9/11 and satyagraha

Much has been said about 9/11. Year after year the world over, this day is mourned. Because 5000 people died. Yes they didnt deserve to die. What happened should never have happened. But then as a consequence, millions elsewhere have died. Well life seems to be much cheaper everywhere else. I mourn 9/11 for the millions dead. In The Hindu, there were some really good articles on this occasion.

9/11: five years later - A reflective article on the pros and cons of 9/11.

The other 9/11 - This one pointed out the other significances of 9/11 - Gandhiji's Satyagraha, Swami Vivekananda's address in Chicago..

Hands off Lebanon - "It has to be realised that wars are not a deterrent to terrorism..."
A good article on the current state of affairs in that country.

No wonder I love The Hindu. :-)

Dont dance so fast

(One of the email fwds I received - a poem written by a teenager suffering from Cancer. Its beautiful na!)

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,"Hi"
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

*****
sighhh I seem to take my life much slower as it is....

psst I thought Ill reduce the frequency of my posts. Will it work! mmm....
By the way this blogspot enters its 3rd year in action this September :-)

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?"

Steve McCurry's gallery

Check out Steve McCurry's gallery for more colourful pics of India.
But I also remember Circuit's dialogue in Munnabhai MBBS where he says to the foreign photographers that " tumhe India mein bhooke nange hi dekhne ko milte hain! Taj ki tasveer nikaalo na!! " Applies to this too :)

I want to see Lage Raho Munnabhai, Ahista Ahista and Jillunu Oru Kaadhal (Tamil), the last one more so cos of ARR's music. It rocks. New york Nagaram (sung by ARR himself), Munbe Va, Kummi Adi are my favourite tracks. Try listening to them :-) I too dont understand most of the words but I love the music :-)

He he Jillunu Oru Kaadhal according to me translates to "One Chilled love" :-D
One girl had translated Poovellaam Un Vaasam as "Flower all your smell" :-D

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!

The first Miss India

Were women in those days more beautiful or is it the magic of a B/W pic that she looks this gorgeous. The story of this beauty queen, Esther Abraham alias Pramila was on rediff today.

Im bowled over.

I say a little prayer for you

I watched My best friend's wedding for the nth time. Julia Roberts rocks, doesnt she!! I have liked every movie of hers that I have seen. I love the character of George in this movie. And I find this song very romantic for the way it was sung for her towards the end of the movie and for this Im ready to watch the whole movie yet another time :-D

The moment I wake up
Before I put on my makeup
I say a little prayer for you
While combing my hair, now,
And wondering what dress to wear, now,
I say a little prayer for you

Forever, forever, you'll stay in my heart
and I will love you
Forever, forever, we never will part
Oh, how I'll love you
Together, together, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only be heartbreak for me.

I run for the bus, dear,
While riding I think of us, dear,
I say a little prayer for you.
At work I just take time
And all through my coffee break-time,
I say a little prayer for you.

Forever, forever, you'll stay in my heart
and I will love you
Forever, forever we never will part
Oh, how I'll love you
Together, together, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only be heartbreak for me.

My darling believe me,
For me there is no one
But you.

On the book front, I read Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes. I was introduced to TH by my pa who used to read a lot in the earlier days. My first book by him was Return of the native. Since then, I have read The mayor of casterbridge, The woodlanders, Far from the madding crowd, and Jude the Obscure. There is always a betrayal in his novels and the story is always set in rural England. But there is a hopeful ending always as much as I remember. In this novel though, the lady with the blue eyes dies leaving behind three men who loved her in their own way and yet couldnt give her happiness.

Saw hazaaron khwahishein aisi

Saw the movie on youtube. Its painful watching movies there especially with the slow downloads. But I persevered. Movie was great. Why does Shiny Ahuja always play the role of a doomed lover! Unfortunately, one movie clip on youtube was defective. This was the portion where Shiny gets stuck in Bihar. One moment Kaykay is shot by the police and in the next scene Shiny is also on the hospital bed with him. The intermediate scenes were missing. This was the main part and I didnt get to see it :-( Chitrangada was gorgeous. Didnt she remind you very strongly of Smita Patil!!

I was engaged in a spat on the blog two days back. Unfortunately. I try not to hurt anyone's sentiments here.

week of hell...........

"ceasefire does not happen overnight.

it's not like you wake up one morning and the birds are singing and the sun is shining and you go to work like nothing ever happened.
.
.
there are cluster bombs everywhere. they dropped cluster bombs on us... there are so many that didn't explode... they are so so dangerous.
.
.
."

On Beirut Update.

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. )

he he

National Geographic

Isn't this beautiful !! I found this on the National Geographic's picture of the day section.
These pics reminded me of an intensely romantic novel called The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller in which the lead guy was a Nat Geo photographer who visits Madison County for a photo shoot. This guy, Richard Kincaid is in his 40s. He by chance meets a lady, Francesca in her 30s. She is married and has kids. Everyone is away for some reason and she is alone at home. They both fall in love with each other over the weekend but she stays back at home finally for her husband and kids. This novel is very moving and has to be read once in your lifetime. Apparently there was a movie adaptation of this. I would love to watch it sometime.
You can see the Madison County bridges here.

These many posts by me mean I am not working. I am never consistent. Thats one thing I would like to change about myself :-(

The Shehnai Maestro passes away

It seems so right that the legend Ustad Bismillah Khan was buried with state honours. His is the only name that comes to mind when one thinks of Shehnai.

I am not a connoisseur of classical music. I listen to this genre of music only when it is played on the FM stations. I have two cassettes of Amjad Ali Khan's sarod recitals which was a birthday gift. And I play that when my mind is in a very turbulent state. Classical music does soothe the mind. Thats the extent of my knowledge and interest. I have heard Ustad Bismillah Khan's recitals also on the radio. I guess he would be one of the maestros who will be remembered in future in the same way Tansen or other legends are remembered now.

psst psst I have seen Amjad Ali Khan perform live :-D Thats one of the experiences Ill remember in my life. This was a part of the Lakshminarayana festival thats held in Chennai in the music season. So the artists playing that day were Pt. Jasraj, Amjad Ali Khan and L. subrahmanium. Awesome combination na! If Im not wrong, this festival is in honour of LS' father who was also a great musician. Pt. Jasraj played for the first 1.5 hours followed by jugalbandi between AAK and LS for the next 1.5 hours. That was a memorable concert.

Weekend plans

You would say "why should this interest me ?" Valid point :-D In a way Im sharing with you whats up here if it matters even a bit. Also, let me use this space as a log for once so that I can check back on Monday how well I did. So here I go...

• Work. I start writing my thesis this weekend. This does not mean I am ready to wrap up. I am working on the last problem and we had tried this with our last publication. We wrote up what we think is the conjecture, worked it out, drew conclusions. So we find and then write out what we find in parallel. Saves time and avoids vain meandering. So wish me luck :-)
Status on Monday: not yet started :-(

• On my PC, I have SUSE 9.3 installed. This is a superb OS. It has an equivalent feature for every application in windows. Looks cool too. But its so slow that I lose patience by the time the terminal opens. So I plan to install Ubuntu. Since the initial installation of Ubuntu is just the core package, it saves space and is faster. We can customise it to our liking. Ill try it out and see for myself. More on this on the Ubuntu webpage. Here is what wiki says about Ubuntu. Done and and it rocks.
  

• Will change this damn keyboard.. hmphhh Ill end up with hardened fingertips otherwise something akin to hobbits hardened feet. Yoohooo my fingers seem to fly!
  


• Meet an old friend. That means catching up on what happened in the past 2 years in her life. That also means watching Home Alone in OAT for the nth time. I am sick and tired of that movie. I guess the company will make up for all that. She simply dint turn up :-| meeting was at 4 she calls up at 5 says cant come. People should keep their appointments or tell b4 hand.
  
• Browse through a book store. I have to get a farewell gift for a friend. I am planning on getting The Count of Monte Cristo. I had loved the book but do you think its a worthy gift? I hope I dont end up buying something for myself. Hazaaron khwahishein par jeb khali. well almost.... Well this was linked with the meeting and so not done :-|
  
• Sleep :-) Blisssssssssssss (The razacsss in Eragon-Eldessst speak like thisss.. draw out the s as in a hiss.. ssssneaky ssscary ) I had the worst weekend in this regard. no sleep at all. not even at nights. stayed awake till 4am just like that. Everyone protested against my trying out pills. so last night i took some cough syrup :-D People have suggested that I instead try the real boozing. he he not that despo yet.
  
• Not miss any of the meals. I tend to do that on weekends. Always prefer sleeping to eating sambar rasam. 2 breakfasts and 1 lunch skipped.
  
• Avoid the naked guy on campus. No Im serious!! There is a psycho roaming around here without his clothes. Apparently he apparates only in front of girls. Even the lady security of our hostel has seen him.. he he she is a nice gentle aunty with high moral values :-D Hope he gets caught soon cos there have been rumours that he chased a girl down a spooky deserted lane. Chennai heat has severely affected him. tut tut.
  
• And then generally chill out and not get worked up. Ahoy weekend here I come :-D
  

Have fun :-)
Now u see how bad I am with resolutions!!! Thats why my new year resolutions also dont work out :-D

Oil spill

'Damage is done' to Lebanon coast

I hope that there will be justice someday against these crimes against humanity and crimes against nature.

Successful elimination of 5 terrorists ?!

Human story behind the headlines

You must have seen the picture mentioned above. For me, this picture is a representative of the war in Lebanon. Its too depressing to be uploaded on this blog. :-(

Gangster revisited..

Daya (Shiny Ahuja) in Gangster was the ultimate lover anyone could wish for. He risks everything for his beloved (Kangna) and could go to any extreme for her, even mends his ways and tries living an honest life. His final gesture to her ( the letter) was heart wrenching. He is the gangster who is feared by all because he is not afraid of death. But in the end, when he is betrayed to the police by his sweetheart, his wails left you bewildered -wails of a man who was looking forward to his life ahead and was thwarted.
Kangna as the alcoholic Simran who desperately seeks for her niche and dreams of a settled life was brilliant. Simran comes across as the woman who loves Daya inspite of him being a gangster and yet loses all hope in him after she loses her adopted kid in a shoot-out. She is on the brink of a breakdown and grabs the first offer of a home which is offered by the creepy crawly Emraan Hashmi.
Kangna was mind-blowing and she is just 19 years old! And what a mesmerizing voice!
Emraan Hashmi did what he does best. One has to admire him you know. He effortlessly makes you hate him which is his job. We loathed him in Murder so easily! He is a good actor in that sense I think. I will watch out for other movies by Anurag Basu henceforth. Really good work.

After seeing them act, Im looking forward to Woh Lamhe which stars Kangna and Shiny Ahuja. I read a brief outline of the movie and this also promises to be a good love story. But I will not watch it in theatre. I cannot shed copious tears amidst hundred other onlookers. Let me weep in peace if I have to do so :-D
I read the review of Hazaaron khwahishein aisi and I wonder how I missed this movie. I mean I didnt even realise it ever released. Thats the disadvantage of keeping track of only star-studded movies. And then everyone says Bollywood produces only junk. Dont tell me gangster is also an adaptation of some Hollywood movie! So we do have good movies in the Hindi film industry but they are overshadowed by the glamourous ones.
The song that stayed with me after watching Gangster was not Tu hi meri shab hai but this one :

mujhe mat roko mujhe yaar ke ghar jaane do
main hun parwaana mujhe shamma pe mit jaane do

usko paana hi meri zindagi ka maqsad hai
gar wo milta hai mujhe marke to marr jaane do

dil ki aankhon ne meri apna sanam dekh liya
ab isi dar par mere damm ko nikal jaane do

sa re ga me

Have you heard this song "sa re ga me" from the Tamil movie Boyz. It has a lot of spunk.
My tamil is not so great :-D The gist of the song is - think different, reach for the sky and never give up and honesty, mistakes and love are the secrets of success. The music is by AR Rehman and he is rumoured to have charged a whopping 2 crores for this movie and he deserved every penny of it. Its a teen movie and was a shock to conservative chennai-ites. I was surprised at this as other tamil movies are full of innuendoes. This was more direct and addressed many issues. Should I try translating the lyrics here? mmm no I guess. It will be a disaster :-D

Saw gangster

I liked the movie :-) My sympathies were with daya :-(

and I never hated Emraan Hashmi this much!!

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

Cant access

I dont know about others but I havent been able to access my blogsite. Is bloggers blocked again or has our proxy reacted late to the ban imposed everywhere else in the country? If so, I hope it does follow the lifting of the ban also. You see things are always delayed here..
Maybe this will get posted or maybe not.
Lemme see

My wonderland

I had once mentioned my dream of a cosy library.
I saw one such place today. The setting was different but equally charming. This house was on the 4th floor. Faces a lake. And a room in this house is alloted for books. A cosy chair and a plush deewaan was added to make it every hardcore bookworm's cosy nest. And the collection there was mind-blowing. They are also avid readers and since they have piled up this collection over a span of 25 years, it was my fantasyland. I had read some of the books and I wanted to read the others :-D So you understand why i was so excited.. some day ill have a house like this. hmmm dreamzz unlimited :-D And they lent me Orwell's 1984 :)


Amulet of samarkhand was very interesting. A cute djinn in it. Its a trilogy so looking out for the rest.
Memoirs of a Geisha was too good. Collector's piece. I dont mind reading it again after a few years.
Want to read Rushdie's Midnight's children. Heard a very good review of it.
Also want to read the Satanic verses (I said this earlier)... heard a review of that too.


Saw Pirates this friday. Slimier, funnier. Understood half of it. Depp as good as ever. Wil see it again sometime and understand the rest of it :-D And there's a 3rd part... And it seems Davie Jones is a mythical character. I mean stories abt him exist. Wil research this in greater detail.

Want to see Omkara.., saw interesting reviews about it..
Heard that Gangster is a good movie.. will watch it after my assessment.

By the way my assessment on 1st. Wish me luck :) Its at 9.30 am. I hope I reach the dept by that time... imagine if the panel is made to wait for the student !! Wish me greater luck :-D
Goodnite!

Amendment to my resolution :-D

What do I do? I have been faithful to my resolution for 7 days. But then everyone around me was tempting me.. So as a result, the books I have in my room are Zahir by Paulo Coelho, a fantasy called The Amulet of Samarkhand by Jonathan Stroud, and by this weekend Ill have a hard copy of Memoirs of a Geisha. So you see its very difficult to stick to my resolution. So the amendment to my resolution is that Ill read these books as normal people do and sleep at usual hours. Thats fine right! :-D

Ebook fair

The World ebook fair is a haven for all the book lovers. I downloaded scores of classics which I would like to read sometime. Although its a pain to read ebooks and I anytime prefer reading a hard copy, I was tempted to read every other book I saw there. Sometime in my life when Im happily jobless, Ill read these. For now, download kar liya :)

Feeling nostalgic. sighhh

I heard glad tidings about my friends from my Master's days and was feeling nostalgic. Actually, I wasn't great friends with them. Just passing acquaintances. But then you remember some people and some you dont.. Was very happy for them :-D It all seems so long ago...
Today was a very remarkable day. I met 4 (!) old friends who had passed out and were visiting campus. Couldnt they have come on different days !!! :-D It would have helped reduce the monotony to a large extent. And mind you, none of them were my classmates and yet I remembered them. So dare anybody talk about my bad memory (or cuppax memory as they say here) :-D

Life has moved on for so many and sometimes I feel mine has stopped for a while, or rather has slowed down a bit. Like I say often

Subah hoti hai shaam hoti hai
zindagi yun hi tamaam hoti hai :-)

( Hey I heard this couplet in the movie Pakeezah too! )
Maybe its just taking a breather for a while and will join the mainstream after this... :-D

Its six days since I have slept properly. Even at 3am, I just lie there and wait for the sleep to come. X-( And thats more terrible than anything else.

Yesterday night, there was a thumping sound as if somebody is jumping in the room above me. After I felt I have had enough, I went up to check on my nocturnal neighbour with few other friends who had just then returned from lab. It turned out the rooms on that floor nearest to me are vacant :-D It was 2.45am. We all got scared and slept in the same room. We found today that the sound was actually made by some idiot who was playing her music with heavy bass !!!!! (#$%&^%&*) There is a time for everything. x-( Anyway it was silly of us too.. All said and done ghosts dont exist right! Please dont say anything that negates this :-D

July the 13th

I read a really nice romance novel called How to marry a marquess (yupp u read it right ;-) ) by Julia Quinn. My friend Sanjana had recommended this. (I had been searching for this novel ever since and had failed. And suddenly two of my friends who didnt know I was searching for this got the book issued. Luck! Ok thats asides besides. ) The book is hilarious and very cute. So much that I finished it in 4.5 hours flat in one sitting. I burnt the midnight oil for this and slept at 4 (!!!!) Many people ask me when do I get the time to read. Well this is how I read. Crazy right!
So I have taken a resolution.

I will not read any novels till December.

Will I stick to it? My plight seems to be like the smoker who decides to quit. I had taken this resolution once before and had broken it but let me see if it works this time. If it does, Ill mention this date in my
thesis.

Hey by the way, on July 14th when I was in 8th std, I had presented a rose to the school captain :-D Silly na the way the brain remembers irrelevant trivia!! :-D

Mumbai blasts

Varanasi - Delhi - Bombay. The intentions of the bombers seems to be to incite riots. They have been failing so far and so I get a feeling that they will only get more desperate. The intelligence agencies of our country have been very active. They already had prevented many more such with their raids but India is so vast that its difficult to take care of everything. All we can do is help them. Be alert and keep an eye open for unclaimed objects etc. I remember when after the '93 blasts, we were in Delhi and the city was on high alert. First thing we used to do after getting into a bus was check for suspicious objects under the seats etc. We were kids so the enthu was more. But its logical now to never relax our guard.
These terrorists are not humans.
I wonder how they would face their deaths. In our religion, we believe that when Angel Izrail takes our lives, his appearance is according to the sins we have committed. (Atleast thats what mom said to me :-D). The death is more painful to the worst sinner. Oh I wish their life is a living hell starting from now.
Our prayers with the survivors and the kith and kin of the dead..

Zidane's exit

World Cup finals were ruined for me when Zidane was shown a red card. What a way to end his career! Throughout this tournament he had retained his composure. I was gushing about him as the Mr. Cool to my parents just the same day. Materazzi must have said something really nasty for him to have done this. It looked like a very deliberate act and not just a burst of temper so it must have been something lousy. There are speculations that he reacted to a racial slur (like here and here). Maybe maybe not. It will come out in a few days. I just know that I hate the Italian team with all my heart for this. And Zidane still remains my favourite player.

Races faces

Have you ever felt that the Portuguese look so much like us!! Maybe its the result of colonisation. India has a mix of so many ethinicities.
The Italians remind me of Asterix comics always. Julius Caesar's nose can be spotted without difficulty in the crowd.

Random thoughts

I hate it when people jump queues. I am not even talking about a family man here who always has to rush cos there is always something else he has to attend to, though even that doesnt justify jumping queues as there are others who also have something to attend to. I am talking about college students, who on one hand would go to a posh boutique and be at their politest best to the salesmen there, but would not show the slightest respect to the patience of those who have chosen to wait their turn in the queue.

France won :-D mainly cos of their luck and strong defence I think. I dont have any preferences for the finals as I have been supporting both the teams. But I think Italy has a better chance.. good strikers, good defence, and energy. Enjoyed the world cup :-) However, after it gets over, Ill have no more late-nights and will have more productive days. Enough of these hangovers :-D

I am reading a fantasy novel called Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Its about a boy who stumbles upon a legacy of Dragon Riders and is made a Rider himself. He starts on an adventure akin to Frodo's adventure in Lord of The Rings. The book is interesting and un-put-downable. Though, having read LOTR, I end up finding similarities and making comparisons. That is a disadvantage. Still, these days the book is the treat at the end of the day after crunching numbers :-D


I am yet to find a honest doctor. So no wonder I have zero zympathy for them.

Italy won :-D

La Italia prevails :-D
As you know the match starts at 1230am Indian time. So I stayed up that late for the semis. I have never stayed up this late for my research. So by the time 90 mins were over, it was 215am. Anyway halfway through the extra time, we have a power cut ( !!:-(( %&@#$#$#$^ ). And so we missed the goals. How unfair can things be!! Luckily one girl had a radio on her mobile. Thats how we knew that Italy won in the dying minutes. Before that, a friend (kutz) fooled me with 2-1 result in Germany's favour ( Never ever believe him. He is the devil incarnate. hmmphhhh )
It must be a mourning day in Germany. They played well throughout the tournament :)

ahaa

France won :-D I saw Zidane's magic for the first time.
My desired outcome..
Germany vs Italy- Italy wins.
France vs Portugal - France wins..
And WC goes to France :-D
Lets see.

FM, V and Evey

Its a long time since I have posted my tuppence on the blog instead of linking to other sites. So here's what I have read, seen and done these days for anyone who cares :-)

I read The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho.

There is a passage in the book where he says that we can learn three things from children - to be happy for no reason, to always be busy in doing something and to ask for what one wants until he gets it. Why do we lose this wisdom when we grow up? Evolution goes backwards?
This book was about a prophet who has been entrusted with bringing the people back to the flock. In trying to do so, he faces many hardships, escapes to a different country, struggles, settles down, finds love, loses it, his world is destroyed, and he rebuilds it. This book says that God leaves it to us to make our decisions. But at times I wish I knew what path has been set for me beforehand. But the thrill of living life would no longer exist right? I waver between indecision, confusion and exasperation most of the time :-D
***********
Then I saw V for Vendetta

Remember remember the fifth of November,
the gunpowder, treason and plot
I know of no reason why
the gunpowder and treason ever be forgot.

This movie is set in the future and is the story of a girl called Evey who runs into a man called V, who wears a Guy Fawkes mask. He, like many others, had been tortured in a detention camp by a totalitarian government twenty years ago. He now plans his vendetta and kills everyone responsible for the crime committed against him and others and he also brings about an uprising in the people. Somehow I feel I am not doing justice to the movie here. But I can say this much - Dont miss this movie.

Fear, freedom and confidence are more than words, they are perspectives.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Behind the mask, there is more than flesh. Behind the mask, there is an idea Mr. C and ideas are bulletproof.

These are the few dialogues I remember. There is an awesome dialogue when V introduces himself to Evey where he uses heavy-weight words starting with the letter v and its very beautifully and craftily put together.
V is played by Hugo Weaving (Elrond of LOTR). He is brilliant. Throughout the movie, he wears a mask, yet he is my favourite hero. Mind-blowing dialogue delivery and what voice!! He is such an impressive character without even his facial expressions to aid him.
Evey is played by Natalie Portman. She is as gorgeous bald-headed as she was in her blond curls. Superb acting.
This movie is actually an adaptation of a comic series by Alan Moore published in Britain in the 80's. Wiki tells you more about the comic. I am searching for this book now :-)

********

Italy entered the Qfinals. (Everything is fair ;-) :-D And France is through :-D Was thrilled to read about this the next day. Missed the match :-(
I am supporting France, Argentina, Portugal and ofcourse Italy in Qfinals. Looking forward :-)

Tread if you dare

Isnt there great fun sometimes in being a sadist too ? :-D We did some such thing today. There is a lawn in front of our hostel which is rumoured to have cost 1.5 lacs to the insti (come on even a land can be bought for that much! at least I hope so.. atleast in Jhumritalaiyya ... you see I havent built my blue castle yet) Anyway, eventhough we have been greatly tempted many a times to walk on that lawn, we have always followed the many instruction boards forbidding us from doing so (believe me it sometimes helps to be illiterate like it does to the dogs who have their afternoon siesta there). So what we saw today made us fume - three men on the lawn, relaxing on it Akbar, Jehangir style enjoying the evening breeze. So we set the security aunty behind them. Last seen she was standing there with a stick in her hand :-D

Foot(ball) falls :-D

Always look on the Bright Side of Life

Barkha dutt again

The English Divide

"A new breed of Indians who no longer look towards the West for self-affirmation, is making its presence felt. We like to call this a decline in quality. But actually, it's the rest of India waiting to get in."

Tip tip tip tip baarish shuruh ho gayi

Mausam hai aashiqaana..
ae dil kahin se unko
aise me dhoondh laana

It has rained here and its very lovely outside. And what a convenient time to lose one's umbrella. Ill have an excuse when I catch a cold later ;-)
When the climate is this lovely, we hostelites/grad students do only one thing - go out for dinner. Thursday nights are dosa nights and so we will go out and eat masala dosas. hmphhh what a waste of money on bland ghaas phoos!! All this for a friend who is a veggie :-(
I shouldnt crib as going out is the motto here :-D

Western ghats

My brother (F) and his friends trekked through this abandoned railway track in Saklespura in the western ghats. He will probably add a travel account of this trip. Ill edit this post if and when that happens. This whole area is so gorgeous!! See you keep humans out of the picture and the place retains its beauty.


See there's just this wooden railway track and nothing else. F tells me one could see the valley through the gaps in the track. They also came across a waterfall where they all refreshed themselves.

(You can even spot F here in the pic if you know him.)

Now you see why Im jealous. I have never been to a place like this. OK if not dangerous treks like this, I should atleast be able to see places like Munnar, Coorg, Humpy rt! My friend once told me about her trip to the point where Cauvery originates. All this sometime in my life :-)

Its a long day

Today is the longest day of the year

Why do Vogons remind me of our administrative block inhabitants!!

This is what Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy says about Vogons :

"Vogon Constructor Fleets. Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy—not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters."

Applies very well to the Ad block creatures :-D
Hitchhiker's... is a very hilarious and intelligent science fiction written by Douglas Adams. Read it if you haven't read it yet.

Taj

( This pic is borrowed from Mohib's Aks:Reflection )

I saw Taj when I was 9 years old - hardly the age to appreciate it. Going there now is also in my wishlist :-)

My brother tells me about his wonderful trek through an abandoned railway track in Saklespura. I am so jealous of him ! Ill upload those pics soon. I am telling myself that Ill get to do these things someday :-D

Yet to start work. There is something listless about a Monday morning.

Books in stock and Toni

I have these books to read in my kitty now :-D

• Devil and miss prym by Paulo Coelho
• Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho
  
• Yet to finish Glimpses of World History
• A romance novel
  
• and a dozen boring journal papers :-(

I liked Luca Toni in the Italian team. Ideal M&B hero :-D ( psst.. psst.. A M&B hero is always 6"+ , has attractive eyes and a good smile and I go fida on anybody who has these three features :-D)
You see what I mean !!
I was disappointed that Italy did not drub US yesterday :-( But it was a happening match right!!

Mushaira

Indscribe often puts up information about Urdu poetry and the poets on his blog Mindspeak. I found the link to the mushaira clippings of Khumar Barabankvi on his blog. Try them out. Simple Urdu and beautifully said.

na haaraa hai ishq na duniyaa thakii hai

( psst psst.. did u notice the man behind the poet. Isnt smoking in a mehfil impolite?? He is so restless!!! )

tere dar se uTh kar jidhar jaauuN main

The mushairas must be a very colourful gathering. I have not attended one yet. My father says that in his younger days they used to have mushaira gatherings at their home, organised by his BIL. He used to invite the poets who lived in and around Madras. His BIL lived a very active life.. That house has lost its life after him.

I wish Murphy's law fails atleast once

T had been working really hard. Her eyes were popping out after the tiresome and never ending datafits. But then even the mean spider did not take note of her dedication. But just when she thought she deserved a breather and started reading a very interesting episode of Tintin, her professor sneaked up from behind and said: "so this is what is going on here!!"
He then checks out the stories and says "Unfortunately I have read all of them" :-D

FIFA

Last world cup, which was in 2002, I had recently finished my masters and was on a really long vacation, and FIFA world cup had caught my interest. Infact, this interested me more than cricket, since we get to see much more action in much less time. And boy what handsome players!! I and my sister had an awesome time line-maarofying the hunks. We did wonder then where each one of us will be in 2k6. So here I am. And I have not been able to see a single match yet. Whenever I go to the common room, the insipid girls are watching some nonsense. They prefer watching cyrus' bakra to WC. Today some monkey movie was on. And my sis tells me details about a action-filled Spain vs Ukraine match. And Spain has really handsome players. I remember myself supporting them last time. Booohooooooooooooooooooo I am so jealous of her :-((
I guess if I plan my weekend visits to home wisely, Ill atleast get to see the big matches.
Surely, next WC Ill be able to watch all the matches wherever I happen to be then. Wishful thinking :-)

psst psst: I dont know the intricacies of football but I can surely yell when my favourite team hits a goal :-D

The Notebook

I saw this very romantic movie called The Notebook yesterday night. Details about it on IMDb.
The old man's devotion to his wife was very moving. There is this scene where the kids tell him that ' mama does not recognise anyone.. you are wasting your time.. come home " he says "your mother is my home" . Every time she leaves him, he gets her back and his ways are very appealing too.:-)

Barkha Dutt

You know whenever I see Barkha Dutt on TV or read her columns, I feel like standing up and whistling for her.
Here are some of her articles.

How could anyone do this! :-((

Beheaded body of baby girl found

The tagboard

I will try the tagboard on this page for a few days. The only thing I dont like about it is the pop-ups. Please bear with them. Lets see if this is for good.

Fanaa

Warning: This might be a spoiler for the movie if you are planning to watch it (in the real sense of the word actually)

I saw Fanaa. I thought it was a paisa vasool movie. I could not digest the first half much. Everything happened too fast for my sensibilities. Come on! A tourist guide flirts shamelessly with the girl and the girl falls in love with him !! Isnt that what the tapories on the streets do ! It was blatant eve-teasing and it was not at all appealing. It was intelligent flirting agreed, what with all that shayari at every step. But still!! A girl with a relative stranger alone at khooni darwaaza has every reason to be afraid. More so if she is blind. But the girl here isnt! Interval time I was wondering to myself if the romantic in me has actually become cynical of late.. But no. I still love reading Mills and Boons in one sitting for their happy endings. I just cant put them down until the happilylivedeverafters. So it must not be so. The movie had a flaw.. I actually liked the second half of the movie. I like people with trimmed hair (John Abraham and Zulfi are the exceptions :-D) And the kid was cute but so predictably cute. There was also a scene equivalent of tussi-ja-rahe-ho.
To sum it all up: A very gorgeous Kajol, a very old Aamir, lovely skirts, beautiful locales, a tour of my own Delhi :-D, good poetry, wasted Tabu, good songs, hmmmmm....

In fact, I think flirting is a very dishonest thing to do. Not if the rules are pre-defined and the terms are clear. But then the fun is lost right! But what if one is already committed and still seeks out new pastures to exercise one's prowess. I find it very abhorrent. Maybe Im archaic in these issues still. I look for honesty in every dealing.

We do exactly this :-D

mere haath me ...

Again about the reservation issue

Check out this article in The Hindu
Caste matters in the Indian media
Excerpts -

... As pro-reservation scholars such as Yogendra Yadav, Satish Deshpande, Purshottam Aggarwal, and others have argued, the United Progressive Alliance Government's current approach is not necessarily the best one. But by conducting a shrill campaign and encouraging forward caste students to launch an ill-conceived agitation, the media themselves foreclosed the possibility of a rational debate on what the best way of building an inclusive education system really is. ...

Guys are unreliable. girls are dependable..

At last, I heard one good review of Fanaa from my brother who says its a must-watch for me. So, if everything goes well, Ill watch it this saturday with my mom who is a more hopeless romantic than me.

Met my old friend Sanjana yesterday at the Besant Nagar Beach, caught up with each other's lives and had dinner. Basically, I had a lovely time. And oh yes!! we were one step short of sticking out our tongue at Pundit.
Have a good week ahead.

Har kali ik daastaan sunaye hai

Gulon me rang bhare, bad-e-naubahaar chale
Chale bhi aao ke gulshan ka karobaar chale

Orkut connections

Orkut has become a craze eversince it was introduced. It has amazing properties. You can find almost anyone who has access to internet connection and lot of time to spare logged on to it.

Ever wondered why Orkut says You are connected to 19,584,711 people through 66 friends ??
Say, you are connected to 50 friends. Those 50 friends may have 50 friends each. Some of them even have 300 friends!! so u are already connected on an average to 50+50*50+... Hence the huge number. Now this was stating the obvious. This is technically called a network. Being a friends' network, its a social network. I know Im still stating the obvious :-D But do you know studying networks is an intense field of research !! Every year people publish 1000's of technical papers in this field!! So in the network language, the individual is the node and the links or the edges are the connections between the individuals.

Now, have you ever noticed that most of the profiles you visit, even if its a stranger's, turns out to be connected to your profile through 3,4,6,7 or 8 links. For instance, A > aa > bb > cc > dd > X. Most of the times A turns out to be connected to X through a bb (say) who has 300 friends. Now this is technically called the Six Degrees of Separation. (You must have also seen a documentary on TV by this name.) The concept is that one can always find a connection to anybody in the world via six steps on an average!! In the given example , A is connected to X via 5 steps. In real world, I am connected to our learned president APJK in 5 steps !! So the degree of separation is 5. Now, try this with anyone in the world and Im sure you can find some connection or other !!! Technically, such networks with short pathlengths are called small world networks. Yupp, it is indeed a small world. Its just not a simple say-so but a fact..

Do you see the possibilities!! I am connected to ShahRukh or Zulfi through 6 degrees :-D All I have to do is to find the intermediate connections !! Hmm hard work ahead ...

Such short pathlengths are seen in many other networks. You see any system.. you find a network there. Examples galore - Capillary network inside your body, Airport network, Road network, power-grid network, rail network. Internet is also a network!! In the earlier A--> X example, suppose bb breaks up with aa, your network breaks. bb is called a hub. Exactly this way, if a power station, which supplies to N smaller station fails, you will face a breakdown. US blackouts were caused due to a similar reason. So, hubs are the most prone to attacks and are the backbones of the network. So you see, this field has immense potential in terms of applications. Many fields of study are employed in researching this topic like Statistical Mechanics, Graph Theory.. He he I know.. we physicists are experts in converting any interesting topic to mundane mathematics :-D

Greek colonies in Pakistan

Bumborate, Chitral, Pakistan

If you have read my GoWH-I post, you might remember that I had mentioned the existence of ethnic greek colonies in Pakistan and I had promised to get back with more info. These tribes are called the Kalash people. They live in the Chitral valley in Northwest Pakistan. These tribes claim to be the direct descendants of Alexander's army. They have their own religion and culture. More about them here.

You can find really colourful pictures of these people and their beautiful valley here. Pakistan has some really gorgeous valleys in the HinduKush range.

But my first ambition is to tour all the gorgeous locales in India and then venture abroad if ever :-( Lets see if this ever gets fulfilled :-D
Kehte hain na girgit ki daud baadh tak :-D

Dori

Have you seen Finding Nemo ? There is a fish in that called Dori. She had a very short-term memory of a few seconds. My friends had named me that. I admit it was unjustified then but of late Im living upto that name. Lost and found my keys early in the morning X-(. I hope the single mynah I saw in the morning was meant for this and not for anymore upsets today.
Have a nice day :)

Did u c this!!!

I was eagerly looking forward to SRK's next pic Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and then I see this !! No way Im going to watch that movie. He was bad enough in Chalte Chalte, the movie I hate with all my heart, where all SRK did in the second half was yell and gave me the jitters. I came out of the hall with a head ache.
Arre shaadi mein jhagda kise dekhna hai!!
There's Aahista Aahista coming up in the next few months starring Abhay Deol and Soha Ali Khan. That will be interesting :) AD's Socha Na Tha was cute :)

.

These days only two faces are seen on the TV channels all the time - Himesh Reshamiya and Hrithik and Im sick of seeing both of them. Talk about over-exposure!!

Orkut fortunes

You will never need to worry about a steady income.

Oh I wish!! This is the orkut fortune for me today :-D They are the most comforting at times. One says You will have a very comfortable old age.

I went to the beach yesterday and had tons of fun and got totally wet. I do these things only when I accompany my parents :-D There is a bindaas feeling to that. I recall these few lines written by someone who will definitely kill me if he comes to know that I have posted it here :-D

O, beautiful, vast and admirable sea,
I want to dive and swim in thee.
Your countless amazing treasures will I explore,
till the unreachable horizon from the starting shore.

:-D

Ghalib

More than a decade back, a serial based on the life of the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib used to be telecast on DoorDarshan. I developed a liking for his poetry thenceforth. As I recall, Ghalib lived in the age when Bahadur Shah Zafar ruled over Delhi, though his "ruling" is subject to doubt. He was an old man. Himself being a good poet, his court was adorned by many famous poets of the time including Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir who said

Laayi hayaath aaye khazaa le chali chale
Na apni khushi the aaye na apni khushi chale.

Ghalib's main passions were wine and women and he expressed this love eloquently through his poetry.

Kaafir na intezaar me neend aaye umr bhar
aane ka ahad kar gaye aaye jo khwaab mein

or

Ghalib chuti sharaab par ab bhi kabhi kabhi
peeta hoon roz ye abro-shab-e-mahtaab mein

His couplets are simple yet profound for instance,

Har ek baat pe kehte ho ke tu kya hai
tumhi kaho ke ye andaaz-e-guftagu kya hai

or

Ragon mein daudte phirne ke hum nahi kaayal
jo aankh hi se na tapkaa to phir lahu kya hai.
********

Hazaaron khwahishein aisi ki har khwaahish pe damm nikle
Bahut nikle mere armaan magar fir bhi kamm nikle

These two lines which (I claim) sum up my personality perfectly are also penned by him. Rest of this ghazal goes as..

Nikalna khuld se aadam ka sunte aaye hain lekin
bahut be-aabroo hokar tere kooche se hum nikle

Mohabbat mein nahi hai farq jeene aur marne ka
usi ko dekh kar jeete hain jis kaafir par dum nikle

Khudaa ke vaaste purdah nakaabi si utha zaalim
kahin aisa na ho yon bhi wahi kaatil sanam nikle
*********

(Mind you kaafir is not used in a derogatory way here. Infact I dont think it was supposed to be used that way anywhere. Again, an example of narrow-mindedness taking over logic.)

In the serial directed by Gulzar, these shers (couplets) were sung beautifully by Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh. Ghalib was played to perfection by Naseeruddin Shah. The album is available in the market but what I would like to own is the whole serial in CDs if available. DD used to telecast superb serials in those days. I can distinctly remember Farmaan, Zabaan sambhalke, Shanti, Circus. I remember my parents watching Hum log, Buniyaad, Tamas etc. I wish I was a bit more grown up to have appreciated and enjoyed them. I especially missed the whole series of Bharat Ek Khoj, Chanakya, Fauji ( I admit this is a criminal offence for an ardent SRK fan :-(. ). The K serials of today cannot even compete with those serials.

PS; This is yet another post written at midnight when sleep eluded my tired eyes. The shers here have been quoted from memory. So I dont claim them to be perfectly correct.

My friend Sunanda calls my blog "Hazaaron Khwahishein Ek Tamanna" :-D
Cool na!!

Stop and smell the roses :-D

The weather has been lovely past two days. It has been raining on and off and the sun has taken a break.. just the kind of weather for a visit to the beach. Even the birds are at their chirpy best and the weekend is also here. This past week has been useful for me - work started, got an offer (professional), read a lot, blogged a lot, slept a lot. I have been more calm and hopeful about the future, and I am going to now freak out in the weekend (I never seem to run out of plans for freaking out I think :-D )

I was listening to Abida Parveen. Its a pleasure to hear her because I get to hear a superb rendition of a good amount of literature. She is mainly a Sufi singer, but she also sings ghazals. In her Ghazalon Ka Safar (I and II), she has sung the works of Iqbal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Daagh Dehlvi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz to name a few.
Jab ishq sikhaata hai aadaab-e-khudagaahi
Khulte hain ghulamon par asraar-e-shehanshaahi
(Iqbal)
More about her sometime soon.
Happy weekend :-D

..

I saw the Fanaa trailer today and felt like breaking the TV. I do have a very violent nature :-D

.

Rain soaked earth and jasmine flowers smell so good !!

***

You fill up my senses
like a night in the forest
like the mountains in the springtime
like a walk in the rain......- My choice for a romantic song.

***

I felt time had almost stopped for me. Its up and about on its course again. My watch is back from repairs :-D All these days it did what I have wanted to do all this summer...soak in water all day long. The leaves got a soaking today. Not enough to wash them of the droopiness though.. just enough to cheer them up. I walked through the woods and rejoiced with them.. The bus had failed to turn up for a full 45 minutes.. following the principle of least action ended up in maximising the time wasted.. after the silence, I loved getting lost in the crowd.. Alas the bus was missing again .. the wise man learns from earlier mistakes.. So I walked in the rain :-D

Looking forward

There have been so many discussions on reservation that im sick of it. Both for and against argument make sense to me. The root cause of all this is the prevailing caste system in people's mind inspite of education and development. The biggest disappointment was when Lokparitran broke up recently over caste issues !! I was ashamed. My precious vote was wasted. Im sick of all this. And to see it topmost on my posts was also getting on my nerves and so I thought ill post something which is topmost on my mind right now :-D

I guess Ill have 6 chapters. The 5th chapter has to be completed. People say sometimes visualising one's dreams makes it easier to work for them. Im trying just that :-D -Day dreaming.
Have a nice day :-D

Reservations

Much has been said about reservation and my tuppence is that remove all reservations. Let there be no bias towards any particular section. Instead deal with the issues which are relevant. There are so many students who can get the seat on merit but they dont have the financial means to support the education. Introduce schemes which take care of their fees etc. I guess this would attract a larger vote bank. Reservations dont help anyway except in increasing corruption in all areas, as those who have had it easier dont value their work much. When one struggles to get to the top on his own means, he feels something for his job and would like to maintain the dignity of the job. No wonder even the medical profession is corrupted these days.

I came across this article by an IIT Delhi professor which makes a lot of sense. I dont know if its safe to mention names so its better kept nameless. Here it is..

OBC Reservations: An IIT Faculty Member's View


Nearly six decades after independence, this country is planning to announce that majority of its population is backward and does not have equal opportunity to pursue education and employment. Along with this, it is going to open up a Pandora's Box by various caste groups to be classified as "backward". What an interesting way to begin the 21st century when finally India was beginning to emerge as a serious player in the new knowledge economy! The major carrot that is being doled out is the seats in the elite medical, engineering and management Institutes. What bothers me is no one is interested in even consulting the people who have built these Institutions and brought them to this stature. I have strong views on efficacy of reservations in general but here I would confine myself to the issues concerning IITs. At least here with my three decade long association, I can claim to know something. Many of these arguments may be applicable to the other elite Institutions in medical and management disciplines as well. Today IITs are considered excellent educational institutions. There is a countrywide scramble to get into these with many students spending the best part of their teen years in preparing for its entrance examinations. This should not be confused with ranking of
universities where just a couple of IITs make it in the top 500. These rankings deal primarily with the research output and not with the quality of undergraduate education. I can confidently say that any ranking of quality of undergraduate engineers produced would put IITs in the top 20 worldwide if not in the top 10. And it is this achievement that is going to be hard to maintain with the proposed reservations policy. Before we go any further, it would be best to examine how this excellence has been achieved. The fundamental contribution that the Central Government has made to these institutions is in generous funding (by Indian, not global standards) combined with unmatched autonomy. The main point of engagement between the Government and these Institutions has been through the appointment of Directors. Except for a brief period during the last administration, the Governments had refrained from any major politicking in these appointments. They have by and large appointed the best available applicant Professor from the same or another IIT for the job. These venerable people had themselves a great pride in these Institutions and have ran the Institutes with the best of their abilities (maybe not always efficiently but always fairly) without major vested interest.
For someone outside IITs to understand the power of this position is not easy. The Director virtually appoints the complete senior administration including the deputy directors and deans, chairs all the faculty selections including that for the Professors, is the chairman of the senate and thus the academic head, is the financial head and also the administrative head. For most people living in the campus, which includes 90% of faculty and students, he is also the chairman of the local municipality (all major complaints on water, electricity, sewage etc. would reach him). This ensures that the buck almost always stops with him and thus decision making is unavoidable. This autonomy that has been the hallmark of these institutions is being eroded. There were attempts in the last Government (fortunately not vigorously pursued) to tell IITs what to teach. The present decision would strike at the fundamentals of IITs as the Government no longer feels whom to teach and how many to teach is best decided by these Institutions themselves. This in my opinion is the most dangerous fallout as it strikes at the very core of the success of these Institutions. Once the lines of control gets blurred, there would be no stopping, as today's political functioning is clearly not dictated by long term vision. Soon we could have reservations in faculty and create a caste based patronage system which has destroyed many of the once excellent state universities.

In IITs, the faculty selected and promoted solely based on merit has maintained a high standard of ethical behavior, have taken their teaching and research seriously, refrained from politicking themselves and supported the Institute in many ways to fulfill its commitments. Who are these faculty members? A large number are our own alumni (undergraduates as well as postgraduates), majority of them have studied or conducted research in the west and almost all of them have had opportunities of pursuing financially much more lucrative careers in India and abroad. Thus each faculty member is here by choice and he/she has exercised that choice with one major attraction - opportunity to teach, interact and work with extremely bright students perhaps unmatched anywhere. It is this attraction that is being tampered with. In a situation where all IITs are short of faculty and desperately trying to innovate to attract faculty under the constraints of the pay commission dictated salaries (while competing with Sensex based salaries), this is not a pleasant development.
IITs have had reservations for SC/STs for decades. Why would this be different? Aren't these students likely to be better prepared than the students admitted under the existing reserved category? Here I would like to share some of the facts with the readers. IITs have been admitting SC/ST students for years under two modes. From the general category, a significantly lower JEE cutoff is decided and reserved category students scoring above this cutoff are admitted directly to the UG programmes. Another still lower cutoff is decided and reserved category students from this set are admitted to a one year preparatory course conducted by IITs themselves. After passing this course, they can join the programmes without having to appear in JEE again. Even this exercise collectively yields less than 15% in IIT Delhi though the quota amounts to nearly 22.5%. Half of the reserved category students manage to clear courses comfortably while the other half struggle on the margins. What would be called a good performance (cumulative grade point average or CGPA of 8 and above) and is achieved by nearly forty percent of general category
students, is rare and occurs once in many years among the reserved category students. It is not that all general category students do well. There is nearly a 5% "dropout" rate even among them which is a cause of concern but mainly attributed to the burnout due to JEE preparation phase. The "dropout" students have no effect on teaching as they neither are regular nor make their presence felt in classes. The remaining part of weak students is too small and at present hardly any instructor would pitch his / her course at that level. On the other hand, the present policy may introduce a large band of weak students which no instructor can ignore. This would definitely result in drop in the quality of education. It is the hypocrisy of the highest order that on one hand the reservation for SC/STs is considered a success and quoted for extension to OBCs, and on the other hand, no hard data on the performance of these students is available in the public domain. Some administrators I talked to consider this data as sensitive! Analysis of where the reserved category students go after graduation would be enlightening. I do not have the sensitive data but my experience shows that most of them either go to services like IAS/IES or to the public sector companies. Normally this choice of careers by IIT graduates should be a matter of satisfaction except that both these entries are again using the reservation quota. Is it empowerment or crutches for life?

In this whole episode, the most stunning news for me was when the Hon'ble minister announced increase in intake to compensate for the reservations. This would amount to nearly 56% overall increase in undergraduate intake in the IITs. This showed complete ignorance of what makes IIT undergraduate education tick. There are few
Institutions in the world where undergraduate students get to interact one to one and so freely with such high-caliber faculty. Students are advised on courses in small groups, interact over hostel dinners, go on industrial trips and finally carry out a well
supervised project. Every undergraduate student does an intensive "novel" project either individually or in groups of two and he/she is effectively "supervised" by a faculty member. Many of them result in publications. This system evolved when the student-faculty ratio was 6:1 and is getting strained at the seams when it has reached 12:1. In some disciplines like Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering where market competition is heavy, it has already gone to 20:1 and above. Though currently producing excellent results, it is a highly non-scalable mechanism. Intake increase on this scale, when effectively faculty strengths in key areas are decreasing could sound a death-knell to one of our few international brand names.

I have a poser for Prof. Jayati Ghosh, my well renowned colleague from JNU and a member of the knowledge commission. She has justified reservations in IITs based on the poor ranking of IITs internationally. Her argument is anyway these Institutions are not great, why they should crib about the quality of intake. She nowhere states that any of the 400+ odd Institutions worldwide which are ranked above IITs have achieved their status through reservations. In that case all Tamil Nadu Engineering Colleges with 69% reservation for decades (openly defying the Supreme Court suggested norm of 50%) now should be at the top.
Postscript: Finally, I would like to seek opinion on the composition of our next Olympics team. We have admittedly done much poorer in sports than education. Should our next Olympics team be chosen on caste basis or perhaps with adequate representation to athletes aged 40+ who are at present completely unrepresented? After all we do not have much to lose as we only win one bronze medal in alternate Olympics. I would no longer be surprised if some future Sports Minister considers caste based quotas for our national cricket team. After all that would be worth a few votes and the nation would have been well prepared by then to cheer only for its own caste brethren!

Glimpses of world history II

The arab civilization -

Arabs were nomadic people living the desert life. Nobody was interested in them. They were not interested in anyone else. The arba clans would live a tough life and fight among themselves. They were however, great travellers. Before Islam was introduced (technically Islam was introduced by Pr. Abraham, it was revived by Pr. Muhammad. As u know Islam is the youngest religion, and our scripure acknowledges Pr. Adam, Noah,Abraham, Moses, Isah (jesus) as our prophets too.), the arabs were also a superstitious lot, steeped in darkness, with many malpractices like female infanticide, etc. (Being a muslim myself, you should excuse some bias on my side :-D)
Then Pr. Muhammad preached his religion. The arabs fired with this new message and zeal, went on to spread their religion. Islam's message of equality and brotherhood had great appeal to the oppressed citizens of the neighbourng countries and hence, the arabs won wars in many places effortlessly. That was the greatness of a single person who enlightened the whole nation. The arabs are credited to be first ones to have scientific thinking. Infact, contrary to current status of the religion where questioning is considered kufr, in those days, questioning was encouraged. The first word to be revealed in Koran was Iqra which means read in Arabic. Emphasis was on gaining knowledge or Ilm rather than accepting the dogma. Therefore, renaisance came to Arab 1000 yrs before the european renaisance.
Anyway, returning to the history, this era was an age of development of science, art and culture. Arabs on their mission of conquest stopped at Sindh near India. In Europe, they were stopped at Tours in France. The arabs however, later adapted themselves to the luxurious life of the rulers. They were no longer the nomads of Arabia. But they still fought petty battles within themselves. However, their empires were still much more civilized and advanced than the other european empires of the time, which were still oppressed.
Then the warriors of Central Asia, the Seljik turks, converted to Islam. These tribes were an uncivilized lot compared to the arabs of the time. They became the new face of Islam. It seems that the custom of purdah was adapted by these turks. They were more or less barbaric and destroyed cities and did not encourage art and culture to flourish. I think it was around this period that Islam started being rigid. The free-thinking that was encouraged in the religion started by the Prophet was prohibited in the reign of the Turks and the current status of Islam to a large extent can be credited to these tribes who were illiterate in the first place and spread the distorted version of the religion to the nations they conquered. Same with Mahmud of Ghazni, who in the name of Islam, plundered and massacred in India for mercenary reasons. I wouldnt call him a muslim!

When I read this, I so much wished that I should have been born in the era of the Prophet. The religion then was at its height of brilliance. Women were encouraged to study. In fact, women held administrative positions in Prophet's days! Islam gave equal rights to the women. Their property and marital rights are still much advanced in this age. Its another issue that the rights in this age are manipulated by men. Triple talaq is not allowed in the religion. It has its stipulations though they are ignored by the men AND the "learned" men. Same with polgamy etc etc.

Somebody else who was very impressive to me was Chenghiz Khan ( he was not a muslim). Unlike other great conquerors who started young, he started his career when he was 50+. He won wars through strategy and organisation.

Isnt it interesting to read history this way? Whole centuries are described in a chapter. So one doesnt go into the minor details of the trials and tribulations of the people. Their day-to-day living, on this large a scale, becomes a story for the future generation. What story will I leave behind for my future generation? Will they say naani did this... did that... ? :-D I hope they are interested :-D