NY in NY

I am at Praveen-bhaiya's place. 'Bhaiya' is a respectful honorific suffix attached to the name of an older bloke. It literally means 'elder brother'. He lives in NY city which is where I will be spending new year. But I will not be in Times Square.

I am not in Udaipur.

Well, it just so happens that Liz Hurley is.

I thought I was going to write a review for Rocky

Not the beyond shitty Sanjay Dutt film, but the beyond praise Stallone film. But then I went on IMDB and found that someone has already said everything that I would have said about it.. so I am actually going to copy here the entire text and credit it to "MovieAddict2006".

"Rocky" is about a man. It is the story of a man who exceeds past all normal expectations and makes the most out of what he is doing. What is he doing? Boxing. Why? As Rocky says in the film, "You have to be a moron to want to box."

Rocky is played by Sylvester Stallone, whose only other film before "Rocky" was "Weekend at Kitty and Stud's," and, as you can probably guess by the title, it was an X-rated movie. But Stallone gives just about the best performance of his career here. Before he started getting into recycled action movies and unfunny comedies, the man had talent, as seen shining through in "Rocky." Somewhere along the way he lost that talent, but it's pretty evident that he had it at one time.

Stallone wrote the script, which is about a down-on-his-luck Philadelphia man named Rocky Balboa. Rocky is your average tough-guy you see walking down the street, but this film takes a closer look INTO the guy walking past you, and not AT the guy walking past you.

He lives in a beat-up, old apartment, infested with roaches, and he barely makes enough money to support himself. His job? Rocky retrieves money for loan sharks. His real job, however, is to break the loaners' thumbs if they don't pay up. He's a muscle man.

After he returns from his "job" every day, he takes time to do what he has been doing for the past six years, which is boxing. Then, after that, he takes a trip to the local pet store to see the love of his life, Adrian, who works there. He constantly tries to impress her and talk to her, but she is shy and literally does not talk much throughout the entire film.

But things change for Rocky after heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) decides that he wants to make a big performance on the 4th of July. He wants to appear nice by letting a regular Joe Schmoe fight him in the ring. All for show, of course. As he is looking through a book of local boxers, he points his finger at the letters THE Italian STALLION, a.k.a. Rocky. He says that fighting an Italian is perfect. "An Italian found America," Creed says. If he fights an Italian-American on the 4th of July, it will be symbolic and will also make Creed look good.

But Rocky doesn't realize this is all for show. When he receives word that Apollo Creed wishes to fight him in the ring, Rocky begins to train long and hard with Burgess Meredith, which results in the famous scene where Rocky runs up an entry of stairs in Philly with the music "Gonna Fly Now" playing in the background. This scene is spoofed by films world-wide, and it's one of the cornerstones in film history. You will see it all the time. It's just one of those film moments that are marked down in history.

The most entertaining thing about "Rocky" is how innocent Sylvester Stallone comes across in his role as Rocky. You feel for him when he is trying to impress Adrian and she shrugs him off. The scene where her brother invites Rocky over, and Rocky keeps saying, "Are you sure she knows I'm coming?" is a sign of how the guy has been put down. And then when she comes over to his apartment, he acts nice and talks to her. He's not trying any moves on her. He just enjoys being with her. Rocky is a bit of an idiot, as he himself admits, but he's a sweet idiot.

And the end, when Rocky fights Apollo Creed, is amazing. A nobody who actually stands a chance against the heavyweight champion of the world. Creed and Rocky are being battered by each other. Creed goes into the opposite corner as Rocky, and one of Creed's managers says, "This guy thinks this thing is for real -- knock him out!" You feel sorry for Rocky there, because he is giving the fight all he's got, when it was just a publicity stunt from the beginning, but he didn't even realize it.

Things like that are what make "Rocky" what it has become over the years. It is a great film, and it has many classic moments that you will see spoofed in films all the time. You should probably see it just for that fact.

But the truth is, if you take away all the underlying intricacies, "Rocky" is just the story of a simple guy who gets a chance to do something amazing, and he gives it all he's got. I think we've all gone through something like that before, and if so, you will be able to identify with "Rocky" all the more.

Dhoom, Maeri, etc.

Maeri. A song by the Indipop group Euphoria. Euphoria sounds some monotonous if you listen to a lot of at one go. But then, they have some absolute gems. One of them is Maeri. This song is filmed beautifully, starting with the band waiting for a train at a generic North Indian station.. complete with a fakir singing with a do-tara (a two stringed instrument). Euphoria is an extremely urban group, but they manage to carry an air of beautiful rusticity and do it so well!

Their other beautiful song is their very first one: Dhoom. Dhoom was filmed in Benares (one of the holy cities of North India). One of the fondest memories of being a Rhythmica hanger-on (I avoid the word groupie for obvious reasons… and to explain things here.. Rhythmica was the music group of the Institute.. and I only actually associated with them when they pitched in for Spandan events.. and Spandan was the Bengali cultural organization on campus.. and they had a drama group which had overlaps with Dramatiis, the Institute theatre organization.. in fact, they were Dramatiis, to a sufficiently good approximation.. ok this is getting complicated).. yes one of my fondest memories was sitting through Pradyut-da and Emtiyaz singing Dhoom at the SAC music room. Pradyut has one of the most amazing and powerful voices I have ever heard. Emtiyaz is technique and style in equal proportions. If these guys were not champs in engineering, they could have just as well earned a living as performers. Anyway, that seems like a lifetime ago, except , of course, that I was just listening to Dhoom online.

Canada Roadtrip, Oct 2006 - III Pictures

Love these beautiful skies

Canada Roadtrip, Oct 2006 - II

The first installment of this travelogue was posted aeons ago.. here is the link.

Pretty close to the border now. We decided to stop for breakfast. There was this little restaurant near the bridge where we decided to break. Both cars pulled in, and we were off to a flying start with fresh coffee and random foods. Whilst engrossed in conversation, I did not notice Young Karthik tearing, or rather shredding his sugar sachet into tiny pieces. Which he then proceeded to reach out and drop into my cup of coffee. Which was, at that time, half full. Now there are many and really many bad things that have happened to me these last 25 years. But why someone would decide to ruin my morning coffee was quite inexplicable to me. As is usually the case when something like this happens, I began fuming. And then ranted for a while. Well, renting is better than bottling such feelings of injustice inside and one day snapping and then doing truly awful things, right?

Anyway, so we kept going, after another cup of coffee, when the waitress asked me to hold out my cup and I said that I will be needing another cup.

Crossing the Lake to Canada was quite a sight… it is very, very pretty up there. And then we were at the border post.. where the bloke waved us on with a cursory inspection (it helps if you are traveling with white people). We were in Canada.
I don’t know how much of it was psychological, but Canada did appear to have clearer blue skies than the US. And of course everyone is metric here, so C had a bit of fun changing her digital speedometer over to kmph. And EVERYONE speeds. Canadian drivers are really aggressive on the highway. It scared us all for a bit, but then, when in Rome..

Then there was this brief ruckus when the Louvvmobile slid up right alongside (at 100 kmph) and Young Krishnan started making wierdarse hand gestures. To which, we had to reply by flicking him, of course. It was only much later that we understood that he wanted to pull into a gas station to attend to nature’s call. Well, so much for sign language.. when the implicit reasoning is that there has to be some vulgarity involved….

There were all these huge trucks rattling along the road.. dump trucks… then we figured that they were returning from the US after dumping garbage. Yes, Canada dumps its trash in the US, specifically in Michigan.

Resources on the trash dumping controversy:

http://mcsrt.org/resources/trash/index.htm
http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168--89408--,00.html

India in the Pakistani consciousness.

Ask any ordinary Indian what he thinks about Pakistan and he will probably say something to the effect of 'stupid country with good scientists: they have nukes, but they cannot seem to live with democracy'. Each time our Prime Minister takes the peace flag to Pakistan, most Indians shake their heads with pity at the foolishness of politicians and say, 'do you not remember 1965? or 1971? Or 1999? The only message those people understand; is the type sent from the barrel of a 155 mm Bofors field howitzer.'

But then, think about this: being an Indian is not just a matter of idle pride. A Sri Lankan friend of me told me that being right next door to India is a pain, because amongst other things, importing Bollywood movies has killed the local film industry. Consider this in the larger context of being next door to this huge guy who sits around all day watching TV. I mean, this big guy has a messed up dirty house, but on the 15th of August he puts up some pretty nice lights. Everyone says that he has an aunt they all dislike who lives in that little room above tha garage and they all avoid her. Sure, but didn't they recently see her at a family gathering.. sure she looked a little under the weather, but she was smiling. And although we laugh at this big guy and do mean things to him like steal apples from his tree and sometimes hide his mail and other petty shite, deep down we know that he has a bloody huge stick and we have seen him use it in the past.

Yes, being India's neighbour means that you live under the fear of losing your cultural indentity to this huge behemoth. We can understand that. So, to all Indians, stand up and be proud. I suppose the biggest strength of the Indian polity is that we have bigger fish to fry than destroying Pakistan. Take for example early Jan 2001. The Pakistanis had sponsored terrorists who had carried out a suicide attack on the Indian parliament. Now we don't like our politicians too much, but this was pushing it. So... we were at the brink of war with Pakistan (not again!!).. there were some half a million soldiers waiting on the Western Front .. waiting, just in case the PM wanted to take Pakistan. I would imagine that at that time, most of the Paki High Command was shitting in their collective pants. What were the Indians doing? We were celebrating the Kumbh Mela, a once in 12 years religious festival where believers must bathe in the waters of the holy river Ganga at Allahabad. Estimates of how many Hindus actually made the pilgrimage vary from 25 million to gawd knows what... yes, all these people were lined up for a bath while the Army was preparing to invade Pakistan.

So what is the reverse side of the picture like? I mean, what do Pakistanis think of us Indians? That is a question I have no answers to... but it would be very interesting to find out. Here is a link to Ayaz Amir's writings. He is a journalist with the Dawn, Pakistan's premier daily.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/arc-ayaz.htm

Here are a few references for the piece on Kumbh Mela:
http://www.kumbhamela.net/
http://www.kmp2001.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbh_Mela
http://www.melafilms.com/
http://www.zenzibar.com/Articles/kumbhamela/index.asp

This links to a BBC satellite photograph of all these people!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1137833.stm

And a Channel 4 site:
http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/K/kumbhmela/bkgndframe.html

And here are a few references of the 2001 standoff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_India_Pakistan_standoff
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=917228
http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/15/top1.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/27war2.htm

If?

If "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" .. then I use Macintoshes... will I ever get my PhD?

Conversations with people and machines.

How do you know that the person at the other end of the phone when you call to report that your laptop/internet line/microwave oven or whatever is malfunctioning? Because based upon your questions, the respondent answers in a fashion that is characteristic of human intelligence. This is, in short what the Turing Test is. If you cannot distinguish between the responses offered by the machine and those that might presumably be offered by a human being, then the machine is said to possess human like intelligence.

The catch, of course is the nature of the conversation. In a day where most of our problems (at least those of the nature detailed earlier) are solved by people sitting far away (India, Pakistan, Phillipines, take your pick) with computers and telephone headsets, the degree to which the conversation may act as a test of intelligence is questionable. Personally, I have found that these people operate much like machines offering solutions from a large, but nevertheless fixed menu which has been written down by the powers that be. Flexibility, which is the hallmark of thought seems to have been lost with the standard response being, 'let me check with my supervisor.' Why then, should we employ humans in such positions at all? And this question was answered convincingly in the negative by many companies which now rely upon voice activated menus to help you through life.

However, let us get back to the initial topic of conversations with machines. The most famous such conversational line in public memory is, of course, 'There appears to be a problem with the AE 35 unit'. But then again, the gigantic intelligence of HAL9000, the fictional computer created by Arthur C Clarke which went insane is not something that we are even close to achieving. So while the topic of Artificial Intelligence is one that I might explore in later blogs, here is a conversation between a human and a computer to start off with.

What if.... SS-GB

yes, Today's what if blog asks the question,.. what if Operation Sea Lion had been successfully carried out? If you are wondering what this was, then the short and simple answer is that this was Nazi Germany's plan to invade England in the early days of WWII. As we know, this came to naught and the Allies were able to consolidate and regroup and eventually win. A wikipedia account is here.

Anyway, one of the fictional accounts written about a possible Occupied England was 'SS-GB' by Len Deighton. Now this was, at first sight, a regular murder (if there exists such a thing) investigated by a Scotland Yard detective. Except, of course, that is is Occupied Engand and Scotland Yard is overseen by the Great Britain offices of the infamous SS. This book is written with a characteristic premonitory flavour that has been Deighton's hallmark. An excellent read, although not Deighton's best, but certainly thought provoking. A few reviews are listed below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-GB
http://www.strangewords.com/archive/SSGB.html

Another amazing photography page

Is here.

The Kein Four - Finite Simple Group

This is what happens when people do too much math. Check out this video which originated from the University of Chicago.

Night Photography and other things.

Night photography is troublesome. You need light to take pictures. That is something of a problem at night. Hence, ISO boost, tripod, long shutter open time and other things. Did not work out though. Need to read the manual more carefully and experiment again.

Brilliant quote from 'How to lose a guy in ten days'.. (yes, I saw a chick flick and actually liked it).. "A woman's purse is the secret to her power.. there are all kinds of secrets there which should be hidden from mankind".. Kate Hudson looks soooo pretty here..

Snatch.. yet again....

Bullet Tooth Tony, Turkish, who is named after an airplane crash, his partner Tommy (that does not mean that they hold hands and walk in the park), Brick Top.. "Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible cunt... me. ".. Boris the Blade, Boris the Bullet Dodger, Boris the ex-KGB agent.. this is the only movie in which you might actually learn something for that potential career as a gangster.. for instance, the disposal of people you might have shot, knfied or otherwise done in according to Brick Top: "...And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig". "


Strongly recommended with a Killian Red Irish beer...

It is a great university.

The University of Michigan is an amazing place to work, and study and Ann Arbor is a great place to live. (If only it didn't get so bloody cold..) Here are some facts about the University.

It happens only in America!!!!!

I know this bloke who told me yesterday that when he is not doing molecular quantum mechanics, he is also a webmaster for a site called "Should I Dump Him Or Not !?!"

Quite self explanatory. Girls post their stories, sorry detail whatever circumstances have driven them to seek the opinion of Netizens.. and people resond. Eventually, it may come to an online vote.

Here is a direct link.

As is the case when I encounter something so cool, I feel the need to report it to my six and a half readers... so there.. I hope that I have managed to enrich your lives today.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Why this post?
Some one recently accused me of being a fan of slasher movies.
NOT TRUE!!!!!!!!!

As it turns out, I am a fan of 'scary by implication', as in I prefer Hannibal over, say, Friday the 13th. Intelligent and stylish direction intrigues me far more than copious amounts of ketchup being split. The only exception to that might be the Kill Bill movies, which are special for totally different reasons.

Ok, back to where we were. So there is this Korean director called Chan-wook Park. I have so far seen only one film by him: 'Oldboy', a visceral revenge thriller that starts on an astounding premise and then hammers away at every sensibility for some 90 minutes before ending in a way you might expect, but when you see it, you will nevertheless be taken aback. These are a few of his quotations, taken from the IMDB page.

"In our lives, we have good things and bad things, happiness and pain. Life is full of pain and happiness and that's what I wanted to show."

"Living without hate for people is almost impossible. There is nothing wrong with fantasizing about revenge. You can have that feeling. You just shouldn't act on it."

"I have principles and rules. I deal very carefully with acts of violence and make sure that audiences understand how much suffering these acts cause."

"In my films, I focus on pain and fear. The fear just before an act of violence and the pain after. This applies to the perpetrators as well as the victims."

Numerous times I lie in bed at night and imagine the cruellest torture. I imagine the most miserable ruining of that person's life. After that, I can fall asleep with a smile on my face. As long as it stays in the realm of imagination, the crueller the better - that's healthy. I'd like to recommend it to you all as well. I hope my films can help in any small way to help your imagination become at least a little bit crueller.

When a hero decides to take revenge, their hitherto tedious life is ended and they are born again as a completely different person. With the completion of revenge in sight, the hero has to face the fact that their pleasure up until that point must come to an end.

I've always tried not to fall for the lies that say things like 'you can do anything if you have the will' or that 'you're the only one who can carve out your own life.' According to the audience member's beliefs, you could call it the will of God or social systems, or fate; but in the end, what I'm trying to say is the same. And that is, 'Life doesn't go your own way."

Race car test

The race car insanity test.

Another question....

Why do Bangladeshi's have a bigger presence on the internet than do people from West Bengal, India? I mean, sure, they have a whole country going, but we are one of the biggest contributors to the software industry in sheer numbers of people. And surely, ALL of those software engineers don't spend ALL their time writing code? Ok, Indian Bongs, time to sit up and take notice. Lets not allow the internet to be taken over by a bunch of Slyhetis!!!

Back to the recurrent theme

I have changed my recurrent theme. The theme is now this: a question. ANY question.
And the question of the day is: WHY DOES MACINTOSH FIREFOX NOT SUPPORT BENGALI FONTS?

This is beyond corny, but I had to post it.

Came across this on Orkut today....

Titanic song remake in Orkut song (deline cion)

Every time in my orkut
I see you. I scrap you.
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the Scrap Book
And testimonials between us
You have come to show yourself " single".
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the friends list does go on
Once more you logged on
And you're here in my scrap book
And my scrap book will go on and on
Testimonials can touch us one time
And last for sometime
And never let go till we're friends
Love was when I saw your friends list
One true time I hold to
In my life I'll surely view her/his profile
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the friends list does go on
Once more you logged on
And you're here in my scrap book
And my scrap book will go on and on
There is some amazing profile that will not
go away
You're here, there's so much to fear,
And I know that my friend will know I checked her/him out
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my friends list
And my friends list will go on

Helping feminists.

R is a feminist. She keeps telling me all this stuff about how wimmen are oppressed, and men are the reason the planet is going to the dogs (not bitches..) .. so I figured that my reader should also be told this kind of stuff.. this is what she sent me last

The South-Asian Woman's List of Good Resolutions

1. I resolve not to apologize for existing.

2. I resolve not to apologize to men (unless I have really done something wrong).

3. I will make a distinction between myself and my family.

4. I do not need to be married to be happy or dutiful.

5. I do not need children to be happy or dutiful.

6. I do not need a son to be happy or dutiful.

7. I will not avoid discussions about money.

8. I will not criticize other women so as to blame the victim of sexual harrassment or sexual assault. "She was wearing tight-tight jeans," "She is too mod."

9. I will support other women. Each one, teach one to be economically and emotionally self-sufficient.

10. I resolve not to betray my daughter into the arms of the patriarchy "for her own good."

11. I will evacuate any toxic environment that threatens my mental or physical safety.

12. I will take responsibility for my decisions and ask no one for pity.

13. I will not value a man based solely/primarily on his capacity as provider.

14. I will not cringe when stating that I make more than my husband.

15. I will not cringe at the thought of being the primary breadwinner of the family.

16. I will not sneer at men who are more sentimental than I am.

17. I will not push my son towards a stereotypical career any more than I do my daughter.

18. I will not die if my daughter chooses a mate who's in a "feminine" profession.

19. I will understand the pain of a man trapped in an unhappy career because he is compelled to be the sole provider for his family.

20. I WILL criticize the woman who cribs because her husband is not maintaining her in the style she would like to be maintained.

21. I will never use phrases like "Isn't he supposed to be a man" or "He isn't taking it like a man," or make comments about who wears the pants in the family.

22. I will accept that a man can be sexually harrassed by a woman.

-- Bisakha Sen & Shauna Singh Baldwin

Bisakha Sen is assistant professor of economics at U. Central Florida, doing research in labor economics. She is an aspiring Bengali feminist, and hopes to achieve the status of 'hell-raising Bengali feminist' in the not-too-distant future.
Shauna Singh Baldwin is an Indo-Canadian essayist, fiction writer, and radio producer who is working on her third book.

Requests

I do not have much time... k, that a total lie.. but I would give a lot for a partner who would help me to translate Jabberwocky into Bangla (that would be my native language). Anyone?

WHAT if?

There should be a recurrent theme in this blog... in fact, I believe that it already exists, without being declared as such: "What if?"

So I am going to start out by asking the following question: "And whether pigs have wings"...

and to put the whole thing in perspective.. let me give you the rest of that delightful poem, The Walrus and the Carpenter.. by that amazing genius.. Lewis Carrol.

The sun was shining on the sea,
 Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
 The billows smooth and bright --
And this was odd, because it was
 The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
 Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
 After the day was done --
'It's very rude of him.' she said,
 'To come and spoil the fun!'

The sea was wet as wet could be,
 The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
 No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead --
 There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
 Were walking close at hand:
They wept like anything to see
 Such quantities of sand:
'If this were only cleared away,'
 They said, 'it would be grand.'

'If seven maids with seven mops
 Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,
 'That they could get it clear?'
'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,
 And shed a bitter tear.

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!
 The Walrus did beseech.
'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
 Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
 To give a hand to each.'

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
 But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
 And shook his heavy head --
Meaning to say he did not choose
 To leave the oyster-bed.

Out four young Oysters hurried up.
 All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
 Their shoes were clean and neat --
And this was odd, because, you know,
 They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
 And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
 And more, and more, and more --
All hopping through the frothy waves,
 And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
 Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
 Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
 And waited in a row.

'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
 'To talk of many things:
Of shoes -- and ships -- and sealing wax --
 Of cabbages -- and kings --
And why the sea is boiling hot --
 And whether pigs have wings.'

'But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried,
 'Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
 And all of us are fat!'
'No hurry!' said the Carpenter.
 They thanked him much for that.

'A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,
 'Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
 Are very good indeed --
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear,
 We can begin to feed.'

'But not on us!' the Oysters cried,
 Turning a little blue.
'After such kindness, that would be
 A dismal thing to do!'
'The night is fine,' the Walrus said,
 'Do you admire the view?'

'It was so kind of you to come!
 And you are very nice!'
The Carpenter said nothing but
 'Cut us another slice-
I wish you were not quite so deaf-
 I've had to ask you twice!'

'It seems a shame,' the Walrus said,
 'To play them such a trick.
After we've brought them out so far,
 And made them trot so quick!'
The Carpenter said nothing but
 'The butter's spread too thick!'

'I weep for you,'the Walrus said:
 'I deeply sympathize.'
With sobs and tears he sorted out
 Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
 Before his streaming eyes.

'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,
 'You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
 But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
 They'd eaten every one.

-- Lewis Carroll

Noise in measurement.

where does noise come from? one can imagine random thermal motionsof electrons in a resistor. so if i were to take a basic 100K resistor and connect a high impedance multimeter across it, i would see some readings. these would represent thermal noise inside the resistor. so, what is the correlation time of such noise? is there any physical process which has a correlation time of zero?

about pigs..

pig tossing... what was he thinking?

and

the mysterious case of the pig jumping out of the truck.

Monkey Business

here!!!

Business goes on as usual..

Three articles, both from BBC news..highlight the continuing fact that inexpensive, quality clothing is made by people who work and suffer under terrible conditions... obviously, the trade unionism and ethical trade concepts seem to extend only to the western world.
1. The true cost of cheap clothes.
2. British firms exploit Bangladesh.
3. Child workers in India.. things continue regardless of what acts are passed.

Another exam

Another time.. another exam.. and badly, badly in trouble....

More geeky stuff.

The world of Metasyntactic variables is to be found here.

Time - II

Time – II.

Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician or a theoretical physicist. I aim primarily to establish, or rather to discuss (establish is way to arrogant) the way time is viewed in literature, mostly popular literature and some films.

Paraphrasing Newton, we have his views on ‘absolute time’: “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, from its own nature, passes equably without relation the anything external, and thus without reference to any change or way of measuring of time (e.g., the hour, day, month, or year).”

Later physicists, principally the authors of modern physics, ie, people like Poincare and Einstein have constructed theories according to which it is incorrect, or incomplete to view time as an independent parameter on a ‘timeline’. Rather, it makes sense to talk about events that are separated by both space and time.. or rather ‘spacetime’. Here time is now viewed as another parameter like length, breadth and height. Relative time, as recorded by a clock on a spaceship depends on how fast that spaceship is moving. The faster it moves, the slower the clock ticks. The upper limit to this appears to be the speed of light. So far we have gracefully pirouetted around the question of whether the clock can tick backwards. Let me rephrase that: can time be made to flow backwards? Hmmm.. tricky. In fact, we will not try to answer that question in a scientific form at all.

But before we start our journey into the speculative, let us talk of Alice and Bob. They happen to have been taking a coffee break while their graduate students were preparing two spin half particles in an entangled state. Alice then walks off with one of the entangled particles and Bob has the other. When Alice wants to send some information to Bob, she performs a basic unitary operation on her particle.. which is just a fancy mathematical term for something like rotating its spin by 180 degrees. Bob’s particle is immediately affected by whatever Alice has done to her particle: such is the nature of entangled states. So it appears that information transmission is instantaneous. This is interesting indeed.

Anyway, to get back to our discussion of time and its treatment in popular entertainment, there have been very erudite discussions and speculations on superluminal, or faster than light travel. Most of these discussions are motivated by the simple analogy of an ant walking on the surface of a rubber ball. To get to the diametrically opposite side, he must travel a minimum equatorial distance of pi*radius. If some one is so kind as to provide him with a radial channel passing through the centre of the ball, he will only have to travel a distance of 2*radius. This is “hyperspatial” travel. In fact, most theories of superluminal travel speculate that there are available such “wormholes” in space through we which we might be able to travel to reach far distant reaches. I remember a particularly cheesy movie ‘Event Horizon’ which had a spaceship that seemingly passed through a black hole. Yes, black holes, (which are collapsed stars) seem to always be good candidates for space wormholes. Well, the Event Horizon came back and apparently it had been to some truly evil place, for its crew had died quite gruesomely. Yes, a particularly cheesy film indeed, made only slightly tolerable by the presence of Laurence Fishburne. In the next, and concluding article in this series, I will explore the religious connotations associated with such flights of science fiction.

References:
1. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/ (support this project!!!)
2. http://eve.physics.ox.ac.uk/NewWeb/Research/communication/communication.html (this is an excellent reference written by two of the most respected scientists in the field of quantum computation)
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_physics
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#Time_in_physical_sciences
6. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/
7. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_intro.html
8. http://www.vectorsite.net/tarokt_7.html
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox
10. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html

etymologic

R introduced me to this amazing game. If you think you are good with etymology, then pit your skills online and find out.

Shibu Soren and 200,000 unnewsworthy girls.

A brief introduction. Shibu Soren happens to be a tribal leader of North India. His rise to power was marked by those uninvestigated acts of violence which seem to be always associated in some way to many Indian politicians. But there was a time, however brief, when he was likened to Birsa Munda, the famous 19th century champion of the tribal cause. Well, in 2005 Soren became the Chief Minister of the newly created foothills state of Jharkhand, although his government did not survive a confidence vote. Let us quickly fast forward to the present. Soren has been convicted of the murder of his secretary, Shashi Nath Jha and has been sentenced to life imprisonment. This has occupied all the news headlines back home. Everyone is seemingly happy about the fact that the courts have returned power to "the people".

I have a few comments about this. First: who exactly are "the people?" Are we talking about the same people who elected Soren to the various offices he occupied over his entire career? There is something to be said about the statement that people deserve the leaders they choose. If the best that this country can do is to put murderers and rapists in parliamentary seats, then, lie back and enjoy what your precious elected leader will do to you after he enters office.

Secondly, it is rather naive to believe that the long arm of justice will now reach out correct whatever ills our politicians have been perpetrating on us. The high and mighty of this land have always been just that: high and mighty. Justice is a middle class concept which has no meaning when you do not have a full belly. Then thievery and beyond is not a crime. And for those of us who have much much more than just a full belly, justice is, again, a tool for keeping the washed and scrubbed masses thoroughly in their place. Economic rules are merely there to be circumvented. And if you happen to be a bartender closing shop when a bunch of unruly patrons walk in, you better do what they want.. or else you might end up being shot and seven years later your murderer still walks free. Remember Jessica Lal?

Newsflash: people, stop daydreaming! What you voted for is what you get. Take my lovely home state, for instance. West Bengal has had a Communist government for.. what.. 30 years? This goverment came to power in the wake of the Naxalite movement of the seventies. One of its most popular acts was agrarian reform.. power to the farmer, so to speak. Communism and trade unionism go hand in hand. Except, that there was something distinct Frankensteinian about the form of unionism that the Left espoused..something that lead to the industrial decimation of the state. What is left today is being outcompeted by industries down South. And then came the Tatas. Them of the under Rs. one lakh (or was it two lakh?) car. And planned to build in Singur, an agricultural region of the state. And the governmment promised them the land needed and then proceeded to go out and get it.

Which understandably led to certain hiccups. In fact, lets go all the way and call it one big mess. And our very own Mamata-di promised that no farmer's land shall be usurped with inadequate compensation. So those people who have been screaming themselves hoarse about the Left's sucidal industrial policy over the last decade and a half are now throwing a spanner in the works. Meanwhile, the Left, always the champion of the farmer is now booting the aforementioned farmer off his land and giving his some paltry compensation, which he MUST accept, or its the police on his back. Hmm.. let me stand back for a moment and think about this.. role reversal? While, the Tatas, who have enjoyed (so far) a household reputation of being honest businessmen stand back; somewhat apprehensive at this turn of events. And the farmer, poor chap has no idea......

Ok, that was a point made somewhat tedious.. in case my reader has not got the point yet, let me put it down.. politicians are here for their own good... for the greater part, their five years in office is their five year ride on the gravy express.. and we have US to blame for this sorry state of affairs. That was US and not the U.S, by the way.. they have their own problems.

And those 200, 000 girls? Yes.. it seems due to the ball being dropped by the Central government and not being picked up by the relevant state goverment (Karnataka), 200, 000 girls hailing from families below the poverty line will not be able to finish school. What is also apalling, part from the fact, is that the media chose to bury this news article far far below the front page where Soren has been placed.

Pretzel and Brezels

Pretzels are baked snacks that are twisted into a wierd knotty shape... the shape that results projects into a two dimensional multiply connected surface in two dimenions... in fact, in three dimensions as well if I have the definitions down right. My sis just told me that there is a Deutsch version of pretzels called Brezels which pretty much look the same, but probably has a more enlightened heritage to speak of.. and certainly appears to have greater variety going by the Wikipedia page. My personal take on it is that the mini pretzel makes for a good travelling snack.. especially if you can find a low calorie pack.

End Sem Frenzy

Too many things to do... homeworks to complete... homeworks to grade... exams to prep for... exams to grade.. labwork to be done... yes, this next two weeks or so will not be too easy..

Time.. I

What price can one put on the future?

Ever since time began, people have been trying to think their way around it. There have been crystal balls and seers for as long as man has any memory. There have always been those whom we say can see into the future. But for the most part, our world is confined to merely three dimensions.

I do not plan to explore the physics of time travel, is at all, such speculation is possible .. you will have to ask a theorist for that. No, this blog has to do only with the way that time travel has been viewed in popular culture.

There seem to be two broad views around: the first is the chaotic viewpoint. This essentially means that changing the tiniest event of the past can cause catastrophic changes in the present and in the future. The theory rests on the assumption that every event in spacetime is somehow connected to every other event in spacetime… which is a pretty decent assumption.. and that ‘reality’ as we see rests on an unstable maximal point in the infinite dimensional space of ‘events’. Changing any single event from its ‘ordered’ occurrence can cause reality to go tumbling downhill, and Gawd knows what will happen after that.

This viewpoint was the one shown, in say.. ‘Back to the Future’.. where MJ Fox tries his best to get his parents together when they were high school students… or else his own existence is in jeopardy. This was also the perspective taken by Ray Bradbury is his short story… drat! I just can’t remember the name.

Nice. The other viewpoint is that reality sits in a minima in the aforementioned space of events. Changing any event is not going to do much, as negative or ‘restoring’ forces act to bring reality back to where it was. The Universe, in other words has a certain amount of ‘elasticity’.. that allows it to spring back from deformations of reality to what it is supposed to be like. This is the perspective taken by relatively fewer writers. But it has had its adherents.

The great Asimov has shown an interesting perspective in his book, ‘The End of Eternity’. Here he talks about the Universe being truly, accessibly, four dimensional. Hence, there are people who can move back and forth through time.. regulating it.. and policing it. If this sounds even slightly like the ridiculous Van Damme movie ‘Timecop’, then this would be a good time to buy the BOOK and read it. Anyway, these people, the ‘Eternals’ work to the ultimate end of human development and peace… and their motto is MPE/MPE. Which stands for ‘Minimum Possible Effort, for Maximum Possible Effect’.. hence perturbations in spacetime are supposed to be just as much as needed and not a bit more. But again, Asimov recognizes a fundamental truth… that to live is to achieve and if achievement is taken away.. then life itself becomes pointless. If we know what is to happen, then our future has not been revealed to us.. it has been taken away from us. Hence, the end of the book proceeds along this line of thought… any more would be a nasty spoiler.

To be continued…

Pictures and Spies.

I once read a spy novel where some KGB lamplighters were shadowing this French (or was it a British bloke). The book had these shadowers continuously photographing their target. What they used was not any ordinary camcorder, but one of them really fast SLRs with high speed film roll and continuous (burst mode) capability. And they were shooting in B/W. Why, I have no idea. But this basic idea of hanging around and shooting at high speeds so as to capture snapshots of continuous motion has been around forever in the pro world. It is only recently that it has made an entry into the consumer market. Again, here I make a judgement, because film SLRs have had this for a while, the speed depending on the rate at which the motor could drive the film (shutter speed is not an issue). With compact digital cameras, well what you pay for is what you get… so what sells for a burst mode is a low quality sequence of pictures. CF cards are typically faster than xD or SD cards. The principal bottlenecks are electronic, not electromechanical as in film SLRs. What matters here is buffer size and for want of a better word, I am going to call bus speed. For a small bus speed, the speed at which the camera is able to write to the card (provided you have a reasonably fast card) is the limiting factor, and most DSLRs will conk out after maybe 5 to 10 frames at high quality. A large buffer will allow more frames before you have to stop. Then there is what is called the ‘flushout time’, the time it takes to write to the card and prepare for the next shot. Most prosumer DSLRs do anything between 2.5 to 5 frames per second. A Canon TXi(for those with tiny hands) or an Olympus EV500 is good value. If you are feeling self indulgent, or have a benevolent rich uncle, think about a Nikon D80. I don’t know how the new Pentax is going to work out, but I have a sneaky feeling that is might just give the people at Nikon/Canon some nightmares. And then go look at the new Leica D series. And drool.

The Changing Wurlde

This is rather unusual. I just found out that there is actually a videogame based on the Godfather. Now, I knew for a while that there was a game based on Star Wars (surprise, surprise), but this one caught me off guard. This whole thing about all media converging towards one really mixed up smorgasbord (I just love that word) is rather intimidating. We already have movies based on videogames, take fro example Angelina Jolie’s rather infamous Lara Croft movies; then we have movies based on carnival rides, as in Pirates of the Caribbean. And of course, we have movies based on comic strips, Superman, Spiderman, yadda, yadda, yadda. The reverse trend, especially with the Godfather, which, of course is based on Mario Puzo’s MUCH better book, is rather disconcerting.

Convergence, convergence. Something in class I happened to notice today: this girl sitting behind me was not taking notes; she was clacking away at her shiny laptop computer, typing the notes in. I mean, wow!
Pretty soon, the whole thing about opening up a new book fresh from the printer’s will be just lost. Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, entertainment goes to new levels. Remember that Gawd-awful Arnie movie Total Recall? That played around with the virtual reality concept… You take vacations everywhere… but the one constant is you! That could change, with a VR memory installed in your head, you could have memories of going to Mars as a secret agent (with a luscious babe waiting for you, of course)…..

Yes, things are a-changing, and I am too old fashioned to change with them. Or not.

In Canada

After a bunch of false starts, here I am, back in Canada .. again! This time with a bunch of people somehow all connected to the Institute back home... all Bengali and all very nice people, thank you. Also swigging some really fundoo vodka.. I think it is Absolut.. and listening to some very nice music.. sometimes online and sometimes live.. in fact, I just heard 'ye Duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai' sung by Mohammad Rafi in Guru Dutt's 'Pyaasa'.... neat! Also had some very good biriyani.. ok, lets upgrade it from very good to awesome!

Adios!!!

Thoughts and greetings

Some observations and thoughts.

Americans frequently wish each other ‘hey, how’re you doing?’ as they walk by in corridors or elsewhere. They rarely, if ever stop to find out the answer to that question, though? Does this mean that they are insincere in their display of friendly neighbourliness? Perhaps it does. I am not sure. What I can say is that people in this country are undoubtedly more friendly in their daily behaviour than I have frequently seen back home. Having said that, people here are also, in general sticklers for rules and will not go out of their way to help you. They will stick to the letter, and frequently not the spirit of the law. That is, however an impression, and is tempered by a mild case of xenophobia.

An answer to ‘hey, how’re you doing?’: what if I were to answer, ‘not good at all, my uncle Ravi bit my dog Chintamani and gave it rabies’? What then? How might the other person react? I should try this out sometime.

Reverse racism?
Are brown people racist? Certainly some of us are, but to what extent? I do not have an insight into people’s minds, but there was this famous advert for a skin cream back home which sells under the brand name ‘Fair and Lovely’. I think that mostly says it all. Brown people have, in general a liking for fair skin. For a country where matrimonial agencies exist and indeed thrive, this has profound meaning.

Diversity sucks.
Indians frequently cannot talk to each other. The language problem, of having some 25 MAJOR languages in one subcontinent. Also the problem of having as many cuisines. This is a barrier to economic growth. This also runs against the concept of national identity. The Constitution preaches ‘Unity in Diversity’. What Unity? Why should I listen to the idiots who inhabit the cowbelt and rule New Delhi? Equally so, why should I listen to the idiots who rule Calcutta?

Greetings!
Gesundheit means ‘good health’ in German. It is something that one might say instead of ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes. But then, as E points out, there are very few situations when one may not say it.
Inshah-Allah means in the name of Allah. It is an invocation which can be used in almost any context. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim is said to contain within itself the essence of the Koran, and indeed of all Islam. It means “In the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate”. Does uttering these phrases make me a Muslim? I think not.
A Hindu, especially a Bengali Hindu might say ‘Ma Durge’ or ‘Durga, Durga’ which is a call to the goddess Durga.
Having said that, I still dislike those people who come here on F1 visas and start using ‘Jesus Christ’ as their favourite ejaculation. Don’t they understand that this is wrong at multiple levels? First, they are obviously trying too hard to assimilate. Second, they are taking the Lord’s name in vain, not a good thing at all. Third, it sounds jarring to my ears to hear it from one who is pretending to be someone he or she is not.

Runner, Sukanto, Hemanta and some other beautiful combinations.

So here I was, working on a list of RDCs, and listening to Runner sung by the absolutely incomparable Hemanta Mukherjee. And just on a whim, I decided to google Runner and Sukanto. Sukanto, of course is the Sukanto Bhattacharya who composed Runner and other poems, which do not need an introduction if you are Bengali. If you are not, well then, in this case, bad luck. There is no way in which I can even begin to convey the meaning of this song, much less the feelings behind it. I realize that I sound absolutely parochial and that is bad. However, this is one of those things which are .. nothing if you do not understand them. And if you do, they become holy. I found this rather informative review of a few songs by Hemanta on … hold your breath.. mouthshut.com. This is rather strange, I knew mouthshut to be a place where people write reviews on cellphones, cars and cameras. Not songs. Well, the world changeth. And we with it.

Evil Businesses and the fact that they are screwing with us

At the current moment, I am more or less willing to jump off a high rise. Why? Because of that hideous monstrosity of my cable and internet service provider. I mean, they provide internet services, so they should be technologically competent people, right? Or so, one would think. Right after talking to one customer care representative who assured me that the discount code has been applied to my bill, and that I can log on to the automated payment system and pay my discounted bill; I logged into the system and found out that the discount code has not been applied. This is my valuable time you morons! I am beginning to hate large amorphous corporations with an absolutely visceral loathing. Somewhat remindful of Agragaj (I think) from the Guide to the Galaxy. All of them are out to get me. Its personal this time. This is the reason why people become Nihilists and blow up stuff. Think about it; a peaceable, nonviolent bloke like me is contemplating serious mayhem. Why? Because the invisible corporate honchos who control the world are not interested in giving the public better and faster service… the bottom line is all that matters. This is a question I would like to put to my reader: the free market economy is supposed to encourage efficiency through competition. However, if companies decide that they do not need to be competitive or inventive or efficient, they just need to choke off the alternatives available to the customer, then how is this situation different from a state owned bureaucratic monopoly?

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Puri

Yound Karthik and Young Saumen have been busy making puris. I keep hearing periodic expletives about the maida not being of the right consistency. Young Karthik offered me a puri which could be used as a lethal projectile. But I think that their current efforts are better. And Michigan is playing Ohio State and it is the last quarter and things are hotting up. Ok, Karthik just made a puri which looks like a map of.. Kazakhistan?

Please forward to everyone...

Hello there,

Please have a heart and think about my predicament. I have too much time on my hands to do anything useful with my life, hence I am writing something that will hopefully turn into a chain forward (that is, if you are actually as stupid as I think you are). I dislike fast and efficient computer networks, and I like nothing better than to slow and clog them up, so I think writing chain letters is a good way to spend my time.

So please forward this letter to everyone in your mailing list. DON’T LIE TO ME, YOU SICK BASTARD, I KNOW YOU HAVE A MAILING LIST AND YOU USE IT TO FORWARD MAILS FOR THAT POOR GIRL WHO HAS BEEN SUFFERING FROM LEUKAEMIA FOR EVER.

Every time you forward this letter, Microsoft, the United Nations, AOL are all going to contribute ten cents to my beer fund. (I might have said that I suffer from some truly dramatic disease, but the only disease I do suffer from is boredom and headaches induced by deleting chain letters, so I thought I should just be honest and call it my beer fund).

While we are at it, you know what else happens if you forward this mail to ten people inside five minutes, another twenty within the hour and finally a hundred by the time the workday is over? Well, you get booted by that guy/girl/dog/sheep you have been stalking and fantasizing about for weeks. (I assume, of course, that you know a hundred people, you might just have a hundred email IDs in your mailing list which actually correspond to maybe five real people with no lives.)

And if you don’t forward this mail as I tell you to, you get raped by a crowd of mutant mountain goats who will be singing hiphop as they hump you. Your soul rots in a Master’s programme for ever and ever.

Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t already joined Orkut, Gazzag or Facebook and created a crowd of electronic friends with whom you share the completely insignificant facts of your useless life, please join all of them.

Joy-Joy

Meanwhilst, Orkut has gloriously screwed up again by telling me that I will always have good luck in my personal relationships. I remember this singularly awful movie I once saw called ‘Demolition Man’ which has Stallone and Snipes battling it out after being unfrozen from a cryogenic state after what? maybe a seventy odd years. The society of that point has become an exceedingly nonviolent one, somewhat unsure of itself. So we have this random bloke going up to an electronic terminal at a street and being counseled for depression by the computer, which tells him that he inspired feelings of ‘joy-joy’ in people around him.
My point being that this ‘warm and fuzzy’ thing that people like so much is being carried way to far in certain parts of the world while other parts deal with problems like malnutrition, disease and war. There is precious little warm and fuzzy for them. If they manage to survive the next week, that will be something to be happy about.
My suggestion, if it is worth anything is that people, (people, not governments) embrace reality and realism without the rosy lenses provided to them by sanitized news and adverts. Perhaps, it is an indication of my joblessness that such a comment was provoked by Orkut, of all things, but that does not lesson its import.

Canada Roadtrip, Oct 2006 - I

Canada Roadtrip.

Sometime this semester we decided to make another trip. Ok, that was slightly wrong. I am never involved with the decision making process. I was informed that we are going to take a trip down to Toronto. Which, the last time I checked was in Canada. Hence, visas would be required. So,, about a week before the trip, we drove down to the Canadian consulate at Detroit early in the morning. Halfway there, I realized that I did not have my I20, or documents of financial support. All a result of not reading emails. To the great credit of my friends, they did not yell at me, as I might have done. In fact, Young Karthik (YK) agreed to drive me down to Detroit on Friday. So on Friday, armed with documents of financial support, documents attesting to my legal status here as an international student, documents verifying that I am, in fact engaged in academic pursuits at the University and not up to anything nefarious/shady, I legged it to the consulate. The bloke at the counter gave me the once over, then the twice over , and asked if I had been here before. I said, yes, on Wednesday, I was too lazy to get all my stuff. He gave me a nasty look. Now there is something about people in law enforcement/immigration, or related fields… they have this look which gives a perfectly respectable legal bloke the heeby jeebies. I got the heeby jeebies. Anyway, I also got my visa. Yeah!

Weird thing happened after that. This Punjabi bloke all dressed up in a suit and tie asked me for some details on the visa process. Turned out he was a US citizen, but he needed help with the visa application for his aunt. Now why would he need help with paperwork? Well, he did, that is all I can say. So YK and I ended up pretty much filling up his form for him. And I noted this: when talking to Indians in Hindi, I generally tend to switch to this really ‘dehati’ accent. Now dehati means rustic. And sometime this overflows into the conversation, especially in a multilingual conversation. And as we all know, Indians who can speak marginally decent English are the most linguistically snobbish people on earth. Hence my continued unpopularity amongst the English speaking Indian students community over here. That explains a lot.

Onto Canada. Or so we thought.

We planned to start driving at 5 am. Chamaree would be driving her Prius. And if YK was Very nice and Very safe and Very conscientious, then Maybe he would get to drive for a Very Short while. Depending on C’s discretion. 5 am would be called ‘kaak bhor’ back home. This translated to ‘crow early morning’, the only reason being, I guess that crows wake up way before other people/birds. But passing lightly over Indian crows and their diurnal patterns, C and I told YK and Young Krishnan (YR) that they would have to be ready AT 5 am, or bad luck. Now having traveled with these people before, I know that such dire warnings have little meaning for them. But we assured them that our threats to leave them behind were for real. Oh, and by the way, Courtney(Co) was also coming along. She lives at AA and knows C through ballroom dancing (an activity I admire, but have no desire to participate in.. but more on that in a later blog.)

And then Katerina(K) called. She had plans to fly to NY as far as I knew. Turned out that those plans had to be scratched because she thought that fall break was for the whole week and not merely two days as per the academic calendar. Oops. She wanted to know if we had space for her. I turned her over to the mistress of ceremonies, C. C hemmed and hawed, and YK saved the day by volunteering to drive his L’Mobile as well. YR decided to drive with YK. So that was settled. Then after negotiating with K about a suitable pick up time early in the morning, C (with nerves suitably frazzled) decided to call it a day.

The next morning dawned, or rather didn’t. Clouds hovered in a peculiarly offensive way on the horizon. C’s Prius pulled up and I hopped in. The L’Mobile following, we drove off in almost complete silence. The Prius is a petrol-electric hybrid, and behaves like a stealth car at times. YR navigating the L’Mobile.

Those offensive clouds stayed offensive, and with time, instead of lighting up, the skies stayed disconcertingly dark. Imagine this; driving along in the early morning, in vague darkness and periodic bursts of rain sweeping across the windshield, very much out of a post apocalyptic scifi movie.

And Anirban sez....

"Attribute it to our superiority as an erudite, scholastically accomplished, and culturally advanced race."

you missed out one point Akash: that we are vulturally advanced as well..... incidentally other races are equal to us in this particular respect.....

The above statement shows that your views are biased without enough statistics.....
have you ever visited the music schools, drama schools anywhere outside Bengal? As for example, Pune or anywhere in the South?? I haven't but I believe that there are states equally good and capable...... by which I mean that there are people in other states who are quite advanced culturally and at times better than you and me....... IISc for example: Prodyut-da, Anand, Ananth, Karthik and a few others are truly good singers/musicians ..... not all of them are bongs....

For that matter, are you capable enough of judging the superiority of some Pandit in Bengal (Pandit Anindyo Chattopadhyay in Tabla for example) vs some Pandit outside Bengal? I am not, so I refrain from writing nonsense, in general. That is the problem with all of us..... which includes me as well.... we boast of our ancestors without ever thinking of doing something original or encouraging someone else to do something creative..... we spend a major time of our life as critics.......

"What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow"

has changed into:

What the USA thinks today, Bengal criticizes tomorrow, and replicates the same day-after-tomorrow...... unfortunately, we were born on earth Akash.... not in the sky..... realize that! It is good to be proud of your race, but remember that we are not the best...... at least at this point of time.

Can the situation be changed? I don't know... I have never thought about it before...... and I have my small little life to live and make a few others happy.....

(Incidentally, USA was just an example.... I won't hesitate to replace it with Russia, Cuba, or for that matter even Iraq.... forgetting about the advanced nations.)

The Dance is finally here!!!

Yound K's dance debut is here!!!!!

Diwali blues.

Diwali is the festival of lights. It coincides with the Bengali Kali Pujo. The previous year at AA, I attended the Diwali ceremony put together by the Indian students association. Now this is the point at which I make a pre emptive apology; I realize that people have classes and research and dating and myriad activities to occupy their time with. Hence the very fact that a ceremony was put together is something to be admired. And one who had absolutely no constructive role to play should really not criticize the people who put their time and energy into making this happen. Hence, I should, in all decency shut up right now. But then, my dear reader, astute person that you are, you must have noted that I am not, in fact, shutting up. I have things to say at this point. So let me go ahead and establish my credentials as a critic. I have been part of the organization and logistics of cultural events of substantially larger size and scope in my institute days. I have suffered the consequences of being a part of a not too well organized cultural team and I have also been a part of a very well organized drama team. So here goes. The previous year, we started off by reciting some random shlokas from our religious texts.

First point: distinguish between culture, a fun party and a religious event. Mixing these is a skill that Bengalis and only Bengalis (amongst Indians) have perfected. Attribute it to our superiority as an erudite, scholastically accomplished, and culturally advanced race. This, in spite of our known prejudice against organization! Hence, my suggestions: practice helps. Knowing which shloka from the Bhagvad Gita you plan to recite beforehand is a good idea. Also a good idea is practicing the correct intonation. There is nothing more upsetting than hearing someone barbarically butchering Sanskrit. That language is holy, people! Get my drift? And there is no shame in rehearsing. Asking each other what to do next is pretty sad. When you are doing something, the value of which is as much emotional as it is ritualistic, then get the rituals right. Stupid pagans!

Second point. If you cannot sing, do not sing. Karaoke bars exist for a reason. Importing karaoke into a random evening’s enjoyment is undiluted evil.

Third point: coming up with a little skit is a good idea. Not rehearsing destroys the effect, however. Also, using the old brain for writing a halfway decent script is an awesome thing to do. The alternative, which was what we were exposed to, happens to be shite.

Fourth point: people, please do not applaud the brain dead antics of these people on stage just because they happen to be your friends. The argument, ‘they just need some encouragement’ applies to someone writing an exam/applying for a scholarship/a third world country taking its first steps into democracy. For self delusional people with karaoke microphones, we have straitjackets, and a variety of socks to stuff down their throats and gag them with.

Hence, this year, when I found out that the graduate school was showing Hotel Rwanda, I decided to go there instead. Not one to miss a dinner anyhow, I asked Rachna to get me a dinner coupon (we have to pay for these things, before someone calls me a cheap so-and-so).

Hotel Rwanda talks about how a Hutu hotel house manager cajoled, lied, arm twisted cops, militiamen and UN peacekeepers in a desperate effort to save the lives of the Tutsi refugees who were sheltered at his hotel. C’s blog has a much better description here. But, two things; first, unless it happens or has happened to your own people, somehow we are insulated by several protective layers to the horror of what actually happened. If that were not the case, then an enlightened world would have adhered to the Versailles treaty, or the Geneva convention. We would not have fought the wars that we have. Death so unnecessary and so avoidable would cease to be just a spectacle on CNN. The second point being that while the director worked to make his characters three dimensional, somehow the effect remained that of fiction: we are/were/never will be part of that story. Mousumidi told me to see 1947 Earth, which deals with the issues of the Partition. That is on the cards.

Dinner was good. The Gulabjamun was made of granite though. I decided to keep my remaining teeth and gave up on it as a bad job.

Borat

Saw Borat, or

"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"

this weekend. Quite a riot. The review is here.

LOTR blues.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Listen to these lines again. Do you feel the any hint of the mystery and majesty surrounding it? Recite these lines again. This is a portent of cataclysmic events about to overtake us. The Dark Riders are on the trail of the Ring of Power and Minas Morgul prepares for the war, which will bring on endless night.

Yes, Tolkien’s masterpiece is a magnificent tapestry brimming with colour and might. This is quite possibly the greatest heroic romance written in English.

This past week.

Has been pretty average with usual things like a grading deadline, which I made by the skin of my teeth, and an exam which quite effectively took the wind out of my sails. This was also Election Week and the Dems are celebrating. Michigan seems to have stayed mostly blue. In response to the election excitement, I shrugged myself out of my usual political apathy and did some reading/listening and talked to people around me. Knowing this is Ann Arbor and the people I talk to usually are University (read liberal) types, that lead to a certain lopsided (no, that is a strong view), lets say one sided view. However, Proposal 2 has been passed. The President of the UM's address is here. Also included here is what the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative has to say. On a completely different line, Pradeep has given me a poker lesson, and as a reward, I have included him in my blogroll (j/k). My cousin M is visiting this weekend and the weather is busy conspiring to ruin any ideas of an outdoor day trip. Drat! That seems to cover things, and oh, my roomie's car gave him a nasty turn yesterday when the transmission went kaput. He was quite shaken up.

Why big business sucks.

Business, and the way it should be conducted.

Ok, the US of A is the land where dreams come true because of the incredible strength of the capitalist economy and rags to riches stories actually exist, right. And India has the ossified, moribund economy where most things are till under Government monopoly, and hence, by definition, inefficient, right?

Wrong.

This blog is to complain about big business and what it does to small people. I came here last year, just an average joe international student with no social security number(SSN) and no credit history. The SSN arrived really quick (both the people at the University as well as the Federal building downtown very pretty sweet about it). The fun started after that. Credit history is just that: a record showing that you pay your bills (especially credit card bills) regularly and may be considered a ‘safe bet’ by someone offering you a loan. There is a slight chicken and egg problem here: one may not be approved for a credit card without a credit history, and how does one create a credit history without a credit card? Yes, this beautiful piece of irony was not lost upon me. Thankfully, my credit union was sweet enough to give me a credit card with a very modest spending limit: a good way to build up credit history.

The big phone companies were something else altogether, though. Back home, prepaid plans are the rage, because they offer flexibility and are quite affordable. Here prepaid plans are quite exorbitant. Phone companies like to tie you down with a one or two year contract. Then they offer you a cheap phone for free. But this takes credit history. Which I didn’t have. Oops! So they asked for a 500$ to 1000$ cash deposit. Which I didn’t have either. So my solution (and this is true for many international students) was to ask a senior to apply for a cellphone in his name. He was nice enough to help me out. Voila! I was connected! This was last year.

A week or so ago, my handset started acting up. I realized that it had given up the ghost and decided to take this opportunity to get off my lazy butt and get the phone transferred to my name. So I legged it to the local dealer. Who told me quite unequivocally that it couldn’t be done. I simply wanted:
1. To get the number transferred to my name.
2. A new handset.
3. A new plan, with less minutes each month.

The bloke told me that I was asking for the moon. Now, I know it for a fact that rival phone companies advertise that one can switch service providers and keep the same number. So why was this so difficult to imagine? Me lost and thinking ‘what????!!!!’.

I took several deep breaths and said to the bloke, ‘imagine that a bloke goes to college with a cellphone taken in his father’s name. When he graduates and gets a job, he wants to change the cellphone to his name. Could you do that? Yes? THEN HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT?’
It took a lot of convincing for the bloke to do the job. Of course he did it! Just turns out that it required that he think for a moment. Now this is a difficult thing to ask for.

This is what throws me off. Back home, I could get a dealer to do this in nothing flat. In fact, I have had better service from the government owned services. This is supposed to a part of the thinking ingrained in a businessman: get the job done, give the customer what he wants. At least, that was the way it was back home. Here is seems to be: follow the rules, lose business, and then go blame outsourcing and immigration.

Bottom line: big business is not always more efficient. Any organization is as flexible and as efficient as its juniormost underling. In this case, my phone company should simply be extinct with the kind of survival instincts it seems to display.

Comment.

My office-mate tells me that beer is cheaper than therapy.

That time of the day.

That time of the day,
When I want a smoke.
Just before class, to get ready,
During class, to help me concentrate,
And after class, to relax.

Just before lunch,
With a small cup of chai.
Right after lunch,
With a large glass of cold coffee.

Late in the afty,
To chase the day’s blues away.
Early in the evening,
‘cos its early in the evening.

The pre-dinner beedi,
Nothing quite like it.
The one after dinner,
Quiet contemplation of existentialism
And a cigarette to help.

And finally at midnight,
(the constant danger of running out of smokes)
the last one of the day,
always tastes the best.

(I have quit smoking and regret it wholeheartedly.)

He who comes from hell is not afraid of hot ashes.

He who comes from hell is not afraid of hot ashes.

This is the tagline of the movie ‘Anniyan.’ Now why, you might ask is this bloke watching a Tamil movie? Not as if I know the language. But anyway, a bunch of Tam people got the movie and insisted that I sit down with them and see it. Now there are many better was of spending a lazy Sunday afty, in fact, going to lab and working is a good one.. but I decided to give it a shot.

So here goes,: Anniyan means ‘foreigner’… and this story is about a regular Tam Brahm bloke. (Tam Brahms, or Tamil Brahmins are one of the most orthodox.. [read pain in the arse] group of people on this planet. They do have some redeeming points like being very cultured and all that.. but they have a very well deserved reputation for being properly disliked all around.) Yes, so this bloke likes to follow rules and is really unhappy that people around him do not. (This is India, people). And he slowly transforms into this avenging angel who extracts hideous vengeance for transgressions of a seemingly trivial nature. Then there is this chick who walks around draped in a sari most of the time. Of course, he louvvs her. And she couldn’t care less. So when he gets the proverbial boot, he transforms again.. and becomes this hip bloke who romances chicks all around. Now mind this,, it doesn’t take much to be hip in Chennai, the heart of Tamland, but he does go and become a model or something to that effect.

It is important at this juncture to throw things like logic and sense out of the window, surviving most Indian movies is not possible otherwise. Right, so back to the movie.. this new avatar of our protagonist starts wooing the chick, with perfectly superb results… I mean standard fillum ishtyle, they dress up in shiny horrid jeans and manage to look retarded(the guy) and in some really skimpy clothes and look HOT (the babe). And they run around some high rise office/mall/INOX complex (again, the days of the hero and the heroine running around mere trees at public gardens are long gone, these days the more posh the locale, such as the interior of a five star hotel, and the more cheesy and ridiculous their antics, the more the song becomes popular). Singing some weird song which apparently involves the bloke comparing his babe to, in sequence: cappuccino, nokia phones and someone called Sophia. Yes, the meaning of the song was lost on me. Speaking of which there was yet another song which was vaguely erotic and had the hero promising to do massage the chick with olive oil. Now this left me totally bemused. Ok, to be honest, I was just reading the subtitles, and that was what came up.. but there is no olive oil in South India! This is a logical paradox. Conclusion, there is sense, there is nonsense, and then there is the stuff which happens inside the heads of Tamil lyricists.

The pick up line. This deserves its own entry. The gurle standing at the bus stop, the guy comes up on his motorcycle (again, a mainstay of Indian movies) and says, ‘hey Nandi, lets go somewhere and do the yo-yo!’ Yes, that line made me fall off the sofa laughing.

Anyway, so this guy has three personalities at last count.. the regular bloke, the avenger and the Don Juan. Yes! Multiple Personality Disorder!! Come to think of it, it reminds me a lot of a really awful Sidney Sheldon novel I once had the misfortune to read. But let me not spoil it further.. there are precious few Indian mainstream movies made which have a semblance of a plot. This is one of them. For all the inherent corny-ness, its still quite watchable. And the chick is hot. http://www.anniyan.com/