So long, farewell 2008

Don't you feel a kind of listlessness towards the end of any year ?
I certainly do. As if the world has shut shop and is enjoying the holidays, and meanwhile in India, we work though the services are down. Also, there is a feeling of impatience, that this year should get over soon and bring the new year. Albeit there is no big difference between the 31st and 1st, there is always a hope that the new year will bring more joy, more adventures, and more sanity to life.

The Mumbai attack affected all of us, more so because it brought the reality of what happened in Kashmir all these years right into our living rooms. Such audacious incursions and attacks must be pretty common in that beautiful state, it was just not lucrative news material for our news channels. We certainly did not see live coverages of their plight all these years. But the reality that any interior territory of India can be subjected to such an attack was a shocker. We did have bomb attacks, but they were silent killers. But, this was upfront warfare.
Subsequently, Pakistan army and its associates have been creating war hysteria, to deflect the world's attention from what it really has to do, namely clean up its backyards. Our media will do well in not assisting it in this cunning tactic.
Among the many positive signals arising out of this carnage, one was when the Muslims in Mumbai, refused to give proper burial to the terrorists. It sends a strong message to the local India-born terrorists even more than it does to those involved in this act.

Serious thoughts apart, I have not seen Rab ne Bana di Jodi yet. I am keeping that as my holiday treat. Though the movie features indigestibles, SRK rocks. I feel his success is more due to his genius in making you smile while escaping the real life for those three hours. Like a member of the previous generation said, "I hope he never ages".

I have been reading 2010 space odyssey lately. I had always heard about Arthur Clarke, but I am not much of a science fiction fan. My sci-fis have been limited to Michael Crichton, and Doug Adam's Hitchhikers (Of this Im a big fan). Reading space odyssey makes me feel as if Im actually setting off on a voyage. Interesting stuff.
Last good read was 'Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time' I was always afraid of reading this book. Insecurities maybe. But it is a good book. At no point does it dramatize, belittles or bemoans the kid's state. There is a quiet dignity associated with the kid. A must read I think. As necessary as it is to watch Taare zameen par.
Kalki's Ponniyan Selvan has been lying on my shelf for the past few days. I think it means Ponni's son, and is Ponni a river? Ill know more when I read it. Thats next on my reading list. This was highly recommended to me. I had read Kalki's Parthiban Kanavu (Parthiban's dream), which was beautiful, and which made me realise that our central board education system focuses more on the history of North India. I am told that Kalki's creations are mind blowing in its native language, Tamil. I don't read it fluently, so it is lost to me.

Wish you all merry Christmas and a very happy new year :-)

Khuda Ke Liye

Amazing intelligent movie and very relevant to the current times. Perhaps it is also in context with the kind of witch-hunting that today's generation is being subjected to. Dont miss Naseeruddin Shah's arguments at the end.

This is where you can find it.
http://www.videoduniya.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3347&Itemid=27

Another bus story

Maybe I should rename this blog as Chronicles of my bus journey :-D
Today, a nice old lady was sitting next to me. She asked me about my education and went on to say thats a good thing, one should stand on their feet, and a life partner should be just that - partner in life, we shouldn't depend on him, kaalam maari pochi (days have changed), we should do as well as he does. She said all this with a passion.
These ideas are very common now, but it felt good to hear them from a veteran who has lived and learned.

Whats in a name

I saw Orhan Pamuk's My name is red in the library and wanted to read it. I am curious about his book as I have heard much about him here and there. I admit that the work of Nobel laureates has ever been beyond my understanding.

Dont you think Orhan has a nice sound to it! Few months back I met a sweet Turkish lady with twinkling greyish blue eyes, whose husband's name was Orhan and she pronounced it very musically (OrHAAN). Maybe her affection to him also added to the charm.

A name defines the identity of a person, and so is a very important thing to that person. Names have character too.
And when someone doesnt even take the time to pronounce it right or spell it right, even when they know the person quite well, it is not right. At least I get very annoyed. You are not my friend until you know how I spell my name and how I expect you to pronounce it.

Some people have very beautiful names, many a times influenced by the local culture. For instance, what is Maitri or Maitreyi in other languages is Moitri in Bongland, sanjay is Shonjoy, or Kajal is Kajol.
He he sometimes the local language screws up the name too. Eg. in Tamil (Tamizh), maha is not accepted. So Mahalakshmi is Magalakshmi. This is a Tamilian enough name so it sounds nice. But when Zahera (ZAAhayRaa) changes to Jageera or Jagara, I draw the line :-D

As an aside, I realised that lately I have been giving very corny titles to my posts - Moving Movies, Post Mortem, Castles in the air! and whats in a name :-D Kya karen mamu, bheja chutti pe gayela hai and waise bhi creativity thodi apun k reach k baahar hai :-D

Anyway, another fantasy series I discovered is Septimus Heap by Angie Sage. The first part is called Magyk, and next one lined up is Flyte. It is an interesting read. Good timepass.

Castles in the air

Chennai got to see a spectacular air show on the 22nd of April on the Marina Beach. More details and colourful pictures can be found here and here.
Since we live quite close to the beach, we got to see the Jaguars and SuryaKirans flying above our terrace at close quarters :-D Too late, we decided to go to the beach and see the show. Thats when we realised that a very huge crowd had turned up to watch the air show.
We got to see the Akash Ganga team (paratroopers) landing from a distance. Unfortunately, that was the tail end of the show. We did get to experience the huge crowd. It was a hassle getting back home.
But a memorable show :-) If watching the aircrafts is this thrilling, how would flying them feel like!!

I submitted my thesis last week and have been hibernating since then.
I watched a lot of nice sweet movies like Honeymoon Travels, Just married, Mistress of Spices, Jo jeeta wahi sikander. Pl suggest some more nice sweet movies that I can watch.

Movies are a good escape from the real world. I am very close to abandoning my hazaaron khwahishein :-)

The motorcycle diaries

Watched a good movie called The motorcycle diaries. It is about the Cuban leader Che Guevara.
When he was studying for medicine, he took a break and went around Latin America on a motorcycle with his friend, Alberto Granado. They had lots of fun and adventure in this trip. In a way, this trip influenced him too. This movie is based on a diary he maintained during this trip.
Alberto Granado is still alive.

On watching this movie or The Constant Gardner, I felt that I am very lucky that I dont live in those places. I have every comfort I want yet I crib so much!! :-D Lesson learnt and hope I remember.

I will wake up soon.. 5 minutes pl

Hi all :-)
I have been quite lethargic after the marathon sessions and had almost zero interest in almost everything. So much that my colleague says I have transformed into a guest physicist!! Ok well I stopped short of telling him that I have been that for the past 3 years or so. Outcome: I have a deadline for submitting a paper tomorrow and I have not yet started working on it. Im praying for miracles. He he thankfully I still believe in miracles.
I saw this nice movie called Tum Bin. psst psst Priyanshu's eyes were nicer. I generally fall for nice eyes and sweet smiles. Anyway the song of the moment is
Koi fariyaad tere dil mein dabi ho jaise
toone aankhon se koi baat kahi ho jaise

har mulaqaat pe mehsoos yahi hota hai
mujhse kuch teri nazar pooch rahi ho jaise

raah chalte huye ye gumaan hota hai
wo nazar chup ke mujhe dekh rahi ho jaise

Women gossip. Men gossip harder.
And I totally detest men who gossip maliciously (if you get what I mean). Had an encounter of this kind recently with a couple of them and ughh I find it hard to respect them now.

Saturday qualifies as a weekend. Yes thats not the accepted norm for a graduate student. But a weekend for me means the liberty to work as I wish and spend time as I wish. Many a times I have ended up taking a day off on Saturday and working on Sundays. So I really hate it when people assign tasks on weekends. Atleast courtesy demands that they let me know well in advance so that I reschedule my plans.

Indibloggies nominations are up. I was excited to find some blogs there that I track quite sincerely. I ended up adding some more to my stuffiread list too.

A lot of debate goes on about India shining and not shining. Another aspect of this debate is the youth of this country. We have achievers and then we have the roadside eve-teasing romeos cum college students. Arent those the ones who later end up being unemployed! Why cant they learn from their seniors' plights. Its a darned nuisance when they sing and create a ruckus in the buses. Its definitely not cool.

I think Ill work from tomorrow.
Have a good productive week ahead :-)

When the woods rocked

Saarang this year arrived with larger sponsorships and greater noise. I used to look forward to Saarangs earlier but there is only these many Ss one can take.

The only concert I attended was the one by Global Rhythms. It was amazing to see a group of Americans performing Indian raagas. Apparently they spent 3 months learning them. And in the gallery, we had the "youth" - the future of India, booing them. But as soon as they started shakalaka baby, everyone was on their feet. Call it shallowness or call it apathy.
They also played an Italian waltz on the saxophone which sounded very much like Edelweiss in The Sound of Music. I wish they had played more of such compositions as we dont get to hear folk music from elsewhere. For that matter, though Indian folk is used time and again in filmmusic, we seldom recognise it until we are told its folk. GR's show was mainly a tribute to India which fell flat on these young Indians.

Surprisingly, I liked the rock show. This was by Junkyard Groove (loved the guitars) and Merzhin who played celtic rock. Maybe my liking them also had to do with me not being inside the OAT and hence modulated noise levels :-D Anyway got to hear good music for free. :-D

This year I felt that Rehman was the theme of the show. Uff the number of times I heard Chaiyya chaiyya!! And please whats with the long hair and dirty beard?? It looks so yewww and its called fashion!

Every year around this time, we see the hep crowd roaming around the campus. Whats left behind them is a pile of waste on the once-green campus, food stench etc. It takes some time for this ecosystem to recover from the massive attack. Masti is fine but a little responsibility on everyone's side would make it a great fest.

(I discovered yesterday that I lost a year Phoebe style :-D Why god why!! :-D )

This was supposed to be my last Saarang. Hey Im giving my synopsis talks on 6th, 7th and 8th. Wish me luck :-)

Rise of China

There was an editorial in Hindu about the huge number of gold medals in the Chinese contingent. Recently, my friends attended two conferences, in different disciplines. And they were also talking about the swarming of Zangs and Mings in these fields. And many of them had remarkable work to their credit. This is the trend there - the chinese students go abroad study in top-class universities and then they get back to their country and develop the infrastructure in their country. And China offers them very attractive packages also, so that they dont lose out personally either.

Supernova and time travel

(Ok I tried sleeping but I had terrible nightmares yesterday so just a lil scared of hitting the bed :-D So I thought Ill blab a little on my blabspot:-D )

A few days back we had a talk in our department by an astrophysicist on supernova remnants. This was a study of the dust cloud thats left behind by stars who could not stand their own weight and blew up, the explosions are called supernova/e . The SRs have been seen in our own galaxy too and are some 3000 light years away. An interesting question was raised. Since
these stars are some 3000 light years away (meaning the light from them has taken 3000 years to reach us), what is being studied now is in the past (in fact 3000 years back). How does one know what is the current status of those remnants? Seen this way, our future generations 3000 years from now will know what is happening now, not us :-D To this, the speaker had a smooth answer. SRs have been seen in other galaxies too and these are some 10000 light years away. Since, the constitution of those SRs is the same as those in our galaxy, we can compare the time status and predict what will happen to the observations 3000 years later. One advantage of predictive science. BTW pony tails seems to be the latest fad amongst physicists these days. Why would anyone ever want to grow hair at all?!!

Douglas Adams in Hitchhikers guide to galaxy has an interesting take on time travel. Ill copy paste that here

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. ... The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. ... Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

Hitchhikers is a must read :-D
(Pic from wiki)

Vivah

After braving 30 minutes of Omen, we brave souls returned to our rooms and watched Barjatya's Vivaah. This movie was like any other Barjatya movie - diabetically sweet, but it had a good ending - an ending with a message. The story goes like this - Poonam is an orphan, who grew up in her uncle's home. Her aunt doesnt like her as she is beautiful and her own daughter isnt. I personally thought her daughter had more spirit, more lively. Poonam is the shy, eyelashes batting kind of girl, very very docile. Her marriage is arranged with Prem (shahid) and they both fall in love. The day before the wedding, there is a fire in her house and she gets badly burnt. Inspite of this, Prem marries her and takes care of her. This was the good ending. There is a dialogue in the hospital where the doc says that this hospi is used to seeing brides burnt for dowry, this is the first time we see a burnt girl being made a bride.

This movie reminded me of a fire tragedy in Tamil Nadu 2-3 years back. Here the kalyana mandapam (wedding hall) caught fire while the wedding ceremony was going on. I dont remember exactly who else died, but the bride's father and the groom died in it. Bride survived. We were scared for her as belief in bad omens is very prevalent in this country of 1 billion population and god-forbid if the girl has to face any hardships because of this apart from her personal loss.

This movie also reminded me of a very romantic real-life story I heard. This guy and girl were engaged and were waiting for their wedding day. The girl was very beautiful and the first time the guy saw her (himself hidden behind a door), she was playing with her friends. Unfortunately before the wedding, the girl contracted small-pox and she had small marks on her face. Well, everyone incited the guy to break the engagement. (Society never helps make anything but they love breaking up things. So why should anyone care for them at all!! ) Anyway this guy said "If she had got the pox after marriage, then do you think I should leave her!! Its the same case now. " So they married and lived happily ever-after. You can still see the romance alive in their lives. :-D

Ancient mathematics

*
I heard an interesting talk on algorithms in ancient Indian mathematics. I was amazed by the ingenuity of those days' mathematicians. And they never wrote it down in symbols!! Everything was written in Shlokas and verses. For eg. the speaker figured out for us how they expressed the concept of mods (|A-B|) in words (sanskrit) as the difference between A and B the order of A and B being immaterial. The full theorem was in 4 lines **. He spoke of so many famous mathematical theorems which were independently discovered by Indians long before the west did***. And the way they have been derived is incredible. The value of sqrt(2) and pi were known to good accuracy in those days!
And I never thought before how much astrology depends on science especially astronomy. Ok maybe now the astrologers just follow set rules and formulae and calculate planetary positions, but someone has derived all that in the first place, and for that they needed astronomy and all this was worked out!!
Someone**** in the audience said "its said that in India nothing ever dies" So maybe these sciences are worked out the Indian way even now in some place.
A very enlightening talk and well spent 2 hours.

Chennai police have been given flashy white cars NYPD style with sirens lights etc and they were seen parading up and down with loud sirens two days back. Like kids roaming with their new bikes :-D Well the sirens were louder than the ambulance sirens and thats a cause for worry too.
-------------------------------------------- *****
*back again :-D
** This reminded me of my sanskrit learning days. All I remember now is Aham gacchaami. twam gacchati/si. and kukuraha :-D He he see its very important to learn the swear words in every language. Atleast if one does get abused god forbid, one should know wat one has been called :-D
*** Why dont we lay our claim to all that? We Indians are never assertive enough or maybe sometimes we just dont care.
**** Aarghh its so difficult not mentioning names. This audience member always speaks brilliantly and I always look fwd to his insights in discussions. Im more of a listener than a speaker.
***** I love this Bartimeus style of putting thoughts as footnotes :-D

Kitaabon ke aage..

i have never visited a waterfalls yet in my life but I was listening to a travel account of a visit to this one beautiful place. It seems that no one was allowed to venture near the actual falls but a few feet away there was a nook where the water was calmer and where even families were taking a dip.
I was thinking that our situation is similar to this in some way. Around us life rushes on, and we still are students. We havent yet faced the real world, ourselves leading a sheltered life while our contemporaries get jobs, succeed in their fields, and have a life in general.

Well kitaabon ke aage jahan aur bhi hai :-)

I think the real couplet goes as
Sitaaron ke aage jahaan aur bhi hai
Abhi ishq ke imtihaan aur bhi hain

psst psst I saw SRK's interview on NDTV and fell in love with him all over again. :-D
gn

Shani ke chakra

Thats beautiful isnt it! This news item was in Nature this week.

"This September brought a fantastic photo opportunity for Cassini, the spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. Its trajectory brought it into the ringed planet's shadow for about 12 hours, giving it a striking view with the Sun lying directly behind.This September brought a fantastic photo opportunity for Cassini, the spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. Its trajectory brought it into the ringed planet's shadow for about 12 hours, giving it a striking view with the Sun lying directly behind.

With the glare of the Sun blocked, Cassini's cameras could pick up light glinting from particles just 1-10 micrometres across. The effect is similar, says Cassini imaging scientist Joe Burns of Cornell University in New York state, to the way that stray hairs are highlighted when a person is illuminated from behind.With the glare of the Sun blocked, Cassini's cameras could pick up light glinting from particles just 1-10 micrometres across. The effect is similar, says Cassini imaging scientist Joe Burns of Cornell University in New York state, to the way that stray hairs are highlighted when a person is illuminated from behind.

The light show revealed several ringlets that haven't been seen before, the team reported at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting in Pasadena, California, this week. One particularly bright ringlet, they say, may be the remains of a recently shattered moon."

To what use

There was a talk by Medha Patkar in campus today. Serious, disturbing. She got a resounding applause at the end.
Thats the end of it.
Im saying this cos even I plan to build my life first. In whatever way.
And I know everyone around me also had the same thoughts.

History and women

I heard a very good talk today by Urvashi Butalia, a feminist historian. She talked about how history marginalises women's concerns. The talk was not on women in history but history from a woman's perspective. She specifically focussed on the history of partition. She highlighted how women were the principal victims by narrating 3 stories, and yet their (women's) plight does not find mention in the history records. This mainly depends on who writes history right! As its often said, history is written by the victorious. She raised this issue that history is much more than leaders and wars. It is also made by the people living that age. So looking into the lives which lived the trauma of partition would give us a richer history.

I used to feel this when I used to read Glimpses of world history. 200 years of a nation's history are summed up in 4 pages with major events highlighted. They say 'people lived through the worst, barbarous dynasties for over 100 years and then the regime changed'. Thats it. 100 years of hardship summed up in one line! Maybe thats why we have arts and culture so that the future generations have something other than wars, plagues and conspiracies to remember us by. This also gives us hope. We can always say "This too shall pass" ( I forget where I heard this. )

Anyway, it was a very clear, coherent talk. I liked it immensely. I admired her clear thinking. I think thats what separates the experts from the others in every field. The discussion which followed was the icing on the cake. A guy asked her what is feminism for her. She said that its the right to live her life on her own terms, the right to choose whats good for her and since it should apply to everyone, its actually humanism but humanists generally ignore the women :-D

Why me?

Arthur Ashe was a tennis legend who later died of AIDS.
I read this about him on wikipedia :

During his battle with AIDS, from the world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does God have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over -- 50,000,000 children start playing tennis, 5,000,000 learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"

It was only an an 'opeless fancy

I was reading George Orwell's 1984. I found these few lines there

It was only an 'opeless fancy,
It passed like an Ipril dye,
But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred,
They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!

They sye that time 'eals all things,
They sye you can always forget;
But the smiles an' the tears across the years
They twist my 'eartstrings yet!

Moral education needed ?

Now that Im at the crossroads Im in a grave dilemma as to the route I should take. Should I continue in research, take up a job, take up a teaching job or just settle down and watch sitcoms ? Take the easy route or fight my way? I wish I could see my future :-)

Yesterday I attended a placement talk by a company called Education Initiatives Ltd. They do what everyone has been offering as an alternate solution to reservation. They work towards improving primary education, and making learning an easier task with the stress being on understanding rather than cramming. They work with elite schools, rural schools and also the tribal schools. The group has been founded by a bunch of IIT, IIM alumni who have left lucrative jobs to "make a difference". They are doing a great job. Its profit + community service, but being a fledgling company, the incentives they offer is very meagre. Its a nice job and I think it will be more satisfying than teaching in a college to a set of bored students. But then, a person like me with hazaaron khwahishein needs a lot of money. Harsh, selfish but true.
Anyway something happened there. Audience was generally bored. One girl asked them whether they work towards imparting moral education. She said its needed cos its very lacking in todays world. True but I dont know in what context she asked this. Moral education can mean a lot of things starting from not being rude to others to not being immoral (:-P) Well the entire audience laughed at her question (!!??!!)
And after the group finished, before they said thank you, the audience clapped. True this is done when the speech is too long or boring, but would they have clapped like this for some fat-packet-company!! Never.
As we were going out, I overheard a guy saying " I will as well join Tata Chemicals instead of sitting in this s***" (Language!!!)
Yes mister, it makes no sense to join a 10k sal company when you can easily earn 70k pm but please dont call them bad names. Respect them if not for their work then for their courage in taking up a difficult task. They are doing something which you dont want to dirty your hands in. Mind you, these are the same who protested against reservation and said government should improve primary education. When you see all this, dont you think moral education is necessary??

By chance, I heard about two other good samaritan organisations yesterday - Parivartan which helps people fight against corruption and has been started by an ex IITian and SRS which lends loans to rural women and empowers them, started by a NRI settled now in India. Great Job right!!
It requires lots of courage and conviction to leave one's secure niche and jump into troubled waters.
Hats off :-)

( Somehow these days I have been losing my calm pretty often :-| Many many deep breaths required. )

It happens only in India

In the canteen today, while I was eating, I heard a firang talking. Thats pretty usual here as there are so many exchange students around from all over the world. But then I heard things like "butt-her naan has butt-her in it and saambhaar and chhatt-nee are south indian dishes". This made me curious and so i turned around to see the firang who was this well-informed and was making it known to others that he was this well informed. It turned out that the speaker was actually an Indian who was with the firangs and was educating them. Hee hee serving comes naturally to us. Imitation comes naturally to us. Almost every phoren-returned Indian has an accent. I sometimes wonder that maybe if they talked in their language, firangs wouldnt understand them and so they mimic and later find it tough to get out of that habit.
Some of the firang girls who come here adapt to the place. Some of them are very gorgeous and some of them are well just plain pale (or gori as they call it) - mousey eyes, washed out hair and stuff ( he he m just too proud of the way we are ;-) )
We had a batch last semester who were seen everyday in very pretty salwars and paayal and danglers and stuff. And saris too!! They had a collection. I cant wear a sari without help !:-D And cant walk in it without help :-D And these firangis were seen cycling in those saris!! :-D
I guess its mainly the excitement of trying out a new culture. But it also helps them in a way. You see letching at girls is also a part of our culture. I once saw a man riding his bike (he was almost in his 40's.. believe you me thats the dangerous species.. they are the major letchers). This firangi girl was wearing decent sleeveless T-shirt and jeans and was coming from the opposite direction on a cycle. He turned all the way to watch her. Ah I so wished that he crash his bike in a tree but then he must have been very experienced in letching.
V-TV's ghar mein maa behen nahin hai kya ad couldnt have been more perfect!
My friend told me about a girl who was eve-teased in a bus. She retaliated by jumping on his feet with her heeled sandals 3 times before getting down :-D kudos. Imagine the pain the man must have suffered for a week :-D Awesome

psst psst.. I still cant access the blogspot but I can still read comments cos of the mail alerts :-D So dont ditch this site please :-D