And you live it up again ...

After a series of bad news and rusty feelings, I stumbled accross this, once again ...



It is 0420 hrs and a very bad time to do this... but I feeling again rejuvenated to practice on my piano... and, I am going to do that :) ...

it is true... in-humanly gifts like books and music are the real friends ... they always be with you...

a little dispersion

for a long time, I wanted to write something in marathi, the language closest to my heart....

any way, here is what I have tried creating a small space for me... have a look at, iff you know marathi... for non-marathi junta... bye bye for while :)... a beintot!

Hrishida, I miss you

Anand mara nahi.... Anand marte nahi

There are very few people, I have seen in my life, who did know what they are upto. If life is not what you want, but what you can grab, then they were those who gathered the best of it... or were they who made it the best with whatever they could grab?

Hrishikesh Mukharjee, can be just yet another Indian name for most of the film-makers around the world. But, I will always rank him the same as Akira Kurosawa or Satyajit Ray. If tomorrow I could create something good in this field, it will be due to that mute guidance by these people, which constantly taught me novel ways of story telling....

Afterall, Anand mara nahi..... Anand marte nahi....

I will miss you hrishida...

Economy, on Thinking

The best way to look at one's ownself is through his or her eyes... I mean through a third person's mind. That must be the reason, why Indian perspective had many corners to lit my soul up, while in Japan....

I am not a literate of economy; neither have I understood commerce that well. But, being a part of the society with large economical dimensions, I can feel it in me.... quite strongly! Hence, even though not everything that I express here can be stated correct, it certainly reflects my personal understanding of the facts and a deep faith in the future.

India is a developing country according to the books..... but I feel it is more than that.... it is not only a developing but also an evolving country at the same time... why?

USA Economy:

Despite being world's largest economy, I have absolutely no feeling for it. Though I accept, the "survival of the fittest" and the "everything is fair in love and war", as two basic rules of progressive life, I can by no means understand "war" as a means of progress. It is more like hindi filmy heroes... they may not be that great, but all others around them must be sub-nominal in existence. USA economy boomed as an effect of Second World War, which was a mere chance. But, even today US economy is growing on war and suppression principle. US economy is the economy of wars. It will certainly take a while to stagnate this economy, since even today US natural resources are under-used. But, will never be a stable one.

European Economy:

This is the economy of colonial exploitation. Though most of these countries suffered in World War II, they could stand-up again partially because of colonial back-up. Unfortunately, European countries have very limited natural resources.

Eastern Economy:

This is economy of oil. The special importance of oil in world's economy hiked them to a developed economy status, without giving any time to understand the value over price. The day oil wells dry or world finds an alternative for the oil, they will be back to the same state as their blank past.... unfortunately, they couldn't utilize their financial security to reform themselves. May god help them.

Japanese Economy:

I have a deep respect for them. In spite of the fact that there is zero natural resources on this isolated island, it is the second largest economy in the world. It was the need for survival, which drove them to today's prosperous existence. It is mainly the economy of need. Unfortunately, this economy has seen stagnation quite earlier than expected. Resource-less-ness, their isolated self-sufficient culture and perhaps less control over global decision making (as an outcome of world war II Japan was not allowed to maintain any kind of military services).

Indian Economy:

India economy had no constraints like need for existence. Neither had it had colonial back-up. Indeed being a colony itself, it underwent a sudden economical suppression in the pre-war II era. Indian economy was always the economy of tolerance. It surely will take a lot of time to grow up into a developed country, because of the over-population and poverty stresses. But, the growth being steady, it will always give us enough time to understand it... use it and plan it (unfortunately, we still suffer mainly in the implementation part of the plan).

I think there are two factors for a good growth in the economy. A proper understanding and planning of the secondary sector, which mainly includes services, is necessary for the growth. On the other hand, opulent natural resources are needed to add the stability at every stage of the growth. India always had the later.... but now, it is realizing the importance of the former, mainly because of unreliability of the later.

Despite, passing through a very adverse conditions, Indian economy is now growing with the rate of 8% per year, which is remarkable and I feel great proud to be a part of it. May be towards the end of 2020, we will see a completely different India…. A completely different world

Missing link!

Today, when my friend started showing the photos of his visit to the Konark Temple, I couldn't resist my excitment ..... "This temple was the highest in all the temples in Orissa. The main structure always has a DeuL which is generally a very heighted building....only priests can enter.....It was destroyed by british for acquiring the magnetic stone, which had an idol floating in between.....the rays of sun would reflect from the diamond at the center of this idol...that's why the name koN-ark...meaning angle of the sun (ray)...." ... and He continued.....

....."The konark temple symbolically carries the time....since it is the Ratha(chariot) of surya (the sun) with 24 wheels representing months and seven horses..the days"...nothing could have stopped him....but by this time, I started getting a strange feeling....there was something wrong...something terribly wrong....what was it?....recall....harder...something was missing .... somewhere...and hell with my memory...I was unable to recall.


And, then... suddenly....yes! that's the point...one of them must be wrong....the comments are quite contradictory...or I am making mistake......

In last night sky observation from my institute, it was told to me...that the sunday:Ravivaar...Mo(o)nday:somavaar...etc,etc...can't be a mere coincidence...we had 15 days unit from Pandhravada (or Paksh) from Poornima to Amavasya and back...the 7 days a week concept is an adopted one...from the greeks....sounds quite logical.....but when did we adopt it?

Even before the king Ashoka, around when most of these temples were built? Otherwise, why the chariot of sun will have 7 horses?.......and I do remember, a similar mentioning in some of the veda's......which are even older......

Have to research on it.......a link is missing! .....all in all, a good reason to visit Konark Temple....

The eleventh best

Yesterday, while on tea table, a faculty friend of mine described, "what research field meant to him, when he was a Ph.D. student". I wish to share that experience with you all.

During Ph.D. time, most of the student take hardly any time to realise, that what they are doing is not what they deserved to do ...... of course, they deserve more ..... neither they feel any excitement about their work ...... what I am doing is pretty mechanical and hardly any research! ... so they say .... and, believe me (read, the faculty friend) .... it is ture!

But, then after a few years you come of the factory as a researcher, a post doc.. and most of time, the same field becomes your passion ..... your life ..... your ultimate love ...... I love this... I always wanted to do this ..... so you say .... and again believe me ..... it is true..... again!

Nothing great about it ..... same thing happens every-where ...... while in the market, everyone wishes to marry the top 10 females in the world ...... ash, I love her ...... Julia, yessss..... angelina, hummmm .... J Lo, ooops..... sharapova, no words ..... and so on

And again almost always happens, that you get to marry only the 11th best in your life ...... for first six months, you start realising...... this is no good .... I deserved better .... look at that Panse ..... he is really lucky ..... (by the way, the same Panse must be looking forward to Mr. Sane the next door....possible) ..... ohh, mrs. singh....aah, just perfect....

And, just about six months after the marriage, (when you realise, this is the best you can afford) you accept it as your life .... our love increased day by day .... she is the best ..... I always wanted a girl like her ...

.... true or not, but research is just like marriage.... you always fall where you never wanted to be.... but you always end up loving it up .... living it up

The Silly we think ...

Working in the field of high energy physics is now a days has become more like digging for a rash of gold in the dustful of mine. The only difference is that the golden track is a new particle (or a pile up of many basic elements, the decay products) and the mine is the enormous data sampled over ages. And more than anything, what needs your presence is this data mining.

And you have to just clever...not only in picking up the correct...but also in picking up correctly....what one would say....picking up smartly....

the nature does speak to you....but to understand it, you need to have the interpreter.....the detectors ...... and just as good as any other interpreter, detectors have their own personal touch in everything!

in all this, what can save you is called statistics....starting from detector calibration to authentication of your result...everything can be fitted nicely, only if you have good statistics...that is size of the data.....

provided we now understand the nature to a very great extent, the state-of-art research in High energy Physics demands question about particles one can't even think of seeing in his dreams.....what I mean is they are unimaginably tiny .....

So, we go for higher...much higher....no, in fact pretty much higher data size .... and that makes life worse .... you will have to spend more time analysing it ..... and believe it or not...but running your simple code on the whole data may take even months to finish.....

and here, you got to be smarter...much smarter....no, in fact pretty much smarter ..... and that makes life even worse..... you will have to go for clusters with more computers....... computers with many processors.... and processors with more speed .... so what one technically calls .... n nod clusters with multicore processors ...... (And there comes GRID computing, but more on this later)

but hardware always have a limit...the limit of its own physics ..... (does that remind you of Ouroboros : the famous tail eating snake?).... so you got to invoke software possibilities ... that is nothing but your brain .....( it is like biology coming to rescue of the Ouroboros, by taking its life away, before it eats up itself whole) .... so you device smart ways to reduce the data size you wish to tackle with ....

it is called skimming ... that means, collecting only that part of data, meaningful to you ..... when I started adopting this idea.... I thought, it will be great to store only useful events into a separate data file and use this file instead of the whole data for future analysis ..... and now, I am gauging for how silly I think I am .....

isn't it possible to make a data file called index file , which stores indices, mentioning which event amongst the full data is useful and which is not?.... won't it take smaller space and less efforts than storing the same data events again separately? ......

research is nothing about thinking ..... it is all about smart thinking .....

After all successful people don't do different things, they do things differently

Wetting the glass

For a long time she had been alone now.....but his memories always remained with her...within her.... she never had imagined her existence without him..... she never existed without him .... he was always with her, will always be .....

They always used to come here .... every flower in this garden was their friend.... every bird had its song woven for them.... every bench in the corners was a mute witness of the immense love they shared .... the dew drops on the leaves glittered every morning in pride of sharing their great warmth for each other.....

and whenever they came here.... no one could stop them talking to each other, but the time, which always flew the fastest then and only then ..... as if, it was in a hurry to carry this experience to someone more beloved .....

they always had a great many things to share ..... they always had ..... even after 50 years of successful married life ..... their friends envied them... but the more they loved each other ....

It was the respect for each other, which made them love each other and not just the love which should have made them respect each other ..... that was the secret of their ever increasing involvement ... the ever increasing depth of their love .... how could friends ever understand this?

and now... that she was sitting alone on the same bench .... she spread her shaking hand beside her ..... the moist of the dews reminded her of his touch when he was dying ..... the hold of his hand was telling her..... I will be with you ... I will be ... and I am with you!

A salty track of tear rolled down her wrinkled chin .... wetting her glasses ..... and she felt his existence again... again...and again, in the wet glass ...looking straight into her eyes

A smile on her face....was what he always demanded....demanded, to keep him alive .... and she was smiling ....

This snap was taken at the Mt. Tsukuba (Tsukuba-san) excursion!

The language of Love

Man-kind has shown the utmost creativity in being romantic for years. Even though, we feel proud of our art of communication and the techniques we developed for a wider reach, somehow within integrity, every culture has managed to maintain its uniqueness, its identity.

Although there is a unique method of expressing your feelings (the roots of which fall in the various hormones we secrete) the methods vary from person to person and more rigorously culture to culture.

Let's see the various scripts for the most romantic language in the world. (let the reader decide which one of them suits him/her)

Western:

A B C D E F G

....this is probably the best form of written script with the worst form of aesthetics


Chinese:

Gung Shang Chiao/jue cheng bianzih zih/Chih Yu biangong/biankung

....Chinese culture believed that every form or structure is a harmony of five basic elements. Even musical notes are named according to these five elements. A proper balance of these in your music looms into the best form of creation.
These elements are:

Kung (Earth), Shang (metal), chiao (wood), cheng (fire), yu (water)


Bali:
Ding Dong Deng Dung Dang

....appears very close to be a modern style of expressions....a freaky chakra


European:

Doh Re mi fa sol lah ti


........have to accept that europe understood it better than western....that's why the western world knows music by the names mozart, beethoven, satie, schumann, schubert, Liszt and Bach

Indian:

Sa Re/Ri ga ma pa dha ni

.......... considered to be the best form of improvisation and variational music.....a lot of space for creativity....the good part is, it is the only form of formal music existing so far in Indian culture....no distortions happened, like in western (blues, Jazz, Rock...and the latest HipHop)

Usne Kaha Tha - III

I can't afford hating them... I have no time left for it!...was Watanabe-san's last words before he disappeared behind the horizon of the bridge. Nishida stayed frozen at this swift remark of Watanabe and couldn't help staring at the silhouette dissolving gradually in the starry night. "what under the sun has given him such a great strength and enthusiasm at this very age?"....it was inaccessible to Nishida's reach...the bridge appeared as if a line separating the two worlds....the mute empires.....and why should he?...how was this poor guy to know the secrets hidden deep in the fortress?....I can't afford hating them....I have no time left for it.....murmured Nishida, while continuing his way down the bridge. - A scene from Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru". ......(I am damn sure, the movie "Anand" is inspired from the plot of this movie....a worth watching one!)

There are times when you want to be more emotional than logical, more biased than rational. You want to do what your heart says than what your mind forces you. Recently, death of someone, one of the most beloved, reminded me of the above slogan. He was the Watanabe from Ikiru, who always preferred to smile when life always turned away from him. He was the person who taught me, that greatness has nothing to do with money, wealth, success but simplicity. He was the one who taught me to decorate one's life with the tiny moments of pleasure, satisfaction. He never could gather any materialistic asset. Even at his death, his debts were high up than his credits. Even then, he kept smiling at life, inviting every little drop of it...enlightening every soul around him....and....life kept snatching everything from him...his job, his health, his strength and finally his breath...If god exists somewhere, would feel ashamed of myself being an entity aware of it.......

Sitting in my room, alone...I wanted to cry...wanted to fill the space around me with the frustration in me.....and, I couldn't do even that...not even a single drop of tear rolled.....I wanted to speak to someone, but found none....shame on you life.....but, I can't hate you.....everybody always compared myself with him....I am like him...all my habits resemble him....

If that is so....then I can't afford hating them....I have no time left for that!

On Public Demand

This post is dedicated to my lovely friends, who quite willingly pursued me to share my excitement of having a laptop. Thanks for your interest. Now, for the first time I felt the worth of owing it......abe, not the laptop...the friends...you, my dears...

A bad time for a good news

First the good news:

The booth just in front of mine is assigned to a french girl, who is not that bad looking.....humm...she is good looking, to be honest...being a french, I have a fair chance to make friendship with.....I love french language.....particularly, when you know how to say "I love you"....Je t'aime baucoup!

Why is it a bad time:

The same day my boss arrives....and has been assigned a booth beside me ..... more over now both the bosses (Indian and Japanese) being happy with my work, expecting high from me ......will have to look sincere...more than I am!..... and sincerity doesn't allow me to meander around..... "the french fries are no good for health"...a recent survey says, in bold typo!

The ultimate compatibility-I

These are a few real life jokes, shared by one of my friends, who used to stay in Chennai a few years back.

He was very confused to land on this alien wonderland, highly densed with rhythmically moving, though still un-correlated pool of human beings. Thankfully, all the information was available in English. He wondered, how could people here know english better than the native language there. Quite unlike the place from which he had come, where saying even "hi" in a language different from the native one would cause tons of energy loss. The first thing he observed in the alien script only, was a big hoarding of a one liner. But he was wise enough to guess what it was. At that place, what it can be, other than the name of the station, he thought, it must be Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus only.

He was shaken by the tremendous crowd and chaos around. And still they managed to move their one way, He amazed. Scared, he moved towards a taxi, standing in the queue. He was quite nervous to keep notion of anything around. Finally, rising to his senses, he decidedly started talking to the driver, who was apparently a saradarji. Under nervousness, he could ask

He: tamil teri(yu)ma? (do you understand tamil?)

sardarji was frowned. Quite disturbed by his comment....how dare he say so?

Sardarji: (quite angrily) oye.....tamil meri ma...to panjabi tera baap.

Repertoire

Today, finally when I had my laptop up and running well, I realised that my love for it was rather my infatuation. I now owe the latest of all, so to say the state-of-art technology based macintosh decorating my desk in my room, and I feel no better than yesterday, when I was the only person here (may be in this whole country) deprived of a laptop.

And why should I be surprised?...it is just a laptop...and not a piano....sometimes, to recognise your true love you should have a touch of infatuation....and, now I feel bad....my days here are coming to end......I will not be able to touch my love....my piano...for next few months...till when I come again....... will it remember me? my fingers?....or someone else, will make it smooth out all the memories of the moments we were together?

...... time will tell..... only time will tell.....hummm!

You missed it again, Nikhil !

The drums started ruminating. The Shamisen (japanese guitar with three strings) sprinkled its murmur. Soon music had taken over him. He was senseless to the outside world. Foot tapping, he approached the central part near the stage. For the moment, he would have forgotten, that dance was not his cup of tea. Native music has it's own flavor, unmatchable! He thought. After some time, he saw a whole bunch of people around him...dancing their own way.....the stage had transformed into an actor......

A sudden roar of clapping brought him back to his senses....the music had stopped...people were appreciating the musicians....while the crowd resided, a girl approached him ....Hi, the girl ..... this was the first time some girl talked to him in this alien-land ...and, that too a terrifically beautiful girl ...that was the first time for his whole life! She praise his initiatives...his dance....and ...... But, where was he? He wasn't listening to her anymore ..... deep inside his senses, he was storing this very event of a girl approaching him and saying "Hi" ..... he wasn't sure when this moment will end .....and everything will be back to normal !

But, surprisingly it went for a little longer...the girl was from Tokyo University, studying in psychology ....Humm, I love psychology , He ..... she was amazed by the world of physics ...and fortunately, couldn't understand anything from Particle Physics .....humm...even I don't understand it....nothing wrong, the subject is boringly abstract ...again Him ......

They went talking for a while, when he realised, she likes Indians....and Indian food....strange, but honest...he thought .....he had seen people eating Indian food like hell...but never stopped complaining its over-spicy nature! ........

He doesn't know, how far it went...he remember only one last moment...when they waved towards each other....the girl had a heavenly smile on her face....and he turned back chewing his great experience...

And, that moment reminded him of something ..... he turned back...searched diligently....ran a bit here and there...but she was gone!.... They had exchanged their e-mail id's....and he had forgotten to tear off the page in her notebook.....

She had said once....she would be marrying a man, who knows Indian cooking .....hard luck...he had instructed himself......but I will learn, never mind... he had a self-consolation .....

But, now even that possibility was gone...he searched for her again and again...but, she had to return to Tokyo, she had said....and it was useless searching for her......but still he kept looking for her ........mindlessly....senselessly......

Two hours later, he was on his bike.....on his way back home......and he could only say to himself ......"You missed it again, Nikhil !" .....and he smiled

The Guide

I can't tell you, how you feel after a longtime problem, for which you spent more than a week, gets solved in a few minutes, comprising of a few adjustments in the code (what is called a logical error, opposed to a compilation error, for which your compiler does a good job). We had a problem.....the distribution was not looking the same what it should look like...the theoretical prediction was appearing inaccessible........we presented this problem in the biweekly meeting....got lot of tips and toes....faced lots of fanatic criticisms......there is something wrong ....was the expert comment.

Yah....we know that but why?.....nobody could answer...they were as clueless as we were.....

And, today finally we decided to sit together...for the first time and discuss....I talked about theory...he talked about practice....and as it goes.....practicality won over theory....I could guess my mistake......just had to add a single line in my code.....we call it a Lorentz Transformation or a boost.....and the world changed ......a boosted frame of reference looked so different for the first time ...... the graph was in front of us...... supporting theoretical expectations ......

This is why you need a guide...and not a supervisor ...... and luckily wherever I went...be it a short term project...a deputation .... my doctoral studies at my institute .... or my collaboration experiment..... I always got a great supervisor ...no, a great guide.... and a true friend

The picture was taken by my supervisor here, just after I showed him the latest results...we both were very happy....and in my case, it was a little extra......from that moment onward, I am hovering over the song Boyfriend by Ayuse Kozue...rolling on ...and on

The sacred Bell - I

This concept was floating over my mind for a long time, but didn't materialise into a blog lately. Recently, I completed reading the book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, where for the first time, I was introduced to the richness of the famous painting The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci. And it revoked my inspiration to put my good-old thoughts into words.

Sometime back, at my institute, there was held a series of lectures on "Biophysics" by a visiting faculty from a centre dedicated to biological studies Dr. Kalyan Banarjee. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend much of it. Though, I remember of one particular day, when the lecturer wanted us to be furious about the fact, that most of the biological processes follow a Gaussian distribution! The lecture ended with a question "why?", both on the back-board and my mind.

Being an experimentalist, I had a similar experience in physics, which shattered me the most. Physics and Bio differ in only one (and I suppose the most important) principle. Biology, unlike physics can not be made objective. The sacred law of natural adaptation or survival of the fittest draws a thick line between these two subjects. Still most of the systems there share the same mathematical nature! why?

Here, you deserve having a fair deal and I must pause for a while. Let all your random thoughts wave around to dig this seemingly ubiquitous relation between these totally uncorrelated systems. Who knows some better interpretation might evolve, if I don't bias your thoughts with my logic.

....to be continued

The Hidden world

Today, that incidence gave him a major kick back. Now, that he could experience how a father, whose own child had torn him out of his life, for the reason "you keep poking your nose in every minute thing unnecessarily and keep disturbing us a lot!", would feel, he was speechless.

He wasn't this way all the time. He remembered his school days, when even saying "hi" to someone would cost hundreds of rupees. And, he was the happiest person in the world. A world within myself. And, then things changed....he thought he was improving....developing himself...Touching the other corners of the beauty.....crossing the boundaries he had set long ago ......for so many years, he was in a self-imposed asylum...a golden cage..... he could bear only a few but very finely chosen circle of friends around him....perhaps, he was happy....he did very few things, but when he did, did them with total association.....then he felt it a part of himself........

and then he opened the doors to the outside world........he would grab all that he missed for this long ........and he felt to be complete.......felt to be big.....and then he started living in this vulgar imagination of his own...a new one, rather.....same delusion of being a social animal....a human being....but, he didn't change in the positive way...when a social animal...nothing remains yours'....it is social...it is common....and you got to keep distances!

Now, he wishes he could go back to the same state again....had enough fun...had enough friends....had enough hallucinations....had enough of outer world....

his father always taught the only difference between a man and a beast.......if you are a human, you got to learn from your mistakes.....never overlook them.....they are your teachers and you should respect them.....love them......and he was not to forget it......he would learn a new lesson from this incidence.......have a few friends, but good friends...true friends.....have a little world...but a world for him....a world true to him...because he was true to them

if this very feeling of pushing oneself into reclusion from the unknown world around him could hurt him this much, then what about that father, whose own son did it!

he was never do it to his beloved...and won't let anyone do it to him....for that if he had to stay alone all his life, he will!

A song which is running in his mind all the time from that incidence,

sub kuchh sikha humne na sikhi hoshiyaari
such hain duniya walon ke hum hain anari - Anari


An inspired love story (with life) from the japanese movie HIdadayo no harashi

Matches are made in Heaven

Note: Though, the story and the characters are real, they do not belong to each other. So, apart from the plot nothing should be taken seriously.

It dates back to my college days. Not too many days had passed, when we were made to form a row in front of our seniors. We were asked to introduce ourselves while repeating all that previously have been said by all the mates before you...Sequentially. Failing this would have led one to a severe punishment, what they called a second degree ragging. Ragging was banned on campus, but a voice made in that direction should have cost a third degree ragging, the details of which were yet unknown...since nobody before us dared undergo it....showed the seriousness of the matter!

Luckily, I was just the third person in the queue to introduce and had to remember only the first two members in the row, one of which was my school mate.....though my nerves kept me losing control, I passed the test to the forth person, next to me in the queue....the forth, then tossed it to fifth...and so on.....I could have realised by that time, what kind of competition I was going to have in the academics....I was just the third lowest in smartness according to this data.....the seventh spoke his part...eighth one had a small slip of tongue, but he couldn't save ninth one.....with every repetition, I was uttering the names, schools, colleges, grade percentages...just to fill in my lost confidence...and then suddenly that happened....

He was the tenth in line to reach only till the fifth....he couldn't remember the grade score of the sixth person...while saving himself with a raw guess, he couldn't help, since the sixth one was our Harishchandra, the Jr. ....A punishment was impending .... for both ......for him, the tenth particle from our seniors and for the sixth entity from him. the tenth avatar...later, of course!

Seniors probably had something in mind from the beginning....or the poor Bihari guy, to undergo the second degree treatment....how could he know the meaning of what he was about to do?

The next day, he was asked to approach a girl from the same batch, but different class and to spill out "Naan Unnai Kadhalikkiren" holding her hand.....
Abhinav (a.k.a. navada) moving towards Janakee, who was residing away with her back towards us, jumped in front of her and held her hand....we could feel how nervous he was initially!
Navada: Naan Unnai Kadhalikkiren ....(this time his memory didn't create any hustle)

Janakee: (who was passing through a cycle of phases... scared... frawned.... nervous... upset, one after other, gathered her breath at last) do you know what it means?

Navada shook his head, with a deep innocence flushing out.

Janakee: In Tamil it means, I love you.

We all, including Navada must had a faint idea...was easy to guess, if it is a ragging practice...but Janakee had a lot more to surprise us (by the way, she was unaware of what had happened in the boys hostel) .........even now, it is tough to reason out this strange behavior of a tamil girl, from a orthodox, conservative tamil family. Janakee: (...continued with raising her voice a bit stronger) do you still want to say the same again?

Navada: (............pause.....2 sec., 3....4...and then a smile) yes.....

what was that poor girl to say after this? ..... surely, she had not guessed this......only thing she could do, after realising the presence of audience, (much more than she expected in such a busy college hour) was to turn back and leave the place.....leaving us in a long silence......

but it made Navada quite famous...even our seniors couldn't stop appreciating his courage.....he was our hero...and in those days our idol.....as a result of this within just two weeks later, almost every girl from the college became Navada's friend.....and, that forced every other boy keep waving hi's to Navada, our future prospective facilitator!.....and perhaps this was the time, I started taking my tamil seriously.


Three days back, I received a mail from Navada, who is now at a very good university abroad. He is getting married.....and can you guess, who the bride is? .....yes, she is Janakee....

The matches are made in heaven!

Time to be ....

Sometime back, when I wrote a blog on death of a scientist, it was meant rather a conceptual disease spreading my country. If you are dead in concept you are not a living organism, still it takes time to realise your non-existence physically. I think now, the time has come to realise you are dead.....even physically.....and if whatever bible said is true, then it is the time of your resurrection!

My country is a developing one. Though it is not the best place in the world, I have immense love for it, for it is my own country. And I feel proud, that despite many problems due to cultural and natural diversity, it is progressing ahead. And, because of it has no "set patterns of thinking" like the one where I am right now, it is tough to guess where it will lead.... it is really a transition time..... a blind transition, though.....and it is your job to fix your place in this sandstorm....no one will care for you....no one will have time to care for you......

Two days back, I read this news on rediff. Recently, there has been a few tries to make amendments in the education system here. We being world's democratic country, have the richest political system and everything is settled through (for) politics. And a good politician needs power(s)...either a financial power or man power......So, in short education ministry here is dictated by either the corporate world or by religion (I consider communalism a part of religious feelings, as it is ported these days). And believe me, if you didn't born at the right place (this time no constraint on time), you will have a very tough time, however talented you are.......

Politics rather being a barter system (a give n' take method) it can be taken granted...taking their average educational level into consideration.....chalo thik hain...hota hain, sort of.......but look at my own institute.....it is an institute...a scientific institute...a scientific research institute.......an autonomous scientific research institute...sorry, the premier autonomous scientific research institute in my country....and even after these many medals, it deserved one more......it is a doomed (no typos, OK) institute....

It is true that the quality of research has gone down (I don't know if it was up anytime, but doubtless we are NOT doing our best) and we need a revision of our mentality, perhaps....but, how am I to explain them this simple fact, that Quantity can not substitute the Quality! You seek more and more students at the cost of realisation that the old students are NO good? Then how could you select them at the first place? And with the same selection criteria, how will your new students turn out to be better? And, if there was nothing wrong in the old students, while selecting them, your system for these many years grew them bad? ....or even now they are good, then you are contradicting yourself....

This is really the doomsday conspiracy....even at an autonomous research institute!.....a student in my country is dead......and, I can't blame them....I don't believe in communism, where the same status will be APPOINTED to a tiger and a lamb in the same jungle......left to themselves, tiger has to kill the lamb and lamb has to run to hide.....this is a jungle....and it is upto you, to decide...to decide who you are....a lamb...or a tiger.....

You were a lamb......enough served the tiger....now, it's time for resurrection......time to shape into a tiger......be a man to a man...be a lamb to a lamb...but, remain a tiger to a tiger......

The Seven missing wonders

I was wondering being away from your home what are the things make you nostalgic in the very first appearance of them in your mind. Let me try to list them.

Alfonso Mango April month is ending and I haven't even seen a mango yet....reminds me of my days, when we would visit Konkan and on very first moment of our arrival my grandfather would take me to the maadee (upstairs) where there will be aadi (a method of arranging things of similar shape) of thousands of mangoes "eat, whenever and whatever you feel like" - dadaji.........I have seen people in mumbai buying a dozen of them for hundreds of rupees, with a feel of joy "saste mein mil gayein...ek saath derh dazon le liye!!"

Sarso ka saag aur makai ki roti "hey...you are not panjabi...you are marathi!"...you migh ask....true, I am not punjabi....what the hell with this sarson ka saag... probably, I won't be able to tell properly....abe gadhe but maa to maa hoti hain na.....then what if she makes daal-tandulachi khichadi instead of sarso da saag.........I miss you mom....

The competetitor now, that he is not with me while I am walking on the road, I am sure, if a girls is looking at me, she is looking at me....and he doesn't have to argue that it was him the girl waved or smiled at......yes baba (daddy), I miss you, a realtime friend of mine...... (and tell you the truth, when you are not with me, no girl looks in the same direction :( )

The spices you make my life tasty......interesting.....lively....how can I forget you.....I have long forgotten that going by relation you are my sisters......but have to supersede amma in all respects.....I miss you all......(that doesn't mean now you start meeting me on chat every other day...and bug me.....it was written just for completeness...don't need to take it seriously....now, go and enjoy your holidays)

The Colors if my work is like drawing a picture....I am drawing a black n' white one....because the colors are missing......left them long long way back in my lab......yes idiots...I am talking about you......all the high energetic fadeev-popov ghosts carrying color indices in all the higher order loops of my life......

The Vending Machine insert the coins and get things on demand...is that the motto...is that how you work?...nah...definitely not....how can I forget the quality we keep cripping about....aur fir vending machines jhagadaa bhi to nahi karte....quality kitni hi achchhi kyon na ho?.......I miss you Rajni Aunteee (miss your special tea with extra milk and no tea leaves, to be frank....aur fir woh jalaa hua maggi kahan milega yahan....)


The seventh wonder...last but not the least....woh humse baat bhi nahi karti......yeh bhi koi baat hui.....I mean, koi baat nahi hui... no no, aap sumjhe nahi.....aap se koi baat nahi hui...yeh bhi koi baat hui.....am I answering myself...or is it my answer questioning me?....Uff, I am confused...should stop scribbling....

(by the way, I am missing you too, all my blog-mates...along with all your comments)

Breathing Logic or Logically Breathing?

Logic is something, I always praised in my whole career so far. Most of our research endeavors sums in stitching different ends of the fabric called knowledge with the thread of logic. It will be really debatable issue whether it was mathematics which comes first or logic. Any way, the main point is even if you have a bad memory, you have no clue of general knowledge of the subject and also, when you feel shy using jargons in your talk, but have a good logical reasoning power, you are saved in most of the cases. Logic will save your career! No...the better statement would be Logic will save your life. Don't want to believe me....how about this statement, which was a part of a mail my friend forwarded to me:

"You can't kill yourself holding your breath"

Consider you are trying hard to die holding your own breath. You will die unless something comes to your help...to save you...to save your life.....and what is that?.......of course, breath.......you will need to breath....but you are holding it.....so it can't save you.....is there anything else...to your help?.....ummmmm....ohh yes....it is the Logic.....

You are holding your breath...why? ...to kill yourself.....so to do that, you need to lose control of your body....a dead body doesn't have control on itself!....so, you are not dead until you lose control...and once you lose control.....you can't hold your breath anymore....your lungs will start pumping the necessary food......and you will recover after some time....

so keep logical......and it will take care of your breathing ceremony....

Usne Kaha Tha - 2

The time was approaching him every second by second. He was running fast to hold his breath from missing. He did know, he won't escape...he will have to surrender.....but still something deep inside him was poking him all the time...making him run...fast...faster..and faster....to save himself from the ultimate catch of time....the death!

He was bed-ridden for a long time now. And this was the end of the story...end of his life....he was dying....nothing he wanted...nothing more he expected from his life....why should he?....he was one of the prominent personalities of the nation....more than enough, he had enjoyed the fame....to be special.....to be distinct......he was a successful man...a bright career, wealthy ambiance, healthy life and a lovely family......he was happy...he was satisfied....still the inner sense of his being was pulling him away from the time...the death.....

....he wanted just a few moments more...a little more time...a little time to live up....a little time to say.....to say "sorry" to his wife.....he always hated her for her superiority.....a deep jealousy always kept him reserved....he had plenty of time for her and nothing to say throughout his life...and now, he had plenty of emotions to share and no time...he was dying....

.....and the images around blurred...the breath trapped....black...dark black...deep dark blackness crouched him....the last thing what he could save to this life, was a tear rolling over the chin of his wife....

....a scene inspired by the one presented in part 1 of Usne Kahan Tha......thanks to Majid majidi

Usne Kaha Tha

And finally, the wheels crackled on the muddy road. As the cart departed farther and farther away, catching more and more speed, the melody of the drops bumping on the roof merged into the constant background of the rainy music. Her face blurred into the haze of humidity leaving him standing alone in the street. The moment was gone, which he had failed to hold from happening....A lengthy moment, when only breaths were talking and eyes responding.....words were meaningless and dry, even in this heavy rain......He waited there till the black spot on the waterfront disappeared gradually into nothing....

He had waved his hand towards the piece of her face piercing out from the small outlet of the cloth on the back....his eyes were asking her to come back....come back again...I am waiting for you...ever...forever....and her eyes would flicker....to say she won't.....she won't be coming back....and her face had dimmed into infinity...and he did know, she won't come...she will never come back....never for him.....

He made a move...a deceptive move....he was running...running behind the cart.......his tears melting into the rain around....who cared for them, any way....he ran...fast...faster....and faster......to jump into the nothing left behind her.....

..........the climax scene from the movie baran by Majid majidi, one of my favorite directors.....what I enjoyed in this scene, is the implicit feelings....in the whole scene there was not even a single dialogue.....only expressions....(ok! the rain may be my own imagination, a personal touch)....I like such scenes.....even Satyajit Ray's movies have this flavor.....this is why, language is no bar......worth watching once....(of course, after Children of Heaven)

Knocking the right time

It is always the case, that I am at the wrong place at the right time. Or I just knock at the wrong time, this time the right door. As a total, you are in the research field and with this fate, and you know what you got to pay for it!

It is not even a month, I started working on this problem. The code is just near its optimum look and not even a week passed after the latest presentation in the recent meeting, a similar work appears on the archive database. The first thing your mind does is auditing over the amount of effort you put in this work, the sleepless nights, the gloomy bicycle rides, the constant hide n' seek with your own thoughts and the glorious moments of hitting the idea.... All gone for nothing! And you are back to square one.

It depresses you in first impression...but, I love this scenario....this is why I am here for.....it keeps you alive....it keeps the challenges up!....to be at the right place at right time!....it is research...and every morning must show me a new sun with new air to breath....and a new show to begin.....the show must go on...but not the same, a different flavor...a different mood and a different nikhil, each time!

Better luck next time to me!

The highest paid job

He was reading a crap magazine, 90% material of which was a soup of Japanese Katakanas, Hiraganas and kanjis. As usual, he had nothing but to look through the pseudo-lingual calligraphy to pass his time, till it would be eight in the night when he would start preparing for his dinner. And suddenly he caught a few english lines. The news was really catchy! It was a result of some statistical analysis, based on a 10 hours per day, 6 days a week job pay-scale consideration in Canada. The newsline from the Canadian HRD was Mothers should be paid the highest of all the existing professions......."it should be" he muttered turning to the next page.

The next day of him was eaten up mostly by his coding jobs and improving results for the upcoming talk. Nothing great to happen, any way! The other day, he was implementing some neural network techniques in his code.....

........It is really tough to guess how it works if we accept that there are atleast a thousand million neurons in an average human brain and each active neuron is connected to every other active neuron directly or indirectly (in the sense of whether it is fired or not). In the language of computers, making one neuron active implies making around a million synaptic (electronically) connections and hence doubling all the storage capacity evrytime! Incredible it appears, but simply it works. And simple it appears, but impossibly tough it is to design a real neural network.

So, basically all practical NNs have a finite number of perceptrons (which represent a simple neural node) interwoven in a feed-forward mesh, with a few hidden layers all together....conceptually far far away from the real brain....

And, with a simple circuitry, one expects a very specific job: pattern recognition, or what is called the feature extraction.....No, no...the actual job starts here...educating the network...believe me, it is THE toughest job ever faced by a programmer...and even today (after about 40 years of active research), there is practically no algorithm which can teach with even 90% efficiency.....

......and he started daydreaming: if he could develop such an algo, if he could teach a NN effectively, with all his patience till his NN starts expelling fantastic results.....and suppose he could develop...whom will he approach first....how well should he advertise his success....what will be his pay-scale....will it be 70k? or more?......if he patents this idea.....they will have to pay him whatever he demands...and then he will be the highest paid human on the earth...highest paid....

And then he returned to the ground....should he be paid the highest?.....why not....if there is no one superior to him, he should be....if there is no one....but, is there no one superior to him.....No...that's not true...there is someone superior to him...who has been doing the same job for a long time now....on quite involved systems...teaching/developing brain...a real brain....and not a small meager NN......and unfortunately for no payment at all.......who is it?....

It is his mother......who taught him the most basic things...who taught him the first word he spoke...who taught him the meaning of touch.....meaning of love...meaning of everything...

Yes, Mothers should be paid the highest.....this time he meant it!

For name's sake!

A very recent blog at Samudrikaon how nomenclature is fixed in science, (in particular in physics) provoked me to share this fantastic historical note (put in my own words, of course) at the beginning of a paper, I recently read.

For me the most interesting and thrilling part of a theoretical physicist's career is calculating feynman diagrams.For a mathematician, they are just graphs. connected graphs, disconnected graphs, simple graphs, euler graphs...and that's all....how boring! But, for a physicist they are his life...his bread & butter. And you care for whatever you do, for you truely love your creations. So, for a physicist, there is a ritual set for treating these diagrams. Put down a proper lagrangian, find out interaction terms...check renormalizability...... represent them with feynman rules..... start building diagrams... first order ones,tree level... higher order, loop insertions... and then calculate!

Simple, no? NO! I told you, you care for what you do....so in between you name it! Naming a diagram??.... true.. and hence, there are many interesting names. Tadpole diagram, fish diagram, bubble diagram, sunset diagram. And there is Penguin diagram. Interesting thing is, a tadpole diagram looks like a tadpole, a sunset has a sun setting on the horizon. But why a penguin diagram? believe me, there is no penguin in it. It is just a simple (one of the) loop diagrams.
Puzzled, like me?
Let's start with a story. It starts in a pub in Geneva at a game of dart. Four world renowned physicists, with one of their students were at the game, when one of them shared a joke on a penguin, which bursted into a great laughter for some time. Somehow, this evolved into a resolution, that the loser of the dart game would use the word penguin in his/her next work. And, hence the name penguin for his seminal paper on this loop diagrams in 1977.

Want to know the name of the loser: none other than Prof. john Ellis (the same from Ellis-howking, I suppose). So, aren't physicists interesting/funny personalities?

Summing Over all possible states, for the next year

It is Gudhi Padava, the start of marathi new year. The padava is perhaps an adoption from its original sanskrit form Pra-dur-bhoo, which means harvesting. In that sense, Gudhi Padava means start of a harvesting season...a good start, rather.

If I were at home, I would be with friends to participate in the shobha-yatra, which I can proudly say, originated at my place and now is held almost everywhere in Maharashtra (I heard of same celebrations even in USA, but that is un-confirmed as yet). We will always have some thing crucial to do then. Either with KshitiZ or with Chaturang or with some local arrangements. It is really a great fun being there, with all your friends, all those you know, and of course, those you don't know! ....I must be cursing myself for missing these events, as somebody correctly pointed out...nevertheless, the heart doesn't matter rejoicing, looking at the calendar!


When there is none, there is yourself, making you a bit introvert to ask the question: how was the past year for you? Did it give you anything worth remembering?....and my answer is yes...a big yes!...it gave me a lot many things, which I never had before in life.

This was the year, when I started taking interest in my work, in my lab...in my lab-friends. This year, I had a fight with my guide, which brought us closer...made us friends....

This was the year, when after a short break, I started taking interest in social events at my institute. This probably started with updating my orkut profile, for the first time....thanks to my friend, who gave me the snaps which had me, in some corner...

This was the year when, I met my piano teacher for the first time...learnt my first piano lesson...cleared my first grade exam....recorded my first complete song.....gave my first stage performance.....all for the first time!

This was the year when, I met the god for the first time...I met A R Rahman....I met Manirathnam.....

This was the year when, I listen to the first Yanni composition....Marching Season...and then it went on...and on...and on

This was the year, I had my first ever (and perhaps, the last one) crush.....I spent hours thinking of someone...bugging my ladmates....

This was the year, I started looking at my body a bit seriously...started my exercise routine...visited the navy ground for the first time...touched the recreation center equips....for the first time, I could see no belly protrusion......started wearing clothes different from formals...

This was the year, I did my first trek with KshitiZ after a long time....clicked for a snap for the first time....bought a healthy camera for the first time.....

This was the year, I had a chance to realise my extracurricular skills...developed a concept...wrote a script....became member of a group....shot some scenes....did some analysis...some camera work....all for the first time!

This was the year, I became (in)famous in my institute...had some disputes with my friends...a small fight.....and friendship again...rather a closer one....bad social health is good for personal health sometimes...it gave me a chance to assess myself, my friends...gave me a chance to make new friends....for the first time!

This was the year, when my friend list on orkut touched 100 and scrap number went beyond 200...

This was the year, when we could expand the limits of our small organisation AMA to a big collaboration....the volunteers increased from two (myself and my friend) to twelve...in an institute of 200 students!.....because of them only we could hold a big event...for the first time!

This year gave me more than I could hope of....there were mistakes and failures....but mistakes are to learn and failures are for better hopes of coming year......the last year gave me a reason to wel-come the new year....a reason to live it up to next year....

And, last but not the least, this was the year in which, I wrote my first blog ever! Thanks for reading my blogs and making me a part of your life, through your blogs.....Happy New Year, Friends!

Ghostliest Thanks

The days are gone, when I was a child and life was simpler than ever. I am not talking about a 3-4 year old freak. It is when you start developing interests, for then you understand things in the very primal way of yours own. You have your own world, your own concepts, your own views, however pre-mature they might look to the out-side world. You are reckless, you are free and you enjoy.

For me, as a child the very concept of ghost was as realistic as any other object in the world. (It is the same even today, if god exists evil should or none.) The most enjoyable moments would be, when we would visit our home-town in Konkan. Even today development there is equal to nothing compared to cities like mumbai. Scarcely dense villages, big and spacious houses, huge gardens and farms (called agar in native dialect) on four sides of the house, cracked fences, no street lights....and all this in the middle of a Jungle like territory on a steep of Sahyadri Range. After dinner, we all children would gather around the eldest person in the family (we call him ajoba), who would very happily (and dramatically) share his experiences about ghost and vastupurush. (By the way, Konkan is very famous for such incidences..they claim so!). This meeting would last hardly for an hour or so, but it would make a great impact on you enough to surpass for next many days (sorry nights!).

The toilets there are generally built outside the house. You will have to dig your way through paras (small open space just outside the house....perhaps the world parasakade was adopted from this) in the starry light and believe me, you have really tough time covering even that small distance. (I believe, many of us would prefer controlling the pressure throughout, rather!)

Any way, the days are gone. Now we are grown up and have become dumb to these feelings. This is the price paid for knowledge!! I keep complaining my friends, I again need to enjoy the feeling of fear...fear of night sky...fear of loneliness...fear of every sound cracked around (this one adopted from Mr. Ramu)....and I hardly find anything that daunting...neither movies nor books.......kuchh karo yaar!


Thanks to Kshitiz, for returning me what I was searching for so long. Yesterday, it was around 0230 JST (= 2300 IST) and I was working on my code, while chatting with my sister, when she suddenly BUZZed me, for an exciting mail on this yahoogroup has arrived. Friends there started discussing their experiences on trekking. The main victim was Torna, the first ever won by Maharaja Chatrapati Shivaji. Many of them, went separately...heard of some voices, screams....and hell lot of experiences....and believe me, if they say they experienced, they must have gone through something (need not be exactly what they are thinking)...but my point is, they are not faking!................I was working in my office...all alone....just a small room lit in the whole building...and nothing...and yes! that created its effect....I was frighten...somebody was behind me....ohh, somebody passed from the right...there is someone at the next door....someone singing below the window on the left.......and, I decided to live it up...I decided to go to my room, when I realised, it was storming out-side....no way....I better in the office....all Ramu movies have storms in them!......

It was not before 0500 here, I left my office.......

P.S.: If you wish to read the mails (not for ghost-propaganda...just for information), mail me...or you know, how to scrap!

Generalogy Made Simple

Generally it is found, that we are good at things which we don't do. For example, a physicist is good in biology, a biologist in turn is good at social management, a management student is an expert of logic, a logician has to be good at mathematics, a mathematician finds crypto interesting, a cryptologist is the most suited public domain psychologist, a psychologist is good at music and a musician is well aware of physics of sound. And the circle completes.

Here, I quote what Prof. Sphicas, from CERN had to say in the most beloved conference here: CHEP 06 (excuse me of any speliing mistake)
"For a theorist experiments are very easy, but for an experimentalist they are very tough (...with a round of applaud)"

So what if, Mr. Nikhil is a meager high energy physics experimentalist? He can be good at cooking. Actually, he has every reason to be good at cooking, being an experimentalist:

The most rudimentary procedure of doing an experiment is the so called Blind Analysis. Now, what does it mean? The most simple explanation is, till the final results come, you don't know what and why you are doing!! So how do you go for it? Take a kadhai. Pour some oil, dhaniya, mirch, some salt (what they call: according to taste), some spicy additives like masala. Now, take all the vegetables you could recognize and hence could buy at the departmental stores. First one cut, then two orthogonal cuts and then many irregular slices in the third direction. Throw them in the kadhai. A few minutes later some water, rice/noodle or both and then put the dhakkan on low gas blow. Watch the latest Japanese movie till the kadhai calls you badly.......so the construction part is over...now the experiment begins......taste it a bit....sour face....add salt....less sour face...add mirchi...tolerable...add soya sauce, add tomato sauce, add pasta paste, add garlic paste...seems ok...now try to remember the closest of the tastes you know from the history....hey...it is triple Schezwan Khichadi pasta......eureka, eureka (with clothes, of course)...new invention...new recipe...new Tarla dalal item.........so, this is how our blind analysis was successful (till, next day morning)!

See, Nikhil is good at cooking. Why? I am still feeling OK! reading scraps, writting mails, scribbling blogs.......and....wait a min., please...gotta go urgently!

Churning with Chopsticks - 4

On last friday, I was attending the SVD (Silicon Vertex Detector) meeting, the software community, I am a part of which. The amazing thing is they discussed physics and electronics and softwares. No budget drama, no fights, no allegations and nothing personal. hey, I am not accustomed to such a thing. In terms of my institute standards, it was a rather boring meeting.

First issue: They were worried about the delay in SVD2.5 implementation...and the delay is pretty much unaccountable...a delay of 2 weeks! If it is a 1 month delay, one can understand....if it is 1 year, we can feel proud...if it is the next 5 year plan...surely a matter of treat...we have something to work on for next 5 years!...but a delay of just 2 weeks...no my institute will not be happy with your work...better be advised!

Second Issue: The hardware components are made through industry...quite unlike my place...generally, it is a challenge for the industry R&D to develop what research demands and also, a chance to make advancement in their own technology....a happy symbiosism! So, there was a need this time...tender was floated...one company Taiyo-Kogyo geared up their R&D...beta components were processed...we were happy with the performance...but the company decided not to take up the contract...because they were not happy with the quality themselves.......huh, are they idiots?...in my place, even if you are 51% successful, you project yourself as more than 200% ...what if you are almost 100% upto the mark?

The Third issue is not from the meeting but is the latest hot news here in Japan:
The Skyair flights were banned till further notification by the Japan parliament. The reason is, Skyair flew a flight from Tokyo to Haneda which was struck by lightening while landing previously at Tokyo. After every such event, the company is supposed to make necessary tests and repairs, which company missed.

so what?....what's great in this...in my place this happens almost every other day.....
After the parliament spokesperson, it was the turn of the company chair to speak on the issue. And he said, " We understand our mistake and will take all necessary tests and security checks with this and all the flights in use. We are sorry". Buss?...that's all?....no denial...no cross allegations...no expert reports?...no discussion?...not even cross blaming?...just a sorry?...this is certainly not the way it would happen in my country...

Now, you can see, why Japan is just a developed country (developed: no scope for further development), unlike ours', which is a developing one all the time. Because, we never make mistakes...and don't allow others to commit any! Do we ?

Identity! Identity!!

What do you do to keep your identity, when in a group? Some people have the god gifted originality and they always show up. Let's not talk about them, but the rest.

Now there are two subgroups in this category. They both lack in originality, though one of them manages to device some unique (and hence their original) way to shine up themselves. To give you a feel of what we are upto: Consider you are in a group of 6-7 people chatting on the zulu culture in the southern honolulu. The discussion is on gas, when suddenly one of you, who was silent all along starts making un-humanly voices meaning something like "Eureka, now I know how to quantize the YM gauge theory in conformaly flat SxR(n) space." And he is gone even before we realise his more than zuluish performance. They are never our cup of tea..so let's forget about them, too.

The second subgroup is far more interesting. They lack in originality and still seek importance very badly. Now, if you can't be the longest of the lines, try to make others shorter....not original: Birbal's idea. Or as Mr. Khera says "Great people don't do different things, they do things differently". If one says "this is north", they will point opposite, saying "I don't know if that is true, but for sure this has to be south".

how will you write today's date? The most logical way, devised long back by the british was equivalent of saying it is twentieth day of the third month of the year 2006, 20.03.2006, in short. So a british will write a date according to day/month/year. Later came USA. Though late comer, important. Also, it has a protesting, rebel image in the world history. Now, they can't start with their own original calendar...thik hain...we do things differently.....they write the date according to month/day/year pattern. If not USA, who gives you good status?...right...Canada...ab, hum bhi kuchh kum nahi...a canadian will write the date following year/month/day pattern. Then comes europeans, japanese,...But, they don't understand english....that is their identity!

In all, I think Japanese is the most confused system. There are two streams. One believes in their self-sufficiency. The other takes the history a bit seriously....this stream knows why USA was the winner...and hence trying to copy and adopt to the US culture.....overall result is...they are confused....they don't know english...but enjoy uttering in english.

Here, one observes a co-existence of year/day/month and month/day/year system, with an added adventure of Japanese script, which will never reveal which one is month slot and which one is the day! If you are lucky you will celebrate your birthday twice a year.....alas, no chance for a double valentine's!

No..not you!

I was shocked by this news today morning. It is almost 10 days old news, but being an ardent fan of Yanni, I felt quite surprised not to be aware of it for the whole week.

This is the third news of breakup in line I have heard in last week. It was indeed a bad week. I hope people will become more careful choosing their partners. That was I feel happy not to be successful in this business! I don't have anything to lose, I can't afford what :-)

Holi Japan

You have to be at the right place, right time and I am one of those who always managed the inverse. When reading friends' blogs all over my country, I realized the grievances of missing something essential. It was holi, yesterday.

Some of them, quite jokingly advised me to introduce holi in Japan. Haah! That seems a tougher problem than what my guide can assign me. Everything is so different here. Almost 80% of the junta here, have masks on their face to save the pollen allergy. Colour powder is far unthinkable change! And moreover, holi is not just the game of colours (as basu has correctly mentioned on orkut) but the stomp of the spirits, the enthu within. One friend of mine here, said what a difference, yahan ke kauwwe bhi size mein bade hain (even crows here are bigger (read different) in size). Am I to bore them with the cultural ingredients of this festival? And that too in a language, they hardly care to understand?

However, we managed to get our secretary play holi with us (because, that is the only prey in such cases....dono taraf se latki hui). Our colours were made up of haldi, some neem and something, which I don't know of. That way we really had a herbal holi, a stamp of my own country! After that, we had a nice chat for almost three hours (90% of which was taken over by me, of course). We wished to have a drive nearby, but then it was dew dropping out there and didn't feel like moving out with our new maked-up faces!

And it ended there! Had to go back to the terminal and check if the code has spited the o/p....and usual stuff, you know!

Churning with Chopsticks - 3

The real beauty of Japanese system lies in there speed. Yesterday, I was in the Joyo Bank here for almost one hour. I wanted to open my account there. So, it took time and most of the time, I had nothing to do, but to watch them working.

It is really amazing, the way they work. The very first impression you will get is they value your presence and your time. You will never see them working at a normal (in the sense of the place I am from) speed, if your job is pending with them. Even in the small corridors between lines of tables and printers, they will keep running. Everytime, you go to the counter (or even look at the one working on your request), they will attend you with a little smile and gratitude. Why won't you allow them to take even an hour to complete the job, when you are feeling so homely?

I couldn't resist myself recalling a similar scene at a bank in my own country. At the entrance, you will see a big board with a lengthy quotation from bapuji. It is something like "Our customer is our asset. We are not serving him, but he is giving us a chance to serve blah blah". And it ends there and there only. You are hardly noticed inside. Go to the counter. You will either find an empty chair grappling at you or the clerk yawning at the roof. You have to make yourself feel homely...I mean, just like at your home you do everything yourself, no hesitation.


So far so good. The people here work at very high speed. The only problem is they are not the best in efficiency. And why?....for two reasons....
1. They are not flexible. If there is a way, that is the only way they will understand things. A rule is a rule. It is a very good habit, though more than disciplined you would like them to be practical. And some of the rules here are really impractical!

2. They don't understand your language. If you don't know japanese, you know nothing. They will try to understand you...very diligently...but most of the time they are helpless...due to your limitations on being expressive!

Hence, they are very energetic, hard working...but for you they end up doing nothing! That way I do feel homely....

Happy (, it's) your day!

Why do we celebrate our Independence day? Why celebrate raksha bandhan? why World Blind day?

Well, Independece day is a special day, because it reminds us of the one moment, the one event, sum of all those sacrifices made, for the dream of a fear free democratic nation, for a feeling of individuality. (we should have it!)

Raksha bandhan, is a day in the whole year, when in traditional Indian society, where your sister is married to a person, staying far away that you can't visit her quite often, you have a chance to meet her. (Concept out-dated, but still logical)

World blinds' day, is a day which make you remember that part of the society, which is (being a bit less privileged than you,) struggling hard against its fate to flourish. Though it need not be our duty, it is our morality to accept them as a part of our own system of living. (At least, one day in an year, we should spend some time for this!!).

It will be good if we have some concrete reason for celebrating women's day. I am not a feminist, but do understand their value. You are the one who give us birth, give us shape, give us our identity, our goal in life. It will not be wrong to say, that you are the one who give meaning to our being male. My mother is a woman, my sisters, my mausi, the teachers who made me were all women. You have occupied almost all part of our lives.

True, we have some problems with us. Our ego, our pride, our self-centered nature, our dominance...We made your life traumatic.....true...we are the victims....

So, we either understand it or we don't...if we understand it, we understand it not for just one day, but throughout our life...if we don't we don't!...and then we will suffer...but, not because you told us your importance, your existence...because, one day we won't be able to neglect it, we shall not afford neglecting it......do for it

Celebrating a day, will just show, that you are different...not that you are special! ....but still enjoy your day!...not because the others will be ours(?)

Churning with Chopsticks - 2

Now, that I am getting space from the inevitable administrative business, I can look at things more closely. Almost after a week, I opened up something interesting to read, my only mate, physics. And when physics comes, invites a cup of tea. Here we don't get black tea that easily, but what they call (in their poor english)green tea. I am missing you, Akka!

Unlike India, there is no electricity power problem in Japan(At least, I am not aware of one!). The enormous development due to electronic revolution here has made them more electricity dependent than Indians are. Even after this, one should learn from their disciplined life, how to care for amenities. Most of the places, the equipment control is automatic, as in any other developed country. Whenever, it is not, you will never see tubes lit up or fans flying fullspeed in empty rooms. Apart from speaking a lot (blabberring for me) they have rationing for almost everything. We got to learn a lot from them.

There was a movie Independence Day in english. In one of the scenes there, when Will Smith catches one of the aliens out of his spaceship, the alien is totally helpless and Will keeps kicking him on the way. I had a discussion with my mausi then. As you become technologically strong, your natural strength, both physical and mental decays, it seems. Here I could confirm that. Japan (atleast Tokyo) technologically one of the most advanced place, people here seems to have very week and sensitive health. Once famous for their Samurai tradition, they have become very health-conscious. I think more than any other place in the world. The least exposure to the health injuries has made them immune to almost any foreign body.

They are very polite. No...very very polite....I don't know if it's my personal feelings about them. But they are more than necessarily polite. This can't be natural and I think they are hiding their real feelings, their real turbid feelings. They want to be self-sufficient. This is really great. They are doing well in that sense. But deep somewhere they have grown a glitch of insecurity in their mind, I think.

I am good at assessing one's nature. And I don't need to interact with him/her. I always felt proud of it. This is a good opportunity to re-check. Let's spend some time on them.