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!