fountainhead and dunderheads

So, I have finished almost half of the very famous book 'the fountainhead'. And my verdict is that it is very gripping, infact one of the most gripping books I have read since Bourne Identity or Da Vinci Code (which totally disappoints in the end) .. but then again it doesnt at all come under that thriller genre. Yeah it is a story of quite a unique (weird maybe) individual who is surrounded by a few other equally distinctive individuals :D. Thankfully, It has less of great-natural-beauty descriptions that we so often find and wish to jump ahead and has its focus mainly on the individuals that it is about. Still half the book left and it is a ride I look forward to. However, though I think I realise what Ayn Rand considers an ideal man, I dont think I still have a clue about the famed 'Objectivisim'. The most interesting thing about this experience is that even when you are not reading the book, your mind continues to dwell upon the characters and their behaviours.

Now coming over to the dunderheads, who is a bigger one? Our Govt which bans a few blogs or the ISPs which block blogspot and all?? Yet again the totally confused Indian government has taken an absurd decision of banning a few blogs. Anyone can easily change their url to something else and lo .. it wont be blocked anymore. Anyway, the government found some offensive sites and wanted them blocked.. I never expected anything more savvy from our government. But what I never expected was the response of our dear ISPs. How could they just block the whole sites like blogspot, typepad etc?? Now thats really silly. I dont care about the technical difficulties of blocking just a few pages of a site, it really is absurd to deny Indians all the millions of blogs out there!!

Yeah I know a few people are trying to rectify the situation but until then we have to use pkblogs, vtunnel, shysurfer etc. And yeah, I am publishing this post on a 'banned/blocked' blog :D whoaa.

A paragraph which captured my attention

Yet this is the view with which- in various degrees of longing, wistfulness, passion and agonized confusion- the best of mankind's youth start out in life. It is not even a view, for most of them, but a foggy, groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable happiness. It is a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one's life is important, that great achivements are within one's capacity, and that great things lie ahead.
It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving up, by spitting in one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential

- Ayn Rand in the Introduction to the 25th edition of 'The Fountainhead'.

Weird calls and weirder happenings!!

Am lying around leisurely on a wonderful afternoon after having chatted with around 15 people and talked on phone with a few others ... when I get yet another call. But this time, it was an unrecognised number. And the conversation goes (translated from telugu to english for my writing and your reading benefit):

Caller: Hello, Ramachandra garu? *garu means sir in telugu*
Me: haan .. *softly and doubtfully*
Caller: Is it Ramachandra garu?
Me: haan, it is Ramachandra
Caller: I am .. you know Paddy (name changed) of IIIT? I am her husband's friend calling.
Me: Oh kay .... *wondering what this is all about*
Caller: I want to meet you, can you tell where?
Me: *taken aback .. now what did I do to warrant such a meeting* aahn .. can i know what this is about?
Caller: Nothing, just wanted to ask about your job and all .... *trails off*
Me: * a bit relieved* aahn No, I am going for further studies
Caller: what?
Me: I am planning to do MS, so no job for me.
Caller: Oh, I wanted to discuss some life insurance policies with you to see if you would be interested in something.
Me: *the realisation hits hard* Well, I wont be in India for long, so no point of any life insurance here ..
Caller: US aa??
Me: *whatever .. keep the phone now!!* yeah yeah something
Caller: Fine, thanks
Me: Thankyou *what a connection to what end??*

Then, I hear some shouts coming from outside. Go to the balcony of my home, which is on the third floor and look down to see a huge group of people. Yet another shooting going on, I think. Yeah, there would be some movie-teleserial shooting atleast once every week in front of our apartment. Its prime locality you know ;) However, coming back to the point, I search for the camera and the shooting-help-bus. Can find neither. Just then more shouts, I look directly below to find two people hitting a third. Oh fight scene .. I think. But no camera anywhere in sight. And no film crew either. Puzzled i observe closely and find what? Thats an actually fight going on! The person runs, his two tormentors run after him. And they are followed by a huge procession of silent and not so silent bystanders. The victim/culprit runs to the end of the compound and foolishly ends up at a deadend and the supposed righteous assault on him begins. Its looks like he is being accused of something and punished at the same time. People surround him and are giving him a short trip to hell.

Just then, my phone rings again. Same number

Caller: Hello Ramachandra garu?
Me: *Yeah the same old me* yeah tell
Caller: Can you give me Ravi Shankar's number?
Me: *Nope not from me, I wont commit the sin*, well he is not in hyd, joined some institute somewhere ..
Caller: Oh, no cell phone?
Me: I guess he hasnt taken one yet
Caller: Okay, can I have his email id?
Me: *you are more modern than I thought!* sure ..

and so I provide the id, end the call and blog about it :D

ps: And for the people who still ask me, 'so where are you going finally?' , I have an answer now :D
oops that was a ps :-ss

First post from home!!

Almost 2 weeks at home! The last time i was continually at home for more than a week was way back in the summer of 03 after my first year. Now, I have the pc at home and also a decent net connection. So how does it feel when blogging from home? Totally weird. Need to get used to it.

Watching almost all the Fifa matches, not particularly because I am any soccer fan but rather because I have nothing much to do. Also, at last I have been able to read a book of that famed author 'Aldous Huxley'. Nope, it is not the well known 'Brave New World' but one of his earliest novels called 'Antic Hay'. No comments on it other than that it definitely enriched my vocabulary, refreshed many of those Gre words. My next book shall be 'The Fountainhead'. People seem to either love Ayn Rand's writings or hate them. Dont know which side of the fence I would find myself.

My predicitions regarding the world cup? Argentina or maybe Germany or even Spain or unexpectedly France (the match between spain and france is about to start now). Too many? Note that theres no Brazil or England or Italy. I so wished that Ghana would beat Brazil 8->. However, do not ridicule if the final turns out to be a England-Brazil/Italy affair :D.

People still ask me, 'so where are you going finally?' and i still evade the answer :D.

Last post from room 14@Obh

Nope, this is certainly not a post that would attempt to describe my nonexistant nostalgic feelings.

Exactly 5 months earlier, I wrote this post on things to be done before leaving IIIT. Its time now to evaluate the performance. There were 16 tasks of which 11 were already accomplished by then. So I had the 5 remaining tasks for these 5 months. And I scored 2/5. Yeah way below par. What were the three tough tasks? The only foreign language word that I have been able to learn is 'merci'. So that doesnt count. Never had the occasion or the physique to get into a fight. Had many many ideas on drawing the attention of disco, made a small attempt too but fortunately or unfortunately it didnt work out at all. The easiest sure shot method had too many unfriendly repercussions for me to try :D. So thats that about that.

Why is it that the cable goes poof just seconds before a ronaldinho free kick??
Where has the frog jumping around in the wing just outside my room disappeared to :-?
Why is the coffee shop called 'coffee shop' when jersey, sprite etc loudly proclaim their presence and loads of other things are also available??
Why is every mess in IIIT decent enough in the month of september, bearable in december and horrible in march??
How come that the day when finally the AC in our ug4 lab started working after being a decorative piece on the wall for the whole year, they announce the closure of labs citing the (mis)usage of electricity?
Why is that when a critical post slamming the usage of PS in blogs has created a furore that my post seems to be having them (though not having been marked so).
Why is it that despite having thousands of songs in the pc, i am listening to the same 6 songs since the last 3 days?
Why is it that 'blogspot' absolutely refuses to make itself better??
Why is that despite it becoming obsolete, I continue to persist with blogspot???
Finally, when is the akela musaphir going to narrate his sad memorable incident????

From 'nothing to write' To 'forgetting to confer a title'

On the bed .. trying to sleep ... u realise the effort is futile and so get up and come back to the pc. Cntrl+T and then go to blogspot.com, log in as mythalez and click on create-post. And then look around wondering what to write. Some more minutes tick away. Nothing comes to mind. Go to some of the frequented blogs. Read some of their old posts as none have updated in the past couple of hours. Come back to the create-post tab. Still nothing in mind. Chat with Pati, the only one awake at this ungodly hour. Still nothing to write.

Its not that there is nothing to be told. A lot of what can be said is expectant of being conveyed, but you instinctively realise that nothing of that would come out well when spoken or written. So, you discard them all and are left with just ephemeral ideas whose flicker dies out even before they sufficiently illuminate the mind. What you have is perennial darkness with speckles of sparkling light droplets that relentlessly change their locations appearing and disappearing at will.

A couple of days and I will vacate my room. Yeah leave IIIT forever. Leaving with mixed feelings. Wondering how a computer would look in my home ... hey actually my pc did spend the first couple of months of its life in my home, but then it was different.. that was way back in 2003 summer when i finished my first year at this place. Had newly installed windowsXP and RH9. Desktop had the available default wallpapers of windows and linux. Windows was mostly used to play Caeser, Quake and Cricket. Linux was booted into to be tinker with. BackStreetBoys used to be the most played english band. The browser used to be Iexplorer and Konqueror both of which were rarely used. Ymessenger was a non-entity.
Now, the pc obviously still has WindowsXP (fourth time installed and already a semester old) And FC3 along with it. The wallpapers in both the OSs have been set as desktop background directly from the net. The only games now existing on the pc are Yeti Games (the penguin ones), 3 flash games, bookworm and hangaroo. /home partition has so many files that I have long ago proclaimed it to be an impossible task to clean up the home dir. BSB doesnt exist in the pc anymore though 7.4GB of the 40GB hdd is occupied by english songs. The browser in both OS is firefox and is almost always running unless the pc itself is switched off. Ymessenger and Gaim are the first programs to be executed when the pc boots into either OS.
However, the hardware is completely unchanged .. including the seldom working rarely used floppy drive. So different yet its still the same?

Let there be a post !!

On my way, I went to heaven
found my solace among the immortal men

Then chanced upon an angel, you see
her mere smile made my heart glee

We had wonderful moments together
enjoying all and sundry weather

The heaven and woman didnt suit me fine
to be back on earth, I did pine

Weirdly, an opening came my way
back to earth, my path lay

The angel accompanined me
the mortal world she wanted to see

But as she set foot on the ground
she was sold for many a pound

In retrospection, I was wrong
shouldnt have brought her along.

... This took less than 5 minutes ... am too sleepy to even make sense of what it means or even to see whether it atually means any sense ... good night!!

12 days in the '.ch' country

I should have done this long long back ... but I guess such procrastination is to be expected from someone who seldom does anything before its too late. And somehow I seem to be proud of it :-s.

So, it is considered to be the ultimate tourist destination (by most indians atleast).. hence was never in my radar of must-visit places .. somehow got the chance and oh! boy, wouldnt I like to do it again.. Every place in the country seems to be like a tourist destination damn it!! Looking at all the beauty and the luxury, I wondered what the locals think of it, for them its obviously 'normal'. And how many people enjoy it all through out the year? Just 80,00,000 humans approx. Yep 8 million is the population of the dream-land called Confederation Helvetica. Umm .. what is the population of our dear own Hyderabad? around 80 lakh .. including the suburbs .. hey its the same?? It is so unfair!! So much of beauty and richness for so few people!! Or maybe thats the main reason behind it all, the lack of humans to mar the pristine beauty
of the land called Switzerland.

I visited all the three different parts of Swiss- french part (south east), italian (south west) and german (rest of it). Yeah the national languages of Swiss are German, French and Italian and an historical language called Romansch (just like our sanskrit I think).

Amsterdam: Yeah I know, its not in Swiss. This city seems to be criss-crossed by hundreds of water bodies, It is huge and seemed quite pretty from the sky. Now lets talk about that part of the city which i visited, Amsterdam airport Schiphol as it is called. It has to be one of the largest in the world and is much more organised that KLAI (Kuala lumpur airport which I explored pretty well). It has a central hub which has like 5 wings spanning out from it and each wing is so long that there are 3-4 walk ways. Ten planes take off at almost the same time after all!! It even has a museum containing paintings of Rembrandt's students and yeah also a meditation centre, casino! besides the regulars stalls, cafes etc. One thing in which KLAI Or Narita of Tokyo score over Schiphol is that they provides free internet access whereas this one charges 5 Euros or something for 15 mins!! We went Geneva from here in a cute small plane which seated about a hundred. We had to get in by climbing stairs from the ground just like in old movies :D.

Geneva: You know you are flying over Geneva if you see a large stream of water from a lake rising up to you :D. It has the tallest fountain in the world (about 50 metres not sure). The city is built beside 'Lake Geneva' which is the largest lake in Swiss and if you go any south from here, you would end up in France. Geneva is called the 'international city' and rightly so. I could find people from all over the world. It has many UN offices for one. Apparently 40% of the 5 lakh population of the city are of foreign origin. Anywhere and everywhere in the city you could find Europeans (obviously) and other white people, lots of black people (Africa i presume), Japanese and other Far east people (chinese an korean?), Thai, Sri lankans and so on. Every creed, race must be having some people in this city. Indians you ask? Everyday that I went out in this city (which is like more than 8), I didnt come back without setting my eyes upon an Indian. This would hold true for the rest of the country as well I guess. Most of the buildings in Geneva have that old charm and seem to be built ages ago, apparently the city administration doesnt allow any new/modern buildings to come up and spoil the beauty. Incase, you want to give birth to twins, staying in Geneva may better your chances. There were loads and loads of twin-babies to be seen everywhere and you could also do a study on the special baby-carriers that have been designed to carry twins around. I found many versions, one with two seats side-by-side, another with one seat behind the other etc. And yeah, most of the genevans (actually they call themselves Genevois or something ;) ) were either middle-aged, old-aged or small children. Not so many youth around. The main shopping street of Geneva called Rive (if i remember) was pedestrian and tram only street. And it was pretty long.

Transport: The best means of transport within the country is railway. They would take you to any town and quite on time too. Pretty comfortable as expected. And all of them are right on time even to the minute. There are some double decker trains on the longer routes. And yeah all are day trains ... they dont need night trains I guess. Atleast I havent come across night trains or sleeper trains anywhere. There are also many special trains which go on tourist routes. The best among them is called 'Glacier Express'. It travels through the various valleys of the snow peaks and has to be the most picturesque train ride ever. We got the best pics on this ride. Many of its intermediate stations are famous ski resorts (supposedly patronised by the richest in the world). Even the tallest peak in the country called Jungfrau can (actually the only way) be reached through rail. That part of the rail actually cuts through the mountain .. i.e it goes through a tunnel that spans through the mountain from somewhere in the middle to the peak!! Construction of such a marvel was finished in 1906!! Details of this interesting journey shall come later. For the energetic enterprising tourist, bicycle is an interesting transport option. Saw quite a lot of bikers puffing their way around the mountains. Some compartments in the trains permit the passengers to bring in their bicycles.

As regarding the intra-city transport, it was based on buses, though some big cities like Geneva and Bern had trams also. The buses in Geneva run on overhead electricity just like trams do. They were also pretty long having something like 3 compartments. The only factor which distinguishes them from trains or trams is that they dont run on wheels and not rails. In other places like Interlaken, the buses were quite normal but seemed pollution free. Tickets are rarely checked on these city buses, most of the people seem to have passes anyway. All the time that we travelled inside Geneva, not once did anyone come to check the tickets. Though we carried something called the Swiss pass which allow unlimited travel on any mode of public transport all over the country. Saw many many varieties of cars, it was tough in recognising what company some of them belonged to. The best looking was ofcourse the roofless Red Ferrari!! Many cars were two seaters. The taxis are shamelessly pricey and mostly Mercedes. Intra city also, bicycles are widely used. Actually in Interlaken (a tourist town), the city buses seem to be used only by tourists or old people. Normal citizens used either cars or bikes or bicycles. Yeah, motor bikes are also seen in all places including in Geneva. That too mostly scooters rather than motorcycles.

St. Moritz: This is the final destination of the famed 'Glacier Express'. A quaint hill town, still had remnants of snow in april and chill in the air. It belongs to the Italian speaking part of the country. We went to a pizzeria to take some pizzas back to the hotel. The joint seemed closed from outside but was bustling inside. Interestingly, it was totally managed by girls. There was only one man who was baking the pizza bases. The pizzas? Well they had very thin crust (almost like our rotis) and werent so heavy either. Not so tasty either for us spicy indians. The town has a population of 5000 which in peak tourist season increases to 25K. Later I found out at the Olympics Museum in Lausanne that this seemingly small town hosted the winter olympics in the 1920s.

However, it is the journey to this place that forms the second best part of the whole tour (the first part is detailed later). The train travels through green lawns speckled with yellow flowers to completely white snow covered valleys, through the mist that lies around the Alps to the wooden railway stations and the surrounding cute motels. Every few minutes, you glance upon this wonderful scenery of a lush green lawn with a quaint hut in the middle, some cows lazing around, flowers growing haphazardly, thick growth of trees behind it and white snow mountains beyond it. They make the best wallpapers ever. Then there are instances when all that you can see on either side is just pure white. The land and the horizon merge to form a complete hemisphere of white around you. And there are also mountains spotted with snow making them look like a shapeless dalmation. That journey of 7 hours has to be the best train journey of my life. You wish that it wasnt fleeting and you could live in that moment forever. Basically settle down there and live a quiet beautiful life??

Bern: The capital of Switzerland also contends itself to be a 'heritage city'. Everything about the city is antique. The old gothic style buildings, the brick roads, the arched bridges, the castle like buildings on the small islands in the river or even the harmonium musicians on the pavements contribute their bit. As soon as we stepped out of the railway station into the open, it felt as if we were transported to some 16th or 17th century city. The main center boasts of one of the longest contiguous pathways. The whole city has the antiquated look. Except the shops which sell the latest brands :D. It also feels like you have come into another country. While Geneva is supposed to feel like France, being in Bern was as good as being in Germany. Also visited the 'Einstein House', the place where Einstein spent the most productive years of his life. The tourist center of Bern also had a small, very nice movie about the evolution of the city since the 12th century.

Jungfrau: My only wish when I realised that I was to visit this country, was to touch and feel 'snow'. To stand in a snowfall, catch those minute icicles and watch them melt in my hands Thats also the primary reason which made this leg of the tour most memorable. So, we first reached Interlaken. This serves as the base town for all the tourist expeditions to various peaks situated around it. Its called Interlaken because it is situated between two lakes. It seemed to have only hotels, shops and restaurants. The only income for the town seemed to be from the tourism sector. This was the best place to notice the kind of tourists that Swiss attracts. And the result of the analysis is ... surprise surprise .. First position in terms of volume is taken by the ever punctual Japs. Next come the enterprising, over excited fussy Indians .. yeah us. There were loads and loads of Indians here.

Anyway, this town is situated at a height of around 1000 metres. The highest peak called 'Jungfrau' is 4000 metres. It is nicknamed 'Top of Europe' and boasts of the highest railway station which is just below the peak. To reach there, one needs to first travel to a station for some 20 mins. Then change trains for another 40 mins journey. The whole trip is actually on a single line. All the passengers in one train have to move to the next train which will take them to the next halt and so on. Changing of trains is not warranted because of it being a junction for changing lanes or anything, it is only because the next train is even lighter and slower. After the 40 mins journey, one reaches another station for the final train-change. This time the train is a wooden one! Makes a lot of noise, enters a tunnel and stays in that tunnel for the rest of the trip! Finally we emerge at Jungfraujoch, the tallest train station in the country at 4K metres. This place is very well built and it encloses everything. There are only two openings to the inclement weather outside, both of them at the peak. Though the temperature outside is in the negatives, its quite warm inside. The station is connected to the main reception area. There are 4 eating places here. One is called Bollywood something. Yeah it is an Indian restaurant. And it was completely booked by some large Indian group on the day we were there. Any look through the glass windows only converges on plain white snow. However, I was surprised to find some birds flying around. How do they survive!!

The first attraction is named 'Ice palace'. Completely made of ice, it showcases many ice statues. The floor made of ice is expectedly quite slippery. The ice statues were quite exquisite. Apparently they do not melt or get disfigured at any time of the year. The next stop was a walk on the glacier. We actually go out into the open. The temperature on that day was at - 8 Celsius. And there was a strong blizzard reigning there. Walked some distance and then had to return back because it was impossible to see due to the thick snowfall. The scene could belong to any of the Discovery channel covered mountain expeditions. It was exactly like that. Just that we just needed to walk and not climb using ropes etc. Can I say that I had a slight taste of how eskimos live? The third and final attraction was an open platform where you could experience the snowfall minus the harshness of the previous one. The floor of the platform a steel net kind of thing and could see through it. The sight of the slope and the ground far far below it may not be recommended for the vertigo prone people.

Lausanne: The history behind this city is that peole initially settled down at the base of the mountain range. But some invader attacks pushed them up the mountains. Thus, the city is full of ups and downs. Its most well known as the headquarter of Olympic Committee. It also houses the Olympic Museum. Personally, the most fascinating part of the museum was where all the Olympic torches were displayed alongside little snippets of that particular olympics. The day we were there, the city was also hosting a cycle race. Also visited a cathedral. It was grandiose but then again nothing compared to our temples here :)

General: Where ever, you maybe in Switzerland, be it in the middle of a city like Geneva or in a hill-town, you would find the horizon dotted with snow peaked mountains. In every part of the country, every one seems to know english, maybe not perfectly but more than enough for basic conversation. One thing to notice in the country that is evidently lacking in our country is that any place be it the city bus or a building, they are all wheel-chair friendly. It is not as impeccable as Japan though. The people all seemed relaxed and not in a hurry as most of the Japanese (with reference to my previous odyssey) seemed to be. While we have stupid hideous looking weeds growing on the free soil on our country, there even the weeds are beautiful with colourful flowers blossoming on them :-??. I could also experience what 'cold' actually means. Whatever the temperature be, you feel cold or shiver only if there is a breeze or wind blowing. Otherwise, if you are wearing a decent coat or sweater, you wouldnt feel anything. The whole country shuts down by 6 in the evening (despite the sun being around until 8pm during the time in april when we went). Only emergency services, transport and restaurants, bars and ofcourse discoes remain open. The shop keepers almost push you out of their stores after 6pm. I think this is to ensure that everyone enjoys a decent family/private life.

MIGROS & COOP: Anything you want to buy in this country, you will end up going to either of these supermarket chains. You find an outlet belonging to any of these every few meters. And they sell everything under the sun .. maybe not cars and bikes but everything else. Migros has something called Migrol outlets which are yeah petrol bunks. Migros also has a restaurant attached to its outlets. They are buffet kind of restaurants wherein after you choose your items, you go to the cashier who would charge you on the basis of the weight of your maincourse and the cost of the other items like a pastry or coffee or whatever. It was both cheap and palatable.

The whole country seems so extravagant closed to being wasted for so few people. If I my descriptions havent given you a decent mental picture of the various places then you may contact me for some snapshots (not encouraged) :P.

I am back to blogging!!

What pricks me is
not that you wont be with me, now or ever
but that I existed, you wont even remember ...

Bye bye and you are gone!!

Well, just sent away one of my closest friends. He has always been there in the last four years and now in a puff he is gone ... There are just too many memories with him for me to start any reminiscence. Will certainly miss Dilip, everytime i want to go on a walk, watch a movie, go home, eat out, write a c/c++ program or just need some help.
Rishabh too went away but I would get to see him in june .. not so with Dilip.

I ll be away from the campus too. Going to Swiss to visit my brother :D (hopefully I would be able to with no hassles). I would try to blog from there, otherwise expect the next post with the advent of may.

sunken friendships

I spent a year in chennai .. my 6th class. I was new to the place and ofcourse ignorant of tamil. There were a few telugu people in the class but everyone talked in tamil .. I was the only guy who couldnt understand (along with another guy who was a complete north-indian). I made a very close friend then (a telugu guy living in chennai). Any holiday, he would either come over to my home or I would go to his and spend the entire day. A whole year, he was my only friend. The next year, I came to hyderabad. Kept in touch with him through post initially but as it inevitably happens, lost contact.

Cut to the present day. The guy has come to hyderabad for some internship kind of thing. He finds out my address and phone number with great difficulty. Calls me and we talk a bit. He asks me whether it is possible to meet, I reply in affirmative but in heart, I am really not so interested!! Am I not supposed to be dying to meet this old friend of mine? As about my other friends before coming to IIIT, I am generally interested in meeting only a miniscule number of them. Though I do remember, that when in school I was very good friends with many many of them.

I guess only the real close friendships live on ....

blog!!

Good morning!!

After time immemorial, the day has come again! I was asleep before 12 in the night!! And yeah woke up at 5:30 am. But being awake at this time is nothing new to me. I have been able to eat breakfast daily for the last 7-10 days .. no .. i wasnt the good boy who wakes up in the morning, rather i was eating breakfast .. then going to bed. But today it shall be different.

It was soo dark just a couple of minutes ago and now it suddenly looks as if it were twilight. Early mornings are still enhanting though I have been enjoying them daily since the past few days, but then their magic never seems to wear off.


Its not that I am alone and bored in my wing, many of my wingmates and pseudo wingmates are still awake playing age or watching 24 etc. Dont know whats a pseudo wingmate? All those who technically dont belong to the wing but stay here most of their hostel time anyway ... we have many such people. Guess thats what brings colour to our wing.

Farewell ... now wat?

So, in a few weeks, we are expected to leave the institute. Most of my friends know where they are going to be. At max, they may change the company that they are currently placed in. Some of them know the institutes that they may join. But what about me? I dont even know the country I may end up in!! The whole process of this MS/Phd applications and the resultant irritations and frustrations certainly tempts the mind to question whether it is all worth it. The most major question is the financial aid part .. if you are not offered aid initially, you would have to spend atleast 5-8 Lakhs for the first semester (depending on the univ) and then hoping to get something for the next semester. Why all that when it is much easier to get MS admission here in IIIT that too with a income like 6K per month? Want of a new and better place?? Greater exposure and tougher competition? I have no idea.

Another major question that has once again started plaguing my mind is why am I even going for further studies? This last 3-4 sems, i have realised that I have totally lost the patience and zeal to sit, listen and learn in classes. On the other hand, I have gained interest in working on some problems and trying to solve them. Yeah, thats what Phd is all about, you may say, but most of MS or the first two years of Phd in any US univ would only involve taking courses and attending classes. Am I cut up to that now?? I seriously have no idea.

My earlier reasoning used to be, you have to do a job all your life anyway, why hurry now, why not spend more time studying? But somehow, now I ask, you have to do job anyway rite, why go through all this trouble .. why not get into job right away? Either way, it all depends on how you perform ... but then how you perform also depends on what you need to perform!! AAh ... its all a big tangle .. thats what it is.

Nooo, I dont intend to stop blogging ...

Yeah, its more than a month since my last post. I havent been busy at all during this time. I had loads of time. But never did i feel like blogging. I realised that I have mostly blogged on those days that I was jam-packed with things to do, days that I havent had a minute of leisure. Now that i dont have much to do, my blogging frequency has suffered!!

I had written a few posts about my travails with FYP link Also remember elaborating on the various difficulties with my fyp to all those uninterested and unconcerned. However, guess what? Mine is the first fyp to be officially over. Yeah was the first in the first panel of the final vivas. Yeah mine must also be the first unofficially completed fyp. Kudos to me :>

Cultural life seems to have come out of the hibernation. After the Cul nite, we now have Amalgam and then farewell. Everyone in my batch seems to be busy with their projects and vivas. The yearbook is going great guns and is sure to occupy much of my time in the coming days. I resolve to visit library everyday in these last few days of my stay at IIIT to compensate for my lack of use of its great facilities i.e books (non techie).

My status mesg: 'fyp? wats that?' a nice reply by dilip: 'a 1 day project (24 hrs) stretched over 8 months '. I add: 'with loads of reports and a lot of paper wastage'.

Why you shouldnt do a phd? link
The wait continues ... am getting bored of it.

Clocks - Coldplay

I felt really bored,
so, i called on you
And then i found out
that you had flu

So, i borrowed a cycle
from my barber
to cross the rivers
and check your weather

i pedalled along
on the dusty road
enjoying the moment,
no, i wasnt bored

soon, i came across
a wide and deep river
i jumped into the waters
and swam with a shiver

As i was crossing,
a croc tugged my feet
i kicked it away
and saved my meat

On the other bank
i was greeted by a tramp
he told i swam too slow
and that he was a champ

I warned the beggar,
told him he was wrong
i could swim a mile
and he, not a furlong

He challenged me to a duel
we jumped in to swim across
i thought it was cruel
to compete with such an old sauce

However, i was beaten
he swam too fast
i lagged behind
yeah, i came last

I was incredulous,
and bowed to his majesty
he smirked wickedly
and excused my earlier travesty

I had to swim back again
and visit you my dear
as i was cruising in the water
i saw my worst fear

the croc was in front of me
its wide mouth open wide
i could notice its glee
i couldnt even move aside

I swam directly into it
and it closed around my bones
i somehow felt nothing
just gave out a few moans

I realised i had my knife
So i stabbed its tongue
it screamed in pain
and out i sprung

I was ecstatic,
i defeated the croc again
so great was my victory
that it started to rain

I swam ashore
and reached your home
became a part of folk lore
from here to Rome

And now you tell me
that you were lying
you werent even ill
someone else, you are seeing!!

ofcourse, these arent the lyrics of the song, somehow strange it may seem, the song inspired me to start writing something ... and the something turned out to be this absurd story :D

Just thinking ...

With the pearly drops pushing the air in their attempt to reach the cold fresh green grass on the ground, the dust scarring the beauty and the purity of the air, invisible mostly but discovered suddenly by the world whenever they streak across a sunray, the sun dismissing the wintry cold and waking the world, burning its hydrogen to give life to yet another day, the grass absorbing the warmth and drying itself of the dew, the leaves moving with the breeze crackling with laughter, the dried ones embracing the ground, the flower coy and the bee endlessly flirting with it, the cook preparing his hot spicy sambhar to accompany the soft white idlies, the sweeper swishing his broom and cornering the dirt, the newspaper boy cycling back after a job mostly well done, the fledgling looking up at the sky, will this be the day it learns to fly?

and all this while i am lost in the dreams, blissfully oblivious to world around me.