A conversation…

“I feel tired, a lot of pressure from the top.” My dad complained.

I had called him to have chit-o-chat on the way to my lab and usually my dad is always in light mood. But today was different.

“I feel like quitting”, he sounded disappointed.

“Then do it”. He wouldn’t have expected this from me.

“…And come stay with you over there?” .now he was coming down to usual mood.

“Why not? , I could get a quarters inside the campus” I questioned him back.

“Is it possible ?” Now he was really poking me.

“ ya if I get married, I would be eligible for one ….or it doesn’t matter I can rent an apartment outside”. I played along.

“you getting married?”. My dad was back into action.

“why not ?..” I was curious to know.

“Now a days they don’t have a arranged marriage system here and moreover you don’t have a girlfriend to hope for.” he was digging deep.

“I did have….” I protested.

“But you left her…” he said.

“I had constraints dad “. I retorted back.

“You didn’t have any, in my days I left many because I had so called constraints” he quoted.

“I had a career to go after…” This was getting on to serious mode now.

“Couldn’t the career and love gone together?”. he was not going to leave it.

“Could have….and I realize it now. But then life doesn’t have a retake. I learned it the hard way…Surely I do regret. But can anything be done now? “. I had stopped walking.

“ya …you could …just go after the next girl you see in front” . He was again my cool, hippy dad.

“What???..” . I was laughing out loud.

I started walking again.

Alone.

31:159.9 Sie

The library was not empty on that Saturday morning. The timing had been extended to 1:00 AM, said a notice on the sidewall to entrance. There were numerous bags and umbrellas lying on the shacks. Security dint allow them to be inside. It was a rule, one he tried so many times to break, but couldn't. He kept the bag in the rack and took his note-taking diary.

He knew what he wanted. It was a book on statistics and he knew the accession number as well as its location number. 31:159.9 Sie. But as this location number was not his turf he had to confirm before going for the search.Usually staff were less on Saturdays. The girl behind the counter was new, he hadnt seen her before.

Good Morning, Can you tell me where 31.1591.9 is ? he asked in a mild tone.
Its behind the reference section, ground floor. she said without even looking at him.
Thank you - he had long decided to be polite to the world which didnt deserve it.

The section behind reference section was the place where all grandpa books sat, it smelled of old dust. Touched and savored by many, most of the books were senile and on their death bed. There were lines of racks extending throughout that long hall. Once they had lot of spaces in between them, But now time and knowledge forced them to be more closer. He started looking for rack 31.There was 29, 30, 32,33....but no location number with 31. He was behind the schedule and wanted to complete a part very urgently. key to which lay in some pages of 31.1591.9 sie.

Sorry, but i cant find rack 31. Can you help me please?. He said to the lady at counter.
After a killing stare, she said: Its there only, you should look carefully.
He missed the usual old librarian, she was very sweet and helping.
He walked back to hall and started searching again. After half an hour of unsuccessful search he went back disdainfully.




It was raining heavily. Two days had passed after the unfaithful tryst. He was groping in the darkness, without 31.1591.9 sie he was not able move forward. Once again he went on his hunt for 31.1591.9 sie.

He was relieved to see the old librarian, sitting with her huge specs and looking at some random issue cards. She smiled at him. He had long noticed ago this, she smiled at everybody. May be world still believed in respect, he thought.

I am not able to find this book - 31.1591.9 sie, he said.
Oh , thats behind the reference section. She came with me to reference section.
Like an adroit swiming in her lanes, she meandered through the racks. After some time, the easeness was lost. She too was like me, confused.

Where is this , it should be somewhere here. she kept saying.
Lets ask Hariram, she said with a disappointment.

Hariram was the oldest serving helper of the library. They saw him in the corner, laggardly chewing the beetle. He just glanced at the piece of paper he showed him. And Like a robot, started walking towards rack 301. Towards the middle, on the lower rack he showed him that precious beauty he was searching for - 31.1591.9 sie, Accession No:18831.

The book was old and was once used very frequently and carelessly.
What is it about?. She took the book from him and started glancing around.

First published in 1960 and last issued in 1984, the year he was born.
But you are not a Psychology student - she exclaimed.
The book deals with statistics and psychology, its one of the latest holy grail of Computer science. He said with a smile, looking at the other books in that column.

Somebody from the main desk called for the librarian and she walked back with the book in her hand. Hariram had long gone to his cozy enclave.

And he was still standing there, gleaming at the other books he could reach for.

Matheran Trek

5 in the morning. And I was still awake in my bed.

That’s when, from the remotest corner, I heard that. Go to Matheran.

Matheran is a hill station, about 60 km away from Mumbai. One of the best things about this place is its red soil. Discovered by British and used by them during the dry summers during the pre-independent era as a summer vacation home, it is one of the finest trekking hot spot in Maharashtra.

Since all of my friends were busy dreaming, I thought why not make this trip all alone. And so I packed my backpack and hit on the road in no time.

My immediate destination after getting down at a station called Karjat was Borgaon, a village on the foothills of Matheran. There are 8 known trekking path to Matheran, and one through the Borgaon was the most picturesque and little steeper than the rest.


There was slight drizzle when I started the ascend; it was almost 10 km trek along the hill. Being alone has its own advantage, there is nobody to slow you or pace you up. The trail was a beaten one, I guess it was regularly used by the villagers.

The climb was little unique , I felt like walking along the spine of large dinosaur. On either side of ridge, there was nothing to hold on if I had slipped. But the view – it was fantastical.

About a Km ahead I could see a group of people ascending the hill, I was wondering how they could climb that steep. They must have lost their way, I thought. After walking for another hour I realized I was wrong. It was a small stream and I was climbing it ….straight up.




There was an instance during where I doubted my steps. My shoes was not a proper trekking one, wee hours I had didn’t fore think this part. I did slip before reaching summit; luckily I got hold of a branch before falling down….felt very good, cheating death.

Matheran is basically a plateau and there are different tourist spot there itself. The place I came to was called one tree point. It was called so, because on ascend to summit, where except for a tree, there is nothing.

Apart from the climb, it was just another tourist hot spot. The same old malign commercial web was crawling around. Before the sun went home, I took my descend. This time it was more fun. I took the road, off course walking.

It was a winding road for almost 10 Km, and as I didn’t have had the patience to take all the hare pins I slipped through cross road thinking it was a short cut. I soon realized I had lost my way. It was getting dark and there was some kind of trail and I just followed them blindly. After about an hour and a half I reached a place called Narul. And from there I took a train back.
At around 10 in the night, I was back in the campus.

Google and Me

Google. I have realized that I cannot live without it.

Not a single day goes without going to this site. In fact I believe I access this very site every 10 minutes of my present day life. What I search ? Pretty much everything. News, articles, blogs, and anything interesting and anything that I didn’t know.

I remember the first time when I searched in Google – it was darn slow. Though don’t remember what that search was for. Although I guess it was for porn :P

But I do remember what the last search was for – conversational maxims. And today was the day in which I had used it to the limit – every other word in the article I am reading is new, who coins the word like conversational implicature, systemicity and compositionality. Thanks to Brin and Page for giving Google, she, (yap it’s a female), had the answer for everything (muah!!).

I sometimes thing why not have a Google API infused into our brain, at least we can stop using our eyes to track the result of the search. Yes, I know my daughter, ya it will be a daughter, will be using the same.

Sometime back, I had dedicated one day entirely to Google – know all-about-Google day. And it was then I learned about Stanford story, the first data store, the page rank , the HITS ,teleport vector, rank convergence, the crawling , the SEO industry, Ad sense and almost everything related to Google and just today about Caffeine too . I realized that it’s like a giant spider which had data about everybody on this planet. Just imagine a day when Google just crashes. It would be worse than a 1000 catastrophe hitting the mankind together.

After writing the above line, I just wonder, should we allow this? I say NO!. I don’t want to be a slave of anybody. This is what I would call a digital slavery. A technical blasphemy that is slowly killing mankind’s ability to think in a comprehensive pragmatic manner with patience. It’s nothing but making the whole world follow a pattern subjecting to dictation of a chosen few. We are at mercy of a mammoth machine to know what we want. And god knows whether it’s really showing us everything that we need.

I forgot the last time I took a book to find the word that I needed to find. Earlier when I look for a word I used to find another 10 words adjacent to it in a dictionary. Now the did you mean………. is just killing my vocabulary.

I need to stop. And so I have decided to stop using Google (for a day :)), starting from now.

So the word was conversational maxims….where the heck is index for this book!!!!

pic curtsy: http://www.ecofriendlyinternship.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/evil-google-logo.jpg

No name.

Kasargod, a small town in north Kerala, was my destination. And I wanted to be there at exactly in between 4 and 5. PM. In theory, the light during that time is the best: it’s soft, dense and so full of life. I wished for one more thing; to have a rain while I was there. So my overall wish was to see Bekal fort in the evening with a slight drizzle.

And if the dream was realized, I promised myself photos which captured my caption – loneliness and me.

I was not alone. But then there was nobody with me also.

And nuisance of English language is that even though pragmatics allowed many words that I could coin out, semantics restated that it would be just lonely.

As soon I stepped into the fort, it started drizzling, as if welcoming me.

The fort transpired another side of it, from being bastion of defense; it showed me its tender side of veiled love and serenity. If there was anything that I could describe as beautiful, it was that.

My camera clicked from the moment I entered, effortlessly and incessantly. One after the other frame of the same story was written and re written in those clicks. There were families, friends, couples, and kids. They had come Sunday outing, to bask in the sun and then to have bath in the sea. I wish I too hadn’t come alone. But then I wouldn’t have been happy otherwise too. A companion, my friend had once told me, was there to talk about things which would seem silly but later on is what you would judge as life.

I climbed to one of the old outpost overlooking the sea, and sat there. Behind me, I heard laughter of some happy couple. Even though it was my first trip there, countless dreams of me picturing just the way I was, came flashing to me.

I smiled. May be this is my life.

Something new....

I sing.

But not outside my bathroom.

Don't know how could i do it in a sober state. But the damage is already done.

A new mess up :)



Pathira Mazha etho | Online recorder

I don't know.

“And what would you say when the same dream comes to you, repeatedly day after day, for 8 years” he sounded desperate.

And desperate was he.

“May you yourself created that obsession, until it got embossed somewhere in your sub conscious that she is the one”. She said from the other end of the phone.

“May be I created, but somewhere there was this belief that I was right, because not everything is logical and cannot be explained.”, He wanted to say it loud, but somewhere in his throat, that voice caught trapped and it never came out.

“I need to go, its getting late”. He wanted to avoid this conversation, as usual.

“Ok, then…. good night, take care.” She too had enough of it.

There were numerous things he failed to understand. Or rather he didn’t want to be understood.

During all these failures, he was acting according to the norms and pragmatics. But, nevertheless, it....... failed.

And that’s when he learned logic doesn't always gives you an explanation of about what’s happening. The more he tried to decipher it, the more muddled it became.

And that’s when he started believing it. Just like that. And he knew that its quite an impossible task to make somebody understand what one believes in. Only thing he can show them is how to live through it. And yes, he had to live through it, because only he believes in it.

PS:I know ...it sucks !!!

pic Courtsey:Bakfire

Review

Sid...what do you think...?, would you accept this paper or not? . Prof was curious to know.

And there stopped his heart. "Yes. I would." He said hesitantly.

"Why? ". Prof was curious again.
"It had a better result than the baseline, and idea xyz was indeed a stroke of genius". He didnt know from where these words were coming.

For that last comment, all 28 pair of eyes of young and old researchers turned towards him. He melted in that last row seat....like a wax.

He was happy to go unnoticed in these meeting in last seat, until that moment, when his Prof thought he was sleeping during that lecture. Prof was discussing about a research paper that came for review under his panel and he wanted to know what they thought about it.

" I agree". His prof never expected this from the last bencher.
He looked over his shoulders and beamed.


Then prof went to on to another paper. This time he was up with my ears standing, he could even hear the sound of the vibrator of his friend's phone, who was sitting two- row-in-his-front.

After the discussion, again the same question.

"I dint fully understood it sir. "He said with all his innocence.

Prof nodded and He had won that round.

Most of the people around said most of the contend went above their head.

The one hour weekly session got over very quickly before anybody could find a time to yawn...except him. And everybody started to leave except for few whose doubt wouldnt be cleared in their life time. Like bees buzzing around the hive, they surrounded the prof.

He waited till all the commotion was over.

"Sir"..... "yes".

"Did you accept that first paper". He asked him.

He smiled and said that he did. He too was happy,but didnt know for what ...may be some kind of hidden sense of achievement.

As he was leaving, prof added "I too didnt understood that second paper when i read it for the first time" . This time his joy was all over his face.

He decided not sit in that last bench anymore.

What if....


What if god made only one woman for your life.

What if you met that woman one day.

What if you understood it was her.

What if you loved her so much that you didn't know how to express it.

What if one day she said good bye and left you.

What if you thought she would come back one day.

What if you waited so long that everybody thought you were going insane.

What if one day you knew she would never come back.

What if ....

picture courtesy:Mike

Totally misunderstood!

You cut my call???? she fumed.
Do you what it means when a guy hangs a girl's phone?? I was speechless on the other side.

I....sorry....am......I ...dddint...meanttt...you ...knnnowww..

And mind your language when talking to a girl !! how can you use such a derogatory language....
do you know what it means...it means good for nothing. Am I something like that ???" Now I was sweating inside that air conditioned room.

when did i use any word like that??? - I was racking my skull.

You better change your talking style Mr, grow up!!! The mercury had crossed normal limits long a ago.

And without saying anything more she just hanged the phone.

I was trying to comprehend what had just happened. After a minute or two I regained my conscious self.

"What did i do?" just like any other guy's thought. Gals - do we really belong to same species?

Broken Promises.

Promises are meant to be broken. And he broke one again.

He called her.

May be he shouldn't have called, but he had to hear that voice one last time, before she was somebody else.

He didn't had to remember the number, only forgotten needs to be remembered.

As the ring went on the other side, he prayed that she never pick it up, because whatever he prayed for.... never happened.

Her voice hadn't changed, he could see those lines across the lips while saying that,he didnt have to see her, for she was always there.


"Hello!" he said, he didn't quiver.

"Do you recognize me?" what an absurd question!!

After a brief pause " is it Sid?" she asked.

He started counting the years..... 4 in this May and still she remembers,........ and all these years he thought only he didn't forget.

A new beginning..

It was raining on that day. And it was raining after a long dry spell. The smell of the warm earth washing away its aridness was ecstatic. I was sitting near the window with a coffee in my hand. The power had gone and the sound of thousands of droplets falling was carving a soothing music. I loved rain very much. Back at home, I used to watch it for hours from my easy chair. I saw different patterns of rivulets in making as quickly as it washed away. And harmonic acoustics that played in between sometime made me a conductor, during that time I was the Mozart and I was the Beethoven. Sometimes tiny bits of moisture made its way onto my face, like as if we were playing hide and seek. Years later when I bought my first bike, rain was another experience. Then we played robber and police, from far behind, through my rear view mirror I could see it coming. I would accelerate to beat it and may win for a few streets but eventually it would catch me. And I still remember, it would rain on the day I would have washed my bike, making it all muddy again. Ha ha ha I miss my bike and I miss the rain that made it muddy. But there was time when I hated rain, when I would curse with all the foul words that I knew against it. Those were days when I hated white colour too, on Wednesdays we had this physical training classes where it was compulsory to wear all white – I hated Wednesday too then. Like an uninvited guest, rain would come from the north and make my dress all spoiled, later that day my mother would be bashing me up for no cause of mine. But over the years I developed a relation with the rain which howsoever large umbrella tried to stop, waned into nothingness. And one among the few things I always dream is driving alone along a high Tropical Mountain in the company of a drizzle and stopping near road side shack for having a hot cup of tea. I loved that rain as it always takes me to my utopia.

But somehow the rain in front of me was different, it was not dancing to some tune made in heaven , it was as if pouring down just to wash away the dryness and make the earth ready for next harvest. Not far from my window there is a giant tree and during spring it used to bear beautiful yellow flowers. The tree was so huge that I never thought I could miss it at any time of the day. But in this rain I tried hard to see it, but I couldn’t. Infact I couldn’t see anything beyond five feet.

Maybe it rained for hours, when I woke up my coffee was cold. And not very far I could see that giant tree. But everything had changed; there was freshness which had avoided the place long time ago. Power had come back, I had forgotten to switch of the television and weatherman saying about slight chances of a drizzle that evening.

And I forgot.

There are decisions that make you think after years later.
And that time, you would say "I wish I hadn't...".
Life gives you many like that, but it just moves on ....to make a retrospection some time ahead.
Only common thing i find are the retrospection that we make from time to time, Whether it was right or wrong - it doesn't matter at all.

And right now, I am not taking a peep into the past, but into the future. To know if i would subject this decision for retrospection years later.......and i conclude that I would. And whatever the decision, i believe only time could tell if it was right or wrong. And even if it was right, my mind would definitely looking for a better right then....after all, I am a mere human.


Never to remember, forgotten she will be...from this moment.
Chapters of years to come, written with tears of yester...starts now.
Life been never easy, and easy doesn't i assume further.....just moving ahead.
But forgotten she should be, lest i remember her always....
To sleep I am going, with dreams for sure.....but not her though.

zeros and my life.

Drowsy look, almost bald head, bulging eyes, dark circle and to compliment all these - stinking,dirty white shirt. The picture you get: a highly intelligent and nerdy studyaholic

But alas except for such a look on some days, I am no where near those last said adjectives.

Take 1: Pattern recognition Mid semester exam.

Only during exam I enter the lecture hall before time.Reason: to get those precious "safe zones" for sitting. But alas some crooks also thinks like me and there I was on the first bench!


Prof. come in with the holy grail, and distribute one drop in the most judicious way so as to save institute and his household a penny or more.
what?? was this in the syllabus, ...syllabus- there is nothing like that over here. Aha! I know the second one - but sh*t i forgot to bring the calculator. 3rd ,4th -the question itself is page long, i wonder how long would the answer be!!!....at least i should do the last question - what in the world is the projection of perpendicular to a hyperplane got to do with the margin of SVM(non techies:support vector machines, and no they are not machines! another computer naming gimmick )?????
The exam was out of 15 marks and I had to complete in one hour: well if did know how to complete those problems in one hour i would never have been here in the first place!

And before I could think(imagine!) one hour was over. If I was STUDYING the same subject it would have felt like I was sitting for hours even if it was few minutes, but during exam time its the inverse proportionality that runs!!!!

I never had a blank paper (off course everybody can lie and in gates of heaven, i know, he will forgive me for telling one more!).Prof gave me a stare after seeing my paper - I was ashed down and cremated to eternity then and there.

Thus came my FIRST zero(lord pardon me for this one too!)

Take 2: web mining and information retrieval Mid semester exam.

Mother called me in the morning to tell me that i am having a bad time according to my horoscope.She paid 250bucks for knowing that from an astrologer. Well I knew it two days before itself. Only thing to know was how bad it will get.

After a break of 2 days I was all pumped up(to run away!) for this exam.
Everybody said the paper would be nothing but probability and vector calculus, sounds interesting eh? (in a loud speaker:HELP!!!!!) . And to avoid mental blocks when you see that sign of nemesis (pr()- read probability of) you need to be calm and composed - well that was the advice from well pundits of this field. So conclusion was that to watch as many new releases possible and roam around the campus without taking a peek into at least the basic syllabus.
But things weren't that easy...How to make yourself composed when you are bombarded with poisoned arrow that corrupts your mind in believing just one possibility among N propositions - again probability theory .

When prof gave me the question ...uh question-cum-answer sheet i was surprised to see a THINKS TO READ stuff before the questions started.

1. Answers(if solved of course) should be given in the space provided
2. incoherent or illogical answer(if anything comes into ur woody brain!) will be penalized with negative credit and worse than not answering(you said you take it!)
3. Dont ask for extra rough sheet, given is sufficient(well i write in large font)

After threat and warnings I looked the black board. There was a caution " question are in approx easy first order". well that would save some time.

so I don't have to start from the last question as i do(Lord forgive me for that one!)

Question 1: is that english ? what language is that ? sure there is spelling or font mistake!! If this is the case for first question , god save me from massacre!
Question 2: contains 5 sub questions with each next pointing to the answer from the previous question - clever i would say. damn doesn't he want to answer any of these questions????
Question 3,4,5 - I didn't know any!

The more i tried to concentrate, i became all the more confused. The probability of choosing correct probability was thinning down with high probability!! And the only probability left to calculate after 2 hours was whether i would be getting a zero or a negative mark. But aint I smart ? I didn't answer any of them- phew! saved the shame of getting a negative mark(I swear I haven't got a negative mark in my whole life so far!!!)

Just when I thought 2 hrs is finally going to be over. Prof says in a stentorian voice " I know the paper was tough, so here is your bonus - you can take 90 more minutes." Oh man! the paper is seriously tough and damn I need to sit here for another one and half hours more.

So I sat and counted seconds inside those one and half hours dreaming about my upcoming zero.

Take 3: Now dont tell me I will be getting one more of that wonderful ancient Indian masterpiece !! Damn the one who invented zero, no wonder nobody knows him...after all he has been cursed so many times !

2008: Something to forget....

All the things that you did, or wished to do.
All the things that you remembered, or remembered to forget.
All the things that changed, or changed to change.

I wish I was just a mere drop in the rivulet that fell from high above into the eternity below. To be with you again is my wish and so couldn't I in that year.

In the hope of meeting you starts a new year and year after year I cherish the same new year resolution : to be with you, to walk on our breezy beach, to see the sunset once again.

Melancholy night asked me not to dream, because dreams, she says, are for the ones who has lost hope. But here i am, waiting to see you again as ever as last year and may be the next .......until that day.

Paradox it may be but moment after moment I remember you lest I forget you. And when I meet you I will have stories to tell you.

Oh 2009 , I look forward for you.

My inspiration: a lovely piece of music

Once again...

Sand walls with its air of misty musk welcomed him again.

The gharana hadn’t changed a bit, but there was no resounding voice of khansahib to greet him this time, instead his old mellowed tampura was there. Besides it was a lamp that sometimes flickered by the unannounced gentle breeze that came through the veranda. “Have some chai” tai said in her usual caring tone from behind. She made the best chai he ever had, after every hour khansahib used to call tai for a chai and she, like an obedient wife, would get him one within minutes, whether it be dawn or midnight. Sometime he too used to get a cup. He missed those days…dearly.

Bhoop, Bihagda ,Bhairavi …..khayals, taans ….whatever khansahib taught him flashed like it was yesterday. He missed them, and khansahib loss was something irreparable to him.He didnt know what , but there was void, Just like as if furniture had been taken away from your home. He remembered the first time when his mother forcefully carried him all the way from cricket ground to this courtyard. He detested it and in fact had cursed his mother and khansahib endless time in his mind.

But that was long ago, somewhere in between there was a time when he would even bunk school to be with Khansahib. He still vividly remembered his first live performance, behind khansahib on tempura after his splendid discourse, it was his turn. He started off in purvi raga although there was flattening at the first he thought it went well, until after coming from the concert, when khansahib made him sing the raga for more than 4 hours at a stretch. Somewhere in between, with all those thousand compromises he made with life, Music was also unconditionally left out.

After spending another one hour there he prepared to leave, when tai gave him a present. It was small dilapidated note book. “He wanted you to have it” tai said. It was his music notes, some composition, drupads from his master. He eyes swelled with tears, without saying a goodbye to tai he walked away.It was already getting dark, and from behind, he thought he heard a faint sound of a tampura. He stopped and turned back. Tai waved him good bye.

Reference: Namita Devidayal ,The music room

I will retaliate

This is my country. It is my duty to protect her and yet again I failed. I don’t blame anybody, I don’t blame the politicians, I don’t blame the intelligence and I don’t blame the system. I blame myself. It was my failure to protect her, it was my inability rather it was my complacency that gave away her this time.

But let me assure you, if you are reading this, let the message be clear. I don’t want to see anymore blood stained roads, I don’t want to see anymore charred bodies, I don’t want to see anymore wailing of my mothers and sisters. I don’t want to see all this anymore.
Time for being laid back and switching the channels and consoling myself that it’s not me out there who lost his life is over.

Remember we too are human, the limit of patience that I have is same as yours and its same adrenaline that pumps my temper. Deep down there is something even I don’t like to see. Now, time for you to choose is over and it’s my turn. And If choose, god forbid, that ugly face over diplomacy there won’t be no tomorrow for you.

I promise that.

So stop messing with my nation and get the bloody FUCK out of my country.

Jai Hind!