The pensieve

Homesickness

2011-02-24T03:28:00.004+05:30

Things I miss the most about India (not necessarily in the order of priority)

The food (and who doesn't!): But these are some things I particularly crave for - chaat from Ganesh Bhel/Bheleshwar, idli-chatni from Udupi, Sujata chi Mango mastani, Roadside A1 sandwiches and kachhi dabeli, lokhandachya kadhait banavleli kali matki, misal, spicy cheese chilly dosa, shrikhand, masal paav, indianized chinese, all kinds of mithai..
Being able to talk to relatives and friends at normal times - I almost never manage to talk with my family aramat unless its a weekend.
People on the road: It's so strange walking back from college and seeing very few people around - and yet I stay in Atlanta!
Being able to drive a 2 wheeler. I miss my activa!
Public transport: There's simply no way to reach the suburbs unless you have your own vehicle
Being able to come back home as late as 10:30-11, peacefully. The less said about Atlanta in matters of safety, the better!
The grocery store right down the road!

I might have missed a few more, but these are the ones at the top of my mind right now!

Ganeshotsav

2010-01-13T19:36:00.003+05:30

It's strange what new places away from home can do to you. Take me for instance - I never in my life as much as entered the kitchen while I was in Pune, and stuff like gulpoli and puranpoli? I couldn't even attempt to dream about preparing such delicacies!

Here in Bangalore though, me and my friend Neha got super enthusiastic during the 10 day Ganpati festival this year. Oh yeah thats another thing - all Maharashtrian traditions suddenly feel so amazing and so comforting when you are 800km away from home! But thats for entirely another blogpost...
So me n Neha : Day one, on Ganesh chaturthi, we just decided to go for the simple "tallele" variety of the traditional prasad for Ganpati - Modak. They turned out well enough, and we were suddenly struck by how much fun it would be to prepare a different sweet every day for 10 days as Ganpati sathi naivedya! With overflowing enthusiasm, even after coming home from office as late as 9, we made it a point to prepare one sweet, and do the arti. Here's what we managed during the week : Shira, khobryachya vadya, fruit salad in shrikhand (yes, that is a dish and its called burani :P ), karanji and one day just fruits.
Over the weekend we became more ambitious, and on Saturday we painstakingly removed the seeds from sitafal and boiled 2 litres of milk for close to 2 hrs and prepared sitafal rabdi. Yum! On Sunday, we attempted the insurmountable - ukdiche modak! Saran banavna tar enough soppa asta, but neither of us had even seen our moms prepare the ukad before. With the phone in one hand and a ladle in the other, we proceeded to prepare the ukad. Next problem - amchyakade modak patra vagaire kuthe asta! So we tried to find the smallest possible flat bottomed vessel, so that we could invert it in the cooker, and place the modak on it. Needless to say, the first batch went horrible wrong and the 2 modak fell in to the water inside the cooker. Now don't get me wrong - that did not spoil its taste one bit - but they turned all soggy and refused to stay together as one piece! We then changed cookers, changed the vessel, placed a plate on top of the vessel and what not! But it yielded results when we had a finished product that we could atleast claim was an "ukdicha modak" !!
This victory gave us added confidence - and we bravely attempted gulpoli on one weekday, and puranpoli for anant chaturdashi - another weekday. The gulpoli turned out ok in the end, but we went through a lot of stupidities and (as a result) hardships to get there! Puran poli was awesome, and anant chaturdashi was so much fun! We had invited over a few friends (Yes, we prepared almost 10 puranpolis :P ), we sang artis, and decided that in order for it to be a proper anant chaturdashi, dancing was inevitable :P

It was 10 days of eating entirely too much sweet, and ten days of nostalgia for the Ganesh festival back home :)

Petrichor

2009-11-02T16:27:00.004+05:30

Finally found an English word that means "mrudgandh" - petrichor ( http://bestofwikipedia.tumblr.com/post/212747211 , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor )

Apparently comes from petros = stone and ichor = the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. It was coined by two Australian researchers for an article in the journal Nature.

But it doesn't sound anywhere as good mrudgandh does. "Mrudgandh" sounds beautiful, poetic even, conjuring up an image of the first rains of the season on dry parched soil and bringing a waft of that sweet smell to your mind.

My cooking escapades - Part 2

2008-11-24T21:29:00.003+05:30

I can finally write a longer post about my cooking skills, now that I have been living in Bangalore for a full 4 months. Now, that does not mean I have started cooking on a daily basis etc, but still, as they say, something's better than nothing, right? :P

We got a gas in our house within 2 weeks of shifting in. That happened basically because my mother had come to visit us! We had expected that whenever we get a gas, the first thing that we would mostly prepare would be maggi, however, (again since my mother was around), it happened to be kheer.

After mom left we stuck to the basics - maggi, omelette and the occassional aloo ki sabji. In fact even this was restricted to weekends - weekdays, we used to get a dabba! Then suddenly one day, we got absolutely bugged with eating potatoes for 5 straight days in our dabba, and decided to discontinue it. Then started our real tryst with cooking!

Here's a list of what all we experimented with - aloo parathe (for first timers, they turned out real well), pav bhaji (all time favourite), pulav, regular varan-bhat-batatyachi bhaji (yum!! i miss that!!! ), pasta (that was Manasi's culinary expertise!), modak (for ganesh chaturthi - that gave a real shock to my mom - that I even thought of attempting something like that :P ), chhan garam garam kanda bhaji (and we ate them with coffee on a rainy evening on our terrace - perfect :D ), multiple types of sandwhiches (when I say multiple, I mean multiple - right from butter-sauce-lays, to cheese-chilli-garlic, to veg-cheese), manchurian with fried rice (courtesy Ashoo), green curry chicken (that turned out awesome too - I guess beginners luck counts :P ), etc etc. (Ok the etc was just to give an impression that the list is much longer than it seems!!

We have also managed to actually cook food for as many as 8-10 people atleast 3-4 times, and we even made 2.5l of masala doodh for kojagiri!

Anyways, done for the day, more on this (and Bangalore), later..

2008-08-12T23:44:00.002+05:30

I'v been reading LOTR (finally) since the past few days. Lots of people love all the songs in there. But there's one song which is probably an uncommon favourite - atleast I love it! Just copy-pasting it here...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sing hey! For the bath at close of day,
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
But better than rain or rippling stream,
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat, and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if we drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high,
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet,
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Probably not a song many will state as one of their favourites from the book, but I can totally identify with the sentiments!!
[Notice the capitalization he's done everywhere, as if the hobbits really revere Hot Water!!]

Bangalore.. Finally

2008-08-12T23:26:00.004+05:30

Finally - net at home and all that, so even though I do not own a laptop yet, am going to post about Bangalore from my roommates'.

I reached here about 5 weeks ago, stayed at a place called diamond district for a fortnight, searched and searched and searched for apartments and finally found something we liked. About this place...

--> Bangalore is very green, but definitely NOT clean. There's a lot of garbage generally lying around on the raods, there are open nalas which stink, and I'v even seen a couple of cockroaches and rats on the footpath :|

--> There's a CCD every 500m. Seriously.

--> Girls get looks from passers-by as early as 9-930. Being from A city like Pune, I never thought 9 could be late for going home.

--> I don't even want to get started on the auto drivers. They blantantly ask for anything between 100-150 bucks for 5-8 km, and actually expect you to pay!! The bus drivers also happily charge more if u ask them for the actual ticket. Blatant corruption.

--> There are a lot of malls here.. and all of them are really huge. And movie tickets will cost you a fortune!

--> The best thing about this place is surely the weather! Its been pleasant all throughout. Light drizzles, always a cool wind, great atmosphere in general.

--> These guys build houses and even building which have no space in between. In fact, a lot of these have common walls. Even though I live in a apartment, our wall is directly connected to our neighbour's terrace!

More later..

My cooking escapades

2008-05-08T23:34:00.002+05:30

This time when my holidays started, my mother was very sure about one thing she wanted to accomplish over the hols - get me to learn some cooking!So it was decided (by mutual convenience) that I should take the "responsibility" for dinner, every night. (Breakfast, which she suggested before dinner, was out of question - I can't wake up that early, everyday in the hols!)

There is always that novelty factor in everything we do - and so it was, for me, before i embarked on this journey! The first day, I was super-enthusiastic, envisioning how I would prepare something novel everyday, make all the preparations, right from the shopping stage, all by myself, etc. etc. :P

That first day, I did act on the above - I prepared anda bhurji, and it turned out awesome. (That's one of those few things I've been preparing for a few years now, so it seemed like a reliable thing to begin with!) Here, I should mention that while I'm not exactly about to starve when it comes to surviving on my self-prepared food, I'm not a cooking enthusiast either. I can just about prepare basic stuff - batatyachi bhaji, pohe, chapatya, dal, bhat, and of course , if you count it in this list, omelette and maggi!

So it started well enough on day one, but here is how i have progressed, over the past 8 days or so -

Day 2: There was leftover flower-batata bhaji from the morning, so I ~~converted it into~~ prepared pavbhaji, making use of it! To my credit, I had to add potatoes, tomatoes, onion, etc (which basically means I did do some work :P ), not to mention, preparing chapatis.

Day 3: I got bored, so we ate out!

Day 4: There was matki usal, again leftover from lunch. So I followed the easiest way out - bought farsan, shev, etc, cut some onions and tomatoes, and we had misal ready!

Day 5: I was busy cutting watermelon for a long time(read- watching tv), so we had some food delivered, and watermelon, for dessert!

Day 6: Prepared sandwhiches from lunch ki remaining bhaji - cant really let that go waste, can I? (Think my mum had started preparing extra bhaji everyday, with the hope that I would atleast prepare chapatis, if nothing else!)

Day 7: I had amazing plans for dinner (mhanayla kay jatay :P ) but we'd all gone out, and we decided to eat out n come home!

Day 8: I decided enough of slacking, and with great foresight, bought paneer, masala, the mixed cut sabji packets that we get nowadays, etc. Prepared awesome paneer bhurji, something I love preparing! Also prepared chapatis, as usual (Thats one thing I'm getting lots of practice for - so this whole charade will help in some way, atleast!) .

That day 8, was today. Lets see how this thing comes along, later this month, when I start getting really bored of it!

Another thing I learned was how mom must be feeling, when we eat half-heartedly, after her calling us n number of times, when we are busy doing something else - like talking on the phone, reading books, etc. - It's so irritating! I ended up shouting at my sis twice when she did that :P

It's also amazing how mom can stand being the last one to eat, all the time, while she prepares hot chapatis for us. I had to exercise all my will power today to not let mom take over the chapatis, and start eating myself, when I was very hungry and I could smell the paneer bhurji! Maybe it gets easier (and a routine thing :| ) with time!

2008-04-24T02:55:00.002+05:30

Just realised - I have just "one" post in the entire new year.
And even this doesn't really count, so the count stays at 1 :(
Wonder whats my problem, for all the excuses i can give :|
All I have done throughout this year, is, updating the blogroll!

2008-01-12T14:54:00.001+05:30

Had been wanting to post about this for ages - never got around to doing it...
We had been to Kolkata recently, for some rowing competitions. I used to think, earlier, that traffic in Pune is among the worst in the country, and people drive as they please. The first journey I made in Kolkata. going from the station to our hotel, opened my eyes to how 4 wheelers could also be driven the way we drive 2-wheelers here in Pune! There was no concept of slowing down for an oncoming vehicle, atleast 3 times during the 20 min drive, I had closed my eyes shut fearing a crash! We did everything from getting into a bus in the middle of the road - on a turn, to catching a running taxi (yeah - a running taxi - the way someone might might catch a train that has already started moving!) to running across the roads while crossing them, and realizing, in the process, that drivers in Kolkata do not believe in stopping for pedestrians when they are driving! Every time we sat in a taxi, we'd pray to reach our destination in one peice! However a few days there, and we realized a big contradiction in the entire traffic discipline fundae of people out there. Check out this pic, for instance.
They actually wait at the signal before the white "stop" line! And this was not a one off thing, but something we observed at every crossing, every signal. I have never ever, in 20 years of my life in Pune, observed anyone waiting this far back at a signal, in fact, its not altogether common to see people follow signals in the first place!

Jab We Met

2007-11-23T01:27:00.000+05:30

Great movie. A light hearted romantic movie, 2 really good performances. And apart from that, just one other thing - Shahid is looking very sexy, very smart, and simply irresistible!

Insanity

2007-10-22T22:39:00.000+05:30

Is it necessary, (and okay?) to sometimes act totally insane in order to preserve your sanity? To make unrealistic demands, give in to illogical reasoning, and insist on the irrational? To give vent to all depressing feelings, albeit in the confines of your room?
I guess it is.. Makes you feel like you are 5 again, and even if its just momentary, gives you a feeling of freedom and relief afterwards!

2007-10-20T04:22:00.000+05:30

Finished Silence of the Lambs - in one go (though that didn't help me in any way in staying awake in college yesterday :| ), and I must say it was totally worth staying up till 5, and being at the receiving end of Mayur's tirade for coming late to college.
Anyways, the book deals with psychiatry, more specifically, a psychotic serial killer and a homicidal genius. The entire plot , character development, and mind play demonstrated throughout the books is marvelous, even if bizarre in a way, and I'm totally looking forward to seeing the movie now.

My current obsession is psychiatry, and I'm also reading a couple of books related to it right now. (Again - got myself into trouble over reading one in class :| ) But that made Silence of the Lambs even more itneresting, though I guess this is another of my obsessions which will fade away in a couple of weeks!!

Next on my list to read - The Hobbit. Though I doubt I'll be so enthu as to put in even a partial nightout to read it at a stretch. But felt great to be back to reading books, full-fledged, in the middle of a hectic sem!!

2007-10-16T23:32:00.000+05:30

It was yesterday, after ages and ages, that I read a book of 500 pages at almost a stretch. I have always been a bookworm and earlier, used to read on an average a book every week. And for me, there was no concept of reading a book over a period of time. Any barely-readable book in my hand, and my mom would have considerable difficulty in getting me to eat on time.

But in the past year or so, these instances of being transported to another world totally, dwindled to almost nothing. And so, yesterday, I felt amazing for having wasted so much time, sleep, and getting my mom mad at me - even though it wasn't too good a novel. Anyways, having finished "The Class" now, I have an incredible book in my hands - The Silence of The Lambs. And it comes in the category of those "un-putdownable" books.

Starting with the book now...

The Dancing Girl

2007-10-16T11:35:00.001+05:30

Came across this really interesting gif today. It is claimed here that if you see the girl spinning anticlockwise, you use your left brain more than your right brain, and vice-versa if you see her spinning clockwise. That claim notwithstanding, I was quite intrigued to find out how exactly the animation can seem to move in both directions. A little bit of practice later, I was able to make her spin in either direction at will. Here's what you can try to control her direction in case you are unable to do so -
1. The simplest way would be to look away for a while and look back, and decide that you want to see her spin in a particular direction. That often works.
2. More specifically, decide that her left leg is in the air if you want to see her spin clockwise.
3. What worked best for me was looking at the shadow of her leg. If you focus on it continuously without looking at the entire image. you will notice that all it does is move from left to right, then right to left. In other words. if you tell yourself to concentrate on the left to right motion of the shadow and imagine her leg to be reversed during the right to left motion, you can control the direction of the dancer with great ease.

This led me to look up on a few things about how exactly it works, though point #3 above gives us a fair idea about what is happening. Since it's a silhouette, at no point can you tell whether the dancer is facing you, or facing away from you. That depends on your perception at that particular moment, and hence the direction of her motion also depends on your perception at that time.

Since I'm lukhha in life anyways, here's a few more links that were very interesting.
Here are a few comments about what people say about the illusion, and while some are quite insightful, most are just pretty stupid.
This is a paper recommended for understanding the phenomenon involved, albeit it went almost completely over my head. However the paper provides a compilation of various such perceptual rivalry phenomenon examples with some explanations here.
The animated necker cube, in particular, provides a visual and compelling explanation of illusions like these. Among the more astonishing illusions were Dale's Colour Cross (Do check the stepwise background removal), Dale Purves Illusion, Logveninko's Illusion, and the typical Checker Shadow Illusion that's been doing the rounds of internet recently.

2007-10-16T00:11:00.000+05:30

Top 5 reasons why Pune traffic is so bad (or rather, why I hate it so much)

Simply, far too many vehicles in the city.
PMT bus drivers driving as if they are on a two-wheeler, and not in a huge bus.
Autorickshawallas scavenging for fares along the sides of real small roads.
All vehicles, irrespective of their dimensions, cutting through lanes as and when they please.
The never-ending processions. I honestly wonder what these people keep celebrating all the time!

Inertia

2007-10-15T23:56:00.000+05:30

I have way too much inertia - I'm totally loathe to changing whatever activity I'm engaged in at any moment, even if it isn't halfway interesting. Always wondered why, and still don't have clue!

The 'S' factor

2007-09-09T01:22:00.000+05:30

Very arbit - but just noticed that 8 out of 10 people I have linked to from my blog have names starting with the letter 'S'!

It feels amazing when..

2007-09-02T19:21:00.000+05:30

When your 5 year old cousin sis falls asleep in your arms.
When a school friend suddenly calls up after a long time, you meet up, and take off as if the 2 year gap in between was never there..
In a heavy traffic jam you are idly sitting on your vehicle staring around, getting bugged, and a small kid enthusiastically waves and smiles at you from inside a car..

Arbit

2007-07-15T00:08:00.000+05:30

I am prone to extreme feelings a lot. And contradictarily, (or maybe not) I tend to foget the bad ones very fast too.
I am unbelievably optimistic, or some things just don't register.
I can never remember the exact feelings of times when I was physically/emotionally hurt. Remebering the good times seems much easier, somehow.
I can be incredibly understanding one day, and flying into a temper for no reason the next.
I am not meant and made for driving any kind of vehicle, nor do I enjoy it.
My road and direction sense must be the worst among all people I know.
I can fall asleep absolutely anywhere and anytime.
Kiterunner is a fantastic book.

Just One Of Those Days

2007-06-30T00:40:00.000+05:30

There are some days, when you feel everything is going great, things could not have been better, and the smallest of things brings a smile on your face.
And then there are some other days.
Today was one of them. Nothing seems right, you feel lost, confused, hopeless, dejected, and as if the entire world is conspiring against you. Small things become irritating, big things bring despair. Just when you feel as if you could use some love and warmth in life, there seems to be none forthcoming. You feel you don't have friends, and no one has any time.
Just when you feel like having a having a really good conversation with someone, there is no one online. People are either wrapped up in their own problems, or worse still, simply don't understand nor care.
You feel like crying for no reason whatsover, and cannot because everyone around will pester you with a thousand questions, for which you have no answers.
Eating choocolate doesn't help, nor does thinking about having an entire cad b. (People who know me know that is really rare!)
And then you think, and you think some more, and realise that perhaps you are thinking far too much about yourself and being too selfish. And the day seems ten times as worse...

Bigotry - 1

2007-05-28T10:15:00.000+05:30

I saw the movie Metro recently - was a great movie, overall. Irrfan Khan and Konkona were really good, made the movie worth watching!

Spoiler Warning- Anyone who cares about waching the movie, dont read this post, its got half the story. For those who already have read it before - sorry!

However I'm not the type to write movie reviews and stuff, far from it actually. What struck me in the movie, however, was the kind of attitude displayed by Shilpa's husband, the character Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon) in the movie.
First of all, he's having an afair with a 20-something in his office, and been sleeping with her for a long time. This causes him no qualms at all, in fact he thinks he deserves it, blaming Shilpa for his unhappiness in marriage. So, far, still ok. Later in the movie, he thinks that Shilpa has come to know about the affair. Now he starts acting up, says sorry, asks her to forgive him, says it was 'just a mistake', and claims that since there was no emotional involvement, everything is fine!! Even now, you might be tempted to give him the benefit of doubt, thinking that he is truly repentant. Shilpa however, had no idea of all this, and she had been upset about something else - her own attraction towards another guy. She now says pretty much the same things that Ranjeet had said, with the difference that her 'affair' consisted only of meting that guy over a few weeks. At this, Ranjeet flares up, and starts accusing her of anything and everything, saying he will not tolerate this kind of behaviour, No matter that just a few minutes ago, he was begging her forgiveness for the same kind of, or probably a graver 'mistake'. His huge male ego hurt, he storms out of the house. It's bad enough at this point, but typical Indian male behaviour nonetheless.
Later, when the chick decides to leave him (as obviously she should have long back, since he was just using her anyways ) he now comes back to his wife, expecting an open armed welcome!! What a chauvinist pig! The bad part is, Shilpa really takes him back into her life, choosing 'marriage' over Shiny Ahuja, the guy she had a kinda affair with. Why she does that, was beyond me... I suppose the whole 'Indian Marriage' should survive kinda thing.
And the point is, so many guys still have this warped definition of loyalty, what is expected from a woman is so totally different from what's expected from a man! Totally sucks...

2007-05-23T12:24:00.000+05:30

The way I have (hopefully) completed this sem, I dont think I can ever be a good engineer.
Feeling depressed in life though I dont deserve to be...

Road Rage

2007-05-20T00:23:00.000+05:30

Everything's been said and nothing done about the state of roads in Pune. They keep going from bad to worse, and when you think it can't possibly get worse that the state they are in, the PMC promptly obliges by digging up a few more! Curently Karve road has been dug up, so has Paud road, parts of Law college road - to sum it up, making life hell for someone like me who has totravel from Kothrud to COEP everyday :( And rains now, to add to our woes. Came across this wonderful pic that says it all - from this site. A picture indeed, worth a thousand words this one..

Coming back to an empty house...

2007-05-14T23:42:00.000+05:30

...was something I had never done, till a few days back.

Having grown in a family with a grandmom, this concept was completely alien to me. She was always there, kind of like a constant factor even if everything else changed. For the last few months though, she was completely bedridden, and yet the fact remained that she was there, a reassuring presence if nothing else. She passed away a month back, and I still cannot get used to coming home and seeing the empty room.

Had one of these really interesting and insightful discussions with Sangram a few days back, which made me write this post in the first place. The conversation started off quite normally, but then veered towards the Virginia shoot out, and ended up at how people generally react to someone close/not so close to them dying. I have always thought that I am more indifferent than most people, call it less sensitive, hard hearted, or anything else you like. But I generally never get emotional about something too easily. It was probably true of the time when aaji passed away too. The tears did not come for a long time. I was possibly the only one among my cousins to be so composed. And it was eating me from inside... Why did I not feel about it as much as all of them? I tried reasoning with myself-it was not really a shock for me, having been with her all of that morning, maybe it was just the fact that I was there all along, and when everyone else came, I was consoling others rather than crying myself. But inspite of it all, it still bothered me.

And then I had that discussion sometime later with Sangram, during which I realised that it is very natural to react the way I did perhaps. How does someone's death really affect us? Missing the person in your day-to-day life, going over all the memories, regretting things you did not do... And the practical aspects are as important as the emotional ones. Small things remind me again and again that aaji is no longer here-stuff like leaving for an exam and habitually going to her room, namaskar karayla...

For almost 2-3 years, aaji has been quite ill. There were so many things she gradually stopped doing - she always used to tell me (when I was younger) and my sis stories at bedtime, she used to prepare our dabbas for school, it was always aaji, and nt my mom, who would prepare ambatvaran coz we both liked her's so much beter than mom's! All this stopped years back, but I remember it all now. It's strange really, but its her death which caused me to think about all of those things i missed, I never missed them when she was here.

And its been a long enough senti post, so I'll wrap it up with just this - life always goes on no matter what... I am not too un-emotional, or atleast not the only one who is. And I prefer it this way infinitely rather than wallowing in hypocritical grief. There are moments when I get emotional too, but they are few and far between, and I prefer it that way!

Fatal Error hJc93 (What the heck!!)

2007-04-27T00:04:00.000+05:30

Finally finished our proj today :)
And since I had a lot of time as a result, found the article below on my comp. I'd written it in a bout of frustration when I was doing an intern in the last hols. Could identify with it again since I'v been working in matlab for the past month for the project..

“What’s in a name” proclaimed Shakespeare grandly!! Ahhh… What did he know?? I don’t think he ever got a fatal error titled hjc93…something something because of a name repetition in the top level and a sub-sub- ( I think 5 subs) module of any programming language. Now incidentally, I had even forgotten that the module exists, so knowing and avoiding the signal name repetition was completely out of question. And why that dim-witted thing couldn’t simply state such a simple fact instead of giving an unfathomable fatal error, is totally beyond me!!
The computer I currently work with has helped me dispel a lot of myths I had about computers. As a sweet innocent kid, uninitiated to the world of these machines, I used to believe lots of good things about them. My eyes now opened, I put forth in front of you a few common misconceptions we have about comps:

Myth #1: Computers never get tired.

Reality : Remember this was one of the first things we were taught in school about the advantages of computer? It couldn’t be more wrong. I mean, what else would you say about a computer which disconnects net connection on its own after about half an hour, consistently, everyday… and then, when I leave it alone and untouched for a while, it obliges me again and lets me sit online for another half an hour. That is a classic symptom of tiredness if anything ever was!!!

Myth #2: Computers are very fast.

Reality : Well, I agree most computers are, but my computer? Ha-ha no way!! It’s still a big mystery why a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 with 256 Mb RAM would take (no exaggeration) 15 minutes to perform a simple task like closing a word document!!

Myth #3: Computers are accurate and precise.

Reality : Accurate they might be, but precise??? No ways!! One moment, it gives me the right result, and the second moment, without me making any changes; it gives me that favourite fatal error!!!

Myth #4: Computers DO NOT have feelings.

Reality : Now that’s a positive untruth. My office computer, very surely, hates me. It has mood swings, and it goes through emotional highs and lows! It’ll work fine all morning; give no errors, atleast give proper logical reasons for whatever errors it does give. Then in the afternoon, it will simply go crazy. I do everything in my capacity to cajole it back into working fine, I switch it off twice, I restart it once, I pray to the god of all things electrical… but to no avail. It stubbornly persists in giving me its favourite fatal error, and closing all applications suddenly without warning!! And then to make me feel worse still, as soon as I call any senior to check what’s wrong with it, it will start working perfectly fine and act docile again.

All said and done, inspite of ranting so much I immensely enjoyed the intern as well as working on the proj this time... But I really think someone should do some research on all different types of errors in various softwares and state in simple english language what they really mean!!

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

2007-04-06T01:46:00.000+05:30

A total copy-paste post this one is. I realised that I did start the blog at a wrong time. Perhaps should have waited till the end semesters started. With all the project work and stuff, all I can think of writing revolves around matlab and the traffic in Pune (more on that later) Anyways here is what I wanted to share.

Was reading this frustration-inspired poem on Shantanu's blog today. And since I was in a mood to waste time anyways, read the original again after ages. I have been in a poem appreciating mood since I wrote one during the exams, so went ahead and read this article about it and its interpretation. Felt wonderful about raading and appreciating poems after a long long time. Do check it out.

Me.. and a poem!!

2007-03-31T10:10:00.000+05:30

I never ever thought in my wildest dreams that I could possibly write a poem, and one so serious at that! Again - as I said in my previous post - the exam effect!
Anyways here's the poem -

A hurricane…
Questions burst forth – and crowd the mind
No answers in sight
And we continue living, like we always did.

A heart-rending wail here, a brave smile there
Their positions – inexplicably interchanged
From there comes a realization…
Its pain for the other,
But for the first, a helpless curse of watching that pain.

We are so detached –
Is it hypocrisy? Indifference?
Neither! Claims the brain – and life goes on.
And yet, the mind falters…

Words spring forth where they never did
A different emotion –
Fear and apprehension, under the guise of nonchalance and a purported distance.
The brain claims to do its bit
For society, for family… for oneself?
And yet…

Other things claim precedence
Exams, submissions…
Things as mundane as lunch and the heat.
A deja-vu – of when ajoba died.
Random thoughts – some old, some new
The ability to forget, and get on with life
The same self doubts, the same questions.
The same tranquility?
Perhaps – says a small voice.

A new spring perhaps
Or a new appreciation of those perennial flowers.
A thankfulness – for the spring
And a hope – for the brave smile to persist.

On Exams and Creativity

2007-03-30T19:10:00.000+05:30

I have been wanting to start a blog for ages and ages now, and when I finally do, its a day before my EME paper! This made me realise that
1. Exams bring our your creative side.
2. Everything apart from studying starts to appear enticing.
3. #2 happens with everyone, I suppose, but we give so many exams throughout the year that they have lost importance and I unlike others, indulge in all my whims and caprices a day before my papers.
4. This list can go on n on since I love making bulleted lists!!..

Why exams induce creativity is amply clear from the fact that yesterday at this same time, my head was brimming with stuff to write in this post, but post the last paper, I seem to have run out of words! I, who have never even come close to writing poems in my life wrote a very inspired and heart-felt one day before... On examining my diary yesterday, I realised that most of my entries have come during the exam. Stuff as diverse as playing the casio, sketching, dancing, all suddenly start seeming to be very very simple during exams.. but alas - the lack of time!

Moving on from exams to my blog, its simply a place where I will share my thoughts, feelings, issues close to my heart and stuff I find interesting. Thats all for now and I hope I will keep this place regularly updated.