House it possible ?

Time for a post :)

Been watching Gregory House MD, a series about an insanely gifted doctor who wants to be as miserable as life can make him, yet never runs short of a seemingly unending stream of sarcasm bordering on hurling insults at everyone and anyone who gets too close to him, both physically and not (at least till half of the second season, which is where i am right now, after a humungous marathon house-watching session was interrupted rudely by a much needed dose of sleep, followed by a not at all rude session of going and seeing what waves is all about this year, when im not associated with it at all, which makes me miss the running around-tackling unforseen problems which invariably creep up on you from behind whenever ur managing or organising or that sort of thing, while knowing that any screw up would directly affect the event or program or some such thing or person(s) or etc-etc-this-sentence-is-too-long-anyways-n-im-running-short-of-breath-phew! )
Well, the point is, the break from the house marathon got me out of my room, during a time when im not supposed to be in my room because a cultural festival with which i have been directly associated during its formative years is going on in my backyard (so to speak).
Well, i have been thinking for a long time as to what reason i have for completely divorcing my blog for such a long time, that would stand trial in any court (of my mind), and i have arrived at the conclusion after briefly being reminded during the waves-exploring session about the fact that my blog is miserable and lonely and iv got to make it up to her (i like to think its feminine), that i have nothing in my defense that would stand the test of trial, except that the net speed is crappy negated by the incriminating fact that im too damn lazy to go type in my username password in blogspot.com and just type a damn post.
Ok, back to house.
Oh my god its exactly what i needed. It felt like a splash of freshly bred sarcasm. After the months of boring monotonous existence that i lead, in which im including almost all of my bits years, and where i'd almost forgotten to read or write (or type), this was like rediscovering the joy of creative english speaking. The dialogue writers for the series 'house MD' are a bunch of geniuses. I would recommend the series to anyone who is not allergic to anything remotely connected with medicine. Now im transformed into the erupting volcano of sarcasm and anything i touch suddenly sprouts into a sarcasm spitting machine!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, im overplaying it, but you get the point. Watch it if its the last thing you do.

Which brings me to the question, do you talk to yourself? Yes, im asking you , the occasional reader of this divorced blog.


Well, i do. A lot. Infact, more often than not, you can find me talking to myself in an animated manner, provided i think ur not looking. It might seem a bit boring, me talking continuously about myself like a self obsessed narcissist, but hey, if i am that, run away, shoo, before i nauseate you to death with my seemingly unending quips about myself, and if i am not that, you know i cant keep up with this myself for long.

More often than not, this self-talking-whenever-i-get-the-opportunity is mistaken for a classic case of a candidacy for a mental institution. Ok, its not the same positive self-talk crap that they try to teach us at the phonetics and english speaking class,
but it helps me pass the time, pretending im someone else having a conversation with an imaginary someone, who replies just as i want him/her to.

When i talk to myslf, most likely im anybody other than an engineer, talking something abstruse to someone who is just as intrigued in my imaginary ability to vomit out sentences that would make little sense were it made to a real person, as i am in my imaginary friend's reply.

Dont fret, im not schizopreniac or anythin, and i wont eat you. Its just sad that there's nothing half as interesting going on in my life as i would like it to be, and pretending is just a way of pepping it up a little.
Call me crazy. Are you ?

Funny prof quotes

I found this site that gives some assorted quotes from professors in premier higher degree educational institutes. (read: MIT, Stanford, Berkeley etc) I found some of them absolutely hilarious, and i daresay those who are goin abroad for higher studies can expect some really geeky humor. Here are some of the most hilarious ones:

“The best way to do that is with… reagents that probably don’t
exist, which is why that’s not such a great way to do that.”

(after finishing his presentation) “Why is everyone watching me?”

“He went to Switzerland and took injections of baboon prostates.
Then he wrote these poems.” on Wordsworth

“Titanic is just Romeo and Juliet. And an iceberg.”

“Even if we think ‘that man has a cork up his butt,’ we don’t _say_ it…”

Subject: 8.08 Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
“There are (N + f - 1)! / [N! (f - 1)!] ways to permute my balls.”

Subject: 8.04 Quantum Mechanics
“By geometry, … [pause] … Well, just by looking at it actually.”

Subject: ASU CSC210 Data Structures
“We want to take these components and see if we can grope them–er,
group them into sets”.

Subject: 8.08 Statistical and Quantum Physics
“The partition function is an animal which was invented in chapter 6.
It is not a fundamental animal, but it is a convenient animal.”

“Tarzan knew E=3NkT even before Einstein. Jane didn’t know; he had to
tell her … that’s what marriage is all about.” (after a long discussion of how even in the jungle you need to know about specific heats so that you can warm up your coconut milk)

“The partition function has to be clear to you. . . like honey has to be
clear. Or maple syrup. It will work much better if you think of it as
maple syrup.”

“When multiple metal atoms get together, their valence electrons run
wild, like kids in a hippie commune.”

I won’t give you a transparent proof. I’ll give you the most obscure proof I can find.

That’s outside the scope of this course. That’s in the next course, which you won’t take.

This is a true fact, like all facts.

How many people don’t know omega is the cube-root of unity?
That’s a lie; I just told you.

When something is beautiful and elegant, it is of no help in actual computation.

“F” isn’t a function anymore. It’s just the letter that comes after “e”.

"A finite plane is a very good approximation to an infinite plane."

"My efforts to simplify it have led to complexifying it."

"OK. I'll work on it, and you'll work on it, and we'll discuss it when it's too late.''

"It looks like the hypothesis has nothing to do with the solution. That makes a good theorem."

"Where the pressure is a maximum, the displacement is zero. On the other hand, where the displacement is zero, the pressure is a maximum."

Set theory is ... the kind of muddy water where logicians like to swim.

However, it's a very infinite set.

Well, let’s just defer that. Maybe we’ll defer that off to infinity.

But of course that takes some thinking. So let’s omit proving that.

“At certain critical values of b, something terrible is going to happen.”

“These are Maxwell’s equations, and you can find them on any MIT t-shirt.”

“We do what mathematicians always do: we assume all physical constants are equal to 1. Well, except maybe the square root of 2 pi, but I usually assume the square root of 2 pi is equal to 1, too.”

“Let’s take a tube of toilet paper without the ends — often called a cylinder.”

(Trying to derive as much as he could without any actual calculation:) “Of course, at some point we have to know SOMETHING.”

“There is no motivation for doing what we’re going to do.” -before giving some twisted derivation

“Riemann wrote this in an eight-page paper around 100 years ago, and mathematicians have been trying to understand it ever since. Of course, it _was_ written in German…”

"Notice the nonobvious insensitivity of the rhs to reciprocating Y.” - Referring to the method of computing the average value of a function over a closed interval by integration…

“This is one of those things which you probably already understand but won’t after I’m finished explaining it.”

“We’ll call this one mu. Do you all know what mu is? If nothing, higher education gives you a deeper understanding of greek”

“The sum of the heights of eight Canadians is close enough to infinity…”

While discussing multivariable max/min problems: “It’s obvious that there’s a maximum…it’s obvious to me, anyway, and I’m giving the lecture.”

“Oh my god, it’s working!”

“All I’ve done is shrink it from its former greatness.”

“This is the only time during a lecture that I am going to show off.”

“I would like to summarize a hundred years of statistics in the next ten minutes. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“You can address each point separately byte by byte, er, bit by bit, by bytes…”

“logic programming: reducing programming to a previously unsolved problem.”

“I misunderstood your question, but it was a good one.”

“If not a biggest element, then certainly an element than which no other element is bigger.”

(clearly spoken by a computer science professor…) “In digital systems you have to take into account things that _almost_ work. And when I say `almost work’ I mean it doesn’t really work.”

This would be visible if it were visible, but it’s not.

“So a girl is like a system failure.” (while calculating the number of expected childern a couple would have before they had a girl)

Too much pipelineing is bad for the soul.

“There is a point I want to make.” *pause* “That was my point.”

“A linear cat is a cat that when you tug on this ear it says “meow,” and when you tug on the other ear it says “meow,” and when you tug on both ears it says it twice as loud. [...] There are no linear cats.”

“You may have noticed that I ran out of letters a while ago.”

“No hardcore math people here…?” “then I can get away with this.”

All of your hard work sometimes gets reduced to a good figure.

“Don’t worry, I can’t pass the exams either.”

“I’m not trying to say anything interesting.”

“Look - a review session is just like sex. You can tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you, or you can not tell me what you want, and you’ll just get screwed.”

Yea, long post, but i loved it!

Changing demographies

A serious post, to show im not always clowning and bufooning around.
Someone asked me the other day, 'Which party do you support?'
On the surface, i might have replied with nonchalance 'i support no political party, they're all just the same - corrupt, selfish and without vision.' Later, on a closer inspection, however, i found that i do have a soft spot for the right wing parties like the BJP. This self realization somewhat disconcerted me for a moment, left me wondering whether there was inadvertently a touch of communalism in me. Almost immediately, i dismiss this notion. The reason why i support the right wing parties is because they are much more likely to follow an agenda of reforms and development than others. It is by this yardstick that governments are supposed to be measured, not according to the degree of appeasement of one community or section of people. Why should such a simple yardstick be colored with the muck of regional and communal politics ? Why do the governments that are supposed to be the torch wielders and initiators of progress need to be bogged down with the completely counterproductive acts of appeasing this section and that group ?
Coming to the recent developments, which started out as local, but unsurprisingly assumed national proportions, the arrest of Mr. Raj Thackeray of the MNS (in)fame.
Early next year, in all probability, i shall be exercising my right to vote. The trouble, however, is choosing whom to vote for. I have never been a supporter of strong-arm tactics of some political parties like the Shiv Sena. However, the current Maharashtra government is just a synonym for corruption and stagnancy. The way i see it, i have to choose the lesser of the two evils. Just about a few days ago, i thought i had almost decided that progress and development take precedence, even if marred by regional tirades. I still feel that the Shiv Sena and its allies in the state would be much better for overall development than the Democratic front govt. (whose dismal performance we have been seeing for the past 10 years).
However, the brazen sedition by Raj Thackeray and the unflinching claim of the Shiv Sena that it is actually responsible for the dastardly acts of urban terrorism, forces me to rethink my stand. Mr Raj Thackeray was born with a silver spoon, in the powerful house of the Thackerays. Not given the prominence that perhaps he desired, he left his uncle's party and formed his own. Hardly having known any privation, he perhaps does not realize the value of things he takes for granted. Sitting in his mansion, he dictates his minions to decimate the poor man's attempt at a decent living. His fanatical followers go on a rampage destroying taxis and busses and shops without realizing that entire lives have been spent in acquiring them. And what about all those who have sustained bodily harm? Will Mr. Raj Thackeray step forward and donate his eyes, arms and legs to those who have suffered at the hands of his minions for a crime that is no more than appearing for an exam ? What will he do if his son is beaten up in the US for snatching jobs of the locals ? Agreed, local youth are unemployed. Agreed, they are going through difficult times. But it is not that there is no level playing field. There is no reservation for north indians. Everyone can write the exam. And they get selected on their own merit. Moreover, this is Mumbai, Mr. Thackeray . Where else would people turn up for jobs, if not the commercial capital of India?
I regard Raj Thackeray as no more than a stray diseased dog whose brain is addled, and which goes about biting every other person it sets its eyes upon. Even now i have no doubt that the Democratic fron govt is still the worst bet for Maharashtra as far as development and progress are concerened. My frustration, however, is not that the 'dog catcher' Government is as indolent and stagnant as ever about this arrogant defiance of civil decorum, but the fact that once again, in the name of divisive politics, progress and development have been forced to take a backseat.
PS: I found there to be glaring similarities between Raj Thackeray and Hitler.
Just as Western powers during the 1930s let Hitler flourish hoping that he would destroy the soviet union and with it, the danger of communism, so too is this government giving MNS a free rein hoping it would divide the Shiv Sena's vote bank. Like Hitler at his time, Raj has a fanatical following in people blinded by mindless aggression . Violence, for both, has been the primary tool of expression. Both are characterized by inflammatory speeches demonizing other cultures. Things look really ominous from this perspective. Going by the current govt. response, however, one's best bet would be to hope the dog succumbs to its disease.

The (sc)roll out of the next big thing

When one is in college, especially one where attendance, classes etc are not mandatory, and where students spend their lives getting wasted away without gaining an ounce of knowledge, and where the internet speed is so brilliant that people eventually manage to live by without it, it is not surprising to find them completely weaning away from regular thinking. It is only when we step into the outside world, that we miss the comforts we so much took for granted.

To those of you who are currently in an office space of roughly 1000 sq feet, with people moving all around you whilst you pretend to be working on something in front of the computer that is so important that you can’t notice anything, while all you actually do is try and squeeze in a small period of time, say, at least a few seconds when there’s no one behind your back so you can sneak peek into sites as simple as Dilbert’s blog, which obviously won’t be taken in good humor by the office people if they catch you reading it, this will be a familiar feeling. However, since I know that I am not a world famous blogger, and that the handful of people who actually put up with all this nonsense are not likely to have experienced such situations, either because they are still in that abode of joblessness, college, or because their stations do not qualify within miles of the above mentioned criteria, this might not particularly qualify as a basic necessity. However, I suggest you hold on, because you never know, you might just be the next one!

After that massive preamble, lemme come to the point. Due to the above-mentioned extreme circumstances, I am unable to savor the use of net when I get it. Instead, I have to pretend to be extremely interested in some web pages pertaining to some arcane topic quite beyond my ability of comprehension in this environment.

So, I need an invention from you comp sci guys. Actually branch is no bar. Im just assuming that going by the average knowledge of CDCs among engineers, I reckon Comp sci ppl are best positioned to act upon this, although the difference is not much between them n other branches on how much they know about computers. Ok, so I need some sort of mechanism to scroll a web page that is in a tab not in front of you. The tab is in the background, while you are looking at some other page on your screen. I want to scroll up or down the page in the tab that’s next to it, without actually going to it. It could be through some shortcut keys, u know, like ctrl+tab+arrows or whatever. This is so that there is lesser chance of being caught when all you are doing is scrolling a webpage. OK, if youre reading it in front of everyone, then obviously ur a dumass. But getting busted because of a stupid scroll, that’s an insult to the entire generation of such sneak peekers. Think of this as a philanthropic act for the future generations. Or maybe if the idea sells, charge for the services. Just remember who the founding father of the idea was, and give it to me for free. Of course, if you become a billionaire or something in the process, generous donations are welcome.

so whoz up to it ?

:|

The odds of being shat upon

Yes, so iv copied it from Scott Adams. Big deal. As if we all are not guilty of plagiarism in almost every sphere of life. Back to the story.
I was as usual standing at the bus stop after gettin my a** off the bed in the wee hours of the morning ( 6:45 am ). I usually stand in the Bus stop shade area, and dont have to wait for more than 5 minutes for the bus to arrive. I take pride in the precise timing that iv developed in the only 2 weeks that iv been exposed to the drudgery of work. The only way in which today was different was that i did not have to wait 5 minutes for the bus, i went and stood at the bus stop ( in the shade, i must remind you ) , i couldnt have counted to 5 that the bus arrived. And so i get out of the shade, ready to board the approaching bus in order to get the usual seat that i always occupy (read: have been occupying for 2 weeks ) .

Within those 5 seconds, a crow shit on my head.

Its aim was phenomenal. Suddenly the amount of white matter in my head increased to never before seen levels. From the bird's point of view, it must have been an irresistible target.
Credit must be given to the crow. It waited for the right opportunity and then delivered with extraordinary precision. That bastard must have been eating all night and saving it up for the right moment. The main tonnage hit right on top, but there was plenty left over for my shirt and my arm. If i hadnt seen what bird it was, i might well have thought it to be an ostrich or maybe a pterodactyl or a flying cow or an UFO full of aliens with dysentery.

Needless to say, i missed the bus. Taking an auto i go home, only to find no one in. Okay, so i cleaned up the best i could, and then walked back to the bus stop, all the way, getting reminded of the phenomenal similarities between me and what happened to Scott in New york. And then of course, thinking about the odds of being shat upon so early in the morning.

Lets say there are about 15 million people in Mumbai. Of whom lets say, and this is a reasonable estimate, about a third of the people are out on the streets at about 7 30 to 8:30 am. ( if u disagree with me, this is the starting of the peak hour, when about two-thirds of the population gets out of their homes, however counter-intuitive it might sound). So that makes it about 5 million.
Out of these people, i daresay, not more than a hundred thousand people must have got shat upon in that time frame. thats a 1/50 = .02 probability right there. Further, i was out of the shade for an estimated 5 seconds. There are 3600 seconds in an hour. That makes it a probability of .02 X 5/3600 = 0.000027 . Further, we all know that crows are not creatures of the night. In fact, a majority of crow droppings are observed during the evening time, before they go to sleep ( presumably to avoid sleepless nights ). Lets say, not more than 75 % of crows would need to down load this early in the morning. That makes it a probability of 0.000020 of being shat upon within time to travel from the bus stop to the bus.
I got straight C s in math, so thats probably wrong. All i know is that it was unlikely, and that 'my ps is shit' just got a whole new meaning.
I obviously got late today, and adding to it, my pro 3-week-deadline-but-completed-in-a-week report was discarded away casually with a remark ' this is excellent, you have really done a brilliant job' and then a completely unrelated piece of work given to me for the next 2 weeks, one which involves looking at google page results that would make a honey bee ( that btw, has to visit only about a million flowers to collect a kilo of honey, and which it does too :-\) want to go hibernate, that too on a computer that stubbornly refuses to open microsoft word if it has explorer.exe running.
So if you will excuse me, ill get going outside for now, when there is much less danger of me being a victim of specieal ( derived from species ) discrimination.

The perfect weak

Ok , so what i though had been a near perfect week, what with the godlike GRE n all, turned out quite sour in the end. Primarily because, i found out, to my utter dismay, that i hate, repeat, h.a.t.e work. I hate jobs, and everything that comes along with it. And i had to find that out during my first day at my internship. No, not the 2nd day, not the 3rd, but the 1st. Someone up there was not happy with me having a perfect week, and voila ! No, the internship aint bad. In fact, to most, it would actually seem quite nice. The people are very friendly, my instructor is quite cool, and despite his insistence on completing all the formalities like di-ary, quiz et cetera according to schedule, he is quite a nice,understanding and cool guy, one who, im sure, wont give anyone a B grade for reaching ps a minute late. No, i simply hate it. I guess its like hating having a martian frog liver for breakfast. especially if ur a veggie. i surmise its inbuilt.

So lemme get back to the beginning. It had been a near perfect week. Maybe it would have stayed that way for another day, had i not checked my alternate email address that i never check usually, but which i had given for internship communication,. Any intuition that had no doubt played a mega role in the gre earlier that week mysteriously disappeared and i did check the fateful mail that spoiled my entire sense of euphoria, actually, completely destroyed it. I had gotten a mail from the instructor, that among other things , mentioned that i had to wear formals for work. formals ! that unheard of thing that strikes fear in the most intrepid person (read: me ). I dont own anything close to formal. Unless you count that suit, which i bought out of compulsion. So here goes all my euphoria, and along with it , my glorious week. So mum drags me to one of those never-before-stepped-into formals shops . The nightmare begins.

Now on to the travel. Forty minutes is what i had thought i would have to endure. Of course, the FM radio would provide some relief. Then came the double-triple-quadruple-penta-hex-hepta-etcetra blows. I get stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. My FM headset suddenly stops working.Reach registration an hour late. (which, by the way, was at a place diff from the internship place ) Which actually lasted all of 5 minutes. Then got sent to the company. Then there was an attempt on my life. Then ... screeeeeeeeech. Attempt on my life ? u bet.

They tried to kill me. I escaped, greviously injured, holding a scar for life, but alive. Yes, i almost died. Of boredom. Yes it was the book that i still cant fathom what it is really about, if not beating around the bush trying to say ' Save electricity, Save electricity !'. To make matters worse, the returning traffic was even more horrible. All this on the first day. Blah ! I guess the only bright spot ultimately was during the weekend, when i decided to join CAT classes. No no, going to classes aint my idea of fun. The teacher is hot. Most people would join up just to attend her classes. Anyways, back to the more sombre topics.

I have already got a project allotted to me. here's the catch: Only i was allotted a project. Perhaps i nodded my head a lil bit too much when the project coordinator was speaking. And along with it, a three week deadline. At the end of which i have to give a seminar. The last time i heard, people were still undergoing orientation midway september last time in all ps stations. To top it, i have to share a PC for 2-3 weeks. I get to use it for half the time. Which means half the time i am not in front of the pc. Thats like depriving a crocodile of its teeth for half the day.
And so i stay in that damned place, all day. At the current rate, at the end of this sem, ill have spent more time in the office than i have totally spent in the institute building over the past 3 years. I get so bored, so zombie-ish, that i begin to see strange patterns in things that are usually not glanced upon. For eg, who in the world would give a rats ass for a book titled : 'beeeeeeeep' (censored due to excessive risk of falling inadvertently into the wrong hands) ? well, i had to study it and absorb all i could from it.
All that of course, was before i had found out about this glorious scheme that BEST ( the bus service in Mumbai ) had started a few months ago. Buy a 20 Rs ticket, and u can travel in any bus in any direction for any time for the entire day. So i dont have to wait for my single once-a-decade frequency bus, but can jump buses every two stops, and gleefully reach home. For the first time in ...err .. wait a minute .. its not years, not months, heavens, its been just a day ! Goddamnit , whatever! for the first time in the day, i felt free. Free to get into whatever bus i like, choose the empty bus going someplace iv never heard of, over the overly crowded bus i would usually get into, and all that without taking out the wallet and handing over to the conductor anything. In fact, i quite enjoyed the power of the one, that enabled me to flash it like a VIP flashing his Identity and enter into any bus of my choice. Dang, i sound like one of those employees who have to resort to such things to give them happiness.

Therefore, i have already begun counting my remaining days in the ps station. Thats my best bet at maintaining my sanity. I just want it to end. Fast. And then i can go back to my sleeping-gaming-nowork ritual in campus.
Now i truly understand Dilbert. Iv got to read it again. ciao ( or whatever it is zombies use to sign off) !

IHDNAG AMTAHAM ?

There is a pattern observable in the recent news broadcasts. Perhaps it is a temporary fad. Or perhaps it is basically a radical new methodology. Something very opposite of what Indians are proud to have given to the world. It began, in a major way, with the Gujjar agitation. Then came to the fore the Darjeeling case. And now, the Jammu one. All these headlines have two things in common . One, they resort to insane violence to draw attention to themselves and Two, the demands have been somewhat addressed by the govts.

Is this truly the way a civilised nation works ? It is understandable , that courts and politicians are not really trustworthy, just postponing the tough work of pacifying people from all spheres. However, when was violence ever a cogent argument ? To add to this ludicrous fad, the govts are heeding to their demands. First the Gujjars got what they wanted through extensive unjustified protests. Drawing inspiration from them, the relatively quieter agitation of the gorkhas in darjeeling area have greatly intensified the agitation hoping to achieve the same. The recent Jammu agitation over the Amarnath shrine land allotment got its demands met after a state wide violent agitation. In fact, the opposition to the revoking of the deal has started violent protests in the area. Since when was violence such a profitable path ? Have we forgotten that we are , even today, proud, through the numerous history texts to have intrduced the concept of a peaceful struggle ? This retrograde to the animal-like kingdom, where might rules the roost, is certainly disconcerting.
this, i guess, if not anything else, shows elections are round the corner.

abridged to naught

Yet another day in the series of mind-numbing ennui has passed, and with it, any hope of galvanizing my flagging fortunes with the blog with a post worthy of not being tossed into the garbage. In a desperate attempt to maintain a roseate outlook, however, i will hope tomorrow shall be a day of vicissitudes and i shall rise like a phoenix only to prolly discover that i am allergic to the ashes iv risen from.
seriously , i shud chuck this lame pretense of optimism.

The road to el dorado

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful and mysterious place. It was filled with wonders never seen or heard of before. Strange yet very hospitable people inhabited this land. Tales of its vast riches spread far and wide, twists and contortions in the stories portraying this land as the el dorado.
All was not well in this land, however. Just beneath the surface you could see insane rituals and practices rule the day. Then came the british. And began the process of murdering and modernization.
In the glorious struggle for freedom from this tyranny, many lives were lost. But we emerged victorious. So emerged a new age India, one that was free from the shackles of the past, one that would look forward and emerge as one of the foremost nations in the world, one that would regain its lost and plundered glory, one that would be the epitome of prosperity and happiness.

Keep dreaming.
Maharashtra state finance and planning minister Mr. Jayant Patil has come up with yet another ingenious idea. He wants to bring in another quota system in jobs. Only this time, the quota stands at a stagerring 80 % . 80 % quota for the locals in all industries across maharashtra. Can you believe these ludicrous schemes, the extent to which these numbskulls will go to increase their chances of staying in power ? Having stayed in mumbai all my life, i am definitely one of the so called beneficiaries of this junk of a rule. That, however, hardly makes it any rosier. Now that maharashtra has come up with such a quota, how long will it be , till other states that are to go to polls follow suit ? The most irritating part is that due to coalition politics, the central government, that boasts of stalwarts of the indian economic revolution like chidambaram, the PM himself, etc remain dumb to these insane ideas that their allies dream up, no doubt helped by the string of defeats that the Ruling party has sufered in various state polls over the past year. Blinded by this lust for power, the long term goals lay forgotten.
Perhaps India is the only country in the world where people fight, struggle and even kill to be branded under-developed or under-privileged A lot has been said and debated on reservations. While the time for abolishment of reservations is no where near in the foreseeable future, having 80% quota defies human logic from any angle.
Few things get me as worked up as reservations. It is steps like this that make me completely disillusioned with the future of this country, or lack thereof.
The british were better, one would be inclined to think.

The garden in the pig

There is a certain chill in the air. Almost mocking the intense indian summer, a slight shiver runs through the body at the peak of the afternoon time. I remember, about the same time, 5 years ago, when i was on a trip from trichy to chennai, a similar chill, one that cannot be banished by sweaters and wollen clothes and jackets and the like, made its presence felt like never before. That was one of the longest journeys of my life.
Of course, my time has gone. I am inured to the chill. A hardened soul, if i may say that.
At least, thats what i thought, until today afternoon. Thats when i found out, through some rumour doing the rounds, and then verified via the omnicient internet, that the 10th std CBSE board results are gonna be announced tomorow. Quite a shock, seeing as it wasnt expected until the 29th of may. No, i havent retrograded n all, its my sis who's given those boards. For some really unknown reason, this apparently hardened soul is starting to feel the jitters. It is reminded of that fateful journey, from trichy to chennai. Maybe those first jitters have made a comeback.

It was ominous from the begining. The results were to be announced at 5 pm. I boarded the train at a time such that i would be at chennai, and hence have the internet at my disposal, a full 2 hrs before the results were to be announced. However much i try not to be a fatalist, the quirks of fate were enough to convince me that everything was beyond anything i could do. The train, much to my dismay, and to the delight of the millions of butterflies flitting about in my stomach, was 3 hrs late. Bloody three hours ! That poor little 15 year old kid, having to undergo all that trauma ! I boarded the train, trying not to think. However, just as it happens when you are desperately trying not to do something, fate hands us that very thing in various disguises. In my case, it was nightmares. Only, i wasnt sleeping, and it wasnt night time. Haunted by the much feared number that magically seemed to bind itself to my thoughts like viscid glue, 78%, i spent the journey oblivious to all the comforting that my mum was trying to give me. Afterall, it was my first brush with the board exams. And how was i to know that it would have little or no bearing on anything in the future ? Subsequently of course, the air came gushing back and i heaved a sigh of relief when my atthai ( aunt ) , there to pick us up at the station, beaming, and to the enormous relief of everyone on the train, informed us that i had done quite decently. The coming years would then make me so indifferent to such exams, however, that until today, i had not thought it possible for any such result to take the wind right out of me.
The butterflies have mysteriously reappeared, doing all they can to remind me of that day. Needless to say, my sis is in a much worse condition. She's currently gone for a walk to take her mind of things, but i doubt if its going to succeed. Its after all her first one too, and magnanimous that i am, i have so far refrained from making things any worse for her. ( by of course not reminding her again n again about the impending doom of results ) . I dont think i have the stomach to do it even if i wanted to. For some wierd, unheard of, nonsense reason, im at least half as nervous as her. And i have no idea why. Of course, she's never shown any outstanding promise for expecting anything out of the ordinary from her, but one hopes, again the fatalist tendency creeping in, that when things are out of our control ( and here the optimist takes over ) , the least they can do is take shape for the better.
Well, we'll know for sure by tomorow 5 pm. Till then, ill continue to be a haven for those damned butterflies that are having the time of their life.
ps: dont ask me the results :P

No straw, damnus

I think i have finally got the hang of this world. So i propound a theory which actually fits in with the various ongoing lame attempts that try to explain everything that happens. Well, in order to justify such a claim, i must substantiate it with some solid proof.
Ill begin by predicting the future.
For example, heres tomorrow's news:

1.) Financial calamity may trigger mass panic
2.) X company buys Y company
3.) Idiots kill innocent victims
4.) rich spoilt pop star does something interesting
5.) Politician does something illegal
6.) Research proves that this discovery may affect the way we live
7.) Govt screws up some goal
8.) Someone wont play some sport for some time because of injury

In fact, its the day after tomorrow's news also , and even the day after the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, n so on.

If thats not enough, ill predict some future scientific discoveries, which will be made based on groundbreaking research.
1.) If a black cat crosses ur path in the morning , it may not mean bad luck for the day.
2.) The probability of taking bath twice a day is increased by being shat upon by a flying bird.
3.) Jogging during an earthquake increases the risk of a panic attack.
4.) Cockroaches may rule the earth one day if treated well.
5.) In 50,000 years, there may not be enough straw on earth to feed our cattle.


Nostradamus would have been put to shame.
So now that it is clear that i possess, at the risk of sounding braggy, a phenomenal gift that has eluded scores of geniuses , here goes my propounded theory.
warning : this is not an original one. Many variations of this have been prevalent in the past, lets call it coincidence, a supreme piece of good fortune for some madmen, who have the good fortune of concurring with me

We are all pawns in a game. An alien kid has got this universe ball that he can control. All the tiny random events that occur are us. He can, however, assume control of anyone of us, and direct them to follow strange commands. As this transmission is in a format as yet undiscovered by us, we think it is our subconcious that decides what we do. Most of it is artificial intelligence, but sometimes , some wierd deviant behaviour is the fault of that stupid kid who cant yet get this game figured out.
Once he does figure out however, he'll know what a waste of alien money and time it is, and he'll flush it down the toilet. Welcome, big bang/crunch.

This certainly does explain my sudden yet inexplicable enlightenment. After all, we are all AI. All that was needed was by some quirk of fate a change in my wiring to make me receptive to the transmission mechanism, which of course was performed unwittingly by that stupid alien kid.

So what exactly is my point here ?

why, nothing of course.

ta;fapfhak;fnaipghak;

we all have invariably done it sometime. Irritating to some, natural to others. But all have their own style.
I first noticed it when i was as usual starin at that giant time-killing application, DC++, trying to type some answer for the king of all timepasses - trivia, when i just realised that my typin was a lil too slow for gettin any benefit out of the otherwise us3less bit of information that i had stored in my head for some god-knows-what reason. This of course , was followed by a series of apparently random letters spewed into one bigass word that nobody in this wide world gave a damn about, not even myself, and everyone just went about their business of doin whatever it is that people do. o[agjaeo[gjaeo[
they have all kinds of personality tests today. Some utterly randomly bullshit questions that u would like nothing more than to shove it up the question-setters ass , try to give you an over all picture of what you actually are, based on a few questions that will gauge you better than all the years of experience of you have having put up with yourself.
I say this is a better way to assess whatever it is that personality tests aim to assess. Everyone DO seem to have their own style, innit ?
moreover, they have the added advantage of being a tol for instant topic change, stopping whatever it is that you wanna stop for whatever reason, and begining afresh. Like now.
[aogjaiphgi[aoghip
this is mine . Whats yours ?

Wakation

One of my previous posts durin the last vacations bore a similar topic. The difference, was a question mark at the end.
This post is dedicated to my newfound joy of waking up early in the morning ( ! ).
Well, the final serious (?) comprees are done with, dreaded CDCs over, a PS2 to look forward to,
things do seem to be lookin up, dont they ?
Well, no actually. Theres also this thing that iv met some fello bitsians for prolly the last time in my life. No matter how much complainin we'v done, how grudgingly we'v gone bac to campus after vacations , its still like a void, this realization that a quarter of my batchmates ill hardly meet again.
And then theres this GRE comin this july. God knows wat im gonna do, havnt started properly yet.
enrolled i have for some much needed C++ coaching, Cp1 n 2 were obviously a joke. So this vacation looks just as full to me as any.
hope i do, that my ps station will allow me to take a few days off so i can visit teh campus during waves or zephyr. Just one last time.
But now, is the time for nothingness to fil in all the void. The time for relaxation, for just dreamily watching wafting leaves in the wind from the window, waiting for all the awesome food to be digested, n drift off to sleep with no worries about anything, thinking of nothing remotely close to anythin but nothing. At least till my mum comes n tells me to do sumthin useful with my life. Like right now.
anyways, this is a pointless post, almost a re-inaugural of this dead piece of webspace. Ill post soon simply cos iv nothing better to do. till then, adios !

there and back again

okay, this has been getting kinda really bugging. iv been trying to blog for quite
some time now, but im always thwarted by this one-in-a-million amazing net
that we'r gettin here at bits. Dunno if its just my comp, but im unable to sign into my gmail,
unable to open comments in any blog, etc. But here i am at last, someone up there must have had
a hint of pity for me i guess. Or it may be the new firefox i installed.

Yesterday was the farewell party for the 2005 batch.the glorious class of 2009. felt wierd,
to be frank, im almost an engineer. or atleast supposed to be one. But let me not get into THAT
line of thought now. the thing is, college life is over. Half the people will stay on, rest will
disperse throughout the country during the next 6 months.
Its like a roller coaster ride, zig zag, up n down. These 3 years have been both slow n fast,
its been both fun n nonsensical, some unforgettable and some perfectly forgettable experiences.
Its been one huge package of sweet and sour.
the farewell was an experience in itself, suits n sarees everywhere, and everyone on a clicking spree,
finding just about any excuse to take a pic.

which is why its been quite a frustrating day for me today. Primarily because, two of the Cams in which most ofyday's farewell
pics were taken, are currentlly unusable. One lost, and another broken. So u can imagine why i feel
bloody miserable.
Ill stop here, mebbe continue some other time, when something other than sorry ramblings are pouring
out of me mind.

Bombye

This is the final straw. I do not want to go into the details, but this is roughly what happened.

I did not know when i was gettin bac to campus. So i asked here n there now n then, n roughly somehow got the idea that ill reach the campus on 7th morning. Now that idea got so much ingrained into this dumbass head of mine, that i evenyually assumed it to be true. N today, on the 5th of january, when im nicely roaming about the small lanes of lamington road, i get a call from my friend, about the time of departure. N thats when catastrophe struck. Ok, not right then, mebbe a lil later, when i scampered home n timidly told my mum n dad about my revised schedule. lol . So now the final story is that im leaving for the campus a whole day early, n though everything seems to be goin along smoothly at last, which is the reason i wrote this post that was initially planned for later tonite, goin to the campus a whole day early just blind sucks. anyways, i prolly wont be posting from campus cos of the ob net speed, so adios sayonara bye bye au revoir blah.