Just One Of Those Days

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

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...

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

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...

...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!!)

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

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.