh as his next option. When he offered this post to Dr. Singh, he was surprised and confused at the same time. His colleagues tried convincing him that the prime minister is looking for a future scapegoat. In an interview he once said:

“I'd held all the top civil service jobs, but here was an opportunity to play a political role, and there was an odd chance that we would make a success of it, in which case I would have a footnote in India's history. If I fail, that's of no great consequence. And who fails if India wins?”

He took over as the finance minister of India on 21 June 1991. He had a task of a surgeon who had to treat a patient’s abdomen which had been messed up by a novice intern. However he took it up as a challenge and an excuse for change.

He initiated a shift in the economy from a Nehruvian Socialism to a Pro Capitalist philosophy. License Raj was given a pink slip. The government decided to gradually move out from businesses where it was unnecessarily existent. It paved way for a red tape free Foreign Direct Investment in many sectors. The impact of this was such that the FDI increased from US$132 million in 1991–92 to $5.3 billion in 1995–96. We made our markets open for the global game. Urbanization was put on a fast track. The unprecedented growth of tier 2 cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune etc was a side effect of this treatment.

He has been accused of not repeating the magic in his tenure as PM. This might be partially true. However the way in which he fought for the Nuclear Bill has proved once again that no matter how mild he might sound, here is one man, who likes to play rough.

The thing which makes him adorable is his humility. He neither has the haughty air of a premier of a country nor does he have a know-it-all attitude of a scholar. He is one person who excelled in what he did. Be it education, teaching or the government, he was a source of inspiration to all. Recently he was among the most powerful people of 2010 list of Forbes. He was also listed as “The Leader other leaders love” in their list of 10 respected world leaders by Newsweek.

I don’t consider myself his ardent fan. I might not agree to his political opinion. However, I admire him for his willingness to move out of his comfort zone and venturing into an unsafe zone (the political jungle). I am also fond of his serene smile.

So next time when someone asks me who my role model is, I would reply – Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of my country who took the energy problem of my country by its horn, a finance minister who took my country out of global shame, an economist who left the comfort of best universities of the world to come back to India to serve the Indian academia and then the government machinery, a student who studied under a lamp, lost his mother early in his life, bore the pains of relocation due to partition, walked kilometers for water and still had the audacity to pursue education at the centers of excellence and a man who is humble enough to still own a Maruti 800.

H to Oh!

2010-11-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

There was this weekend few boring weekends ago when me and my friends decided to check out the motherland of CCD - Chickmaglur. The day was Friday and we all were looking forward to the trip. On a scale of 0 to 5 my enthusiasm for the trip was approaching 0 from the negative side and anvi went into the imaginary scale to repsect the maximum limit of the scale her enthu was at 5 + 1000i. The cab driver was expected to pick abhinav at around 0030 hours from the streets of BTM and was supposed to pick the rest of us by 0100 hours. However, I probably wouldnt have written this post if there wasn't a but (/bhat/butt) in the story. And it goes like this - "But, the driver never turned up". After waiting till 0300 hours on the chilling secluded street with an auto wallah to give him company, Abhinav hung his boots, switched off his cell phone and eventually fell off into deep slumber, leaving the rest of us in the wind tunnel road apartment to handle the 5 + 1000i worth of enthu turned into anger. After a walk outside and some justdial calling, we decided that we would head to ShivaSamudram the next morning.

Period.

Sleep.

Alarm.

We left for Shivasamudram at 0700 hours in the morning. The ride on the most part was beautiful. After having a breakfast somewhere on the way, we reached the first fall, gaganchukki by around 11 in the afternoon. Let me pause here to give a bit of info. Shivasamsudram falls is located in the blah blah blah. Did I mention how awesome our driver was. He had a camera phone, could drive the car at 40 kmh while talking on phone and stopped at every random place, encouraging us to take pictures. This guy did another good thing. He took us to the dargah entry of the fall. This was the place where a 25 year old software engineer died (as according to a caution board on the other entry where the losers who dont have such an awesome driver go).

Gaganchukki falls is apparently the second highest fall in the country. The moment you reach close to the water and stand next to the mighty fall, a sense of belittlement captures you. My jaws dropped when I stood on the spot from where it was almost a 50m fall. After keeping our legs in water (exactly like how we used to do when we were little girls) for a while, we left in search for food. Fish was the only thing that was available however the ambience killed the hunger. We unanimously agreed to survive on packaged food.

After this we left for Bharachukki falls and reached there at around 1430 hours. After climbing down a few steps (it looked like steps, wonder what its called), we witnessed this beautiful sight. There was a boat ride. 100 bucks for a boat. Even a communist hypocrite would have agreed to pay for that. The boatman took the coracle almost under the fall and we were drenched in the mist rising from the water to water impact. If this was not enough to raise our spirits, the boat guy started rotating our boat, the flimsy piece of hemispherical container, crossing the threshold angular velocity for awesomeness.

We then crossed a small stream of water to reach a spot where there were dozens of uncles, aunties, wannabies and monkeys dipping their skins in water .For me the best point of our trip was standing directly under the falling water. I opened my mouth to growl, only to be silenced by the serene thunder of the fall.

After spending sometime there we started our return at around 1600 hours. The return was uneventful, except for some bladder issues. We were famished, wet and sleepy. So much so that when we reached Gramin for dinner, I was eating and sleeping at bursts (much like the I/O burst - CPU burst alternation). Okay now I dont remember what happened next. I guess I came back and slept off.

Things to remember while on a trip to Shivasamudram:

· Take a driver who loves Kishore Kumar.
· Check your blood for alcohol before leaving. While standing on top of the gaganchukki falls, the mind plays "I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking..." more than once.
· Fish is the staple food of people of Shivasamudram. If you belong to McAloo Tiki generation then get your lunch prepared. There is a Barista outlet and a CCD outlet on the way.
· Don't go on a rainy day. You don’t want to stand and watch the falls from far.
· Take some lessons on Defense against Monkey violence ( I hear Arindham Chaudhari is coming up with a book for the same, to be added in IIPM's curriculum). Monkeys are fond of Haldiram's, even more than you.
· Wear a pair of shorts. I am still not able to get my dirty jeans clean.

MAVALLI TIFFIN ROOM

2010-08-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

This post was originally written by the author on August 16, 2010

I used to be a big fan (still am) of Malgudi Days the tele-series. I used to watch it in our 14 inch black and white TV, totally lost in the world of Swami and his friends. Going to Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR) in Saturday reminded me of the 20th century of my childhood which is the sleeping nineties.

After finishing a round across an overcrowded lal bagh, my stomach begged for food and hence me and Prashanth went out in search for the famous MTR. MTR was started in 1924 and the owners have tried their level best to ensure that the customers know that it is a pretty old place. We were really disappointed to find that the entry doors were shut. There were groups of affluent people sitting in front of the door, waiting for it to open (which would be at 12:30), from almost half an hour before its time. It made me wonder about this mysterious looking, pre independence day building and its visible charm over the crowd outside. Two minutes before 12:30, a man wearing a veshti/mundu on a two wheeler came honking towards the entrance and shooed away the people sitting there, to park his vehicle. He had the air of a medieval Zamindar. He entered the building from the back entrance and opened the front gate of MTR like an emperor. In a total lack of direction, we followed the crowd which thronged inside to stand in a queue. Stepping inside MTR was like time travel. The place had minimal modern day elements. Even the tap at the washbasin looked as if it was made by a novice engineering student as a part of his workshop assignment. When it was our turn to pay, we were really surprised to find that the lunch would cost us Rs. 130 per head. “It better be good” was what my skeptic part of the brain said. But I had a feeling that it was going to be good.

We were ushered into a room inside a room inside a room… I lost the count, but the name of the restaurant started making sense. We were seated in a martial fashion on a table for eight(we were later on joined by an illad family). An attempt by Prashanth to seat himself at the place of his choice was foiled by a stout and bald veshti clad gentleman. In the meanwhile Prashanth apparently spotted a beautiful girl in the room just before the room we were in and he started acting stoned (he still cribs about moving one more room inside).

The meal started with grape juice. This was followed by carrot salad(I’m sure it has some other name) and a large quantity of chutney. The first round included dosa which were too yummy (better synonym unavailable) and so I had a second helping. After this I was served bisibele bath, a local cuisine of which I had been introduced through my PLCC(Programming Language and Compiler Construction) lecture slides. Usually I am not a big fan of any dish which has that tinge of brown which the bisibele bath served to me had. However I was mistaken and I loved it. In the meanwhile, people who served food (waiter sounds inappropriate) were hell bent on proving that they don’t give a damn about the 21st century pro-consumer crap. From avial in my payasam to water on my rice, I was in for a potpourri of brilliance. By now my plate had avial, rice, sambhar, halwa, payasam, beetroot dish and salad.

Time for a digression. When I was a kid and used to go to kerala at my grandmother’s, she used to serve rice to me and my brother with homemade ghee. It used to be … well yummy. One of the MTR people who served food poured a spoon of ghee on my rice( and water and avial and on everything in its trajectory). It was getting better every passing minute. When it was turn to eat rice, I thought of getting rid of my spoon (before the people who served food might ask me to) and eat it Indian style. By now my stomach was bulging out and my tongue was in a trance. When Rasam came, I couldn’t have faith on even MTR, because I am a chronic Rasam intolerant. By then end of rice, the tensile strength of my duodenum was under test. However it was followed by the inevitable(in south india) curd rice. On a normal day, I would have said “curd rice? Really?”. I usually find it difficult to understand how such a bland combination of mere rice and curd is staple food for millions. But well that day was no ordinary day and MTR gave me something more to hog on. By the time I finished the elaborate dessert ( paysam + halwa+ icecream), I was all smiles for the food. The exit from the building was even more interesting. We came down a flight of stairs and found ourselves in the middle of the kitchen. We found our way out, to be greeted by the Bangalore of 2010 all over again.

A Trite Life

2010-08-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

Coming into the industry straight from a college was like waking up from a dream. The order in my life looks so anarchic to my normal sense. The fact that the whole day is already planned out, the foreknowledge of where I am gonna be in a particular hour(/minute/second) of the day, the fact that a Monday would surely follow a Friday, sooner than later, the fact that a Saturday and a Sunday also look the same from any other Saturday or Sunday, the ability of my mind to be able to observe a definite pattern in anything and everything out here, makes it all mundane. Being in college is similar to being in the wonderland of Alice. Every single day is new and unique with its own unique dose of pain and party. I guess lack of adventure is a part of growing up.

I Wonder

2010-06-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

Being nostalgic makes one cheesy. So be it. Approaching a semester away from campus and then the realization of having one final semester on campus has made me ponder upon what it meant for my life to be a bitsian. Why a period of 4 years of life in a certain place has made an indelible change in my life like never before and perhaps never after.

I wonder whether anything else can be more festive in life than oasis, apogee or bosm. I wonder whether any other musical performance will be more ‘apna’ than our music night. I wonder whether lazing around anywhere else in the world be more exhilarating than in sky lawns. I wonder whether I would ever eat anything as ritually as maggi. I wonder whether I would be giving ‘doubs’ to anyone on a cycle ever again. I wonder whether I would ever grab an ice cream a day in summer. I wonder whether I would ever watch sitcoms all day and all night and all day again. I wonder whether I would ever be jobless enough to listen to “Welcome to hotel keralaphonia” over and over again till it is no longer funny. I wonder whether I would ever put a night out because of a power cut. I wonder whether I would ever run in a heavy downpour with my laptop on my back. I wonder whether I would ever sing with my friends, like retards in the middle of a street. I wonder whether I would ever be able to scare someone by telling him that I am gay. I wonder whether I would ever attend some friend’s course because the instructor was apparently funny. I wonder whether I would ever draw graffiti over my cupboard. I wonder whether I would be stinking with the smell of rotten maida, turpentine and insomnia. I wonder whether black thunder would ever haunt my morning routine. I wonder whether I would ever sleep in the middle of the road. I wonder whether I would ever dance (rather jump) like how I did when KK sang and euphoria crooned. I wonder whether I would ever be able to do anything more pointless than fighting over whether ‘A7’ has more search results than ‘C6’ on google. I wonder whether I would ever pour water over the floor to make the room cool. Oh there is so much to wonder at.

And why all this would never happen again is because we are growing old and we had our chance to live our life to the fullest. What made it an awesome experience were the people around here. A bunch of smart people with thwarted egos (failure in IIT-JEE) are an ideal kind of folks for a lifetime of memories preserved in some GBs of photographs. I can’t stop wondering though.

Kane and Abel

2010-06-10T05:14:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The author of this blog considers himself a casual reader and claims to have a brain not any older than 20 and a half years. Hence the books being reviewed are done on their “value for time” criterion. There are certain handicaps about the author of the blog which the readers need to keep in mind. The writer is a mere engineering student and hasn’t read a single piece of Shakespeare in entirety, though he claims to have inherited the much needed sarcasm ( for any blog writer) from his few days in college.

KANE AND ABEL

Jeffrey Archer has produced bestsellers at an impressive rate. This particular novel was one of those which I wanted to lay my hand on since long.

BACKGROUND:

The setting for this novel is the times from early 20th century. A story of two individuals born on the same day, one( Kane) in an emerging nation called USA and the other ( Abel aka Wladek) in a less celebrated European country called Poland. The author has very gracefully stitched all the major incidents of the early 20th century and weaved the story of these two people around it. From the world wars to the great depression of 1929 and to rise of USA as a strong capitalist economy and even to the drowning of titanic, you are in for a wonderful ride of fiction in a non fictional setting.

PLOT:

Two people, born on the same day, in different parts of the world, in contrasting circumstances. One with a silver spoon stuck his throat, the other bleeding in the woods. The first half of the novel is the time before they encounter each other. One struggling from the pangs of the world war I , the other living his dream. William Kane grows up to become the chairman of one of the biggest bank of the United States, Abel Rosonovak becomes a minority stake holder in an upcoming hotel chain. Everything was going on fine till the Great Depression of 1929 hits the market and they encounter each other in an unpleasant way. What follows is a series of actions by both kane and abel to strike each other down.
The story boasts about many other characters which stay on for certain part of the story. From some generations before to some generations after, it can very well be summed up as combined biography of Kane and Abel.

WHY READ:

The novel takes you through the horrors of the world war and the heat of the boardrooms in an intriguing manner. As in his other pieces, Jeffrey Archer relies more on the twists of his story and high number of characters than over in depth description of the plot. What I likes most about this book was that it was fully in touch with the happenings of the then world. From the Nazis to the women, Wall street to gloated egos, one can relish popcorn while reading this.

WHY NOT:

One major weakness in the plot is the inadequate reason for the fight between Kane and Abel. In the middle the story goes through a point when everything is according to routine and nothing changes. Otherwise the story is pretty fast.

My RATING : 3.75/5

The scale is based on the markers given below:

0 -> My Electrical Sciences 1 text book
1 -> Read a railway notice board instead
2-> I can write better
3 -> Good
4 -> I strongly suggest you read this
5-> You are reading something in heaven.

Completing a moment

2009-12-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

So often we miss an upbeat rythm or celtic music in the background to complete a moment. Was watching some parts of the movie metro and suddenly got into a nap of imagination.

Just imagine a band of musicians carrying mouth organ, a violin and an acoustic guitar following you everywhere waiting to complete a moment.

Imagine what if the drums start rolling and “highway to hell” starts playing in the midair as soon as we come out of our examination hall.

Or imagine the life falling into slow motion as soon as you hit a six in gully cricket.

Imagine the atmosphere change into sepia mode as soon as one starts recounting good old school days sitting with friends.

Imagine getting hold of a camera every time a kid gives a cute smile or when the sun just perfectly hides behind a cloud.

Moments come and go. Life splashes new colours almost everyday. Wish it rained whenever we felt like it, to make these colours the precise tinge of blue which makes our heart all nostalgic.

Sarcasm

2009-10-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

It seems ages ago when i didn’t have anything sarcastic to say. Sarcasm has got woven into my system. When a simplest innocent statement like “hey look the stars are so bright”, would force me to say “Obviously, why else do u think celebrities are called stars”.

I don’t know what has caused this change. Whether it is the unending desire to make oneself above all worldly desires or a total monotony which has plagued my life. Dont know whether it really matters to me at all. The creative satisfaction in dismissing anything and everything said by anybody has made me numb. Feel like telling myself “ hey you forgot to add ‘comfortably’ before numb”.

Election junk - Night at the museum1

2009-08-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

Never underestimate the entertainment production capabilities of politics – this is one thing which i learnt lately. After seeing last year’s run up to the elections and the result and how randomness crept into the most methodical elections ever possible, this year was bit of a disappointment till a few days back. But that was before the night of 26 august.

Lets name the characters involved. We are talking about two “sets” of people. Set 1 is P having elements {a,b} ( not using {S,M} instead... don’t know when i might cross one of the countless rules made by uncle and his gang). Set2 has been the one which has taken the hit. Initially {w,x,y,z}εG but then it was not to be.

It all started with rumours that the night had gone crazy. Some supporter of ‘x’ got beaten up. Some said the attackers were drunk, some others said it was staged. To heat up the matters and give the rumours more weight sarvi was brought in. I slept off early.

On waking up there were some fresh, blood rushing rumours coming from some of the movers and shakers of politics here. It was said that set P has been cut short to just one element and even set G has been cut short to three. It was like déjà vu. P having just one element is scary coz last time we had φ kumar singh who won all the laurels.

Morning time mess trip was a grapevine convention. The dumbest rumour i heard was “Hey now it seems a girl is going to stand”. Notice boards looked too uneventful for comfort. The gang was playing wait and watch game. In the meanwhile rumours caught more air. Supporters of ‘x’ were keeping quiet on what happened that night. Anti – “Anti-campaigning” is one weapon of the gang which has invoked havoc in the lives of all elements of P and G. ‘x’ people were scared of that.

Night time mess trip was again a disappointment. I searched all the nook n corner of the mess entrance to trace the gang’s verdict, but all in vain.

At night 8 30 the verdict came. One of the elements from G was shown the door. The aristocratic language used by the gang in explaining the termination was above my perceptive skills. It was devoid of words like violence, sarvi, anc, blood, alcohol etc.

Its fun to observe the most systematic polls possible in our country, brushing itself with anarchy so often. Two more days to go and i am eagerly waiting.

“ The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening. We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication. We could only fear chaos if we imagined that it was unknown to us, but in fact we know it very well.”

Election junk

2009-08-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

This post is inspired from one of the coolest bitsian blog post which i read last year which was instrumental in pushing me into this time killing tirade of blogging, a cynical post on last year’s election by atin bhattacharya http://atinbhattacharya.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-so-serious-son.html.

This post is a combined effort (sounds like we are launching a satellite) of Prashanth aka pomp aka skyindian aka abhinav aka ramesh aka etc... and me.

The following are the points that we agree deliver if by some stroke of luck, anarchy or because of some cosmic catastrophe one of us is made prez.

1. Candle bulk booking – in the wake of this power crisis, let’s all burn candles, the ghoting season is coming soon(having A7 and A3 people in the same mess can’t make me think of anything else other than acads). Bulk bookings of candles and hand held fans will be carried out by SU. We are in contact with major candle makers who have agreed to supply candles of all sizes, colours, aroma, low on carbon emissions etc.

2. Super thrust nuclear powered flushes – we promise to have this new technology installed in all hostel bogs. Dirty bogs has given me nightmares after waking up in the morning. “Black Thunder” is also in fray so can’t take a risk.

3. Ghot Bunkers – these bunkers will be created for all the gaming addict CDC students who want to ghot but cant live without the deafening voices of bullets and fellow humans.

These bunkers will have all the audio (from canon’s bursting... to “Go!!!Go!!! Go!!!”) to keep the addicts sane while they try to study. In case of overwhelming urge to kill other souls, there will be baskets full of LGMF provided in the bunker.

4. Chewing gum defaulters – this point has been a matter of havoc for my co-author who has spent sleepless nights figuring out ways to punish the defaulters. An excerpt from his dormant domer blog

“Chewing Gum on Chairs...Yuck!!!

If you have been a victim of this form of terrorism....Welcome to the club. We shall strongly comdemn these actions. These are acts of cowardice and the perpetrators shall be...er...ok..ok.

If you have done this blasphemy, be warned...the Mafia never forgets....one day your laptop keypad will be smeared with chewed gum ( only Center Fresh allowed ).”

5. Camels – it was great disappointment for most of the people who came from different parts of the country to study in the state of rajasthan and to find themselves bereft of camel rides. So camels will be available as a mode of transport in the campus. It will be available for sale in nutan market soon. Once everyone on the campus has a camel each, the next years freshers can buy the camels from psenti semites. They will be called camel pops.

6. Illumination- As the swine flu and rakhi sawant’s swayamvar has caused the nation huge emotional and mental loss respectively, we would like to conduct musical chair, tambola, rock-paper-scissors etc along with the few elite enlightened souls on campus who had set gym-g on fire last year.

Last but not the least (the original cliché) “this is a dictatorship, defaulters will be shot dead”

Friends lost and forgotten

2009-08-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

I was recently reminded about my childhood neighbourhood friends, on the mention of friendship day. The following is a memoir regarding the same.

From my days in kindergarten to class 4 i lived in this locality called sardarpur. We used to live in a rented place. Somehow thinking about those days makes me smile. The place where i lived had a lot of other tenants in the same compound as well as many neighbours. And i had a whole ‘toli’ of friends. When i was trying to remember the names, it was so cool that i was actually able to remember many of them. There were these 2 brothers in the next house called ashish and vaibhav (i guess). Then there were 3 sisters kamini didi, bhawna (my age) and khushboo (an year or two younger). Apart from that there was a stout guy called bittu of my age living some houses away. There was also my landlords daughter, Munna( she insisted on us calling her meena instead). And of course my brother , who was an integral part of all this.

There were some more. My memory is playing hide and seek with me but there is one thing which i am sure of and that is, those were days of fun.

I remember one incidence when a dog gave birth to a lot of puppies in a vacant plot opposite our house. We were excited that we all took one puppy each back to our respective place and gave them name etc, only to be forced back by our parents.

We had a neighbour in her 50s i think. The whole locality used to call her ‘bhua’. She was a matter of fright for us kids coz we couldn’t afford to cross a certain decibel limit in front of her. It was fun to do some mischief and run away from her sight.

There was also one huge bungalow(adjacent to hotel india international) behind our house which was fully vacant except for a caretaker. It looked like the stereotypical haunted bungalows except that it was not haunted. Most of our time in our summer holidays used to be spent there. From flying kites to playing cricket and eating “Bandar ke papadi”... we did it all. I remember one day morning we all took one mango seed and planted it in the premises of that bungalow and promised each other that we will give water to that plant everyday (we did also for some days). We were told that a mango seed takes 5 years to sprout and so we thought we would come back some day to visit that plant... never happened. There also used to be huge eucalyptus trees in that premises and we used to take the seed shells which used to fall and make it rotate like a top. It used to be fun. I also remember going on the top most roof of that place and sitting there. I wonder how much my parents knew about this.

Most of the kids of my age were sadly girls and i had invariably nothing else to do but play girlish role play games with them at times. Other past times included playing WWE card games with Bittu, watching cartoon network at ashish’s place( my place had only doordarshan then)... my mind is flooding with flashes of some of the places of that street where we used to play cricket, burst crackers, chase dogs and pigs with stones as weapons and what not ... and mind you i was not even 10 by then.

It has been more than a decade since i visited that house. Just for curiosities sake, me and my brother took our bike to that street some days back only to find that place too alien and small(maybe those days our eyes were just 3 feet above the ground and hence it looked bigger) But the memories still are so fresh and vivid. I have a desire to meet all those old friends of mine. Don’t know where they are now or how they look. I just hope they still remember me.

Bhavnagar Express

2009-07-25T03:37:00.000-07:00

Travelling alone in an off season train was something new. The kind of crowd was totally different from that of the vacation season. The trains then are filled fully with either people travelling with anticipation about some holiday trip or people coming back from one. And hence the mood inside is always very upbeat. This time the train had an older population (there was only one person younger than me in the whole boogie). There were businessmen travelling home, grandmothers visiting their kids and others who had specific reasons for their travels.

In my compartment there was one woman who looked like my grandmother and another woman who looked like her mother ( i mean quiet old) though she looked beautiful( looked like a character directly taken out from the malgudi days). First the older lady stares at my reader’s digest which i was reading. I thought of offering her another copy of reader’s digest that i had, for her to go through the pictures in that but thought it might sound humiliating. Then this older lady tries striking a conversation with me but realises it fast that telugu is not my thing. Then she tries asking me in her broken Hindi about what i do and stuff. She looked very amused when i told her that i was studying engineering. It was really great to be able to converse with her.

Then there was another old lady who was having a seat along with me in the side births and i happened to have the lower birth. As soon as i entered, i started to feel sleepy and i didn’t have anything else to do. So i offered to take that lady’s upper birth and went to sleep. Little did i realise then that the selfish offer of taking the upper birth would be so revered by her (i guess she was planning to ask me to take the upper birth herself some time later). The rest of the night, the lady and her son(must have been in early 30s) did all they could to show their gratitude. From enquiring about my dinner arrangements to offering a banana which they bought from a station, i was more of a guest to them than a co-passenger. Finally they were about to get down at Kalyan Jn. (Mumbai) at 4:30early morning. It was raining. My sleep broke and i offered to carry their luggage till the gate( it included all sorts of stuff... clothes, oil cans, utensils fruits etc.). Just before they were to alight in kalyan, the guy gave me his phone number and asked me to give him a call whenever i come to Mumbai. My sarcasm and laziness to save the number compelled me to tell him “Dude!!! Do you think i am going to give you a call”. Though i realised that it was the only way he could thank me for helping with the luggage. I just waved him and his mother goodbye and came back to my compartment. Now was it was a time of rendezvous with a Marwari businessman.

By the time i came back to my compartment it was 5:30 and i had enough of sleep and i thought of taking a cup of tea. When i asked a chai wala to give a cup of tea ( on trains its an immiscible mixture of milk, water, sugar syrup and tea powder) the guy on the upper birth asked for one too. I gave the tea guy 10 bucks and he thought it was for both of us and so he went away. Now a wave stuck this Marwari chap. After giving me 5 bucks we got into some gen conversation. He was my only co-passenger till the end of the journey.

By the time i reached Ahmedabad i was really bored. Off season train journeys are no fun.

A few hours in Ahmedabad

2009-07-25T03:02:00.000-07:00

After a 24 hour journey in train, i halted at Ahmadabad for a few hours before leaving home. The start of the wait was excruciating, having to stand in the railway station, waiting in the swarm of people. Firstly the junta, including me, were chased of the station lobby and then i survived a life threatening scare of raining stones from the station building. The wait was prolonged when i had to stand in front of vipin’s(my old good friend) apartment for another hour.

But the wait was fruitful for sure coz the rest of the three hours i ended up spending with vipin and prabuddh( another old good school friend) was really great. One good thing that i happen to share with my school friends over bitsian friends is a sense of openness and an absence of sanity.

We dropped off for a cup of coffee at a cafe in the backyard of some building opposite IIM campus. The place is supposedly owned by some mobster and serves one hell of a coffee. I don’t know whether its just me, but i always think coffee and conversations really go along well.

After a stroll we went to this place called zodiac (the ambience was themed on zodiac signs) for our dinner. For a head start, vipin is one person who can get you embarrassed because of his actions in all possible ways and in any place. And he was on his peak that day. Over and above using cheap filthy language( i mean, come on, you can use English for a change even in filth if the locale asks you to) he even made us listen to his poems. When a group of girls came and sat on the next table, he pointed towards them and shouted out “dekha!!!”(trying to point out that Ahmadabad ranks high on face value of females). He summed it all up by stealing the waiter’s tip by reasoning that it is already included in the bill.

At the end of the dinner we left and i boarded my bus back home. But i really cherished the moments i spent with the two remembering the happy old school days and our coaching class.

Gufaa

2009-06-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Ha so one more week over. And EXEX showed its face again this weekend. For your vocabulary’s sake EXEX stands for Expenditure Explosion. Till now i faced exex mostly during our college fests and saw it peak during our department trip to Delhi. But after coming to Hyd, exex has become a weekly affair( rather a weekend affair)and has stuck to me like a pest. And the last weekend was the heights when i spent 3 quarter of a grand on just appetitory pleasures and mind you, i am a teetotaller.

Sunday dinner was at Ohri’s, the best eatery chain in Hyd. And this time we were for a cave experience. The dining place had a cave setting. It looked remarkable. After ‘trying’ to put up something like a cave as a structure last oasis(sorry mojo for being blunt), i must say that this place looked very much like a cave. Other than the rocky walls( plaster of paris i guess) , hanging fire torches and chains along with the dim lighting gave it a complete gothic aura.

To top it all, the waiters had a shikari shambu (does it ring a ‘tinkle’) attire. The menu was like any other high end restaurants with confusing dishes and poverty inducing prices. The food was nothing too special, was good enough.

In all the gufaa was worth an experience.

The Hexagon

2009-06-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

More than half a month is over of my stay in Hyderabad. Well the most intriguing of the things here has been our interactions with the autowallahs. More about that in the next post.

First of all the intro of the people who are concerned with the next post.

Abhinav- a geek from ’06 batch. His interest in movies( wasn’t it robotics some time back?) brought him here. He says he will be working under a gult director. But since the last 10 days he has done nothing but watched scores of movies and gave rest of us his piece of mind and intelligence. Tell you what his ideas are dangerous to the society, an anti social in the making :P .

Anshul – i don’t know how many of you would have noticed him in the music night but the next time you go for please spare one sight for this winnie the pooh lookalike standing like a fielder in slip position, but behind a keyboard. A wanna be rockstar, is presently getting medicated in his PS station along with his sweetheart Arun. An addict with the guitar, spends endless torturous ( for us) hours ‘picking up’ songs.

Phani – an instant hit with the girls in his PS mostly because of his gult identity. After a brawl with Arun in the very first night, he admitted that he got caught up with the wrong people. Sorry buddy there is no escape. He right now has a crush on the sofa in our room. Usually comes back from his PS with a lighter wallet after burning of money in McDs, subway, ohri’s, satya sai tiffin centre and what not (mrinal at fault). We have even composed a song on him “mera ek dost he jiska naam he Phani”.

Mrinal – he is the mother of our household. He has got some really liking for mangoes. Spends most of his time with his guitar and plays naagin over and over again, trying to catch the attention of the female population in the opposite building. He managed one of the girls to take more than half an hour in drying clothes. I seriously don’t understand the secret of his X factor. He has a big database about all the religions and cults of this world. I don’t know how much of it sensible, but his intensity about knowledge spreading is so high that he took time out to explain what bible is all about to me.

Arun – we usually don’t see his weekend edition coz he runs away to his uncle’s place almost always. Supposedly he is teaching his cousin. This guy has got some nick in filth word diction. We are really fond of the moments when he gets into a bad words escapade. He has some allergy with water and rarely takes bath even after visiting the drug plants. Please come back Arun, Anshul is missing u a lot.

And ofcourse the sixth edge is me. More in the next post.

dvitiya varsh

2009-04-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

A good start is half work done and all is well that ends well. Strangely nobody talks about what happens in the middle. After surviving the most violating series of tests i am suddenly reminded that its half time for my bitsian life. What is most amazing is that i have heard almost all bitsians say that any given sem is faster than the previous one. Even i affirm to this totally unscientific notion.

Second year has been a mix of good and bad, complete joblessness and unscalable schedules, As and Cs(missed a D), the big chill and inedible mess food, chilly nights and the energy sapping hot afternoons, the foggy days, the cloudy evenings, the amazing oasis(headbanging, cave, KGs poetry sessions etc), BOSM(fooseball...), APOGEE, delhi trip, khetri, daily runs for mt classes, single room, sworn on by the supree who used the F word, running in the night with my lappy when it rained cats and dogs( elephants too), let there be light .... and much more. In all it was a totally different experience from the first year.

Things have passed. Half time as i said. And the young lad who came into this campus two years back finds himself more insane than ever. I feel damned to use this cliché but yes time does fly.

1-1 was a time of showing thadi. A time, when the echo of my own id no. from seniors, used to put me up on some imaginary pedestal (because my id no started with zuk which fascinated people ...why the hell). The 1-1 CG card was a slap on the face which still echoes. I guess this is the story of half of the a7ites, the other half is a sad lot. Next year horrifies me of CDCs and i really want to join that sad lot. In the middle of sudden void in the schedule, i am forced to write this completely arbit post. 1 month of survival and then the half time will be official. Looking forward to it.

Yeh Delhi he mere yaar

2009-03-28T04:35:00.000-07:00

The dryness and dullness of APOGEE by the 4th day and the mess exploited tongues forced the secret seven( well there is neither anything secret about the seven nor did we go and solve secrets, it just sounds cool) to flee from this campus for a day. The question was where, and after much thinking, discussing, deliberating, pleading, we decided on the closest feasible destination. Delhi. The voyage started with the seven of us doing a disappearing act. Not more on this. Big brother is watching :P. It was 7 of us ... rather 6 n a half... Barbie, mojo, d2, cow, mcbhat(i would like to propose a new name for him...metro), me and of course the person who made the number non integral... pinky.

After some nerve racking minutes, we finally left pilani at around 3. The wait for a train in the midnight at a railway crossing in loharu was so childishly appealing. Then we got on to a really deserted route to delhi. And then we started with the ceremonial ghost story sessions featuring headless man, lady with totally white eyes, dejavu , dreams etc and the best being the one in which the lady ran alongside a car at 120kmph.

At around 5:45 the vehicle stopped at some dhaba. After a cup of tea our spirits were back in full throttle. From Gurgaon till the end of our destination, there was a series of songs murdered by us... starting from the “dinga dinga dinga dinga......” of rang de basanti. As this was my first trip to Delhi ( rather second, my mom told me that my first birthday was celebrated in Delhi... strange piece of trivia), i was really glad that i got to see the best parts of delhi at first.

Destination 1 was India Gate. It was morning 7 and the place looked so majestic. We werent content enough from taking pics. After some time when our stomach started sending signals to brains and so we went in search for food and reached Connaught place at some 8 30.

As it was too early, no shop had opened till then and we could do nothing but gaze at the closed doors of countless McDs, pizzahuts, dominoes, CCDs, subways, KFC, subway, baristas etc. That was when we decided to take a metro ride to kashmiri gate and grab something to eat. We reached that place and reached a McD outlet. Our mental state was similar to war refugees. But in the greed of eating i (anvi was more responsible) ended up wasting a chicken burger.... utterly outrageous... can’t forgive myself for that :P.

In the meanwhile we didn’t notice that psychological impact caused by the metro ride on rohit. He persuaded us hard to drive on the red metro line. But coz he is tall and big, his childish tantrums were given no notice. We took a ride back to Connaught place.

It was 9:45 and the shops were still closed. We decided to go to red fort. After going through the monument we sat down in one of the gardens inside. It was then that Barbie started flirting with ... u know what.... a lawn mower . After doing that for some 20 minutes and realising the futility of his efforts, we finally left red fort to fill our tummies ... again :).

We found a way through the roads of chandini chowk(delhi6) to reach parawathe vali gali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gali_paranthe_walee). We went inside one of the shops and i was totally taken aback after looking at the menu. The varities of parawthe offered were unimaginable. We tasted 8 of them (paneer, rabdi, mirchi, mixed, gajar, poodina, papad and kharchin) followed by a big glass of lassi. The food was just amazing.

From there we left for Connaught place again. This time it was alive and active. We went inside the palika bazaar. We found people selling 250GB pendrives. There was another place which was giving out 3 tshirts for 100 bucks( Rs33.33 per tshirt). In the middle of this we won a bargaining fight for anvi. There was a weighing machine also and we found that anvi’s weight is half that of rohit :P. After this, KG joined us and we took the metro to go to rohini to reach the adventure and the joy on rohit’s face was radiating coz we had to travel on the red line. We reached rohini and had to wallk through some open land and around stinking waters to reach adventure island ( which was described by rikhsaw vaala as “chote bacho ke khelne ke jagah).

After taking the tickets, we went inside and went directly to an insanely scary ride (atleast for me,d2, Barbie and kg to some extent) called side winder. The craze of anvi towards this was too much. After her third trip over that there were speculations that anvi’s brain has taken a 180 degree turn inside and that she will start painting and will forget coding in C. In that place we also met one of the most impolite person that i have seen who refused to take our group pic(poor d2).

We left that place and rode back in the metro to reach CP. We took our cab and then KG directed us to heavenly hell. It was the Khan Market and we went in to a cafe to get chilled out. It was the BIG CHILL. We ordered a round of desserts. The prices were like a slap on the face( we took it delightfully...it costed us 100 bucks per head). What surprised us even more was the size of chocolate mudpie and the cheese cake that we ordered. It wasn’t big enough to even have a mouthful. But it was just too yummy. So much so, that the discussions in the drive from there to Gurgaon was totally based on that.

After burning holes in our pockets, there was a sudden realisation of the wickedness of the tongue. Barbie was especially disturbed by this. The fund of big chillu(the hole) by cow... the poem... Barbie calling chote bache harami... everything happened in this while. But the fundamental problem still remained... we were still hungry :). After dealing with our upset driver, we made our way to the malls in gurgaon and got split up for KFC and Pizza hut. After burning our pockets a bit more, we left gurgaon at some 11 for pilani. It was a really tiring job to keep atleast one person awake next to driver. With some brave acts from saransh, ajay and rohit the driver could be kept awake. This driver had a unique set of songs like any other driver. It had comments on the songs as interlude. With tired body and mind we finally reached pilani at 3oclock completing exactly 24 hours of maverickism. We had to do the appearing act this time. Finally the trip came to an end.

Thanks to a lovely weather, planless decisions and the wittiness of the secret seven which made 27 march 2009 a special day and the trip a no regrets trip.

Networking... Social networking

2009-02-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

There were days when ‘orkut’ was the new buzzword. Suddenly people started asking whether i was in orkut or not. When i said i was not, they would make it a point to convince me that i am missing something important in life. After hearing this time and again i gave in to the temptation of finding out what this word had for me (initially i felt it was taken from mandarin). Although i was bogged down till then by the countless arguments of elders that internet is a haven of ‘dirt’.

When i made my account on orkut, i was under the able guidance of one of my happy go lucky friend, prabuddh , who scared the wits out of me when, in order to screw me, he added one of the girls from my coaching class as ‘friend’ in my account. I was really worried about the prospective consequences of declaring a girl(whom i never talked to) as a friend on web.
Then there was a phase of juvenile enthusiasm, of making a community, meant just for me and my friends. It was the birth of the bad boyz (hail all you Bad Boys!!!!).We, monkeys... running in a rat race... really got overboard with our community... and most of our recess discussions in school were dedicated to this... the teenage blood was at work and the innocence and fun that i derived from such trivial things really makes me miss my teenage.

I remember when one of my ‘interactions’ ( :P) with a junior, i figured out that people can have ‘networking’ as their hobby(initially i was impressed, thinking he was talking about computer networking, to be dawned about my ignorance of the usage of a term). It really amazed me how a thing so unproductive can feature in that list.
I agree that it is really a nice medium of keeping in touch with people and i myself have benefitted a lot by finding long lost friends on net. The thing is, these sites are social networking sites and not keep-in-touch sites. And so these come with value added services which can keep you occupied for hours together, only for you to find yourself growing grey and dumb.

A very significant important social/cultural shift that has happened lately, is that people are given an option of living two lives at the same time. One in which they are what they are and they cant change how people look at them. Then there is this virtual world, where one can manipulate their own image. Where everybody becomes the cool dude they always wanted to become. Those cool funky names that people keep on orkut.... or sudden escalation of interest in photography specially in the art of self portrait... or people using the ‘about me’ column to write in length about how complicated a creature they all are and use that space to display their command over English language . Hypocrisy has mutated from the time of jews to social networking sites.

And well i am no exception to this hypocrisy and myself have gone through all that i have criticised. But at times my conscience does prick me. Living virtual can never bring a real peace. It has now become a necessary evil. But then i guess i have bigger evils to deal with and this doesn’t need my efforts :P.

Bleeding Nephrons

2009-02-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

Living in this college and having a decent standard of living created a bubble around me. A bubble of complacency which got a pinch in the winter vacations of December 2007.

After surviving the gruelling round of my first set of comprees, with the hope of taking a break, i boarded the bus to my home. Little did i know that the pre planned visit to a hospital could shake me up.

My mom was suffering from a stone in her kidney and a surgery for the removal of the same was scheduled in last week of December. It was to take place in Muljhibhai Patel Urological Hospital in Nadiad,Gujrat(considered one of the good ones for kidneys).

Since i am a fraud mallu( if you are encountering this term for the first time, it refers to all those people who have their native place in Kerala but are settled elsewhere) all my relatives are spread across the country and so it was gonna be my dad me and devaraj bhaiya( very good friend of ours) who were gonna take care of my mom( my granny was supposed to join later). It was on the Christmas morning (25^th dec) that we left for Nadiad . I was extremely relieved to find that the hospital was really clean. But that was just a consolation to much more that was to come later.

The next day i got a feel of the magnitude of thing that we were gonna face as a family and it made me shiver. My mom was gonna be on the surgery table, and then my head flashed all the surgeries that i had seen on television ( by then i hadn’t seen house md). One day before the surgery we were asked to arrange for blood as a ‘precautionary’ measure. I was getting more and more and scared. My mom is O- but gladly we were able to arrange the blood from the red cross blood bank( devaraj bhaiya gave his blood as replacement).

The surgery took place the next day. By God’s grace it all went well. I was relieved. But then came the challenging part. It was very very sad to see mummy in the post operative ward. She looked so sick and weak. That was really scary. My dad was the only person allowed in. And then i had to replace him there for some time so that he could take a bit of sleep. It was somewhere around 4 in the morning i guess. I sat next to her the rest of the night. Had never experienced anything like this before. Then I went to the railway station to receive my grandma. Finally we( me and dad) felt relieved.

The day after that, everything was alright. My mom got her consciousness back. The surgery was without any complications and she was recovering properly.

But the whole ordeal didn’t end here. After my mom was out of any kind of danger, i started observing my surroundings and found that the place was full of sick people.

I was shocked to see the various kinds of diseases that people suffered with. There were young people with fatal conditions... old people with endless complicacies... it was a mayhem of kidney disorders.

There was this one person whose one kidney was not working and the other kidney was shrinking. There were rooms full of people getting dialysis(blood clean up in normal language) done and delaying the final verdict of death. Wards full of patients waiting for their names to slide up on the kidney transplant list. There were many more people i saw. I don’t remember what they were suffering from. But there was one case which i cant forget. It was a lady who was terminally sick. But she didn’t have enough money to continue with the treatment. And the hospital authorities asked her to leave the hospital and enrolled her name for aids given by NGOs.... there were lot of other patients.... and each and every one depicting misery in different forms and shapes.

I was shocked. It was the first time that i had ventured out of my ‘bubble’. Out, to a living nightmare of people. Where hopes were run by strands of irrationalism because rationality was cruel. In the midst of all these bleeding nephrons i suddenly felt small. Suddenly me, my problems, my aspiration and my circumstances looked microscopic when scaled up in front of these traumatised folks.

Whenever i remember those days, it gives me jitters every single time. I will treasure this experience forever.

19

2009-01-29T12:03:00.000-08:00

Although in relative terms, 19 is not a big figure but in absolute sense it is surely a big time. And this is the end of my final teen year. But somewhere i am still that teen. The rebellious in me is still a spark away from explosion. And suddenly this realisation of my expected maturity makes me feel a bit robbed.

When i sit and write down this, my past flashes back. My home, my school, my old friends... everything... it just makes me realise that i had no less than an awesome 19 years of my life till now. And the dullness of sorrows and pains are so miniscule on the colourful piece of my history, that i really wanna thank God for this favour.

Even though my soul cries in rebellion to the reality that it is time for me to “grow up”, i have no option but to grow up. I have realised now that even my smallest action is so consequential in my life and in the life of others unlike how it was when i was younger.

In the midst of all this economic jeopardy, my future, for the first time, looks like a struggle. But i love uncertainties. Its a nice getaway from boredom. And i think its the remnant teen in me which makes me enjoy my own plight.

With totally uncertain days ahead, life looks challenging. But i know there is one person up there who would be looking down and smiling at me., like the way i would have smiled at a small kid struggling with his shoe lace and finding it the biggest problem of his life. This one reason forces me not to be worried about anything. And it reminds me of the first Bible verse which i learnt:

Psalm 23:1

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”

Genetically "Informalz "

2009-01-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

Genetically "Informalz "

A ray of light, screeched through the pipe

And woke me up to a nightmare nigh

My alarm failed, i woke up late

My job interview 5 minutes ahead

Chewed a gum, toothbrush was luxury

Combed my hair in pain and fury

Suit and tie would have taken long

Was comfortable in my tshirt and shorts

Rushed and hurried to reach that room

Saw nervous creatures, as if down with flu

The last call for my name screamed out

Expected a storm in this drought

The grey heads gaped in shock

‘twas too much for that flock

They stretched out their hand to check their pulse

Coz they found me in INFORMALZ!!!

Who am i part II

2009-01-16T04:15:00.000-08:00

This is one question which has grappled scholars, philosophers, vetti (velle) people over the years. This really shows the importance of this question. What is more amazing is to know that we still don’t know definitely about our own self. If the question was biological, i think we have the answer to this question. But call it curiosity or anything else; we still wanna know more about our origin. Obviously scientists have got leads in some directions. But we still don’t wanna get convinced by the answer. Its not the mathematics of big bang which can satisfy the emotional question of who we are (there is a clear mismatch). I don’t know what others think... and am myself not so equipped to answer such questions. But i have my own theory (if u can call it that :P). The things that i see happening around me yells at me to believe that the presence of a supernatural is inevitable. I really love the lyrics of a very cute song :

Every tiny star

That twinkles in the night sky

Every drop of morning dew.

Every spark of fire

Blazing in the furnace

Every captivating view

Every rainbow in the sky,

Every pretty butter-fly

Tells the fascinating news to

Those who dare to hope

And the message is

God still loves the world

Although this song doesn’t have anything in it to prove the existence of God but still, for me, the very simplicity and something else in it makes me feel that this world without God will be dry and hollow and impossible.

In this fight of theism versus atheism, it always so happens that we tend to defend one over the other by using better superlatives and it turns out to be a fight between adjectives, adverbs and illustrations.

There is no answer to this question which might satisfy different kinds of people all alike. There is another thought which comes to my mind often. Why is it necessary that we should be able to understand everything? May be our brains are not capable enough to answer all questions that come to us. You can’t make a monkey understand cosmic science... then why cant this same thing apply to us.

I know this post sounds very confusing. But frankly speaking, i find this question very simple. I guess because i have stopped at an explanation to this, and i am so much awed by it, that i don’t feel like losing my peace that i have by living in that explanation. Sounds irrational, but i prefer peace.

Who am i part I

2009-01-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

Even after the superiority of the human race over all other living beings, it is still perplexed by one question time and again. “who am i"?
There are some reasons why you might troubled by such questions:

1. short term amnesia: ya ya this idea is a bit filmy but it explains the given condition especially in case of people like deva :P. the condition is very easy to understand. In this the victim suddenly forgets everything and then ends up asking this question to himself- " mai kaun hu ?" :P. for people having this trouble, the best treatment is that they should carry their ID card or drivers license with them, and as soon as they get troubled by this question, they should take a big paper and their ID card and should start writing their own name as an imposition, till the body starts cursing the brain for popping up this question. And of course i ruled out tattooing as an option already.

2. Nothing else to ask oneself: For some reasons we often pop up questions which hav inconclusive answers for the sake of it coz, well, they can keep u engaged for a longer time and their answers actually don’t affect ur life at all. Hey such people actually don’t need an answer. Having an answer will only spoil a medium to run out of boredom.

3. People who found an answer: these are the people who found the answer some way or the other but are uncomfortable with too much of knowledge and so they keep popping these questions.

4. People who really need to know who they are: I really sympathise with u people :P. My next post... just for u.

The story of a swimmer( Michael Phelps) and an elephant( Bahujan Samaj Party)

2009-01-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

Hey people i have not gone nuts. It’s just a satirical piece of text aimed at ... doing nothing.... i know irrespective of whatever i write, nothing is gonna change. Stll for the fun of it....

I know this is crazy times crazy but.... imagine. Suddenly one day Mr. Michael phelps suddenly makes up his mind to take up Indian nationality. This was after his manager(who is from Indian origin(say)) told him about the money and endorsments that abhinav bindra received when he won a single gold medal. Then it didn’t take him much time to do the math(for 8 gold) .

He comes to India amidst a fervid croud. The very next day he is stormed by the Indian media. There is breaking news flashed in India TV “Michael Phelps pees before going to sleep”. The whole media goes lunatic. He is seen shooting an ad film for “fair and handsome”. The following day he gets an offer from big boss which he declines, citing claustrophobia. He is offered the post of “honorary fitness trainer” for the Indian cricket team. He is seen showing appearances in all possible reality shows. He agrees to be a judge alongside our maverick Mr. Siddhu in the next season of great Indian laughter challenge (of course along with a translator (the funny part is, after a participant used to tell a joke, translator used to translate it for him and after that he used to laugh, siddhu used to laugh all along the translation and beyond until phelps stopped laughing :P :P)). His ultimate moment of glory comes when he is asked to participate in some dance reality show along with his new girlfriend rakhi sawant. Basking on his popularity he accepts the offer made by BSP(Bahujan Samaj Party, Mayawati’s party) to stand against our former PM Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee from lucknow. Sadly he doesn’t win(coz he has lesser grey hairs). In all this, he forgot to dive into the pool for months. And by the time London Olympics comes, Indian swimmers can swim faster than him(of course that was an exaggeration) . He is booked by the cops for drug trafficking(a plot by some envious politician). He frees out on bail. Finally he takes a ticket to US. Buys an apartment in Memphis and announces his retirement from the world.

Moral of the story: haathi(BSP’s symbol) ke daant khane ke aur, aur dikhane ke aur :P. And please don’t surf through the TV channels when you go home for vacations, coz it might inspire you to write junk like this.

if i were BILL GATES

2008-12-31T23:17:00.000-08:00

If i were BILL GATES:
What comes to your mind when you listen to the word “gates”? “windows” right? I am often puzzled whether this architectural association is a mere coincidence (hey i am not justifying my bad PJ). Here i am, hoping, to be a person, who, in the past decade or two, has become synonymous to wealth. And whenever i wish i were him, the first thing that comes to my mind is the sight of me jumping like Mr. Scrooge in a closet full of riches.
The first thing i would do if i suddenly find myself impersonating this money minting factory, is to calculate my assets at that particular point of time. Then i will try to figure out the rate of change of my assets and the differential equation (Legendre, hypergeometric, Bessel’s etc.) which resembles my asset possession to the closest. Then will try to create a program which will give me my asset status at a particular moment of time(i heard he earns 5$ every minute) ... Phew!!! This is what studying engineering can do. It can make you a nerd(btw i am getting D in math3).
After all this when i would have convinced myself that i am in possession of a decent amount of dosh under my belt, i will make the list of things which i would be doing with the money that i have
These are the few thing that are going through my head:
1. I will be ready to give as much aid as required for research in the field of teleportation. Man, I am really bugged up with the bus travel from pilani to Udaipur.
2. Asking the taj group to take over the management of hostels and messes in BITS( i am sure i will become ACB ‘by choice’
3. Buying a lot of crude oil now and filling up my swimming pools with that, coz the real estate business is really slump and the gold prices are sky rocketing and u never know when the oil prices might jump.
4. Buy google, generally, coz i like the google logo and people say google is cool.
5. Get a bus and visit the campus, and make the placement department go crazy with elation.
In all this i was wondering how weak money is. Although it can buy me what i want but it cant fulfil the need for buying that. If there were some imaginary market where peace could have been bought, i would have spent everything to get peace back into this earth and our lives. But sadly(thankfully rather) money is big enough to buy only pleasure and not peace. It cant buy back the mental and physical damage caused to a rape victim. It cant get late major Unnikrishnan (martyr in Mumbai terror attack) back to life. I guess we all have heard these things time and again, and thats why at times we become very numb to the destruction that money can cause to relations, peace, contentment etc. Since prehistoric days money was only a means of transaction and nothing more and the day it becomes more than that in my life, i know i would be taking a joyful ride to HELL.
I respect Mr. Gates because he is the biggest philanthropist in the world. But then i pity him. There is one statement which i use so freely and he cant and that is ...”i have nothing to lose”. I am happy and content as sushant koshy and if at all someday i become as big as him (sounds funny?? I know) i hope i remember to read all that i have written now.

"hello world"

2008-12-31T23:15:00.001-08:00

In the sudden impulse of getting myself more audibly vocal, here i am writing the first blog of my life. If anybody is inquisitive about why my blog is named this, this is the explanation. “Let there be light” is the statement delivered by God which was instrumental in getting light in this world( wish along with this statement, if Bible would have declared light as a wave or particle, then it would have surely led our present day physics to shrink considerably). This title is also inspired from the catch line of a show in a TV news channel which says “We will shed light and not generate heat”. This whole blog is dedicated to my personal desire to see a smile on each and every living soul on this planet, and to make the slightest bit of difference which my ficklest piece of humour might bring about in your happiness quotient.
To start off with my blogging demeanour, here i am with the clichéd “if i weres...”. In a series of posts i would like to fit into the shoes, socks and brains of some of the most amusing characters of this world. I am sure by the end of this series you will realise how ‘vetti’ i am during holidays. Hope u like it. Please pardon me if i sound juvenile, it’s just that i don’t wanna grow up soon. And pu-h-lease post in some comments.