entropy change

A rainy day

2008-01-22T01:06:00.000-06:00

For tears to fill up the heart’s meadow,
a rainy day is all that I need.
Images of the young soccer days do flow,
green grass, rain drops, brown puddles to shield.
Why do they also bring along,
the essence of the ever changing face?
Chiming along the never dying song,
of love and its inseparable maze.
Isn’t a rainy day supposed to be,
a friend of thou and not a foe?
Then why does my mind quiver and not become free?
like leaves exposed under the dark sky’s shadow.
Bring back to me nothing but the childhood dreams
Filled only with misty mornings and rainbow beams

runaway ...

2008-01-11T14:38:00.000-06:00

Young bird! Are thou lost o’er the sea?
Without a goal, thou seem to fly
Running from whom, hiding from thee?
Like all before, thou deem to die

For I have known, having sadness to own
Years of tears, my eyes in drought
Problems are thine and thine alone
Without a fight, life’s all but lost

anonymity ...

2008-01-10T15:29:00.001-06:00

Contrary to the obvious, the title means something quite different in the following context ... :P

Just so that I might not forget how I did this, I log here, a way to achieve anonymous classes in C# ( a feature quite inexplicably missing from the language!

Now, C# obviously supports anonymous methods albeit via a twisted mechanism using delegates ( Java surprisingly doesn't support anonymous methods ... anyone wants to bring out a superset language, this is the time!! ).

In the following trivial scenario, one has an interface, consisting of 2 methods, which can be dynamically (anonymously) instantiated by any other class. Let's consider Java here, so that the shortcoming in C# is multiplied, and my solution seems worthwhile! :)

For instance:

public interface MyInterface
{
public void Method1( Object value );

public Object Method2();
}

Say, I have another class: consists a method accepting an object of our interface defined above.

For instance:

public class HungryClass
{
MyInterface _myObject;

public void HungryMethod( MyInterface myObject )
{
// for lack of anything else interesting
_myObject = myObject;
}
}

Now, I have my lazy class, consisting of a lazy method in charge of supplying the object (of our interface) above.

For instance:

public class LazyClass
{
public void LazyMethod()
{
// Call hungry method as it's hungry
HungryMethod(
new MyInterface()
{
public void Method1( Object value )
{
// blah ...
}
public Object Method2()
{
// bleh ...
}

}
);
}
}

Well, the point of the above loquacity was obviously to show that anonymous classes (as in the LazyMethod()) is an option, and in most big programs, can be a huge pain reliever (especially, in massive auto-generated files).

C# DOESN'T SUPPORT ANONYMOUS CLASSES.

Since C# doesn't support anonymous classes, you need to create a dummy concrete class every time we want to pass an object of the interface.

For instance:

public DummyMyInterface : MyInterface
{
public void Method1( Object value )
{
// blah ...
}
public Object Method2()
{
// bleh ...
}
}

and then pass an object of this class. Can you imagine creating a huge set of such concrete classes when the need occurs, especially in the auto-generated case. Well,

if you can't ... trust me, it's a major pain in the .. ahem .. fingers.

SOLUTION: (voi la!)

In order to support the same, I use delegates in C# (similar to function pointers in C, C++). The point lies in understanding that delegates themselves are types, and we can define variables of the same. And delegates are the only way in which you can achieve any kind of anonymity in C# (anonymous methods). Put 2 and 2 together, in addition to getting 4, you also get the following:

In C#, you define MyInterface as follows:

public class MyInterface
{
// Delegates for as many methods (with similar signatures ofcourse)
public delegate void Method1Delegate( Object value );
public delegate Object Method2Delegate();

// Define variables for each of the above (delegate) types
Method1Delegate _m1;
Method2Delegate _m2;

// Default Constructor (unfortunate adherence)
public MyInterface()
{
_m1 = null;
_m2 = null;
}

// Parametrized Constructor (the crux)
public MyInterface( Method1Delegate m1, Method2Delegate m2 )
{
_m1 = m1;
_m2 = m2;
}

// In order to maintain consistency (backward compatibility) with the
// existing system, define the following virtual functions.
public virtual void Method1( Object value )
{
// Just in case the delegate wasn't defined
if ( _m1 == null )
throw new Exception( "method undefined" );

_m1( value ); // delegatize baby !
}

public virtual Object Method2()
{
// Just in case the delegate wasn't defined
if ( _m2 == null )
throw new Exception( "method undefined" );

return _m2(); // delegatize baby !
}
}

Now, our lazy class looks like this:
--------------------------------------

public class LazyClass
{
public void LazyMethod()
{
// Call hungry method as it's hungry
HungryMethod(
new MyInterface()
{
delegate( Object value )
{
// blah ...
},
delegate()
{
// bleh ...
}
}
);
}
}

Because of the above instantiation, our delegates will be correctly instantiated. And whenever invokes the methods, Method1 & Method2, oblivious of the underlying implementation, the correct behavior will be exhibited (since those methods are in turn defined to invoke the delegates). Also, it's obvious from the above that any class can also choose to override the default behaviour of our virtual methods. Hence, reduced pain, good looking code (aha, subjective eh?), and less code change propogation (if any at all) throughout the code base!

If the guys reading have a cleaner solution, let me know, and you'll have the opportunity to change my code base yourself ! ... :)

A tryst with poetry ...

2007-12-18T23:16:00.000-06:00

In the forever quest of finding where my true potential lies in, I went back to poetry in the past few days. After writing a few of my own, I, in a truly eureka moment, struck upon the possibility of exploring poems of better known writers. Not that I haven’t read some before, but have always conveniently ignored the poets of yesteryears, as I’ve always found them to be too rigid in their structure (read as -- can’t understand shit). So I decided to dust the cobwebs and get some olden times poetry, American and otherwise, and a poetry handbook better explaining all the structure I’ve been avoiding in the farce of belonging to the modern genre of poets … :) Needless to say, I’m enjoying the time; sometimes the handbook makes me feel that I’m back at school, but I’m sure its well worth the effort.

Of course, only god can surpass my planning abilities (lets not talk about implementation please; I come from the UT CS department). In the wake of a few good friends leaving for India this past weekend, I realized I might have a truck load of free time in my hand, which I might rather use for "creative" purposes. So I wondered, as I often do, why not continue my guitar learning, which was left abandoned at infancy, along with some poetry on the side, and continue the quest towards a leaner/meaner figure as well! My calculations pertaining to time made me believe I’ll have time for all these and more. Of course, I later realized that nothing much really changed in my scheme of things (with respects to the free time), and I’ve been reduced to a single threaded machine that I previously was.

With Christmas down the corner, society (read – my close friends) will ask the same trite questions to me. To be subtle and artistic, let me rephrase what they usually ask – “why don’t you move your lazy fat ass and come for some trip?” Not that I’m averse of trips, the thought of another trip with the New-Years NY trip round the corner gives me the chills. As I might have hinted before in my blog somewhere, I need some time to myself once a while. I’m a very complex creature, as you might have noticed, and in order to figure out all intricacies, I need some quality introspection time. Many questions arise – “What should I do in life?”, “Which movie should I watch next?”, “I shouldn’t have stared at that girl like a dead man with eyes open”, “Should I sleep for more than 6 hours or not?” and so on. Without the answers to such questions, I can’t ask more questions; so I have to spend time with myself, which essentially means I am usually not incredibly enthusiastic about trips, especially not 2 in a span of 2 weeks! It should be clear from the above that this has nothing to do with inertia, lethargy, and other so called vices.

Also, this past weekend, Gorhe decided to pay us a visit. Well, he was coming for someone’s (that’s a secret you guys …) graduation and realized that his legs would be ours if he doesn’t drop in. After the usual trudy’s-giri, & hara-kiri, it was time for him to leave. Just when we were resigning to the thought that Gorhe might have calmed down a bit, he blows us away with this incredible plan of tickets ( the details of which are too complex for me to write ), where basically he and his friend were leaving for NY in two different flights spaced 3 hours from each other. Well, you might ask, why do I care? … because it needed two separate cars, one of which might have been mine. Well, trouble was averted when his flight was canceled, and Ashwin was awake/gracious/enthu enough to drive twice to the airport. So, that’s that.

Interesting how my train of thought pretty much derailed from its initial destination of poetry enlightenment, to an account of daily chores. Well, not so interesting on the other hand …

What a waste of time ...

2007-12-05T17:19:00.000-06:00

I was in the midst of writing a highly intellectual blog entry about how “chill through spine” might be a glorification of a certain liquid state of affairs, resulting from a barrage of horror movies, when a good friend of mine, during some conversation, bluntly put forth the premise of how movies could be equated to being a waste of time. Of course, this blog isn’t a direct consequence of the statement, I’ve been pondering oh-so-often writing about the issue, but it certainly acted as a catalyst.
Obviously, this is not an innuendo by any means; I’m utterly incapable (in terms of both literary and intellectual abilities) of such high-level constructs of cynicism against peers.

I could easily just replace ‘movies’ by ‘books’ in this entry, but I’d rather be slightly prudent and be presumptuous about a topic that I’ve relatively more experience with (note the emphasis on relative). Books have their own place of course, there is no better means of deconstruction of a story, scenario, or character as a great writer can achieve. However, I am of the opinion that, successfully expressing all possible complexities in a span of a few hours, is a greater (and more difficult) achievement. Obviously, artists in both realms have different means at their disposal to exploit; if one has the advantage of loquacity, the other is armed with the power to tingle multiple senses extraneously. Anyways, comparisons among the two art forms is a topic of its own, let me not digress, and rather try to absolve films (great ones for that) from the aforementioned allegation.

I don’t deny that certain movies are nothing but a gross waste of time, and I don’t have a problem with people stating the same. What I do have a problem with however, is generalizing the premise of a movie, any movie, to be a waste of time.

However one might try to glorify commercial cinema (commercially viable I mean), there is not much doubt that the truly great movies are the ones from the parallel genre. Movies from the intellectuals: directors that are constantly facing a paradox of acceptance of their ideas and imaginations by a wider audience, for a constant want of appreciation where on the other hand, they couldn’t care less about the commercial success of their ventures. Movies where clichés are not thrown around like peanuts, instead a few hours are meant to leave an indelible impression on the audience.

What constitutes a great movie? A compelling story is certainly an advantage, but I’ve inevitably discovered that great movies are considered those which are reflections of the artist making the film, most usually the director. Great films are akin to philosophy; making you think, appreciate and self-discover.

Not to mention, there is some sort of sadistic pleasure one drives out of a surreal, cryptic, perverse, ambiguous movie that is open to interpretations; that drives you wild, constantly in the search of achieving parity with the director … and I’m sure the feeling’s quite prevalent considering such movies are alluded to be masterpieces from their creators, be it in the form of Persona by Bergman, Interiors by Allen or Mulholland Drive by Lynch.

Great movies are ones which consist of unforgettable (be it gratifying or harrowing) images, ones that contain stylistic statements probably resulting from personal references and beliefs to an extent that every scene has an identity of its own, carrying a mark of the director with it, for instance, you can identify a Bergman or Scorsese movie quite easily without exercising too many grey cells.

It is stupid (for lack of a more subtle term) to categorize the movies I’m talking about to be inaccessible. Inaccessible, to one’s sentiments, for reasons of alien dialect, austere plots, cultural references, cryptic ideas, etc. With the risk of sound preposterous, I would attribute such illusions to be an inability (probably resulting from inertia) to embrace a movie to be an art form, with all its dimensions, and not just a titular existence meant only for purposes of senseless entertainment.

I’m not saying I’m completely oblivious of the horrendously corny, stupidly slapstick, glaringly redundant movie that often comes out, and I’m certainly not proud of my inability to be so. Everything you see, everything you read, must ideally leave an impression on you; make you grow, realize your mistakes, or consider a new approach to life or a circumstance, marvel at the beauty of the artist’s vision, or his ability to implement it so flawlessly on celluloid; or what the heck, simply shed a tear or two, from sadness or joy.

Anything else, yes, is certainly a “waste of time” …

Symphony for a dummy

2007-11-20T00:02:00.001-06:00

This entry wasn’t supposed to go into a blog. Maybe because it could probably be considered an exercise in vanity resulting from it's sheer self-indulgence, or simply because my writing abilities can never do enough justice to the feelings I went through during the event. For the sake of preservation, however, I need to log this on to the internet.

Having cursed the city enough for its lack of interesting things to do, I finally decided to take it upon myself to search the web as to whether my beliefs were a result of sheer lethargy. Amidst many interesting events, I came across a symphony orchestra event I thought could be quite interesting to attend, so was looking forward to it for some time. Luckily, everything fell into place, I, and along with a friend of mine, attended one this Friday: Bolcom, Bach and Beethoven.

Never have I felt such a gamut of emotions in a span of 2 hours, where my expectations were not only met, but exceeded to such an extent that I’m afraid of how the next one would be. I never knew time could compress itself so effectively that at the end of it, I was almost felt with an empty feeling, ironical, considering how fulfilling the experience had been.

Being a romantic at many things is a boon more often than not; simply because of the sheer pleasure it can bring you, when you’re completely immersed in the activity, completely oblivious of any form of existence around you. My views of the event certainly arise from such fanatical feelings and I have no qualms about saying how much importance this event had for me, and I would have been desolate had it not gone the way I imagined it. From the very first movement, where Balcom’s exploits with comical music (one that might be taken out of a Tom & Jerry cartoon) were being explored, I closed my eyes, and images started to flow seamlessly through my head. Every next wave resulted in a new image; every crescendo ran through the veins like adrenaline; the fire emanating from pure pleasure. As the conductor rightly put it, his music was a juxtaposition of senseless dreams, ones where you suddenly realize in the middle of the dream that this is too nonsensical to be true. Or even nightmares, with its inimitable unbelievable quirks in between. While listening to this music, the pictures that arise were of these very dreams, some which have been in the back of your memory, recalled solely for the purpose of respecting this piece.

Bach and Beethoven had similar flavors for one, the latter’s 4th symphony often considered his most mysterious. The music here went into the realms of love at one instant and mockery of the feeling in the other: one where a lover tries in vain to be resolute and face facts, where he later realizes how helpless in love he has been reduced to; where he tries convincing himself unsuccessfully of how strong he is.

The last piece was also very beautiful, and led me down memory lane to when I was a child, and all the small problems I faced then, probably what every child of my age would have faced. Each tenor was a character in my imagery: my favorite teacher, my mother, my childhood sweetheart, my best friend as a kid, my father; the chorus became the world; and the music, me.

Passion is the first quality towards understanding art. You'll learn the technicalities later, but once you possess the fire, every other piece of information only fine tunes the experience. I for one, have miles to go before I say I "appreciate" art. For now, it's probably my imagination that's keeping me at bay .. :)

Chatting: The necessary evil

2007-11-18T23:13:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: This is a completely chauvinistic account resulting from my perceptions of the issue. This is not much of a disclaimer.

Little is unknown about the enigmatic art of chatting. And I don’t mean talking and yapping, I mean typing and yapping. One might, during a wave of ignorant abandon, trivialize this art form as nothing but a harmful form of talking in person. But there are several mysteries still to be unraveled, and I present here, an equally mysterious taxonomy, which many might find interesting.

For better dramatic effect, I shall present the evil side of the art first.

Evil?

If you are an obsessive compulsive chatter, you might cease to be social in daily conversation, and ‘save yourself’ for the chat sessions. This might obviously have a negative effect on your friendships and love life, outside the chat rooms i.e.

Your definition of sexual intimacy might be reduced to acronyms like hh (holding hands), not to mention, when you eventually encounter one of the real ones, you might be taken off guard.

If you’re a chatter on the lookout for your loved one to appear online, you might go through random bouts of depression in case the event doesn’t occur (of course, there are equally lofty highs.)

Necessary?

Many of us aren’t that skilled in the subtle art of speaking. Especially if elegance is diction hasn’t rubbed you the right way as yet, chatting can substantially mask away the deficiency.

Monologues aren’t considered rude. If you are one of the self-obsessed types, then you can type away to glory. And if you’re one of the select many, who don’t look at the screen while typing, then chatting is without doubt, your raison d’etre.

You can also make the other person feel special, if you can type fast and convince the other that you’re completely monogamous in chat. Also, if you have an impaired attention span, chatting might help reduce that perception of yours too.

On a more serious note, hitting the right balance while chatting can exponentially improve your quality of life. Of course, you might be visually impaired, your speaking abilities might go for a toss, you’re fingers might resemble a question mark after a while, the chiropractor might grow to be your closest friend; but having multiple chat-girlfriends, having a huge network of chat-friends with whom you have soulful conversations, and the power to explore schizophrenia – much outweigh the disadvantages mentioned before.

blistering carnacles

2007-11-08T15:17:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: Lack of creative material, in conjunction with a abundance of free time has forced me into writing the following. Please don't judge my writing based on this, read my books on nihilism, they're most enlightening.

Who would have thought a few years back that I would own a car. Well, for that matter, who would have thought 4 days back that I would own a car. Well, as you might have read before, I was having my troubles with the issue of buying a car, which started from having to obtain a license, which btw I procrastinated over a significant amount of time. Of course, given a choice, I wouldn't have brought a car, but since the Austin public transport system can be categorized as bordering around being hilarious, I wasn't left with a choice. Thankfully, lady luck seemed to have been quite impressed with my charms, me didn't have much trouble through the entire process. Except of course, the interest rate for my loan makes me feel like a convict having to pay for the crimes committed in the past ( read: credit rating idiosynchracies ).

In any case, I got an Accord. Considered by many to be a family car, it can certainly pass off as a sports car, if you choose to overlook the 2 redundant doors, and the prominent big-family-car look to it. Since its a used car, it has its own advantages though. For instance, I love the way it vibrates during the seldom times I choose to press the gas pedal. I mean, seriously, its like force-feedback on the X-box or the sidewinder. What a rush ! Now, this car is kinda big, and my driving skills are not exactly impeccable either. I'm in a constant fear of whether one fine day, I reach home to realize that the 2nd half of the car is missing ! Far fletched maybe, but you haven't seen me drive. My night driving skills are improving too. I can see about 10 meters from the front bumper now. Big improvement from total ignorance ( one of the times when it wasn't exactly bliss ). I'm learning to use the subtle skill of braking. Things are certainly on an up ...

The surprising part is, I'm beginning to enjoy the entire driving experience ! The wind blowing through my hair, the rush through my veins, the constant fear of disaster; driving is not something I dread every morning anymore! Thanks to a friend of mine who has been pestering me about my lack of skill in the area, given my incredible talent in all other spheres of life. I was wondering whether the primary objective of this person is to get rid of me by asking me to suck it up and drive, only time will tell about the intentions though !

I'm extremely sad today. Sadness resulting from when one is given C code (and the hairiest I've ever fathomed) to write in office, but C# memories are too hard to let go ... :((

one wonders

2007-10-28T16:50:00.000-05:00

Is there a bigger paradox in life than love? Even the mere question of whether one is in love can send convulsions through the soul. I go into the superlative because figuring out the difference between infatuation and love might seem as confusing as relativity, or as simple. The issue being, the start of both always seems agape. Of course, its an insult to one if his love is considered hollow, noone consequently accepts that its not love after all. "Infatuation is for the ones with less integrity, foolish", say the great.

Accusations of being gullible in love are aplenty against many. However one may glorify the self as unique, another soul to be lost into is utopia. In this age of countless influences and self-reflections, the concept of unselfish, unbridled passion is panacea to everyone's incomplete existence. The more one reads, or experiences extraordinaire like cinema, the concept of love seems the path to shangri-la. Then, in such light, do these accusations mean anything or is it just an inability of some to comprehend the breadth of the overly imaginative?

Does love withstand the test of time? ... or whether its just familiarity that breeds contempt? Some say, many women are storgic lovers, where the strength of love is proportional to the familiarity between the two. Seems alluring on first thought, but then you wonder about the changes one goes through over the years. A theist becomes the loyal opposition. A romantic becomes a realist. Passions erode away under the winds of circumstances, and laziness. Whether one appreciates the mirror soul years later is obviously dependent upon whether it has been a process of self-improvement, in which case, you might lose the feeling; or in the contrary, the partner. So, one wonders whether stagnancy is the true essence and meaning of love, where both have come to a conclusion that they're perfect, or whether they're so inherently incapable of any such introspection at all. Hence, one might hypothesize that true love, rather, endless love, is a forte of either the saints or the intellectually challenged.

For the rest, the vast expanse that love might bring, might merely sound a trite after a while ...

emptiness and depression

2007-10-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

There are days ... then there are nights. Then there are days when you feel life is so beautiful, everything seems to be going your way, you don't crash your car, you don't spill your morning coffee, you don't screw up the build tree by your elusive ingenuity. Then there days when life seems so miserable, that you wish you'd be dead. I mean literally, not physically, I'm not dumb ! Days when you feel the universe has been bored of expanding and has finally decided to screw your brains until they splatter on the nearby ceiling. Today is one of those days, one where no human being but me can hold on to dear life, where life seems a trife, without a wife, with a knife, like a movie with Saif. I lost 80 cents today, to a lame vending machine. I feel like crying, but dying seems a better option, so I'm not crying.

Since I don't have better things to talk about, let me undigress. Evenings are usually very painful for me. After the whole day of introspection and retrospection, and a little bit of code destruction, I feel very tired and badly yearn for a snack. After an hour of googling about how many cents make 80 cents, I decided to take the risk of trusting the vending machine nearby. I don't usually trust people, but I was in a good mood today. My productivity during the day, in layman's terms equated to 0, the first time in many years it didn't go in the negative. So, I was quite jovial. Singing along a Beatles song like the Beatles would never dare to sing, I put in my hard earned money into the vending machine. Only to find out that the two ruffles lays were busy conceiving more chips. They were stuck! I had never seen a more glorious, yet painfully morbid sight in my life. I tried everything. Brute force, Delicate force, Dialogue, Monologue, Telekinesis ... everything. After realizing that people were busy dialing 911 informing of some suspicious activity, I decided to go to my cube, be unselfish as I always am and call 911 too. I don't really know what happened of that though.

So, I sit here, in my cube, alone, depressed, pondering about what could have been. These are the incidents, which make you look at life from a different perspective and appreciate how beautiful life is, of other people.
Forrest Bubblegum used to say: "My momma used to say, life is like a box of chocolates, but a vending machine is like a box of Lays".

On that philosophical note, see you earlier ...

bhool bhulaiya - the review

2007-10-23T15:17:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I had to do this. I would've loved to have killed Priyadarshan after seeing this movie. Anyways, I wrote this review for timesofindia.com in the 'readers review' section, and after 2 days of waiting and it never turning up on the website, I decided to put it here, with a wider audience base. Since it was for people reading reviews to decide whether they wanted to see the movie and not for people who don't have much work to do and love critiquing movies, I tried to keep it short and simple, wasn't too difficult for me. I guess, keeping the comparisons off the mallu movie was the most difficult task I've done in the last 24 years, in any case, I didn't succeed .

bhool bhulaiya ka review

The biggest mistake you can commit before watching this movie is go with the Malayalam movie (Manichitratazhu) in your mind. If you keep that aside, it is not a bad movie, in fact, has an interesting storyline and contains more than a few good laughs.

If people are saying that this film was marketed as a laugh-riot, I'd say either the people are lying or the director just went plain crazy. The laughs in the movie have its place, but the movie is certainly a drama, and any movie-goer would certainly decipher that during the 2.5 hours. The script is interesting in that it deviates from the usual ghost stuff, and enters into a psychological realm, something that has been rarely explored in Hindi cinema.

The cinematography captures the essence of the movie and the ambience quite well: the haveli and the backdrop of the town has been shown quite beautifully, and to good effect. Nothing much to run home about the dialogues, simply because most often than not are just effective translations from the Malayalam version. Again, this doesn't mean they don't serve their purpose to the first-time viewer.

Since I cannot be completely indifferent to the original version, and comparisons are inevitable; the direction here was quite appalling. The only good that could be taken out would be the recreation of the set and the Hindi-fication of the scenario in hand. Apart from that, every scene is copied, essentially rendering no original screenplay in this version whatsoever. The laughs are completely attributed to the original version, and whenever the director has tried to improvise, he has failed miserably leaving a "huh?" expression on the audience. There have been obvious holes, like showing the king to be young rather than old ( when the opposite was mentioned in the start of the movie ). And so on ...

Vidya Balan has done a good job, certainly the best of the lot. Shiney Ahuja has overacted wonderfully. Paresh Rawal is too good to do anything bad in such a simple role. Akshay Kumar was good in the funny parts, and funny in the serious parts. Vikram Gokhale's casting was very intelligent, although he doesn't have a large part in the movie.

Having said everything, the movie is still a decent watch. For people who're watching it the first time, I'm sure it'll be a good experience. For people watching it after the Malayalam version, it might still be an interesting experience, albeit for other reasons.

driving and its perils

2007-10-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

Being the alpha male that I am, everybody expects me to do everything that a successful man does, but only better. Driving is something that has been traditionally and chauvinistically assigned to be a male dominated activity. All you gorgeous girls reading my widely-read blog, don't get offended, this is just a popular opinion, and I'm obviously not supposed to be responsible for what is written on my blog ! Oh and, I don't mean driving your life, we suck at that (and I can better the normal man there too), I mean driving a car.

However, I never cease to spring surprises at mortals, and in this case, it is certainly an unpleasant one. I hate driving. There, I said it. I hate driving. There, I said it again. I hate driving. There I said it again twice. Ummm, Math is another thing I'm bad at. Anyways ...

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a seasoned driver. I have driven in all seasons but rain, winter, autumn and spring. If you see me in the driver seat, you'll never have felt safer - if you're outside the car, far far away from mine. If you decide to race me, I'm sure that won't last long either, because I'd soon make you go on a 90 degree detour to hell. I'm an extremely safe driver, I never drive without proper 'protection', seatbelts et al. Inspite of all these qualities, I still hate driving.

So, my tryst with driving has been very interesting. Forget about the time I drove in India, because even I've forgotten about it; it was quite insignificant. Driving tests in the US have been commonplace for me, I've tried to give it twice, both times have been sent back because of lack of documentation. I would like to point out to the audience that this has nothing to do with my driving abilities. Going by the 'law of addition and multiplication', one can only hypothesize as to how many times I would actually have to give the driving test ( once I'm allowed to i.e ) to get the damn license. Ofcourse, I have to get time out of my busy schedule of doing nothing to actually go there and attempt, but hey, as I said, I'm a busy man..

So, my first driving accident was really serious. I was flung about a hundred feet over the ground, through the roof, and incredibly enough, landed right back on my seat. I was safe, except that I grew an extra leg. The other time, I was parking like a genius, so much so that I didn't hear the slight scratch on the front right bumper. The scratch was only slight, the damage on the bumper was serious though. I returned that car and got a Chevy, which was brand new, if I would have got it about 20 years back. The latest one was one where this young girl was so smitten by me that her legs froze and she crashed onto my front right bumper. I don't know what's the deal with front right bumpers, thank heavens I don't have one. Ofcourse, I handled it all with my usual charm and calm, only that I noticed prominent wrinkles across my forehead, and a zillion white hairs the next day in the mirror.

And after all this, incredibly enough, I still hate driving. Every time I sit in the driver seat, I feel that this might be my last day in this car. Oh, don't get me wrong, I meant if I buy my own car that very day. Every time a car whizzes past me, I wonder whether the driver is intelligent enough to notice my towering persona and crash onto me. Even today morning, when it was raining very heavily ( I mean real heavy people, it was pouring cats and bitches everywhere ! ), I still decided to take my car to office. Only, I didn't. And decided to rather rely on Urmila to drop me. I mean, I didn't wimp out or anything, I just wondered whether its better to crash with a friend than crash alone. Its just intelligent thinking, if you think real hard and not burn yourself out ...

Now I'm at the crossroads in my life, a very important phase. More about that later. Less importantly, I have to decide about buying a car. I had very minimalistic ideas about the same. You know, get a mustang, be happy and move on with life. On careful examination of my complex chaotic mind, I've come to a conclusion that maybe I shouldn't have such measly dreams after all. Bah, what's in a Mustang, except for a muscular car, which guarantees thrills and chills. I'd rather go for a second or a third hand Honda, which will make me feel more with the crowd. I'll gel better, my hair will look better because of the gel, and I'll have a more holistic experience.

I've also begun to realize that public transportation is very important in my life. Why would anyone drive a car, when you can save so much petrol and horses by traveling via public transport. Ofcourse, Austin has an incredible transportation network. It looks as complex as the ARPANET. So, here I am, stuck with the difficult decision of buying a car, and living with the perils of everyday driving ...

an empty mind is a useless workshop

2007-10-22T02:01:00.000-05:00

For the last 2 hours, I've been trying my level best to sleep. I have tried everything: shut down my laptop, drank water, lay in bed, turned over; nothing works! I mean, how hard is it for an empty mind to sleep?

I don't pride myself in being the greatest minds of the century, I think I'm better off being in the majority. So, one might but wonder, why o' why am I not sleepy? I haven't performed any bone-crushing, back-breaking, eyebrow-raising work today, unlike my other, more interesting days. I haven't had a draining yet wet, intellectual talk with anyone. I haven't had a steamy session today either, unlike the steam session I had yesterday inhaling Vicks. I haven't watched an imbecile-targeted hindi movie today either, which would keep me awake all night reveling in my own cinematic genius. Ofcourse, I had a very terrible relationship crisis recently, where I suddenly realized I don't have an unsignificant other ( I know its hard to believe, but its true ... ), but that's not the reason either.

Then I think, sleeplessness is not that bad after all. I have thought of so many marvelous ideas. I felt like a Freudian ( as Bharath puts it ) when I have the revelation of sleeping in my birthday suit. I don't feel dirty, just Freudian. My incredible powers of imagination eventually led me not to follow the scandalous path, and decided to wear my favorite formal shirt underneath the leather jacket instead. For many vital moments, I felt like a dog. You know, like the ones who follow their tail all the time. I was constantly trying to wonder whether my mind's empty or not at one instant. My plane of thought went like : "is my mind empty at this instant, I'm sure its empty right now,..., but how is that possible if I'm thinking that its empty right now, oh shit ... I'm not supposed to think this much, oh crap I blew it, back to square one, is my mind empty right now? ... ". I felt like a casanova for an instant, when I thought about all the beautiful women I have been with and all, lasted only an instant though.

Then I had this brainwave, like a rainwave but not quite. I decided to get up and write. Ofcourse, after a long and painful search for a pen and paper, I decided I don't have any avenues for writing and would rather chat with someone. Also, I think I've have come across a non-writer's block and I don't really know what to do with it. I didn't really ask for it, and I am skeptical if it goes with the lack of color and texture in my room. So I'm waiting for a birthday to come along so that I can gift it to someone. I had come across a readers block too a while ago, I haven't really been able to gift it to anyone because it really went well with my proactive block. So, I'm thinking I'd keep it for a while. They really go with my personality well.

Oh yes, I'm almost done with my the new book I'm so much in love with. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. I've almost got my hands on it ...

eye eye !

2007-09-22T04:41:00.000-05:00

Today, I had a debate with this lady at the counter of the public safety building as to the color of my eyes. Notice that I'm talking about my own eyes, so naturally you would assume I would know best. The lady couldn't disagree more. Whether good looks on the fairer end of the table change color of a male's eye is an unknown concept to me, but until that's proved, you would assume their color would remain what I think they are. Especially after countless hours of gazing into the mirror appreciating those beautiful eyes of mine (only to realize later that I'd rather have my specs on). Anyways, she had her way, and put my eye-color as brown! A very dark shade of brown indeed, tending a lot towards black !!!

Now that we're into eyes, why not over-indulge. I happen to think there are many kinds of eyes in the world. Not getting into technical taxonomies, these are the most common ones:

bulging out:
these eyes were not meant to be in these sockets. God meant them for some other eyes, but because of system error, they went onto someone else. Ofcourse, since eyes reflect emotion, they have a mind of their own, and they realized it, and are constantly trying to jump out of them. Much to the face's chagrin ofcourse !

big / eager:
these are the ones which were exclusively meant only for puppies, but because of some peta activists, were granted to a few humans too.

prying:
when the first james bond went to hell, he was so impressed by the aishwarya rai eye-donation ad, that his (and all subsequent spies') eyes were donated to a few select ones. No matter what you do, rest assured these eyes are prying on you. Aah, why is that fly of yours open eh ? ... :P

blue:
Now, these are the real tormentors. If you think about it, god's color spectrum was only BBBBBBB. The sky was blue, the sea was blue, and so on ... When early scientists came out with VIBGYOR, god decided to throw in a few colors here and there. However, there are times when he goes back to his favorite color, and gives blue eyes to some. These are the people whom you really have to be careful of. At first you'd think, naah, how the hell can it be blue. Then you're gazing and staring, to find out which shade of blue. And ofcourse, god forbid if they wear blue clothes too ... :D

Big random entry this ! I need to take creative writing classes, rather than ramble on about eyes !! ... :P

Movie buff ain't I ?

2007-09-13T14:50:00.000-05:00

Considering I've been watching movies left, right and center ( which might give away my state of joblessness ofcourse ), why not consider blogging about a few I loved. Atleast I won't forget about them at some point of time and curse myself for being such a fool for forgetting such an incredible movie. Who better to start with than Woody Allen himself. His movies are so influential, that you might tend to go through this I-love-NY phase ( especially if you've been there before ). And there are no other movies that make me ruminate so much on, I love that ... :D

I'll start off with the most recent one I'd seen.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

This movie is not a feel-good movie, fullstop. It presents real life in its full glory and almost tends to be a paradox, in the sense of it not being a movie at all. This is also realized in the last scene of the movie, where Judah quips that Cliff is talking about a movie, and that real life is different ... That's exactly the beauty of the movie, that it deals with paradoxes from the point go where the philosopher says: Love is a paradox and explains why so. One of the best monologues I've heard in a long time ...

In terms of movie making, what a gem !
The potrayal of nostalgia, with the self-confessed Bergman style, was perfect in Annie Hall ( albeit in a lighter sense in that case ) and befits the context of this movie too.
The monologues of the philosopher, at the right places in the movie : explaining why it is difficult for the Jews to comprehend god completely ( hence giving a sense of what Judah might have gone through in his early years ); later when Cliff is falling in love; and then during the climax where he talks about values ( courtesy Neitzsche ).
The use of flashback ( Mussolini !! ); the witticism in the cut of the documentary that Cliff finally makes, absolutely crazy !!

In many ways, this movie holds a defeatist attitude. Where one can get away with murder, where the best guy might not win when it comes to love, where morals are a function of ones perspective and not a concept of rationale. The end scene sums it up perfectly, Cliff mentions that everyone pays for their crimes and misdemeanors whereas Judah disagrees ... you flashback on the movie, realize that they're only talking from personal experiences and who wins in the end ...

What a fantastic movie indeed ...

What to write ?

2007-09-03T15:10:00.000-05:00

Whenever I fix my ass down to write something, I hit upon the realization that
I don't really have a lot to write nowadays. Now, don't get me wrong, my life's
interesting alright, albeit defined by movies right now. Even though its not
my life being portrayed on celluloid, who cares.
Anyways, why the hell am I explaining? ... :)

So I thought, why not write about movies, the ones I've been completely floored
by in the past few weeks: Donnie Darko, Manhattan, Memento, for instance. But,
critiquing a movie is a different ball game, and a blog might not necessarily
fit the bill. Also, I wonder if I'll be a fair critic to these movies, as I've
loved them so much, that anyone muttering even the slightest bit of criticism
against them could well be considered as my mortal enemy. Hence, I thought its
better to move on and think of something else ...

Then I thought, why not write about books, ..., rather the lack of reading I've
been doing ( or not doing ) for the past few weeks ( free weeks mind you ).
To make a statement like, given a choice between a book and a great rendition
of the book as a movie, I'd chose the movie 10 times out of 10. To shamefully
accept that I love movies much more than I love books, and that I feel the screen
can stimulate many more of your senses and keep you forever engaged than a book
can. But then I remembered my favorite books, and I shuddered about how the
intellectual class might shun me forever from the upper-class circles, and I
thought, lets not write this, move on and think of something else ...

Then it struck me, why not write about tennis. Me and Ashwin have been
consistently ( oh yes, I used the 'C' word ) playing tennis for quite some time,
and are successfully convincing ourselves that we're getting near the pro-level
in this beautiful game. How my forehands flow over the net, how the opponents
racquet cries out aloud at the sight of my strokes, ... , but then I realized
that I'm better off telling the truth about my inability to land a single serve
on the opponents court. I mean, not that I'm like an incredible groundstrokes
guy or anything, but holy cow, my serves are so bad that one could make a movie
on how not to serve. So I thought, why lament about my tennis skills, move on
and think of something else ...

Hence, after lot of introspection, I've come to a conclusion that I don't really
have a lot of interesting stuff to write about now. Maybe in the next few days,
something incredible might happen, I might get a part in a movie ( mallu b-grade
anyone? ), a tennis talent hunt might grab me ( as a ball boy maybe ), I might
get magic slippers ( so that I could do away with the damn hawaii ones I have now ),
..., in which case I'll surely not disappoint, and pen it down ... :)

Birthdays ...

2007-06-13T20:21:00.000-05:00

Surpaaaaaaaaaaarisssssssse !!!!!

An often under-used word in our circles, this is a story of the importance (or the lack of, whichever way you take it) of the word and our (me and my roommates) association with it. Even though I've thought time and again of how we should spice up our birthdays, and how predictable they might have become, these are the days when it seems like we have sat in a time machine and travelled 2 years back ...

So birthdays have always been a pretty casual affair all throughout my life. Like any other day. Whether people feel the air is lighter, the birds are chirpier, the earth is heavier; I have time and again failed to understand the significance of the day. Most of the times in fact, the day had always been one of reduced enthusiasm: meeting people, accepting handshakes, wishes, often forced, unnecessary money spent on chocolates, and so on. Consequently, I was a big hater of birthday parties, and luckily for me, my parents shared the viewpoint ... hence, no gifts or parties or whatsoever ! ... :)

The birthday(s) on August 12, 2005 was the first one to leave an impression and for sure the most remembered one too. Ashwin and Bharath celebrated their 22nd birthday on this day, a time when first priority was anything but a birthday celebration. Rather, the first memory I have of the day is them standing near the door, holding their backpacks, all ready to go to the university in the morning to search for fin-aid. Whether it was a phase shift for them, not celebrating a birthday, I don't know ... but the irony of the situation - the scene has been etched in my mind for such a long time; when birthday's are supposed to be off-days, days when you enjoy the world, and let everyone know how lucky the world is to have you; am sure these were the last things on the poor minds. In all the subsequent birthdays, I've always felt this tinge of bitter-sweet memory haunting me ...

The first proper birthday we celebrated was Bong's : December 20, 2005. I still consider that time as the best vacation of my life, when things could only get better ... and we had to make it better within the four walls of our apartments. Since birthdays imply cakes, me and Bharath went on a crusade .. to find a place that sells cakes. After an hour of walking, we realized that, with the right thought, an ice cream can be made as relevant on a birthday as a cake ... :)

And hence began the birthday journey. From giant birthdays like Amru's first one, where the entire apartment complex had shown up and sprites were emptied on the poor soul's hair (which was long enough to absorb the entire amount!) ... to his second one, where he was put in a pool when the temperature difference between him and the pool could have been useful for an omlette ... to my first one, where people realized the true might/weight of samosas and fried stuff ... to my second one, when the entire party was thrown into the pool together, not to mention poor Amru, oblivious of how cruel we might get ... :) And tonight is Rohan's birthday, let him guess what atrocities we have in store for him :D

There have been a few things more constant in this world than our birthday celebrations ... the routine, the budget, the coke cans, the mess, the forced expression of surprise on the birthday boy's face ...

The only thing changing is the feeling of increased certainty that no matter where you are, what you do, there will always be a set of people who'll call you and wish you from the deepest corner of their hearts ... isn't that what a birthday is all about ? ... :)

gorhe-stalgia

2007-05-31T22:47:00.000-05:00

I couldn't help but write this. Just penning down the legendary Gorhe-quotes over the (two) years. If anyone recollects anything more, please do post them ...

First year:

"Look up the database"
When poor ol' Ashwin tried to put forth his friendly face ...

"I have tons of liabilities ... can't spend enough"
When we propose eating a dollar burger ...

"Vineeeeethh Goorrhaaee"
The legendary voicemail ...

One of those nights:
"Aaj kaun kaun night maar raha hai, ...., 12 baje tak ... "

When one of the seniors he mailed from India ask him :
"Sorry man ... I don't remember you ! ... "

"Mone jaldi TA list dekh na ... I want to verify something ... "
The day he got his TA ...

The day 'someone' overhead an interesting conversation ... :D
"Good night babies ... !"

"Shisth Bong shisth ... "
The time when Gorhe was cleaner ...

One of his inferences from random data lying around on the back of his brain:
"However, on 30th February 1857 there was an incident which proves otherwise ! ... "

Some of the sounds when he hears something gross ... :D
"Eeeuuuu SShhhw Wiisshhh ... "
accompanied with the right facial expressions mind you ... :)

Internship:

When I was sick :
"Don't worry ... I'll take care of the apartment search ... "

"Regular khaana banate hai ... "

The plans ...
"I think I'll do a PhD re ... "

When an Indian place is a tad too expensive for our comfort :
"Abe yaar ... khaana is too expensive ... I have liabilities you know !! "

"Sala mone ... lazy bum ... chal ghoomne !! "
Delegating the blame ...

The plans :
"The company ... "

"Damn no ... am not eating this ... chal Indian street"

Second year:

"Eh boss ... uska naam kya hai yaar ?"
What's in a name afterall ?? ... :D

The plans :
"I think thesis is the right thing for me .. "

When asked about who threw the spoon in the sink:
"Bong threw the spoon boss ... ;)"

And when he realizes that I caught him red-handed ...
"Mone accountant sala ... you're in the wrong profession"

"Listen to my plan boss !! .. "
When trying to get us to pay for the entire electricity when he doesn't do
his laundry at home ... :)

"Too much work man ... damn ! ... too much work"
When he sleeps for more than 8 hours a day ...

When gatorade's start disappearing:
"I didn't drink anyone's gatorade boss !! ... "

"He's not a slave of reason ... "
One of those talks when Bharath immediately says: "Why the hell are you confusing me dude ? "

Drunk Gorhe:
"Bhailog, mujhe aaj tumlog kuch bhi poocho ! ... "
"Bhailog, let's evaluate everyone, let's start with mone !! .. "

The plans:
"I think I'll just freaking graduate ... "

"Mein trash phekta hoon yaar ... just let me finish eating this one time ... "
On the 20th day since the trash-throwing-day:

"Sorrryy maeeeeeeeiiiiiiii"
To the Thai Kitchen aunty ...

"Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click Click ... "
Every moment when he's reading on the laptop ...

Countless memories, forever etched, not enough words ... we all miss you Gorhe.

What's the deal with home-made food ...

2007-04-09T13:06:00.000-05:00

Now, here's a question that has plagued me for ages ... well, atleast for the past 2 years. In my humble opinion, home-made food and staying away from your home (I mean, where you and your parents stay) don't go hand in hand. I'd try to give a proof, mainly by empirical observation, bar the use of any magic numbers or hand-waving techniques whatsoever. Any critiques will be politely, albeit blatantly disregarded ...

Where I stay, there are not a whole deal of options when it comes to eating out. There's a pretty cool Thai place, another Thai place, an Indian place that takes ages to reach, some burger places, and some other crappy places that no self-loving food-indulging human would think about going to. However, I would argue that any of these are certainly better than cooking at home.

Now c'mon, why would you wanna go through all the toil, the sweat, the pain, the anguish of cooking, when you've so many options right outside your door. This especially when the university is dumb enough to pay your tuition, and give you a stipend (that's good enough to make an Indian grad student feel that he's the king of the world), which will easily cover for your food related indulgences. I'd say, go to the nearby Thai place, enjoy the cuisine, the spice so fine ... come back home, and you feel so relieved. So relieved as to you didn't have to waste your time cooking, mostly food that's inedible to anyone other than 'good-food-deprived' grad students, who'll happily live on noodles for the rest of their sorry grad lives. Also, to think about the time saved - cooking, washing, pondering about how bad a cook you are, and so on ...

Instead of the bliss, we choose to cook ourselves, bruising our egos everytime we do so. Getting our hands dirty in washing utensils, many a time, of others, who might be too busy to wash a spoon, or a zillion of them! (no offense to my dear loving roomies ... :D) Rather, does anyone realize that the whole 'people dumping stuff in the sink during your washing turn' phenomenon would be eradicated when you don't have big curry utensils to cover the sin being committed, all so innocently ?? ... Hell ya, so you see, not cooking at home can be a boon in more ways than one .. !

Unfortunately though, my voice is only loud enough for the person inside me to hear or understand. People think I wanna eat out because I'm too lazy to cook ... bah ! ... inertia was unknown to me until I looked it up in the dictionary yesterday. Well, in addition to all the incredibly convincing evidence I provided above, the sad fact is that I can take about 2 hours from cutting the onions to putting them into the vessels, which makes the entire cooking endeavor a looong and painful adventure for me. And hence I try convincing my liability-ridden, thai-hating, phone-loving roomies to join me outside ... alas ... the philosophy of today is common-sense only tomorrow ... :(

Having said all these, there are times when you wonder otherwise ... more on that next time !

Fan-bloody-tastic ... !

2007-04-07T13:10:00.000-05:00

All my woes of not being able to transfer ideas on a whiteboard to a computer have been removed ... feels like one of the happiest days of my life, I could almost cry .. :D

Picture courtesy:
Vineet's whiteboard + My awesome camera + Picasa (and I expect better quality pictures with controlled lighting ... ). The small version really doesn't do justice, click for a better view!

'Course' - grained or not ....

2007-04-05T11:48:00.000-05:00

I often wonder, why can't you have an extended Masters program, that comprises only of courses. Graduate courses all around the place, whichever department you wanna take them in, how many ever you want so. Heck, I don't think in 2 years of Masters, you can take all the courses that you might be genuinely interested in, and that might because of scheduling conflicts, load balancing, or whatever reason it is ...

However, the utility of courses in the long run, especially if you're targeting the industry, is questionable according to many. My roomie Vineet gives an especially compelling argument everytime the topic is brought up, and most of the times, I end up agreeing with him. Well, if you think about it, what skills does the industry (specifically, the software industry) require you to possess. Coding, for sure ... a few courses, depending upon the industry you land up in, most probably related to Operating Systems, Networks or Distributed Computing. In that case, why don't we just concentrate on getting these core courses out of the way and not really be concerned about any more (interesting) courses that might lie on the horizon.

Well, ofcourse, a compelling argument it is. However, whether you can 'curb your enthusiasm' when it comes to learning something important (... from a perspective standpoint) or new (to you... ) or orthogonal (to others ... ) is a different question altogether. Every semester, when the course schedule for the next semester is put up, there's almost a chill that passes through your spine, which talks about the endless possibilities you might explore in a hour or so of a lecture. Whether this enthusiasm is slowly dimmed as the semester progresses and you find out that 3 courses might be well over your head, and you're not able to do justice to all of them, ... , is an issue worth ignoring in this discussion (else, there's no point of one ... :) )

And yes, if you think about research, then the entire course thing might again be considered dicey by many. Well, why take a course when you think that it might not be related to your research area. I say, why not take a course that you're curious about, who knows whether the area contains some problem that can be seamlessly (exaggeration ... ) solved by some concept in your area of research. If you don't know about the other field at all, you're completely oblivious of the same ... not to mention, the kind of insight you might be able to provide in a classroom scenario. I've seen amazing discussions resulting from a merger of areas, like linguistics, computer science, mechanical engg and neuro-science guys in a Cognitive science class ....

Maybe all this is directly proportional to the wonderful lecture given by Dr. Chase today, or somewhat log(n) proportional to the actual feelings that I foster on a sem-to-sem basis. In any case, I have one more semester to explore a few more courses at UTCS, and encapsulate pretty much the best courses it has to offer. Good enough argument for me alrite ... :)

the power of procrastin x

2007-03-26T18:26:00.000-05:00

On a day, when the heavens have decided to add fuel to fire, i can think of only one line :

"So what are these barriers that keep people... from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic-- fear or laziness?" -- Louis Mackey, Waking Life.

On a beautiful day like this, one really wishes that procrastination was not considered a sin ... :) With an algorithms exam tomorrow, I am not even close to starting studying, forget about acing the whole deal. It also doesn't help when this is not Mumbai university and you "somehow" don't get away with studying for some hours before an exam .. :)

Well, lets try to manage something to write on the paper, except for my full name, e-mail, address, explanation for no other information, etc ...

Interesting !!! ...

2007-02-15T06:57:00.001-06:00

Ever fancied yourself as the reincarnation of a goldfish (short-term memory problems, for the uninitiated), here's an interesting link :

http://www.fuzzyopinions.com/article/technology/the-developer-cheat-sheet-compilation

Celebrity marriages and the Free press !

2007-01-15T23:36:00.000-06:00

So Abhishek and Ash are getting married, great ... after many partners, many fights, confusions, temples, they finally decide to get together. Thank the almighty, we're probably saved from any more speculation about their future together by the press or the media who nowadays are content on filling up their columns with inconsequential crap regarding the two of them. So, they went to some temple somewhere, millions go there, what's the big deal? So the Bachchan's prayed together, why is the press so damn happy about it? ... rest assured one of the wishes would be to stay away from the glaring eyes of the media.

And now that the cat is out of the freakin' bag, all hell seems to have broken loose. It's front page news! Man o' man, Tony Blair is getting married to Laura Bush! No, its just poor ol' Abhishek who seems to have gotten the role of his life, thanks to the maestro Mani, and really ol' Aishwarya who's riding on the back of the bandwagon that international people have joined in, that she's really beautiful. Yes, thanks for letting us know ... we didn't have a clue guys! Every paper you turn to, there are pages dedicated to this occasion, apologies to the people who're really sentimental about their wedding and hope to get mental solace out of it, but frankly, everything seems such a waste of trees! Isn't there anything better to write or report on, than this. Daddy Amitabh is very happy as well, elated, says that its the happiest moment of his life, that his son's has decided to settle down. Of course, this must be deja vu for him, considering the entire Karishma Kapoor episode. Oh no, let's not talk about that, the press certainly seems to consider that as taboo, not even a single mention, maybe not necessary either, but which among the accounts being written currently is indispensable ?

So the groom's family decides to give a Banarasi lehenga worth more than 2 lakhs to Aishwarya. Freakin' awesome! There are accounts of a secret shaadi mantra, front page material in the Mumbai Mirror, excluding the two entire pages of utter nonsense tracing the history of their relationship, their future, who's designing who's outfits, and what not. Why can't they, for god's sake just take something from the nearby Sawan Bazar and get the whole thing done with?

And the press seems to be like a bloodhound over this piece of information, invaluable to the global peace of earth. My last two mornings have been spent looking for pages without a mention of this occasion. I've always been a strong supporter of increasing editorials or opinion columns in papers. After all, isn't press and journalism about freedom of expression, and facts are certainly not expressions. You can report as much as you want, but it's also important to have a certain voice about the paper, important to let the public know what highly educated people think about issues. Solutions to problems everyone might be finding. After all, there have been so many things happening all around us, in the world. Why is it that our papers give zilch value most of the times to international happenings and prefer the marriage of celebrities to that? I don't remember a single international newspaper which seems to have put so much emphasis and real estate space on the paper for such an incident.

I'm completely ignorant about how a national paper and a press works. I would like to assume that a paper should aim to represent the voice of the people. Especially today, when most of our politicians seem to be a mockery of democracy, and it required films to evoke the slightest bit of patriotism within us, we need the press to be the backbone of our society. All important revolutions, have been because of opinions, not because of a single person as many would believe, but because of the collective. People long to be important, even the most unimportant of them. They like to be in the scheme of things, they would love to tell their children that they've made a difference. Revolutions are created because of such a need, sometimes unfortunately because of a manipulating hand over them, but nevertheless. The press has to realize the importance it holds in today's society, in times which are troubled not on the surface but deep within, where problems are tended to be avoided rather than tackled head-on.

In such light, what does the Abhishek-Ash wedding signify, is anyone's guess!

The utopian interview ?

2007-01-14T10:36:00.000-06:00

In the academic sphere, where the adrenaline is often not so obvious, finding motivation to put yourself through hell is quite a difficult task. Unlike in sports for example, where you can pump your fists, shout a word or two, I wonder how many times one feels an emotion like that in academia. Of course, the task in hand would be as difficult in either case, but to find motivation coming out from a desire to work like crazy, not leave a moment to anything else, is a wonderful kind of sadism. The results, unfortunately might be different in some cases, for instance mine ... :) ... but, however stupid this might sound, the whole process is something you look back with an amazing sense of relief, happiness, and contentment.

Now, whether the entire ordeal makes 'sense', is subjective. From a third party perspective, or from a job perspective, it might not really make a lot of sense to take courses all around the park, and eventually end up with skills that won't really be appreciated in industry. You cannot really blame the software industry for this phenomenon, most jobs are coding jobs and the requirements are really simple, coding! You go ahead during the interview, bantering about the courses you've taken, how they might make a difference, how they might enable you to think in a dimension that others might not conceive of, a dimension like a merger of two fields. Of course, this is more applicable to those visionaries who're the ones to carve a new field altogether, or find efficiency or better throughput in existing tasks in such a merger. But, aren't things like thinking in a broader scheme of things something you wish for, and be successful in, the raison d'etre for every human. And won't something like this be helpful to the company as well, irrespective of which position you hold within the company? Or is it just that you need coding skills, and a broad knowledge of a few algorithmic techniques, which if put your mind to can be mastered (w.r.t an interview) in a few days?

Ideally (of course, I "might" be a "bit" subjective here), an interview or an interviewer should take under consideration, what the candidate has done, in terms of courses or research so far. It should never be a black and white interview, where you either answer something or you don't. Now, many would say that interviews are mostly gray scale, but I beg to differ, and feel quite the contrary. When you have a ton of candidates to choose from, there would be an obvious benchmark in place, like the GRE for admissions, and most interviews tend not to be the best interviews they can be.

Whether knowing about Computer Science, taking courses, being passionate about the field itself counts in the industry, is debatable in itself. But as I mentioned before, the software industry should look for people who 'simply' know more ... rather than something really specific. One must have the capability to analyze and understand the depth of knowledge a candidate has, and how can he be useful in the bigger scheme of things. Why should an attitude like this only apply to people in management, where you find people who can be useful in the long run, who show promise from the outset, rather than an 'do you answer all my objective questions correctly' interview? Every aspiring software company should look for people who know Computer Science. Lets not forget that software is essentially a brain-child of Computer Science. Only good computer scientists, can move the company to a direction that is beneficial to the company and the individual himself.

I've had interviews where I've had lots to talk about, but they don't fit in the interview anywhere and am quite appropriately bumped. Let me be clear however, that this is not a postmortem of my interviews, even though they're worth exactly that and nothing more. What I've written here is my (as it might have been apparent, not necessarily "humble") opinion on what interviews should be like.

Great expectations ...

2006-12-29T07:57:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: All the views expressed here are possibly under the effect of strong influencing substances like anger or frustration. The writer/blogger is not responsible for any consequences of the same, if you take them to heart or try them at home.

The trip back home is something every non-resident Indian (somehow getting used to that term) looks forward to with a great deal of enthusiasm and expectation. You think about all the memories that could be relived, meeting all the “how-can-I-live-without-you” friends, and of course, meeting family; for the micro-managers, in no specific order of importance. The last month before arriving is spent in all the dreams, and is like an an oasis in the daily routine! However, apart from a lucky few, who either have tons of cousins living nearby, or more than one significant-others in the country, everybody else experiences an exponential decay in the levels of enthusiasms that one might posses when you reached here.

Now, you cannot really blame anyone here. Everybody is busy. Friends, family ... everybody. And if you're the types who talks to your family at least once a day on the phone anyways, the quality time you spend with them when you're back is more often than not, related to good food. Also, it doesn't help when you have absolutely no work to do. Subsequently, friends are the people you turn to. Poor souls indeed. Now, the NRI would be all: hey, lets go out or hey, ditch office and lets go out someplace or hey, what the hell is the matter with you ! ... the company is not going to collapse without four hours of you and so on. And the poor friend would be pressed under the incredible devotion one displays towards ones work nowadays, and what's the big deal! ... the NRI is going to come back in the next holidays anyways.

The whole thing obviously leads to 3 weekends of jam-packed activity for the NRI, moving from one friend to another, to one suburb to another, even one district to another (if you're the sensible ones who don't consider Thane as a part of Mumbai). These are interesting days, when everybody rests and the NRI gets to work with the family that wants you for the 3 meals and your friends who eventually find the time. You wish why isn't every day like this!

Now, don't get me wrong, am not blaming the friends (mine or anyone else's for that matter). Its just that, 4 days of doing not-much, sitting at home, watching India on the verge of losing a test match and most of all, realizing that the most fun I had was for the five hours yesterday talking to my friends back in Austin has led me to write this piece. Personally, I don't think my situation is going to improve a lot. I'm off to my native place in a day or so. Meeting relatives is a cool thing, probably for a day or two. Then the familiar feeling of the deja vu of answers sinks in. I would prefer these QA sessions to be like Prof. Yale Patt's question sessions, come in a group since you anyways have the same kind of questions!

So basically, I can envision the rest of my days, lazing around, probably meeting a few friends here and there, mostly with my friends back in the US, watching cricket, calling up friends to meet and getting disappointed time and again, and of course, reading books, which is a good occupation considering the zilch time being devoted to it back in the US. Wonder what our friends here think, I hope they express them in their blogs !!

Talking about gibberish ..

2006-12-26T10:21:00.000-06:00

So now that its in writing ... It's official, my grades are out ... and are they "out" or what !

Not that I usually turn to books or philosophy in adversity (to be clear .. and frank, 'adversity' w.r.t to others), but this time, The Fountainhead might be the best tonic I could possibly imagine. With the risk of sounding preposterous, in more ways than one, the book puts into words what I believe, albeit with apprehension, all these years; the roots of which are a function of my father's wisdom of course.

That's the beauty of a great book, it helps ascertain doubts that you might have carried inside you for a long time, afraid of what the world around you would say if you express them openly. Hell, forget about others, but what if you yourself completely mistaken? What if you left out a minute detail somewhere? What if the realization strikes too late?

But then ofcourse, how would you believe if a book should be followed upon. Who decides whether its great? Strange that the Fountainhead became such a success, with the philosophy it proposes. Didn't the masses themselves decide the destiny of the book? Of course, sales don't mean acceptance of a philosophy, especially one that might not make sense to the so called - "society". But then again, does "this" philosophy in itself, understand or care about the concept of acceptance?

The books greatness lies in the author putting forth her message so brilliantly that, in the end, you don't really care if the protagonist really wins: winning in terms of how the rest quantify winning. What matters is of course, that he wins, and in fact, has been winning every moment of his life, in the true sense of the word.

I've often wondered, if given a choice among the characters, which would I chose to be. For those who've read the book, I would probably love to be Mallory, the sculptor, also by profession. What a thrill it would be to know, and appreciate the genius, rather than be one yourself, and never know the joy of knowing one. Of course, Mallory himself was a prodigy, but aren't we considering Roark to be the hero here? I have a weakness, there are times when I need someone to reaffirm my beliefs, some atleast, especially in desperate times. Being Mallory, how brilliant it would be to know that, what you think and what you stand by is not a waste. You can see the greatness in the other person, and imagine how you yourself are. Realize that you yourself are great in that way.

This defines hair-raising, bone-chilling, and all those things for me ...

End of the sem ..

2006-12-18T03:02:00.000-06:00

Eventually, and thankfully, the semester has come to an end. It has been a great one, even though I'm sure it won't show up on paper as so. But that's fine, it's not that a bad show on paper is the first for me, although this would be kinda painful. Painful in that, I've never worked so hard in my life ... from the start of the sem, where I was completely out of the game, I've fought back like crazy to atleast salvage some pride, if not grade ... :)

As my Masters comes to end, I'm constantly reminded of the fact that the next semester is my last semester here at Austin. The end of what has been the most intellectually stimulating time of my life, where I've dared to dream and have faith in myself like never before, where I've met the most amazing people in my life and how much they all mean so much to me now that I'm scared to think of a time without a single one of them. However, unlike bad times, good times come to an end soon ... and you're left gasping for air with the pace with which everything has moved around you ..

Anyways, the next few weeks would be great, what else do you expect out of an India trip ? .. the 3 F's : Fun, Food & Family ... :)

Ji(o)kes RVM

2006-11-26T17:38:00.000-06:00

Now, I don't have anything against Jikes RVM (for the uninitiated, the Jikes Research Virtual Machine is a Virtual Machine for Java, written in Java that enables researchers to test optimizations of their own ... enough of that !!). However, the documentation on the virtual machine is really less as compared to the amount of information/code in the virtual machine !!!

So, as usual, I turn to the reliable Google, for some respite ... and this is what it returns !! ... (much to my chagrin)

So, hey ... I think, now that anyways Jikes is turning out to be a joke for me, why not click on the Did you mean ?? ... link, thinking that it might churn up something interesting. Well !! ... it did spit out something alrite ! ... looks like this ...

Basically, even Google laughs at my plight !! ... so I might as well too ... :D

Predication ! ...

2006-11-16T08:53:00.000-06:00

for my reference, maybe completely mistaken !! ...

predicated instructions:

Usually, you have a branch instruction followed by a certain number of instructions dependent on whether that branch is taken or not. Basically, what you do is, you check the history of branch predictions, deduce on basis of your history whether the current branch will be taken or not,. and move ahead accordingly. One of the interesting points with this is that, you're not basing the decision on whether to take or not-take this branch on the actual value on which the branch is based on, but on the history of predictions before this. How to convert this in a way that, the branch actually depends on the value? ... and more importantly, why would we want to do this?

Imagine a branch instruction:
if (b > 0)
a = b;
else
a = 0;

Now, this would be converted into 3 instructions; 1 branch and 2 writes. Imagine a new type of instruction, say, CMOV (a , b). What this would do is, depending on whether b greater 0 or not, it will allocate a to b or a to 0. We can see that, this would mean that the control dependence is transformed into a data dependence, and whether the instruction is executed or not, is decided not in the inital phase of the pipeline, but in the latter stage of it (where the register write occurs). Such an instruction can completely remove branch instructions in simple code sequences.

However, something like this would be too expensive in a bigger scenario, because you would need such instructions for every such instruction within a particular control flow (execution path). Hence, in some architectures, an entire set of instructions can depend on a certain predicate. When the predicate is false, the instruction becomes a no-op.

further details later ...

Holy crap ... what a mess !!!

2006-10-10T23:27:00.000-05:00

Whoever said heaven is on earth obviously wasn't in my boots ! ... with a schedule to kill and little brains to spare, I'm on the way to, without doubt, the worst week/month(s) of my life. I thought I'd blog this up just in case I forget how hard I had to slog at UT-Austin, with the only motivation being not to end up at the bottom of the class ... :)

11th October:
Advanced Computer Architecture. Hw2 submission.

13th October:
Advanced Compiler Techniques. Lab2 submission.

13th October:
Job interview.

17th October:
Advanced Computer Architecture. MidTerm Test.

18th October:
Advanced Compiler Techniques. Hw2 submission.

19th October:
Engineering Programming Languages. Project2 submission.

And ofcourse, I have my Research Assistantship, which is quite a chunk of the week. This would pretty much be iterative for quite some, and my face would but obviously be a reflection of the same. So, if you find me in a weird mood, talking crap (or not talking at all .. ), please remember my schedule and forgive me ... :D

All in all, what a beautiful life !! ... :D

Status message, Oct 9

2006-10-09T06:44:00.000-05:00

Fear is the ordinary man's Motivation ...

Well, the amount of work I have got to complete makes me highly motivated !! .. (crap)

Status messages

2006-10-06T19:47:00.000-05:00

Because of my incredible memory that puts even a goldfish to shame, I've decided to blog my Gtalk messages, just in case I run out of them .. :) (reusability is my mantra, you know!)

Oct 2, 2006:
Life's like a box of chocolates, other's take away what you want
- Forrest Gump, when he got smarter

Oct 6, 2006:
A man is incomplete without the 3 W's : Women, Wealth & Whining ...

The "big picture"

2006-09-29T04:34:00.000-05:00

My partner in crime, Anustubh (fondly referred to as the Bong) and me, in our usual 'after midnight' discussions about life, struck upon the importance of a "big picture" in life, and how important it is (or it seems it is) to drive us towards something, some goal; to look forward to; something to reinforce in us the hope that things will be better even when circumstances try to persuade us otherwise; something we should tell ourselves every morning and work towards for the days to come.

I'm sure we've all had our share of big pictures in life at different points. Of course, when you're a kid, you don't really think of them as "big pictures", but they make you work like a dog. For example, "I've got to beat the holy crap out of him man !! " (whether that's literally beating him up or in academics is a perpective thing ofcourse ... :), but it helps. I've always felt that having a competitor has really helped, even though that might be in hindsight. The thought of impressing the fairer sex has also not been rare. It has been a great motivator I would say, heck, people wage wars for them man, poor ol' me is just talking about his hypothetical "big picture".

Small things like the above keep you going during adoloscence, a time when emotional, non-practical, issues drive you more than more practical, and technical things. Then
comes the teen phase, when you probably get a grip on the what you might wanna do with life, in a specific area maybe. For me, it started with the ambition of developing a game, hence generating a subsequent interest in Computer Science. That drove me into thinking about the area, working towards the goal, studying the field .... getting all gung-ho and then ofcourse, comes engineering.

I believe, for many & most surely for me, engineering is the time when you give a break to the traditional "big picture" concept, and would rather believe in more mundane things in life, like attending no-good lectures, writing no-good assignments, watching no-good movies, hanging out with good friends but talking about no-good issues, playing no-good games, and eventually realize that the only big picture you ever remotely think about is getting a first class, which surprisingly is not awfully difficult, provided a knack for writing the same thing about 50 times in the same answer hence increasing it's size hoping (mostly not in vain) that the paper-checker will be as bored or more to check the quality of the answer as you are to write it. The above sentence (probably the longest in my life) pretty much sums up my engineering. Am sure many would disagree, for all those who sympathize with me, right back at ya ... :)

After this phase (or rarely, during it), you do get fits of brilliance, where you think of big pictures, that are so damn big, that some months/years down the line you realize that they're so big that they're too damn infeasible to even think about. Let me not get into my big pictures during this phase, I intend this particular blog not to be an avenue for me being the butt of (big-picture related) jokes against me for the years to come ... :D

The big picture is a concept that doesn't come easily to many people. I wonder how many of us wake up early morning and are reminded of a goal to achieve; where every small step in your life is towards the same. How wonderful (sometimes I think, how utopian) a concept ... but certainly, something to hope. I would give anything for the youthful enthusiasm we used to have when we were kids while embarking on something new; to consider life itself as a sum of parts, realizing & concentrating on each one of them.

So, here I am ... sipping coffee, at 5 in the morning, contemplating or rather, wondering about what my next "big picture" in life would be ...

All play and no work make me a dumbass !!!

2006-09-27T19:22:00.000-05:00

What a harrowing time am I having for the last few days !! My courses are getting heavier by the day, worst of all, I am getting dumber by every passing moment. Some new stroke of genius has resulted in me writing my class notes in Hindi. Ofcourse, this is applicable when my pee-wee brain is absolutely incapable of understanding what the professor is so meticulously trying to convey. Subsequently, begin my chronicles, in Hindi, our national language ... poems, prose, you say it, I've written it ! Today, I wrote an enhanced version of Kabhi Kabhi mere dil me khayal aata hai ... needless to say, it was crappy, in hindsight ofcourse.

A very important lesson I've learnt in life is NOT to watch movies till 8 in the morning for 3 days at a stretch, when you have 2-3 assignment submissions lined up in the next week. No matter, how gripping the movie is. You might say, "you dumbass, it took so long for you to figure such a basic thing out ?? ... ". Well, to give you credit, for the last few days, I've been asking the question myself.

We had a career fair some days back, surely, one of the sad experiences of life, atleast from my perspective, which would be similar to the perspective of a person who doesn't really have a lot to boast about in his/her resume'. There were people all around, some looking for a fitting employer, employers looking for talent, and then, there was me ... hoping that some one would be stupid enough to notice me. Surprising that I say this, 'cause you've to be larger than the sun to not notice me in a daily-life scenario (relativity of course ... ).

Career fairs are, sometimes, humbling experiences for people .... for me, humbling experiences are a daily-life affair in classes, so I should ideally be very comfortable in a career fair. And so I was. Where there were people being asked a million questions at a booth of a certain company, and a paper-pencil test in order to guage suitability, I was being assured that your resume' would be looked upon, don't worry man! I stood there for a split second, hoping for a quiz, one of the rare instances, when the lack of a quiz disappoints me. Then there were companies, whose representatives got yawning when I spoke, as if they were descendants of the "sleeping beauty". Of course, there are always the ones who conclude by saying: "Oh interesting, when you think that can be successfully done, come to my friend here (pointing to another boothmate of his), and we can file a patent ...". Of course, this statement is aptly received by me with a confident gleam of my face, only to realize after a second that I've been had for ... :) My friends of course, fellow UT people, on the brink of greatness, had a great time. Some blasted every company representative in sight with their trademark confidence, whereas some brought cookies home (of course, these sets intersect).

Caught sleeping in class?

2006-08-10T23:54:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, my final presentation as an intern (by mine I mean, the one I delivered) reminds me of the times I've slept during presentations. Now wait, its not that I felt bad for my audience today, rather I feel, sleeping during a talk is one of the most blissful things one can experience. I've had the experience countless number of times, and feel obliged to return the favor to the society; one of the reasons I became a teacher. Of course, once I was convinced that I had affected the lives of a few students by giving them what I had intended, I gladly left the job.

Anyways, today I feel like writing about a time, a very rare time, when I was actually caught sleeping in a class. Since I feel it is a bit derogatory to name the class and the professor, lets give them hypothetical names.
Professor: Prof. Yamraj. Class: Taking souls of innocent students for dummies.

Now this was a time when I was getting used to a new atmosphere, so whenever I used to give myself some time to have a nap, I used to console myself by saying: “Don’t worry man, you’re getting used to it. Once you get into the hardships, either you’ll be awake or you won’t feel bad anymore”.

One fine (bloody-hot-afternoon) day, Prof. Yamraj walked in with enthusiasm oozing all over. He enters the class with a terrific smile (or a snide laughter, whatever), runs to the podium, 5 of us already in deep slumber. Now hey, I am one of those guys who give a chance to the speaker to prove that he’s good enough, …… for me not to sleep till 15 minutes. Anyways, Yammu (now I’d rather give him an pet name, the full name is beginning to get creepy) turned out to be one of majority and I was dreaming about Alice in my wonderland in about 15 seconds.

I’ve always believed that my subconscious has been strong enough and of all the important things it has done for me, the most important was the one that enabled me to wake up at the slightest alarm of danger. I’m sure all of us relate to experiencing things around you even during a dream. For example, when the alarm is off, in your dream someone’s on the phone. Similarly, the speaker’s continuous ramblings used to foster my dreams and when they used to stop, I could sense danger. However, this time, things were a bit different. The phone call went off a bit late inside my head.

You can’t really blame me you see, me and Alice were really having a good time and the hot atmosphere made it all the more endearing. However, good dreams don’t really last long in my case, and when this one seemed to, I got the feeling, boss … something’s wrong.

For all those who’ve experienced, being the center of attraction when you don’t want to be is the worst feeling on the earth. I raised my eyelids slowly yet steadily, so as to not give the impression that I am shocked or rising from a snooze. For a moment, I wished I had not got the anti-glare glasses for my specs, but I guess this was not going to be my day. Again, I wished that somehow the prof would understand the whole scenario, and let me go or something. However, that was also not to be.

I somehow felt a bit obligated to stand up and apologize, but I wasn’t the great man then that I am today. So I decided not to be stupid, shut up, and act as if nothing happened. Here’s the dialogue that followed:

Me: (to myself) why the hell is everyone staring at me man ?
Students: (to themselves) Hehehe, you’re screwed man !!

Prof: Hello mister, what do you think you are doing?
Me (trying hard not to yawn): Attending to your lecture sir (why would you think otherwise??)

Prof: Is this what you call attending haan? Can you tell me what I was teaching right now?
Me: Sure sir, blah blah bleh bleh … isn’t blah equal to bloh, and according to patent no. blih, blah is congruent to blihbleh. (hoping that this was the correct lecture)

Prof: (seemingly confused to how he managed to get that idea through) Huh? Hmmm… Huh?
Me: (sporting a confident, yet my typical ‘suave’ look)

Prof: What is your name? What is your roll number? Where is the attendance sheet? Get out of my class, I’ll look at your grades, and some more threats.
Me: (Whoa !!! high alert, attendance sheet issue being raised, try something quick)

Unfortunately, in tight situations, I mutter some high grade utter nonsense.

Me: Sir, what happened? I think you misunderstood me. I was closing my eyes when you were turning to rub something off the board. (Oh My God !!!!!). I wasn’t sleeping sir.

I think the professor was very sensible and sensitive enough not to utter a single word after that, he gently picked up the attendance sheet, crossed off my name, looked at me and signaled me to get out. However, I wasn’t really in a mood to get out, Alice was probably still waiting, so I eventually convinced the professor that I would like staying inside, and this way he would use the precious time to teach others of the virtue, we all call,
: mein aaj lecture me kya tun ho gaya yaar !!!

Austin: Day One

2006-08-06T19:44:00.001-05:00

A year before, a gang of 8 landed at Austin. Luckily for some, there was a receiving party and a place to go to. Unluckily, and because of each assuming that the other would have taken care of this, the 3 of us were stuck at one of the most elite inns in Austin. Elite if you would pay the same amount of money in Indian currency back in India. For a pack of Indians, with no US dollars, except for the converted ones, this was certainly elite. And I tried to extract the most out of it by absorbing as much air, water, ACs, fans, carpets, bed, as I could.

Anyways, as we were contemplating about nothing; me and Vineet had to witness the towel glory of our third roomie, I wonder if the two of us thought: "Whoa ! … I hope the gal on the flight was his girlfriend man!!" A knock on the door is not particularly soothing if you’re in an alien country and you’ve no idea where this god-forbidden inn is in this midst of a huge highway. However, this knock, as it turned out, was the most helpful of them during our stint in Austin for the past year.

I thought Sachin was a real nerd in the beginning (cant blame me!!, the stories about his academic brilliance were in the air). He turned out to be our agony uncle for the day, a roundup of how the next day is supposed to be, a courtesy drive around campus, some food. Even though my enthusiasm about going out at 3.30 in the night on the day we came from India was a bit low, it turned out to be great. As eventful the night was, it was far from over. Vineet & me experienced the first of many to come, Ashwin dream mumblings. (Ashwin still thinks I'm kidding about this ...)
Ashwin: “Manoj, darwaza khol !! … ”.
Manoj: “Huh? Kyon? ” … (oh ok, I think he’s just dreaming, scared the shit out of me … hehe .. trembletremble)

Next day morning was like the stuff dreams are made of. Rain, cold, and 8.30am. Yes, the stuff nightmares are made of. We are a good hour late, I hated the rain, and the 2 buggers walked like a friggin pack of wolves, and I tried my best to catch up with them, only to realize that I had to bring the Carl Lewis in me to be 5 miles in the vicinity. Anyways, the heavens cleared, the bus came, and in walked this amazing gal, and my hopes for beauty in Austin sky rocketed to new heights. Of course, my usual suave self, I chose to keep quiet and let her gauge me by the intelligent look on my face. By the time, I was going to put up my most compelling face however, my roomies ran again. And that was the last I saw of her, maybe she still thinks about my silent yet powerful demeanor and exclaims in excitement … well, maybe not, who am I kidding.

Well, we went to the weird building called the IO, which would turn out to be the mecca for us. Got a look at the powerful Tamil gang, and got to see the Sheshadri himself. More about him later. We went to the photo place, and took magnificent photos of ourselves, each one of which reminded us of how we would look if we’re in prison. That’s the charm of the place you see.

The rest of the day set the tone of all the days to come. I say this because this is the routine for the next 20 days. We went to the lab. A whole lot of computers, invaded by saliva dripping international students looking for aid. Now, this was a pretty optimistic time for me, the last time I would think about the 'optimism' for about a year. Usually CS guys are considered to be “you’ll get aid man … you shouldn’t even be searching for one”. Accordingly, I had a tough time encouraging myself to apply for menial jobs, hey, I was supposed to be approached by my grad coordinator with the TA in hand. Of course, I knew in a few days that this feeling would be long gone.

Back to Square One

2006-08-06T19:00:00.000-05:00

One year down the line, life seems to have come a full circle. I seem as lost as I was on the first day I came here, and the only comfort I can think about is the friends around me. Only this time, I'm sure it'll turn out to be alright because I know them all the more better.

As usual, I delete my previous blogs, and begin a new series of them. I guess these will be about the people around me, and my chronciles of stupidity.

Today am reminded of the memories from the last one year, the moments of glory (or the lack of it), the moments when you feel so helpless, yet turn to your friends, and are reassured that they’re equally so (or you would like to think so).