Starting off ...

Umpiring once again!

2009-03-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

It's really frustrating to wake up at 3:15 am, watch more than three and a half hours of tough, gritty batting and then see a very poor umpiring decision end quite a splendid innings by Rahul Dravid. One can imagine what the batsman himself must be feeling while walking away from the center!

The debate about increasing use of technology to aid decision making in cricket has been on for a while now and there have been many changes that have been brought about over the years. However, till date we haven't found a way to really make sure that matches are not decided due to umpiring decisions. There have been many instances when umpires have been made to look stupid for the decision they made, when we look at replays in slow and super slow motion modes, with the advantage of hawk-eye, sneekometer and thousands of other hi-fi technologies and pretty graphics, but many of us would agree with the fact that the umpire's job out in the middle is not easy as he has to make a decision based on what he saw just once and with that in mind, don't really go hard at the umpire. The point that concerns me more is the involvement of the players in these decisions.

I can understand there are some instances when no one on the field knows what exactly happened - say the run out and stumping decisions, or the boundary rope decisions - these are cases where TV replays are clearly helpful and most often, decisive. But in several other cases, I believe there is definitely someone on the field (among the players) who knows for sure which way the decision should go. There have been discussions about players being truthful and sportsmanship spirit etc. and its often said that one should not walk after knicking a ball or a fielder should not own up saying that the ball hit the ground while he was attempting to catch it just because there is always a chance that the player will get a harsh decision going the other way sometime and he won't have a say about that! I have been on both sides of this sportsmanship debate at different times, but more often I feel the players have to be truthful and thats the only way the game can be played fairly. The current Dravid dismissal was just a glaring case of bad sportsmanship on the part of the kiwis - there was no chance that the forward short leg fielder ever felt that Dravid had got a bat or glove on the ball, but was appealing just because he knew the umpire might just make a mistake!

So when it comes to use of technology in sports, I feel cricket is different from many other sports such as soccer or tennis in the sense that in cricket, the players themselves are more capable of making most decisions than the umpires and that too on the basis of objective rules well understood by everyone. Hence, I feel the system of referals for decisions that is being discussed in cricket circles should be looked at a bit more seriously. There would be several implementation issues involved - is the technology foolproof etc. - if we are to heavily involve hi-tech stuff like HawkEye and sneekometer in the decision making process. But I think there can be something simpler that should be looked at, based on the belief that players know what decision should be made better than umpires. And if players feel its not worth respecting the spirit of tha game by itself, they should be forced to do it by way of some regulations.

Every innings of a match, the bowling team can take a maximum of 10 wickets. How about allowing the bowling team only 10 wrong appeals during the course of the innings? It might slow down things a bit in terms of time per appeal - because the bowling team will have to decide if they really want to appeal, with the consent of players around the pitch - but there is an assurance that it can't happen more than 20 times in an innings and in a test match, that shouldn't be a great concern. Also, the batting team has, say 5 chances to wrongly appeal against a decision. Only in cases where the ground umpire needs help or the batting team has appealed against a decision will the third umpire come into play.

Don't know if the above system is likely to work, or even sensible ... but I think one thing is for sure. In cricket, we have to look at things involving on-field players, more than the technology to ensure fairness. Will be interesting to see how this great game evolves itself and the changes that are brought about in rules to make it fair for both teams involved in a match, in an effort to remove the possibility of umpiring decisions influencing the way a match goes.

Instant Messaging and confusions!

2008-08-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is a conversation which I had with some person today and represents the height of confusion (if it wasn't confusion and a prank, I must admit it was a really nice one - I couldn't figure it out till the very end ... anyway, was quite entertaining)
To the person who was chatting with me - I hope you don't mind this.

Conversation with ***********@gmail.com at 2008-08-15 09:14:15 on sangramraje@gmail.com/Pidgin (jabber)

(09:14:15) ***********@gmail.com: hi

(09:14:19) Me: hello

(09:14:20) ***********@gmail.com: sangram

(09:14:28) ***********@gmail.com: kuthe aahes?

(09:14:41) ***********@gmail.com: ude enar aahe na?

(09:15:25) Me: me aahe Gurgaon la

(09:15:32) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:15:49) ***********@gmail.com: u will come tommrrow?

(09:15:56) Me: where?

(09:16:05) ***********@gmail.com: office.

(09:16:28) Me: who's this?

(09:16:35) ***********@gmail.com: ****

(09:16:51) Me: sorry ... I don't seem to get you ...

(09:17:08) Me: have we met before?

(09:17:32) ***********@gmail.com: kay re zasta jali ka tula.

(09:17:44) ***********@gmail.com: u forgot me.

(09:18:00) Me: arey sorry ... but I really don't recollect

(09:18:06) Me: which Sangram are you looking for?

(09:18:22) ***********@gmail.com: sangram g()*&.

(09:18:56) Me: achcha ... can you tell me how I know you, I seriously can't recollect quickly

(09:19:53) ***********@gmail.com: u r sangram jadav na?

(09:20:08) Me: not really

(09:20:22) Me: who are you looking for?

(09:20:40) ***********@gmail.com: hain g(*&^ kasala no tanki kartos.

(09:22:38) ***********@gmail.com: he sangram phone uchal na.

(09:24:01) ***********@gmail.com: ka re mobile band kela..

(09:24:20) Me: which number are you calling?

(09:27:44) ***********@gmail.com: your number

(09:28:02) ***********@gmail.com: now is on

(09:28:35) Me: can I know my number?

(09:28:59) ***********@gmail.com: kasala natak kartos>

(09:29:36) Me: can you please tell me which Sangram you are looking for and what his phone number is?

(09:29:50) Me: and who are you?

(09:30:05) Me: your full name and the way I should know you

(09:31:09) ***********@gmail.com: i am going to home

(09:31:24) ***********@gmail.com: meet me day after tommrrow.

(09:31:28) Me: please wait ... at least tell me who you are looking for

(09:31:39) Me: just a min ... I think there is some confusion here ...

(09:31:51) Me: please answer what I asked

(09:32:04) ***********@gmail.com: i am looking my friend sangram jadav same mail id

(09:32:16) Me: how come his mail id is sangramraje?

(09:32:37) Me: this is Sangram Raje

(09:32:45) Me: and I guess I don't really know you

(09:32:49) ***********@gmail.com: sangram raje his father name.

(09:32:57) Me: what?

(09:33:11) ***********@gmail.com: raje his father name.

(09:33:19) Me: thats interesting stuff!

(09:33:23) Me: where does he stay?

(09:33:35) Me: raje ye kisika first name pehli baar sun raha hoon!

(09:33:38) ***********@gmail.com: pune at katraj.

(09:33:40) Me: and where are you from?

(09:33:51) ***********@gmail.com: pune

(09:33:56) Me: hmm ...

(09:34:03) Me: and how do you know him?

(09:34:42) ***********@gmail.com: i and he is working same company....

(09:34:54) Me: and where is that?

(09:35:08) ***********@gmail.com: he is going away...

(09:35:12) Me: and what is his phone number?

(09:35:24) ***********@gmail.com: but why

(09:35:27) Me: where away?

(09:35:35) ***********@gmail.com: u are not sangam jadv

(09:35:43) Me: which company do you work in?

(09:35:47) ***********@gmail.com: satara

(09:35:51) Me: yeah, I know that ...

(09:35:53) Me: nice, ok ...

(09:35:54) ***********@gmail.com: netflex

(09:36:06) Me: so, I am not the person you are looking for ...

(09:36:18) Me: unfortunately, mala baryach shivya khayala laglyat ... but anyway ...

(09:36:23) ***********@gmail.com: r u sangram friend?

(09:36:29) Me: best of luck in looking for your sangram ...

(09:36:32) Me: no, sorry!

(09:36:54) ***********@gmail.com: sorry man.

(09:37:15) ***********@gmail.com: what is your name?

(09:37:21) Me: Sangram Raje

(09:37:34) ***********@gmail.com: what is your surname?

(09:37:37) Me: and Raje is my surname

(09:37:44) Me: NOT my fathers name

(09:37:44) ***********@gmail.com: no

(09:37:49) Me: no?

(09:37:58) ***********@gmail.com: your surname is jadav.

(09:38:09) Me: right ...

(09:38:27) Me: so I am the Sangram Jadav you want to talk to and I work with you in Netflex, Satara ...

(09:38:36) ***********@gmail.com: you are sangram don't cheat me.

(09:38:37) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:38:40) Me: now the slight issue is that I don't really want to talk to you now ...

(09:38:45) ***********@gmail.com: mr sangram.

(09:38:45) Me: main thoda bore ho gaya hoon ...

(09:38:49) Me: abhi mood nahi hai

(09:38:55) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:38:57) Me: so, can we talk sometime later ...

(09:38:59) ***********@gmail.com: bye

(09:39:03) Me: Mr **** ***** :)

(09:39:04) ***********@gmail.com: see again,

(09:39:08) Me: I guess not

(09:39:14) ***********@gmail.com: i will f*(& u.

(09:39:17) Me: anyway, keep your fingers crossed ...

(09:39:22) Me: oh man, I will die for that!

(09:39:40) Me: can I know your true identity?

(09:39:49) ***********@gmail.com: but why

(09:40:11) Me: ok, so does your friend Sangram look like me?

(09:40:17) Me: I guess you can see my photo right?

(09:40:28) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:40:40) ***********@gmail.com: show me your photo.

(09:40:50) Me: you should be able to see it in GTalk

(09:41:00) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:41:07) Me: if you have "your" Sangram's photo, I would like to see that as well ...

(09:41:09) ***********@gmail.com: now iam able

(09:41:18) Me: just to know how I am "supposed" to look!

(09:43:05) ***********@gmail.com: relly u are not sangram jadav?

(09:43:26) Me: ok ... the only way to clear that confusion is you tell me his phone number ...

(09:43:30) Me: can you do me that favour?

(09:44:03) ***********@gmail.com: i will not give u..

(09:44:12) Me: why not?

(09:44:22) Me: I am supposed to be the person having that phone number isn't it?

(09:44:44) ***********@gmail.com: but why u want his number?

(09:44:52) Me: i want MY number, apparently

(09:45:13) ***********@gmail.com: apparently means?

(09:46:17) ***********@gmail.com: bye

(09:46:31) ***********@gmail.com: i m going to home

(09:46:35) Me: ok ... so, let me see if you understand this - I am NOT Sangram Raje, my surname is NOT Jadav, my father's name is NOT Raje, I do NOT work in Netflex, I do NOT stay in Satara and finally ... I am NOT going to come to YOUR office anytime

(09:47:12) ***********@gmail.com: ok friend

(09:47:15) ***********@gmail.com: bye

(09:47:21) Me: bye

(09:47:21) ***********@gmail.com: see u again.

(09:47:32) Me: I couldn't understand just one thing ...

(09:47:50) ***********@gmail.com: really u are not sangram jadav..

(09:47:51) Me: is this the first time you are chatting with your "friend" on this mail id?

(09:48:27) ***********@gmail.com: not ffrist secound time

(09:48:37) Me: when was the first?

(09:48:39) Me: today morning?

(09:49:11) ***********@gmail.com: i tihank you are sangram's friend

(09:49:25) ***********@gmail.com: sagram sitting near u.

(09:49:49) ***********@gmail.com: today morring

(09:50:00) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:50:02) Me: no, he wasn't sitting near me ...

(09:50:22) ***********@gmail.com: you are not sangram why u add me.

(09:50:26) Me: he was ME ... just that that Sangram is NOT Sangram Jadav but this is Sangram Raje

(09:50:34) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:50:37) Me: galti ho gayi dost ... maafi maangta hoon ...

(09:50:49) Me: I guess you are getting late now, right?

(09:50:51) ***********@gmail.com: friend sorry to disturb u.

(09:50:55) Me: so, just go and have some rest

(09:51:03) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:51:05) ***********@gmail.com: bye

(09:51:06) Me: bye

(09:51:14) Me: better luck finding your friend next time

(09:51:19) Me: but this is NOT his email ID

(09:51:25) ***********@gmail.com: thanks

(09:51:47) ***********@gmail.com: u ignore me your id.

(09:52:16) Me: yes, my id ignore you id

(09:52:20) Me: ok ok?

(09:52:30) Me: later we no talk again, ok ok?

(09:52:43) ***********@gmail.com: ok

(09:52:45) ***********@gmail.com: bye

(09:52:47) Me: bye

Starting a new life

2008-07-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

Its been two weeks into a "new" life here in Gurgaon. While a lot of time has gone into looking for a new house, getting settled in etc., I have spent quite some time in office as well.

This workplace is really good ... no formalities, just come and work! It was really no trouble at all to settle into a workplace like this, coming from IIT. This feels just as if you are walking into a well set-up lab in IIT. Of course, seeing some familiar faces inside the office from day 1 also helps quite a lot! Overall, its been a good, easy transition period for the last two weeks.

Will be shifting to our new home tomorrow and hope to settle in quickly. So far, what I have seen in Gurgaon is just malls all around ... it seems there is no other place to go here. Anytime you want to hang-out, just decide some mall and be there - not really something which I like too much. Hope to find some things other than malls which are worth doing! Haven't had much time to look around so far; haven't even been able to go to Delhi so far. Will do that soon enough!

Meanwhile, heard a really nice marathi song ... Ayushyawar Bolu Kahi - sharing it here.

The lyrics for the song can be found here.

How mobile phones have changed our lives!

2008-04-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

I many a times wonder how our lives have changed and how they would be without mobile phones. Along these lines, some things which crossed my mind one afternoon during a convex optimization class:

When friends decide to meet at some place, say a railway station such as CST at a particular time. These days I find it hard to imagine meeting the friend before making a couple of calls after reaching the place. Before I had a cell phone, how did I manage such things? I can't really seem to recollect!

About remembering phone numbers of friends, relatives, even our own home number for that matter. A few years back, these used to at the tip of our fingers, now I hardly seem to know any numbers. Is it convenience, or a decreased use of our mental faculties - the very thing which separate us from other creatures?!

In some cases, it has allowed one to have a more private life, and allows to have private conversations. I am not particularly a fan of this whole privacy thing, and when required, there were ways to do it even in the olden days. Has this ease of maintaining privacy and secrecy, even from the people very close to us helped us, or is it really a harm without us realizing it?

It is one of the major disturbing factors these days. Many times now it is so good to imagine a world w/o them. Isn't it irritating to find your evening walk companions talking over mobile phones for most of the time and you are left walking along!? I feel sometimes when I do the same, mostly unintentionally, how bad the other people would have felt about it. Are we really that busy to not have time for people who are with us personally at a particular time, and that we have to talk over the phone just then?

We have started thinking of e-communication as a suitable and "convenient" alternative of personal meetings. Is it even close to personal interactions, in terms of quality? Does all this lead to our distancing from the real world and live our lives more "virtually"?

In some ways, it has also lead to intrusion of a person's happy life. In present day, I pity my young friends who would be in their primary/secondary school and happily playing cricket on a lazy Sunday morning. I remember exceeding my reported time at home by at least a couple of hours everytime I played this way. These guys would be facing some 4-5 calls from home in the same time, asking them to hurry up. What a shame!

Imagine yourself walking hand-in-hand with your b/g f and getting those painful calls from home and you having to ditch them or probably lie to the person on the other side of the phone about your whereabouts. Wouldn't you wish you were living in 2002 where you couldn't be contacted so easily?

Some of these may be quite cynical and not really as bad as I have put them/I feel they are. But at times, these modern techno gadgets do put me off and I wish they were never there in the first place.

Thought for the day

2008-04-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

"If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."

Read this statement made by someone. Reported in this article in Washington Post. The article is amazingly written and I share a lot of common thoughts with the author there.

Worth a read. Thanks Sudeep for recommending it :)

I have thought of writing about pros and cons of technology and how it is killing us at times. But somehow have never quite come to writing it in detail. This article puts these thoughts and much more into words in an amazing fashion. Quite long, but well worth it!

Friends, Valfi, Senti and a quote!

2008-04-18T01:04:00.000-07:00

We have just been through the valfi season and as we are passing out, most of are quite senti and realize we would miss the company of friends that we had for the last 4 years. Just found a quote somewhere today and thought I might as well put it here - I hardly write anything on the blog anyway.

"Your absence should be long enough that a person misses you, but it should not be so long that the person learns to live without you."

At this juncture, when we are parting with good old friends, could be something worth keeping in mind :)

Good quote ...

2008-02-11T04:45:00.001-08:00

"Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it."

-Irving Berlin

The most non-trivial things I have seen in CS

2008-01-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

I see computers all around doing many computational jobs and hence finding application in many diverse fields. How then, can such "complex" computing machines be described completely by a very simple mathematical description, that of a Turing Machine? It is amazing how such a simple and abstract mathematical model can capture the entire computing capability that humans have been able to put into machines so far!
What is more surprising is that not just the Turing Machine, but even other seemingly independent models of computation - namely Godel's mu-recursive calculus, Lambda Calculus and others are found to be equivalent to the Turing Machine in terms of their computing power. It all suggests that probably there is something divine, beyond humans, that governs and controls what a man-made machine can do! In some sense, humans cannot push the limit on what man made machines can compute.

In Sohoni Sir's course which I recently took, we learnt about properties of solids and curves. There, we saw that the integration of curvatures taken at all points on a curve equals 2*pi*Turning_Number. The number of holes in a solid, called the genus of the solid was computed and turns out to be just E-F-V+2. The way in which these results were proved were very roundabout and complicated and the simplistic end result which comes out of the calculations is really amazing. It just goes to show that no matter howsoever hard and complicated our theory may become, when we finally apply it to practical bodies around us, we arrive at simple expressions. Maybe there are straightforward ways to explain everything around us, but just that we are not clever enough to spot them?

Other things such as Red Black Trees as a part of data structures course were also amazing examples of great ideas at work. The simple, elegant ideas involved in development of some data structures and algorithms which drastically improve the times taken to solve problems are wonderful to learn.

These are some of the things which have greatly enthused me over the last 4 years. I hope I keep seeing such wonderful things even in the future - wherever I am and whatever I am doing.

Marine Drive after Endsem - Part 2!

2007-11-05T17:33:00.001-08:00

After a long long time, I finally get down to completing our journey to Marine Drive on cycle, after our endsem in the 5th semester. For the earlier part of the adventure, have a look at this post. Well, as expected, the second half of the journey was even more dramatic than the first part. I hope I can recollect most of the things as I write this post.

I had left the last part saying that we finally decided to roam around on cycle for a while and then going back to IIT on cycle itself, as taking the cycles in the train luggage was going to cost too much! Accordingly, we made our way towards Bade Miya in a hope that it will be open at that time of the night - it would have been around 2:00 a.m. then. This place is quite close to the Taj Hotel, Gateway of India and other prominent landmarks. Unfortunately we could not find the shutter open for us and had to make a decision to kill time somewhere else. It was decided we can go and while away some time at Gateway. However, there too we were not allowed to enter as some VIPs were supposed to arrive at the Taj and there was tight security at the Gateway. Dejected, we started making our way back towards Marine Lines. On the way, we stopped at some hotel and arbitly went in and asked for water. I remember there was a lot of discussion over going inside a hotel arbitly or not, but then we felt anything is justified for water! So it was! the hotel owner was happy to fill up all our water bottles and wished us luck for our journey back to IIT.

Having explored pretty much avenues of killing time, we decided to get back to Marine Lines and while away our time there. We were given some confidence by the hawaaldars at Churchgate that police would not trouble us at Marine Lines if we were not behaving rowdily. We took their word and went there. It was wonderful - all of us sitting on the sea face and enjoying the cool sea breeze at 3:00 in the morning - I wonder if we are ever going to get that sort of a chance again in our lives! We were feeling a bit sleepy, but we knew very well that falling asleep would mean we have no chance of gathering the courage to drive our bicycles back to IIT. After some more time spent there, at around 3:30 - 3:45, we made a move. Slowly, we started moving towards our home - The IIT Campus! It was going to be a long long journey and we started feeling right from the start. Every climb a couple of us had to get down and hold our cycles in our hand and drag them up. The intermittent slopes were welcome though :). "Fulvedya Mai" navacha ek dhada hota Marathi madhe amhala - tyat there was a reference to some bridge jithe khup gardi vhayachi mainchya vadyatli diwalichi araas baghayala - we saw that bridge then! :D.

As we kept moving slowly towards our target, it was becoming apparent that the entire road is not going to be made by all of us. Sudeep was probably the one who was feeling the most tired and I dare say Kartik was the fittest - he had no intention to stop anywhere before IIT! What a man he is - deriving his nourishment from only Kurkure and Maggi - but he has all the stamina in the world to go on and on and on - whether it is putting in night outs for tech-giri or cycling like mad! We somehow managed to reach Dadar and then the point came where we had to decide if we are taking the train or not. After that point, we were going to hit the highway and it would have been difficult to reach a train station after that. After much discussion and slight arguments and debate over what should be done, we arrived at a consensus. Sudeep and Shantanu decided they have had enough and would take the train from Dadar to Kanjurmarg. The rest of us - Kartik, Cheema, Boss and myself - were enthu to take the rest of the journey and complete it come what may! We split then at that point - about Shantanu and Sudeep ... they reached insti without too many more hiccups. They had a bit of trouble at the Gandhinagar climb - but made it home peacefully and slept off before the other warriors arrived.

The rest of us were trudging along the highway. We stopped for tea at Sion station - had garma garam cutting and proceeded. It was as refreshing as anything could get! Some glucose in your system at that point along with hot tea would do no harm at all - and it worked well for us too! The rest of the journey was painful at times. We had to get down and drag our cycles over multiple flyovers - it was getting just impossible to generate enough power in the thighs to get the pedals moving over the flyovers. The slopes where an amazing relief though. We kept passing one checkpoint after another - first the line of the airport, then the first sight of Godrej factories, the factories coming closer and closer and finally we crossing it and moving ahead towards Powai. We finally caught sight of the signal at the highway where we have to turn left and get into Powai. It seemed so very far that day - it was almost as if it is cheating us and going further and further as we kept pedaling towards it!

Finally we made it, crossed the signal and took the left turn towards Powai. The Gandhinagar flyover climb was very painful for us too - in fact more painful. The cycles we were riding had also given up by then - one of them had lost its pedals, another was low on air pressure in the rear tire, another had its seat in a bad states - overall we were feeling lucky nothing drastically bad happened, given that we had moved out without any preparation whatsoever.

Reaching IIT, it was time to have some much needed snacks - Cheema, Sushant, Kartik and me went to Harish - just opposite YP those days - it has now been brought down for road widening. Had some nice dosa idli stuff and then came back to our respective hostels. I somehow had the enthu that time to have bath - so did that before going to bed. It was one of the most satisfying and hard earned sleeps I have had in my life!

Funda of the day!

2007-08-12T02:41:00.001-07:00

If you have a bird, let it go!
If it comes back to you, then you know it is truly yours.

-- Anonymous

A week in Switzerland ...

2007-05-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

Its been a week since I have landed in Switzerland and I haven't yet written anything about this place and my stay here!
Hope to keep updating my blog with news from my side here ... shifting to another blog address for the same ... do have a look sometime!
http://swisslandstories.blogspot.com/

Thoughts on Life ...

2006-11-28T09:44:00.000-08:00

From the book "iWoz" by Steve Wozniak, founder of Apple Inc ...

"The secret to life is to find a way to be happy and satisfied with your life and also to make other people happy and satisfied with their life."

"About two guys who die on the same day ... one guy is really successful, and he's spending all his time running companies, managing them, making sure they are profitable, and making sales goals all the time. And the other guy, all he does is lounge around, doesn't have much money, really likes to tell jokes and follow gadgets and technology and other things he finds interesting in the world, and he just spends his life laughing.
In my head, the guy who'd rather laugh than control things is going to be the one who has the happier life. That's just my opinion. I figure happiness is the most important thing in life, just how much you laugh. The guy whose head kind of floats, he's so happy."

Marine Drive after endsem - Part 1 !

2006-11-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

The last paper of our endsem was over - and on a slightly sad note of not having performed up to the mark in the exams overall ... we were walking out towards our hostel ... thinking of what should be done later that evening ? Initial plan was to go to Marine Drive and have a nice evening and be back by the last train to IIT ... then decide what to do ! After much discussion though ... we finally decided upon the plan for the night ... going to Marine Drive and coming back till the next morning on bicycles. So there we were - Shantanu (pretty much the brain behind it!), Sushant, Cheema, Sudeep, Kartik and me - getting ready to drive the bicycle for around 70 Kms. in the night on Mumbai roads.
We started off a bit late from IIT ... as Sudeep was at home and was going to join us in sometime. Meanwhile we had to arrange for cycles as none of us had ours in working condition ! Finally, at around 9:15, we were all ready to leave ... time for some departing time photographs and off we went !
Not all of us knew the road till the very end ... so we had decided to take it in stages ... first goal was to reach the Eastern Express Highway ... then keep goign along that road for a long long time ... reach Matunga ... then take the appropriate road from King's Circle ... keep going along and finally try and reach the bridge (fly-over) on Mohammad Ali road (I guess its called JJ college bridge) which will take us to VT (CST) directly.
The first couple of stages were a piece of cake ... we made it very casually till the highway ... then kept going on and on .. stopping to see some aeroplanes in the way (the airport is quite close by ... so we had a chance to look at some really low flying planes). We were stopping here and there ... with Cheema tiring the most apparently ... and it was expected to be so ! He was also a bit skeptical about the whole plan at the time it was being decided ... but somehow agreed to go ahead with it. AFAIR, over the bridge near Sion was the only real stop due to exhaustion we took. While we were on our way ... again Debanjan met us close to KEM College ... again planned by Shantanu ! It was nice to see him ... had last met him near Diwali ... he's always a nice person to meet and talk to ! They have their exams from 28th ... so to minimize our RG effext on him and also to reach our target as per schedule ... we decided to hurry and get along ! Then I remember at around 11:15, just after meeting Debanjan ... we stopped at a juice stall to get some soft drinks and Kartik took that chance to get hold of his staple diet - a large packet of Kurkure ... jisme sabne geese maara ... but he still managed to get enough for himself :) At that point, there was a sort-of challenge from Boss that we cannot make it before 12 to Marine Drive, as a group ... and it was accpeted by Kartik, me and some others. From there on ... we kept going .. re-energised after some drinks. As we were reaching the JJ flyover ... we missed our road and took a wrong turn ... fortunately, realised it early enough and turned back to get onto the right way. And there we were ... on the JJ Flyover at last ... everyone very much enthu to get to VT as fast as we can ... unfortunately, we ran into the cops. Cheema and me were a little behind the others .. so we joined a bit late into the conversation ... but nothing too serious ... we were just warned to keep left and go safely ... nice cops they were :) It was only later in the night that I found out cycles were actually not allowed on that road - and it was one of the most accident prone regions in Mumbai !
WE crossed it safely though and reached VT and then the final stage of our onward journey began ... to go from VT to Marine Drive - and we did that in style ... to reach the flyover overlooking the Marine Drive sharp at 0000 hrs ! And we had DONE IT was the feeling we got !!!
Time for some grub at the chowpatty .. just reached there and had some pav bhaji quickly ... the cops didn't give us much time ... they were shutting things down in a hurry. But we had a nice short meal ... followed by amazing kulfi ... and then were deciding what next to be done !
As it turned out .. we had varied opinions about it ... some of us felt we should leave immediately and return back taking the last train. The second group felt we should roam around, now that we were there and then take the first train back to Kanjur. The third group was of the opinion we should roam around for some time and then ride back on cycle .. obviously this idea didn't have too many takers ! :p
Finally ... Sudeep's opinion of going back by the last train was honoured and we rushed back to VT, only to find out that the last train had left at around 12:40 a.m. and we were there at 1:15 a.m. Then clueless as we were ... we desparately rushed to Churchgate station, hoping against hope that we get a train there ... but instead we met a couple of really nice police hawaldars - who instilled in us some fundae about life and got us going on our way again. Then it was decided ... we would roam around that area for some time and then leave back on cycle ... unless it got really bad .. we will not resort to trains .. this was partly because we came to know that the cycle luggage would cost us Rs. 50 per cycle ... which we felt was too much !
This is what I could write in short about the first part of our journey ... I hope I write the next part soon too !

Great Lines !

2006-10-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

The lines which appear at Vidya Balan's entry in Munnabhai - Lage Raho!
Really liked them ... and thanks to Sushant for putting in the fight and typing them out in Devnagari script !

Good Morning ...... Mumbai !
This is Jhanvi on World Space Radio
जाने से पहले, ये है मेरा आज का ख्याल
उन सबके लिये, जो दौड़े जा रहे हैं इस शहर की दौड़ में
शहर की इस दौड़ में दौड़ के करना क्या है?
अगर यही जीना है दोस्तों, तो फिर मरना क्या है?
पहली बारिश में ट्रेन लेट होने की फिक्र है, भूल गए भीगते हुए टहलना क्या है?
सीरियल के किरदारों का सारा हाल है मालूम, पर माँ का हाल पूछने की फुरसत कहाँ है?
आप रेत में नंगे पाँव टहलते क्यूँ नहीँ?
एक सौ आठ हैं चैनल पर दिल बहलते क्यूँ नहीँ?
इंटरनेट पे दुनिया से तो टच में हैं, लेकिन पड़ोस में कौन रहता है जानते तक नहीँ!
मोबाइल, लैंडलाइन सब की भरमार है, लेकिन जिगरी दोस्त तक पहुँचे, ऐसा तार कहाँ है?
कब डूबते हुए सूरज को देखा था, याद है?
कब जाना था शाम का गुज़रना क्या है?
तो दोस्तों, शहर की इस दौड़ में दौड़ के करना क्या है?
अगर यही जीना है दोस्तों, तो फिर मरना क्या है?

My Idea of Happiness

2006-09-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

This is a part of our course - and you would not believe which one - CS301: Design and Analysis of Algorithms ! The course is taken by Prof. Ranade and he suddenly thought one day of making us think philosophically ... hence the thoughts which follow.

The assignment as posted by Sir:
Write an essay on "My Idea of Happiness".

What has made you happy in the past? What makes you happy today?
What do you do for fun? What do you expect will make you happy in the
future? What is needed for you to be happy? How much money? What
besides money? These are some of the questions you must answer.

This is what I could manage:

My Idea of Happiness

What do we mean when we say happiness ? Well, to start with, some dictionary meanings of the word "Happiness"

Happiness:
1. the quality or state of being happy.
2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.
3: state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy
4: emotions experienced when in a state of well-being

Happiness results from the possession or attainment of what one considers good.
Bliss is unalloyed happiness or supreme delight.
Contentment is a peaceful kind of happiness in which one rests without desires, even though every wish may not have been gratified.

Well, for me, probably 3 above describes 3 most correctly. I feel happiness is all about the state which we are in, mostly mental state. Happiness for me is also closely related to satisfaction - when one is satisfied, one should be happy. On the other hand, if one is not satisfied with some actions of his/her, then most probably he would not be happy after doing those actions.

Human being needs many many things right from the day he is born. In the initial few years of one's life, apart from the very unfortunate ones (this is where probably the "good fortune" meaning comes in) most of these needs are taken care of by someone else, namely our parents. Having got all that we needed, we are satisfied and hence also happy. Thus, in our childhood years, even something as trivial as getting a balloon in our hand makes us very happy. As we grow up, our needs, demands increase and hence it is more difficult to satisfy them. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult to get happiness. Thus, if at the age of 20, if someone is unhappy, there is a very low probablity that a piece of chocolate would make that person happy, but at the age of 7-8, it would most definitely have worked ! One may say that having less demands or having a mechanism to ensure that all of them are met, is almost a sure path to happiness - both these things unfortunately seem to be hard to exist at all times.

What then makes a person happy at all times ? Happiness is also relative - one person may not get any happiness from something, while another person might be very joyful after getting the same thing. Infact, the same thing may bring joy to one and sadness to another person ! Is that the way the world goes ? Is it that someone has to be sad for someone else to be happy ? Or are the sayings "Happiness shared is happiness doubled, sorrow shared is sorrow halfed" etc. really true ? I would say in an ideal world, these are the things which we would really like to have - but I doubt we can see these things happening around us very commonly. So, then forgetting about what other's happiness is due to and how we affect that - one can just try and think about what makes oneself happy, to start with - then go on to more difficult questions. I would believe that ultimately, if one is "content" with what one has, one would be happy. And contentment is more a state of mind than the actual material existence of things around oneself. A person can be content in very little and be happy, or keep craving for more and never be happy. Does this mean that we set our aims low and be content with whatever we have ? Were all the great inventors and discoverers wrong in spending all the years of their lives not being "content" with what they have - did they all spend a sorrowful life ? Mostly NO ! Maybe it was the knowledge they kept gaining at every step of their life that made them happy. As Einstein has said - "What, then, impels us to devise theory after theory? Why do we devise theories at all? The answer is simply: because we enjoy comprehending, i.e., reducing phenomena by the process of logic to something already known or (apparently) evident." It is probably this basic idea that keeps people going all their lives. For me, what is it that would make me happy today ? Well, I can think of some things - Knowing new things: in academics and otherwise, getting to see the raw beauty of nature - and just stare and admire it, thanking God for the beautiful world and for giving me the ability to appreciate it, being with people whom I love, getting appreciation from someone whom I know cares for me - for that matter just knowing that someone cares for me. Maybe some more things can go into it ... some more material things - but isn't it really ultimately these things that would make any person happy ? I doubt if a person needs anything more than this to be happy ... obviously the inability to do the above leads to sadness !

Does "enjoyment" necessarily lead to happiness - I feel sometimes enjoyment can lead to happiness which is just momentory. Long term happiness may be got from the recollection of those moments though. Infact, that leads to a thought - is it that at any moment when we are feeling sad, somehow if we can think of our happy moments in life, we become happy again ? Maybe yes ... but still, we look for many things that would make us happy - precisely the things which we would list in the "fun-filled" or "enjoyable" activities. These could be something as big as going for a long vacation to just roaming around aimlessly in a garden to hanging out with friends to seeing a movie to reading a nice book to listening to good music. In the extreme cases, I may also include things like solving puzzles and playing around with computers and electronics and robots to be "fun", because I enjoy doing them at times - not always though. These are however things which one does looking at the immediate consequences only - no foresight goes into the decision to do things. As an algorithms guy would put it probably, this is what corresponds to the "greedy" strategy !

Looking into the future and deciding what will make us happy later on is probably the toughest question to answer for any person. I would personally even debate on whether a person can know this in advance. And even if there was some way in which one could get to know about it, should one use it - would it leave our life as interesting as it otherwise would have been ? Isn't the journey to look for the truth also as enjoyable as the final destination would be ? Well, there could be atleast two ways to think of this - one can get to know what is THE path in life which will make him/her happy, and then to make his/her life as happy and fulfilling as possible, he/she takes that path and keeps doing that till the end. Second, to not be very sure of what that path is, and keep wandering on different routes, and look for what each route has to offer - learn to take everything in a positive manner and one can be happy throughout this apparently "rough and unhappy" journey as well. But even after thinking about this and probably realizing that ultimately happiness is just about one's attitude and that one can be happy if one wants to or not be happy at all if one wants to go that way, I can't help but think and put down some things which I would love to have and as of now, feel essential to give me happiness in the future. A good family would be one of the things I feel one can't do without. Then, probably health - both physical and mental and if life is gracious enough, money ! How much of each is an even more difficult question to answer - probably money one can quantify most easily ... the others I find much tougher to quantify. How much money would I need ? Well ... maybe the amount of money which will allow me to get all the basic necessities. More than that, there would be no limit as to how much one would need ! If there is something for which I need money and I don't have, I would fall back on the more valuable resources which I have - my physical and mental health and family - includes friends as well when I say family - to get me a solution, namely earning more money or else working my way around the necessity.

How many materialistic things can really give us happiness ? While it is true that if one has enough money to take care of all such needs, he/she can think of higher things in life, can one without this money not be happy ? Certainly one can. Maybe there is no one thing or a set of things which can lead to happiness in one's life other than his/her mental feelings, attitude and way of looking at anything. Some people can find happiness in virtually anything while some people inspite of having "everything", can't be happy - the above thought probably explains that !

Works Visit

2006-09-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

Writing on the blog after a very long time. Maybe the break of a week which we got due to the works visit has enabled me to put in this time and write something about it - well, lots of things seen, experienced ... it was a very nice time spent in Bangalore.

We started off from Bombay just after our midsem. ToC was our last paper and it was pretty terrible for me, as my results will show. But we were to leave for Bangalore on that same evening ... 15th of September, so it was nice in a way ... there was no time for me to think about that paper ! We left from IIT in the insti buses and reached Kurla in time for the train ... everything went on perfectly and we were on our way to Bangalore by the Coimbatore express at 10:20 p.m.

In the train, we immediately started off with playing cards, cracking jokes, having discussions, taking Prakhar's case and many other things. We were distributed in two bogies ... but it didn't really matter ... we had a lot of fun on the journey and after a long but enjoyable trip, were there in Bangalore at about 10 p.m. the next night. Our accommodation was reserved at Youth Hostel Bangalore. It was a nice place overall, except the fact that there seemed to be a shortage of water there ... which forced some of my batch mates to complete their daily chores in some companies instead of the hostel! The hostel also had other restrictions like students not being allowed in after 10:30 p.m. and all ... but we got it relaxed much to our relief ... because 10:30 would have meant at least half of us having to sleep outside everyday! There also used to be complaints regarding our talking / shouting etc ... but overall, it was quite okay to be staying at YHA for a week. I was sharing the dormitory with 11 other people - Shantanu, Sushant, Aditya Dhoke, Sahil Thapa, Amit Upadhyay, Saransh Mittal, Vishal Jaatav, Varun Garg, Amit Arora, Pondy, Ashish Meena - and it was a nice opportunity to interact with everyone - actually hadn't really got an opportunity to have a long talk with many of these people - so that was one of the best aspects of the works visit - much increased interaction among the batch - atleast for me, my interaction with many others did increase during the trip ... I hope that continues!

The companies we visited were also decent. A short description of each visit is given below:

1. Trilogy: This was our first destination. Was a neat place ... they had a presentation and then followed by that, we had a chance to interact with one of the project leaders there and to go around the office with him. The working styles didn't seem too attractive ... people there said they were not really enjoying their jobs too much and all. However, they were good hosts - as they offered us a pizza treat, with lots of juices etc. It was a decent start to our work part of the work visit !
2. Intel: This was perhaps the worst of the lot. For two main reasons - firstly, they were a but too stringent with their security rules - not allowing Maruti to enter because he didn't have an i-card, and secondly, the presentation which we saw was at best ordinary. Nothing special at all ... and to add to it - no grub, no T-Shirts, nothing at all :((
3. Motorola: Again, the presentation was okay ... but nothing special. The kind of work the people there seem to be doing was quite interesting though - developing applications for embedded systems - mainly for cell phones. But the talk and overall style in which the visit was conducted by the Motorola people was probably too formal to be useful! And again ... even though we had two companies on that day, no food was served :(. So, we were on our own in the afternoon to have our lunch and head towards the next company.
4. Synopsys: This was probably the best we had seen till then. The HR manager was a really good speaker, and that probably led us to having a good overall impression of the company and the visit. But it was neatly managed on the whole. Got slightly boring when there were some core technical talks, but the food and drinks break in between and the talk by Manish Jain after the break was quite nice! The HR manager Anshuman gave us some fundae of life - telling us what we should do when we are looking for a job etc. Nice experience - something that I had expected to get during a works visit - I was not at all expecting too technical talks - I hoped the visit would give me a broad picture of how things are in the corporate industries, how people work, what companies do etc.
5. MSR (Microsoft Research): This was the place I liked the most (as I think was the case with most others in the batch as well). The work culture there was very nice and informal - with people writing on walls, sitting down on the floor to discuss things, a X-Box machine kept in the lobby with couches kept to laze around! It was an amazing place, and probably a nice office to work in as well. In fact, we liked it so much that we went back to their office the next day afternoon as well - as we were very much impressed by the way even their Director, Prof. Anandan spoke to us about various things, very frankly. The next day when we met the people there, it further strengthened my belief that it was a very good place. Not to mention the 4-course lunch they had offered us on the first day!
6. Infosys: I was very much enthu about seeing Infosys, mainly to see how an Indian, IITian has created such a huge enterprise. We reached Infosys campus and went around having a look at various things they offer their employees. The company really cares for their employees - as they believe they are "powered by intelligence" of theirs. But overall, the visit was a dissapointment as they had not really taken any efforts to treat us well ... they just showed us a small movie clip about the company's progress etc. and that was it! Probably the fact that not too many IITians take up that job and stay there for too much time has led them to the feeling that they should not spend too much time on us. After all, the greatest incentive for a company accepting us as visitors is that they will have a chance to capture the brightest amongst us when the time for the placement comes. This is almost nil in the case of Infosys probably.
7. Sasken: Sasken, again a Indian company was a different experience. We got to see some different work being done ... and it seems to be a great emerging company. They claimed they have the best technologies in their fields. They make applications for cell phones and the backend workstations which help companies handle their centers (exchanges sort of in the mobile phone industry). Having a look at growing Indian companies was nice as it gave a feeling - "You can do it as well". Absolutely, I do not think there is any reason why some company like Sasken cannot be owned by someone from our batch of 60 in the next 20-25 years or so. It makes me think - what is a bigger achievement - Doing some research which probably leads to a breakthrough in the industry, or owning a company which employees about 2000+ people? I unfortunately don't have answers to this and many other such questions which have always been in my mind. Probably, there isn't a single correct answer at all ... it is all subjective and depends on how a person perceives himself and what he/she wants to do.
8. Google: Our last company and probably the one which was the most eagerly awaited by a majority of people in our batch. We had a brief talk by the person who has setup the Bangalore Google center. Following that, Navnit Lohiwal gave a wonderful talk on his brainchild - Google Finance. He explained how it is like to develop an entirely new product and gave us a flavour of what he and his team did in the process of coming up with Google Finance. It was a pleasure listening to someone about whom we have heard so much! After that, we had the part we were all enthu about - collecting Google T-shirts, which ended up becoming a uniform for most of my batchmates in the train return journey. Google also seemed like a very cool place to work at - with great workstations provided to each person and a nice, informal atmosphere in the office.

Thats about it ... the work visit I must say was a great success - apart from the glitch at Intel, it went very smoothly (on the administrative side). Well, personally for me, as Khedkar Sir had said, it has raised a few questions regarding my career and what I should choose and all - but I guess I have been talking about it a bit too much in the past few days - so as of now, that is ditched!

What a memorable weekend !

2006-07-10T00:12:00.000-07:00

Its about 5:15 in the morning here in Singapore and I am to go the lab at 9:30 in the morning, not having slept at all so far, and a sleep of about 4 hrs. yesterday night, but even after a very taxing day with more than 13 kms. of walking, I can't really sleep without having written an account of two of the most memorable days I have had - yesterday and today !

It all started off with a simple plan to visit the Singapore Science Centre to see some shows like Thunderbolt and Tesla coils at work - symbols of some of the great achievements of man in technology. But it was not to be ! Thanks to my absent mindedness in catching a bus on the wrong side of the road, I ended up realizing that I can't reach the place in time for the shows and hence started to think of alternative plans. For some time, I was undecided and in fact, at some point of time thought that I should come back home and maybe do some work which I had planned to complete over the weekend. But then, I felt the weekend was worth something more than that and hence decided to pay a visit to the Chinese Gardens, which are located very much in the city, and somehow I hadn't been able to find time to go there before. I was there in the gardens at around 12 noon. That place is just awesome - I loved it ! Big flat lawns, very graceful Pagodas, one of the finest Bonsai gardens probably around - the first one I have come across - great looking lakes in between, it has it all. It was a wonderful trip, walking along the roads in the garden and crossing arch bridges over the water every now and then. I also happened to vist the "Live Turtle and Tortoise Exhibition", which is a part of the garden, and is the largest collection of its kind in the world - but surprisingly, is hardly heard about as a tourist attraction in this place where every small thing they have to offer is put up as a place for tourists to visit. It was a nice opportunity for me to get some photographs of the natural beauty around, and I managed to get some decent pics of the place. So, it was around 3 in the afternoon, after 3 hours in the garden, taking the walk around the whole place that I decided to go back as I had not eaten anything for breakfast in the morning ! I came back home at around 4 after a lunch and then started playing around with photos and doing some work simultaneously.

In the evening, after Varun returned, a bit later than what we had decided, we left for the East Coast which he had heard is a nice place to spend an evening and have dinner. We were quite late and didn't know the exact route to get there, so it was not before 9 that we could find ourselves at the place we wanted to go. That place was quite a sight - it is a skater's paradise, with skating rinks for beginners and more than half of the people around moving about on 8 wheels ! There are even some shops where one can rent a pair of skates on an hourly basis - seeing the people skating there has made me more enthusiastic about it and I feel I should resume skating once I get back to IIT this semester. So, we had a dinner comprising of the traditional "Nasi Lemak" rice and the local "Satay" which is one dish I have really liked - its something like sheek kabab where you have chicken or any meat of your choice on a stick and grilled to perfection. It is eaten with a very typical peanut gravy, and the combination is really tasty. After dinner we decided to just spend time on the coast where we found a good place to just lie down on what is a very narrow beach, but it was very lively at that hour. People come there and spend the evening and night on weekends at the barbeques that have been set up there in tents and it is actually a very nice and relaxed place, slightly away from the city. Finally it was the realization that we have to catch the last bus back home that set us moving from there and we headed towards the bus stop. We managed to get the last bus as planned at around midnight hour from the Marine Parade Drive as it is called and after a rather long bus ride, reached home at about 1 in the morning. There was a match - Germany vs. Portugal yesterday, but we ditched it and after some work on my laptop, slept at around 4 in the morning.

Today was a day dedicated completely to Nature - the best it has got to offer ! We were to go to MacRitchie reservoir park - a well kept rainforest with nice trails constructed to take us right into the heart of the forest and have a glimpse of sheer natural beauty. It has been kept more or less undisturbed other than the essential construction at places and of course, a stunning suspension bridge right in the middle of the forest, to get a splendid bird's eye view of the whole forest, surrounding the reservoir, which is one of the most important source of water for the whole of Singapore. We started off with our journey into the forest from the reservoir, walking along it and then decided to take one of the best routes on offer - the Tree Top Walk as it is called, which took us through the suspension bridge and the Jelutong tower. So, the whole path was something like this : Through the Prunus Trail, continuing on the MacRitchie nature trail, then the tree top walk and on the way back, we came across the Jelutong tower, which also provided a great view ... and in fact, I got quite a decent 360 degree panoramic image of the whole forest from the top of the tower. After passing the tower, we again reached the reservoir and kept walking along it, taking the Jering and Chemperai trails. It was a great walk along the huge reservoir, which provided wonderful scenes at many places. And it was all so perfect, that we couldn't possibly come up with such a nice trip even with many days of planning ! Just as we started descending to get back to the reservoir park entrance, it started drizzling and just added to the beauty of the place. So, as we would have it, whats the fun of being in a rainforest without rains ! We could experience the canopies in the rainforest, where we could see it raining around us, but the path beneath the tall trees was very dry and void of any direct impact of the rain. So, we were on time as per our plan and after a walk of more than 13 kilometers in about 5 hours, we were back at the entrance of the park at around 5 p.m. and almost exhausted, headed straight back home. Back home, me and Varun tried to put our pics of the day together and come up with a nice collection as a memory of the great trip that we had and was almost 10 in the night by the time we managed to get a decent movie comprising the best pics we managed to get during the day.

Then each of us slept for a while and then went to the club house of Gillman heights, where a big screen had been put up for the matches of the world cup. And well, it was great to see many people in there even at 2 in the night, getting ready to witness the culmination of the world's biggest football event. It was not the most expected setting for the final, with Italy playing France, no Brazil, no Germany ! And the start was amazing ... with a penalty being awarded to the French team in the 5th minute of the game, which the great Zinadine Zidane managed to get in to the goal in the cheekiest way possible ! But thats all it takes - it was France 1, Italy 0. Not for long though, as Italy scored their equalizer in just the 19th minute with Materazzi getting a fantastic header into the goal, beating the defenders and Barthez. It was all set then - 1 each, and we had a game on, with Italy really pushing hard and looking in total control of the game. But as it happened, there was no goal scored in the rest of the time, and the game went into extra time, with France having the upper hand slightly, as they seemed to be in better control towards the end of the second half. The first half of extra time was also not very eventful, with nothing much happening. The game really took off in the second half of the extra time - with Zidane getting in a fantastic header in the perfect direction, and the Italian goalkeeper Buffon had to leap high into the air to make a great save and keep Italy's hopes in World Cup '06 alive ! Then there was this most disgraceful event and the most unexpected thing you can ever have on a football field - Zinadine Zidane hitting his head into Materazzi's chest and being taken off the field with a red card - and what a sad sad way to put an end to a glorious career of one of the game's most celebrated players. Finally, France ended up on the losing side, losing out 5-3 in the penalty shoot-outs and the Italian men were the heroes of the night ! I don't follow the game really, in fact, I watch the matches once every four years, during the world cup ! But whatever little I have watched, it doesn't come to me as a surprise that this is one game that millions of people all across the globe "worship" - sport is the thing where you can really feel the triumphant spirits of man - there is absolutely no other thing in the world that can give you that level of happiness and joy and glory as sports can - be it only for the few moments possibly !

After witnessing all the celebrations the Italians had to offer, came back home ... and couldn't help writing all this down, before going to bed to get a well deserved sleep of about 3 hours before heading to the lab in the morning ! Just as I prepare to go to bed, I get a glimpse of the sun peeping out from the horizon and overlooking the busy Ayer Rajah Expressway from the balcony of my apts. in Gillman heights, I see the morning traffic already starting to build up ... its a monday morning and time to get back to work for everyone in this busy place !

Signing off,
6:48 a.m.,
Monday, 10th July, 2006.

Dedicated to my favourite movie !

2006-06-27T02:12:00.000-07:00

AAA - Andaz Apna Apna is my favourite movie and today while I was following some community on Orkut, thought I should dedicate atleast one post in this blog to the great script writers and actors and directors, basically everyone associated with that movie !

So giving below an arbit collection of dialogues from that movie ... AAA fans - go on and try to see how many you can identify and give "Reference To Context" !

Warning : This could be quite a long list ... so anybody who hates this movie or something, maybe you should not read ahead ... however it would be great if you could leave me a comment !

My small tribute to the greatest comedy movie ever made !

Chyamayla...tu kon?
sir ye do number ke badmash raste mein uthapatk kar rahe the
Chipakke Chipakke ...
Doctor ko bulau kya doctor?
Happy B'day Raabert
Chai mein shakkar dalne ka time ho gaya kya sir?
uthal puthal ? uthal puthal !
mein defeat nahi khaane wala ... mein nahi khaungaa defeat !
Ooooh Amar .. jal gaye
abbbuuu jaaaaan...
aha ... tasbeer se bhi jyada khoobsoorat!
Miss Kuch kuch ... aakhir aap hai kaun kuch kuch?
gum ka saathi rum. par iski aadat mat dalana. isse liver kharab hota hai
teja mein hu, mark idhar hai !
india to mujhe kabhi pasand hi nahi tha !
Yeh toh mujhse ghor paap ho jata
acche bhale to ab bhi hai, lekin ye bure bhale kab se ban gaye
abe jiske naseeb main hogi usko milegi
ye firodi ke paise hai ya maiyat ka chanda
sawal ek javab do, sawal ek jawab do, sawal javab sawal jawab sawal jawab ... chup ... lambi khamoshi !
Dhakkichiki Dhakkichiki dhakkichiki dha ...
abe e ... shaadi hogi meri aur bhabhi hogi teri
ye country hi deewano ki hai ... ek dhundo, hazaaro mil jaayenge !
thoda niche jaake kudungi dard kum hoga
Main jaanta thaa aapmein kuch hai ... lekin itnaa kuch?
lagta hai kaccha khiladi hai
Yeh vasco dagama ki gun hai ... nishaan lagane ki koi jaroorat nahi ... shikar ka naam lo, goli khudbakhud usse jaake lagti hai !
khali hain na ? toh phek de ...
chalo chalo ... mein tumhein doosra la doonga !
pehli baar tu bahut khush hua tha ... jab ...
Aapka plan hi galat hai !
Lakh lakh ke pachaas cheque hoenge sir !
Teja ... kaise aadmi paal rakhain hay tune. saley suit dus dus hazaar ka pahantay hain. akal dus kaudi ki bhi nahi hay
Ye tumhari khandani bimari hain kya ?
lekin achha hua ! Bahut Dharam-Karam ki baat karta tha, bahut bore karta tha saala
10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... dhamaka !
Ye Teja Teja kya hai ... yeh teja teja?
main teja hoon, kyunki mera naam bhi teja hain !
mai ab is dukaan me chudiyo ka dhanda karunga !
waise aap log jaa kahan rahen hai ?
khandani chor hu, aya hu to kuch to lutke jaunga ... mugambo ka bhateeja, ...
Sala mereko London nahi dekhana hain kya ? lekin kaise jaata ?!
Galti se mistake ho gaya !
yeh kiske mama ki gun hain ?
Sooraj Doobne ke baad batti nahi jalana ... aur sote waqt awaaz to nahi karte ho na ? Paas mein kabristan hai wahan se complaint nahi aani chahiye ... Bolo mat Sunte raho
aapka toh pata nahi....par meri izzat hai yahan pe
Strike abhi chal rahi hai ? lagta hai muze hi kuch karna padega
Nahi yaar asli wale lal mein rakhe the ...
Aray Tumhara Boss hun ek toh do !
dekha hai pehli baar saajan ke aankhon mein pyaar ...
tum log bolte nai ho yar !
Bahut accha, Bahut accha ... fine, fine !
jangal mein oye oye ! - this is actually just written, not said
Bada hi nek beta hai apka ... bola abba ke ilaaj ke liye paisa chahiye !
shaab buzy hain ! arey commissioner hoga apne ghar ka hoga
chaudry and sons haa suna hai suna hai ...
yeh kya program hai ?
Woh nahi ... uske neeche
kaale mirch ke laddu, adrak ka halwa, karele ka soup, mirchi salad !
itne saaare naam ... baaki log kidhar hain ?!
Kaleja Thanda Ho Gaya Mera
wicket keeper nahi goal keeper, bewakoof
mera boss ? kaun hain mera boss ? mera boss kaun hain ?
abey, batla danny, idhar aa
Mere doobe hue 36,000 rupaye to dilva do
milega haan milega ... jail mein sab kuch milta hain !
do dost ek pyale mai chay piyenge, isse dosti badhti hain !
Nani yaad aayi ? nahin ? toh ilaaj chal raha hain !
ye paapi sansar, ye bedard duniya, ye dushman jamaana, ye hamein jeene nahi dega !
phone to aana hi hai, woh to aa jaayega
tumne sholay picture dekhi hai ?
Ho gaya, ho gaya ... Wah Wah production ki izzat the bhajipala ho gaya
Dekhunga Dekhunga ... accounts Dekhunga ...
ye maine switzerland se kharida ... main wahan aksar jaata rehta hoon ... mujhe wahan ki shaam bahut pasand hain !
Chai mein shakkar kam hai
Kuch dekhna dikhana hai kya ... fatafat kapde utaro aur so jao !
abey sita aur gita nahi idiot ... ram aur shyam
darata kyun hai ?
English know you ? i can Walk engleesh, talk engleesh ... feeneesh, feeneesh !
gogo ji, aapka ghagara
tu maidan mein tha hi kab ?
mmmm main ? yyyyy yahan ? aaaa kyun nahi ?
javani mein aap kaafi khandani dikhte the !
andhi behen aur vidhva maa ...
yeh main nahi mera judwaa bhai hai
PLAAANNNNNN ...
mujhe bohot zor say sussu aai hai !
Darta hu mere haatho kisika khoon na ho jaaye
chavanni chavanni jama kar ke to yeh ghar banvaya hain maine !
line se andar karo sabko ... arey, yeh log to line mein hi khade hain !
unki ankhe dekiye, kitni badi badi hai !
aap idhar udhar kyun dekh rahe hain ... udhar idhar dekhiye, udhar idhar !
raveena main aaya, raveena main aaya ...
are mian yeh subah subah kis per bighad rahe ho ?
Jaise do teer mein ek shikar karte hai !
Acha hain, acha hain acha hain acha hain
acha hain, acha hain !
De do ... buddha hai
bread ka badshaah aur omlette ka rajja !
Muscle dekhee hai muscle, masal ke rakh doonga ...
uinuinuinuiuinuinuinuuu ...
kyon bey ? naya hai kya ? jaa, fan chalu kar, saaala
ek baar raveena mil jaaye, fir batti hi batti hain, batti hi batti !
gogo ke kaarnaame. kamaal hain, nahi?
main marte dam tak tumhaari madat karunga ...
tune raveena ji ko langur bola !
sala pavwala
Apple achche hain
ab hum bhi unhe mazaa chakhainge...Righto
yaanee jahaan kainchee chalti thee kachakach kachakach, wahaan ab gataasa chalega khatakhat khatakhat ?
kya bhai sahab, chavanni ke liye shor kar riya hai ?
Kaisa lag raha hai .... kaisa lag raha hain ?
Sir! Ab aap .... piyo !
chal chal niche utar niche uthar ! saale godiwaale !
Sab cheej time to time hona chahiye, non-sense
abey, der ho gayee
main aap ko bhi hero banaunga, uncle
bade mamu kahan gaye ?
30 karod milte hi police ka mooh band, phir na ghar duur, na chabi duur, na lockup duur, aur na heere duur !
Police bhi yehi kahegi
kyonki sab apni tarah smart nahin hote !
party sharty ho jaye ...
arey arey munni ka phool gir gaya
abe ye teesra kaun hai ?
kabhi kabhi sochti hoon, in majboot kandhon ka sahara na hota to mera kya hota
sab se pehle mai uthta hoon ...
aapka dhandhaa band ho chuka ! aapki dukaan bik chuki !
Lagta hai ye paagal ho gaya
jab dil toot-ta hain, to uska asar seedha dimaag par hota hain !
sir, mera role yaad rakhna
chaaron taraf se khushiyon ke samachar milte hain !
haan, mark to hona chaiye !
topi seedhi tie upar !
kuch ubal raha hai kya ?
Tumhare to tevar hi badal gayein hai, tevar
arre munna apne abba ko kyun yaad kar rahe hon ?
Tum dono ko dekh kar mujhe ramanand sagar ki ramayan ka woh episode yaad aa gaya jisme ram-bharat ka milap hota hain
Amar Prem aa gaye ! amar prem aa gaye !
kya namaste namaste laga rakhi hai ? baaraat mein aaye ho kya ?
kahan hai meri laado ramiyaan !
aapne bataya nahi aaj mera birthday hain ?
Arre wo chhodo, ye dekho, game ho jayega tumhara, game !
Bade ajeeb naukar hai is ghar ke pehle de nahi rahe the ab le nahi rahe hain !
chalo chalo dande maarne hain !
jaise police chor ko dhund nikalti hain, waise main soong kar, mareej ko talaash kar leta hoon
khub pyaar karo, jee bhar ke pyaar karo
mere baare main koi poochta hi nahi hai
tum jaanvar log jungle mei kya kar rahe ho ?
usse shaadi karke bawarchi banna hai mujhe?
Ungli muuh se aur tum kamrey se baahar !
Mujhe koi jaldi nahi hai ...
ye le pakad, aur uske muuh pe maar ke aa
sir sunne sunane ka time gaya ... ab main aapko kuch dikhata hoon ...
nahi iska ulta kar ...
toh tum ho teja ke aadmi log ?
kabhi kabhi bheed mein yun kahda dikhayi deta hai !
nahin jayenge nahin jayenge hum yahaan se nahin jayenge !
Maan na maan main tera mehman
inki ? arey pushto ki life ban jaayegi, pushto ki !
yeh to pakka khilaadi nikala
naa surat na shakl na akal, koi bhi chala ata hain
darshan hogaye baba ke ?
Kya ! Sunita ye to meri maa ka naam hai ...
ab aaya hai unth pahaad ke neeche ...
ab tumhare bina jiya nahi jaata

Hmm ... I guess thats enough ! Hope I have not made too many mistakes, saw a forum or orkut and copied some from there. I would claim I know atleast 150 of these very well !

That is one ever-green movie for me ! Huge fan of Andaz Apna Apna !

My experiences in Singapore - Iulian Topor

2006-06-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

The first week in lab was a nice experience. I met all the people in the lab and found them very friendly. Especially I must mention somethings about Iulian (pronounced Julian), with whom I was going to work. The project is called UNET - which basically means Underwater Networking.

Iulian is from Romania, and works here as a Research Engineer. He would be around 27-28 years of age I guess, so it was nice working with him. The first day itself, we were talking about the project, mostly it was him trying to explain lots of things to me ... some of which I could grasp, the rest was all Greek and Latin ! We were at the lab till almost 11:30 in the night, but it wasn't a problem as I was staying at the hostel in campus itself, so just had to walk down. Iulian was the only person in the lab probably who worked at odd hours ... or maybe I should say, the only person working at odd hours IN the lab. His workplace was a good sight ... 3 monitors kept side by side, he used them with 3 different machines working as 3 different "nodes" in the network. It was quite impressive ! That was the reason he had to work at the lab, he couldn't really go home and keep working. Slowly that week, I started getting adjusted to the lab environment. I met Mandar a couple of days later, as he was in India for some meetings. That person is a genius - and everyone here at the lab has the same impression. He is working on almost all projects, has tremendous knowledge about the things which we works on and most importantly, is a great person to be with. This project that I am working on is also under his leadership. Ok ... so back to Iulian ... he came late to lab everyday almost ... at around 11 or even later, but then he kept working until 1 or 2 in the morning. He was really putting in great efforts to try and do as much as he can in the days that he had here at ARL. He is now leaving for Bangkok on 1st July and plans to take a long holiday there, or go back to Romania to be with his family for some time.

So now, everyday, I started working with Iulian, sitting with my laptop just beside him and trying to understand the things involved in the project. I started off with testing some of the modules which he had developed so far, in the process learning about them. Then after a week or so, I started getting a fair idea of the things that he had done, and now after 3 weeks at the lab and with Iulian, I must say I have quite a good idea about the UNET project, atleast at the software implementation level. Still, I don't have much knowledge about Networks in general, so how things should be I need to ask someone around, but the implementaion part Iulian has helped me to understand to a great extent. The routine was set then for the next few days - go to lab at around 9:30-10:00, then get started with some work. At around 1 p.m., all of us at the lab go to lunch together, at one of the canteens in campus - they have a canteen at each "Block", and there are blocks like Engg. block, Arts and Social Sciences block, Business Block and so on. Iulian, having come a bit late, was not always there for lunch, he sometimes skip lunch when he had a heavy breakfast or he would have lunch a bit late - he was a bit arbit to sum it up ! Then, back after lunch, continue to work on something, with discussions with Iulian about various aspects of the project in between. Sitting close-by was a great advantage - I could ask him any simple doubts that I had immediately, and he too used to tell me anything interesting that he did right away so that it would be easier for me to understand the purpose behind doing it. Then, at around 6:30 p.m., Varun, Iulian and myself would go for dinner again at some canteen - Iulian's favourite was the Arts Canteen, he liked the Japanese food there apparently. But unfortunately for him, that used to close early and so eventually, almost everyday we started going to the Engg. canteen, which also happened to be the nearest to the lab. While having dinner, we had nice discussions about our foods back home and he used to tell us about different types of food he has eaten in Singapore, and the kind of food he gets back in Romania. Then we would discuss with him the things we are planning to do next weekend and he would give us some suggestions and then tell us his plans for the weekend - which usually were to work at the lab to try and get somethings completed. After coming back from Dinner, if I had the enthu, I did some work, otherwise it was mainly other things, like Photo uploading, emails, chatting, general browsing etc. Iulian called me now and then to explain some things which he felt important to me. Then I would finish whatever work I was doing in the day, and wind up and leave at around 10 - 10:30. Somedays it was even later if I had something to talk with Iulian, but otherwise, this was the generally decided timing !

So, this was my experience with Iulian (incomplete description, of course ... his name will keep appearing in future blog posts of mine I am sure) at the lab. And in a very short time span, he had become somewhat a part of my life here at Singapore.

Almost a month in Singapore !

2006-06-15T00:53:00.000-07:00

Most of this post is actually written on 29th ... so its almost a month since I have been here !

I today would be completing a stay of 2 weeks in Singapore, and having seen some parts of the city I realize that even though it is a very small place, it is going to be really difficult to see all the things Singapore has to offer to a visitor !

Something about each person at the lab here:

Navin Gupta : Well .. quiet guy, not bothering much about things other than his work. But whatever little I have got to talk to him, he is a very nice person. Cheerful at all times. A bit aloof from other though, I may say.

Mehul: He is the powerhouse of the lab ! Every 5 mins, you will hear him bursting out into a laughter ! The small project meetings in the lab with him involved are really amazing ! Even though I was involved in it, I could not resist myself from having a laugh when I heard that sound of his laughter ... really amazing guy to have around. From Pune, he has just completed his Engg. last year and is working here as a research engineer. We have some shared interests ... as he was also into tech kidegiri while at MIT, and now, of course, he is officially doing it here at the lab, with loads of hi-tech devices around ! He is our regular company for roaming around Singapore, with myself and Varun. So its now a standard weekend practice - get up sometime, get ready and call up Mehul, he is ready with plans for the day, if not, suggest one and it is accepted ! Then meet at some MRT (Mass Rapid Transport, the trains here) station and leave ! Its been great fun having him around at all times ... and I wouldn't really want to attempt a complete description of this guy here ! He still has some plans charted out for us in weekends to come, one of which is going to Malaysia ... so looking forward to more of his company.

Iulian: Well, I guess I have written all that I could WRITE about him. The rest, I will only be able to narrate ... but working with him has been a different experience. Slightly weird, very humourous ... we are missing him at the lab this last week ... and always ready for a beer !

Parijat: Another guy from Pune ... he was the one whom I first met here at the lab, and he helped me a lot to get settled here, from getting me a place to stay, to giving me a nice place and comp. in the lab ... he has helped me all the way through. Just today, he has handed over a couple of movie tickets to me ... so looking forward to some movie this weekend ! With Parijat and Mehul around, I always felt at home with we people speaking in Marathi most of the times ! As I have mentioned before, there is a majority of Indians working here ... and one particular day, it had so happened that going for lunch, we figured out that out of 9 people having food, only 2 were non-indians ! Now, thats what you would call Indian dominance in the research and education sector ! So Parijat ( or Pari - as he says to people on the phone while trying to communicate his email address, Paris without the 's' ! ) - young, married sometime last year, in fact, going back to India next month as his wife is expecting a baby is a very comforting person and its great to have him sitting just beside me in the lab.

Koay Teong Beng (now try getting that right !) : Its been almost a month now at the lab and I am still not sure whether I am able to pronounce his name right, but it doesn't really matter - whats is a name anyway ! (btw, I do not entirely believe in this, but will mention it here as it seems appropriate) A smiling face at all times, this guy is a Malaysian - chinese. Quite nice to interact with him about things back in Malaysia and Chinese food and traditions and all. Just today, we had a chat of almost 30-40 mins. I guess, wherein some of us tried to explain to him how interesting the game of cricket is ! We started off with him arguing that it is just "throw ball - hit ball" as he put it, and then building up on just his knowledge of some baseball, we ended up explaining him the most intricate rules of the game and made him believe that cricket is indeed a game in which lots of strategic planning is involved ! In the meanwhile, somehow, it also made me realise that really, there is a reason why cricket is more than "just-a-game" for the Indians, I could see that passion while we were talking there at the Engg. canteen - it was amazing ! And now, i am really feeling bad about not getting to watch the test matches going on - WI vs. India - in fact, I am not even aware of the scores. So all in all, this guy is a great person around - and the first non-Indian I have described so far ! Just below Koay is the pic of his wife, Soo Pieng.

Matthias Hoffmann-Kuhnt: He is one guy whom I have not been able to interact with here at the lab, unfortunately. But his distinctive voice and that German accent and style ( I believe his style and accent is German, as he is German ... haven't been to Germany, so its just a guess [:-)] ) is very noticable while he is in the lab. Blends together in the overall friendly and in-formal atmosphere in the lab !

Shiraz: A great guy, very young ... completed his masters I guess recently. Has completed his graduation from NUS itself, so well acquainted with the things here. It has been nice to discuss many things with him - ranging from "Tourism posters in India and elsewhere" to "Behaviour of different layers in a typical TCP stack" ! Generally quiet in the lab, one of the very few pure-vegetarians around ... and a great fan of Indian food - I haven't seen him eat anything else in a month here ! Very cheerful and helpful ... from his appearance he would give you the feeling he is very serious, but I must say, he's not very close to being that way ! A fantastic Pool player and I just love that huge bike that he rides - its amazing !

Mandar: Well ... how do I start off describing him ! This person has got an amazing brain on those shoulders of his. He is involved in almost all the projects here at the ARL, has just completed his PhD in "Underwater Acoustics in Shallow Warm Water Channels" and has an almost to anything and everything you can ask ! There is so much of inspiration one can derive from the people here at the lab, and Mandar would have a very large contribution to it. Again, a person from Pune ... but he has been here for a long enough time to really get mixed with the style and language here. I was lucky to be here at the right time, so I had a party after he successfully completed his PhD defence a week after I landed here. He is also my bridge-guru, having given me a head-start in the basics of the game ! Starting to get a lot of interest in the game ... it is one of the games which I felt is so deeply studied, yet just the gigantic number of combinations that can arise out of the random distribution of a deck of 52 cards adds so much of interesting things to it, that its mind-boggling ! Hope to continue learning this wonderful game here as well as after coming back to India. The other day, a chat which I had with Mandar was quite revealing - he was telling me about the general work culture here in Singapore and that I shouldn't be misled by the kind of environment that I am seeing in the lab here, becuase that is NOT how it is like outside in the other work places in Singapore. Not many places appreciate the idea of having a enjoy @ work kind of philosophy, which is the basic principle behind the working of the lab. So, Singaporeans apparently are very hard workers, and though they seem to have adopted much of the western ideas in terms of facilities and way of living superficially, deep within, still an Asian mindset of working hard, trying to accumulate enough wealth to own a house, buy a car and provide for the education of your children is very common - much like what we see back in India.

While at it, something I find great about this place is the way they have developed rapidly after the 1970s ... its amazing how they have grown from a small port into a major tourist place and one of the best (or probably THE best port) in the world - with the port having facilities which enable the shifting of cargo from one ship to another in about a couple of hours, whereas at some of the other ports, the same process can take upto 3-4 days ! So, they have ships coming to their port just to get their cargo moved to some other ship and continue transporting it on some other ship ... quite amazing ! Also, the tourist places they have developed here are too good, and I guess Indian tourism authorities have a hell lot of things to learn from them ! Very limited resources, but through perfect planning and strict implementation of rules, they have made this tiny place a wonderful city and country - a very pleasant place to live in.

Hmm ... back to some other guys at the lab !

Jolyn: One of the two members of the fairer sex working at the lab. ( The other is Teong Beng's wife, Soo Pieng, whose place I have occupied currently while she is on maternity leave ... and hence her description wouldn't be found here ! ) I haven't interacted much with Jolyn but she is an interesting person ... she was a dolphin trainer before she joined the lab some time back ! One of the professional divers for the lab (the others being Mandar and John, the head of the lab), again a very young and sweet lady ! Interestingly, she was the first person whom I met who pointed out that I have exceptionally long and lovely eye-lashes ... well, I hadn't noticed that before !

Paul: (This section will be completed by my friend Varun - who is doing his project under Paul ... so I am taking a break for bath !)
Hmmm....Paul, where do I begin. What is most interesting about this jolly English guy? Is it the fact that he rides his bicycle to the lab dressed in nothing but his banian and a pair of shorts that look more like underwear? Or maybe that he plays the Sitar and the electric guitar? Or maybe that he loves Pink Floyd and that one can almost always hear music from his cubicle? Probably the fact that in his spare time he's a surrealist painter? Or maybe that he has married a Malayali woman who calls him everyday at the lab and nags him ( It's almost a daily ritual hearing Paul talk to his wife..." Yes Baby....NO Baby.....I'm coming home early baby.....yes baby......very early baby...")? Or maybe that he holds a doctorate in applied math and has lost his PhD certificate that he needs to apply for PR status? Easily the funniest guy in the lab.

Well ... after that short spell of good pleasant words from my friend and room-mate Varun, I am back to continue writing about some other people at the lab.

Mohan: He is the lab officer and I must say he is doing an awesome job of keeping the lab in some sort of order, which is difficult to do, given that there is a bunch of very crazy people working in it ! But Mohan is a very calm person, always busy with something or the other, and has been very nice to help me get settled in the lab giving me anything I needed. He has a cubicle near Paul - so God bless him !

Dr. Venu: Dr. Venugopal from Kerala is the seniormost person in the lab. Apart from being involved in a lot of projects, he is the person who looks after all the administrative stuff at the lab and hence was the one whom I had to correspond with to get my formalities completed before coming here. Though he is not young as others, the enthusiasm has not really dropped with his age ... he is very excited about anything and everything - be it some good design someone has come up with in CAD for an AUV or be it playing football with some huge ball lying just outside the lab, while going for lunch,or even playing pool while having a mug of beer during Mandar's party ! He has been very nice to share with us his experiences in Singapore, about the life here and his visit to India recently, when he got to meet some DRDO officials and access some information as a senior researcher at a Singaporean lab, but which he otherwise wouldn't have been allowed to, as a doctorate from a university in India ! But thats how these things work - I guess one can't really look for the most obvious common sense to prevail in all situations. Dr. Venu was telling us the other day about an incident when his son had fallen off his bike and was suspected to have got a fractured left arm. The doctor called for an X-ray of his left arm and after trying to analyze the X-ray, he called for an X-ray of the other arm to be taken as well because he couldn't make out whether that arm was normal or fractured and he needed something for comparison ! The point to be made was that some of the doctors here are so heavily realiant on technology that they are not really good at the diagnosis which still has to be done by humans ! And supposedly the system here is that to practise medicine here, you need to be a graduate of some Singapore based medical college - so, wish all the people here the very best of luck !

Now, last but not the least, John Potter, the founder and head of the ARL and associate director of TMSI - The Tropical Marine Science Institute:
He is probably too great a person for me to write anything about him ... so just copying his description given on the ARL website. Its definitely worth a read !

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Starting with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol, UK, John went on to a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography (in association with the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Univ. Camb. UK) while working for the British Antarctic Survey doing research in the Antarctic, where he spent four consecutive summers. In stunning testimony to the inscrutable methods of the British Empire he was graciously awarded the Polar Medal for this work by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

John migrated into Underwater Acoustics in 1986, moving to Italy to work for NATO on high-frequency acoustics for 5 years, where he met and married his beautiful and amazing partner, Caroline.

After a 7-month sail across the Atlantic the Italian caffeine rush subsided to find John and Caroline washed up at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in California where he worked with Prof Mike Buckingham on Acoustic Daylight, leading the team that built ADONIS, the first camera to produce real-time moving images using only ambient noise and which gave rise to an ASA award for best scientific paper, published in Scientific American.

In 1994 his family (now expanded to include two sons and two cats) sailed across the Pacific to Singapore, where he founded the ARL and helped launch the Tropical Marine Science Institute.

In August 2004 A/Prof Potter embarked on a 14-month 'sabbatical' with his family to sail round the Indian Ocean on an expedition of marine research, education and environmental awareness. Check out Jocara Indian Ocean Quest for more information! Miraculously, he and family returned intact (though the sailing boat fared rather less well). John has now resumed work at the ARL and TMSI, albeit in a altered state of consciousness about the appalling state of the environment and mankind's failed stewardship of this unique and beautiful planet.

A/Prof Potter is a Senior Member of the IEEE, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer and an International Fellow of the Explorer's Club, among other things (some of them unmentionable in polite company).

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That much for this post ... I guess it has already been too lengthy. Thanks a lot if anyone has made it all the way down !

First impression of Singapore

2006-06-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Well ... my first impression about Singapore had started forming long before I actually came here. It was through a lot of friends and relatives who had been to Singapore and all of them had given positive opinions about the place ! So I was quit happy when I actually got the Visa approval letter and all the formalities were finally completed and I was all set to go !

What follows in this post could be quite boring to others, but I consider it as a nice memory for myself .. so would write down somethings !

The last few days were quite busy as I had to pack up and leave in just 3 days from receiving the letter and before that, the only preparation I had made was probably to buy a suitable bag for my luggage ! Finally we decided to go to Mumbai for a day, spend the day with my Mama, Aai, Didi, Nikhil Dada of course Chaitanya. We started off from our house at around 11 which was around 3 hrs. delayed from the actual time which we had planned ... but it was okay, didn't really matter.

Reached Thane around 2 p.m., then had lunch, played with Chaitanya for quite some time before he slept in the evening. Then went to Shantanu's place, met him, Shreyas and his parents and came back home at around 10:30. Everything was going on too smoothly and there was no real fun apparently, when the lights went off, and there was very heavy rain. We didn't sleep after dinner, final packing was completed, some unnecessary stuff was got rid of and I was ready to leave for the airport around 3 a.m. The reporting time was specified as 4:30 a.m. but it was raining and with this being my first experience of boarding a flight, I didn't want to take chances ! But it turned out that the rain stopped just as we were leaving and we made it to the airport sometime before 4 a.m. and probably was the first time I was so early to any place !

But the whole experience at the airport was very nice and comfortable - no problems at any place whatsoever, and without any trouble, I boarded an international flight for the first time in my life ! It was an Air India flight I think numbered 471 or something ... don't exactly remember.

And about 5 hrs. later, after a nice comfortable journey and not-so-great food during the flight, I was here at the Changi Airport in Singapore ! The plan was quite well-defined for my first day, check out and complete the formalities at the airport (Immigration etc.) and go straight to the Lab (as I landed on a working day in working hours, the lab was open then). So I took a taxi and got staright to the lab.

There it was a nice pleasant atmosphere and I was assured by seeing the atmo. that i would be having a nice time here. It was very informal, with quite a few Indians and infact 3 Marathi people around (out of some 15 people at the lab, around 7 are Indian !). First day, I did not have a place to stay, but Parijat here helped me out with it and got me a room to stay at one of the hostels on campus called "Price George's Park" or PGP as it is known commonly here. I had some veg. food at the canteen (probably the only time I would have veg. food here - not that its bad but non-veg seems more tempting at all times, and is better than veg in most cases)and then went and relaxed in the room. Next day, I went to MoM - Ministry of Manpower and some nearby places like Chinatown point - had a nice day. I completed all tha formalities at the MoM and then had to take a taxi back to lab as it had started raining and I was not carrying my umbrella with me, and also being unaware of bus routes and all, thought taxi was the best choice !

And so, after a day in Singapore, I was officially a part of the lab here and ready to work ! So, I had not seen much of Singapore yet but felt quite comfortable and was ready for a new experience in my life !

I felt Singapore was like India in some things - the weather being the most important factor. But it is a different feeling altogether to be in your country and probably the first time I realized what probably "Independence" or "Freedom" would mean !

Nice lines ...

2006-06-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

Well ... I am here in Singapore for a week almost now and well settled and having fun. Somehow, I don't seem to be finding the time to write a new post in my blog describing things here.

But the lines below I got in one of the emails, I really liked and hence putting them down here ...

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fights when you're hardest hit,
It's when things go wrong that you must not quit.

And finally, I hope I get some time to write about my experiences in Singapore as well.

Gargoti - one of the wonders of the world !

2006-05-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

I had been to Nashik recently for a short two day trip. And visiting this place called Gargoti was one of the items on our agenda !

Gargoti is located near a place called Sinnar on the Pune-Nashik highway. In the malegaon MIDC area, lies this small building - not too much rush, not so popular as yet - but you can hardly guess what lies inside unless you get to see it.

It is a museum which houses a collection of various stones and semi-precious, precious stones, gems collected from many areas in Maharashtra and some from outside India. It is quite a large collection which would take one around 2 hours to see carefully and appreciate the beauty of nature. Most of the rocks kept there are those which have been found accidently during excavations. They charge Rs. 100 for an individual visitor and Rs. 50 per person for a group of 3 or more people. But what lies inside is worth much more than that probably !

What the guide there told us is that while mining for normal Basalt rock, one can come across those pieces of rock - more beautiful than any piece of art one can make ! It is unbelievable that the earth can hide such beauty within apparently uninteresting black Basalt rock.

We got to see rocks of all types - various shapes, sizes, colours - just about everything one ca ever imagine. From very delicate needle like rock structures romed from cooling of hot lava to solid sedimentary rocks found in rivers, which would be weighing in tons ! Many of the pieces were found in and around Nashik, some near Mumbai, near Pune - everywhere where mining is carried out. Nature seems to have found a perfect way of hiding its underlying beauty from the outer world - the most delicate and beautiful rocks are found inside hollow cavities in larger basalt rocks which keep them protected from the outside world until some basalt rock is broken into smaller pieces accidently. Inside those cavities are housed so many colours, formed by the mixture of various minerals in the hot lava juices while the rock is formed which imparts the specific properties to the rock - mainly its colour. At Gargoti, they claim they haven't done anything to the rocks except for washing them correctly under pressured water streams - so what we get to see is 100 % percent natural ... and there is no reason not to believe them - the best artist in the world would also be unable to make those kind of rock forms !

Really, they call the place one of the wonders of the modern world, which houses the most ancient rocks on earth - surfaced recently though - and the place deserves this recognition. The worst part was that they allowed Cameras inside and I didn't have one ! Really sad ... but those wonderful works of His art would remain in my memory for a long long time - thats for sure.

Movies and me ...

2006-05-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

I am not a movie buff or anything, but I do see a lot of hindi movies anyway. Some movies which I really like include Andaz Apna Apna, Hungama, Hera Pheri etc. which make me laugh anytime I see them.

However a different class of movies, as I found out recently, probably I like more than these comedy films, just because I sometimes find them very relevant to me and friends around. These include DCH, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, Dil To Pagal Hain and some others.

Don't know why - but whenever I see these films (have seen these recently), I feel I can see people around me, mostly friends, in the roles which have been played in the movies.

Just a thought ! Off to sleep now ...

Fundae of life !

2006-05-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

This week I have spent at home has been an enlightening one ! I have met many people, with different backgrounds and aims and ambitions in life ... so on and so forth. Will be writing in some detail about each incident in days to come.
This particular incident which I describe now happened on 1st May ... when Dad's school friends had come to our house for dinner. One friend of his is now a top man in the Govt. Admin. structure, and the other is an industrialist who is an alumni of IIT-KGP. First of all, it is a very nice setting here ... the son of the first friend is quite a smart boy and hence his dad wants him to go into IIT and become a good academician - he believes Govt. hierarchy is not the best place to be in - having experienced it himself ... he feels it is not really a field which one would be satisfied about being in! So he wanted some advice from me as to which classes he should join and so on. So all that was done, we had a nice dinner (food at home is always amazing after coming from hostel !) and I was later talking to dad's other friend - the IIT-KGP alumni, with my mom and dad also there.
The conversation was something like this:
Dad (Telling a joke about some camel and his mother) :
Baby-Camel : Mamma, why do we camels have such a ugly back with a hump on it ?
Mother-Camel : Child it is a very important part of our body - it stores water and enables us to go without water in the hot and dry desert for days together.
Baby-Camel : Thats okay mamma, but then why do we have such horrible looking legs ?
Mother-Camel : Oh child, God has specially made such legs for us so that we can easily walk in the dry sand and travel long distances in the desert.
Baby-Camel : And mamma, what about our eye-lids ... why are they such that they almost close our eyes ?
Mother-Camel : Child, that is also done to make us more suitable to live in deserts. They help to keep the sand out from our eyes and protects them. So all these things together earn us the respected name of "ship-of-the-desert".
Baby-Camel : One last question mamma ... what are we doing then in this cage in a zoo ??

We all had a nice laugh and the lesson was understood.

Dad then said : I sometimes tell Sangram the same thing - you have to be in the right place and at the right time - otherwise we will be wasting ourselves.
Dad's friend : Yeah Rajeev, but what you see as right may not be right for Sangram and vice-versa. So Sangram, just believe in two things :-
1. You should enjoy whatever you are doing.
2. Your workplace should have a lot of pretty women around !

Me : Great advice uncle, but can you then tell me what the hell am I doing at IIT ??

There was lot of laughter once again and dad's friend then left.

Endsems !

2006-05-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

We just had our endsems in the last week ... and I must say, exam time is really the busiest time in our semester ! Simply because rest of the semester we are not forced to do anything, everything is left to us ... but come the time of exams ... and we have to put in those extra hours of study ... to compensate for everything that we missed out on during the semester. But I tell you, this is also the most enjoyable time in the whole sem, in a way.

First of all, we are forced to go through all the books in this period ... and hence the satisfaction of having learnt something new - unfortunately, almost everytime, we end up realising that we should have studied throughout the semester as there were so many things to learn ... hope I really correct that and study our courses seriously all through the semester - some time here !
Secondly, I feel this is the time we friends really come together - be it for notes, fundae, whatever - but I personally like to study together and exam time is probably the only time we do that here in IIT ! During exams it is a different atmosphere in the hostels. People running around looking for books, coming to friends rooms for fundae, etc etc. The lukkha time also probably increases during exams ... with movies everyday (some friends, not me!) and what not ! Night-outs become very common ... supplemented by night tea and late night gossips - it is very much enjoyable.

Then come the exams finally ... and this sem we experienced some really tough ones. The papers were challenging, really requiring us to scratch our heads to solve some problems ... and this was a general trend in all departments I suppose. Sometimes I feel though we are fortunate to be in an institute like IIT, because of which we get papers and examinations which really test us ! Outside colleges, I doubt if that ever happens ! It is in some sense enjoyable to have a good paper where you have to think a lot, but finally after the paper is over, you have hardly scored anything !

Anyways, the endsems are over now and our results will be out soon ! I am not sure what grades I am going to get this sem ... hope they are reasonable !

Friendships

2006-04-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

Now that we have started off with our vacations ... I can spend more time in writing about what I have been having in mind for quite some time now. I am very close to being a "terrible" writer, to be frank, I haven't really written anything before this blog. This is my first attempt to pen down my thoughts, so I don't know how well I am going to do it ... but anyway, I would try to be as frank as possible ... I feel that is the best way one can express oneself. Nothing that is not written from one's heart can be good to read, can it ? Can one write about the beauty of life when he has just come back from a hospital where he saw some loved one fighting against death ? Even if one does write, I believe it can't be good to read.

So ... what is friendship, or whom can I call my friends ? I have thought about this question for months and years together, maybe more so in the last few months or so for some reason or the other. Are there different "levels" of friendship or is it just binary - either someone is a friend or someone is not ? Do friendships have any limits or bounds ? Many questions like these I have been raising to myself, but unfortunately haven't got answers to most of them ... but coming thus far, I doubt whether any person can get answers to these questions ever in one's lifetime. Sometimes then I think, is it really worth trying to answer such questions ? Why not live life by the instant and not think about it at all ... is that the best thing to do ... why does one have to think about friendships / relationships at all ? Does it help us to build better friendships ? Do the people who have written books about friendships really have the best friends one can have ? Again the question comes to mind ... can one really write or tell others about something that he himself has not been able to understand or do well ? Can a "loser" in life write about or tell others about "how to be a winner" ?

I don't really know what I am thinking about at the moment ... plus the fact that I am feeling sleepy - tells me I better stop writing before I put in too much rubbish for others to read. Hope to continue writing on this topic ... and have a better understanding of it myself in the process !

School Reunion

2006-04-04T03:32:00.000-07:00

This is one post which I should have made long long ago ... but anyway ... its better late than never !

We had a school reunion on 25th March (long time ago, I know !) in our very own school - BVB, Pune. It was bascially a contri dinner party with the teachers invited to attend it. The overall idea had come up many times before but this time some of my classmates were determined to get us all together and I thank them all for it !

So, it all started off with Snehal Ghone and Pradhan making phone calls to everyone and emailing us about the reunion ... then soon the date was fixed and everybody informed again. As we started realizing that this was happening for sure, more of us got involved in it and helped them out. I was out of the organising committee and infact, was not sure I will be attending the reunion in the first place, as we had our PAF on that very day - in the end, I am happy I chose to go to Pune for the reunion and not stay in IIT for our PAF - the reasons for which will soon appear in some other post I write !

It was great to finally see around 60-65 out of our batch of 80 attending the reunion - with some of us coming to Pune just for that one evening ! We had a wonderful time together ... as we met our teachers and many friends after more than 4 years. It is amazing how the world around us changes ... school was the time when these very people used to be around me for more than 6 hrs everyday and now it is difficult to meet them once in 4 years ! But then ... thats the rule of the game ... change is the RULE of life as they say ... and we have to follow and honour it ! How much one really wants to do that is another issue altogther ... but I believe it is very much necessary. Makes me remember the movie Mohabbatein (one of my favourites although it did not make a mark in the film bazaar ... I liked the whole concept behind the film ... apart from SRK and his emotional scenes ofcourse !) in which Amitabh, who is a firm believer of "static" life if I may call it, saying all the way through "mujhe parivartan pasand nahi ... I do not like changes !" and finally at the end, admiring SRK for showing him the right path and "changing" him for tthe better!

The reunion brought us all together ... many of us doing many varied things in life ... studying medicine to engineering to pharmacy to commerce to law to hotel management to basic sciences to tourism to what not ! Some of us even going into "odd" fields like becoming a DJ ! It was wonderful to know everyone was having a nice time and that one evening made us realise that howsoever different paths we choose to travel in life, we can always feel for each other and get together whenever we wish ! I hope we all keep in touch and see each other becoming "happier" in life !

Later that night ... some of my friends decided we would have a night out at my home. So we started off and on the way, some of my friends felt that we should pick up something to drink in the night, and waited in the way at a suitable shop. Unfortunately, just when we were discussing where to stop and buy it, Manas called up home and forgot about it while driving his car. While his phone was connected, his dad heard things like "ja re, jaldi le ke aa ... soda mat bhoolna saath mein" which were suggestive enough for anyone to understand ! So, the plan was ditched (much to my relief ... mom and dad were not at home, obviously ... but more than that, maybe I would have not allowed all that anyway, I wouldn't like to see some of my very good friends in that state, not in my house anyway ! We then had a Mastani on the way ... went home, enjoyed Andaz Apna Apna ... had some chat ... and dozed off.

A wonderful day I must say ... one which I will remember for a long time to come and hope would come many more times in my life !

Holi Hai !

2006-03-15T02:19:00.000-08:00

Well, this was my first holi at the hostel and what a wonderful experience it was! Starting off yesterday with the Holi being ignited in the Kho-Kho field, and finally ending today in our hostel pond with almost 50+ people jumping and dancing in the pond and an equal number splashing water on these from around the pond, the atmosphere was worth the experience. After enjoying the cool and coloured waters of the pond, it was time to have a trip around the campus. We started off, alongwith the Dhol-Tasha pro gang which was specially called, with H4, H5, H8, H11 and then proceeded (rather optimistically) to H10 - but no luck!
Then we had a great surprise to see all our professors dancing to tunes and with clothes all filled with colour in the staff club. All the H-3 junta was also invited there, after they saw us ... so we too had a dance, then a snack and left from there wishing our profs a very happy holi ... I had really never thought I would be in front of a prof ... without a T-Shirt and still not feeling bad to shake hands with him and wish him Happy Holi! Truely awesome experience.
Then came the time to have the traditional H2-H3 fight ... we met Chinmay, Ambani, Bhim, Dhiresh and other H-2 junta in the way and took them along into their own hostel ... singing our hostel anthem inside H-2 ... and see them helplessly trying to push us out from there ... H-3 rocks !
Fresh after a shower now ... I can still feel the words around:
Rang barse bheege chunarvaali rang barse ... Holi Hai!!!

The Rat-Race I - from Shantanu's blog

2006-03-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

I start off as a blogger at a time when most off the doors are rapidly closing around me !

There comes a time when you hit a road block, and all that is left in your hands is to question each of the turns that you took along the way and more importantly , each turn you missed out on :(. Since quite a few rocket scientist ;) , beleive that time cant be reversed, all that one can actually do is think and try and find a way around the road block.
Often vertical turns out to be the correct direction.

Though I do love writing abstart personal thoughts, the very fact that it took me so long to start a Blog, itself is an indication that I never thought out-of-the-maze as long as the road was straight and rather unblocked.

Blogging, I hope will be an activity that i will pursure more often for a personal sort of joy, rather than any kind of recognisition of the kind I have been mindlessly following quite some time now.

At this roadblock, I stop to ponder and explore new ideas and avenues. Subsequently will come a time, when I will have to accept that I ran a rat-race in a maze where there wasnt any cheese for me. That will be hardest part of it all.
Neither is the maze to be blamed, nor are the rats. Its just that, its time to put on the running shoes and start searching for a different maze altogether.

Today - 13th march '06

2006-03-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

Today was quite an eventful day. I started from home sharp at 5:00 am with Mai Mavshi and Prakash Kaka after a nice weekend at home. Reached Powai at around 7:30 and came to the hostel to (obviously) find everyone still sleeping. Met Paapi on the way and had some poltu discussion with him on the way from MB to Hostel. Today the cult co. elections were held and SMS won by quite a margin against Ankit and Jeet...so SMS it is to lead the cult scene of the hostel for the next year. I tried to wake up Shantanu in the morning only to find out that he had slept late at around 6:00 as he was busy writing his Blog and (maybe) seeing "How I Met Your Mother". I have started blogging being inspired from him. Nice first blog he has written...will have it copy pasted in mine sometime later. Did the classes till 11:30 and then came back to the hostel .. enjoyed an Indian victory over England in the second test match at Mohali ... Sehwag finally back in form with an unbeaten 70 something to get the team through to 144 for 1 alongwith Dravid. Then had a nice little fight with Bhalu, Simit and Shantanu and they finally managed to put me in Simit's terrace for some 20 odd minutes before I finally jumped down from there. I was quite angered by Shantanu's actions as he was first cutting my hair (actually!) and then splashed a bucketfull of water on me when I was climbing up the stairs to go up. Nalayak saala! He's a nice fellow though ... I was a bit upset with him and didn't behave well with him for a short while but it was all after the evening. I found him happy after quite a few days of rigorous campaigning for his Insti elections which are to be held tomorrow (14th). In the night enjoyed a great musical night - Surbahar '06 - fantastic performances, led by Kuhu Gupta from our Dept. (M.Tech). Came back from there at around 12:30 ... then wrote our project idea which was to be submitted till midnight on 13th, and after that found time to write this small post.
Good Night !
Time: 03:35 AM ... shantanu was still awake in his room watching HIMYM - hope he gets up tomorrow and is able to attend classes !

My First Blog

2006-03-13T02:50:00.000-08:00

So this is my first blog. I had once before tried to maintain a daily diary for myself, but found myself too lazy to write daily.
Hope I continue writing this regularly, as I am sure some memories I would like to keep with me at all times, would eventually be forgotten unless I (e-)pen them down somewhere.