Last Year!

The nightmare these days is that the work I’ve been doing for last couple of years is going to get destroyed in a fire or I'll loose it coz of hard disc failure of my computer. Forget about finishing in time, it just means, I will go degree-less. Just the thought freaks me out.

I am paranoid about it…So, I 've stopped leaving the laptop in lab overnight and have been copying the whole thesis folder in three different places every day. Every single day! The only worry is all the three drives don’t collapse or get corrupted simultaneously. The chances are really low, everyone says. I still think prevention is better…I guess I should create one more folder...I mean, I'm anyway copying it to three different places, why not four?

I am beginning to understand what is meant when we sarcastically tell someone, ‘you’re getting old’…I think I’m becoming too cautious…but you see it's just common sense/fear of losing 4 years’ work...nothing’s worth losing that much time and work.

Have been working like a maniac and got some work done which has been pending for months…it feels good. Have been so so lazy in doing part of the data analysis, especially the data entry part…I am so bored, I thought I will advertise a paid position for a needy MS/ME fellow here and all they’ll have to do is entering my data but then it seemed even more risky…to let them handle the data sheets…told myself, “this is like the materialization of all the sweat on all the week-days and weekends you spent making it out with your hymenopteran girls, observing them doing unspeakable things…so don’t slight it by such antics at the last minute. "

Gotta sleep now. This is the earliest in months. Starting observations again, and I’m absolutely thrilled. I have been following this particular nest for 7 months now, just to get to know the ages of all the animals...so many times felt like throwing this nest away…the unknown age individuals just wouldn’t leave or die…but the patience has finally paid off…may the dead ones’ souls rest in peace…and hope to keep up my appointment with the alive ones at 8 tomorrow morning!

Good night!

Pondicherry, especially the university, elicits extreme responses in people. Some people loved their time there. Some are indifferent. And few hated it. There are various reasons for being indifferent or hating it, they say. They said it wasn't good enough, there were not enough opportunities, professors were biased, they were not at all encouraging, if anything, they tried to scare the students away, killed the students' spirits, blah, blah, blah...it's a big blah...no doubt all that happened. But it made all of us into tough cookies, didn't it? Thank god, we were not sheltered for 2 years, otherwise after coming into the open, we would not be familiar with realities of the outside world.

Man, just think about it! Given the environment, the people, the circumstances, everyone, each one of us is granted with two choices - to whine or to turn the situation in our favour. Given all the adversities, will you try to be a winner or just a whiney loser? Why not try to turn the tables? It just takes a try...you may not succeed, but at least you would have tried.

Plus, how can you entirely blame the environment and people? Because given more or less the same conditions, some succeeded, whereas you didn't! By saying that the blame lies somewhere else, are you trying to hide your own inconsistencies? Not just that...you are fucking taking away others' success from them by saying favouritism, bias, or whatever.

So come on losers, try to catch up...that is if you get time from your whining!

Westward Bound 1: Waiting for Sunrise

After reaching three hours prior to the take-off and after umpteen assurances at the security about my backpack and poster container (which looked like a miniature canon) weights and volumes which I was to carry as cabin luggage, I was sure that everything was in place and the journey would be without any problems. I had nothing much to worry and I kept repeating to myself that though the beginning of the day resembled Murphy’s law where he very prudently states, “if things can go wrong, they will”, what’s there to worry about once one reaches the airport…

The morning began at 10 in the night the previous day. I was in turmoil whether I should sleep or not. If I would have slept, there were absolutely no chances of getting up on time…at 4 in the morning. Such a ghastly hour to begin the day. Having the absolute benefit of knowing myself well, I was sure that the deep foray with Morpheus into the unknown would not be interrupted by anything, even by the most alluring day dream I kept having for last 26 years, namely the dream of travelling...

You see, ever since I remember, I was fascinated with maps, atlases, rivers, mountains, oceans…geography was my most favourite subject and I was absolutely awesome at it…and I don’t mean just the banal quiz game of countries and their capitals. I would not remember even the most recent historical fact, but ask me about minutest details about geography and I’ll be up and reciting them happily in the middle of the night …what’re Ganga and Brahmaputra called in Bangladesh before and after meeting, or which 2 rivers surrounded Mesopotamia or how many countries does Danube pass through or the longest mountain range, or how biggest lake in the world is actually called a sea…fortunately, geography and history are closely linked and sometimes it helped me scraping marks in history, answering questions like why Mesopotamia was called so and some such unusually placed interesting questions in history papers.

Point being, even this deep a love would have to forego if I slept.

So I didn’t. I finished the packing, watched some random movie, took bath, tidied the room, and got ready by 5:30. From the hostel to the bus stop is not a walkable distance and I’d convinced one of my friends to drop me. I tried her number. It was switched off!!! Hmm…a bit freaky as I was almost sure there would be no autos on the roads so early in the morning…I went on the main road to get an auto, but the roads were absolutely deserted. Tried calling her again, it was still switched off. I tried a common friend’s number who lives in the same hostel…this number was switched off too! By this time, I was freaking out…I went to this friend’s hostel, argued with the security…the damn fellow wouldn’t let me in (it’s open to guys between 6 AM to 10 PM…hah!)…anyway, thankfully, I remembered this common friend’s room number, convinced the security that if he is not allowing me to enter, the least he can do is go in himself and knock on her room door…

For 5 minutes, nothing happened…everyone here sleeps like a log…this is what happens if you watch movies till 2 in the morning…anyway, finally this common friend awoke, came out, I asked her to go and break into my escort’s room…5 minutes of disturbing and the longest silence again, after which the escort comes out…”it’s not 6 yet, we decided on 6”…I cursed her mentally for all the hyperventilating moments and told her to come to my room…

The new airport is not bad at all…it’s just tad too far…the bus ride was mostly accompanied with morning sun on face and a nice refreshing slumber...

Airports (or railway stations for that matter, but especially airports), they fascinate me…I am an absent-minded person and end up paying very little attention to what’s happening around me…except on airports! When I am on an airport, I transform into an absolutely alert and inquisitive fellow…I watch and observe people around me…I make use of their faces, behavioural patterns, gestures and personalities and mentally project my own imaginary characters onto them, concocting their backgrounds, fabricating their accounts and narratives…

After a round of this, I was already cursing myself to be there so early…8 in the morning and they should have announced the check-in. Just as I was thinking this, they announced that there was a technical glitch in the whole clearance…believe the authorities to be as vague as possible…anyway, I doze off…after an uneventful, dreamless doze, I woke up to another announcement for check-in of my flight...

An hour in that damn line, my turn comes and I was told that the technical glitch they were referring to had something to do with the computers, and since nothing was responding, they had to process everything manually…great!!! Reminded them once again about the connecting flight from Dubai, and headed toward immigration...

Tu Muskura...

I have Tu Muskura from Yuvvraaj on repeat mode for the whole day…can’t seem to get enough of it…Alka in her best form…so is Gulzar, simple but soulful…and Rahman, this is a very different Rahman…never heard a western classical melody of this kind from him…

More I hear this song, the more restless I become…Have you ever spent sleepless nights, coz something haunted you? Tonight’s fate was sealed the moment I heard this song…

Violin…How could I not touch it for so long? I have to start again…from scratch if be so…

Tu muskura jahaan bhi hai tu muskura…
Tu dhoop ki tarah badan ko chhoo zara…
Shareer si ye muskurahaten teri,
Badan me sunti hun main aahaten teri,
Labon pe aake chhu de apne lab zara,
Tu Muskura...

May this Diwali bring us peace, joy and happiness…

May we develop stronger and fairer ideals and ideologies…

May we become purer in thoughts and action…

May we lead a simpler but more fulfilling existence…

May we always stand up and rebel against wrong and evil…

I have a repetitive dream these days…

I am standing somewhere with arms outstretched, and eyes closed, feeling the strong breeze, hearing the rustle of wind. I am filling the clean air in my lungs…I can’t see the sky but I am sure it’s a clear blue one…I can’t see where I am but surely somewhere high…I don’t know how I reached here…don’t know where I am standing, but it seems a rocky terrain…

I open my eyes…it’s exactly as it seemed, except that I’m at the very edge of a cliff. I am short of a freaking heart attack cuz of the sheer height…The road backwards is blocked by a dried up tree trunk which does not seem strong enough to take my weight. I look ahead…there are tiers of rocks beneath, the slope is steep and one wrong step somewhere and I would smash my head...

Option 1: I take chances with the tree and learn halfway through that not just that the tree is all dried up, it’s a hollow stump (right!!! Serves me just right)…I crash into the valley along with the dead tree remains… thud, thud THUD!!!

Thankfully, I am not dead yet…since it’s a dream, I get another chance…it’s only fair…I am again on that cliff…again weighing my options…option 1, crossed…not suitable…


Option 2: I take chance with climbing down the slope…I try to remember all the tips they gave us in the mountaineering camp 10 years back…unfortunately, I make a fatal mistake and get to enjoy an unwarranted free fall…thud, thud THUD!!!

No, I’m not dead yet…I get a third chance…

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Unfortunately, the dream ends here. I dangle on the tenterhooks every single time just to see what happens at the end, but I don’t come to an end at all…I writhe and wriggle and try to wangle the ending (all this while asleep) but don’t come to anything conclusive…

Standing on the cliff, thinking of a third option is where it abruptly ends every single time…


PS. Conclusions anyway: I am ready neither to go back nor to come down…which probably means there is only one thing left to do…

Biding time and an opportunity to fly!

Bunking the class on some social reform in early 20^th century, I’m lying on my bed, the laptop on my belly, about to start typing. Instead of starting to strike the keypad, I’m taken again to those 3 wonderful weeks. Amazing time…

But this post is not about it.

This post is about blogging. Problems I faced while blogging.

First prob - putting what you experience into exact words and communicating it to others. Not mere communicating but making them a part of the whole thing. Just the other day, with P, and some time back with J, was talking about how the information disseminates between two people. You felt something, and you needed to express it, and you did, but in the process, either for your lack of abilities to articulate or the different temperament of the listener, or coz of both of these, it doesn’t hold the same meaning to her/him. So, there’s a growing urge to be more and more articulative, and in a factual but interesting way. It’s an art and only selective few possess it. I’m clearly not one of them, but I’m determined to possess it some day.

Second prob – and I don’t know whether it’s a unique problem with me, but how blogging becomes an obsession after a time and how you just long to come back to it and chronicle every single nugget of interesting thing happened/happening in your life. The obsession comes to such a degree where even when that interesting event is happening, you are thinking about how to record it. Now I am sure, all of you will agree that the most enjoyable things are done just for the complete joy factor and not with some ulterior motive. If I’m thinking all the time about accounting what happened and how it happened, it’s no more interesting to me. It kinda becomes a job. Moreover, you are no longer in the moment, or maybe you are but just partly. It’s exactly what people call living in future, and that was killing the freaking joy. I was bothered about it. That’s the reason why I had stopped writing completely in between. I would have preferred to do both simultaneously, experience as well as write about it, but it was a choice between the two, and I chose the former one. I was bugged about it and didn’t know what to do about it, and I tried it discussing it with dad and O, but dad doesn’t blog and O, I guess never encountered it. So I thought of it as a rare disease with no cure, and left it at that.

Thankfully, over time - I don’t have a clue as to how it happened - it just happened that I could combine both! If at all someone has encountered it and wishes to ask me how I achieved it, I don’t know. The reason which possibly may have affected it is this: blog traffic is no longer a concern. It was a big issue, but no more. If anything, fewer the better, as this place is primarily for me, not for networking. The moment I started writing for myself, it didn’t matter whether someone read it or not (sorry if you follow my blog diligently). As soon as that happened, the need for making yourself to maintain a steady flow of new entries stopped too. So both the problems were gone. Since there was no writing for others, there was no fumbling for right words to express and make it interesting at the same time. I am still searching for that ability of not exhausting the substance and sensibility while communicating, but I don’t pursue that quest on this blog. That’s a separate project and can be achieved in scientific writings and presentations that I so often keep doing these days.

Having said all that, even before embarking on the plane to Dubai, I knew that I will write about it here. But that is only out of sheer love of writing, and not for the greed of increasing my site meter number. I don’t care about that anymore.

What does it mean?

"An inevitable logical course because constructivism was the alternative emerged opposing and replacing both the old positivist and neo-positivist approaches based on realism and determinism of quasi-laws adapted from physical sciences."

Though sentences never convey much in these classes, words when taken separately were meaningful. Now even that is becoming an uphill task.

Positivism makes me depressed, realism makes me yawn and determinism makes me confused...Every week, for these three hours, I feel utterly, completely hopeless.

Common sense tells us that people will make the best use of resources unless told otherwise, that it’s rare that having a chance to do that, people will willfully turn away. However, reality is completely opposite. People keep their minds imprisoned within four walls. They hate, or worse still, are afraid to dream, to imagine, assessing the possible universe, to claim the world that could have been theirs…

People blame lack of this ability on either history (200 years of British rule!) or their upbringing (parents, teachers, etc.). But the fact remains that that is, if at all it is, just one of the determinants, and a minor one at that. The major one is us, we who imprison ourselves, coz it’s easier to do nothing, to sit back and enjoy lethargy. Imprisonment can be addictive. I have no experience but I guess it’s so.

It has repercussions…you can never be a good scientist if you can’t dream…great discoveries won’t happen if people don’t have the courage to dream or to imagine things. One lady in some obscure corner thought that genes jump, leading to the discovery of jumping genes, though the whole world tried to persuade her otherwise!

We deny ourselves freedom all the time…freedom of thoughts, of action, of expression…but the worst denial will be freedom to imagine…

Eyes meet and the magic begins…in your soul, surface ripples of another soul…the mind tries to hold back, with a prudent vigilance into the unknown, coz there’s always the possibility of getting lost in the feeling rather than the actual being…

It says to the heart, common mate, you won’t be able to handle this, so why venture into that mysterious, unfamiliar zone?

The heart says, I realize love may not be as enlightening as sun’s rays are, but I’m not seeking that anyway…I am seeking someone whose presence is as illuminating as a full moon, who rather than dazzling daylights out of my eyes, is saying, I am not sure what lies ahead, but I’ll be with you as long as I exist…who like a starlit sky, assures you not that darkness will not exist, but that clusters of joys are enough to overcome them…

The mind persists and asks; do you mean without this person, you will remain incomplete? That you will be unable to find happiness by yourself? Is that the reason?

The heart says, you rational fool, no! Do not assign a tinge of weakness to the feeling of love…yes, we are all incomplete, we are all fractured…cracked somewhere or the other…love may eventually fill those gaps, but that’s not why we love…

We do coz we are destined to…

Everyone in our generation seems to be consumed by a huge lethargic diapause lately...I'm curious whether this has anything to do with the amount of time we spend in front of computers. Just give it a shot...don't use computers a day a week. It'll make you feel absolutely uneasy depending on the level of dependence on computers for entertainment, but give it a shot...The best way is to not carry the laptop home on the weekend...I assure you, you'll discover new ways of amusing yourself. Plus a lot clearer in mind. Somehow, use of computers for a long time makes me feel drugged and absolutely zombie and tired. And if it becomes a habit, as it had, one doesn’t even realize it till one makes a conscious effort to break away from that addiction and dependence. I assure you: it’s difficult, but achievable and once achieved, starving for some great ways of fun and pleasure.

Woodstock VIla...and Few Resolutions

Just back from a show of Woodstock Villa. Good ideas do not always translate into great movies and this is a classic example of that. High on the shock value like several of the recent bollywood thrillers…there have been so many of them lately…Race, Naqaab, Raqeeb, Yakeen…One more addition to the thriller bandwagon. Mr. Director, shocking us with high octane music resembling a horror movie is no marks to you…if anything, you agree to the fact that you have to resort to such gimmicks. Yakeen was good, Raqeeb was good too, Naqaab’s end spoiled it for me…Race, less we talk, better it is…and they’re hauling it as the biggest blockbuster of the year already!!! But WV…it is worse than all these.

It is the latest in the list of high on style, low on substance flicks…What’s with the continuously moving camera? As if the Parkinson’s afflicted DOP was let loose on a rampage holding the cam in hands…And the eardrum piercing and headache inducing high-pitched background music? And what the hell is this fascination with Sepia hues throughout? To make matters worse, Mr. Sanjay Gupta it’s so, so obvious that you are not out of your Kaante hang up (BTW, all those Kaante admirers, it was a remake of Reservoir Dogs if you haven’t guessed already…Quentin Tarantino commented he liked this Indianized version…and grudgingly, I’ve to agree to that - grudgingly coz however Indianized and well-made it might be, it was still a blatant act of plagiariasm).

Wanna learn style Mr. Gupta and Mr. Mehta? Check 24. Shoddy, substandard and fake stylized techniques are so not done dammit, especially when we have the best of the world a fingertip away.

Lessons learnt:

1. Don’t ever let anyone emotionally blackmail you to accompanying them to movies. You waste money…more importantly, you waste time.

2. Learn to get out of the theatre halfway through or even earlier if you dislike the movie. A movie which can’t sustain your interests in first 15 minutes is just not worth it. There can be exceptions like the amazingly stupid and not-needed beginning of Agni Sakshi, but the chances that you’ll let go of an interesting movie coz of a dull beginning are one in million.

3. Try to convince your friends that there can be more active and intimate ways of spending time together. Watching a movie for entertainment is great…for spending time together, no…coz it’s one of the most passive activities I’ve known. They may take you for a nerd, but that’s where your ability to convince people comes into play.

Exceptions to all the above mentioned points are acceptable once in 3 months, when you just can’t say no to someone close. Ok, make it once in 4 months. That anyway takes the count to 3 rubbish movies a year.

Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Whack, whack.

My knuckles still hurt.

For My Canine Buddies...

Guys, I miss you…I miss the playtime every evening. I miss your coat odour... miss your playful tugging at the toes...wagging tails when you spot me…the mothers’ careful watch when I hover nearby the pups, but never ever making it obvious…you treated me as one of you…I miss leaning against you and studying my botany…your ardent love, your trust in me, I miss your shining fur, I miss the unquestionable devotion in your eyes…the snarling nostrils and anger in your eyes when someone you don’t know tries to come too near, like the time when all you guys encircled the cobra and didn’t let it come near us…and then how we rushed 3 of you to the hospital…miss those Sundays when I would not allow servants to tie you down just so that you can accompany me wherever I go, I miss your constantly flickering tongue ready to lick, I miss those paws which have torn innumerable shirts, I miss teasing you from the terrace…your hatred towards monkeys and boars…your terror for heights…your love for water…miss those vainful and painful sessions where I tried to teach you tricks straight from the dog(gone) books…and teaching the first-time mothers how to take care of the pups without sitting on them… the papaya and mango feasts…and the vaccination ouch’s …those water sessions in the monsoons where it would be just impossible for you to trace me to my hiding place, and you putting your nose under water to find the way anyway (once, one of you tried to sniff under-water, choked and I gave myself away by laughing aloud)…and those long walks to the neighbour’s fields and ragging and mocking his dogs… …I have not forgotten anything babies…

I'm gonna come soon, very soon...And we're gonna have a blast...

There are quite a few people here who eat my patience thin. However, I have learnt no situation, no person is un-deal-able. Every tough nut has a thin skin somewhere, and every situation has a door for you to open. So, that's the starting point if it gets out of hand. I am not saying you gotta manipulate it, I'm saying you gotta understand it and learn to deal amiably with it/her/him. It's important for me to avoid conflict. And it's important to arrive at an amiable solution. At times, people take this trait as being a chicken, but so be it. Unless of course, someone starts treating me like one. If someone does that, I'll throw the principles of brotherhood out of the window, start with biting the person's head off and eating her/him then and there.

It's raining here...Absolute bliss.

The Sound of Music

One of the things that give me immense joy in life is music. Music fills all the gaps, cements the crevices and gives a smoother and filled appearance - and it’s fun to get misled every single time. It’s sheer fun coz when I’m listening to a good piece, I’m unaware of anything else, happy or sad, beautiful or ugly, fair or dark…all those things that catch my attention seem to carry no meaning at all. In that sense, when people say, music brings you nearer to god, I agree coz music helps me uplift myself over all these engaging follies. It becomes necessary to detach oneself from all the highs and lows of life here and treat them with objective scrutiny. Music helps me do that by concocting it’s own web and giving me a glimpse of some alternate reality, which is different from my routine life. But more importantly, it also teaches me to be attached to reality. It’s a delusional raft as well as a reality anchor.

Music has the power of enslaving; belittling all other aspects of my personality…I lose myself in it. That’s the magic of music. These moments, they are rare. In these 25 odd years, I have had hardly 2-3 such self-free moments but I’ll never ever forget them coz that is a phase of transcendence. You are no longer a form, an entity. You are just a spirit, a ghost of your sense of self. I transcend myself in company of music. Being a scientist, it reminds me of a chemical reaction. What goes in is you, dry and raw…what comes out is someone else, bathing in a musical ballad.

Music is my life…When I am dissatisfied and want more from life, when my voice is cracking with all the unfulfilled desires, music comes, soothes the cracks like the first rain, fills them up, and my cup of happiness starts overflowing again. I am not exaggerating. Do you have such a thing in your life? Where you can take refuge when you are not feeling alright with life, take one shot at it, and everything becomes alright again? If you do, you’ll understand what I mean.

‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, hai hai hai'

LOL :) This is hilarious!

http://in.sports.yahoo.com/080210/251/6qp88.html

Beginning of Spring...

I haven’t experienced snow or ice on a landscape bigger than our refrigerator, but I’m sure the best times in snow-caped backdrops are immediately before the spring when the ice starts melting and makes you understand that for all the roughness and coldness, there’s an exciting flow below the surface that’s just waiting to be discovered. The white-blue icicles on tree branches slowly awaken and instead of dropping directly below, take a detour to the tip of the branch pointing towards the ground and trickle across the ice-sheet drop-by-drop…this drop-by-drop thawing always reminds me of fingers hitting the piano keys…Don’t know why that reminds me of piano. Funny. Maybe coz the sound of a piano key is similar to a drop hitting water surface. ‘Plock’ goes a piano key too, creating an echoing clunk. The nature would soon start fishing out jewels from its potley, but its this scene of pure, spotless white beauty that appeals to me…like a girl stepping out of shower, sans any make up…strands of wet hair, onto the forehead…and the water droplets slowly trickling down to the ground…

How Green Was My Valley...

The first thing that struck me when I reached the top of the hill was the utterly mesmerizing landscape…and various shades of green splattered across it.

It was a clear day and apart from clouts of white cotton clouds overhead and bluish black hill-ranges on the horizon, everything was green, and different tones and hues of green.

There were grassy savannas yellowish green in colour, covered with partly dried, partly grassy green expanse with white, pink and purple blooms. The hill’s downslope was fully covered in this foliage and at the bottom slowly gave way to the forest. I had never seen such dark, dense forests till then. The trees were intertwined and created a dark green sunscreen for the earth. It started at the bottom of the hill on which I was standing and went to cover the whole of another hill. I would venture inside it some day, I thought. There was a third departure where the landscape slowly graduated to shrubby delights of wild plumage so typical of those transition zones. Slowly these shrubs gave way to cultivated lands, interspersed with electric poles and randomly placed small jhuggis and cement slabs. They were looking out of the place or maybe I was just envious of the people living in this beautiful countryside. The fields were not uniformly spaced or demarcated. Every field was defined by a spate of trees and every field had its own character, some had paddy, some had some other unknown grains, and some were converted to meadowlands, and depending on what was growing in them, they had different greens.

For a person who grew up in a dry, deciduous landscape, a green cacophony like this was like an impossible allegory …my colour receptors were completely flooded with this green chamaleonesque bumper bonanza.

It was out of this world…

I would want my home here…