Important..please read before continuing

The more serious posts are at the beginning of the blog. I ran out of good topics and started doodling :P
Unfortunately, they aren't written as well as the later posts. . .
Your choice

PS: It surprises me, how I have to validate every single thing I do. I mean, there was absolutely no reason for me to write this note, and even less, to write this postscript, or the postpostscript, that i will write after this one. Maybe, I do not like being misinterpreted. or maybe if there's any criticism that needs to be dished out, i'd rather do it myself.Or maybe i'm just a megalomaniac who wants to be all encompassing and always in a position to say: 'I told you so', even if the 'so' is some inherent flaw in me :P

PPS: Or maybe i just have too much free time, writing long posts to an imaginary audience. . . .

PPPS: Wait, that would be megalomania. . .

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Musing on the muse.....

Yesterday ....when i sat down to write..without a thought in mind..a friend told me...." Oi ! Are you crazy..You'll just sit down...to write.without anything in mind...just like that..that's just too egomaniacal..!"
"Hell yeah..!"


But seriously...sometimes...you have to manufacture inspiration...pull it out of the air....just imagine it into being...Inspiration is something that man relies heavily upon(and yeah...i know your not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition..but it sounds nice)....Omens, portents, sparks, lit-up electric bulbs in the air, just above your head and about an inch or so to the left of the center-line (!!)Well...I think a lot of people lose out...just because of their insistence upon...omens..and signs...I mean...do you really think that God sits around thinking of complex schemes and contraptions to inspire people..."Hell no !"....All this serendipity stuff....i don't believe...We believe..what we want to believe...creating tedious links between something that happened and something that we want that something to mean....Many people, when faced with the proverbial fork in the road...need a sign to take the one less taken..but easily accept the other one ..in the absence of any inspiration...Now obviously the fact that the other road appears to you implies that you have some inclination to taking it...and the common road..well it's huge..man..a regular thoroughfare..with petrol pumps and a mall and what not..(:P)What i really wonder is ..What did the first guy do ? and how many did it take to make that road the norm?

In my view...each era brought us a different norm..For example...Different ideologies flourished at different times and different parts of the world..at each time...the intellectual crossroads had different thoroughfares....and of course...the path..or paths less chosen..are dependent on the individual...But what i speak of is not ideas but rather..ways of life....Currently..and i would think ever since the downfall of the great empires of yore...the common path has been that of comfort..We strive for creature comforts..(Now i know...that sentence doesn't make much sense..it sounds incomplete somehow..but it's perfect really..I can't think of a better word...)Specifically for me...the path that is the norm is an MBA/entrepreneurial enterprise (Funny how entrepreneurship is the norm for a person in my situation...A lot of people go off the beaten track..and suddenly there are billions of civil contractors (:-P))And i guess, as soon as people meet with success on the path they have chosen...(with measure of success upon total number of people having taken that path as a formal parameter for comparison) that path starts getting press coverage..(:-P) and clearly..here..today..success would be measured in terms of money and fame....because on the whole...this era's norm is wealth and creature comforts...

When we wait for a sign...we are just testing our ability to find tenuous links to our path and expressions of confidence from God in everyday occurrences (!)And people who lack this imaginative ability lose out..and complete the rest of their existence on the highway....thinking 'If only..' ( yeah i know it's cliched..'It's not life..it's merely existence blah blah..' but yeah cliches rock... \m/)And it's kinda like...flipping a coin to decide something..but then suggesting (to yourself) a best of 3 after the result and the best of 'n+2'subsequently till you get the result you desire(:P)....Sadly enough...you realise what you want only after you've flipped the coin...and in life..it's pretty hard to cut through the brush to get to the other road....

Don't wait yaar....

One controversial discussion that automatically follows as a result of the previous one..is the concept of duty....especially to one's parents and well wishers....Were it not for our parents we wouldn't be here..(Maybe they were out of cash !!!!!!! :P)If they had been alcoholics and druggies..we might not even be thinking about stuff like this..(or as my mom likes to say..."You ungrateful wretches wouldn't have the freedom and confidence to think this way !")After all it is true that some basic needs must be satisfied before our minds turn to higher spheres...Only the man with a bellyfull of food and siting on a comfy chaise longue can think about ethics and discuss abstract ideas...Most 'would be philosophers' overlook this fact.So..our parents gave birth to us (our mothers looked like whales for 9 months and endured labour for god knows how many hours and our fathers tried so hard to pretend to feel the pain...they looked constipated...and sometimes even were so... !!),they raised us, educated us, put clothes on our backs and food in our tummies...they deserve our ear....Then again..it's your life..you get only one...you should do what you want..After all..having a child is a choice made consciously by a couple...(uhh...i'm assuming...)And once they bring a child into this world..it is their duty to take care of it...A free willed creature creating something with free will always brings ambiguity into the picture...Once..i was discussing this with a friend and he took the side of duty...remarking how a lot of people of our generation were wasting their lives....Of course, I had to take the other side of the issue..but only for the sake of argument..As i said later..I'm not convinced about either side of the argument...Issues other than logical ones arise in a topic as delicate as this...The audience i'm really targeting comprise the people who di have a clear opinion about this...Think about it...It's pretty gray...

In conclusion, don't wait for a sign...God 's a sadist...!!
Oh..and yeah..look before you leap....Oops..cowdung :-P


PS: I hate the way blogger doesn't convert my 'i's' into 'I's'

PPS: Totally disconnected from the topic at hand..are my comments about the non existent audience of this blog and their intellect still funny..please do get back to me about this..
PPPS: On the other hand...is anyone out there....(echo...)

PPPPS: Maybe someone someday will stumble upon this blog...and deliver me from this island co ordinates 78.6 N and 33.4 E

PPPPPS: I don't know what those co ordinates are..so don't go searching for a globe for heaven's sake...

PPPPPPS: "This is fun !" said red hen !!!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Beauty..

"There are several things..ideas...words...concepts that we use daily...but we have not yet clearly defined...." said my literature prof. I as always...am short of topics to write on....and this time..i knew i'd hit the mother lode...For when something that's a common concept isn't understood or,as in this case, defined properly..we ....we..uhh...'people who like to go on and on about their views on arbitrary topics that other people should really not give a damn about, but i'm funny and people seem to like what i say so hey!... what the hell !' get the opportunity to wax eloquent...So i was like..cool..I get free topics...Not only that....but i also get the definition of a perfect topic...

On those lines...Beauty...what is beauty ?...Actually..even as i start writing this ....i can see a pitfall...well..a whole freakin' grand canyon as a matter of fact... I know..that i'll 'define' beauty and then go on to describe it...and sooner or later..i'm going to fall headfirst into a topic that i feel very strongly about...but am pretty sure that i have exhausted...whatever material(none..) i had on the topic...'Love' is, of course what i'm talking about...
But anyway..i must chance that..so i think that rather than deleting this or leaving it as a draft(cause i have always deleted my old drafts...) i will continue..and talk about beauty for a while...and let's see where that takes me..And as an extremely verbose friend of mine said ('verbose bad', not 'verbose good'....and some of my readers know who i mean...) i will pursue that flighty temptress ....adventure(which .... in turn he copied verbatim from another very famous book(Parry Otter :-P).....and yeah..reproduction in a pompous voice is another of my friend's talents....:-P)

Well enough of this...uh..well foreplay..as Inspector Clouseau would say..and let me proceed....Beauty... i think would be defined by the presence of a certain quality in an object or individual that makes it pleasing to someone's senses or mind....Again...we indians were right...sometimes..one can sense with the head as well...And as can be clearly seen through my definition( which i feel is quite complete.. and thus that excludes beauty from the said mother lode !) that the 'senser'(lol) plays an important role in this beauty..He has to be pleased, for the object/person to be beautiful....

So let us conduct an experiment ...a thought experiment ..through which we shall prove an important law regarding beauty..First of all let us assume...that the interaction between the senses and the object/person is happening for the first time...not unlike ..pulling aside some curtains..and yelling "Behold!" at the same time...By that logic..the senser..should be more precisely defined as the beholder...and then applying a very simple synecdoche ...of replacing all of the senses with just one (to make the proof statement more..elegant..beautiful dare i say ??)...say...'eyes'...( you see where i'm getting, right ?!) you arrive at one of the most fundamental theorems of beauty...
'Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder'
Now that we have this clear...let's solve some elementary problems.................
Whenever i read of beauty, or hear of it...it is the physical kind...In fact some Post modernist schools of thought..go so far as to replace the old fundamentals by new principles...chief among which is 'Beauty is skin deep' I can see where that comes from.. If one is to define beauty as that which pleases by it's presence alone...and that too..if the "Behold ! Voila!!" part is retained..then the statement that beauty is only skin deep may appear to be true...however..general biases and prejudices... and just a previous knowledge of the object of one's scrutiny..come into play as well...Of course..that is a totally different thing to analyse...However..let us assume the case of an average, unbiased individual..For him, using the second definition beauty would certainly be skin deep....But then again..would it be beauty ?? Wouldn't the very spirit of the term 'beauty' as it is used today (and that is the way it must be studied)be in violation of the fact that it is skin deep ... superficial...I think..that beauty is meant to be something ....that is permanent....unfixed ...changing..Your perception might change..but beauty never will....Hence i move that the previous argument be struck from the record...( But the prosecutor looked at each of the judges to make sure that the comment was not struck from their minds !!(ahh...the idealistic stories of perry mason !))

So beauty..comes from within as well...and one of the traits, that i felt has been vilified today by being called 'gay' by the great dumb cynical snobholes of our generation...(as most things are..!!) is niceness...kindness....Today while entering into a relationship....one thinks of all kinds of virtues and vices..(intelligence, sense of humor, beliefs etc ...but no one thinks about whether that person is nice or not....how he/she treats others..how willing they are to help someone without any ulterior motive...Well..according to me...niceness tops the list of desirable qualities...Often in school...i was reprimanded for using the adjective 'nice' to describe an individual....as it was considered to be very weak, and just barely complimentary( 0.0000000001)But to me..i think it is the nicest(:P starting now..) thing you can hear...Not to hear mothers say it....cause..well...agreed,,sometimes it is used as the compliment ..when there is no other compliment (:P)....and mothers are generally really nice!(the other nice..the good one !!)....But...really...we try to be smart, chic, cool and stuff....for once ..we should try to be nice... and if that's gay...then well...

Your place or mine ??!!

PS: I think my high school teachers will be pleased at the infinite Proverbs/Quotes/Sayings i used !

PPS: To all my nice friends....carry on the good work....

PPPS: I wanted to write more..but ...i started watching family guy ! Seth mc'farlane is GOD.... and so is Kevin smith !!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Kalki ....or...not...

It was a fine winter morning in bombay...The way a winter evening can be fine..only in bombay..Here for us...Winter was more like...Well ....not summer (and believe me...that was a relief...as all my readers who have been in bombay...and another place, during the winter, will know...) So this was a fine winter morning, as i told you.Once again..by fine, i mean the weather.....it was nice and hospitable...but my schedule....well...it was a disaster...3 lectures followed by that bane of all mechanical engineering students....workshop practice..or as it was called, in our sophomore(i love long words, don't you ?!!) year..Manufacturing Processes lab...It was the most mind numbing work that we had ever done and believe me...we were students who had cracked the IIT JEE after 2 (and in some cases 3) years of solving math and physics problems of the same type ad nauseum ( oh..and don't get me started on chemistry !) Those among us who loved to twiddle nobs and watch stuff burn, or wished to release pendulums and calibrate strain gauges.. the work seemed below their dignity...which showed from their rigid postures and disgusted expressions as they haughtily gazed at the cutting tip which spewed out metal ribbons, merrily whining all the time(!!)Those among us who had once looked forward to this course enthusiastically...hoping to see hammers and anvils awaiting us...and molten metal flowing all around(Me!Me!Me!)...rather like that Unreal tournament map...(Don't remember the name...and have absolutely no enthu to google it..) were bored by..this..job that was ...well ..it was downright pansy....

Did i say anything about my department...Oh well...now's as good a time as any other..The mechanical engineering department is the largest in iit bombay..with i think, 103 students...Well ..our professors have devised an excellent technique of instruction....something that they undoubtedly borrowed from Mother nature...Of course somewhat tuning it down...for fear of having the SPCA( Society for prevention cruelty to adolescents(though some think that the A stands for animals !) at their doors...Now..Great Mother Nature usually doesn't give any lessons at all..just takes the exam...Well here in Mech. Engg., we do have instruction (thanks to the SPCA !), but....once the exams (and then the results ) arrive..students realise..that the professors have 'done a nature' on them...for only in the end did one actually realize..what was expected...and how miserably short one had fallen of high standards....Well anyway...Now we had better reflexes, our muscles always taut, some of us having purchased (or invented ) devices that could recognize ( and awake from slumber, a student) if it recognised the word coming from the professor's mouth as 'quiz' or 'assignment'...
Anyway...i am rambling...Digressing from the main topic..the events of that afternoon's workshop class...We all assembled in the Lathe and Shaping section....all of us having postponed our baths ( some for fear of getting dirty and others...with the misplaced hope of the same !!)I was assigned to work on a lathe...to reduce the diameter of a steel (mild steel that too!....boohoo...) from 60 mm to 35 mm...which sounds very 'AWESOME !' but really involved no more manual labour than turning a small handle through several revolutions....So i started doing that...doing each task mechanically...with an extremely bored look on my face....Suddenly (oh yeah...it's always so sudden ! and in several stories...inexplicable as well !!) the whole machine broke and came crashing down on my foot ...I only had time to think...'Oh ..so that's why we're supposed to wear shoes in the workshop..Now maybe the bone will just break and not get powdered..!!' when the whole damn thing hit my foot..broke into two pieces and fell on the floor......I just stared....Then there was a flash of light....and the next thing i know..i was lying down in a room so unbelievably white...that ..well...i don't know..it was very white... okay ..(Sheesh..It's hard to come up with good similes ..)A man next to me said.."Ah.. He's awake.."in an unmistakably south indian
accent...
" Where am I?" I asked
" This is a secret government facility..."
I tuned out...The 6 words i had always dreamed of hearing...finally..albeit..i was usually in Israel and the person telling me was a ravishing dusky goddess named something like Ayala rather than a portly tamil guy in a lungi...but what the hell...
" Pardon me..i didn't hear a word that you were saying...i was..uhh....gloating....."
" Well" he said in a very patient voice " As i said.. you are in a secret government facility...You are also infinitely strong and indestructible..well...nearly.."
" Were there experiments ? Did you f***ing check my tensile strength and other shit like that ??( At the same time looking at my hands..Nope...no marks of hooks or stretch marks or the like...)..Well answer me.."
"Err..Let's not get into that shall we..."
" Why did this happen to me..Why now...and How many others are there like me.."
" As to your last question..you are one of 12 identified in the world and the only one in india..As to the former questions ...we have no idea..."
"Ohhh....Gimme a minute please..."
*** Gloat................***
"So... the other 11...they have the same powers as me ?? Indestructibility ? When do i meet them?...DO i have to train?....Are any of them..uhh...aligned against well...us...? Uhhh..who is 'us' ?"
" Well...The thing is ...Nations across the world... have infinitely many scouts in their own countries to spot..your kind...Most of them till now ...have been very amiable..."
"Not predisposed to World domination and the such you mean..."
"Uhh..Yes..."
" Ok..So tell me..What do i do ?? Join some..uh.. league of..uh.. extraordinary gentlemen?(Hey are there any..superchicks ?) Go to some other country as the cultural attache, but really spy on their government ? Help to build a ginormous (gigantic+enormous) shelter in case of tsunamis or nuclear attack ? "( Much in the fashion of "Lemme at 'em! Lemme at e'm ! Lemme splat 'em !!")

" Actually..you'll be working in a foundry at Rourkela...."
...UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE...

...VERY UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE...

" Are-You-Kidding-Me ?!"I yelled...

" No...When the first..super human was discovered...all the nations in the world agreed that the use ( I glared..)..i mean...potential of these individuals in the direction of warfare will not be ...uhh...exploited...Therefore...we have decided to give you work in a steel mill....You will be the only worker there..Your super strength and invulnerability will help you run the whole thing smoothly..Also your pay will be...."He quoted a sum..and even my eyes grew wide....
" We have prepared a cover story for you...You will be accompanied by your control...A Mr. Khanna ...He will be your guardian..till you reach the age of 21......"
" Wait a minute....So i'm supposed to work in a steel mill..using my super strength and invulnerability to scoop big ladles of hot steel and pour them into moulds and stuff like that....and just stay in a town like Rourkela all my life.."
" Well..You'll have a private jet....and an airstrip...and who knows..the political situation may change...."( Democrat in Republican clothing....!)
"And what about my friends and my family"
"Memories wiped clean....They've forgotten that you ever existed"
(Sniff Sniff !!!Oh...screw it ...who am i kidding !!)
" SO...."
I'd have to do some intense physical labour..(though how intense it would feel with my super strength i don't know....)and i would rake in the moolah...

Sigh.....

I was Happy....

****GLOAT.........****


PS: A sequel looks good...

PPS:Thanks to my inspirations..Prof. B Ravi (!),Man pro lab,Steel sterling and some high school geography !

PPPS: A lot of stuff about workshop and the mechanical department was exaggerated....though, of course...some was not.....good luck trying to guess which....

PPPPS: Seriously...please comment on this guys...cause i'm really not sure how it turned out....

PPPPPS: Sigh.......

Saturday, January 9, 2010

WTF ?!

I read an article in the paper yesterday that was written by some 12th standard student about her JEE coaching class and the intense pressure that was put on the students to clear the JEE.Something about IIT standing for Indian institute of terrorism and not Indian institute of technology....Again, today i saw that the second page of the TOI was dedicated almost completely to teen suicides...And i was thinking "WTF !"

First of all...middle class indian parents are highly enamored with IIT, some to the extent of being so obsessed that they care not what their child wants to do in life...They drive the poor sod so hard, that even if he does get through the JEE, his fundas are all messed up and he can't make full use of the opportunities that a place like iit can give him...And then he spends his life ...always over working....and it was all started by something that their parent's decided they must do..CLASSIC TRANSFERENCE !! And some poor misguided soul blames IIT ...Is it really our fault..Indian institute of terrorism..I mean i understand that misdirected anger could have caused the writer of the article to call IIT ...uh...you know what..but the guys who published it weren't stupid..were they ?I mean..Yeah..none of us is going to write a reply to that(yeah...the writer's email id had been included)...sparking a stupid..but nevertheless hilarious sparring session..Of course it could have been a seriously angry iitian (who, if i had to stereotype..would be 'a gulti(someone from andhra) that thinks he is cool'...(don't get angry yet....i specifically wrote 'stereotype') And yeah..it would most probably be a guy....We're the ones with the humongous egos....And then..what followed would have proved the writer's point... !!

Secondly: suicides !!What the hell man...I mean...I know people will come to me and say stuff like..."You know not what i've gone through.." or " You know where i come from beatch !!You ain't been hurt like i have"( Trying to emulate in writing the typical African-American actors in hollywood films ! )But i can definitely say fo sho(:D) that at 18 i don't see how life can become worthless....It's always better to live than to die..In fact...when it's the worst...Then it can't get any worse, can it ?..and...yeah..life will look up...I mean...by killing yourself, your just eliminating the non zero chance of a happy life...cause once life is over, there's no way you can be happy....It's stupid mathematically speaking...I also understand, that it's not about how much better or how much worse it can get, but rather....how bad it is...I mean..Sometimes...there's this one single point of infinite pressure...which if it were spread over a lifetime , would worry you not...but..right then..all together..is too much...It's probably the biggest flaw that a human being can be born with.. this inability to withstand tension..A stupid or crippled or evil person did draw the short straw..but it will affect them only in parts of their life...Here,this particular defect can cause you, under the right amount(lol) of stress can finish that persons life..Gone, finished, kaput, byebye.....I mean..that's too big a price to pay for one birth defect....I mean...ideally i should blame the people who are dead..but what's the point in that...and the one's to come after them will probably get even more depressed and i can't dare to write another 'Life is beautiful' post or my readers( most of them :P) will kill me....So i blame GOD...I mean..He created them that way...but then...everything that you do can be attributed to Him...If you sing well...well he gave you the talent, If you've worked hard to get a particular job..well.. he gave you that persevering nature and that capacity for hard work...But we can't ( or rather won't want to) do that..We want to claim our successes for our own and yet give God all the credit for our shortcomings...Well...I mean..You see how that's dumb right ??

You also must've noticed my obvious hints...about stereotypes ...That's another thing that i find exceedingly stupid ( yes...i seem to have quite a list don't I ? And it bothers you...well...Bite me !!) A lot of them that i specifically hate(sometimes cause i belong to them and sometimes cause i 'ought' to(!!) and sometimes...uhh..well.. just on prnciple okay !!) are girls, guys, iit guys...Guys are supposed to be all 'not sensitive' and egotist and vulgar and loud and stuff(snips and snails and puppy dog tails (yippeeeee)..Girls are supposed to be all sentimental and delicate and straitlaced and sweet..I mean..I borrow heavily from both...Does that mean i'm gay(or whatever's the accepted term..i mean hermaphrodite is too long.. (:D)) ?!! ((:P)DON'T answer that..!!! Kind of like asking someone...'Do i look like i'm stupid ?')Gults are supposed to be really studious and stuff... ( For those that aren't..i get you guys...It's really frustrating..) Where does all this come from...Once again i get that it's a natural reaction, but at least try to correct yourself by admitting it ...But i guess guys do that more often...cause they have really huge egos....

PS: Hey ! Stop calling me that....

PPS:Actually..I am gay....(SINGLE ROOM ! SINGLE ROOM !)

PPPS: OR Maybe something worse...( Does the government condone homosexuality ??)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

THE ICE BREAKERS




Here is the pic of the ice that we broke