Monday, December 1, 2008
Mumbaikar.
Sometime he/she has kids, sometimes he's a bachelor or a student, he may be a native or a migrant, he's been here for the past 5 decades or the past 5 years perhaps, he loves this city. He gets up in the morning at 6, picks up his lunch tiffin and the morning newspaper and goes to the station, he catches the 7:30 train, rush hour has started, sometimes he gets a place to sit, in the evening he always stands though. He meets office colleagues, train friends, talks cricket and rain. He works hard through the day, in the evening he buys something for his kid, or fruits or something else. The train journey back is a literal fight which can border on dangerous and can even be fatal sometimes. His friend lost a leg when he hit a pole while traveling in the train, but our MUMBAIKAR is not worried much, he holds on for dear life. Bus isn't an option, his office is far, he cant afford a 2wheeler everyday and definitely not a 4 wheeler, atleast not yet. The traffic is anyways so bad that he'll get a double cross everyday if he travels by any other mode of transport except train and probably loose his job. He trusts the trains though. He reaches home, tired but happy. One day he gets up in the morning and sees there have been bomb blasts in his beloved city. He is pained and grieves for the friends he lost, some of his train friends, no one he knew by name but faces that could have been his. He knows this. Mumbai stops for a day or perhaps 2 minutes(?) and there are voices screaming to be heard but no one listens, fingers are pointed, someone resigns, situation - status quo. The next day he goes to work as usual, he is scared and there's silence on the roads and in the trains people talk in hushed voices in the morning. But our man didn't have any CLs left for this month, he had taken 2 days holiday when his kid was sick of leptospirosis. Some label this as the Spirit of Mumbai. But he didnt have any choice other than to move on and he knows this. Is he immune to terror?? Does he tolerate terror?? Has he accepted terror as a part of his daily life?? His kid asks him in the night why did the trains blew?? He says there are some bad people who do this and the kids asks "TERRORISTS??". He is surprised at his kids vocabulary. Then one day he dies in the train blasts. Or maybe a gun totting man kills him, or may be he drowns in the floods or falls into an open manhole never to come out again, perhaps he falls off the train and dies, He died a little every day anyways. He/She was a Mumbaikar.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Mulshi...
29th Nov, the day after the last of my sem-1 exam ended we set off for Mulshi dam. Though we had decided to start early in the morning by around 8 we actually left the hostel at 10:30!! And then first stop petrol pump, fill up gas and air, Pravya wanted his PUC done, had a bite and off we were on the highway!!
Route: Follow the Pune Banglore National Highway, leave the Nat Highway-take a right turn into the ghats towards mulshi.
Gang:
Pranav and Surya - Bajaj Boxer, 100cc
Sonal and Ganya - Honda Unicorn, 150cc
Nilesh and Anil - Honda Unicorn, 150cc
Sid and Ashwin - Honda Eterno (Scooter), 150cc
Pravya and Vivek - Hero Honda Passion, 125cc
Weather : Couldn't have been better, cool with slight intermittent drizzle, cloudy.
Distance: 51km.
The road was beautiful, smooth, well maintained (with only patches of bad road), fields on both sides bordered by hills. For breakfast we found a small restaraunt hidden behind a petrol pump which didnt even have a name but served the best anda bhurji and misal pav in the world, so much so that we all had so much of it that the breakfast got convtd to lunch then and there. We again set off towards Mulshi, however progress was slow cause at every scenic point we stopped and had a photo session :) . Anyways soon we reached the Pirangut Ghats, by far the best stretch of road in this whole trip, wide, curvy, smooth and banked, the ghat was one of the best rides i have had, as the ghat ended and we entered Pirangut we witnessed the first and only accident on this trip, a truck had crushed a motocycle. Luckily the rider had suffered only minor injuries but was in shock, not to be slowed by anything we moved on....no big deal...
We finally reached Mulshi at around 2pm. One of the best places that i have been to, i must say. The dams catchment area is huge and bordered by mountains. We found a suitable place to park and got down to the banks of the dam, the place was well hidden and absolutely no one was in sight. After a nice swim in the dam we again set off, hungry and thirsty, to find a good place to hang out. To our rescue came another small restaurant, now this one had a path leading from it right down to the banks, so after tea we all went and sat there with the large expanse of the water stretching ahead of us only to be abruptly halted by the rising giant of the mountain. The sky had cleared and was a clear startling blue, birds were skimming the surface of water, it was extremely peaceful. We all just talked some, sat thinking, absorbed, introspecting, philosopical, i dunno... It was a singular experience though, that a bunch of rowdies like we are, were tamed by the magnificence of Nature. By the time we started for home, at around 6pm, it was dark. However while returning there were no halts and so we reached the unnamed hotel by 7:30. We decided to have dinner there itself since the morning meal had been awesome. True to our expectations the dinner there was amazing and we ate and ate till 8:15 :) . Soon we were back on the road towards the hostel this time. We finally reached the hostel by 8:50 and so the trip ended!!!
All in all it was a fantastic trip, we had loads of fun, there was good food, nice roads, excellent weather, A damn good machine to ride on, good friends... what more can one ask for??? :)
Route: Follow the Pune Banglore National Highway, leave the Nat Highway-take a right turn into the ghats towards mulshi.
Gang:
Pranav and Surya - Bajaj Boxer, 100cc
Sonal and Ganya - Honda Unicorn, 150cc
Nilesh and Anil - Honda Unicorn, 150cc
Sid and Ashwin - Honda Eterno (Scooter), 150cc
Pravya and Vivek - Hero Honda Passion, 125cc
Weather : Couldn't have been better, cool with slight intermittent drizzle, cloudy.
Distance: 51km.
The road was beautiful, smooth, well maintained (with only patches of bad road), fields on both sides bordered by hills. For breakfast we found a small restaraunt hidden behind a petrol pump which didnt even have a name but served the best anda bhurji and misal pav in the world, so much so that we all had so much of it that the breakfast got convtd to lunch then and there. We again set off towards Mulshi, however progress was slow cause at every scenic point we stopped and had a photo session :) . Anyways soon we reached the Pirangut Ghats, by far the best stretch of road in this whole trip, wide, curvy, smooth and banked, the ghat was one of the best rides i have had, as the ghat ended and we entered Pirangut we witnessed the first and only accident on this trip, a truck had crushed a motocycle. Luckily the rider had suffered only minor injuries but was in shock, not to be slowed by anything we moved on....no big deal...
We finally reached Mulshi at around 2pm. One of the best places that i have been to, i must say. The dams catchment area is huge and bordered by mountains. We found a suitable place to park and got down to the banks of the dam, the place was well hidden and absolutely no one was in sight. After a nice swim in the dam we again set off, hungry and thirsty, to find a good place to hang out. To our rescue came another small restaurant, now this one had a path leading from it right down to the banks, so after tea we all went and sat there with the large expanse of the water stretching ahead of us only to be abruptly halted by the rising giant of the mountain. The sky had cleared and was a clear startling blue, birds were skimming the surface of water, it was extremely peaceful. We all just talked some, sat thinking, absorbed, introspecting, philosopical, i dunno... It was a singular experience though, that a bunch of rowdies like we are, were tamed by the magnificence of Nature. By the time we started for home, at around 6pm, it was dark. However while returning there were no halts and so we reached the unnamed hotel by 7:30. We decided to have dinner there itself since the morning meal had been awesome. True to our expectations the dinner there was amazing and we ate and ate till 8:15 :) . Soon we were back on the road towards the hostel this time. We finally reached the hostel by 8:50 and so the trip ended!!!
All in all it was a fantastic trip, we had loads of fun, there was good food, nice roads, excellent weather, A damn good machine to ride on, good friends... what more can one ask for??? :)
A Semester Ends.
Its 0256 hrs in the morning of 28th Nov 2008 and today at exactly 1400 hrs my last practicals of Semester 1 end exams of MSc Bioinformatics will start.
As i type this a whole load of emotions are moving inside, foremost of which is wonder - 1/4th of MSc complete?? already?? and where the hell did the time fly!!!???!??!??
Its seems just like yesterday when i moved into Pune, banged the poor old blind guy with my car (his fault actually), moved into the Sanghvi flat, shifted into my hostel room that very very rainy morning, shopping for the hostel room, the freshers, the teachers day function, getting my scooter via the old mumbai pune highwway, the midnight trip to lonavala, flash plans of CadBs and CS and cutting up cakes on the bioinfo centre terrace!!.... so many events all seem as if they happened just last week. And already the first sem is over!!!
Life here in Pune has never been boring as such, something or the other keeps happening, i love the freedom i have here, so much so that going back home to mumbai seems like someone is binding me down! If there is something that i will always remember about Pune then it has to be the unparalleled freedom it has given me.
So, i left, perhaps, the best of my friends back in Mumbai, but there's a new set of friends here, and though the lacunae left by the old friends will stay we all move on... after all there's no other option. Academically i am doing pretty good here, no problems on that front, the course is not exactly difficult or intensive or demanding, plus no competition as such, the only gap left on the acad front is a good project. Lets see about that in Dec, a good summer training would be awesome!! And that leaves the personal front : a bit tough being objective there but hey I quantitate stuff a lot now a days.... :-) and i give myself pretty good scores there too!!!
Dec is going to be busy, move some stuff back to mumbai, get the scooter back (looking forward to it), collect license, do the cheque ka kaam, gotta think abt summer training, gtg to A'Bad may be drop in at Baroda also, theres Utsav, My Bday (Finally Drinking Age...Just a Statistic!!), My cars Bday, Mum-Dad Anniversary, Loads of importants things to do!!! Am gonna read loads of books this time.
Phew... the wheel keeps rolling, things happen and keep on happening, something or the other all the time and i guess that's what is Life!!!
As i type this a whole load of emotions are moving inside, foremost of which is wonder - 1/4th of MSc complete?? already?? and where the hell did the time fly!!!???!??!??
Its seems just like yesterday when i moved into Pune, banged the poor old blind guy with my car (his fault actually), moved into the Sanghvi flat, shifted into my hostel room that very very rainy morning, shopping for the hostel room, the freshers, the teachers day function, getting my scooter via the old mumbai pune highwway, the midnight trip to lonavala, flash plans of CadBs and CS and cutting up cakes on the bioinfo centre terrace!!.... so many events all seem as if they happened just last week. And already the first sem is over!!!
Life here in Pune has never been boring as such, something or the other keeps happening, i love the freedom i have here, so much so that going back home to mumbai seems like someone is binding me down! If there is something that i will always remember about Pune then it has to be the unparalleled freedom it has given me.
So, i left, perhaps, the best of my friends back in Mumbai, but there's a new set of friends here, and though the lacunae left by the old friends will stay we all move on... after all there's no other option. Academically i am doing pretty good here, no problems on that front, the course is not exactly difficult or intensive or demanding, plus no competition as such, the only gap left on the acad front is a good project. Lets see about that in Dec, a good summer training would be awesome!! And that leaves the personal front : a bit tough being objective there but hey I quantitate stuff a lot now a days.... :-) and i give myself pretty good scores there too!!!
Dec is going to be busy, move some stuff back to mumbai, get the scooter back (looking forward to it), collect license, do the cheque ka kaam, gotta think abt summer training, gtg to A'Bad may be drop in at Baroda also, theres Utsav, My Bday (Finally Drinking Age...Just a Statistic!!), My cars Bday, Mum-Dad Anniversary, Loads of importants things to do!!! Am gonna read loads of books this time.
Phew... the wheel keeps rolling, things happen and keep on happening, something or the other all the time and i guess that's what is Life!!!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wear this Fair and Lovely !!!
Well well well look whos here!!! Feels good to be back in the blogging scene after my brief sabbatical (which was also a forced one since the blogger gene in me wasnt getting expressed properly perhaps!!). Things have been heating up in my life and while loads of wierd things have been goin on its the new phenomenon in Pune that i observe that has got my sigma factors going!!(me being a pro prokaryote person... else i wud have said "my transcription factors" na!!!). May be the close proximity of the exams has also got to do something with these factors!!!
I always thought that the terrorist mask phenomenon in Pune was a bigtime dud but whats with the sun coat man!!! hello?? Its god damn winter and its cold and wheres the sun???
Now a days u go on the roads and every female 2 wheeler rider has a coat on her which is white in colour with blue or red polka dots (or flowers which look like polka dots), full-sleeved with 2 pockets looking very much like a lab coat. Only its not!! Its the SUNCOAT... i asked what purpose does it serve?? Apparently it saves the komal twachaa of the Pune babes from the hard sun and the pollution!!
I invite all Pune girls to mumbai where theres more pollution, harsher sun plus humidity and all girls are still fresh and free with long flowing hair and beautiful skin (or is that my imagination??)!!! When will the Puneris understand that terrorist mask and Suncoats kill the beauty of this city!!... Plus they can be security hazards and deterent for tourism!!! Ok atleast wear different Suncoats... whats with the standard blue polka dots man!!?? First the scarf and now this, even the trafic jams of Mumbai are better than Pune!!! Maybe the Puneris should be born with detachable skin then they can moisturise it and keep it in the cupboard the whole day and move around in their muscles... then we'll see who comes forward to marry them!! (Ewww sounds gross even to me!!). Basically i am at a stage where nuthing can surprise me now, if tomorrow all babes turn up in Swimming goggles so that their beautiful eyes stay safe, i will accept that u know and if those gogs are from Speedo...whoa they'll even be trendy!!
So much for the komal twacha man!! crave Mumbai!!
I always thought that the terrorist mask phenomenon in Pune was a bigtime dud but whats with the sun coat man!!! hello?? Its god damn winter and its cold and wheres the sun???
Now a days u go on the roads and every female 2 wheeler rider has a coat on her which is white in colour with blue or red polka dots (or flowers which look like polka dots), full-sleeved with 2 pockets looking very much like a lab coat. Only its not!! Its the SUNCOAT... i asked what purpose does it serve?? Apparently it saves the komal twachaa of the Pune babes from the hard sun and the pollution!!
I invite all Pune girls to mumbai where theres more pollution, harsher sun plus humidity and all girls are still fresh and free with long flowing hair and beautiful skin (or is that my imagination??)!!! When will the Puneris understand that terrorist mask and Suncoats kill the beauty of this city!!... Plus they can be security hazards and deterent for tourism!!! Ok atleast wear different Suncoats... whats with the standard blue polka dots man!!?? First the scarf and now this, even the trafic jams of Mumbai are better than Pune!!! Maybe the Puneris should be born with detachable skin then they can moisturise it and keep it in the cupboard the whole day and move around in their muscles... then we'll see who comes forward to marry them!! (Ewww sounds gross even to me!!). Basically i am at a stage where nuthing can surprise me now, if tomorrow all babes turn up in Swimming goggles so that their beautiful eyes stay safe, i will accept that u know and if those gogs are from Speedo...whoa they'll even be trendy!!
So much for the komal twacha man!! crave Mumbai!!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Blogger's Block??!!!
Seems like i have hit a Blogger's Block..... Theres loads of things happening in my life and quite a lot of it is "blog material" and i do have time to type that stuff out and still i just cant seem to login and do the needfull. And i dont know why!!!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Mind Your Language..!!!
We use some or the other language day in and day out but the other day i was thinking about its importance and it struck me that it is much more than just a medium to express onself.. For example here with me there are loads of guys who have come from vernacular background and in general do quite bad in class, but its not that they cant grasp concepts (though some really cant!!), its just that they dont understand english that well. So obviously knowing a language will decide how good or bad u understand and assimilate something rather than just raw brain processing power..
Conversely some people pick up new languages amazingly fast and others take lot of time... why is that??
I read in a book titled "Chance and Necessity" written by Jacques Monod that according to him it was the need of phonetics coupled with a way to communicate (Language?) that drove the phenomenal development of Brain.
Might be true, i dunno...
And now that i am having my first brush with a Programming Language, i realise that Programming is nothing but translating something that our brain does on paper into a set of instructions so that it can be done in computer... Infact i sometimes wonder whats the hue and cry about "logic development" in Programming since essentially (at least C ) programming is translation, so u gotta know the syntax and structure of a few basic prgrams after which if u are good in the language u'll be able to exdtend that....
Another aspect of alnguage is that u dont need to know a lot of it to understand the subtelties of Human Interactions, for eg i dont know telugu but when i watched some part of Happy Days, i understood it, however i know a little bit of Marathi now and when i watched a Marathi play titled "Ga ma bha na" i was surprised by my own understanding of the undercurrents of the play...
So much for Language...
Conversely some people pick up new languages amazingly fast and others take lot of time... why is that??
I read in a book titled "Chance and Necessity" written by Jacques Monod that according to him it was the need of phonetics coupled with a way to communicate (Language?) that drove the phenomenal development of Brain.
Might be true, i dunno...
And now that i am having my first brush with a Programming Language, i realise that Programming is nothing but translating something that our brain does on paper into a set of instructions so that it can be done in computer... Infact i sometimes wonder whats the hue and cry about "logic development" in Programming since essentially (at least C ) programming is translation, so u gotta know the syntax and structure of a few basic prgrams after which if u are good in the language u'll be able to exdtend that....
Another aspect of alnguage is that u dont need to know a lot of it to understand the subtelties of Human Interactions, for eg i dont know telugu but when i watched some part of Happy Days, i understood it, however i know a little bit of Marathi now and when i watched a Marathi play titled "Ga ma bha na" i was surprised by my own understanding of the undercurrents of the play...
So much for Language...
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Lot of Things are common between Brains, NFS Carbon and Terrorism...
Lately i have been thinking a lot about the human brain, and also playing a bit of NFS Carbon....(now that i have a laptop which has 2Gb RAM and a 128 Mb Graphics card...ah! the sheer execellence of that.... beautiful!!!)... So these are a few of my random thoughts...
NFS Carbon has three types of cars, the Tuners: which can be tuned to give good performance; the Muscle: which have raw horse power and give u good straight line acceleration plus speed but nothing else; the Exotics: which are costly but look good and will perform depending on the players skills (My Fav - Tuners!!). In these types also there are three level of cars.. the tier 1,2 and 3.. each tier better than the previous one such that a fully modified tier one car will not be able to beat a tier 3 car...
THE evolution of brain has given analogous results.... the primitive brain is an unmodified tier one tuner car, good for nothing except the most basic sensory and effector functions. It will sense a danger and run for it. The next level of brain resides in higher animals and regulates and controls an increasingly complex gene machine, thats the body...its like the ECU of a sports car (albeit much better) which has to control a lot of functions at the same time. The Tier 3 brain is the HUMAN BRAIN. It is good at sensing danger, but better at avoiding it and even better at preventing it altogether. If it cant do that, it will "scout" better ways to escape (like the design of a cheetah,built for speed - might sound ironic but makes sense to me); else it will make sure that a "cooldown" spot is near by (like the absolute camouflage of stick insect!!), and it will always have a store of "nitrous" (The sprint of a lion!!) and "speedbreaker" (the stink of a skunk!!) for emergencies...(some terms would be understood only by people familiar with carbon - i wont go into those terms!! You will also notice that there are "semicolons" and "elses" in my "syntax" thats the c programmer in me blogging!!! :-) )
In the Humans also there are different tiers of brains....some are unmodified tier 3 Tuners!!! the saddest of em all. The best are ofcourse the fully enhanced Tier 3 Tuners!!.... Some are like the fully modified Tier 3 Muscle.... fantastic straight line acceleration but inflexible - read orthodox or brainwashed; unable to think or digest new information or memes - (some PhD guides can be that way, all terrorists also fall in the same category!!). These brains are excellent databases, they make excellent backups, once data is put into them it cant be erased nor new data put into them, there will never be any redundancy here and theres absolutely zero processing power!! (Yeah i take my Introduction to Database Systems course seriously!!)
This zero processing power unfortunately is quite widespread, for example my roommate has stuck some wierd symbol and geometric pattern on the wall just above his little worship corner, he says they are the symbols of Lord Hanuman and on meditating on that he recieves positive energy and better concentration. I pointed out that even if he meditated on a point on the opposite wall he will improve concentration and feel good (that is positive energy)..... he understood that and digested it... he is a tuner and i am thankful of that...
Some times i wonder what has happened to independent thought... why wont peole think about what they are doing and why they are doing it...Where are all the Howard Roarks?? The ability to question is inherent to Human Brain... it doesnt matter if a person is rural or urban, he/she must question, none the less rural people are more superstitious than urban... how strong is peer pressure a factor here?? When does a Human Brain "forget" to question?? Mind that i use the word "forget" not "lose" since the brain never loses the ability to question as is evident from the inspiring oratory speeches given by bent minds to bend more minds... there the normal peole start questioning and turn into a mob and then we see a more complex social behavior as a result of what is called as mob mentality... may be that is embedded in our brains and i see a connection to the herds of bison crossing the savannas...
Today i read an article in the newspaper giving the Muslim's view point of the terrorism in the country... in short a few black sheep have soiled the impression of the whole herd. So what can be done about it??? Why dont we attack the root cause and remove the Jehad clause from Islamism?? How can any war be ever holy?? What, as a people, are they trying to prove by killing non-muslims?? And now the situation of Muslims is even worse... now they are targetting themselves as is seen by the act of terrorism in Delhi and Islamabad carried out by the "Indian Mujahideen" (pathetic) on fellow muslims. Had there been an independent thought process all would have questioned the clause... who wrote the book anyways?? what were his qualifications and what is its credibility in todays context?? Many people might be hurt by these statements... i can only ask them to think independently...write their own book, for themselves. My views about Hinduism are the same btw, and for all religions... the other day i was asking a friend of mine her reasons for fasting for a month... she said thats what they do in Jainism....hello? why are u denying yourself? this Q shud have been asked by her instead of me... This is the reason why i am not religious, nor very spiritual...
Why dont people question???
BTW all these correlations, similarities and analogies between seemingly different topics is also a result of brain activity....amazing piece of evolutionary engineering!!!
NFS Carbon has three types of cars, the Tuners: which can be tuned to give good performance; the Muscle: which have raw horse power and give u good straight line acceleration plus speed but nothing else; the Exotics: which are costly but look good and will perform depending on the players skills (My Fav - Tuners!!). In these types also there are three level of cars.. the tier 1,2 and 3.. each tier better than the previous one such that a fully modified tier one car will not be able to beat a tier 3 car...
THE evolution of brain has given analogous results.... the primitive brain is an unmodified tier one tuner car, good for nothing except the most basic sensory and effector functions. It will sense a danger and run for it. The next level of brain resides in higher animals and regulates and controls an increasingly complex gene machine, thats the body...its like the ECU of a sports car (albeit much better) which has to control a lot of functions at the same time. The Tier 3 brain is the HUMAN BRAIN. It is good at sensing danger, but better at avoiding it and even better at preventing it altogether. If it cant do that, it will "scout" better ways to escape (like the design of a cheetah,built for speed - might sound ironic but makes sense to me); else it will make sure that a "cooldown" spot is near by (like the absolute camouflage of stick insect!!), and it will always have a store of "nitrous" (The sprint of a lion!!) and "speedbreaker" (the stink of a skunk!!) for emergencies...(some terms would be understood only by people familiar with carbon - i wont go into those terms!! You will also notice that there are "semicolons" and "elses" in my "syntax" thats the c programmer in me blogging!!! :-) )
In the Humans also there are different tiers of brains....some are unmodified tier 3 Tuners!!! the saddest of em all. The best are ofcourse the fully enhanced Tier 3 Tuners!!.... Some are like the fully modified Tier 3 Muscle.... fantastic straight line acceleration but inflexible - read orthodox or brainwashed; unable to think or digest new information or memes - (some PhD guides can be that way, all terrorists also fall in the same category!!). These brains are excellent databases, they make excellent backups, once data is put into them it cant be erased nor new data put into them, there will never be any redundancy here and theres absolutely zero processing power!! (Yeah i take my Introduction to Database Systems course seriously!!)
This zero processing power unfortunately is quite widespread, for example my roommate has stuck some wierd symbol and geometric pattern on the wall just above his little worship corner, he says they are the symbols of Lord Hanuman and on meditating on that he recieves positive energy and better concentration. I pointed out that even if he meditated on a point on the opposite wall he will improve concentration and feel good (that is positive energy)..... he understood that and digested it... he is a tuner and i am thankful of that...
Some times i wonder what has happened to independent thought... why wont peole think about what they are doing and why they are doing it...Where are all the Howard Roarks?? The ability to question is inherent to Human Brain... it doesnt matter if a person is rural or urban, he/she must question, none the less rural people are more superstitious than urban... how strong is peer pressure a factor here?? When does a Human Brain "forget" to question?? Mind that i use the word "forget" not "lose" since the brain never loses the ability to question as is evident from the inspiring oratory speeches given by bent minds to bend more minds... there the normal peole start questioning and turn into a mob and then we see a more complex social behavior as a result of what is called as mob mentality... may be that is embedded in our brains and i see a connection to the herds of bison crossing the savannas...
Today i read an article in the newspaper giving the Muslim's view point of the terrorism in the country... in short a few black sheep have soiled the impression of the whole herd. So what can be done about it??? Why dont we attack the root cause and remove the Jehad clause from Islamism?? How can any war be ever holy?? What, as a people, are they trying to prove by killing non-muslims?? And now the situation of Muslims is even worse... now they are targetting themselves as is seen by the act of terrorism in Delhi and Islamabad carried out by the "Indian Mujahideen" (pathetic) on fellow muslims. Had there been an independent thought process all would have questioned the clause... who wrote the book anyways?? what were his qualifications and what is its credibility in todays context?? Many people might be hurt by these statements... i can only ask them to think independently...write their own book, for themselves. My views about Hinduism are the same btw, and for all religions... the other day i was asking a friend of mine her reasons for fasting for a month... she said thats what they do in Jainism....hello? why are u denying yourself? this Q shud have been asked by her instead of me... This is the reason why i am not religious, nor very spiritual...
Why dont people question???
BTW all these correlations, similarities and analogies between seemingly different topics is also a result of brain activity....amazing piece of evolutionary engineering!!!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Brain and Dimensions.
Human brain has not evolved to visualise,understand or grasp things like extra dimensions and for good reason... we dont encounter extra dimensions in our struggle for survival.
Well these are my ideas on visualising extra dimensions and this may be as far as possible from real physics that we understand today.... so if you dont agree, feel free not to comment and close this tab in your browser window (And if u use the silly IE the close the window all together!!!).
When a cube of clay is pressed into a wall, it will flatten out into a paper thin plate. This happens because 1 dimension is being deleted from the system. The particles constituting the clay cube travel along the 2 available axes and we get a 2D object. Now imagine a system of infinite axes.... for doing this just make instead of 2 axes infinite axes of any shape in any direction.... so the axes can be curved,have vertices or can be srtaight, curved, have sharp bends and peaks all in the same time!!! (Pun intended :-) for those who didnt understand the pun, time is the 4th diemsion!!) Now we take our clay cube and press it into this system of infinite dimensions... as happened before, this time also we see that particles of our clay cube travel in the directions of different axes and in the end we get an nD object which may look like a crumpled ball of paper.... or something else depending on the axes...
If these dimensions are present then their effect can be seen only from the nano level down cause its the particles constituting the system that use these axes. Maybe brownian motion is nothing but movement of atoms and molecules in these axes. Thus for absolute entropy all we need is a system with infinite dimensions.
These dimensions are all pervading and omniscent and so the proteins in my blodd move in brownian motion whether or not i am in motion. However at macro level my body is moving in the 3D space that i am familiar with but all my particles are moving in all the dimension with its many axes.
The brain only analyses the motion of the macro system of praticles which is restricted to 3D only, though the particles may be moving along multiple axes... and therefore our inability to comprehend multiple dimensions.
Who knows may be the best equiped organism to understand such dimensions can be microorganisms. For a tiger to catch a deer, understanding of 3D space is enough, but for an E.coli to catch its glucose molecule, which is under brownian motion, it needs to understand those axes... to trap the molecules it needs to atleast come in the way of a glucose molecule moving along a particular axis if not bend the axis, who knows ???? IT is not yet known why a bacteria moves in a particular direction if motile, but a lot of things in that microbe is not at random and a lot many things are definitely directed, so who knows!!! what the mighty humams fail to understand might be grasped to the hilt by measly microbes!!!
Well these are my ideas on visualising extra dimensions and this may be as far as possible from real physics that we understand today.... so if you dont agree, feel free not to comment and close this tab in your browser window (And if u use the silly IE the close the window all together!!!).
When a cube of clay is pressed into a wall, it will flatten out into a paper thin plate. This happens because 1 dimension is being deleted from the system. The particles constituting the clay cube travel along the 2 available axes and we get a 2D object. Now imagine a system of infinite axes.... for doing this just make instead of 2 axes infinite axes of any shape in any direction.... so the axes can be curved,have vertices or can be srtaight, curved, have sharp bends and peaks all in the same time!!! (Pun intended :-) for those who didnt understand the pun, time is the 4th diemsion!!) Now we take our clay cube and press it into this system of infinite dimensions... as happened before, this time also we see that particles of our clay cube travel in the directions of different axes and in the end we get an nD object which may look like a crumpled ball of paper.... or something else depending on the axes...
If these dimensions are present then their effect can be seen only from the nano level down cause its the particles constituting the system that use these axes. Maybe brownian motion is nothing but movement of atoms and molecules in these axes. Thus for absolute entropy all we need is a system with infinite dimensions.
These dimensions are all pervading and omniscent and so the proteins in my blodd move in brownian motion whether or not i am in motion. However at macro level my body is moving in the 3D space that i am familiar with but all my particles are moving in all the dimension with its many axes.
The brain only analyses the motion of the macro system of praticles which is restricted to 3D only, though the particles may be moving along multiple axes... and therefore our inability to comprehend multiple dimensions.
Who knows may be the best equiped organism to understand such dimensions can be microorganisms. For a tiger to catch a deer, understanding of 3D space is enough, but for an E.coli to catch its glucose molecule, which is under brownian motion, it needs to understand those axes... to trap the molecules it needs to atleast come in the way of a glucose molecule moving along a particular axis if not bend the axis, who knows ???? IT is not yet known why a bacteria moves in a particular direction if motile, but a lot of things in that microbe is not at random and a lot many things are definitely directed, so who knows!!! what the mighty humams fail to understand might be grasped to the hilt by measly microbes!!!
Everybody Loves Music...
We realise the importance of anything after we have lost it or are far away from it or are being denied it... I realised what music was after i rediscovered it... After i lost my Sony mp3 player life was not so bad... Ok the time spent travelling was real boring and the night time just before sleep was disturbingly quite, still life moved on....
But with my new Philips mp3 player..... its too good.... like being reborn maybe.....
A tired stressful day, 1 session of your fav music and the worlds at peace!!! Give 2 tests every monday morning and with the player pluged into my ear in the night my system reboots, ready for another week!!! Sitting in front of the PC (which i do a lot lately) getting some music in my head is always good!!!
But a bigger Q is, why is music such a need for humans??? I havent yet disovered its evolutionary significance... is there any... why are humans so bound to music... Why does music have the effect it does on the brain....?? Does this happen with animals also???
I havent yet met a person who didnt like music....people dont like choclates (unreal man!!!), i dont like mangoes, but everyone loves music... Why is it that - Everybody Loves Music...???!!!...
But with my new Philips mp3 player..... its too good.... like being reborn maybe.....
A tired stressful day, 1 session of your fav music and the worlds at peace!!! Give 2 tests every monday morning and with the player pluged into my ear in the night my system reboots, ready for another week!!! Sitting in front of the PC (which i do a lot lately) getting some music in my head is always good!!!
But a bigger Q is, why is music such a need for humans??? I havent yet disovered its evolutionary significance... is there any... why are humans so bound to music... Why does music have the effect it does on the brain....?? Does this happen with animals also???
I havent yet met a person who didnt like music....people dont like choclates (unreal man!!!), i dont like mangoes, but everyone loves music... Why is it that - Everybody Loves Music...???!!!...
Monday, September 8, 2008
Happy Teacher's Day...
Its a tradition of bioinformatics centre that we organise a small get together on teacher's day... and its the MSc 1 who do the organising... and so on 1st the MSc 2 CR came to me and told me i had to do all this organising and stuff....me??? me??? why??? well i announced in my class that we had to this program and that it was a class activity and those who want to volunteer can please do so....
Nobody had much of an interest...(read: not one of em volunteered man not one of em...) So i decided that may be i'll do what i can. Me and the girl CR....CRni as shes called...Shraddha, were the only one, it seems, who were interested.... me a bit under pressure.... anyways....
So what are the things that need to be done:
Send invites to all profs....get their email Ids first...30 of em...??? yeah... will all come??? no. how many will turn up? generally 4-5 come up. Great... BTW 5th sep is not a hol and we had lectures.... so when will we hold the do??? so go to Director and ask for a free time slot..."We will not, in any condition, compromise on lectures and course work"....categoric!!!
all this was taking place on 2nd....3rd was ganesh chaturthi...hol.... and bascically on 2nd not much work was done since only me and CRni were on it....4th sep.... now i started feeling the heat majorly, nothing concrete was decided or done..... what are we going to do in the get together???
first....saraswati puja....some small program.... singing by girls (Anasuya and Sonal did a good job), Poem reciting... the poem was written by Divya and it was alo excellent.... then a bit of student teacher interaction...we asked Director mam to share her experiences with her profs and to tell her experiences with former students....
Food: Decide menu.... how much to buy, how much to serve and when to place orders....
We decided on veg pattis, with wafers, sweet(kaju katl/ri) and tea....
The orders were given by me and CRni....though pranav was put on the job, CRni handeled it...
Now gifts....1 big gift for the dept. we bought a Ganpati wall hanging after a lot of indescision it was a coin toss which clinched the gift.... and what to give to individual teachers...it should be personalised and not readymade....makes things complicated......on 4th night people in the class started waking up to the fact that we needed help and thankfully rose to the occasion....in a short while we had made individual bookmarks for teachers....Dhiraj did a FANTASTIC job here.....damn good...he's a natural with colours....
For compering Divya CRni and Satpreet came forward and did what was required.... Anasuya, Daksha, Pradnya and Pranav helped in loads of ways.... I did the running around....filling up of gaps....coordinating people on what to do...and doing a lot of it myself!!!
5th sep, D day....6 hours lecture!!! then...on the terrace...i got 3 jhaadus and we cleaned the terrace... i also got my clean bedsheet... to be used as a table cloth for keeping the Saraswati murti.... the girls made a rangoli, fantstic job they did.... 7 profs came, 6 from non teaching staff and 1 guest who is from vietnam doing her project with Director mam, seniors and us...the terrace was pretty filled...the function went without a hitch....no probs whatsoever, except the hungry seniors....we asked the Director mam to cut a cake.... people had their fill, then went.... later the seniors also went back.... We stayed back in the terrace, had loads of fun and later cleared up and we also left....
All in all it was a good program, seniors also appreciated it and i was happy in the end....
My and CRnis role in it was as a organiser, planner, executer and also as a coordinator. and so all in all it was a pretty good experience, tiring but rewarding and though it was full of tension it was also loads of fun!!!
Nobody had much of an interest...(read: not one of em volunteered man not one of em...) So i decided that may be i'll do what i can. Me and the girl CR....CRni as shes called...Shraddha, were the only one, it seems, who were interested.... me a bit under pressure.... anyways....
So what are the things that need to be done:
Send invites to all profs....get their email Ids first...30 of em...??? yeah... will all come??? no. how many will turn up? generally 4-5 come up. Great... BTW 5th sep is not a hol and we had lectures.... so when will we hold the do??? so go to Director and ask for a free time slot..."We will not, in any condition, compromise on lectures and course work"....categoric!!!
all this was taking place on 2nd....3rd was ganesh chaturthi...hol.... and bascically on 2nd not much work was done since only me and CRni were on it....4th sep.... now i started feeling the heat majorly, nothing concrete was decided or done..... what are we going to do in the get together???
first....saraswati puja....some small program.... singing by girls (Anasuya and Sonal did a good job), Poem reciting... the poem was written by Divya and it was alo excellent.... then a bit of student teacher interaction...we asked Director mam to share her experiences with her profs and to tell her experiences with former students....
Food: Decide menu.... how much to buy, how much to serve and when to place orders....
We decided on veg pattis, with wafers, sweet(kaju katl/ri) and tea....
The orders were given by me and CRni....though pranav was put on the job, CRni handeled it...
Now gifts....1 big gift for the dept. we bought a Ganpati wall hanging after a lot of indescision it was a coin toss which clinched the gift.... and what to give to individual teachers...it should be personalised and not readymade....makes things complicated......on 4th night people in the class started waking up to the fact that we needed help and thankfully rose to the occasion....in a short while we had made individual bookmarks for teachers....Dhiraj did a FANTASTIC job here.....damn good...he's a natural with colours....
For compering Divya CRni and Satpreet came forward and did what was required.... Anasuya, Daksha, Pradnya and Pranav helped in loads of ways.... I did the running around....filling up of gaps....coordinating people on what to do...and doing a lot of it myself!!!
5th sep, D day....6 hours lecture!!! then...on the terrace...i got 3 jhaadus and we cleaned the terrace... i also got my clean bedsheet... to be used as a table cloth for keeping the Saraswati murti.... the girls made a rangoli, fantstic job they did.... 7 profs came, 6 from non teaching staff and 1 guest who is from vietnam doing her project with Director mam, seniors and us...the terrace was pretty filled...the function went without a hitch....no probs whatsoever, except the hungry seniors....we asked the Director mam to cut a cake.... people had their fill, then went.... later the seniors also went back.... We stayed back in the terrace, had loads of fun and later cleared up and we also left....
All in all it was a good program, seniors also appreciated it and i was happy in the end....
My and CRnis role in it was as a organiser, planner, executer and also as a coordinator. and so all in all it was a pretty good experience, tiring but rewarding and though it was full of tension it was also loads of fun!!!
Against all odds... My First Road Trip!!!
The odds were against me right from the start. Ok, what are the odds that i would be stuck in between 2 absolute strangers, in a stalled auto, on a flyover, going to a place i dont know forget evern been to, with pouring rain and me absolutely wet even inside the damn auto!!! a million to one??? The day i was to leave pune to go to mumbai and get the scooter was 1 in a million!!! The trip in the volvo was horrible... my pants were wet, the AC was set at 21 degrees.... brrrr (am cold, not burping!!) the only good thing was that they had put jaane tu ya jaane na.... which is a movie i really like!!!
I finally reached mumbai... at 1130 in the night. It was predecided that me and dad would leave at around 2 next afternoon and hit the road early so as to reach pune by evening so dad can return by volvo in the night.
With a few pre road trip preparations (like installing the spare wheel, filling up fuel and checking air pressure, and buying a bottle of chyawanprash) we were ready and Hit the road by 2:15...
Vehicle: Honda Eterno 150 (150cc engine, 4 stroke, single cylinder,4 Gears, 8.5 bhp, loads of torque, and even more trust)
Km reading: 11516 on the odo.
Distance: 113 km
Estimated time: 3 hrs with an average speed of 50kmph.
Weather: Couldnt have been better!!!
Traffic Conitions: It was Ganesh Chaturthi... every one was at home.... absolutely open roads!!!
BUT.... this day was also 1 in a million (What are the odds that there will be 2 days consequetive both 1 in a million???!!! after all the odds are stacked against me remember??!!)... We had cleared the toll naka on the old highway and were doing pretty good with lush fields on both sides, good scenery in the distance, cool wind, when the weather started deteriorating. It started to rain slightly and so we put on our windcheaters but the rain clouds were hovering and soon it started raining heavily. Visibility was reduced drastically and it wasnt wise to ride on so we stopped at a petrol pump and waited for the rain to stop... and we waited....and waited...and waited and waited...and waited some more....and waited some more..... we took this unscheduled stop for a whole 45 minutes!!!! this stop was 7 km before Khopoli, the lonavala khandala ghats not even touched yet...we still had to do 67 km to pune and the rains wouldnt stop......
Well the rate decreased and we were on the road.... by the time we touched khopoli, the rain had stopped and guess the irony of it all....clear blue skies and sun!!! now what are the odds for that???!!! well i was thankful of the weather.... and we touched the ghats.....
And this is where Eterno showed its brilliance.... there was an apache and a pulsar going up....and my Eterno was giving them a tough one!!! it didnt falter even once.... stood strong in 2nd and 3rd gear and even with a pillion and some luggage it went real smooth..... not a single hitch.... amazing piece of engineering man...love this machine!!!
We joined the expressway in the ghats region...and i was feeling really wierd being on a scooter on the expressway but it allowed me to open the throttle and touch a constant 55kmph.... i was even taking turns at 55kmph.... and the one tunnel was amazing.... but but but.....
This day was 1 in a million right??? Now what are the odds that u will be stopped just outside the expressway exit and fined 100 bucks for not having a PUC certificate and that too by the lonavala traffic police??? (Lonavala traffic police?? helloo???)Well dad had to shell out 100 bucks here.....(the first thing i did in pune with my Eterno was get it a PUC it deserved!!!). With the ghats cleared we hit the plains behind the western ghats.... smooth straight roads with not a single pot hole even in the rainy season!!! beautiful.... India is progressing definitely!!! good for that.... I was doing a constant 60kmph here to make up for the lost time and speed...
Eterno rides like a dream....dead stable, good torque, i was overtaking other riders and cars and trucks effortlessly and speed whenever u need it.... Plus a comfortable riding position... Now all u need is a long distance and good tarmac....and we had that.... Soon we reached the outskirts of Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, From here to University is around 30-40 min depending on the traffic... Luckily the traffic wasnt very heavy and we did good time and finally reached the university around 6:15 in the evening....
And so my first ever road trip ended..... Beautiful !!!
I showed dad around my hostel, room (seems to me he wasnt impressed but i am perfectly fine here... may be he should see the baroda hostel....aditya, man... no offence!!!), introduced him to my friends, room-mates, had something to eat in the NCCS canteen and dropped him till Parihar chowk from where he took the volve back home!!!
And so the day ended and so does this blog!!!
I finally reached mumbai... at 1130 in the night. It was predecided that me and dad would leave at around 2 next afternoon and hit the road early so as to reach pune by evening so dad can return by volvo in the night.
With a few pre road trip preparations (like installing the spare wheel, filling up fuel and checking air pressure, and buying a bottle of chyawanprash) we were ready and Hit the road by 2:15...
Vehicle: Honda Eterno 150 (150cc engine, 4 stroke, single cylinder,4 Gears, 8.5 bhp, loads of torque, and even more trust)
Km reading: 11516 on the odo.
Distance: 113 km
Estimated time: 3 hrs with an average speed of 50kmph.
Weather: Couldnt have been better!!!
Traffic Conitions: It was Ganesh Chaturthi... every one was at home.... absolutely open roads!!!
BUT.... this day was also 1 in a million (What are the odds that there will be 2 days consequetive both 1 in a million???!!! after all the odds are stacked against me remember??!!)... We had cleared the toll naka on the old highway and were doing pretty good with lush fields on both sides, good scenery in the distance, cool wind, when the weather started deteriorating. It started to rain slightly and so we put on our windcheaters but the rain clouds were hovering and soon it started raining heavily. Visibility was reduced drastically and it wasnt wise to ride on so we stopped at a petrol pump and waited for the rain to stop... and we waited....and waited...and waited and waited...and waited some more....and waited some more..... we took this unscheduled stop for a whole 45 minutes!!!! this stop was 7 km before Khopoli, the lonavala khandala ghats not even touched yet...we still had to do 67 km to pune and the rains wouldnt stop......
Well the rate decreased and we were on the road.... by the time we touched khopoli, the rain had stopped and guess the irony of it all....clear blue skies and sun!!! now what are the odds for that???!!! well i was thankful of the weather.... and we touched the ghats.....
And this is where Eterno showed its brilliance.... there was an apache and a pulsar going up....and my Eterno was giving them a tough one!!! it didnt falter even once.... stood strong in 2nd and 3rd gear and even with a pillion and some luggage it went real smooth..... not a single hitch.... amazing piece of engineering man...love this machine!!!
We joined the expressway in the ghats region...and i was feeling really wierd being on a scooter on the expressway but it allowed me to open the throttle and touch a constant 55kmph.... i was even taking turns at 55kmph.... and the one tunnel was amazing.... but but but.....
This day was 1 in a million right??? Now what are the odds that u will be stopped just outside the expressway exit and fined 100 bucks for not having a PUC certificate and that too by the lonavala traffic police??? (Lonavala traffic police?? helloo???)Well dad had to shell out 100 bucks here.....(the first thing i did in pune with my Eterno was get it a PUC it deserved!!!). With the ghats cleared we hit the plains behind the western ghats.... smooth straight roads with not a single pot hole even in the rainy season!!! beautiful.... India is progressing definitely!!! good for that.... I was doing a constant 60kmph here to make up for the lost time and speed...
Eterno rides like a dream....dead stable, good torque, i was overtaking other riders and cars and trucks effortlessly and speed whenever u need it.... Plus a comfortable riding position... Now all u need is a long distance and good tarmac....and we had that.... Soon we reached the outskirts of Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, From here to University is around 30-40 min depending on the traffic... Luckily the traffic wasnt very heavy and we did good time and finally reached the university around 6:15 in the evening....
And so my first ever road trip ended..... Beautiful !!!
I showed dad around my hostel, room (seems to me he wasnt impressed but i am perfectly fine here... may be he should see the baroda hostel....aditya, man... no offence!!!), introduced him to my friends, room-mates, had something to eat in the NCCS canteen and dropped him till Parihar chowk from where he took the volve back home!!!
And so the day ended and so does this blog!!!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Twitter...
Its raining blogs, hallelujah, its raining blogs!! cause my lab access is restricted and i use my Lappy and use net only for uploading!!!
Twitter...
Rajnish asks where does butterflies stay at night... i said "i think they hang upside down below leaves...". Is thats right???
Should i be feeling guilty???!!???
The other day there was a lot of fuss regarding the speed of fan in my class and our maths prof didnt like it. It was an unusually hot day but some people were still feeling cold and there was some time wasted on what should be ideal rotation speed of the fan. Our maths prof, who is a brilliant man and the coolest person so told us why are we so particular of our body's needs?? Why cant we ignore them??
He told us about a friend of his who was a pretty poor, didnt have his dad and his mom was a single earner cum parent. They used to live in a hut and in the summers when we generally have exams he used to wet a towel and wrap it about his naked body to keep cool and survive.... this is interior maharashtra summer we are talking about....an egg will literally get converted to omlette on a rock here. Still he always topped exam, was a gold medalist in maths olympiad, cracked UPSC and is doing pretty good now.
This got me thiking should i deny my body what it wants (not needs)?? Should i feel guilty that i am sitting below a fan here, where in africa people are dyng of heat strokes??? Should I??? And Why???
May be my parents did something good in their last life...so they are pretty well off, may i did something good in my past life.... may be i am plain lucky and other peole are not, may be my parent just worked their asses off to provide me with wants rather than needs.... so shud i disown these...should i deny....somehow i cant say yes to this Q .... so am i selfish....no i am not....i will gladly share my facilities with all..... may be i am selfish cause i wont take in all those who come.....so??? big deal......
It still doesnt justify denying my body water, food, a good envionment, sex.
Some people dont have TV so should i stop entertaining my self, some people are so lazy they will never tax their brains let alone other faculties, so shud i turn dumb...deny my briain its food for thought??
Some people are major parasites...should i become one???
I will turn on that god damn fan and set it to any desirable speed, i will only use warm water for bathing, i will eat well, sleep well, think well and i will enjoy my life off cause this is the only life i know, this is the only life i have and this is the only life i will ever have.
And forget about whether or not i should feel guilty or not.....
I DONT !!!!
He told us about a friend of his who was a pretty poor, didnt have his dad and his mom was a single earner cum parent. They used to live in a hut and in the summers when we generally have exams he used to wet a towel and wrap it about his naked body to keep cool and survive.... this is interior maharashtra summer we are talking about....an egg will literally get converted to omlette on a rock here. Still he always topped exam, was a gold medalist in maths olympiad, cracked UPSC and is doing pretty good now.
This got me thiking should i deny my body what it wants (not needs)?? Should i feel guilty that i am sitting below a fan here, where in africa people are dyng of heat strokes??? Should I??? And Why???
May be my parents did something good in their last life...so they are pretty well off, may i did something good in my past life.... may be i am plain lucky and other peole are not, may be my parent just worked their asses off to provide me with wants rather than needs.... so shud i disown these...should i deny....somehow i cant say yes to this Q .... so am i selfish....no i am not....i will gladly share my facilities with all..... may be i am selfish cause i wont take in all those who come.....so??? big deal......
It still doesnt justify denying my body water, food, a good envionment, sex.
Some people dont have TV so should i stop entertaining my self, some people are so lazy they will never tax their brains let alone other faculties, so shud i turn dumb...deny my briain its food for thought??
Some people are major parasites...should i become one???
I will turn on that god damn fan and set it to any desirable speed, i will only use warm water for bathing, i will eat well, sleep well, think well and i will enjoy my life off cause this is the only life i know, this is the only life i have and this is the only life i will ever have.
And forget about whether or not i should feel guilty or not.....
I DONT !!!!
I am loving it!
I am famous... and how!!!
It all started one fine day with me and a senior talking about counter strike (for the uninitiated it is a computer game, a kind of strategy-team game but in a first person shooter mode which makes it even better). Our computer labs are all connected in a LAN and the seniors had installed counter strike in 6 of their PCs and used to play every night at around 8. They used to erase the log records later so no one knew we were playing CS. And so it happened that i got an invitation from them to come over in their lab at night around 8 and play counter strike. So far so good. The next evening as they started playing they called me in... so i went and joined them. We were playing the Dima map in a 3 on 2 configuration and i am pretty pleased to inform that i was a pretty good player there and was 2nd in scores. Now that evening i had seen our Director ma'm leave for home in her car. It was 8:40 in the night, all my friends had gone for dinner but I was in the MSc 2 lab playing counter strike and then from behind enters none other than the Director of the institute Dr Mrs UKK.... OOOOOPPPSS...and a big one at that...
Mera to major **** jaam ho gaya.... Picture this: I am 3rd ranker in the entrance, the CR of the class, on pretty good terms with all profs and office people on account of me being CR, I had just been offered a project in statistics just that morning from the stats prof. and i am the only junior in the MSc 2 lab playing CS. It hasnt even been one complete month since i have joined (Course started on 21st july and its 21st august that day...night 8:40, so the month hasnt even properly ended yet...) and i am in deep deep shit!!!
Now that i blog i am feeling okok but then i was majorly f***ed up man, majorly. She asked us to send her an email saying we were caught playimg games and with our names and role numbers... and in that email i am the only one with a MSc 1 tag....makes me kinda conspicuous!! Anyways...so i went back to hostel room pretty shaken... and wondering at the unreality of it all... finally i called up JD just to tell some one the muck (m may be replaced freely with an f) i was in. He told me to ask the seniors now what to do...so at 1030 in d night i went to my seniors hostel... and talked to him... and mind u the seniors are also major pahucha hua log...one was a topper, the other is an expert programmer and the third had a project in NCCS under him...and me the 4th (nothing distinguishes me :-( )
So Deepak and Diggy told me dont worry, we'll tke all the blame and tell the director that i wasnt involved and that they had called me... i said ok... I asked him what was the worst that could happen to me. He said that there may be a call to my home...oops, 2: the lab will be closed early...oops for people who dont have a lappy, and a bad impression... some how i am used to that1. So i hoped that may be ghar pe call nahi jaana chahiye cause then mera laptop idhar laane ka chace will tend towards 0....
Anyways... next day... a duble lecture of...yeah u got it...THE DIRECTOR HERSELF... Being the CR i had already announced what had happened and my role in it, and where i expected blame i got the "whats-with-boys-and-CS" look..but no animosity. COOL. THE direcctor mentioned the incident only obliquely and didnt mention my role in it or address me personally. Later i asked the seniors what had happened and they said that they told ma'm i wasnt involved and that she had told them "dont spoil your juniors!!"
ous
We got a formal notice from ma'm that the labs will be closed at 630 in the evening and will remain closed on sundays and holidays....OK.
Now...i became an instant celebrity... all seniors started acknoledging me as they passed by, people were like, yeh banda seniors ke saath CS khelte pakda gaya!!! wow!! YAAAAyyyyyyyyy.....
Everyone from my librarian (who is really really good) to office staff asked me how the hell did i get into it.... well wheres CS theres me!!! not that i told them this but believe me i am a pretty known face now....and contrary to my expectations the stats sir is still pretty much into me doing a project with him and my relations with all faculty is pretty good except ofcourse the DIRECTOR!!
Thats ok.... I act professionally in her lectures, do my CR duties as nothing had happened (did anything happen??? :-) ) and keep my interactions with her as less as possible and everyones happy!!!
Moral of the story....CS rocks!!!!
It all started one fine day with me and a senior talking about counter strike (for the uninitiated it is a computer game, a kind of strategy-team game but in a first person shooter mode which makes it even better). Our computer labs are all connected in a LAN and the seniors had installed counter strike in 6 of their PCs and used to play every night at around 8. They used to erase the log records later so no one knew we were playing CS. And so it happened that i got an invitation from them to come over in their lab at night around 8 and play counter strike. So far so good. The next evening as they started playing they called me in... so i went and joined them. We were playing the Dima map in a 3 on 2 configuration and i am pretty pleased to inform that i was a pretty good player there and was 2nd in scores. Now that evening i had seen our Director ma'm leave for home in her car. It was 8:40 in the night, all my friends had gone for dinner but I was in the MSc 2 lab playing counter strike and then from behind enters none other than the Director of the institute Dr Mrs UKK.... OOOOOPPPSS...and a big one at that...
Mera to major **** jaam ho gaya.... Picture this: I am 3rd ranker in the entrance, the CR of the class, on pretty good terms with all profs and office people on account of me being CR, I had just been offered a project in statistics just that morning from the stats prof. and i am the only junior in the MSc 2 lab playing CS. It hasnt even been one complete month since i have joined (Course started on 21st july and its 21st august that day...night 8:40, so the month hasnt even properly ended yet...) and i am in deep deep shit!!!
Now that i blog i am feeling okok but then i was majorly f***ed up man, majorly. She asked us to send her an email saying we were caught playimg games and with our names and role numbers... and in that email i am the only one with a MSc 1 tag....makes me kinda conspicuous!! Anyways...so i went back to hostel room pretty shaken... and wondering at the unreality of it all... finally i called up JD just to tell some one the muck (m may be replaced freely with an f) i was in. He told me to ask the seniors now what to do...so at 1030 in d night i went to my seniors hostel... and talked to him... and mind u the seniors are also major pahucha hua log...one was a topper, the other is an expert programmer and the third had a project in NCCS under him...and me the 4th (nothing distinguishes me :-( )
So Deepak and Diggy told me dont worry, we'll tke all the blame and tell the director that i wasnt involved and that they had called me... i said ok... I asked him what was the worst that could happen to me. He said that there may be a call to my home...oops, 2: the lab will be closed early...oops for people who dont have a lappy, and a bad impression... some how i am used to that1. So i hoped that may be ghar pe call nahi jaana chahiye cause then mera laptop idhar laane ka chace will tend towards 0....
Anyways... next day... a duble lecture of...yeah u got it...THE DIRECTOR HERSELF... Being the CR i had already announced what had happened and my role in it, and where i expected blame i got the "whats-with-boys-and-CS" look..but no animosity. COOL. THE direcctor mentioned the incident only obliquely and didnt mention my role in it or address me personally. Later i asked the seniors what had happened and they said that they told ma'm i wasnt involved and that she had told them "dont spoil your juniors!!"
ous
We got a formal notice from ma'm that the labs will be closed at 630 in the evening and will remain closed on sundays and holidays....OK.
Now...i became an instant celebrity... all seniors started acknoledging me as they passed by, people were like, yeh banda seniors ke saath CS khelte pakda gaya!!! wow!! YAAAAyyyyyyyyy.....
Everyone from my librarian (who is really really good) to office staff asked me how the hell did i get into it.... well wheres CS theres me!!! not that i told them this but believe me i am a pretty known face now....and contrary to my expectations the stats sir is still pretty much into me doing a project with him and my relations with all faculty is pretty good except ofcourse the DIRECTOR!!
Thats ok.... I act professionally in her lectures, do my CR duties as nothing had happened (did anything happen??? :-) ) and keep my interactions with her as less as possible and everyones happy!!!
Moral of the story....CS rocks!!!!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
MAMA i'm comin home.......
i've moved into my new home away from home...atleast for the next 6 months.... i have moved into Gents hostel no. 2, room no. 18 with 1 roommate, 1 guest and 1 parastie!!!
I was feeling really wierd while i was in the auto with my luggage..... t'was pouring cats and dogs and instead of looking at that as a bad omen or some shit i was wondering ki the rain is washing off the old and its time for the new....
anyways...i went for shopping yesterday,.... i have yet to buy a good gaddaa.... but i bought 2 soap cases, 1 jhaadu, 10m of nylon rope and 1 bucket......... till the gaddaa comes i have to sleep on hard surface but thats ok for now.... the rest of the things i already have... some i'll take back to mumbai and leave them there....like my macchardani.... there are not many mosquitos here... and a vaporiser would work !!!!
the bathrooms suck bigtime... and 1 is under renovation of the 2... we are promised 5start bathroom once the renovation is over but for the moment its hell....sort of... luckily i have a water heater so no worries abt hot water... the rooms big enuff...anf good enuff...nothing like home though....
now...this is a 2 seater room...(2 beds) but theres room enuff for a "guest" and we havr taken in one.... hes from bihar and is a nice guy rajnish kumar!!! theres also a parasite whos in and once all hostels open i plan to kick him out since then he'll be a danger to all 3 of us !!!
i guess this is enuff for now... lifes going on as usual... its starting to get a bit hectic now.... and we are going on to heavier stuff academically also... and am still enjoying myself here....
for shopping for hostel things i had gone to corporation and shanivar wada... unfortunately it was monday and many shops were closed but we managed to buy all things that were needed, except the gaddaa ofcourse....
thats all from me.... its all on record....
one day i'll come back and read this stuff up.... and i'll remember the first days of my hostel life....and i hope that it'll be fun !!!!!!!
I was feeling really wierd while i was in the auto with my luggage..... t'was pouring cats and dogs and instead of looking at that as a bad omen or some shit i was wondering ki the rain is washing off the old and its time for the new....
anyways...i went for shopping yesterday,.... i have yet to buy a good gaddaa.... but i bought 2 soap cases, 1 jhaadu, 10m of nylon rope and 1 bucket......... till the gaddaa comes i have to sleep on hard surface but thats ok for now.... the rest of the things i already have... some i'll take back to mumbai and leave them there....like my macchardani.... there are not many mosquitos here... and a vaporiser would work !!!!
the bathrooms suck bigtime... and 1 is under renovation of the 2... we are promised 5start bathroom once the renovation is over but for the moment its hell....sort of... luckily i have a water heater so no worries abt hot water... the rooms big enuff...anf good enuff...nothing like home though....
now...this is a 2 seater room...(2 beds) but theres room enuff for a "guest" and we havr taken in one.... hes from bihar and is a nice guy rajnish kumar!!! theres also a parasite whos in and once all hostels open i plan to kick him out since then he'll be a danger to all 3 of us !!!
i guess this is enuff for now... lifes going on as usual... its starting to get a bit hectic now.... and we are going on to heavier stuff academically also... and am still enjoying myself here....
for shopping for hostel things i had gone to corporation and shanivar wada... unfortunately it was monday and many shops were closed but we managed to buy all things that were needed, except the gaddaa ofcourse....
thats all from me.... its all on record....
one day i'll come back and read this stuff up.... and i'll remember the first days of my hostel life....and i hope that it'll be fun !!!!!!!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Love...
Love is butterflies in the stomach when u fisrt see her...
Love is being incoherent in the head when u first try to talk to her...
Love is feeling alive just cause she exists...
Love is being happy just cause u are alive...
Love is having a bad day cause someone didnt come...
Love is thinking about her and going to sleep...
Love is dreaming about her all night...
Love is thinking about her when u wake up...
Love is not being able to any, any fault in her...
Love is being aware of her presence in the room the moment she enters...
Love is feeling a high for hours afterwards the first touch...
Love is feeling wretched since u havent talked to her for days...
Love is feeling reborned after she talked to you after months...
Love is feeling helpless when the brain wins over the heart...
Love is feeling crushed when u cant do anything about it...
Love is still dreaming about her after years...
Love is not being able to get over her... ever...
Love is wanting to leave a city just cause she sms'd from some place else in the world...
Love is waiting, waiting, waiting... not because theres no other option but because u dont want to choose any other option... cause there can be no other option... even when what u are waiting for is not clear...
Love is being incoherent in the head when u first try to talk to her...
Love is feeling alive just cause she exists...
Love is being happy just cause u are alive...
Love is having a bad day cause someone didnt come...
Love is thinking about her and going to sleep...
Love is dreaming about her all night...
Love is thinking about her when u wake up...
Love is not being able to any, any fault in her...
Love is being aware of her presence in the room the moment she enters...
Love is feeling a high for hours afterwards the first touch...
Love is feeling wretched since u havent talked to her for days...
Love is feeling reborned after she talked to you after months...
Love is feeling helpless when the brain wins over the heart...
Love is feeling crushed when u cant do anything about it...
Love is still dreaming about her after years...
Love is not being able to get over her... ever...
Love is wanting to leave a city just cause she sms'd from some place else in the world...
Love is waiting, waiting, waiting... not because theres no other option but because u dont want to choose any other option... cause there can be no other option... even when what u are waiting for is not clear...
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Encounters of the third kind....
THE SENIORS.......FIRST CONTACT....
All...and i mean all thirty of them barge in our MSc part 1 lab. Only one guy speaks....bad english...but he manages to say that all juniors are expected on the terrace at 6 in the evening without fail.... he means it as a threat but his english is too bad.....and he doesnt define..."if not...then... [x( ".... The rest of the seniors are a group of confused creatures not sure where to go and what to say and to whom....he also says that we all should write our biodata specifying name, dads name, mothers name, BSc record, hobbies and why we joined bioinformatics....
So far so good.... since i am the CR (hail hail !! ), i am supposed to be submitting the biodatas and making sure all are present in the evening and that the terrace is unlocked....
6:00 pm....we....juniors... assemble in the terrace....seniors are late...they trickle in at 6:30...is that planned....i dont think so.... there is infact 1 supersenior amongst them also....a gregarious giant of a female who screams like a banshee....the "Introduction Round" starts.....is that called ragging?? (by the end i know that this may be anything but ragging....its that hopeless)
They start roll number wise....questions range from..."Where do you bike??" to "Are u 22 ?? (i.e. r u 22 roll no. ... the girl in my class answers 'not yet'.. thats her age)"...the assignments they give...."memorise the names of the scientists in the photos which hang all over our depts....in order" (this was given to me...didnt do it) "Find the cat which stays in our dept...", "what is the scientific name of pig??"
Some people dance otehrs sing...one recites a poem in hindi which goes major bouncer, i voluteer the jingle of zandu balm and lifebuoy....Some times it is difficult to make out whether the seniors are ragging us or themselves.....
None the less we all laugh a lot....the "ragging" (which henceforth will be reffered to as "introduction") never crosses any limits.... the familiarity and closeness shared by the whole class of our seniors seems fantastic and i hope that my class will develop the same over this year.....
Since all of us also have to give a bit of introduction of ourselves, i also learn bits about other people in my class....
The session extends to 8:45 in the night...but i enjoy quite a lot of it (some parts were very boring).....later some seniors (notably the guy with the bad hindi, but as i later realise, hardcore marathi) and we juniors have a good talk.....
From the seniors i have come to know that this little tete-a-tete on the terrace is supposed to be a bioinfo tradition and i as a CR have decided to keep this tradition alive and kicking. And if this session was any example....i plan to have a blast next year whether or not the juniors like it or no.....
All...and i mean all thirty of them barge in our MSc part 1 lab. Only one guy speaks....bad english...but he manages to say that all juniors are expected on the terrace at 6 in the evening without fail.... he means it as a threat but his english is too bad.....and he doesnt define..."if not...then... [x( ".... The rest of the seniors are a group of confused creatures not sure where to go and what to say and to whom....he also says that we all should write our biodata specifying name, dads name, mothers name, BSc record, hobbies and why we joined bioinformatics....
So far so good.... since i am the CR (hail hail !! ), i am supposed to be submitting the biodatas and making sure all are present in the evening and that the terrace is unlocked....
6:00 pm....we....juniors... assemble in the terrace....seniors are late...they trickle in at 6:30...is that planned....i dont think so.... there is infact 1 supersenior amongst them also....a gregarious giant of a female who screams like a banshee....the "Introduction Round" starts.....is that called ragging?? (by the end i know that this may be anything but ragging....its that hopeless)
They start roll number wise....questions range from..."Where do you bike??" to "Are u 22 ?? (i.e. r u 22 roll no. ... the girl in my class answers 'not yet'.. thats her age)"...the assignments they give...."memorise the names of the scientists in the photos which hang all over our depts....in order" (this was given to me...didnt do it) "Find the cat which stays in our dept...", "what is the scientific name of pig??"
Some people dance otehrs sing...one recites a poem in hindi which goes major bouncer, i voluteer the jingle of zandu balm and lifebuoy....Some times it is difficult to make out whether the seniors are ragging us or themselves.....
None the less we all laugh a lot....the "ragging" (which henceforth will be reffered to as "introduction") never crosses any limits.... the familiarity and closeness shared by the whole class of our seniors seems fantastic and i hope that my class will develop the same over this year.....
Since all of us also have to give a bit of introduction of ourselves, i also learn bits about other people in my class....
The session extends to 8:45 in the night...but i enjoy quite a lot of it (some parts were very boring).....later some seniors (notably the guy with the bad hindi, but as i later realise, hardcore marathi) and we juniors have a good talk.....
From the seniors i have come to know that this little tete-a-tete on the terrace is supposed to be a bioinfo tradition and i as a CR have decided to keep this tradition alive and kicking. And if this session was any example....i plan to have a blast next year whether or not the juniors like it or no.....
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Pune - First Impressions
The first thing that I did upon entering Pune is cause an accident.... sorry i clarify.... is to be forced into an accident which i didnt want to cause but the "victim" wanted to get hit by my car...yeah thats right... actually what happened was that i was taking a U turn, and while i had my eyes on the oncoming traffic a guy on a moped BEHIND me decided to give my car bumper a kiss... the front bumper i.e. ... he actually came in front of my car while i was looking the other way and forced me into... forced my car into getting kissed by his filthy moped... the guy was old...i think he couldn't see... but this is pune guys... and here the first right on the road belongs to everybody !!!
THE TRAFFIC SENSE SUCKS BIGTIME......
BUT BUT BUT...things started getting progressively better and better.... the people in general are very helpful judging by the very accurate and polite instructions given by them on how to reach my destination... i hope to learn marathi soon enough... its a nice language...
The weather of Pune rocks bigtime...while it remains cool, it is not at all humid and thus no sweat...this means i dont have to wash my clothes as rigorously as otherwise... this also means that i can wear the same shirt twice AND not wear a banyan.... see... as i said it gets better progressively !!!
The girls here have the annoying habit of wearing what i call a terrorist mask over their faces which robs Pune of half its beauty... the other half being the greenery which keeps this city breathable....
There are loads of open grounds not yet scavenged by the builder's lobby... The public transport is not very good but thats a fact of life and all live with it or buy a twowheeler...
The university has a life of its own, its hearts pulsating with the loads of students who actually study here, unlike in mumbai univ where the loads of student are there just to take their migration forms... the university campus is huge huge and things can get a bit too far sometimes but then the bright side is that walking so much saves the gym costs...
The common birds here are different from what we see in mumbai, and while i cannot recognize them, their numbers and varieties are much more than mumbai... thanks to the generous tree cover...
My department has some pretty cool infrastructure and provides decent facilities... the people are really good and helpful.. and professional..(which is the best part)... my classmates are also pretty cool...
The generally blue skies and light wind uplift... i am actually HAPPY being here...i see a lot of possibilities and opportunities for me here to further my self professionally and personally... All in all i feel Pune is going to be a good place to spend the next 2 years of my life... and so we keep our heads held high and our hearts clean and ours fingers crossed !!! :)
THE TRAFFIC SENSE SUCKS BIGTIME......
BUT BUT BUT...things started getting progressively better and better.... the people in general are very helpful judging by the very accurate and polite instructions given by them on how to reach my destination... i hope to learn marathi soon enough... its a nice language...
The weather of Pune rocks bigtime...while it remains cool, it is not at all humid and thus no sweat...this means i dont have to wash my clothes as rigorously as otherwise... this also means that i can wear the same shirt twice AND not wear a banyan.... see... as i said it gets better progressively !!!
The girls here have the annoying habit of wearing what i call a terrorist mask over their faces which robs Pune of half its beauty... the other half being the greenery which keeps this city breathable....
There are loads of open grounds not yet scavenged by the builder's lobby... The public transport is not very good but thats a fact of life and all live with it or buy a twowheeler...
The university has a life of its own, its hearts pulsating with the loads of students who actually study here, unlike in mumbai univ where the loads of student are there just to take their migration forms... the university campus is huge huge and things can get a bit too far sometimes but then the bright side is that walking so much saves the gym costs...
The common birds here are different from what we see in mumbai, and while i cannot recognize them, their numbers and varieties are much more than mumbai... thanks to the generous tree cover...
My department has some pretty cool infrastructure and provides decent facilities... the people are really good and helpful.. and professional..(which is the best part)... my classmates are also pretty cool...
The generally blue skies and light wind uplift... i am actually HAPPY being here...i see a lot of possibilities and opportunities for me here to further my self professionally and personally... All in all i feel Pune is going to be a good place to spend the next 2 years of my life... and so we keep our heads held high and our hearts clean and ours fingers crossed !!! :)
But where are the earthworms??
There was notice in the papers that from some date, which will come upon soon enough, Pune will face water cuts due to acute water shortage and a 7 hour per day load shedding due to acute (yeah u guessed it!!) power shortage.
Back home in Mumbai, Kharghar which was already facing 4 hour load shedding now has to bear 9 - 10 hours per day !!!
This monsoon has hardly been much of a monsoon... after the initial promise of rains faded off into drizzle, the whole of Maharashtra has hardly got its share of rains and life giving water...
Some say its the water shortage thats causing the power shortage...(how?? beats me). Some say its the bad monsoon thats causing the water shortage (sounds logical), some just bear it while keeping quite...
May be some larger force is at work here...like global warming lead seasonal variation??? I dunno...
But the other day, as i was walking towards the NCCS canteen, it struck me that this Rainy Season i did not come across a single earthworm.... those ubiquitous worms that come out in rains and live even when cut into 2... i didnt spot even a single earthworm!!! I remember when i was a kid i used to play with earthworms a lot... they would dance like mad if prodded with a twig and if in the process it broke?? cool i have 2 now to play with.
While we all may suffer the indignity of having our living standards brought down by the water and power shortage, what saddens me the most is that i didnt see a single earthworm this season.
Back home in Mumbai, Kharghar which was already facing 4 hour load shedding now has to bear 9 - 10 hours per day !!!
This monsoon has hardly been much of a monsoon... after the initial promise of rains faded off into drizzle, the whole of Maharashtra has hardly got its share of rains and life giving water...
Some say its the water shortage thats causing the power shortage...(how?? beats me). Some say its the bad monsoon thats causing the water shortage (sounds logical), some just bear it while keeping quite...
May be some larger force is at work here...like global warming lead seasonal variation??? I dunno...
But the other day, as i was walking towards the NCCS canteen, it struck me that this Rainy Season i did not come across a single earthworm.... those ubiquitous worms that come out in rains and live even when cut into 2... i didnt spot even a single earthworm!!! I remember when i was a kid i used to play with earthworms a lot... they would dance like mad if prodded with a twig and if in the process it broke?? cool i have 2 now to play with.
While we all may suffer the indignity of having our living standards brought down by the water and power shortage, what saddens me the most is that i didnt see a single earthworm this season.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Neutral???
Am in....finally.... I have finally taken admission for MSc. Bioinformatics at Pune University. Am i happy?? I should be... after all this department is the best in India, it has good placement opportunities, there is good scope for PhD later and this line is the future where simulation will rule wet labs. So i should be happy, atleast.
The problem is i dont feel anything at all. And this is the topic of this blog. What do u call the feeling where u dont feel anything??? I am not feeling apprehensive about the course, nor scared of a new city or ragging or whatever. I am not feeling sad that i'll be leaving my parents. I am not feeling good about bagging such a nice course at a good place with a promising future. I am not feeling bad of leaving old good friends behind. HECK I AM NOT FEELING ANYTHING !!! And what the hell does one call that feeling??? Emptyness?? I dunno. but i want to find out... and this feeling is driving me nuts !!! I guess i am feeling weird... thats all !!! Or may be i am just neutral about all that goes on all around me. Or heck may be this is Nirvana... but if this is nirvana then i hate it !!! Its like i cease to be a Human !!! ouch.
The problem is i dont feel anything at all. And this is the topic of this blog. What do u call the feeling where u dont feel anything??? I am not feeling apprehensive about the course, nor scared of a new city or ragging or whatever. I am not feeling sad that i'll be leaving my parents. I am not feeling good about bagging such a nice course at a good place with a promising future. I am not feeling bad of leaving old good friends behind. HECK I AM NOT FEELING ANYTHING !!! And what the hell does one call that feeling??? Emptyness?? I dunno. but i want to find out... and this feeling is driving me nuts !!! I guess i am feeling weird... thats all !!! Or may be i am just neutral about all that goes on all around me. Or heck may be this is Nirvana... but if this is nirvana then i hate it !!! Its like i cease to be a Human !!! ouch.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Tangent....
when i passed 10th it was but obvious that i will take admission in the AE junior college......who the hell in the world went outta colony man????
and then dad asked me well why not try other colleges??? and i asked why do??? but i nonetheless filled up the form for Swami Vivekanand......forget the name....it was OUTSIDE the colony.....that was the main thing......no big deal. i was determined i'll be with my friends in AEJC (Atomic Energy...what a hip name to start with....Swami??? the name sounded dead to me)....
But when i saw my name in that first list in Swami....i decided then and there i wanted to come here......WHY??? i still dont know.....i dont regret that decision.....more of an impulse rather.... but that was the first tangent that my life took!!!
everyone did engineering man!!! that meant everyone!!! so it was in colony, in AEJC and in Swamis.....but me.....no i wanted to do pure science???? WHY??? i dunno.....cause i seriously like mechanical engineering as much as biology.....i guess i didnt know that then.....what i did know was that i liked biology.....
i knew then that there was no money in this line.....that was the one thing i did know....i didnt know anything else.....like the fact that good opportunities are real hard to come by.....that there is no placement......and the competition is so high that only the top 1% go on to do masters from any decent institute.....
had i known all this i wud have taken up engineering with its fantastic packages and placements.....cause only i know how much of my life has rolled in uncertainity and fear this last year of bachelors.......but i didnt know all these sweet facts then.....
so i took up a BSc in microbiology......dad warned me.....in this line u gotta go till PhD or u perish midway and find a new line.....
that was when my life shot off on another tangent......all my friends from Swamis and Colony took up engineering......but not me.....i went in for BSc.....
now that i have a bachelors degree in hand.....isnt that supposed to be a good thing.....not if its a BSc.......well now that i have a BSc in hand i am off for an MSc......
this MSc must come from outside mumbai since mumbai univ sucks and this is the condition put by my dad to me if i am to continue in this line of work.....
i sense another tangent thats gonna shoot off......it'll include my first real experience with research.......my first hostel experience.....my first time away from home.....a lot of firsts......
later after MSc the same uncertainity will play its game before i get into any good PhD course....hopefully that will involve another country.... a lot of another firsts... another new tangent......
but now i am not scared like i was half of last year.......maybe later i will be.....but not now......cause the certainity of an MSc admission shields me......so bring it on!!!
atleast my....whole life keeps on curving and twisting and bending.....and some times a tangent shoots out....so i wonder is this ones ever gonna come a full circle......i hope it does....far far out in the future....cause then i will reminiscence and i know that will be a good feeling.....
and then dad asked me well why not try other colleges??? and i asked why do??? but i nonetheless filled up the form for Swami Vivekanand......forget the name....it was OUTSIDE the colony.....that was the main thing......no big deal. i was determined i'll be with my friends in AEJC (Atomic Energy...what a hip name to start with....Swami??? the name sounded dead to me)....
But when i saw my name in that first list in Swami....i decided then and there i wanted to come here......WHY??? i still dont know.....i dont regret that decision.....more of an impulse rather.... but that was the first tangent that my life took!!!
everyone did engineering man!!! that meant everyone!!! so it was in colony, in AEJC and in Swamis.....but me.....no i wanted to do pure science???? WHY??? i dunno.....cause i seriously like mechanical engineering as much as biology.....i guess i didnt know that then.....what i did know was that i liked biology.....
i knew then that there was no money in this line.....that was the one thing i did know....i didnt know anything else.....like the fact that good opportunities are real hard to come by.....that there is no placement......and the competition is so high that only the top 1% go on to do masters from any decent institute.....
had i known all this i wud have taken up engineering with its fantastic packages and placements.....cause only i know how much of my life has rolled in uncertainity and fear this last year of bachelors.......but i didnt know all these sweet facts then.....
so i took up a BSc in microbiology......dad warned me.....in this line u gotta go till PhD or u perish midway and find a new line.....
that was when my life shot off on another tangent......all my friends from Swamis and Colony took up engineering......but not me.....i went in for BSc.....
now that i have a bachelors degree in hand.....isnt that supposed to be a good thing.....not if its a BSc.......well now that i have a BSc in hand i am off for an MSc......
this MSc must come from outside mumbai since mumbai univ sucks and this is the condition put by my dad to me if i am to continue in this line of work.....
i sense another tangent thats gonna shoot off......it'll include my first real experience with research.......my first hostel experience.....my first time away from home.....a lot of firsts......
later after MSc the same uncertainity will play its game before i get into any good PhD course....hopefully that will involve another country.... a lot of another firsts... another new tangent......
but now i am not scared like i was half of last year.......maybe later i will be.....but not now......cause the certainity of an MSc admission shields me......so bring it on!!!
atleast my....whole life keeps on curving and twisting and bending.....and some times a tangent shoots out....so i wonder is this ones ever gonna come a full circle......i hope it does....far far out in the future....cause then i will reminiscence and i know that will be a good feeling.....
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Humane??? Humans no more!!!
I just saw an excellent movie called "Blood Diamond".....and it has really shaken me, the images in the movie, the scenario, everything.......it has got me asking some questions to which i dont have any answers.......
In the movie the main protagonist is a diamond smuggler who smuggles stolen uncut diamonds from Sierra Leone mines and sells them off to private companies which then mix these with legally mined diamonds and out into the open market.../...in the process of obtaining these stolen diamonds he exploits diamond mine workers....these workers themselves are exploited and forced into mining.....theres a local civil war going on between rival black factions, between blacks and whites and theres absolutely no government no law, order nuthing.....u have a gun and the other person is eating and u hungry.....just shoot and eat....thats what they do.....the diamond companies employ there own armies and bomb the diamond mines.....killing thousand of workers.....who are really better off dead...(but they shudnt be and thats what this blog is leading to).....all illegally.....but hey everything is legal here and nuthing is legal....
the situation is created such that it profits everyone if the war keeps on going....no body is financing the war.....everyone is just helping it along....all u need to do is get ur hands on one fat diamond and u are set for life....thats the reason for the war.....the diamond companies hoard the diamonds in vaults causing a shortage and increasing diamond prices....consumer will always buy however costly they may be.....after all diamonds are supposed to be costly......
In the process (though Sierra Leone is now peaceful) there are now 200000 child soldiers every one of em with an AK 47.....where the fuck do these guns come from.....cause they arent being manufactured in africa for gods sake....so many bullets are fired.....where do the new magazines come from??? they got be coming from somewhere but from where fucking where.....
Why do we kill so easily.....why doesnt it matter to one individual that his actions are causing suffering in whole god damn nations!!! that people are killing each other because of situations created by 2 diamond companies.....and the irony being that these same people dont even know that any such company exists......
What is the freaking meaning of the word Humane??? Human Rights?? Humanity??? Human??? Are we inherently that selfish an organism??.....ok lets give the fucking humans a chance.....lets analyse this from a biological viewpoint.....An animal will ofcourse fight for the best resources, best pastures, the best patch of sunlight, the best hunting grounds, the best mates.....money is a resource for Humans...it has become one now......so it is justified to fight for money.....a lion will never kill an animal for fun....once it has had its fill, it'll never kill..... are we then justifed in so much killing after we have had the money??? after we have had our fill......and the weird thing is we kill our own kinds.....not that we dont kill other organisms.....we do that in plenty too....
wars have been a fixture with this race.....we killed off the neanderthals in war.......thats how this race begins its sojourn on earth....whenever things get too quite we go to war,......theres not enough money in the economy....lets go to war....theres too much of it...lets got to war....oh my...my neighbor has too much of it...let go and have a fucking war.....oh my god my neighbor looks different today... kill!!! wtf???
we humans as a race/.....are inherently too selfish, greedy, callous in our attitude towards everyhting....and all this after being the only species to recognize all this!!! we cannibalize, rape, kill, destroy and fuck up everything from our own selves to other people to other animals, environment everything!!!
did the word humane come from the word human.....their meaning has changed now....diverged so drastically that I dont now know what the word human means anymore...
but the most weirdest thing is.....i myself am a Human !!!
In the movie the main protagonist is a diamond smuggler who smuggles stolen uncut diamonds from Sierra Leone mines and sells them off to private companies which then mix these with legally mined diamonds and out into the open market.../...in the process of obtaining these stolen diamonds he exploits diamond mine workers....these workers themselves are exploited and forced into mining.....theres a local civil war going on between rival black factions, between blacks and whites and theres absolutely no government no law, order nuthing.....u have a gun and the other person is eating and u hungry.....just shoot and eat....thats what they do.....the diamond companies employ there own armies and bomb the diamond mines.....killing thousand of workers.....who are really better off dead...(but they shudnt be and thats what this blog is leading to).....all illegally.....but hey everything is legal here and nuthing is legal....
the situation is created such that it profits everyone if the war keeps on going....no body is financing the war.....everyone is just helping it along....all u need to do is get ur hands on one fat diamond and u are set for life....thats the reason for the war.....the diamond companies hoard the diamonds in vaults causing a shortage and increasing diamond prices....consumer will always buy however costly they may be.....after all diamonds are supposed to be costly......
In the process (though Sierra Leone is now peaceful) there are now 200000 child soldiers every one of em with an AK 47.....where the fuck do these guns come from.....cause they arent being manufactured in africa for gods sake....so many bullets are fired.....where do the new magazines come from??? they got be coming from somewhere but from where fucking where.....
Why do we kill so easily.....why doesnt it matter to one individual that his actions are causing suffering in whole god damn nations!!! that people are killing each other because of situations created by 2 diamond companies.....and the irony being that these same people dont even know that any such company exists......
What is the freaking meaning of the word Humane??? Human Rights?? Humanity??? Human??? Are we inherently that selfish an organism??.....ok lets give the fucking humans a chance.....lets analyse this from a biological viewpoint.....An animal will ofcourse fight for the best resources, best pastures, the best patch of sunlight, the best hunting grounds, the best mates.....money is a resource for Humans...it has become one now......so it is justified to fight for money.....a lion will never kill an animal for fun....once it has had its fill, it'll never kill..... are we then justifed in so much killing after we have had the money??? after we have had our fill......and the weird thing is we kill our own kinds.....not that we dont kill other organisms.....we do that in plenty too....
wars have been a fixture with this race.....we killed off the neanderthals in war.......thats how this race begins its sojourn on earth....whenever things get too quite we go to war,......theres not enough money in the economy....lets go to war....theres too much of it...lets got to war....oh my...my neighbor has too much of it...let go and have a fucking war.....oh my god my neighbor looks different today... kill!!! wtf???
we humans as a race/.....are inherently too selfish, greedy, callous in our attitude towards everyhting....and all this after being the only species to recognize all this!!! we cannibalize, rape, kill, destroy and fuck up everything from our own selves to other people to other animals, environment everything!!!
did the word humane come from the word human.....their meaning has changed now....diverged so drastically that I dont now know what the word human means anymore...
but the most weirdest thing is.....i myself am a Human !!!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Screwed Up
Recently, I think it was Condoleeza Rice who said that the world was facing a food shortage because of the rising appetites of Indians!!! A provocative statement to say the least....and an absolutely silly one on top of that!!!
What are we doing exactly......(we-as in humans). We are screwing up big time....in fact we have already screwed up big time.....Theres is a limited area of land on earth, of that some of it has to be given to perennial forests to act as lungs so as to keep our metabolism oxygenic..... some of it is waste land, desert or mountain land and generally uncultivable......some of it is covered by our filthy cities and houses and god knows what else.....the rest must now be efficiently converted to agricultural land....the only problem is it already is.........and it is not enough....so what do u do......eat meat.....how do you grow meat??? u need more land for grazing cattle than for agriculture.....so its actually better to eat green leafy vegetables however much u may feel like a cow........but still not enough food.....so you fish....but the problem is excess fishing has already decreased the numbers to such drastic lows that many near extinction locally(most notably the yummy blue fin tunas)....quite a few globally (most notably the whales). So what do you do....u start fish farms....only they dont grow like wheat...and fish from fish farms are costlier than fish from sea!!!......so now we have less food which is more costly....and we already are in a global economy recession with rising oil prices and decreasing steel availability.......and the global warming is increasing sea levels steadily so that the amount of available land is decreasing still further.......and rising sea levels would engulf not just coastal cities or villages but whole countries.......for eg: Netherlands is a country which will be totally submerged if the sea levels rises.....and Netherlands holds in billions of dollars in the world horticulture industry.....thank god its not agriculture instead of horticulture....Another bad news.....we are converting agricultural land to grow crops to harness biodiesel.....thus decreasing agricultural land for food further and on top of that burning a hydrocarbon to give off more of that noxious CO2 which increases global warming, raises water levels and decreases land availability further.......on top of that we are reproducing faster than rabits and while rabits would satiate with a forest we need whole cities to take care of our brethren and.......yes u got that right..... that requires more land...
So we eat and dont have enuff to eat, we fish and now the fish dont have enuff to eat (cause one fish eats another) we burn and we pollute and then we blame Indians rising appetites for food shortage forgeting that the max no. of obese are in the US of A....
WE ARE SCREWING UP BIG TIME ~!!!!!
(The weird thing is....there is a solution....and its called sacrifice.....but who is listening....all are busy eating!!!)
What are we doing exactly......(we-as in humans). We are screwing up big time....in fact we have already screwed up big time.....Theres is a limited area of land on earth, of that some of it has to be given to perennial forests to act as lungs so as to keep our metabolism oxygenic..... some of it is waste land, desert or mountain land and generally uncultivable......some of it is covered by our filthy cities and houses and god knows what else.....the rest must now be efficiently converted to agricultural land....the only problem is it already is.........and it is not enough....so what do u do......eat meat.....how do you grow meat??? u need more land for grazing cattle than for agriculture.....so its actually better to eat green leafy vegetables however much u may feel like a cow........but still not enough food.....so you fish....but the problem is excess fishing has already decreased the numbers to such drastic lows that many near extinction locally(most notably the yummy blue fin tunas)....quite a few globally (most notably the whales). So what do you do....u start fish farms....only they dont grow like wheat...and fish from fish farms are costlier than fish from sea!!!......so now we have less food which is more costly....and we already are in a global economy recession with rising oil prices and decreasing steel availability.......and the global warming is increasing sea levels steadily so that the amount of available land is decreasing still further.......and rising sea levels would engulf not just coastal cities or villages but whole countries.......for eg: Netherlands is a country which will be totally submerged if the sea levels rises.....and Netherlands holds in billions of dollars in the world horticulture industry.....thank god its not agriculture instead of horticulture....Another bad news.....we are converting agricultural land to grow crops to harness biodiesel.....thus decreasing agricultural land for food further and on top of that burning a hydrocarbon to give off more of that noxious CO2 which increases global warming, raises water levels and decreases land availability further.......on top of that we are reproducing faster than rabits and while rabits would satiate with a forest we need whole cities to take care of our brethren and.......yes u got that right..... that requires more land...
So we eat and dont have enuff to eat, we fish and now the fish dont have enuff to eat (cause one fish eats another) we burn and we pollute and then we blame Indians rising appetites for food shortage forgeting that the max no. of obese are in the US of A....
WE ARE SCREWING UP BIG TIME ~!!!!!
(The weird thing is....there is a solution....and its called sacrifice.....but who is listening....all are busy eating!!!)
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Kashmir...
Kashmir
Our Itinerary :
22 – 5 – 2008 : 7am Flight from Mum to Del to Srinagar
23 – 5 – 2008 : Pahalgam
24 – 5 – 2008 : Srinagar
25 – 5 – 2008 : Gulmarg
26 – 5 – 2008 : Gulmarg
27 – 5 – 2008 : 1.45pm flight from Srinagar to Del to Mum
Kashmir – Switzerland in India, Paradise on Earth… these statements don’t even come close to the type of beauty the land possesses. It is indeed indescribable and I don’t have words that can express the tranquility of the place…… U have to be there and feel it and see for yourself…. That is the only way….. As one drives through the meandering roads, with sounds of the rapids flowing by the side, lush green hills covered by a carpet of poplars and pines, the tall mountains hiding behind a veil of clouds with the white glistening peaks peeping from behind…. one wonders what is this place??
Anyways…..lets start from the start…… on 22nd at 4am this trip started…..took a cab to airport and the flight to Delhi was on time at 7am…. Weather conditions at Del were not very good and we experienced heavy turbulence and infact had to land in dust storm conditions. I pretty much enjoyed the flight. We then boarded our flight to Srinagar, which was a whole 2 hours late, and then again we experienced turbulence above Del. As we flew into J&K we already got a teaser of what awaited us as we flew over snow capped mountains. In Srinagar we met our driver Yaseem who was to ferry us to all the places we were to go. We checked into our houseboat on Dal Lake “The ‘Quine’ of Africa” (deluxe). Our Driver told us that owner of this boat had an African wife and hence the name. These floating hotels have all possible amenities and are very luxurious with every square inch of floor covered with carpets and comfortable sofas in the lounge. But the best thing about these is the service. The people of Kashmir are extremely polite and of all the places we have ever been to we got the beat service in each and every hotel or houseboats we checked into in Kashmir. Not only that even the locals who sell trinkets or souvenirs never hound you and if u refuse to buy their wares they would retreat. In stark contrast are hawkers of Delhi near Qutub Minar where they simply drown you in their call for buy this buy that and will not leave you till u buy something or the other.
We went for a Shikara Ride in the Dal Lake late in the afternoon and visited the floating gardens, the kabutarkhana, the floating markets etc. these floating markets are just like those in Bangkok….but much more peaceful…. And they sell everything from bread butter to pepsi to saffron, jwellery and pashmina shawls…. And the best thing is that they will never force you into buying their wares. Extremely humble folks.
The next day we went to Pahalgam. The drive to pahalgam is the one of the most beautiful ones with the terrain changing continuously. We saw fields of Kesar extending on both sides of the roads as far as the eye could see. All the while in the background the snowcapped peaks coming closer and closer… teasing u, calling u. The road passed through valleys surrounded by lush green hills and then as it started climbing, with the rapids flowing by its sides. In Pahalgam our hotel “The Silver Star” was first class with excellent food and impeccable service. We then took a Horse ride to Dabian and Baisaran. Baisaran is a large valley right in between a coniferous forest surrounded by tall mountains. I had as much fun sightseeing as I had galloping on the horse full steam… first time ever…
The next morning we went to Chandawari and encountered our first snow on this trip. The place was unfortunately slightly ruined by the tourists but was gifted when u let the eyes wander away from the ground towards the sky and the peaks…
We then went back to Srinagar and this time our houseboat was on Nigeen Lake, which is part of the Dal Lake, but on the opposite bank. Our boat “The Baktook’s Palace” was just as comfortable but the surroundings were even quieter and peaceful with a nice view of the Akbar Fort. In the evening there were rough winds and one of the shikaras of out houseboat went adrift. So later a caretaker and me went shikara rescuing… nice adventure in the middle of the Dal Lake I say!!!
The next morning we were to go to Gulmarg. Enroute to Gulmarg we were stopped by security cause the road was closed for a convoy of ministers to pass… President Pratibha Patil had visited Gulmarg and was returning to Srinagar and so we were lost in translation. The joke is that Prez Patil didn’t even travel by road she flew over us in a helicopter and the road bandobast was for her chamcha ministers….. a whole convoy of 30 cars….. which made me wonder the amount of tax payers money spent on ministers holidays what with road closing causing delay intrade, cost of so many security personnel, fuel, time, carbon credits etc…I were pretty miffed to say the least. If this wasn’t enough we were later stopped at an army checkpost and our driver was taken into the bunker by the side since the guy at the post didn’t like my driver speeding… Yaseem later told us that the guy had picked up a lathi and only because another person said it wasn’t his fault did they let him go.
Kashmiris have an issue with the army… the army proved instrumental in stopping the terrorism, which was rampant in Kashmir in the 1990s… however the army does carry out atrocities on the common people of Kashmir. For example what happened with our driver. The cost of maintaining the army also is borne mostly by the local people. For example the food required by the army is mostly produced in the state and doesn’t come from outside. Besides there are 7 lakh army men in the state so the resources required add up to a huge amount most of which is borne by the locals here. I don’t know the solution of this problem but the army is required in the region, as it is still very much sensitive. Maybe the army has to mend its ways and I don’t think it is used to that.
What with Pratibha Patil and all we reached Gulmarg late at 2 pm. The main attraction of Gulmarg – The Gondola (Cable Car) had its counters closed by 2 so then we went for a horse ride round the hill station. We did a large circuit around the hill station and towards the end the weather started worsening and it started raining and got freaking cold so we abandoned our pony ride halfway and took shelter in a small house nearby… We decided to go for the Cable Car the next day. The cable car is the highest in the world and transports people from 8900 feet to 10050 feet at the first stage and to 13500 feet to the second stage. Needless to say I was pretty excited about the cable car ride since it takes you to the very top of the peak!!!
THE TREK OF A LIFETIME !!!!!
The next day we reached the ticket counter at 9 am. It opens at 10am. and still the queue was already very long with more than 60-70 people ahead of us!!! The system here is weird to say the least. Every person can be allotted 10 tokens, at the ticket counter u pay the money and get the tickets and then there is a line for the gondolas since there can only be 6 people in a gondola. So in all there are 3 lines to stand in…. and I wonder why??? Well anyways as is evident there is scope for rampant corruption. And corruption was rampant. The local people from hotels queued up since 8 in the morning and kept coming back and in all booked some 400 to 500 tokens amongst themselves. These tokens were then sold to tourists in black from the hotels for 100 bucks more and so even when the token counter was closed the line for tickets and gondola steadly kept on increasing…. While we were waiting in the line…. By 12 we were still in the line with the token counter closed and the weather deteriorated further… it was announced that because of the bad weather conditions the cable car would only go up to the 1st stage at 10050 feet. Anyways dad and me decided to just pick up a trail and go exploring. But dad wanted to have lunch first so I took off alone. Unfortunately the camera was with dad. There was a trail nearby only and I could see it went towards the gondola and so I asked a local to confirm where the trail led. He said it lead to the highest point i.e. the 2nd stage of gondola. He also added that I wont make it that it’ll take 5 hours and that I better take a horse. But I had some pretty good gumboots hired with a heavy parka that kept me warm and I decided that well I’ll go as far as possible and then come back. And so started my longest ever, highest ever and the bestest ever trek. The trail was extremely muddy and I was thankful for my gumboots. I did loose the trail once and had to ask a local and get back to the actual trail. Soon I was away from the hoards of screaming tourists and high up in the hills with the cable cars running over my head. I was absolutely alone and was trekking up at my own pace. I met many locals and all said that I better take a pony and that I wouldn’t make it. Replied to all of them that I’ll go as far as I can. The thing with the trail was that it was steadily climbing but wasn’t very steep until the very end. The last 500 feet I think must be a steady 45 degree slope. There I met a small kid coming down, he was the only one who said “bas abhi thoda hi hai jao jao!!!” and that was just fantastic… I guess the locals are just not used to seeing tourists trek up right beneath the gondola…. Infact I didn’t see and other tourist who was trekking like me. Anyways after meeting the kid I decided I am going to somehow reach atleast the 1st stage… on that 45 degree incline I got tired so often that I had to rest 3 times. In one of these rests I forgot my woolen cap and had to back track to find it!!! The frustration!!! Towards the top when I was almost there a pack of mountain dogs started barking at me… and I was freaking scared shitless. These dogs are big hairy and more wolf like and our mumbai strays look like cute little pups in front of them. So I again had to back track and take another route up. Finally I ended up entering the first stage right by the side of the building where the cable cars where entering. I had finally reached the 1st stage. The tourists were coming out of the building to my right and I jumped the railing and entered the melee. The looks I got from people…. I could have laughed out loud only I was too tired… It had taken me a whole 1 hour 50 min to reach the 1st stage from 8900 feet to 10050 feet (that’s 1150 feet). I met a family from Vasai in Mumbai shared some biscuits with them. Told them I had trekked up and they couldn’t believe it. Since the weather above was very bad everyone was taking horses till the snowline at 12000 feet to get to the snow. After sitting for half an hour I decided that I had come till here…. No point in not going further…. So on I went… for some time I followed the trail the horses were using but the terrain there was covered with grass (which gives good grip) and rocks and I didn’t see any point in following the horses muddy tracks so I just broke away and criss crosses the steadily rising terrain. Again all horses were going with the tourists to a point where there were local people with bobsleds and there the snow was all muddy and trampled by the tourists so I took a left and just kept going till I finally reached the snowline. And that was just amazing…. I was the only one there no other tourist or local had come there it was absolutely quiet with only the wind and the grass talking. The best moment of my vacation, Me sitting on a rock surrounded by snow, no other person even visible, clear blue skies, a white mountain behind me, a green meadow in front of me, a cold wind blowing and absolute silence…. What more can I ask for??? It was 4 by then and it decided to head back cause I was just too tired to even attempt the 13500 feet climb and it was getting late…. I knew mum would be getting tensed cause no one knew where I was except that I had gone for a walk and it would take time for me to reach back to the hotel. I made my way slowly back towards the 1st stage. On the way I asked a local what height was I at and he told me that was 12000 feet…. Mind blowing…. Then I told him I had trekked all the way up and that look of genuine appreciation on him…. That made my day absolutely. I had some water and biscuits at the 1st stage and then continued on my way down. The way down was slightly more difficult since the slopes were extremely muddy and slippery and I fell 3 times infact and got a bad bruise on my right thigh but all that’s a part of the game after all…. Nonetheless the way down was much faster and I reached my hotel at 5.15 and guess what…. Met mum at the hotel entrance, said she was starting to come and look for me!!! This last day in Gulmarg was one of my best and I wont forget this unscheduled trek ever…
The next day we left for srinagar airport and took our flight and were in mumbai at 7pm. Reached home at 9.30 and that was that……end of trip!!!
Our Itinerary :
22 – 5 – 2008 : 7am Flight from Mum to Del to Srinagar
23 – 5 – 2008 : Pahalgam
24 – 5 – 2008 : Srinagar
25 – 5 – 2008 : Gulmarg
26 – 5 – 2008 : Gulmarg
27 – 5 – 2008 : 1.45pm flight from Srinagar to Del to Mum
Kashmir – Switzerland in India, Paradise on Earth… these statements don’t even come close to the type of beauty the land possesses. It is indeed indescribable and I don’t have words that can express the tranquility of the place…… U have to be there and feel it and see for yourself…. That is the only way….. As one drives through the meandering roads, with sounds of the rapids flowing by the side, lush green hills covered by a carpet of poplars and pines, the tall mountains hiding behind a veil of clouds with the white glistening peaks peeping from behind…. one wonders what is this place??
Anyways…..lets start from the start…… on 22nd at 4am this trip started…..took a cab to airport and the flight to Delhi was on time at 7am…. Weather conditions at Del were not very good and we experienced heavy turbulence and infact had to land in dust storm conditions. I pretty much enjoyed the flight. We then boarded our flight to Srinagar, which was a whole 2 hours late, and then again we experienced turbulence above Del. As we flew into J&K we already got a teaser of what awaited us as we flew over snow capped mountains. In Srinagar we met our driver Yaseem who was to ferry us to all the places we were to go. We checked into our houseboat on Dal Lake “The ‘Quine’ of Africa” (deluxe). Our Driver told us that owner of this boat had an African wife and hence the name. These floating hotels have all possible amenities and are very luxurious with every square inch of floor covered with carpets and comfortable sofas in the lounge. But the best thing about these is the service. The people of Kashmir are extremely polite and of all the places we have ever been to we got the beat service in each and every hotel or houseboats we checked into in Kashmir. Not only that even the locals who sell trinkets or souvenirs never hound you and if u refuse to buy their wares they would retreat. In stark contrast are hawkers of Delhi near Qutub Minar where they simply drown you in their call for buy this buy that and will not leave you till u buy something or the other.
We went for a Shikara Ride in the Dal Lake late in the afternoon and visited the floating gardens, the kabutarkhana, the floating markets etc. these floating markets are just like those in Bangkok….but much more peaceful…. And they sell everything from bread butter to pepsi to saffron, jwellery and pashmina shawls…. And the best thing is that they will never force you into buying their wares. Extremely humble folks.
The next day we went to Pahalgam. The drive to pahalgam is the one of the most beautiful ones with the terrain changing continuously. We saw fields of Kesar extending on both sides of the roads as far as the eye could see. All the while in the background the snowcapped peaks coming closer and closer… teasing u, calling u. The road passed through valleys surrounded by lush green hills and then as it started climbing, with the rapids flowing by its sides. In Pahalgam our hotel “The Silver Star” was first class with excellent food and impeccable service. We then took a Horse ride to Dabian and Baisaran. Baisaran is a large valley right in between a coniferous forest surrounded by tall mountains. I had as much fun sightseeing as I had galloping on the horse full steam… first time ever…
The next morning we went to Chandawari and encountered our first snow on this trip. The place was unfortunately slightly ruined by the tourists but was gifted when u let the eyes wander away from the ground towards the sky and the peaks…
We then went back to Srinagar and this time our houseboat was on Nigeen Lake, which is part of the Dal Lake, but on the opposite bank. Our boat “The Baktook’s Palace” was just as comfortable but the surroundings were even quieter and peaceful with a nice view of the Akbar Fort. In the evening there were rough winds and one of the shikaras of out houseboat went adrift. So later a caretaker and me went shikara rescuing… nice adventure in the middle of the Dal Lake I say!!!
The next morning we were to go to Gulmarg. Enroute to Gulmarg we were stopped by security cause the road was closed for a convoy of ministers to pass… President Pratibha Patil had visited Gulmarg and was returning to Srinagar and so we were lost in translation. The joke is that Prez Patil didn’t even travel by road she flew over us in a helicopter and the road bandobast was for her chamcha ministers….. a whole convoy of 30 cars….. which made me wonder the amount of tax payers money spent on ministers holidays what with road closing causing delay intrade, cost of so many security personnel, fuel, time, carbon credits etc…I were pretty miffed to say the least. If this wasn’t enough we were later stopped at an army checkpost and our driver was taken into the bunker by the side since the guy at the post didn’t like my driver speeding… Yaseem later told us that the guy had picked up a lathi and only because another person said it wasn’t his fault did they let him go.
Kashmiris have an issue with the army… the army proved instrumental in stopping the terrorism, which was rampant in Kashmir in the 1990s… however the army does carry out atrocities on the common people of Kashmir. For example what happened with our driver. The cost of maintaining the army also is borne mostly by the local people. For example the food required by the army is mostly produced in the state and doesn’t come from outside. Besides there are 7 lakh army men in the state so the resources required add up to a huge amount most of which is borne by the locals here. I don’t know the solution of this problem but the army is required in the region, as it is still very much sensitive. Maybe the army has to mend its ways and I don’t think it is used to that.
What with Pratibha Patil and all we reached Gulmarg late at 2 pm. The main attraction of Gulmarg – The Gondola (Cable Car) had its counters closed by 2 so then we went for a horse ride round the hill station. We did a large circuit around the hill station and towards the end the weather started worsening and it started raining and got freaking cold so we abandoned our pony ride halfway and took shelter in a small house nearby… We decided to go for the Cable Car the next day. The cable car is the highest in the world and transports people from 8900 feet to 10050 feet at the first stage and to 13500 feet to the second stage. Needless to say I was pretty excited about the cable car ride since it takes you to the very top of the peak!!!
THE TREK OF A LIFETIME !!!!!
The next day we reached the ticket counter at 9 am. It opens at 10am. and still the queue was already very long with more than 60-70 people ahead of us!!! The system here is weird to say the least. Every person can be allotted 10 tokens, at the ticket counter u pay the money and get the tickets and then there is a line for the gondolas since there can only be 6 people in a gondola. So in all there are 3 lines to stand in…. and I wonder why??? Well anyways as is evident there is scope for rampant corruption. And corruption was rampant. The local people from hotels queued up since 8 in the morning and kept coming back and in all booked some 400 to 500 tokens amongst themselves. These tokens were then sold to tourists in black from the hotels for 100 bucks more and so even when the token counter was closed the line for tickets and gondola steadly kept on increasing…. While we were waiting in the line…. By 12 we were still in the line with the token counter closed and the weather deteriorated further… it was announced that because of the bad weather conditions the cable car would only go up to the 1st stage at 10050 feet. Anyways dad and me decided to just pick up a trail and go exploring. But dad wanted to have lunch first so I took off alone. Unfortunately the camera was with dad. There was a trail nearby only and I could see it went towards the gondola and so I asked a local to confirm where the trail led. He said it lead to the highest point i.e. the 2nd stage of gondola. He also added that I wont make it that it’ll take 5 hours and that I better take a horse. But I had some pretty good gumboots hired with a heavy parka that kept me warm and I decided that well I’ll go as far as possible and then come back. And so started my longest ever, highest ever and the bestest ever trek. The trail was extremely muddy and I was thankful for my gumboots. I did loose the trail once and had to ask a local and get back to the actual trail. Soon I was away from the hoards of screaming tourists and high up in the hills with the cable cars running over my head. I was absolutely alone and was trekking up at my own pace. I met many locals and all said that I better take a pony and that I wouldn’t make it. Replied to all of them that I’ll go as far as I can. The thing with the trail was that it was steadily climbing but wasn’t very steep until the very end. The last 500 feet I think must be a steady 45 degree slope. There I met a small kid coming down, he was the only one who said “bas abhi thoda hi hai jao jao!!!” and that was just fantastic… I guess the locals are just not used to seeing tourists trek up right beneath the gondola…. Infact I didn’t see and other tourist who was trekking like me. Anyways after meeting the kid I decided I am going to somehow reach atleast the 1st stage… on that 45 degree incline I got tired so often that I had to rest 3 times. In one of these rests I forgot my woolen cap and had to back track to find it!!! The frustration!!! Towards the top when I was almost there a pack of mountain dogs started barking at me… and I was freaking scared shitless. These dogs are big hairy and more wolf like and our mumbai strays look like cute little pups in front of them. So I again had to back track and take another route up. Finally I ended up entering the first stage right by the side of the building where the cable cars where entering. I had finally reached the 1st stage. The tourists were coming out of the building to my right and I jumped the railing and entered the melee. The looks I got from people…. I could have laughed out loud only I was too tired… It had taken me a whole 1 hour 50 min to reach the 1st stage from 8900 feet to 10050 feet (that’s 1150 feet). I met a family from Vasai in Mumbai shared some biscuits with them. Told them I had trekked up and they couldn’t believe it. Since the weather above was very bad everyone was taking horses till the snowline at 12000 feet to get to the snow. After sitting for half an hour I decided that I had come till here…. No point in not going further…. So on I went… for some time I followed the trail the horses were using but the terrain there was covered with grass (which gives good grip) and rocks and I didn’t see any point in following the horses muddy tracks so I just broke away and criss crosses the steadily rising terrain. Again all horses were going with the tourists to a point where there were local people with bobsleds and there the snow was all muddy and trampled by the tourists so I took a left and just kept going till I finally reached the snowline. And that was just amazing…. I was the only one there no other tourist or local had come there it was absolutely quiet with only the wind and the grass talking. The best moment of my vacation, Me sitting on a rock surrounded by snow, no other person even visible, clear blue skies, a white mountain behind me, a green meadow in front of me, a cold wind blowing and absolute silence…. What more can I ask for??? It was 4 by then and it decided to head back cause I was just too tired to even attempt the 13500 feet climb and it was getting late…. I knew mum would be getting tensed cause no one knew where I was except that I had gone for a walk and it would take time for me to reach back to the hotel. I made my way slowly back towards the 1st stage. On the way I asked a local what height was I at and he told me that was 12000 feet…. Mind blowing…. Then I told him I had trekked all the way up and that look of genuine appreciation on him…. That made my day absolutely. I had some water and biscuits at the 1st stage and then continued on my way down. The way down was slightly more difficult since the slopes were extremely muddy and slippery and I fell 3 times infact and got a bad bruise on my right thigh but all that’s a part of the game after all…. Nonetheless the way down was much faster and I reached my hotel at 5.15 and guess what…. Met mum at the hotel entrance, said she was starting to come and look for me!!! This last day in Gulmarg was one of my best and I wont forget this unscheduled trek ever…
The next day we left for srinagar airport and took our flight and were in mumbai at 7pm. Reached home at 9.30 and that was that……end of trip!!!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Raju (1996 - 2008)
There are certain things which act as constants in our lives.....as axioms.....they are just there, since time immemorial.....
For eg: the restaurant DPs infront of Ruia college....or maybe the building Nilgiri in a lot of our bachpan ka memories in Anushaktinagar...
Raju was that fixture with Kamet.... It had been there in that building before most of the occupants moved in....When i shifted into Kamet in 1996 it was there.....a young juvenile dog not exactly a pup but not a full grown dog either..... through the years he fathered a hell lot of other pups and then grandfathered more and great-grandfathered some more....
He was without doubt the pack leader....and Kamet was hot property for stray dogs back then....is even now.....because of its close proximity to the small garbage dump nearby.....He defended his territory better than any husky or a bloodhound i ever seen..... He wasnt exactly the buildings pet and when the number of stray dogs went a bit too high and Raju's mate actually went rabid....the municipality were called in....all dogs went.... but not Raju.....he was the axiom man!!! and no one changes the ground rules ever....
People shifted into Kamet...shifted out (like me) but Raju remained fit as ever...
But now he is dead....
Fell in one of em dog fights.....got bitten bad and the wound got infected...i guess his old body didnt have what it had years back to fight the infection.....and the municipality van took him away.... and mostly not to some animal care centre..... I guess 12 years is a long long time for stray dogs to live.... and that Raju's life was lived well....he fought, he survived, he fathered loads of kids....what more can one ask for???
The thing i liked most about Raju was that he actually fought off other dogs when i played with them and instead head butted his way in. The other dogs obviously deferred, after all he was THE Dog of the area......
No aunty ever cribbed about Raju, Pradeep uncle fed Raju more regularly that he watered his plants, my Dad who stoned every stray dog, always as a rule, left Raju alone.....U see Dad had a theory about it....said that Raju kept the place free of other dogs....that without him the other dogs would shit on our doorsteps. Maybe, but i know the real reason.....cause u just cant remove the constants.....ever....
This blog is dedicated to the memory of THE DOG - Raju (1996-2008)
Because sometimes even the axioms change.....
For eg: the restaurant DPs infront of Ruia college....or maybe the building Nilgiri in a lot of our bachpan ka memories in Anushaktinagar...
Raju was that fixture with Kamet.... It had been there in that building before most of the occupants moved in....When i shifted into Kamet in 1996 it was there.....a young juvenile dog not exactly a pup but not a full grown dog either..... through the years he fathered a hell lot of other pups and then grandfathered more and great-grandfathered some more....
He was without doubt the pack leader....and Kamet was hot property for stray dogs back then....is even now.....because of its close proximity to the small garbage dump nearby.....He defended his territory better than any husky or a bloodhound i ever seen..... He wasnt exactly the buildings pet and when the number of stray dogs went a bit too high and Raju's mate actually went rabid....the municipality were called in....all dogs went.... but not Raju.....he was the axiom man!!! and no one changes the ground rules ever....
People shifted into Kamet...shifted out (like me) but Raju remained fit as ever...
But now he is dead....
Fell in one of em dog fights.....got bitten bad and the wound got infected...i guess his old body didnt have what it had years back to fight the infection.....and the municipality van took him away.... and mostly not to some animal care centre..... I guess 12 years is a long long time for stray dogs to live.... and that Raju's life was lived well....he fought, he survived, he fathered loads of kids....what more can one ask for???
The thing i liked most about Raju was that he actually fought off other dogs when i played with them and instead head butted his way in. The other dogs obviously deferred, after all he was THE Dog of the area......
No aunty ever cribbed about Raju, Pradeep uncle fed Raju more regularly that he watered his plants, my Dad who stoned every stray dog, always as a rule, left Raju alone.....U see Dad had a theory about it....said that Raju kept the place free of other dogs....that without him the other dogs would shit on our doorsteps. Maybe, but i know the real reason.....cause u just cant remove the constants.....ever....
This blog is dedicated to the memory of THE DOG - Raju (1996-2008)
Because sometimes even the axioms change.....
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Thats How U Brake.......
My views on bike riding and braking in particular....
first of all........engine braking means less less and less mileage......why???? since on a 5th gear with cruising rpm at 3000, u down shift to 3rd at rpm 6000....thats gonna eat up more fuel even though ur throttle is closed.......
however on a down hill slope, using engine brake is the best since for a little less mileage u get a LOT more control......just put the bike on 4th or 3rd gear and go down hill if u want speed press the clutch and dont rev and if u wanna slow down press brakes + release clutch........
on NORMAL ROADS......
whenever i approach a speed breaker and and am not in a hurry i just press the clutch and let the bike cruise on neutral......that increases mileage and by natural air resistance i slow down and near the breaker a slight brake is sufficient......
i feel theres absolutely no need for engine braking on a level straight road....however on turns maybe while cornering hard....engine braking is better since that gives more control and brakes maybe dangerous since if u brake hard, the wheels will lock and u would skid on the turn.......
plus rear brakes are always better that front disks though ideally both should be pressed simultaneously for best braking....cause if front wheels lock u loose control of bike but if rear wheels lock u can still just about control it.......(i once had to brake suddenly at 80kmph the rear wheels locked and so teh engine quit....i must have skidded for 40 feet at least but luckily the front wheels didnt lock and so i could control and dint fall.....)
also engine braking is bad for the engine, the drive train (thats the chains) and the clutch plate....
first of all........engine braking means less less and less mileage......why???? since on a 5th gear with cruising rpm at 3000, u down shift to 3rd at rpm 6000....thats gonna eat up more fuel even though ur throttle is closed.......
however on a down hill slope, using engine brake is the best since for a little less mileage u get a LOT more control......just put the bike on 4th or 3rd gear and go down hill if u want speed press the clutch and dont rev and if u wanna slow down press brakes + release clutch........
on NORMAL ROADS......
whenever i approach a speed breaker and and am not in a hurry i just press the clutch and let the bike cruise on neutral......that increases mileage and by natural air resistance i slow down and near the breaker a slight brake is sufficient......
i feel theres absolutely no need for engine braking on a level straight road....however on turns maybe while cornering hard....engine braking is better since that gives more control and brakes maybe dangerous since if u brake hard, the wheels will lock and u would skid on the turn.......
plus rear brakes are always better that front disks though ideally both should be pressed simultaneously for best braking....cause if front wheels lock u loose control of bike but if rear wheels lock u can still just about control it.......(i once had to brake suddenly at 80kmph the rear wheels locked and so teh engine quit....i must have skidded for 40 feet at least but luckily the front wheels didnt lock and so i could control and dint fall.....)
also engine braking is bad for the engine, the drive train (thats the chains) and the clutch plate....
Sunday, April 6, 2008
An Anti-limerick
It seems like i am on a limerick spree....
And this is my latest one....
" Comes year end and its exam time,
I don't give a hoot, nor do I give a dime.
All I care,
Is what i wear;
'Cause above all I want my limerick to rhyme!!"
I feel this ones way better than the last....I am getting better at this....
Cheers.. :)
And this is my latest one....
" Comes year end and its exam time,
I don't give a hoot, nor do I give a dime.
All I care,
Is what i wear;
'Cause above all I want my limerick to rhyme!!"
I feel this ones way better than the last....I am getting better at this....
Cheers.. :)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
An inspiration
The other day Nikhil, Keshav and Panse had come over to my place and we went out for a ride....Panse had his Activa and i had my Eterno....after goofing a bit Nikhil said he wanted to ride my scooter....cool....but he would be trying it out for the first time......but he started off fine enuff and with growing confidence started pushing it untill we were doing a 75kmph.....panse was hot on our heels (or should i say wheels??!!) me and keshav were the (SOS) pillions....
This turned into a race between nikhil and panse.....ahead was a slight right turn and thats when panse decided to overtake (bad decision but schumi overtook on a turn too, only this was panse) however nikhil being a newbie didnt not corner hard enuff so we were on a direct colision course wid panse and keshav.....luckily panse being more experienced undertook the required evasive manouvers and all 4 of us are hale and hearty.....
Without a helmet and at around 70kmph....I know a fall can be very painful if not fatal.....
But the wierd thing is, the next day while thinking about this incident having my bath, a limerick came to me....!!!
My first ever limerick!!! yayyyyyyyyyy
and here it goes....
"Speed kills but thrills
so said Jack to Jill,
Jill replied:
But what if u died,
Said Jack: Who cares of such frills."
A near death experience is always a good form of inspiration!!!
This turned into a race between nikhil and panse.....ahead was a slight right turn and thats when panse decided to overtake (bad decision but schumi overtook on a turn too, only this was panse) however nikhil being a newbie didnt not corner hard enuff so we were on a direct colision course wid panse and keshav.....luckily panse being more experienced undertook the required evasive manouvers and all 4 of us are hale and hearty.....
Without a helmet and at around 70kmph....I know a fall can be very painful if not fatal.....
But the wierd thing is, the next day while thinking about this incident having my bath, a limerick came to me....!!!
My first ever limerick!!! yayyyyyyyyyy
and here it goes....
"Speed kills but thrills
so said Jack to Jill,
Jill replied:
But what if u died,
Said Jack: Who cares of such frills."
A near death experience is always a good form of inspiration!!!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Ghosts 2
This incident happened when i was in FY, i.e. Dec 2006...
As a part of our Botany field trip we had gone to Mahabaleshwar, a beautiful hill station to say the least... Our stay was 3 days and 2 nights. We had our dinners at 8:30 in the evening at a large hall at the lodge where we were staying.
I was sharing the room with Kamlesh, JD and Tejas. Being december it was unbearably cold. Our room had an attached bathroom which (stupidly) had a back door. Beyond the back door was a stretch of grass, beyond a strip filled with trees and further up the street. On the second night before dinner at about 8:20 JD said he wanted to smoke, not in the room buddy i said. So he went into the bathroom opened the back door and lit up a cig. 5 min later he comes back excited and says "man bahar game chalu hai". What??? what game??? arre boss game!!! a couple is having sex outside!!! WHAT??? all 4 of us crowded in the bathroom and had a peek. Sure enough below the trees we could a see a couple going bang bang bang. However we couldn't see clearly who it was since the street light was filtered by the tree leaves, but it was clear that the guy was on top and that they were going great guns.
Who could it be??? we thought since in our group there was only 1 couple who was brash enough to do something like this and that couple was sitting in the mess hall as Teja reported. Soon it was 8:40... and they were still at it... Kam was getting restless....man when are they gonna finish??? I said why dont u just go and get dinner... he replied he wanted to see this finish. Tejas said he was going to get dinner. It turned 8: 50. And kamlesh went- This is it man they are both ghosts!!!..."What shit are u talking abt???"
Kamlesh: "common man they have been at it for half an hour man..... no human has that kind of stamina!!! besides till now have u even heard a hint of any noise......having sex without any pleasure or pain????"
That was true since it was very very quite and we could not even hear any wind but there was no sound coming from the couple.
Kamlesh: "i think there was some kind of rape here and the victim obviously was murdered then, and i think these are the aatma of the 2 people involved"
Now what shit man??? Ghosts don't have sex man!! they just dont... but then JD also started, saying that they may be ghosts..... i said look guys this is no ghosts and as of now I dont know what this is but definitely no ghost.
But they were not ready to listen at all......and it was 9 now. So i said that forget it we will have dinner and come back and see whats the deal.... the ghost or silent couple was still at it and i could very clearly see the hunched back of the guy over the girls spread legs....
We were the last people to reach the hall and the food was almost over, the dinner was an extremely silent affair. by the time we came back it was 9: 25 and god damn it the couple was still at it, now it was more than an hour man and seriously no human has that kinda stamina.... look, i said, this is obviously some kind of an optical illusion cause there are no ghosts and they definitely don't make love. But JD and Kamlesh were adamant to the point of going to Sir and reporting the matter to him.....i guessed they were scared real bad, but the thing was that even i was feeling pretty spooked. So i suggested that look if we walk behind the lodge and see this couple at a different angle maybe the optical illusion will not hold cause illusions depend on angle of sight. No ways man Kamlesh refused to come, JD said he will come with me. As we came out of the room we met a mama (a peon) and JD explained the matter to him and he said fine we need to check what this is...
And so we went ahead... it was bloody cold, silent and dark. We went in a single file, first mama then me, JD and last up Kamlesh. As we turned and went behind the lodge it was so dark that we couldn't see anything and i thought so it was a damn illusion but then suddenly i saw the white T shirt of the guy move and shit i could see it from here. Suddenly the guy looked up and i could see his face but it had no features no eyes no nose nuthing and seeing that meri jo G**D fatti hai, i cant describe it, i was rooted to the spot with fear cause somehow i got convinced that since i could see it from this angle also it was a ghost!! plus it had no FACE!!! and i just kept staring at it. Mama kept walking towards it and JD screamed for him to stop, somehow that scream woke me up and i walked forward to get mama out of there.
But as i walked forward i saw that there was no girl at all and the guy was moving sideways. That was odd!! And then i saw that it was a bloody leaf of a banana plant damn it!!!
And the relief!!! it was tremendous cause for a moment i really had lost all faith in science... anyways there was no ghost just a freaking leaf, some wind, cold, darkness, silence, and the convoluted human brain at work!!!
Nonetheless we all got a real scare that night and i will always remember the relief that flooded me when i saw that piece of leaf!!!
But its a good thing to get a real good scare sometimes!!!
As a part of our Botany field trip we had gone to Mahabaleshwar, a beautiful hill station to say the least... Our stay was 3 days and 2 nights. We had our dinners at 8:30 in the evening at a large hall at the lodge where we were staying.
I was sharing the room with Kamlesh, JD and Tejas. Being december it was unbearably cold. Our room had an attached bathroom which (stupidly) had a back door. Beyond the back door was a stretch of grass, beyond a strip filled with trees and further up the street. On the second night before dinner at about 8:20 JD said he wanted to smoke, not in the room buddy i said. So he went into the bathroom opened the back door and lit up a cig. 5 min later he comes back excited and says "man bahar game chalu hai". What??? what game??? arre boss game!!! a couple is having sex outside!!! WHAT??? all 4 of us crowded in the bathroom and had a peek. Sure enough below the trees we could a see a couple going bang bang bang. However we couldn't see clearly who it was since the street light was filtered by the tree leaves, but it was clear that the guy was on top and that they were going great guns.
Who could it be??? we thought since in our group there was only 1 couple who was brash enough to do something like this and that couple was sitting in the mess hall as Teja reported. Soon it was 8:40... and they were still at it... Kam was getting restless....man when are they gonna finish??? I said why dont u just go and get dinner... he replied he wanted to see this finish. Tejas said he was going to get dinner. It turned 8: 50. And kamlesh went- This is it man they are both ghosts!!!..."What shit are u talking abt???"
Kamlesh: "common man they have been at it for half an hour man..... no human has that kind of stamina!!! besides till now have u even heard a hint of any noise......having sex without any pleasure or pain????"
That was true since it was very very quite and we could not even hear any wind but there was no sound coming from the couple.
Kamlesh: "i think there was some kind of rape here and the victim obviously was murdered then, and i think these are the aatma of the 2 people involved"
Now what shit man??? Ghosts don't have sex man!! they just dont... but then JD also started, saying that they may be ghosts..... i said look guys this is no ghosts and as of now I dont know what this is but definitely no ghost.
But they were not ready to listen at all......and it was 9 now. So i said that forget it we will have dinner and come back and see whats the deal.... the ghost or silent couple was still at it and i could very clearly see the hunched back of the guy over the girls spread legs....
We were the last people to reach the hall and the food was almost over, the dinner was an extremely silent affair. by the time we came back it was 9: 25 and god damn it the couple was still at it, now it was more than an hour man and seriously no human has that kinda stamina.... look, i said, this is obviously some kind of an optical illusion cause there are no ghosts and they definitely don't make love. But JD and Kamlesh were adamant to the point of going to Sir and reporting the matter to him.....i guessed they were scared real bad, but the thing was that even i was feeling pretty spooked. So i suggested that look if we walk behind the lodge and see this couple at a different angle maybe the optical illusion will not hold cause illusions depend on angle of sight. No ways man Kamlesh refused to come, JD said he will come with me. As we came out of the room we met a mama (a peon) and JD explained the matter to him and he said fine we need to check what this is...
And so we went ahead... it was bloody cold, silent and dark. We went in a single file, first mama then me, JD and last up Kamlesh. As we turned and went behind the lodge it was so dark that we couldn't see anything and i thought so it was a damn illusion but then suddenly i saw the white T shirt of the guy move and shit i could see it from here. Suddenly the guy looked up and i could see his face but it had no features no eyes no nose nuthing and seeing that meri jo G**D fatti hai, i cant describe it, i was rooted to the spot with fear cause somehow i got convinced that since i could see it from this angle also it was a ghost!! plus it had no FACE!!! and i just kept staring at it. Mama kept walking towards it and JD screamed for him to stop, somehow that scream woke me up and i walked forward to get mama out of there.
But as i walked forward i saw that there was no girl at all and the guy was moving sideways. That was odd!! And then i saw that it was a bloody leaf of a banana plant damn it!!!
And the relief!!! it was tremendous cause for a moment i really had lost all faith in science... anyways there was no ghost just a freaking leaf, some wind, cold, darkness, silence, and the convoluted human brain at work!!!
Nonetheless we all got a real scare that night and i will always remember the relief that flooded me when i saw that piece of leaf!!!
But its a good thing to get a real good scare sometimes!!!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Ghosts
the second incident i'll relate but not today....later....
tata.......p.s. --- its much better than the first and is much funnier also....
thats called a teaser!!! [:)]
tata.......p.s. --- its much better than the first and is much funnier also....
thats called a teaser!!! [:)]
I do not believe in ghosts...... none the less i have run into them.....not once but twice!!!
This incident happened in July 2007, our building has no night watchman and so the general practice is that someone closes all three entrance gates and locks them at night. This gate locking duty is given to every flat on a monthly basis and this July it was our turn.....
The gate opening time is at 5.30 in morning and obviously it was me who opened the gate since my dad refused to wake up so early in the morning and thats that as far as he's concerned.
It was in the peak of monsoon and had rained pretty heavily that night. I was not wearing my specs so the world was hazy and i was in a chaddi and t shirt so it was bloody cold.....
The moment i unlocked the small gate i heard a shrill screech or shriek and it startled me real bad...drove out all the sleep.....it was coming from the top of the building opposite mine......
But i couldn't see anything clearly. So I just thought it must be some kind of bird or a bat or something and started walking towards the main gate.
Just then i heard that screech again, and it sent shivers down my spine, may be it was the cold.....but it got me really psyched up.....
I then unlocked the main gate and the moment i unlatched it, again that shriek but this time it was right over me and much louder.....and i almost jumped out of my skin.......and the moment i got up and turned i saw a some 10 feet from me a pair of eyes staring right at me.......
and i almost pissed right there i was so shaken up that i could almost have shouted......
and then i realized it was my own reflection and my own eyes staring right back at me from the watchman cabin window........
but for that one moment i was almost dead!!!
This incident happened in July 2007, our building has no night watchman and so the general practice is that someone closes all three entrance gates and locks them at night. This gate locking duty is given to every flat on a monthly basis and this July it was our turn.....
The gate opening time is at 5.30 in morning and obviously it was me who opened the gate since my dad refused to wake up so early in the morning and thats that as far as he's concerned.
It was in the peak of monsoon and had rained pretty heavily that night. I was not wearing my specs so the world was hazy and i was in a chaddi and t shirt so it was bloody cold.....
The moment i unlocked the small gate i heard a shrill screech or shriek and it startled me real bad...drove out all the sleep.....it was coming from the top of the building opposite mine......
But i couldn't see anything clearly. So I just thought it must be some kind of bird or a bat or something and started walking towards the main gate.
Just then i heard that screech again, and it sent shivers down my spine, may be it was the cold.....but it got me really psyched up.....
I then unlocked the main gate and the moment i unlatched it, again that shriek but this time it was right over me and much louder.....and i almost jumped out of my skin.......and the moment i got up and turned i saw a some 10 feet from me a pair of eyes staring right at me.......
and i almost pissed right there i was so shaken up that i could almost have shouted......
and then i realized it was my own reflection and my own eyes staring right back at me from the watchman cabin window........
but for that one moment i was almost dead!!!
Monday, February 25, 2008
this is my first ever post......
Now more than anything else, this blog is going to record things that i find wierd, interesting, ironical, anything thats has me floored or flabbergasted or whatever......
Unfortunately....todays been real sad with absolutely nothing interesting happening....too bad.....
But i guess tomorrow is another day and we'll just take it in as it comes......
for now tata!!!
Unfortunately....todays been real sad with absolutely nothing interesting happening....too bad.....
But i guess tomorrow is another day and we'll just take it in as it comes......
for now tata!!!
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