LIVEMORCHA zindabad!!

Okay, there is this popular and supposedly influential petitiononline thing. But then, come on, how much would lending a keyboard-typed-signature to a webpage full of names qualify as a proper protest?? We Indians are used to bandhs, rasta-rokos, rasta-rok'ing' processions, strikes, dharnas and the kind. A protest should be marked by slogan-fest, placards (including both the sense and nonsensical ones), hands raising asynchronously, voices screaming, tv cameras flocking leading to breaking newsy headlines.

And yeah, those in India and interested (meaning having no other work or job or being a fledgling politician) do that too ... But what can the hated (not the antonym of love but as in hat-ed i.e wearing hat), shortsed (same rule as hat'ed), goggles and nike/adidas (reebok is ignored since its owned by adidas :P) wearing, $£€ earning non-resident Indians do to convey their opinion ? How can those 10 hours away frm IST supposed to protest to the Indian govt about their policies or the global food price rise? They need a medium too right? You can't expect them to fly in from California to Kolkatta .. participate in the one-day strange turn-taking-hunger-strike (which I think is not just a medium of protest but a temporary solution for the food price rise :P) and then go back to CA the next day!

Thus, taking these pressing issues into account, Mythalez proudly announces his proposed venture 'livemorcha.in'. As the name suggests, it will be a website where you can live in a morcha, live (the former 'live' is pronounced as leav and the latter as liev). It is the place on the web where you can espouse your support to various political/social causes by choosing to participate in various protests/processions online through your avatar.

Sounds a-maze-ing? How does it work? Every registered user can create his/her avatar (the online presence which is composed of an image that can be modified as per the controller's wishes using silly javascript based options). And any major minor or nonexistent protest that is planned anywhere in the country will entered into the site. And any user who wants, can prod his avatar to join that protest. The user also has the option of choosing or entering his/her own slogans that he/she wants the avatar to scream out while protesting. Ofcourse, the users also have the option of designing their own placards (some traditional templates will be provided to get them started). At this point, you might want to applaud this awesome idea, but are unable to do so because a seemingly niggle seems to be haunting your understanding - how can a virtual image actually protest?

Elementary dear What-son. There will be a webpage (hosted on livemorcha itself) that is created for every protest and remains viewable for the duration of the protest. This webpage is basically a audio-visual stream of the hoards of avatars protesting for that particular cause. The slogans will be shouted .. the avatars will be pushing each other ... falling down .. raising the placards and doing everything else that is expected of them.

The mechanism that will force the recipient and concerned officials to actually be forced to watch this webpage continuously is, as yet, in its final stages and will be announced shortly (is currently undergoing vigorous laboratory trials ... volunteers for acting as the beleaguered officials are invited). Moreover, until this mechanism is released (graduates from the beta stage), livemorcha corporation (CEO/chairman - Mythalez) does undertake that it will place appropriate screens and speakers at the requisite place of protest to relay, live (as in liev), the support of the interested users, via their avatars, to the actual physically present protesters and do its bit to add to the numbers and the decibels of the 'morcha'.

Financial investors for the venture, volunteers for website development and maintenance and users are welcome! Website launch date will be announced shortly!! People are encouraged to actively and vigorously protest against the expected delay .. just to be fit and well practiced.

The awesome points of the trip

Yep, so I decided to list out some of the things that felt awesome on my trip back home :) .. in no particular order:

↑ eating pani-puri .. twice in Bangalore (apparently its now Bengaluru .. which I didn't know!), once at Gokul chat in Hyderabad and once at home :D.
↑ spending all night playing cards with friends.
↑ driving (riding rather) around Hyderabad on the bike and nourishing my deprived lungs with the polluted air :).
↑ obviously, eating Hyderabadi biryani ... did that 4 times over the 3 weeks.
↑ walking along the not-so-great-smelling Necklace Road with a friend and then getting drenched in an sudden strong shower and then spotting the rainbow.
↑ sleeping for atleast 11 hours everyday.
↑ talking and/or meeting with a few school friends after a couple of years.
↑ having lunch and dessert with two of the closest friends ever.
↑ browsing through the book shop in the new Hyderabad airport and then coming across 'The Calcutta Chromosome', a book that I had wanted to read since a long long time.
↑ finally, coming back to the house in Southampton and it feels like returning home too!

The journey and the new Hyd airport

The journey to Hyderabad with transit at Colombo:

Early morning bus at 5am from university to Heathrow airport. I am all alone in the university bus station which is open air and the air was freezing. There was not a soul to be seen on my 15 min walk to the bus station from home and no one seen even during the wait for the bus. And then it snowed. As if it was snowing just for me. Given that it rarely snows here (like once a year), it was awesome to look at the university through the white speckles in the air.

I tend to sleep a lot during flight journeys .. but my next seat neighbour seemed intent on breaking all possible records. He was asleep throughout the 10 1/2 hour journey to Colombo. He refused to wake up for meals, shooing away the air-hostesses like flies. He was woken up once, by a determined air-hostess so that his chair can be set upright by her, but before she could do this 2 -second task .. he went back to sleep and had to be woken up again!

Colombo airport has a lot of security personnel .. we obviously know why! Srilanka is very very green when seen from air .. perhaps like Kerala? (can't say for sure since I have never been to Kerala :D). From air, saw Srilanka's northern coastline and then India's southern coastline including the arc ... was wondering whether I was looking at Kanyakumari?

Finally, land at Hyderbad's swanky new airport, one of the first few flights to do so. It is so far from the city that the city wasn't at all visible from air during descent. After landing, we all had to wait in the flight for quite some time since the aerobridge (the one we walk through to reach the building from the plane) could not be attached easily and took like 20 mins. Anyways, we then go into the building to be faced with locked glass doors. Apparently it was the opening on this particular gate. So there was a lot of paraphernalia with saree clad girls ready to give roses and put teekas .. photographers all set to click us walking in and so on. All these people were on the other side of these locked glass doors. And then the officials on that side started their frantic search for the keys. No one had them! So, they were all shouting into their walkie-talkies :D. Comments from the passengers on this side about inaugurating the doors by breaking them open did not please the officials either :D. Finally, one guy comes to the rescue ala the key-maker of Matrix :D. Later, there were almost no immigration officials, people could have just walked through quickly since the few officials were crowded by impatient passengers and had no clue what was going on :D.

The return journey:

The 30km journey to the airport took an hour and half. That too on a lazy sunday afternoon. However, this time I had a good look at our airport and it did look pretty good. It matched the standards of a good international airport. Infact, it was very much like a good midsized airport found in western Europe :). Now for the details --

£. The arrivals is on the lower level and the departures on the upper level just like the old airport. However, the arrivals area for the people waiting is an open air lounge with lots of places to sit and a few shops so that people can relax while waiting and not be up on their feet all the time like it used to be.

£. Only passengers are allowed into the airport as in any other Indian airport. I guess this policy will remain until the number of people coming to send off a person reduces from 10 to say 0, 1 or 2 :D. Anyway, the check-in hall is impressive, even had self check-in machines (not yet put to use).

£. The immigration counter official surely needs some training (atleast in reading). While searching for my UK visa, he chances upon the Swiss visa and enquires whether it was the UK one (when its clearly written Suisse on it and wasn't completely in english) and then when I point out the correct visa to him, he is unable to find the validity-date and turns to me for help again. No, the valid-until date is not hidden anywhere but very clearly visible on the visa at the position where all the visas I have seen until now have it (top right corner).

£. The airport seems to have 35 departure gates (thats a huge increase from the 4-5 earlier :P) of which some 12 must be for international. The whole area had a lot of seats around and good, well placed air-conditioners. There are many shops too. And surprise of surprises, it has a Hard Rock bar, which is already open! However, since we have very few international flights from Hyd, the whole international departure area was quite deserted.

£. The main 'Indianness' that you can find at the airport is the abundance of staff around :P

Waiting at Colombo airport for the connecting flight wasnt too boring as they were showing K3G on all the TVs there. In hindi with sinhalese subtitles and bemused western travellers.

what can I do next week? Go home! :D

13 Thursday night: Suddenly realise that you have nothing planned for the easter break from 20-25th and you dont feel like sleeping it away as you had initially assumed. So start searching for possible things to do:
? Already bored of touring western Europe, so rule out that option.
? Flights to Scandinavian countries are too costly now (obviously .. should have booked much earlier), so rule out the option.
? Adventure or activity trips within UK all need more than 5 days or atleast 3 week advance booking or need to wait for summer for the so-called better weather. Rule out the option.
? Go home? Booking flight tickets to India just a week before travel will definitely cost a fortune! Nice challenge right? So start searching.
? Keep searching and searching .. almost all return flights to Hyderabad from London (whichever airlines and via whichever city) cost around than £500 or more.
? Finally after 4 hours, find one which costs just a bit more than £400. Not too bad. But going to India seriously? If yes, should at least go for 3 weeks. But then what about all the work here? and my supervisors and so on? Lets sleep on it

14 Friday morning: Wake up and immediately realise that ought to go home since its been more than 15 months anyway.
? Go to lab and then mail the supervisors saying you will be away for 3 weeks.
? Get the okay from the second supervisor .. and since the first one is away to a conference, book the tickets anyway without waiting for the primary approval :D
? Booked the tickets! Flying on next saturday 22nd march.
? Start informing friends, no one had expected me to go home before july ... neither did I

! Not told parents yet, maybe it's a surprise ??
! Plan a small trip to Bangalore for one of the two weekends that I would be in India. Why? To meet friends and also because I have been to Tokyo, London, Paris, Geneva, Frankfurt whatever but not yet to Bangalore :D

17 Monday: Inform some of the lab friends about your unexpected trip and amaze them with you whimsical decision :D.

20 Thursday: Decide to write a blog post about the 'impending trip' to announce it to the world :P
! Just came to know that the new airport at Hyderabad will be functional from 23rd morning .. so I would be one of the first bakras :-s Or is it that they have opened a new airport just for me? :P

And finally just hope that this journey passes more smoothly than the earlier trip to India which involved waiting at Heathrow for 8 hours and then missing the connecting flight at Mumbai and then having to run around the two airports of Mumbai for a replacement flight to Hyderabad :).

edit: screw Pati. If this post sucked, its because of him

work-wise updates ....

I realised that there have been only two posts labelled "work-wise" ever since I moved to the UK and started working towards my PhD i.e more than 18 months now. Prior to that, according to the statistics :P, I seem to have written 28 posts in the two years of blogging at IIIT. Quite unusual, because I feel PhD provides with many many interesting anecdotes too. But I guess, I never felt the inclination to blog about them :-s.

Okay, so where should I start? Or maybe I can just put in bullet points in chronological order?

»» I wrote the first paper of my PhD and got it accepted in a workshop of Aamas. Not a big deal at all .. but I had a paper in a workshop of Aamas 2006 and another one in another workshop of Aamas 2007. So with this paper, I complete a hat-trick :D .. though this will be first time I will be presenting the paper ... So Portugal .. me shall be coming in may !

»» After writing this paper, I started working on my mini-thesis. Completed it a few weeks ago, by producing a book-like document of 103 pages ... a century! woo hoo!! :D

»» The mini-thesis is followed by a viva (mini-defence? :D). So I had to submit a copy to the examiner .. who scrutinized it for a good three weeks. And then, we had the grand viva ... me, the examiner (an internal guy .. one whom I already knew), and my two supervisors. The purpose of this minithesis+viva activity is to decide whether to
- let me proceed towards my phd by concluding that my progress over the past 18 months was good enough
- kick me out with an mphil by finding that my progress does not match up to the expectations
- give me a bit more time to produce an improved minithesis and conduct another viva

and the result is obvious :P. So, now I am officially, half a doctor :P lets say I learnt the philosophy part .. now just need a doctorate :D.

And yeah (instead of PS): did a very instinctive thing on a whim today .. and am I glad that I did! :D.

a facade again

something thats going on
where how why and when
I know not of these all
but I know it is all wrong

louder, louder it goes on
cries unheard, ears deafened
I close my eyes to see the dark
I seek the quiet to hear the song

tear the mask I always don
see through me at the real am
I am afraid, but I show it not
am alone, though people among

scared to open, I simply con
but you know me to see truth
I will never ask for it ever
but you better help me along

tag post after a long time !

thanks to AG/CC, one of the few who actually gets me to do tag posts ... here we go:

10 things I miss in my life (in no particular order)

= being able to disappear, yet have company
= not having to wear shoes every time I step outside
= Indianised chinese food, hyderabadi food, the yummy breakfast of dosa, idly vada .. you get the point!
= being surrounded by friends, every hour, every day
= seeing only familiar faces all over the campus, being recognised by everyone.
= the 18 hours sleep days at home
= hot awesome vadas every time I go home in the mornings
= a head that is without a constant blabbering voice inside it
= the incessant urge to read books, newspapers .. everything
= pure simple ecstasy, for no reason

10 things I want to achieve in a decade from now:

= learn to drive and then an awesome convertible and long drives
= to have dabbled in various professions successfully
= visit Antartica
= a wonderful companion (achieve? :-s)
= a book of fiction
= learning to not do the "run away from people and then feel lonely" routine
= look strong enough that people finally stop asking me to eat and eat
= have a farm house to go to, whenever I feel like escaping the madness
= Be busy enough for long periods of time, so that I am finally forced to start making schedules
= do atleast one impossible thing

while it was very easy to come up with the things I miss, it took me a lot of time, to cobble up 10 things I want to do in the next 10 years. Not so surprising, considering that I am not the future-plan-making type.
And I tag:

sreejith
pati
obelix
kunal
persephone

Even Old

23 + 365 = 24 !!!

:)

as Pati would say, 24 = 25 - 1.

"Abandonment"

broken walls, bricks astray
blocks wind no more
pebbly stream, scanty water
fallen bark stops flow

clouds gather, deny rain
trees flutter, deny fruit
standing there all alone
worries about no show

shifting weight, legs protest
twitching shoulders abreast
worried eyes betray fear
waits she furrowing brow

darkening sky, gloomy night
no shining armour, no knight
abandoned at the altar?
oh no! what a huge blow!

Instead, it hoped

It caught the glimpse. Just a small flicker which died out in a nano-second. But this minute disturbance in the immense tranquility was sufficient to attract attention. It repositioned half its receptors such that they had the best chance of catching another glimpse. The other half, ofcourse, were on the other side with no way of receiving anything from this end of the universe according to classical physics, unless ofcourse it turned. Or it applied the unsafe quantum technology. But it didn't risk it. Instead, it hoped.

The flicker showed up again. Well, not exactly showed up, rather showed down or any other way you might call the fleeting appearance of darkness amidst a solid sea of near infra-red light. At this hint, it shot out of sight. Out of sight of the unbothered (this word will be added to the english dictionary by the time the events described here actually take place) populace of the planet FrogsinaWell. They never look up. Never ever. Maybe , Evolution could be faulted for not positioning their eyes at the top end of their bodies. However, eyes in the bellies can still look up at the sky provided the body lies on its back. But once again, evolution played the cruel joke of placing their feeding apparatus (cant really call it a mouth - there is no visible single opening) also on their bellies. Thus, all the frogsinaWell always faced the ground. Mainly because, they perpetually feed on the tiny lichen like growth. Aah well, evolution did make this part easy for them anyway. After all, what business do frogsinaWell have with the rest of the universe? Also, Evolution had many other pressing matters to deal with, e.g stamping out the vastly disliked abnormalities like homo-sapiens, than be bothered about FrogsinaWell.

While it was speeding along towards that faint dark spot, it did not bother to match it's path coordinates with the Inter-universal 4-Coordinate Database. Instead, it hoped.

However unlikely it could be, some of the coordinates of its path (actually quite a big bunch of them amounting to 2^(-13)% of its total path approximately) did clash with another, throwing both of them into diametrically opposite times and universes and producing a huge black hole covering the points of collision. The other culprit, which also did not bother to check with the Inter-universal 4-Coordinate Database, was a lowly living being which liked referring to itself as 'mythalez'. Taking another viewpoint, mythalez was not really a culprit because it couldn't have changed its course anyway, because it requires hard work to affect the motion of the chair that you are sitting on if no part of your body touches anything else other than the chair. And mythalez has always been extremely scared of hard work. Actually, hard work was what mythalez was fleeing from at that precise instant. Thus, hard work being unavailable for mythalez, it would have been in no position to change its course even if it was advised of the impending collision by the Inter-universal 4-Coordinate Database.

Must be easy to guess what book I am reading right now!

Small car ... .big News!!

me: Tata's car is making big big news in uk
all the news programmes
all the news papers
Pranav: seriously!
am glad
me: lol .. not for the right reasons
Pranav: why so?
me: ther r discussions on news programmes
abt how it is goin to affect the environment
Pranav: that it'll cause damage
and so on..
that is all part of the negative publicity they want to give
me: with predicitions that by 2030 ther ll be 600 million cars in india
and cause global pollution
that india shudnt be making the same mistake as teh west
Pranav: I want to see - autos in India, be replaced by these cars in the near future
me: though while they say these .. they agree that they hav no moral right to lecture india ...
as the west is the primary cause of all environmental problems
Pranav: hehe
me: but they fear that if india follows the same path .. it ll be a great disaster for earth
Pranav: the point here is to look at Tata's car to replace the autos
me: no .. it is billed to replace motorbikes
families dont own autos
Pranav: no
autos are considered as substitutes to public transport
and I want to see this car something on similar lines
Nano Taxis
:P
me: hmm
yah hyd is a good example of autos actin as public transport
seriously .. something shud be done abt public transport in the cities of india
btw .. i want to post abt this
but i dnt feel the enthu to write :-s
Pranav: you can take our chat transcript
edit it and post
something like what I did earlier :P
me: :P

the post that Pranav was referring to is this

Scary light !!

screeching light flashes bright
cowering me runs skelter
orange yellowish claws emerge
desperate me seeks shelter

claws expand, envelope, block
eyes closed, me surges on
light gives way, diluted ray
claws broken, me was strong!

yet, light pursues relentless
me calls upon the darkness
closed tighter, sinking deeper
me attempts escape madness

harder clutched, pillow surrounds face
claws bounce away, deflected light ray
yearning the darkness of the night
me denies the dawn of the day

year end philosophy ... on demand

PS- Skp aka pati aka muggle_surya aka dear_co_blogger has demanded that I write a post on 2007-2008 with philosophical leanings ... and so I propitiate him.
PS2- PS stands for 'pre-script' :P

As a year comes to close and a new one begins, people in general tend to go into huddles of thought, trying to reevaluate their lives, loves and aspirations. It is somehow, as if, as 31st december rolls onto 1st january (not at the same time, mind you ... every region moves to the new year at its own sweet time because of all the time zones) a new chapter begins or something. But, in reality, the only major difference is that you need to change the last digit of the date. Thats it!

You want to make some resolutions, you can make it anytime .. no need to wait for the new year. But yeah, for those who don't need or want to make any, this is a fine time to attempt some. Naah, don't worry, am not listing my 'resolutions' here .... actually as I said in the previous post, I don't have any, except perhaps- "no complaints and no cribbing at all, anymore". Seriously, why would anyone need to crib or cry once they realise the universal fact that- "everything in the universe is just blah". In case, you are planning to contest the veracity of this statement, let me save you the trouble by informing you that it will be a mission in vain since I can always defend this statement using the infinite meanings of 'blah' as my arsenal (no ... am not referring to the football team, you EPL freaks!).

Okay, so how was 2007?

World politics? bad very bad. The wars still go on (not iraq or afganistan ... am refering to the civil wars in several countries of africa .. the lesser known but more disastrous little ones). The last week or two have shown that democracy is increasingly becoming a sham and so on .... after all its all blah.

Personal lives? not good ... not good at all. Neither me nor any of my friends that I know well would venture to announce 2007 as one of the best years. In fact, I can argue that it was probably one of the worst. So, no points here either

So, in conclusion, it's good that 2007 ended. It did no good anyway.

So what about 2008 you may ask? Will it radically transform our lives? Will it stop global warming? Will it feed all the hungry and shelter all the homeless in the world? Will it be the year you find your loves and realise your ambitions? Will it herald a 'new golden age'? The answer to all the questions is NO. Come on, what do you expect! It's after all, just another year. Its name doesnt even hold the charm of 2007 (7, 2+7 etc etc).

Trembling about the future, you might softly whisper the final question, "well, will it atleast be better than 2007?". The answer, my dear readers, is a resounding, reverberating YES. Ofcourse, it will be better, because now we know the secret of the universe- "that it's all just blah!"

next-post: Milan, Florence, Pisa, Cologne, Koblenz, Sankt Goar, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Heidelberg and Frankfurt again!

last post ............ of 2007 A.D.

Its pretty cold here .. freezing everyday.

Everyday is different in many ways, but still remains the same.

Just wanted to denote that I am still here :).

Doing some writing of the technical kind completely kills any enthusiasm to write anything more .. even informal .... like, say a blog post.

40 days .... too long a shot ... but no harm right?

Mythalez wishes every reader, a very happy new year .. lets hope this year is radically different from the rest ;)

Aaah, no .. no new year resolutions for me ... no resolutions of any kind at all .. mythalez claims he is perfect as he is :P

Au revoir!

memory fading out ...

Nostalgia may be painful. Nevertheless, it is quite agonising when you realise that many of your memories are slowly, silently fading out. When you try to recollect various time-periods of your life, your are confronted with some faces floating around and some scenes blinking in and out of sight. You focus your attention on some of these scenes only to realise that they depict some random incidents that have occurred on some arbitrary occasions and are quite inconsequential. You have no justification as to why your memory chose to register these sequences so strongly while overlooking the actual major events. You might consciously force your memory to gather those moments that you feel are important and should be treasured. It will cough out a few flickering images and you have to carry out extensive extrapolation to make them coherent. But you begin to wonder how much of it is a genuine part of the memory and how much of it has been cobbled up just now using your imagination on how it should or could have been.
And then, you sigh and give up .... after all, soon you wont even remember that you were trying to hold onto those fading memories.

teaching wordpress !!!

Wordpress users .. can you tell me whether it is so complicated to use wordpress that anyone would be interested to fork out £400 to learn how to use it, as proposed by this course?

I know I am inadvertantly advertising them .. but seriously ... how many participants would they get!

When you want to just talk ... blog

Aren't there occasions when you suddenly get this urge to talk to someone? Not someone in particular but not any-every-one either ... just that you feel a need to talk, about nothing in particular but not too inane to be ignored either. And, as it is bound to happen, you would not find anyone worthwhile to talk to. You can't call anyone reachable at the time without mildly upsetting them or making them question your sanity. You do not have the other easy option of chatting either since you strangely find no one worthwhile online. The adjective 'worthwhile' does narrow down your choices quite considerably. So, you think, what the hell, just go to sleep! But you can't! As a result, you decide to have a monologue ... via your blog.

However, the point of contention then is that since you had no particular topic in mind to carry out the much wanted conversation, what would you start blogging about? Yeah, you can just type what you are thinking. And some thoughts ramble out.

There is as much mystery outside as there is inside .... both literally and metaphorically. Isn't it much tougher to figure out what you want then to actually obtain it? Even when you think you know what you want, you cannot be completely sure, since there always exists an uncertainty (no thanks to Heisenberg though). It can get more complicated if the only way to know whether you want it or not is to try obtaining it but you cannot risk not wanting it once you obtain it leaving you are in a catch-22 situation (that reminds me, I still need to read that book)

Sometimes, you wish your mind would stop all the pondering and contemplation and give itself a break. You try to bring about the break by watching many hours of gripping drama or hilarious comedy but as soon as you stop, the mind jumps back to the same old state ... just as I am typing this, the song 'comfortably numb' comes out of the random selection of winamp ... how ironic.