Wrestling with the groundhogs

"2020-05-18"

Week 10 of the pandemic they call it. More than ever before, I had to resort to checking the calendar on the phone and push my mind into recollection mode to find my bearing with respect to the days and agree with the 10 week assessment. This is the same me who had taken a two year hiatus doing nothing much than staying at home and trying to stay alive earlier in the decade. So I should know much more and be much better prepared than most of you for living through a lockdown. Frankly? Yes, I am! I don’t find these days particularly constrictive or unnatural. In fact, I even find it strangely liberating that I don’t have to make any plans or think about the immediate future. There is no guilt to staying in the slow lane these days!

But how do you keep track of the days, the weeks, even the months? What happened in March versus what happened in April? Every week, there is a monday, and soon there is a friday, oh and here is a monday again. Of course, we have a saturday and sunday. But which saturday was it that we went out for groceries? Was it this one or the previous one? Did we bake a cake last sunday, or was that four sundays ago? Is the passage of time still a thing or have we managed to bring it to a halt? It might as well have all melded into an all-encompassing chronic blob. All hail the C. Blob!

This brings me to wonder if this is the situation for a habitual stay-at-home hermit like me, how are those exuberant beings, otherwise proclaimed as extroverts, braving it out in their social isolations?

Would it be a stretch to wonder whether the lockdowns may end up altering the distribution of the intro-extra-version spectrum? Will these unprecedented days push the density of the distribution away from the extrovert end to something more in the middle? Will the world emerge from this period having gained more appreciation for staying at home, deliberating into the void and perhaps, be ready to give more credence to thought over action? Is it too wishful to wish for?

Of course, all those who are juggling working from home and keeping young kids engaged and doing all the additional housework and having to shower after every grocery trip all at the same time every single day would snort at this discussion and invite me to exchange places with them for a day or two. To them, I just say - “No, thank you” :P

PS - I opened the blogger account after more than a year to publish the above rant. While choosing labels, 'atmos' and 'general' made most sense. Curiosity made me check what was the previous post under 'atmos' - and it was this post - The-Year-Of-Groundhog-Days (its other label is 'general'). Aha! I guess I should find it reassuring that I still share some characteristics with my younger self! 

The Year of Groundhog Days

Disclaimer: This post is not about scurrying animals.

The said year with groundhogging abilities was one whole year. But it wasn't a calendar year drably beginning on 1st Jan, or a financial/tax year that tends to commence in April for some reason, or even an academic one whose start date ranges from May to October (or more!) based on your affiliations. 

Introductions: The year of interest began and ended on 1st May (yes, this post is almost a month late, but then you weren't waiting for it, were you? :P ) when I completed an year of moving back to India. And no, I do not condone it being called Labour Day year - it was, after all, an year that was the complete anti-thesis of labour or effort of any kind. There were days when I didn't have a clue of what day it was, but was also not sure what month it was! While you try to follow the annoyingly repeating transitions between Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and so on, July turns into August without even bothering to notify you! How are you ought to keep up with the vagaries of the calendar when days could just be exchanged for one another? Every day, be it weekday, weekend, or month-end, presented the same routine: sleep, use interwebs, wake up, read paper, watch TV, read book & ponder nothing, in some order or other.

But like any good research result, there were enough exceptions and conditions to the groundhogging ability of the year that need to be listed, thus enabling me to extend this post from a short sweet paper into a long dreary one.

Excursions into the Kitchen: Though those familiar with my physique may not find it credible (or the sniggering ones may find it extra credible), but I used to cook on a fairly regular, almost daily, basis while in the Soton. The tidy bright smartly-arranged kitchen of my flat used to make it an agreeable experience. So having returned to parents' home, here in Hyderabad, and lounging in the bedroom for many many months, I slowly started making small furtive excursions to the kitchen. But the experiences seem to be indicating that I am not supposed to be cooking here. While back in my kitchen in Soton, though rarely confused with the unmarked containers, I could easily differentiate the cumin powder from the coriander power with a sniff or two. But here, to obtain the coriander powder from the shelf, I had to tackle not just cumin, but a couple of tea powders (okay, I admit those were easy to distinguish), some masala powder, some other masala powder, perhaps some rasam powder, some other powder that didn't seem to belong to the kitchen, and some other masala powder. I failed. So I had to contend with limiting my dish to just plain old salt, turmeric, and chilli powder. I was later informed that what I used wasn't plain old chilli powder, but some 'masala chilli' powder :P. Oh, and I was also informed later that it wasn't my olfactories that failed me while identifying coriander powder. How could one expect to find it when it wasn't even in the kitchen, but stored in the refrigerator outside! 

Excursions to the Outside: After 6 months of barely stepping out of the house arrived the month of November. It came pledged with the mission of not letting me be. After all, how can I be in India for half a year and not yet have relived the pleasures of a train journey, it seemed to have been wondering. So first it whisked me off to Bangalore which, despite tall claims, was only as cool as Hyderabad but with more traffic. I returned and barely got my lethargy back that I ended up in Chennai, and then Puducherry. Both were balmy but the cuisine was a welcome change, and the company was patently idiosyncratic. And then, towards the end of the month, I found myself in Kakinada. No idea why. I am still trying to figure out how I ended up there. 

With the arrival of the new year (the calendar one, not financial/academic etc :P), a car drive to Tenali was planned that I couldn't wiggle out of. And as the summer started hotting up in March, I decided to gain respite by going back to Bangalore using up some free, about to expire, airmiles. Plan worked out fine, but the supposedly pleasant weather of the city betrayed me. It was just as hot as in Hyderabad! And with more traffic, did I mention that?  

Incursions to the Inside: The first four months of life back here were qualitatively bland, especially the food. You know, all those jokes about 'palatability' of hospital food that we keep hearing? Well, those weren't sounding funny to me any more. Anyhow, with the passing of August arrived the Haleem season. After so many years, I was in Hyderabad for the haleem month and how could I not consume it at least on an alternate day basis?! So out went the food restrictions and medical advice, and in came the glorious delicacy. And I felt better ;). And my logical reasoning system started enforcing itself. If I can have a mutton and wheat mash and still remain alive, then why not test with some chicken too? And why deny fish?! And if the wheat had not exactly killed me, then perhaps some parathas may be risked sometimes. Why stop at parathas, why not puris? Well, if we are indeed venturing into the deep-fried matters, then the occasional pakodas won't be of much harm, would they? And so on, on a weekly basis, a dietary restriction was chucked out the window, and a new joy added back to the culinary life. And it did help me get better. Well, at least, my mood was becoming less sour ;).

I think the post is now long enough to not be considered short, so I will save us further trouble and conclude it here (But of course, you can always ping me for more detailed ramblings :P).

Conclusions: Nothing to say here. I just wanted to have this section because it conveniently rhymes with Excursions and Incursions.

PS -- "So, how are you feeling nowadays?" - the more concerned ones among you may feel obliged to ask. "Better than May '12," I would say, even though the quantifiable parameters are still stuck at May '12 levels :).

Half-year's thoughts, some pontifications ;)

What?! Another post within the span of a month! Yes, seems like my mind finally has thoughts again. Not an exaggeration. It was pretty much blank for the previous many months. Okay, there did occur dreams occasionally, mostly about eating good variety of food (especially those that I had cut out of my diet :P) and maybe about going out of the house and roaming about in the city. But nothing much apart from those.

So I guess the mind being active again is an extremely good sign. I think we tend to underestimate the amount of energy used by our brains. We think it is all the muscles and stuff that eat up the food, but really, the brain needs much more. I could feel the stress involved in concentrating on anything beyond a cursory level. For example, reading anything for any amount of time was doable, but writing even small reply-mails seemed quite taxing.

Anyway, I thought I will make a small list of a few things I noticed over my stay back at home in Hyderabad, back in India, for the last 6 months.

@ Contrary to popular belief, a 'long-term' patient is not fond of entertaining questions about his/her health. Yes, it is true that the enquirers are only showing their concern and wishing them a speedy recovery, but the patient grows quite tired of repeating the same responses again and again to different people :P. Worsening matters, classifying recovery is such a subjective thing that often the patient has no clue about it either and hence is hesitant to reveal his/her ignorance :P.

# The body and mind are quite adaptive. They adjust to a routine even if the routine is outright outrageous. After a length of time, anything can feel normal. Only when the changes roll back, does one recognise the adaptation that had occurred . 

& Moving beyond self, let me now rant about others. Actually, in a way, it is still about me ;). I know that we Indians are not supposed to arrive on time. That it is a requirement to come at least 30 mins later than what you say, and fashionable to arrive at least a couple of hours late. I know all this pretty well. But still am unable to readjust! Despite my best efforts, I still end up getting ready on time and end up waiting to be picked up. That wait is never delicious. Or in the other cases, despite arriving at the venue quite late, or rather what I think is quite late, I still find myself the first one there. The other 6-8 people arrive even later! 

% English seems to much more in vogue during public intercourse than before. Or perhaps it is the same and I just didn't notice it earlier? Especially when people are talking to some staff person (like a sales person, waiter et al.), they tend to use English. Yeah, I know in Hyderabad, there is always the uncertainty over whether the other person is a Telugu or a Hindi/Urdu speaker. But that doesn't seem to be the reason behind this English explosion. People are just becoming 'posher' :P. However, strangely, I find myself addressing any staff-member in Hindi or Telugu rather than English. But does that result in me getting a lower quality of service, given that I use the vernacular? That's a question up for debate ;). 

Prague .. and this isn't a travelogue!

subtitle: Praha - the place where you go 'wah wah'

I went there some months ago, but ADD has prevented me from archiving it anywhere except for some pictures uploaded to Facebook. Really, with these smart phones with cameras, that is not much of a task. On the other hand, the fact that I actually did take some photos is quite laudable :P. Anyway, coming to Prague, here are some bullet points -

^ Everyone (irrespective of whether they actually have been there or not :P) claims that Prague is breathtakingly beautiful. Well, I can assure you that those claims are well founded. Those who have been there as tourists also claim that the centre is just a huge mela of tourists. That I can assure you, is also well founded. Having visited in the off-season, I actually shudder to think how it is during the holiday season. The only people you find in the centre of Prague are either tourists, guides, or people selling something to the tourists. And the streets are lined with (apart from 'places of interest') only restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, and other places for tourists.

_ The visual highlights like the castle with its palaces, the statues lined ancient bridge, clock tower, central square, cathedral etc are all expectedly dazzling. However, every building in the centre appears unique and attractive in its own right. A trigger happy photographer would never be able to stop shooting if not for the constraints of time, disk space and patience of his/her companions. There are also a plethora of museums, dedicated to the various personalities and art forms there, any of which I haven't visited :P.

$ There were also many ultra-modern buildings, some dancing away in the lights, albeit outside the city centre. The metro + tram network is quite efficient and takes you everywhere, including to the top of the castle-hill. And in that area, is also the Czech version of the Eiffel Tower. Having seen the japanese version and also the original, this one didn't have much going for it except for the fact that it is actually possible to climb or descend all the stairs :P. Nearby, however, was this unexpected attack of metallic zombies in an otherwise unremarkable area.

£ If you eat like a local, the food is quite cheap and very very filling. The local aka non-tourist-focused pubs and eateries are quite charming. However, one thing I didn't manage to figure out is whether, after entering a place, you wait to be seated or you just pick an empty table. Oh, and the Czechs do love to announce everywhere that it is around here that the real beer was created ;).

€ And I spotted 'Cafe Coffee Day' outlets and I couldn't convince myself it was the real one. It was quite astounding that I had come across one in Vienna which I later checked online to find that it was their only outlet outside India (apart from Karachi). But Prague too?! Yeah, they apparently recently opened in Prague as well! They need to make me their international ambassador as I seem divinely capable of spotting their outlet hidden in any corner of Europe :P.

# The most fascinating aspect of Prague for me were the small, almost unnoticeable quirks abound everywhere. Like the railings of a very small bridge covered with padlocks with no apparent explanation, or the statue of Churchill in a desolate corner next to the British Consulate, or an Absinth speciality shop playing Pink Floyd very loudly on an otherwise serene and posh looking street.

Oh and if you are harbouring plans of being an unscrupulous ruler or official in Prague, be prepared against defenestration ;).

old year post

2011 was supposed to either a dull year or an year of upheaval ... but as with most such rather extreme predictions, it was neither, but lay somewhere in between. There had to be several cute changes obviously :P. From automatically learning how to eat with chopsticks (as that was the only means of survival there) to starting to cook pasta regularly (no idea why I never tried it before!), to learning to drive and managing to get a driving licence, there have been several step ups. And some step downs as well I suppose which I conveniently don't bother to recollect now :P. In any case, the major highlights maybe listed:

- Finally started writing .... and then stopped ... with the hope of resuming/restarting soon.
- Prepared sincerely and then had to stop ... and was left at a point where all directions seemingly lead nowhere in particular :P.
- Got involved and then somehow stopped .... short-lived fun better than exasperatingly long?
- Got seriously sick again and trying to stop... it's a war to end all wars! ;)

Enough about mythalez, what about the world you ask? Well, 2011 was a year of discontent. In both the political and economic aristocracies. So what about 2012 then, you ask? Don't ask me, ask the Mayans :P

5 years and still procrastinating ;)

Okay, so I have officially completed 5 years of stay in the UK now! Well, to be honest, given the number of trips to India and elsewhere, and their duration (the longest being 73 days!), I guess my actual total amount of stay in the UK might be tending towards 4 years rather than 5 :P. Nevertheless, I have been resident here for 5 years and that does call for an introspective, philosophical, and enlightening blog post with a dash of self-deprecating humour and generous dollops of heart-warming, feel-good factor....

Just kidding :P.

So the question now is, given that I have survived here for 5 years, which is closing onto my record for the longest stay in any one locality since I was a teenager (yes, I specialise in breaking obscure trivial self-set records like this), it might be a good time to move on.

Where to, you ask? As a famous professor at IIIT-H used to say whenever posed with a half-decent question - "I don't know, you tell me." Yeah, I am in the folly of looking for change just for the sake of change. Perhaps, just to make life a bit inconvenient; getting too comfortable here :P.

At this point, I can either talk about my possible options for moving out, or go all nostalgic over the past 5 years or I could just ramble about the city of Southampton. And as we have already established that I have no clue where I should or can move to, and nostalgia has decided to abstain, I guess we are reduced to talking about the wonders of the city of Southampton.

Only that, it has no wonders :P. Nevertheless, one cannot find fault with it for its convenience. And now, given that I am a veteran, its familiarity. Of course this familiarity is restricted to just one long stretch of the city, ranging from the airport, to the university to the docks. The east and west parts are almost as mysterious now as they had been all those years ago.

Anyway, I have been in UK for these many years, right. So there are other places that are also a bit familiar now. For example, there is London, some parts of which have been visited very often - the nested example being Heathrow say :P - another would be Winchester where I 'officially' 'work' (note the multiple quotes :P). Some others in UK would be Oxford and Edinburgh, yeah the really nice cities.

Outside UK - any place that's been visited more than once, apart from India obviously (and unfortunately, airports don't count)? Germany, France and Switzerland. But in terms of cities, I guess only Geneva has that honour :P. Yeah, I can extract more such obscure, pointless data about myself which would be of interest to no one except my biographer. But then, that might be the sole purpose of mythalez's blog!

a meta posta

It's been a while since I rambled here so I thought I might as well pay a visit (yeah I know, it is a free service) and contribute a few more bytes to the overflowing interwebs. So here I am. The question now is what do we talk about. Rather, what do I 'blah' about.

£ Shall I put forth a comical satire about the 40 minutes of nerve-wracking driving I had to do to pass my driving licence test? I am pretty sure that getting a driving licence in the UK is the hardest compared to any other country. In addition to the theory test, the video game test (yeah it is a video game - you have to stare at videos and click upon seeing hazards, and the points you get depend on how quickly you clicked - literally, a video game!), the actual driving test has to be fault-free. Only some 'minor faults' are allowed - that is, a slight jerky start and so on. Any actual mistake and you are deemed fail :P. Anyway, yeah now I have a UK 'full car driving licence'. I wonder when I will get an Indian one. The challenge there is not passing the test, that is easier than I can imagine, but actually staying there for the duration of 1 month that is compulsorily needed between obtaining the necessary learner's licence and giving the driving test.

$ Or perhaps I should talk about my forthcoming trip to Hongkong and Taiwan? Oh yeah, this shall be my second visit to the Far East after my first ever international trip (infact, first ever flight journey), which was to Japan. This trip (or junket as some like to call it) consists of 2.5 days in Hongkong (which is actually a transit stop on the way to Taipei) and then 13 days in Taiwan. So all together this would be my longest ever 'phoren' trip. Only to/in India have I had trips longer than 12 days. For people wondering what I will be doing for so long in Taiwan, the first week will be spent in Taipei, where the daytimes will be spent at the conference center (which is conveniently situated next to Taipei 101). Many trips and activities are expected of the second week. The most exciting of which can be this (even if you have been annoyed by the previous links, do check this one :P)

€ Or perhaps I should talk about something else. Err .. wait .. what? You want more? Don't be greedy now, blog. Go post yourself! :P

Strange Acquaintances!

People generally complain about their inability to remember names or being unable to associate names to known faces. I think I suffer from the reverse. Names are not a problem but I don’t seem to remember faces! Or the other explanation can be that people find my face very memorable ;) while I dont find their’s so :P. Often it happens, that I am walking (mostly around the university), not really lost in my musings, and I find someone coming towards me and staring at me. Just as our eyes meet, the person lets out a “hi” or simply that ‘smile of recognition’. And no, I am not confusing it with that ‘smile of courtesy’ that strangers may occasionally deign to bestow upon each other. Anyone slightly familiar with the British politeness can easily tell them apart :P. Anyway, even if I am caught unawares, I tend to instinctively respond with the ‘hi’ or smile respectively. And we cross each other and continue on our paths.

Having assured them falsely that I do reciprocate their recognition, my mind immediately embarks upon the challenging journey into the recess of its memory to uncover the facts. Did I actually meet this person before? If I did, when? where? Who is this person? And so on. More often than not, after the tough mental expedition, I manage to remember the details.

Like that one occasion when I realised that the girl who smiled and hi’ed as she walked past had met me only once before, that too almost a year ago! Or that other guy, who I come across often, waving, hello’ing or just smiling, to which I respond of course. Evidently, we knew each other. But I couldn’t remember how. After 4-5 such incidents, in which I also acted as if I was in a hurry lest he attempted to make conversation too (oh the horror! :P), I realised that I had indeed met him a couple of times, 3 years ago in my first few months at Southampton, during induction sessions etc. But not always do I manage to recollect. There was this other girl a few weeks ago, whose face first registered recognition, then transformed into a smile. Just before we crossed each other, she even let out a “hey”. I was very certain I didn’t see her before. I actually contemplated turning around and enquiring how she knew me, even at the risk of appearing rude. However, my bus arrived and I chose the conservative option and got in instead. Despite racking my brains over and over, I haven’t been able to place her. But then, her’s wasn’t an easily forgettable face either-- lip piercings are not that common still. Or maybe, the piercing was a new addition, thus making recognition tougher ... who knows! :)

long long ago ... time went by .. it still does

¬ helplessly track wisps of memories floating away into oblivion. try to pull them back, only to find them burst into nothingness like shiny soap bubbles of a mirage.

¬ seen the face almost every other day for four years. exchanged the hi's, the views, the enthusiastic discussions, money, food and assignments. never said a good-bye, but never talked again. see the name in the chat-list everyday, but can't be bothered to message. wonder whether you really knew the face and the name.

¬ ought to message a regular, but the fluctuating list manipulates you into sending the message to someone you rarely conversed with over the past two years. and its awkward. after the standard hi's and the protocol based "how are you? am fine!" exchange, both fall silent. there is nothing to say to each other. the lives are completely different and completely out of touch with the other. the fact that these same lives were closely intertwined just a couple of years ago, holds no significance.

¬ then, there are those kind of persons you meet daily, exchange jokes, talk the general topics and forget about as soon as you walk past them. and sometimes wonder how little you all know about each other. thus, making it certain that once you leave the place, none of them will ever feature in your memories and neither will you in theirs'. yet another addition to the acquaintance links that will quickly wither away.

¬ and finally, there are those that frequently appear in your mind. you recollect all the good times you had, perhaps the not so pleasant ones too. but you are amazed at how they don't exactly seem to remember most of it, making all those memories little imaginary moments of your own mind. you might still meet them regularly, but how can that matter?

the economist, the politics and the kind ...

my reading habit was close to hitting the abyss. i was taking months upon months to finish even a single novel. it was mainly because i prefer to read in bursts of a novel at a time and not piece by piece on a daily basis. also, i liked to read a novel only with full concentration to be able to comprehend and appreciate all possible nuances. the schedule and work made this somewhat tough and i tended to plump in favour of the brainless sitcoms to unwind rather than the novels (even if they were the humourous kind). at the same time, i was also losing touch with the news and happenings around the world. i also wanted to be able to do something that did not involve staring at a computer screen.

so, when an enticing offer to subscribe to any of the popular magazines came my way, i couldn't resist. but i had to choose the 'chosen one'. 'newsweek' always sounded very weak to me and 'time', which i read often at iiit, felt very american. i turned to "the sage" aka pranav for advice and he vehemently recommended 'the economist'. i was ambivalent about it since i wasn't willing to read pages upon pages about bankers and trade but apparently this magazine didn't just talk about finance and stuff but about general news of the world. it was also much higher priced than the others. thus, in a moment of i-can't-care-less, i subscribed to it. and thus formed the genesis of this post :p.

i find the economist quite capitalistic and pro-west in that regard but also socially liberal. perhaps, i need to summarise the types of positions of politics, especially for those who live in political denial = not acknowledging the existence of politics in their lives :p

united states' republicans = socially conservative (very), economically capitalistic and liberal for free markets etc
united states' democrats = socially liberal, economically socialistic and restricted

united kingdom's conservatives = obviously, socially conservative, and economically liberal
united kingdom's labour = socially liberal and economically socialistic, less capitalistic
united kingdom's liberal democrats = socially liberal and economically liberal too

comparing this kind of structure with that in india:
bjp = nationalistic, socially conservative but economically liberal
left parties = i have no idea about their social policies but economically socialistic- against capitalism
congress = centrist, i feel they just follow a policy of appeasement rather than anything else

'the economist' quite distinctly tends to being liberal, both in the social aspects favouring free-choice to the individuals to decide their life-style, and is also liberal in the economics aspects favouring free trade, immigration, globalisation etc. thus, thankfully, reading it never highly aggravated me against their opinions. yes, they have opinions, very strong ones in fact. that is what i found quite different from the other magazines, both indian and international. generally, opinions are restricted to editorials and special columns while the rest of the articles devote to just reporting facts, figures and others' views. in contrast, every article in the economist presents the facts, displays its own view in that regard, sometimes shows more facts to support itself, and concludes, often in a sarcastic/satirical tone on what is being done and what should actually be done. yes, it might appear to be preaching its own views upon its readers, which is true, but it still is fun! another unique aspect is that the reporters' names are never displayed. in a way, the magazine presents a single united front i guess :p

anyway, i am running 4 weeks late. since i mostly read on weekends, i fall behind an issue if i am busy on a weekend by going on a trip or something. reading the magazine a month after its publication is strange at times. for example, i was reading an article over rising tensions between russia and georgia and all that, while fully knowing that they do go to war soon after and russia brutally crushes georgia and makes a mockery of all those western blah blah.

but, i havent re-subscribed to it, since i want to hide back in the 'fictional' pages for a while ....

some random points

= Just listen to it. Don't make any other sound. Blunt all the other senses except the ears. Wait. Listen to it.

= Is it on expected lines that the continuing and persistant bloggers from my IIIT batch (pati, simeen and me for example) are also the first ones from the batch to start blogging regularly? Its almost 4 years now ... whoa!

= gtalk's 'talk' is written in four colours, t is blue, a is red, l is orange and k is green. We do know that red, orange and green colours are used by it to depict the status of the contacts. But what does the blue of 't' stand for? The other possible state - offline is colourless and not blue. So, what can we associate with the blue of 't' ? Any ideas? (I know, I know this must be one of the most inconsequential and utterly ridiculous questions ever asked .. but then who is keeping a record :P)

= It was surprisingly sunny for a whole week, a week ago. So, last weekend, I dusted my bicycle, cleaned it and even oiled it, with a resolve to start using it again, after having literally abandoned it since september last year. However, the regular grey wet weather made a return on the night of that eventful day. And has persisted since. Alas, my poor optimism :D.

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.

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

this and that ...

My first blog post from my new home. Yeah, after 20 or so days, we finally get internet at our new home. Its a 8mbps max broadband line .. currently I found the download speed to be around 1.2Mbps .. good enough I say :D. The incoming broadband line is via the telephone line (ASDL its called), so there is a filter which separates the phone and the internet wires and then a modem to connect it to the pc. We had bought a router to divide the single line to our 3 rooms at home. However, the modem which is supplied by the ISP is a usb one. So, we cant connect it directly to the router. So, I have set it up such that the modem connects directly to my pc (through the usb port) and the lan wire from my pc connects to the router. The other two rooms get their connection from the router. So basically, my pc acts as the gateway for the internal network of our home ;). And it was pretty easy to set it up on Windows. And configuring the router also is just too easy. All of these seem to have been particularly designed such that 'anyone' can set it up.
However, the only problem now is that there are no empty usb slots of my ancient pc. It has just 2 slots which are used by the mouse and the modem! Now, where will my usb drive or webcam go!!

Floods in the northern part of England. The visuals that I see on TV are starkly similar to those I am used to seeing back at home in India, at this time of the year. The same with houses filled with a foot of water, the cars on the road submerged in the muddy water, the whole transport system in turmoil, the army being called in to help in some places, and so on.

We must be in the peak of summer here, however the temperatures havent gone beyond 25 as yet. By the way, going uphil on a geared cycle is much more comfortable than otherwise.

My '9 month viva' is on tuesday morning. Should I start preparing??
There is no humour in this post!! Noooo

long time no post!!

Yeah, had been pretty busy the past few weeks. Finally finished my mammoth of a report (90 pages whoaa!) .. officially called the '9 month report', expected of every phd student at the end of 9 months of the start of his studies. I wonder why they chose '9 months' .. to represent the gestation period of a Phd? :D.

Moved home. From the impersonal university halls of residence to a private rented 3 bedroom house that I am sharing with two others (obviously) .. who were my flatmates at the university flat also. An Italian guy, a Greek-Cypriot girl and an Indian guy (thats me incase you are in doubt!) make up the composition of my new residence. Nice home. Finally, have a lounge and more importantly a huge couch in the lounge. A garden at the back too. Bought TV also, on the same day that we moved :D. No internet connection as yet though :(. Will be getting it in a week I hope.

More importantly, bought a bike. A bicycle I mean. With 18 gears and no mudguards, stand or anything else (yeah there is a seat in case you were wondering :P), its pretty good. Though I bought it second hand it costed 60£ .. yeah everything is damn costly here. So, after a decade or so, I once again own a vehicle. Yeah, used to have a bicycle until my 8th class or something. And after that, never had a vehicle I could call my own. Ofcourse, used to ride around in scooters. bikes etc, but they didnt formally belong to me. Hmm ... so 10 years .. and I am again at the same state of having a plain bicycle! Should be owning a car or something. But then, whats the point? I dont know how to drive, anyway :D.

Will be touring London this weekend. Yeah, I havent seen much of london. So, will be going to Madame Tussauds, London Eye, change of guards at Buckingham Palace, Oxford street and the other famous areas, Westminster areas etc etc. No .. not alone .. with my brother who will be coming here for the weekend.

This post almost looks like a regular blog post, detailing the author's activities, which is quite rare in this space. To get it back to the usual tone that we all are most used to (Wrote this on paper using a pen, yesterday night at home! .. no net at home you see):--

a passing second
a restless mind
a darting glance
an image left behind.

Stupid Tag post and other random observations

I am not particularly fond of tag posts. Yet Sumanth tagged me despite knowing this. But since he keeps linking to my blog in every other post of his .. guess I shall have to humour him. So here we go (I shall try making it as nonsensical as possible)-

1. A living person I would like to meet - I dont really like meeting people, be they living, dead or in coma. But, if I am forced to meet someone, I would rather meet someone who doesnt want to meet me. Since then, I wont be the only one to suffer and the meeting would most certainly be short :P.

2. A dead person I would like to meet - I can reiterate the above. But on second thoughts, I would like to meet any dead person. Yeah anyone as long as he/she is dead. Because I could then find answers to the age old questions about the existence of ghosts, souls, heaven, hell, god and what not!! (my inquisitive research mind seems to be acting up again!)

3. An event in the history I would like to change - The creation of blogs and specifically the idea of tag-posts. Think of all the time that people would spend productively had there been no blogs acting as a means to procrastinate work.

4. An event in the history I would like to witness - the birth of life, universe and everything ... well wouldnt that be the start of history itself? whatever.

5. A movie I would like to witness without being a part of - None! I have chanced upon some film-shootings from the balcony of my home a few times and believe me, there arent more boring things to watch in this world. Perhaps watching a snail sleep would pip it to the post of most boring event.

6. A literary character I would like to meet - Bill Waterson .. yah he is not fictional .. but he is a literary figure nevertheless (comics are literature!!). But if you insist that the character has to be fictional .. then .. Calvin ofcourse! And yeah Cecilia of PhdComics is fine too. Actually on second thoughts, Cecilia is my answer .. not calvin :D.

So, should I inflict this torture on some other souls? Ofcourse! I do have a few people whom I hate right? So Su, you are the one :P. And Halley! I dont care if you have already done this thing earlier, just post something. I seem to be missing your daily dose of inaneness :P or is it inanity?. Better not lose my sanity :D.

Aah .. now that its done .. I can get back to some normal blogging.

Been to southern part of Wales, the previous weekend. Nothing much to write about other than that we learnt how to set up a tent (we had to camp as we got bored of searching for a cheap decent place to stay :D), realising that most of the words in Welsh do not have any vowels in them (they seem to use the english alphabet but seem to only have words like wychlwchllm :P) and that driving on the motorways (M\d where \d stands for an positive integer) is very convenient and a very quick way to get around.

Watched one of my chinese flatmates make a poached egg today. She was using chopsticks to flip it over. They seem to act like extended fingers of her hand. No idea how the chopsticks users are able to control them. I never got the hang of it the few times I tried (at Japan and at Hyderabad)

Curious book in London

Finally I got my hands on this book- 'The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time' and read it in one go. Before reading, I had no clue as to what the book was about. I just knew that it was well appreciated by people whose opinions I value in these literary matters. And I loved it. It reminded me of 'Catcher in the rye', another book that I loved reading. Both are quite different yet similar in some ways. For one, both have the protagonists as narrators and these protagonists are not 'normal' per se. And the books are filled with their opinions about things.

I read this book in the unlikeliest of places. Sitting in the French Consulate in London, I started reading this book. I only had to read a few pages to discover that the narrator was living somewhere in England and that he had been to France and also that he hated France. And there I was waiting for a visa to go to France. All in all, the book is a must-read if only to realise how there could be a simple view of the seemingly complicated things around us.

Yesterday, I did spend a good deal of time walking around a small part of London between Victoria and Kensington. I had been once before to central London (have been many times at Heathrow but thats not exactly the London you would want to visit) and wanted to blog about it then but never got down to it. The best memory of the previous visit was sitting high up on Trafalgar Square and watching the traffic whiz by at 2am on as saturday night. And this time, it suddenly struck me as to what exactly I was doing. I was walking in London! I would have been easily passed over as yet another South-asian origin Londoner. I was being a part of that same London that I have read about in innumerable stories and saw in so many movies. Half of the road names seemed familiar though I was in those places for the first time. I would have come across them in some story obviously ranging from the 'Umbrella Man' of Roald Dahl to various Jeffery Archer novels. Looking at the high profile shops- Armani to Harrods made me think that the world isnt such a big place afterall :D. Spent some time going around the famous 'National History Museum' which was right opposite the consulate. got drenched by the popular 'London rain' wherein you would find quite many people walking around in black suits and holding black umbrellas.

Another city that I remember most from novels is Paris. Will be visiting it some day, perhaps sooner than you think ;).

Ringing in the Spring

Yayy .. its spring time. Its been more than 3 weeks since it rained here. Thats the longest no-rain period since the time I have been here i.e almost 8 months now. Actually, I had to write this post in a hurry, since the ominous clouds have gathered today and seem intent on breaking the dry spell. Anyway, yeah, it had been sunny the past few days, temperatures have gone upto 25 degrees on some occasions. On the afternoons, you could find all the lawns in the university completely covered by human bodies, lying on the grass, soaking up as much sun as they can get, trying to get a bit of colour on their white skins :P.

My chinese flatmate remarked yesterday, 'every season has its own distinct smell'. Frankly, I dont know and dont care :D. But yeah the spring season seems to be quite popular. Last week, when I went to Bristol, I found photographers all over the place, clicking every last image of 'Spring time' that they could lay their eyes upon.

The major change for me however is that I no longer need to wear a jacket or a hoody or a sweater while stepping out. Got so used to wearing one or the other of them all the time that now it feels quite different and new to be going about in just a shirt or tshirt or both :D.

The university has started full scale after the month long Easter break. This break was for undergrads and msc students .. not for staff or research postgrads like me. We just had a measly 5 days.

Finally, though many appreciated the new look of the blog, I have heard a few disgruntled voices too who felt the old dark black one was better. My response to those voices: When it was dark and black as you wanted, you never appreciated it. I only used to hear complaints about how hard it is to read and so on. But now, you come out with your voices into the open and praise the old look rubbishing this new colourful one. Sorry mates, the time has passed, now you got to live with this white-green-orange-blue-red-grey thing :P.
Moral of the story, appreciate something when its there, so that it doesnt go missing before you know it :P.
I better end here before the post gets even worse :D.

Cold .. fireworks ... history

Its Diwali all over again here. Britain is celebrating the Guy Fawkes Night. Fireworks have been exploding everywhere all through the weekend. Our university celebrated it on friday. I recorded a small part of it on my new free nokia n73 :D. Access here. Cracker sounds have been interminable on all the three evenings. On saturday and sunday, the city seemed to have been engulfed in smoke as it happens back home during Diwali.

Travelled around Winchester on yesterday i.e saturday. It is just 15 mins bus journey away from Southampton. It was the ancient capital of England. Very small place. We circled it twice in the span of 6 hours that we spent there. I was interested in looking at the famed round table of King Arthur. However, I hadn't expect it to be mounted on a wall. I was hoping to actually see a table, not a table top hung on the wall :D. In the evening, the whole city seemed to gather on the High street for the celebration of 'night' mentioned earlier. Every city here has a 'high street' which is like the main street of the city. Carrying fire torches, they participated in a procession. We couldnt join them as we had to catch the bus back to Southampton. Anyway, we got ourselves one of the torches though. It atleast helped in warming up my freezing palms.

Talking about cold weather, walking at 7 in the morning when the temperature is 0 degree celsius is an unique experience. One can only truly understand it after undertaking the 'walk'. Yeah it is cold. The temperature at any time of the day never crosses into double digits nowadays. And it has led to quite a few observations-

1. Why people dance so well and so much here? A lot of practice. They practice dancing everytime they need to stand outside and wait for something. Can be frequently observed in the bus stops. People jumping, moving their legs about. Afterall, they got to keep the cold away by some activity.

2. Why people smoke so much? Well, it seems a unconventional way to prevent your nose and mouth from freezing. Also, no one can figure out whether you are smoking a cigarette or are just plain breathing. Our breath is as visible as the puff exhaled by a smoker. The affects are different though. One is a life giver, the other a life taker.

3. Why people walk so fast on the pavements? To get indoors as soon as possible obviously. Who would want to get a frostbite?

Stepping out into the open at 5pm to find the sky completely dark is a bewildering experience too. It wasnt so disconcerting when the sun used to set at 9pm in the begining of september when I had just arrived. Why?

I have come across quite a few old Indian postgraduates. By 'old' I refer to their ages being above 40. Yeah. Quite a few of them. Had a detailed discussion with one such Telugu person whose age must have been around 60. He joined the university this year to pursue Mres in some social sciences field. Why!! you ask? Well, he stated that having fulfilled all his obligations, with his children now happily settled, he decided to pursue something that had been interesting to him all his life. I havent come across similarly 'old' students of other nationalities. Maybe I havent noticed them or maybe such people are mostly Indians?

I felt like writing this post after reading poor Obelix's rantings