nikhil n all

Returning to the myst

2007-03-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

For a longtime now, I have been writting on my marathi blog page. For two reasons: 1. marathi being my language, I enjoy writting there more than anywhere else.... 2. it gives me a homely feeling, where my good friends keep reading and chatting in a space closer to my heart :)

so, then what the hell am I doing here? ..... a nice question!.... alas, if I had a equally better answer for that :( .... the reason is simple.... the devanagari scripting software, I use 'Baraha', I am facing trouble with :(....

soon...very soon... very very soon.... I will return to it :)

And you live it up again ...

2006-09-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

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

2006-09-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-15T02:09:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-08-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

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 ...

2006-07-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

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 !

2006-05-15T06:18:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-04T02:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

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 ....

2006-04-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-04-19T04:37:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-11T02:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-03-31T06:11:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-28T03:02:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-23T20:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-21T18:40:00.000-08:00

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!!

2006-03-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-03-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-14T05:38:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-03-09T04:53:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-07T06:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Churning with Chopsticks - 1

2006-03-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

I came here for doing experiment. But it seems, I will be experimented on every front.

The common technique is to consistently hammer with Japanese hospitality with flexible bends and tonic blabbers, not even one percent of which is understood at the other end. But, then it must be the same with them, correct? I do keep pressing my palms with a bright "Namaskar" and they smile at it!! Poor them!

Today, they must have decided to test my logic: I went to my office. A nice booth is assigned to me with a state-of-the art computing machine and a mess of wires (to be managed by me). What do you do, if there are two computers on the same desk (one as modern as the other out-dated) with only one power-point? (Particularly when the one with an age old look is being connected properly and working at your service, letting the other look at your face blindly!) I divorced the old guy for the new entry. And then, they announced the old machine is any way out dated. you are not supposed to use it : They.

Finally, I got the new machine working for me. I needed an account on it. I asked the administrator
"admin_san, I would like to have an account for the computer with internet access." , Nikhil.

"why don't you send me an e-mail with your name, institute, b-comp account no. and the terminal you want to use", admin uncle, " do you need anything else?"

"Nothing but an account to send you an e-mail", poor nikhil.

"Oh, that I can do only after I receive an e-mail from you, anything else?", uncle again

"Nothing!", (with a smile/laugh) doomed nikhil.

And uncle was gone........

Now, I am supposed to meet him once again, as I still don't have an account for accessing internet.....will see you later!

Maa Tujhe Salam

2006-03-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

Today, I was very lucky to encounter two interesting events.

At my home-place, I was roaming in the market, shopping some goods. I saw a woman with her child held in her arm walking about 5 feet away from me in the same direction. Suddenly, her handkerchief fell on the ground. I being bear handed, thought of helping her lifting it. While I approached her for help, I saw some brisk and strategic movements of her. She took out her foot from her chappal, held the handky in it and bending the foot in knee she uplifted the handky back in her hand. Parallelly, while I moved forward and bent to catch the handkerchief, she was completing her task and putting her foot back in the chappal. As a result, it appeared like I am touching her foot.

Touching her foot....firstly after an embarrassment of a moment or two, I realised the beauty in the whole sequence. There was an epitome of self-sufficiency standing in front of me and my touching her foot was not meaningless, at all.

Back at home in the afternoon,I was watching some programme on Discovery. There is a class of octopi, which is colour blind and good at changing the body colour to the ambiance, upto the limit of its colour blindness. (Unfortunately, I missed the name.) But even after this chamealeonic quality, they don't feel secured. After laying some hundreds of eggs the mother has to guard them from enemies. For this, the mother octopus stays near the eggs completely immobile till the children are not developed fully. As the life in the egg takes shape, the mother grows weaker and weak, for she hasn't eaten anything for that period. And, by the time eggs are fully laid, the mother is dead.................I have never heard of a sacrifice equaling this! Only, a mother can do it!

It was really heart throbbing: too shaking, though simple, experiences in a single day! But then, how can I overlook the person, who has sacrificed every moment of her life for shaping up my life? Who is a teacher, a manager, a counselor, a friend (and also, a Hitler) and more than anything a world within herself, world which is self-sufficient.......

Maa Tujhe Salam!

Because...

2006-02-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

You....It's you, and none in the whole world....., but you...and only you.....

you are my breath, my soul, my life.....you are my energy, my space, my time.....you are special....you are important.....always....

you gave me the glory...the importance....you gave me my value.....my inspiration....you made me famous....you made me.....myself

And now, who will care for you? Who will look at you, with the same affection I used to? Who will wake up in the morning thinking of you? Whose fingers will tremble for just a gentle touch of you? And who will keep you dancing and singing throughout the day? In the lab, in the corridors, on the sea shore, in the canteen at every meal, who will fumble for you?

I will miss you...and I know, so will you....we are made for each other.....perhaps, I never said this to you...but said it all the time for you.....you must have realised through our interactions......

I........I love you.........I love you, my synthesizer!

Because.......

On stage and always, you are important

Fun...Revisited

2006-02-27T02:49:00.000-08:00

What is the recipe for re-celebrating your childhood? I can think of two ways only. One is to hire a time machine and turn the knobs or the other, reunite with the kids around.

I don't know the time machine vendor, if any. But, recently I had a chance to share a few Kodak moments with my nephews (twins of my cousin).

A picture is worth 1000 words. Have a look at
this video. (you might need to update for DivX codecs)

Look, who's thinking

2006-02-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

It is really funny (if it is true, of course), that your aptitude decides your career and hence your background and that in turn sets your attitude. And if it is so, one shouldn't worry at all, since your aptitude is god-given (at least, that is what they say) and so is your attitude (by induction). Whatever it may lead to..... for sure, it does affect your thinking .

When I put forward the proposal, of making a movie on my institute, in front of my friends, some three months back, everybody was happy and full of queries.
What will be the angle?.........the beloved C.A. (Commercial Artist)...........What are we suppose to show? Will it be campus and facilities at your institute? .......she is an architect.......who will bear the expenses? Logistics?? ........he is doing MBA..........Then there was one, most of what she said I couldn't understand.......she is into IT (and hence good at virtual thinking)........when asked the other, what she would like to do in particular, she didn't have a concrete answer for.........she is an M.Sc.-statistics student...........and the one, who had answer to every question (irrespective of its validity)........was me, a researcher

But, this was just the beginning. The real fun came, when we started developing on the script. Mr. CA wanted various corridors in the institute to represent the mental state of our main character, while he is passing through. Miss Architect wanted what is called walkthroughs of the character throughout the building. The main character was an animated mouse taking journey to the institute for lady IT. And, his highness MBA just said one word everytime: good (or) naah.

Finally we came up with a nice script....too nice to be realistic......but, that is what we call advertising.......OR, think of a script which appears closer to reality: our representative wakes up sometime around 1100 hrs and rushes to the canteen to see the closed board. frustrated with it, enters the lab. The first thing he does is telnet blah blah....next comes blogspot....next orkut.....finds a new masala......scraps for sometime.....then, with great satisfaction of being the smartest at the ongoing excitement there, turns to his experiment......a sudden jerk in the stomach comes exactly then: at 1230 hrs........a colonnade refreshment....followed by a departmental seminar, which brings a free cup of tea with some slices of cake......sea shore digressions, cricket ground, badminton court excursions.......dinner table....tv room/regal movies.....rajan canteen colloquiums......hostel gossips....and bed time! And some work meanwhile tondi lavayla. Sounds real...but, is the world out there prepared for this truth? Afterall, one's image is in your thinking...and they think we are doing great!

So, coming back to thinking....we are hopeful...Now, that we have covered most of the interesting sites here, interviewed for most of the characters in the script, visited many labs.....met many new people....perhaps, we will learn how various sub-groups among us, scientists, think differently!

What do you think?

from chepo's mouth

2006-02-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

The recent most happening at the institute, which is also the most talked about event here, is CHEPO 6. The actual name was CHEP 06, a rather boring, typical of conferences. But, thanks to our institute designer for his aesthetic personal touch, making it a lot bubbly.

According to one, from the faculty here, the misnomer chepo , which should correctly be pronounced as cheapo, is the result of mere jealousy. Looking at the extravagant delicious food being served all the time, it may be supported a bit, but I think I enjoy this nomenclature for one thing: we here, are dealing with the most advanced computational possibilities of future - a revolutionary dream, with the bottom line all the time being its spread amongst general people and wider and transparent connectivity. This is possible only if it is a cheap (commercially) product. Hence, the name: che(a)po.

One more reason, why one can call it cheapo, is our cheap management skills. Despite this, if the conference went well, then the credit should go to the diligence of the volunteers and patience of the organizers. We always chose the longest path of success, but ultimately you succeeded. Three cheers to all of you!

I can't resist giving yet another evidence for the name cheapo and that is our (and this corresponds to all of us, not just CHEP) social awareness . India is facing a big electric power production crisis. Except Mumbai, almost everywhere we observe load-shading: 12 hrs/day in rural and 5 1/2 hrs/day in suburban areas. Mumbai being the commercial capital of India, is excluded from this routine. But that has made us carefree. Or why would one put flood lights focusing trees upwards during the dinner on the insti. lawn, just for decoration purpose? (And it is not just one or two, but a whole bunch of them scattered around the institute garden!!) Why will somebody not care for switching the fans and tubes off while leaving his room empty? This is a truly cheap behaviour, I feel.

And, now something which we don't deserve the name for, but the institute administration is imposing on us. The incidence is the visit by our honorable president. True, it is a part of chep 06. But, the institute taking care of the organizations, made us remove all our posters and scientific material from the auditorium premises and transformed the auditorium into a marriage hall! One would not believe me, if I say Rs. 25,000/- were spent just on the flowers! Isn't it a cheap business? We are a scientific research institute. Govt. funds us heavily for doing research. Would president be happy to see all flowers but no scientific material in the atmosphere of a research institute? Will he be happy to see all non-scientific staff, including spouses of the faculty at the cost of no student in the hall? Postdocs and mathematics students didn't even get a mail for passes! Cheap, cheap.....very cheap!

But, otherwise, cheapo 6 was not a cheap business at all! Considering the budgets of all the conferences held here, I heard that this was the most heavily funded one. I don't have any knowledge of the details, but the treatment was royal! The quality of talks, information coverage and scientific efforts involved at the core of the coference was awsome. I am very much hopeful for this conference blossoming into a great success....a milestone in the field of computation......the reason, it was for!......and I think this is the message one should take home! After all Mistakes are the secret of success

Congrats!

The sound of breathing

2006-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

To the One who knows it,

Happy Valentine's Day!

Right? Or left??

2006-02-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

What do you do with a vector? First thing, you add them, vectorially. And then? ....simple! you multiply them.....and then you realise there are actually two ways to do so! One is scalar product, while the other is vector product.

This is the way a typical 12th standard class goes in. I always wondered, why the hell are there two ways? From where did they come from? What was the clue?......Even after a laborious work at length, I couldn't get a clue.

It was only when the introduction to tensor came in my way, I realised that the vector product is indeed not a simple vector. It is dual of some anti..........blah blah!

The actual point I learned was " The direction of the vector, the (vector) product of two vectors, is merely a convention"......consequence of what is called as right handed co-ordinate system.

And we are so used to it.......when you twist the screw in the wall, when you close the running water tap and also when you open your medicine bottle or even when you key your watch! Its all right handed systems.

As far as you are a physicists or an engineer it is just logical. But what if you are a biologists?

Consider, a long flat sheet hold it at one end with your left hand and start twisting with your right hand the most natural way (i.e. clockwise). The thing which you get is a right handed spiral, a model for a right handed DNA in biology. But, have a closer look at it and you will realise, that it is a left handed screw one according to the physiscists' definition.

Amazing realisation! isn't it?

Searching Yaman

2006-01-29T20:02:00.000-08:00

I sometimes get amused with the comments people make. And if it comes from an expert in the field, huh!

Few years back, there was a song by ARR "Telephone maNipole sirripuvun maghazha" meaning the girl laughing in telephone tune. I was very impressed by the stunt in the song. Consider someone good-looking sitting beside you and laughing like "HiHi_HiHi_Hi(1/2)........HiHi_HiHi_Hi(1/2)........." until you quit the phone, ohh! sorry you change the topic. Will you ever think of loving such a girl? (I doubt, if you propose her, the reaction will be HiHi_HiHi_Hi(1/2)........HiHi_HiHi_Hi(1/2).........) But, any ways, when it comes to ARR, you are not supposed to care for the lyrics, unless it is Gulzar or sometimes Vairamutthu.

A couple of weeks back, I was attending a concert of Hindustani classical music. It was an instrumental recital by one of the most famous artists of India. In the interlude of a raga, which is also one of my favorite, the artist claimed "....even we breath in Yaman.....". I was shocked! I have been spending uncountably infinite quantas of Yaman throughout...will have to look at my lavishness!

When, I was back home I shared this with my family. Unfortunately, none of them have any interest in classical music. I made them breath in Yaman, even when my father doing pranayama. Alas, all turned quite unsuccessful. Absolutely no sign of any swara...Yaman is a step ahead. One negative test we could confirm though: One of my relative is a trained classical singer and she doesn't like Yaman at all. I was wise to conclude that she had Asthama.

Any ways, the search of Yaman is still on. Want to try?

Missing a Bit

2006-01-26T19:25:00.000-08:00

It all started with an e-mail, "Would you like to perform on this republic day?" and I replied, " This is a great idea, provided you don't mind screwing up your own performance because of me (which is quite possible!)" and the answer was, "let's try!".........thanks didi, it is so great that people like you exist and I am lucky to know one!

The course was not simple though! everyday, we came with something new! More voices added, then rhythm was added...sometimes chord variation changed...... the other day was the scale change....rhythm removed and tabla added....and when all possibilities were explored.....we fought.....synth was eliminated....and this happened 2 hrs before the programme......This was my punishment....for my over-commitment....they changed the rhythm again to suit non-synth version.......and then came the friend....who sooth out all of us and we had a re-union.....15 min. before the performance!....and now, I was to adjust myself to the changed rhythm (since I was to start with the prelude, fixing the rhythm) .......and then the funny thing......we practiced it outside the main security gate , on the pavement!....it worked ok!.............thanks to my friend.......

Oh, and how can I forget you, who made my resolution come true? quite unknowingly! 7-8 months back when I had my first lesson of piano, I had a resolution: whenever I perform in public for the first time (if at all), I will perform something of ARR, my inspiration, my life! When you came to me, deciding a song was not difficult, if it is me...it will always land on some ARR song, but I wasn't sure of myself....and you geared up my spirit........thanks yaar!

And finally, it's me!...no, no....wrong....it's me on the stage....on the staaaaaaaage! a heavy body made of only nerve cells, full of nervousness.....throughout, I was shivering, trembling like anything.....I was not the best....I was poor....but, I am happy.....I have a way to go better....long long way....but I am on the way, at least.......I missed the bit, but I am missing it a bit now!......ARR, you taught me to keep trying.....and I know, I will be better everytime.....this is my self-commitment......I know, we can make it better! (Request: put your speakers on!)

Death of a Scientist

2006-01-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

"PM A. P. J. Abdul Kalam to attend AoL",
as per the ToI.
"Hema Malini, Atal Bihari Vajpai support Ramdev",
this time The Hindu.

great! If India in shining so brightly there, what am I doing here, at a research institute? Well, Hema, Vajpai are just public figures....no doubt, if they do it! Main et tu, PM? This is not expected from you. Apart from being a public personality, you are (or rather were) a scientist! The thing, I proud to be of, despite being a harmless, useless and pretty ill-paid servant of the nation. I am sorry sir, but I can't respect you for this, if I am to continue with my self-respect. (I don't mind attending such programmes with a open scientific mind. My objection is in the blind faith people are pushing into following your moves sir!)

There is a very thin line between Philosophy(PH) and Spirituality(SP), I believe. The former being a scientific study, based on a few axioms, of evolution of a culture, whereas the later has grown on personal interpretations of the experiences gathered throughout, and claim a global applicability (which has no a-priori reason for). I feel, the difference between the two lies in their being objective versus subjective respectively. Any ways, why mess up it all? Mr. ramdev has already proved his Saiyyam very recently, when a small perturbation stroke his Arkashala.

My institute spends good part of its annual budget on Science popularization programmes. I think what should be nurtured among the masses is not the science itself, but the scientific attitude. Unfortunately, many interesting fields of life such as performing arts, economy and sociology are not looked upon as a scientific subject. Nevertheless, a scientific attitude does exists in their studies. On the other hand, even one's scientific background doesn't seem to develop the scientific attitude, at least in India. Why??

What goes for PH and SP, also goes for astronomy(AN) and astrology(AL). The Saturn which doesn't know by himself which way to go and needs the Sun, the moon, the jupitor and every other celestial object to fix its trajectory, how can govern my lifestyle here on earth? What force? which interaction? The interesting thing is the planet which, according to me, affects our life the most directly, the earth, doesn't have any importance in the horoscope? Isn't it surprising?

Last night sky observation with my institute mates was great experience, until someone from my institute (and for my mishap, a grad. student from a department, for which next whole century is reserved of hopes) started asking questions like what happens if Venus goes into such and such constellation and blah blah.......

It was the death of a scientist! It was death of the science!

15 Park(ed) Avenue

2006-01-20T00:29:00.000-08:00

This should have been the name for the movie. It was moving with such a low pace, practically just like a car parked at the roadside. No doubt, Konkana acted very well. But the movie fails in two senses. Firstly, I think there is a confusion between schizophrenic and mentally retarded patient. I mean, a schizophrenic lives a normal life (suitable to his age), except he has some extra, fictitious characters around and a private world inter-woven therein (this condition is not applicable, if the patient thinks, himself as a person from a very different age group, which was clearly not the case with this movie). Secondly, the director didn't have control over the scenes and may be to give an artistic touch, sacrificed the reliability in them. Many scenes were frivolous and irrelevant. Sometimes, they came abruptly and before you could catch your breath with them, they were gone!

The last scene was not very much clear, even after hours of thinking to me. May be it is my lack of imagination. Though, it triggered a new concept in my mind. Professionally, I am not supposed to reveal my ideas publicly. But, I am anyways, putting them here. Mainly for (again)two reasons. One, I don't have plans and also, credits to get into this field professionally in near future. Second, I might be creating another crap( I am still to test my caliber). Let's see, here it goes!

Konkona is schizophrenic and Shabana is her sister taking care of her. Most of the scenes occur in flash-back during the conversations of shabana with Dhritiman(the doctor), who is helping shabana get Konkona out of her troubles. (This is a three character script, though the others will keep popping at times). Then there is this hunt for 15 park avenue of Konkona. And the story develops........let's come to the final scene. Shabana is taking Konkona to some lane, which Konkona says is park avenue. Dhritiman is following(observing) them in the car. Meanwhile people around start bullying Shabana and Konkona. Shabana calls Dhritiman for help on her mobile. Dhritiman gets out of the car reaches shabana. Meanwhile Konkona disappears. Shabana starts searching for her very violently, from one door to the other. Dhritiman is trying to control her frustration. Finally, gives up and calls his assistants from the car. They all hold Shabana and take her in the car.

Moral: There was no character called Konkona. Shabana is schizophrenic and Konkona is merely a character in her delusion. Dhritman is treating Shabana and all those sessions were the treatment interrogations of Shabana!

Name it or not

2006-01-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

One day uncle, Shakespeare said to me, " What's in the name?", when I reverted, "what else without it?". Believe it or not, but whenever I joined a new group I had a new title.

My parents used to call me Gundya. Perhaps because I was a little fat and resembled a typical gunda. But, notice the ingenuity. Being parents they gave a little homely touch to make it gundya. (Now a days, they have stopped calling me so, which I miss a lot.) My school friends called me Anna. I loved it. In college I was known as iit. I don't know the reason, but I got along with it. In IIT, for non-marathis I was Bhau,whereas marathi ones invented a rather funny name for me, gotya (you know, even our yahoogroup was given the same name). In my institute I am more often known as Chaapu (though there are many others: moron, warrior, yanni). In one SERC school, there was some misbehaviour from some boy and girls couldn't spot it out. Though, they unanimously claimed, that it can't be Nikhil. Bass! Ho gaya. My friends there started calling me khassi. I don't know the exact meaning of it, but surely it is not one which one can carry for long! (Yeh ladkiyan bhi...) And so and so and so....

Name, name and names! Sometime it is just symbolic, sometimes just for fun. For some, it gives you pride, some are just to pull your leg. Sometimes, it is sarcastic whereas the other show a deep affection. Sometimes, it is for your popularity and sometimes it represents your infamy. With one you feel a bit projected away for the other it is more injected into you. A name for each character hidden inside you, a name for each group you know(I doubt, if I am given some more names in various departments or groups here), a name for each new place you meet new people and name for each good friend and from each worthy enemy. Various names, various purposes, various feelings. Name, name and names!

But, I know of one common thread therein.......they all make you nostalgic at the end!

Five Points Something

2006-01-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

Recently (7 hrs. 20 min. ago, to be precise), I completed reading a book Five Point Someone. It was a good experience re-visiting the characters through this book. The book is written in a very simple manner, which I would call the New Age style. All along it maintains a cool mood describing the typical scenes at IIT in a lucid fashion. Especially, the one after the first semester grades are out!

There are 5 main characters here

1. Neha : This is a completely fictitious character, no doubt. I mean, Neha is almost impossibly likely to occur, the way she has been portrayed( even her entry scene!). And moreover, if there is one Neha, then there must be atleast six Hari's in the institute (this number according to the latest statistics may go to 8). But true, remove her and the novel will end up in 10 pages, I suppose. I do feel, to have a novel on IIT life, a character like her was completely exorbitant, since there are many other interesting things one has (or rather bound) to live happily with at IITs.

2. Alok : This one is a possible IITan. He is one of them who are very much depressed from their family background, mess up their grades, their life at IIT and being a novice (just 12th passed adult) end up in a suicide attempt (though very unlikely in their 3rd year). I myself, didn't have a chance to deal with such a case, but being in counseling service I always had encounters with them.

3. Hari : He is, I think, the luckiest person overall, provided he had Neha, if existed on earth. Though I don't understand why he got so lucky? Looks and fatty health, no bar. But he was not a chaapu, either. May be Love is blind!

4. Ryan : This is my favorite. Because, he is just like my friends. I think an average of IITan are like him. Truly IITan.

5. Professors : True, either they are prof. Cherian or they are prof. Veera. The midway personality doesn't exist at IIT.

And, there is Venkat, a nine pointer. Actually, this is a mistake. He should be a Ten pointer, to be very careful about his grades and position. A nine pointer at IIT is just like a five pointer, full of enthu and masti. A nine pointer doesn't differ from an average student by his nature, but just by his talent, whereas a Ten pointer is a ten pointer (which occur rarely, though not very rarely)!

Overall book is OK, but if you know reading marathi, I would refer you to a better book Shala by Milind Bokil.This is a again story of three friends(a mere coincidence) from 9th std. One of them had a crush on a girl from the same class. And the story proceeds....Highly recommended. If you take this seriously and try reading it, do send me your feedbacks!

The Pigeon of all

2006-01-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

These bloody pigeons! I have given up on them. They keep visiting my room early mornings, as if the balcony is made specially for them. I don't mind their intrusion to my room, sitting on the slabs or even on the roof of the cupboard inside my room. I will be at their service to keep the floors of balcony clean, so that they have no trouble shiting there next time. But, when it comes to the irritating sound they make all the time (somebody should tell them, if that is the way to attract the opposite sex, then they have a way to improve upon the production rate further, whatsoever), I loose my senses. I can't bear it anymore and have to rush to the balcony everytime. To my mishap, the rule of natural adaptation, considered to be the most sacred job in evolution, comes at the end. By now, they have adapted to all my moves and won't consider my efforts till the distance between us goes down to a few centimeters. (I don't know why this natural adaptation has not worked for me, or I should have been comfortable with them by now)

Any ways, now I have started pulling curtains all along the windows, since keeping them closed is not a breathy way to live in those asylums.

Today, an interesting thing happened. Despite all my arrangements, one smart pigeon managed to enter my room. And bang there! I started pushing it out, when it couldn't find a place to get out. I think they have a short term memory. It took me almost 2-3 minutes to succeed.

Think of this: In typical hindi movies (or sometimes even hollywood does it), to save oneself from the villain our heroin closes all the entry/exit points and assures that they won't be broken so easily. Now, comes the point. If somehow, villain manages to get an entry, what will our beautiful lady do? There is hardly any chance of her rescue, which she herself has confirmed in defense, sometime ago. So our defense system may become our impasse at times!

Great theme for a movie, isn't it ?

The search

2006-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

What is the specialty of a Hijara/chhakka ? The fact that they are impotent is all accepted. Plus, in most of the communities it is believed that they have a direct touch with their gods. The blessings from them is a word of god. This must be the reason, why at every religious function in India, they are invited whole-heartedly.

So, here is something (or rather someone), who can do nothing but to pray the god for your good-fortune. Recently, I met with a tree which depicts the idea. This is a tree on the Neral station some 100 km from Mumbai CST on the central line towards pune.

C'mone don't hurry to add a comment! The idea is not my original. This piece of ingenuity belongs to my dear friend Mr. Amit Kulasreshtha, though the search is purely mine.

You can have a look at other snaps of the trek here.

The trek

2006-01-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

Saturday, Jan 7, 2006. I woke up at 04:30 in the morning. Not because of my alarm clock, but it was a call from one of my friend asking, if I could go for a trekking with them. At 05:30 we were on the station. We were 7 with 2 girls. (I don't know why but this ratio seems to be a magic number!)

The whole plan was a matter of 5 minutes involving 4 calls altogether and we headed for a one day trek in less than an hour. This is quite opposite to what I generally face in my institute, where even a Sunday dinner takes hours of planning, that too ending in a quarrel(s). But, mine is a different group overall and I love spending time in it.

Any ways, we had a nice one day trek to Peb fort near neral and just beside matheran, the famous hill station nearest to mumbai. It was a wonderful day. Firstly, we didn't know the train timings: had to wait for an hour for the train, which didn't confirm its arrival before I had my third tea. Secondly, the train (or at least the boggy) we embarked in didn't have the route sticker. We had to hold our breath before each station passed. Next came the side: I don't know, why the destination has to be always on the opposite side I go to. Fortunately, the fort is so famous, that even the people from the village at the base don't seem to have any knowledge of its existence. Ultimately, when we started at the base, it was 07:30 and we couldn't confirm anything apart from the apex, which appeared conspicuously far away all the time, till 10:30(circled in the image). We lost our way and had a really tough time managing the rocky climbs, which helped us with fantastic land slides almost all the way. After sacrificing away tones of calories with buckets of perspiration, we reached such a height, that we couldn't hear the farmer at the base, when he asked' "Kuthe chalale, pavhan?"(where are you going?). Any ways, less than half along the way, we spend all of our water. There was just one hope rest of the way, there was a water-tank at the top according to one of our friend, which was soon to be proved a rumor. It was 2:30 when we were just below the top and top was an epitome of barren.

The Peb fort, as almost every other fort in Maharashtra exists in pieces, which one really has to dig hard for. There is nothing on the fort, which can strongly confirm its one time existence. So our effort ended in a big ZERO. Are these forts worth visiting? Big question!! and answer is positively "No" in most of the cases. But, ask this to me or anyone from Kshitiz.

The real fun is not visiting a fort which is untouched, like those many in Jaipur. The non-existence of these forts confirms the thrilling history of maharashtra, full of wars and fights fought against Mughals, Nijams and even British governance. This gives an immense feeling of pride. The other fact not to be overlooked upon is the way they were built. We find it tough to walk through bare hands. Think of the times, when Maratha sardars used to climb it up with their horses and kilos of weight of the swords in the hands. Cool, isn't it?

Getting connected

2006-01-03T00:16:00.000-08:00

The horn cried. The driver in my taxi waved his hand out of the window responding immediately. The car at the back snored to decelerate and aligned itself in the queue. The heavy truck in the side opposite lane passed roaring like a lion. A big nothing happened. Sure? Ask the driver at the rare end of my taxi and he will breath deeply before even thinking about it.

The car at the back was trying hard to overtook our taxi, when a pay-load was passing the other side. The car missed running into an accident just by a few milliseconds. Thanks to the taxi driver.

I don't think this is something great that I observed yesterday. It is a routine story in a car holders' life. Then why am I to waste my time and energy scribbling for nothing? Wait! Give it a shot and you will realize the importance of the signaling system here. I think it is the best example of a communication system which is managed through a crew of completely untrained, unconnected and more or less unknown people everyday quite equipotentially.

No doubt, the road signaling system is important. But the passage of such information from one driver to another within a fraction of second is a milestone. Particularly, when there exists no common livewire connecting far away ends of the thread! Really, an ideal case of Lattice communication to analyze in a management studies classes.

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

One morning one sardarji comes out of his house, leaving for office and jerks suddenly to see a banana ruffle falling in front of the door. "Are yaar, fir se girna padega (Oh no, have to slip once again)", he sighs.

Yesterday, the same thing happened to me. I woke up to feel the cold of the first day of a new year. "Are yaar, fir se??" (Uff, once again?), was my response.

Just kidding....I know this year is going to be full of fun, masti, movies, magic and music, just as great as the last year. I am keen to grab the new stroke of the time, the fresh flesh of the fate every moment, every day, every month, every year. And, I know, it will be similar for you too.

Wish you all, a very Happy New Year.

For a change

2005-12-29T18:38:00.000-08:00

How much does the salt on the dried chin of a kid, who has recently lost his father, cost? one anaa? one paisa? Or even less? But, who is to account for his lost future? his lost of shape of life? or rather the entire life?
India recently lost one of its fathers! (we call it our matru-bhoomi (motherland). But for me, this relation is a bit complicated than it. When it comes to paying-back, one should consider it as one's child, nourishing, nurturing and growing with dignity of whose is one's morality)

And what for? Did it bring out a change? Amir Khan had his reception ceremony as per schedule. I wrote my blog as usual. Mumbai went on daily wages crowding the locals with the same strength. World enjoyed the same sound sleep. Then what for?

Somebody should convey the terrorists, that it is not going to change even a bit for us. We are too busy with creativity to be disturbed by their endeavors. And, the loss....true we lost one. A big loss! But we have uncountably many more and will produce still more. If have courage, go to the front. This will surely shackle us. But, then I doubt their(terrorists') long term existence.

At any cost, It is very easy to fight with a mighty enemy, than the impotent friend-like looking entity sitting next to you in some seminar, or in a bus, or in a mosque.

Fate of 12:30 PM

2005-12-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

In IIT, one of my friend, also my hostel-mate, once put a notice on his door "Do not disturb after 12:30 PM." OK! I won't. But when can I know, it is 12:30 PM?

According to the logic 11:30 PM is followed by 12:00 PM and then comes 12:30 PM. That means 12:30 in the night. Is that all? Certainly not! According to the rules of grammar, or whatever, the tag A.M. indicates time slot from midnight to midday(noon) and P.M. corresponds to that from noon to midnight. That means 12:30 P.M. occurs between noon and midnight. So it must be 12:30 in the afternoon.

And, we (when I told this to my friend, he joined me) ran into a deep confusion followed by a discussion. Any way, what was wrong?

Simple enough for a student of maths, though not trivial for a layman! Have you heard of a time 2430 hrs? I don't remember. This is because 24:00 is identified with 00:00 hrs in 24 hr clock system. Similarly, in 12 hr system 12:00 should be identified with 00:00.....There will never occur a time like 12:30, neither P.M. nor A.M.

After the realization, I was fascinated with the power of ignorance! Even in marathi terms like saade-baaraa appear and most of us don't realize that it is wrong. (One good thing about marathi is 12:45 is denoted as pauN, which is equivalent to 3/4th part of something. Shall I guess superiority of marathis, from this?...Just kidding

Proud to be

2005-12-27T19:51:00.000-08:00

Today early morning, I was passing to the navy ground - Kohli Ground, when I overheard a group of school children. I don't think they were more than 6-7 years old. It is usually nostalgic to come across such a situation. You start recreating your own days of innocence, full of joy and enthusiasm and most importantly, with a deep urge of talking about everything you know (I am referring to the age when you generally avoid talking everything that you don't know). Having no reservation for sharing anything with anyone you call a friend. But, today was different. No No, the day was the same as usual. I am talking about the group. It was truly different.

They were from navy nagar and I think from navy personnels' children. I heard one of them "mere papaki kashmir posting ho gayi hain, woh jaldi hi chale jayenge" (My father got posting at Kashmir, he will leave soon). The other came up, " mere papa bhi 2-3 saal pahile wohi the, bahut thunda hota hain" (Even my father was there 2-3 years back. It is very cold there). What throbbed my heart the most violently was another child adjoining "meri maa kahti hain ke mere papa kashmir main hi the jab mein 2 saal ka tha, unko award bhi mila tha"( my mom says, my father was there when I was 2 years old, he was awarded). And then, the sound had decayed so low, I couldn't hear next.

What was amazing in the whole is the immense pride they showed in their tone. All alike. There was no sign of repent or loss or fear. It is true, that they are too young to know the intensity of the situation, though surely they know what kashmir is. Or they never had talked about it so passionately. But, so what? I think the views they represented were the most natural ones. Since, there emmotions are not enveloped by their experiences and the philosophy of life they are going to develop at a later stage. It is truly an inner sound. Three cheers, to them. They taught a new way to look at the things around. The positive kernel of everything: KarmaNyewadhikaraste ma faleshu kadachan|

truly, something to be proud of.

Celebration continues....

2005-12-27T05:04:00.000-08:00

Today finally, our team got the permission to shoot at the institute.

Our institute holds an open house every year and students from school are called to the institute to visit the labs and see the facets of research work we do here. It was proposed, that we have a short film on Students life at the institute. I have a group, where we from different academic background, have a single dream of film making. We have a commercial artist, one architect, one student of statistics, one from M.B.A. and of course, one researcher. We have little, though working knowledge of camera, scripting, music....

we decided to take up this challenge and we got the permission. Hope to do great.....

Celebrations

2005-12-27T04:31:00.000-08:00

It was a windy afternoon at Dombivli. 26th day of December, 2005. I was sleeping, when it ranged. At home, everyone has his own space of existence, except me...reason: I am a wanderer which appears only on weekends, for them and usually, have to make some arrangement for myself. I was sleeping in the hall on a sofa next to that idiot noisy tring'er. So any ways, it rang and went on ringing for some more time, when I gave up and pulled the receiver. It was a womanly voice saying, "Hi, may I speak to Mr. Nikhil Joshi?"....uff, another freak from those ICICI kind. main to katane ke chakkar mein tha, when she continued," I am from the Academy of Music" and then it went on for a while. I quit the line and went to sleep, which I couldn't continue.

I woke up after a 2-3 minutes of chaos. I tried to recall what she (I couldn't recall her name!) was blabbering all the time. Was it any important? Was it any specific? Was it a news? And, I chuckled with a great power. Almost jumped to the bed on which my parents were resting. It was a celebration.

The call came from The Academy of Music of which I am a student. The lady announced my result of the grade exam for piano I gave of the Trinity College of Music, London. I had cleared the exam. I am from the very few who clear up the exam.

It is only because of my great luck the day, I had the exam. Mr. Allen Hodge, who was the examiner was very kind to me. I almost scrambled the pieces, I was supposed to play. I lost my mind, when I make mistakes in the piece, I was to play from memory. I must have composed a completely new piece that day!(which I can definitely sell, as an inspired composition, any ways in hindi cinema). I was a lot nervous. I remember struggling for the right keys on the piano, many a times. The only good thing was my technical knowledge. I must have scored fully in that. Also, sight reading, which I had absolutely no faith in went fantastic (I don't know how!).....Any way, the result is I am through..Time to celebrate!

I must thank my piano teacher Mr. Nimesh Shah, who showed deep faith in me and at times more sincere than me. Agewise, he is one year junior to me, but when on piano, he is ageless and I am just an embryo. Thanks a lot, Nimesh

Name of the Disease

2005-12-22T22:53:00.000-08:00

Last Friday there was a screening of a documentary made jointly by MIT and Udaipur Health Project, namely "Name of the disease". This documetary was based on a survey made by the above body in the rural areas around Udaipur, gauging the general awareness towards the medical facilities nearby or in the town.

There are mainly three bodies covering the medical needs in these areas. Namely, Bhopas, Bengali Doctors and government centers. Bhopa is an illiterate, generally a guardian of some temple. He falls in the same category as "tantrik", who by using some unreasonable techniques like Jhaadu to beat the patient to remove the bhoot infection, portray their connection with the god. Bengali Doctors are those, who couldn't hold their jobs as compounder(helper to the doctor) in some dispensary, settled here as a doctor. When interviewed such a case, the answer was " pataa nahi, main to 12th pass nahi kar paya, is liye doctor ban gaya"( I don't know all this, I couldn't clear my 12th exam (H.S.C.), so I became a doctor). There are appointments of the regular doctors from the government, with well equipped labs and medical centers, which 5 days a week are closed, for some fishy reason.

90 % of the medical cases are referred to the Bhopas, which people have the most belief in. In case of no cure (and provided the patient survives), in the rest 10% of cases people go to the bengali doctors: for there is no option most of the time. The natives believe in the saline bottles more than any other method and always demand for so (even in the case of simple cold or throat infection), which is not supported many a times at the medical centers. This is another reason for the affection towards the bengali docs.

Moral of the story is quite clear. Literate the people. Remove those Bhopas. Remove those Bengali Doctors. Keep the medical centers open 24x7. Simple......but then the question comes, how? and who? I am a sane researcher, so I am saved. The other is an engineer, safe either. My family doctor is quite busy, out of question!

What is the name of the disease, in which there is a co-existence of a super-saturated density of professionals in the metros and scarcity in the rural areas of India? what is the name of the disease, in which the highly literate gang of India, sits in front of the idiot box early morning to know their daily fate? What is the name of the disease, in which the cream of intelligentsia, the so called researchers, improve their quality with a perl on a ring in their index finger? What is the name of the disease, due to which we have forgotten that we are falling short of our social expectations?

The Bhopas, the Bengali Doctors are all doing their jobs, when are we going to start ours? Only literacy is not the solution. A scientific attitude is needed and that way we all are equally illiterate.

What is the name of this disease?

Meet my friend

2005-12-15T18:35:00.000-08:00

This is other side of it. Same day, same place: Haji Ali. I saw this family enjoying their tour to Haji Ali. As if, the father while introducing his little child to the unfathomable sea of life, says "hey, this one of my oldest friend and I am handing over his friendship to you now".
Haji Ali cosmetically a very bad choice for a hang out. But, this is the good thing about it. It provides the contrast in the background, you are bound to look at nothing but yourself.

Later we had a concert of light music and bhajans by smt. Vaani Jairam at the Homi Bhabha. Truely exciting experience. I don't know, why but she skipped any reference to carnatic music, even "Shankarabaranam" one of my most favorites of her.

Face off with life

2005-12-15T01:15:00.000-08:00

Haah, this was not at all new. Only, that it takes a new form everytime. A couple of days back, I visited Haji Ali for the first time. The place was a complete disappointment. I bet, it looks much better in the landscape view. While, moving towards the entrace, there were quite a many beggars around, typical of a developing country with occupying pious cultural backing like India. What I liked about this lady was the immense optimism about her life (particularly, when this relation has not been successful till late). How can one expect, in such a diverse atmosphere, that someone will wait for her, fumble with his pocket for a penny and float it heartfully?

But, this is life and it is beautiful.

2005-11-29T14:01:00.000-08:00

It's me

I never thought of writting a blog in my life. Firstly, I don't like writting. I think, I have written more in the exams than the total of all other writtings. Secondly, there is hardly anything, I can write with the limited vocabulary I have. But any ways, these days I have enough explored myself on the silly things, which I never have planned in the whole life. So, decided to give it a try. How far this blog goes, (if you believe in, then your) god knows.