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ASSC Student Essay Contest

The Student Committee of the Association for the Scientific Studies of Consciousness (ASSC) is pleased to announce an essay contest open to all students. There are 6 topics to choose from, to be assessed by some of the leading philosophers and scientists in the field of consciousness research. To top it all, the winning entries will be published in the ASSC journal, 'PSYCHE'!!!
So get started, the deadline for receiving entries is Aug. 31, 2009.

For full details, click the image above.

Charity run

I've decided to run 10km for the charity, Pratham UK which is the British chapter of 'Pratham', an Indian NGO committed to eradicating child illiteracy in India.

All your donations will go towards supporting Pratham's activities in India. You can help by sponsoring me here -

Today has been OK

I'd like to be a bit more regular at blogging. Not just to detail my latest culinary experiment or disaster, but to take some time each day to pen my thoughts and experiences of each day. This blog to me is like a diary and though I've the option to make it accessible only to myself, I guess the point is to share with the unknown reader my experiences and learn a thing or two on the way.

This was the first weekend in ages when I felt productive. I think that the concept of a weekend should be re-evaluated. It's taken as a two-day holiday and a time to relax and indulge in your favourite activity or pastime, which I also agree with but if we take it as a zero-work weekend, then Monday feels all the more worse and we experience the Monday morning blues. However, I guess for those working long hours in banks et al., there is no other way than to maximize the spare time during the weekend.

The transition from a holiday and back to work is what makes going to work on Mondays difficult. However, if we take the weekend as a progression of the week and be productive in a relaxed manner, come Monday morning, one may not feel so out of sync. I did just that this weekend, and for the first time I was efficient at it. For each weekend, I draw up a list of things to do (including domestic chores) and see how I perform. If I underperform, I do feel a little bad but generally take it easy as it's just a weekend. However, on the rare occasion when I actually manage to fit in all the things over the two days, it makes me feel buoyant and productive. What I'm arguing for here, is to have decent productivity levels over the entire week with an agreeable dip on the weekend rather than striving for the absolute maximum during the week and absolute minimum during the weekend.

So my list for this weekend included watching the F1 qualifying on Saturday, the race and the French Open men's finals on Sunday, posting on this blog, reading and some other things. However, as the weekend is officially over at two past twelve now, I didn't manage to read a single paper that I had set myself to do. Though I do feel bad, but what the heck, I'm not actually supposed to work on weekends, so I feel fine. And by taking care of the unavoidable trivialities, one would have more time to focus on work during the week.

P.S. The title is taken from Emiliana Torrini's delightful song of the same name from the album, 'Fisherman's Woman'

la première curry

1.
Well, never mind the facebook crap. In short, I wanted to say that writing on my blog feels a lot better than updating my status on facebook. I wouldn't dare venture beyond facebook and starting sending out tweets as well. Though technology is said to bring us closer, within six degrees of any random person on the face of the planet, like the trucks warn in India, I 'keep distance'. Too much of it, and you forget how to enjoy the simple joys of life. So, f*** book and face life, rather than face book and f*** your life away. Unfortunately, it has become a necessary evil and a fruitless diversion to escape from boredom but we're all equally competing in this dead rubber.

2.
Which brings me to the title of this post, almost three weeks after I'd written the above paragraph. My first chicken curry! A proud moment of my amateur and experimental culinary times; I thought I should record this moment at my blog.

But before we get to the chicken, let me start from the beginning and give a background to how the chicken came to be cooked in the first place. It was an awful Saturday, the kind where you'd rather wish you were working instead of having a day off on a dull day like today. In fact, it actually did make me go to the lab! For the fast internet rather than work. I watched Vettel finally pip the Brawns for the pole position at the Turkish GP, then saw Svetlana and Dinara giving their post-match speeches (and also saw Steffi Graf, pretty as ever; invited to give away the trophies to the finalists) and finally saw the penultimate episode of this season's Apprentice. It was a good sporting weekend with the Turkish GP and Federer on the verge of creating history at Roland Garros.

Coming back to food, I hadn't eaten (or cooked) anything special the last few days. And I was really in the mood to eat something nice. The last I made was stir fry noodles which didn't turn out as well as I'd like. Clueless as to what to eat, I started dreaming and my thoughts went to back to home, when every weekend that I'd come back from the DCE hostel, I'd get to savour something special, my favourite being biryani. And suddenly I really started craving biryani. And the urge became stronger when I walked past the neighbourhood Farmers' Market and saw fresh seafood paella being served. So I bought chicken and came back home around 5pm.

However, upon returning I was faced with a sink full of misery (dishes) and it turned me off and lost the enthusiasm to cook then. So, I munched some celery sticks and forgot all about biryani. The evening went past slowly and I had some ParleG biscuits to keep my hunger away. It was 10pm in no time, and though I remembered the chicken I was in no mood to cook. However, hungry I was, and if I could cook tonight, I wouldn't have to cook again tomorrow. Thus, I got up and took out and cleaned the pressure cooker (a customary item, part of my 45kg luggage on my first trip to the UK). I have no oven, and a whole year had passed since I last used the cooker (only once) so I needed to understand how to cook chicken in it. I googled, naturally, and sifted useful information from three related chicken recipes. Though the chicken was already packaged in a paste of sundried tomatoes and lemon, I decided to add the traditional spices of chilli and turmeric and a dash of fresh lemon juice. Before that though I had slaved away cutting a huge onion into fine bits. It was time to get my hands dirty and I proceeded to mix all the spices and onions with the chicken. I heated the cooker, added olive oil and then fried some of the fresh onion before adding the chicken. Even at this moment, I wasn't sure whether I would be having a roast or a curry but when I saw the leftover onions and marinade, I decided on the latter. I added some tomato puree, a few cloves, cinnamon sticks and cardamom and made a fine broth, mixing it in water. After five or so minutes, when the chicken had fried a bit, I added the broth and closed the lid of the pressure cooker. I was unsure about operating the cooker and read the instructions thrice over. I was scared to be honest, more so as the blaring sound of the whistle shattered the silence of my room, and I was petrified if too much pressure built up, it would explore in my face! At the same time, I put a packet of rice to boil, so that atleast I would have rice and curry, if not biryani. I added some celery leaves to add a touch of green and by half past eleven, a grand meal was ready -

La première des amis (The first friends) part I:

It was past one late in the night. The laptop stared at me (an undeniable breathing and living creature in today's world separated by six degrees and my world of limited, non-virtual social connections 360 degrees apart), and I called out to it with its replacement keyboard. Its own keyboard was injured when it first flew across the oceans cramped in the same space as a box of 'kaju burfi' (sweet made of milk and cashewnuts), extra sweaters and lots of documents and xerox copies of even more. And it never uttered a vowel again. In the first few days of my new life in the United Kingdom, I needed it to speak and help me call home ("Teki phone home", as my mother would remind me every now and then) and tackle strange new emails in my university email inbox. A more devoted friend, I have not, these past two years.

It had made new friends faster than I could here in Oxford. Facebook was the friend he visited most. I was also invited a few times in the beginning of their new found friendship and soon we all became close buddies. Me, laptop and facebook. Such great times we had. Winters of doom and gloom came and went by, and we huddled together and kept each other warm. Soon it came to be that wherever laptop and I went, facebook followed us. It was not that he did not have his own friend circle. Oh, friends he had plenty but he was like a master mind who could organize his days and nights equally between his many mistresses. We became as inseparable as the three legs of a tripod.

He introduced us to many of his friends, who came from many different places and spoke different languages. He would even organize many a get-together and party with his friends and systematically capture photographic evidence to remind us of those pleasant days in Switzerland, pub crawls and bops in Oxford, and meetings with friends who we met for the first and last time, through him. A reliable and gregarious friend facebook was. He would keep an eye out for everyone and care for everyone he knew like his own flesh and blood.

He had somehow even met my old friends and told them about me, and brought us back in touch again. Happy memories are made of these! O! Facebook was so full of life and vigour! Always up for a drink at the pub or a lecture at the business school or even to support a social cause. More than anything else, he loved to gossip. Always full of news about everyone. It would amaze me as to how could he possibly manage to keep abreast of the latest news about all his friends. I likened his mind to a supercomputer with dedicated servers for each friend he knew. He was slowly everywhere and knew almost everybody, even people of older generations. Such popularity simply couldn't go unnoticed, and soon his name was in everyone's good books.

[to be continued]

A time for change

MC Yogi - 'Vote for Hope'
(This song is available for free download here)

Now that millions of Americans have voted for hope, culminating in Barack Obama being sworn in today as the 44th President of the United States of America, let's see if Obama can bring about the change he promised and if indeed, a brighter day will come...(fingers crossed)

Diary of a dull day

Friday, 12^th December:

Though I think it has been nearly ten days since I last wrote on the blog, it feels like it has been ages ago. That is the problem with too much procrastination – you tend to have a hazy memory of things you did when you were supposed to do some meaningful work. I think I went on and on about how I finished the project I had been working on for generations of lab rats. Now it is thankfully behind me.

This week started with a holiday. Such bliss. I spent half the day in London walking and talking with a good high school friend from Delhi who had come to Europe on a trip of a life time as an exchange student and toured virtually the entire Schengen space in three months time. And I haven’t even been to Bath despite living here for more than a year. The other half of the day was spent on the Oxford tube and at the Victoria terminal where I patiently waited for my bus and discovered the absolutely delightful food from Wasabi. I did pay a visit to the lab at the end of the day, close to 9pm, and lo and behold, I had to bump into Il on his way out. I told him about my memorable Monday and wished him good night.

Tuesday was spent analyzing a case of spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs) from a NGFC. Wednesday, I was supposed to do an experiment, but I did not. Thursday, I was confident I’d do one, but bad health came in the way (thanks to the horribly cold weather and going for a walk in just a shirt and an open overcoat). So I made a deal with Il that on Friday, I’d definitely do an experiment if I feel well else I will analyze El’s old data that we unearthed recently. And not surprisingly I did not feel too well on Friday. But it did feel good to wake up past noon. So to make up for the unusual slackness on my part, I spent four consecutive hours (from 1 to 5pm) analyzing four cases of NGFC-sIPSCs in the selected chemical. Only then did I go out to the corner shop and reward myself with a chicken and roast vegetables panini. Checked out some new movie trailers at Apple’s website. Definitely want to watch Christian Bale as John Connor in Terminator Salvation (“The end begins”).

From then on, my day deteriorated and took a turn for the worst. While people who work 9 to 5 everyday were looking forward to another Friday night of fun and drunken revelry, I felt strangely listless with no fucking clue of what to do tonight. Yesterday, I had discovered a very good progressive/indie rock band called the ‘Pineapple Thief’ and what was more serendipitous was that they were playing a gig tonight at the Jericho Tavern (JT). Last night I was ecstatic about attending this gig. But tonight, as the hour drew closer, and listlessness spilled over every synapse in my brain, I could not even muster the will to walk those fifteen minutes to JT. What a loser I am.

But honestly, it was one of those moments, where you have no energy, motivation, or enthusiasm (all admirable qualities that grad schools look out for) for anything remotely interesting and when nothing can give you more comfort and solace than listening Radiohead. Or more appropriately Floyd's 'A momentary lapse of reason'. I even declined an offer to go out and have a drink in the pub with T2 and other friends from the Unit. A gin and tonic might have done the trick, but I had already desensitized all my GABAA receptors with incurable ennui that even 40% vol. alcohol would have had no effect. To top that, I further declined another offer to chill with a friend and watch a movie or two. Now that I look back, I could have had a splendid Friday night but instead I killed and buried every chance I got. The way Bill's brother buried the Bride in Kill Bill 2.

But like the Bride, I was sure that I would get out of the coffin sooner or later, the question was when? I walked back home and bought a chocolate bar and a pack of Twining's Earl Grey aromatic tea to cheer me up. The t good news was that the tea worked and I decided to do something constructive, like watching a movie. Something to go with tonight’s mood. I scanned my DVD rack and opted for ‘Lost in Translation’. And needless to say, the movie was just what the doc prescribed, or would have, if I were the doc, which I was anyways. I have always been in love with Scarlett Johansson since I first saw the movie, and more so with her character, ‘Charlotte’. Now there’s a lot I could write about the movie, but as a tidal wave of sleep is washing over me (which is just what Bob and Charlotte needed in their magnificent Park Hyatt rooms, and the lack of which brought them together in the first place), I will stop and hit the sack.

Well, at least writing about a boring day has its merits in inducing a good night's sleep.

Lab Diaries - Day 8

Wednesday, 3rd December -

Even though Monday and Tuesday were interesting days at the lab in their own right, but because I was too lazy to record the day’s victories and tragedies, joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs, I will get on with Wednesday. In a nutshell, I still did not perform any experiment on these days. Monday was a strangely uneventful day (yeah, you can guess that by now), as I don’t seem to recollect anything from that day. I think I had told Il that I would do an experiment My dairy says ‘Experiment’ at the top but it was struck off, so I can reliably say that I had at least expressed the desire to work on Monday. But by the time I reached the lab (~1pm), it was too late to proceed in that direction. Too bad! So, I got down to doing the same shit as everyday and by 7pm, I had enough and decided to go home instead of going for the Univ Quiz Squad practice at St. John’s from 9-11pm. It was too cold to stay out so late. I had made up my mind to not do an experiment even on Tuesday as I wanted to attend the Romanes lecture by Prof. Mohammad Yunus, founder of the revolutionary Grameen Bank and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 at the Sheldonian Theatre. It was an interesting and motivating talk, as you’d come to expect from the man. The theme was the same as his talks I heard on iTunes U, but it was significantly different from them as talked about the need to help the poor even more and create more social businesses in light of the current financial crisis, which even though it affected the rich, the poor are the worst hit as always. I spent most of the day going through different job sites and even applied for a couple of them. By the end of the day, Il was curious (“kuurioous”) to know if he could hope for some action in the lab the next day. I said yeah, it’s time.

To set the record straight, the last experiment I did was on the 21st of November. A good twelve days in the past, or a third of a month ago. The experiments of that day brought to an end, a successful end if I may say so, to a relentless pursuit of the autapses of neurogliaform cells (NGFCs). In an ideal world, I would have got this set of data by August, and reported my results in my second Master’s dissertation. But I had to learn about the rigours and frustrations of a research career, so I would consider myself lucky to get the data three months late. Luck had a great hand to play in it, as I will explain to you. So sometime in October, I was repeating these experiments and something happened which caused the acquisition software to crash, and the patch clamp amplifier to die. Anyhow, the amplifier was sent to Germany for repair and there was nothing I could do on that rig for some time to come. So Il suggested that I should switch the now vacant ‘Rig 2’ (which was being used by Diva Evari at the same time I was on Rig 1) and try doing paired recordings of NGFCs instead of single cell recordings. Except on one rare occasion, I did not manage to get a stable pair, and thus looked at the single cell recordings. And almost always, those NGFCs had an autapse! And when I’d go for a single NGFC, it would not yield an autapse. I had to go through the tiring process of trying to patch a pair of NGFCs, and only when I had appeased the Gods of GABAergic interneurons (GoGi) by doing so, would I be blessed with an autapse in one of the single cells. Thus, the project that I had started working on the 28th of April reached its culmination on the 21st of November. A week shy of seven months! That’s how life passes by in the lab…

Back to today and the new set of experiments. I remember sleeping after 1am last night, with a rather heavy stomach (thanks to a delightful dish of curried chicken and char sui courtesy the kind Chinese lady at the Chinese takeaway close to my home). But, I don’t know what went wrong after the next six hours that I woke up at ~7.15am. And the sky was clear and far from being foggy as predicted. I tried to go back to sleep again but something was amiss, I just could not. Maybe it was a call from the GoGi which I could not refuse to answer. And I knew that M1 was going to do an experiment around 10am, I decided to go to the lab early to do the dissection and use the vibratome and be done by the time she arrived. And that’s just what I did! I reached the lab at 8.25 am, when there was no one else other than St, the Unit’s cleaner. So early that even all the offices were unlocked. And as a bonus, you get to pee in freshly cleaned toilets and surprise your colleagues!

I prepared the ACSF and cutting solutions for the first time since August, as I had got used to getting ready made solutions courtesy Rx and M1. Everything went fine and smooth, ‘as smooth as a baby’s bottom’ (That’s the expression Chuck Yeager used when he became the first person to break the sound barrier flying the Bell X1 at Mach 1). A couple of hours later (and an early lunch consisting of falafel and houmous in a spinach baguette), I prepared the internal solutions, control solutions and proceeded to patch my first cell of the day. M1 came by and decided to watch the patch master at work. And it worked; it was a good seal albeit with an unsteady baseline. But since beggars can’t be choosers, and you only patch once, and never say ‘patch’ again, I played the waiting game and hoped for the best. From then on, NGFCs came on easy and by the end of the day I had recorded four NGFCs and fixed the slices for anatomical processing. More work for Rx. Well, I’ll help her out a bit; in return for some nice Austrian sweets! By the time I cleaned the rig and the containers, it was 7pm.

The other highlight of the day (other than me being at work) was that T4’s paper was finally published, after a gestation period of more than a year. We congratulated her on finally getting her baby out of her belly. I wonder how it really feels to finally see one's work in print after years of waiting. There is a long time to go before I can personally talk about that.

Half an hour later, I was out of the lab, and accompanied T2 to Sainsbury’s. We discussed how little PhD students are paid; just a tad more you’d get as a sales assistant working 40 hours a week. And his general belief that I am always at work in the lab! Wait till he reads my blog (I’ll spread the word after this post). It’s all about how to look busy, (ala Slackenerny) if not about how to ‘Get busy living, or get busy dying’ (in the lab) -



P.S. In case you've noticed I completely ignored Friday, no I don't do a four day week, but I was not in the lab most of the day. Instead I was at the Magdalen College School, observing and assisting Maths lessons to students from the third to the sixth form. It was the most interesting day of the week and I'll write about it later, independently of the lab diaries series.

Lab Diaries - Day 4:

Thursday, 27^th November –

Before I start boring you with details of another lacklustre day at the lab, I would like to rewind to early this night. I could not sleep; I was not having nightmares, not yet (the worst nightmare would be a life sentence to be served in the lab), but I just couldn’t shut my mind off for the night. So I kept thinking. Introspecting. And a couple of points hit . When I realized what I’d written and (actually) done the past three days, I sort of felt ashamed that I did not do any “real” (or experimental) work this week and don't plan on doing any either. To make my current situation clear, I am working on an honorary basis. But recently Il talked again to the D (when I came to the lab really late) and he decided to pay for my accommodation. I was pleasantly surprised to hear this when I came late that day, and Il sat down next to me and told me that I’d struck bronze (no one really strikes gold in research). So last night, I started to feel guilty that I was not being sincere. Well for what I’m being paid, I can afford to be insincere seven days out of ten. Anyhow, the feeling of guilt was there.

But that’s what I realized. That money is not the point. I was being renumerated for Il’s and D’s faith in my ability and I should work hard to maintain that faith (I’m an Indian, can’t help it) . It dawned upon me that part of the reason why I was being as lazy as a sloth’s ass was that I was trying to measure my work in terms of monetary compensation. And forgot that in neuroscience, its not the buck that counts, but the brain that matters, yours and mine and most importantly the lab animals'. And things sort of fell into place and I felt blissful. The kind of bliss that is rare in a research career anyways (the kind of bliss you feel when you get data after months of trials and tribulations, when a paper is published after years of haggling with the referees, and so on and so forth). And I decided that next week, I’d do at least 3 experiments (Yours sincerely).

The second realization was that I don’t think that any other career could be as exciting and frustrating, as stimulating and dull, as multidisciplinary and focussed, as multicultural and Hungarian, as collaborative and independent as neuroscientific research. Just by writing about my day at the lab over the past three days, I’ve realized how interesting life in the lab can be. I never know what I’ll write for the next day! Even though I have a project to work upon, if you observe life as it passes by in the lab, it can be as varied and unpredictable as a woman having her periods. It’s true that maybe I can’t think beyond a research career (forgive my limited imagination) but anything is better than a 9 to 5 desk job, or a job dictated by the opening and closing times of international stock exchanges.

Now that I’ve wasted half a thousand words on last night’s dreams (only half of the dreams, to be honest), let’s get on with today. I was in and out of the lab today– that would be the abstract. I had volunteered to take part in a couple of experiments – one psychiatric, the other cognitive. I was up by 11am, and scurried to the lab by 12.15pm to check my email (I don’t have internet at home, and sadly do not catch the university’s wireless service) before heading off to the Warneford Hospital for a 1 o’clock appointment. I had to fill in more than a dozen questionnaires about how am I feeling, how I felt the past week, how do you feel about the future and so on. The interesting bit came when I was instructed to watch a twenty two minute long video containing traumatic and depressing clips and then quantify my feelings by placing a mark on a straight line. The only interesting clip was from 'The Shawshank Redemption' (I was amazed to see it being used for psychiatric research) starting from the moment where Brooks releases Jake and is let off from Shawshank; his loneliness in his new life outside prison; sleepless nights marred with nightmares; and eventually his decision and act of ending his life. Of course, there was a filler task in between where I sat like the red headed guy from the Sherlock Holmes’ adventure – “The Case of the Red Headed League” and scanned a home encyclopaedia of sorts to find answers to questions which the experimenter had no interest in knowing. It could have been very irritating but as I realized that this task was just to buy time before I answer questions about the video clip (thirty minutes after viewing), I was calm, but very very hungry.

Finally the torture was over, and I took the bus back to the High Street and bought a baguette from everybody’s favourite corner shop on Holywell Street before going back to the lab. I had barely finished my lunch that it was time to pop over to the Experimental Psychology department next door for the other experiment. This one was to prepare me for the kind of tasks I would repeat in an fMRI scanner this Sunday. I managed to survive this one somehow, (I would rather not talk about it) and ran back to the lab to breathe again.

Once back, Il briefed me on the experiments he wanted me to do to clarify certain doubts raised by collaborators on the manuscript. Of course, his manner of request was both polite and politically correct. Finally, I got the opportunity to spend quality time with the world wide web. Mumbai was still in a state of terror and unrest; they managed to put out the fire at Taj Palace but not the fire burning in a billion Indian hearts. And the fire’s spreading, across borders and seas, engulfing the world in a united rage against terrorism.

And then strangely enough, the fire alarm in the department went off, alerting us to the danger of the real thing. That brought another day in the lab to an abrupt end, much like the hundreds of lives back in Mumbai.

I like this picture in today's TOI as it symbolizes that we Indians stand united against terror and our spirit is truly unbreakable -

Lab Diaries - Day 3

Wednesday, 26th November -

Cutting a long story short, I woke up at 1 something. Though I was woken up by a call from El at 10am, I promptly went back to sleep. I think heavy dinners take a toll on me. And two meals a day even more. Took a long comforting shower, had toast and I was off to the lab. Thankfully, today was warmer than yesterday. It must have been 2.40pm or so when I stepped into the office. Il greeted me warmly and told me he’d submitted my second letter of recommendation for UCSD. I’ve noted that Il is warmer than usual when I come in very late, possibly thinking that I’m not happy with my current situation. Works well for me! Nothing exciting in my inbox today and no facebook notifications either. A clear indication that we’ve hit the middle of the week and things are slow and time is dragging for everyone.

Took care of a few administrative stuff, went to the lab to greet my fellow friends in distress. All were busy at work. That’s how a lab should be. Satisfied, I went back to the office and had a rather long discussion with Il about my current work, plans for next week, Christmas, future PhD plans, and funding options for non-Europeans and non-British like me.

I was acting as T4’s spy today as she was out rowing on the Isis. Let her know of Il’s movements and went back to the UCSD application. Registered my third referee, and printed instructions on how to write an SOP. Logged off and went back to sitesurfing – was glad to know that Dhoni’s team beat the Brits again; I don’t care about Indian cricket, or even cricket since Lara’s retirement, but it gives me sadistic pleasure to see England lose to India.

Started listening to Steve Wozniak’s talk, the one he gave at ‘Silicon Valley comes to Oxford 2007’. That took me ‘iTunes U’ from where I’d got it in the first place. Checked out ‘UChannel’ extensively thoroughly, and downloaded 960.2 Mb of talks by people like Professors Paul Krugman, Mohammad Yunus, Jeffrey Sachs and Christof Koch and a number of lectures focusing on India by P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Ram Jethmalani, and VS Naipaul among others.

The plan to watch ‘Changeling’ had to be dropped as Odeon Cinemas had retracted their ‘2 for 1’ offer for students. Clear evidence that even the cinemas are reeling from the credit crunch, and how it affects students like you and me. 'Changeling' is definitely not a movie I’d willingly pay six pounds to watch. Of course there are exceptions like the ‘Dark Knight’ which I have seen four times now. I will increase the count when its DVD releases on 8th December.

I decided to have a cup of tea, and then looked at local sites for any temporary jobs. Then, went upstairs to the lab for a chat. T2 was busy with anatomy and Rx with ordering lab consumables. Rx offered some sweets and I gladly accepted and took them downstairs with me. T4 was back after narrowly losing out in their first race. T2 told me about the ‘Fetish Bop’ at Balliol this Saturday and T4 about a formal dinner at St. John’s the next day. Recorded the weekend social plans in my diary and went back to work. Once Il left for home, T4 and I talked about rowing and checked out some youtube videos on ‘catching a crab’. Before shutting the computer off, I read about the shootings in Mumbai. Horrible thing to happen in a city so full of life and hope.

My low-key day at the lab was soon over and I headed home. Decided against another kebab van dinner and ended up having Mumbai Pav Bhaji (one of those ‘heat and eat’ packets) with amply buttered pita bread. Did my laundry which I was too lazy to do over the weekend. Switched on the TV for a while and was amused to watch how this country creates celebrities out of useless people like Peter Andre, Katie Price, Myleene Klass, Kerri Katona and the likes; just by watching them do silly antics, shed fake tears and bitch about each other in the jungles of Australia. England’s slogan seems to be – “If you’re not a celebrity, get out of here.”

This brings to mind the Camera Obscura song – ‘Let’s get out of this country’ with the following words which ring so true, more so now than ever before –

“What does the city have to offer me?
I just can’t see
I just can’t see."

Lab Diaries - Day 2

Tuesday, 25th November -

As I stated yesterday, Tuesday demanded an early start from me. At 9.15am, I had to be in the Experimental Psychology department to complete a set of memory tests for a student’s PhD project. As before, I woke up, not when the alarm rang (7.45am), but fortunately in another ten minutes due to the din created by the weekly waste and recycling collection trucks while collecting glass bottles (rinsed - this is important detail) from people’s green recycling boxes. The recycling and waste collection service in the UK is an elaborate and systematic process, whereby waste has to be clearly sorted into green and blue boxes or bins. Back at home in Delhi, we disposed off waste into green bins for biodegradable and organic waste and blue bins for plastics and the likes. However, I could not care more and tie all the rubbish in a polybag from Sainsbury’s or Co-op (I carry a cloth bag to buy stuff from supermarkets and nick their polybags for my dustbin) and throw it into the public bin at the end of my street.

Right, so back to the experiment. I reached on time, and had to wait for another 10-15 mins for S to arrive and set up the tests. It always happens, when you’re on time, the GMT turns back by the same duration. Anyhow, the experiments tested memory retention and recall for different objects such as people’s names, random words, ambiguous shapes, and finally a series of 20 training and 80 test trials based on recalling weird insect or monster like shapes, the kind that Scooby and Shaggy used to run from. Thankfully, we had a tea break in between and an hour later I pocketed my well earned five quid and headed for the lab.

Once in the lab, I performed my daily mail-ly ablutions and got down to work. One of my referees had already submitted her online letter of recommendation for my application to the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at UCSD and I realized that I needed to get working on the Statement of Purpose (SOP). I filled in other trivial details they always ask, and read the notes of guidance on how to write an SOP. For my selected major, they want 2500 words of bullshit. Will have to work on it over the weekend, and submit before the deadline on Monday. Same as last year; I was writing my SOP a couple of hours before the deadline. I hope that similar efforts results in a similar outcome, i.e., a rejection accompanied by a sincere letter of apology from the Admissions office. Given the state of limbo I’m in, I am not sure if I will celebrate an offer of admission, for then I'd be doomed to be a lab rat for the next six years.

Very soon, it was noon and time for the Tuesday seminar. Today was special, as it was the first of the new lecture series on Anatomical Neuropharmacology. After a long introduction to the history of impressive neuropharmacological research being done at the Unit and the Department, the distinguished speaker got on with his wonderful and insightful data and research. Another hour dedicated to science. Now it was time for the post seminar lunch. TANSTAAFL is a popular acronym which stands for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. If there was no free food, half of the graduate population would die of starvation and lack of motivation! Anyhow, even though the talk was special, the food wasn’t. But I still helped myself to it.

After that, I accompanied El for lunch as he was working during the seminar. T4 called and joined us. We walked to the city centre and would have gone on talking and walking in the direction of Bath, till El halted and turned left for the ‘Covered Market’. El got his salad lunch, T4 got her Vitamin C pills and latte, and I got my walk and whiff of cold, freshly frozen air, blowing in from the north. Once back in the department, we headed for the common room and I prepared a cup of Earl Grey to feel warm again.

3pm, back in the lab, El and I got working on incorporating my data into an existing figure. The new data made the old data statistically significant compared to the control, and I was happy. I was happier for the fact that I won’t have to do this set of experiments again unless the referees demand for more. A few more discussions followed and soon it was 5pm. Time for me to go for Table Tennis trials for my college. I was back in the lab within an hour, and will be playing for Balliol again in the next Cuppers tournament. I had promised to help El with an online verbal screening test for his job application at a management consultancy firm. T2 also joined in and El proceeded to complete the test without any external help. With the test out of way, it was 7pm already. I decided against an early dinner and worked online for a bit. I forgot to start my SOP, talked to a friend for ten minutes, booked tomorrow evening for watching Angelina Jolie in ‘Changeling’ or Sam Rockwell in ‘Choke’ and then walked back home. Decided in favour of not cooking tonight and settled for another kebab van dinner. Watched ManUtd play Villareal while nibbling chips and chicken. Still have the manuscript to read and comment upon. But got down to writing for the blog instead. 00:37am and I’m finally done with it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Preliminary analysis suggests that the experiment is not working yet. If it was successful, I would be ‘more interested in my work’ and would have read the manuscript before writing this blog post. However, somewhere along this chain of thought, I realized that if I wasn’t working in the lab, I wouldn’t have anything interesting to write about. Nor the time to spare and write a thousand words on the same.

Yours in life and lab,

Lab Diaries - Day 1

"It would be good for you if you divert attention to creative field like writing poetry or painting. It would bring the desired change and thus increasing interest in work."

------------------------------------------------------------------

That's my weekly career forecast for this week, courtesy MonsterIndia. They don't send me notices of any employer interest in my job profile, just career forecast I never bother about. It’s not that I'm looking for a job. either. It's all a vicious pointless circle. Except that this time I thought I should really act upon the forecast and do some creative work that might make my work more "interesting". Yeah, I am losing interest in my work. Or don’t have any, or very little, or next to nothing, or I just pretend to be interested. 'Interesting work' should be at the top in a list of best oxymorons along with 'Microsoft Works' and 'Pretty ugly'.

So, as a positive response to this forecast, I'm going to write about my work, at the lab, as a lab rat, and maintain a lab diary. Along the lines of NY Times' infamous 'Sex diaries'. And analyze post-hoc if it really enhances my interest in work or makes me look like a nerd or just another lazy bastard to my readers. I don't mind any of these tags, so here is the bare truth -

Monday, 24 November -

I had registered to attend a series of talks and workshops at the 'Silicon Valley comes to Oxford 2008' event at the Said Business School. From 9am to 8.30pm. I was interested to listen to the founders of 'Second Life', 'LinkedIn', and 'Twitter' among others, so I set my alarm for 7am. Setting alarms for early morning starts is something I do very sincerely, as sincerely as in writing 'Yours sincerely' at the end of professional emails. The alarm never fails to ring, loud and clear, and I always fail to wake up. Corporate professionals may be used to 7am starts, but definitely not research assistants (RAs). My eyes opened first at 10.48am, and then duly shut again. The sequence repeated at 11.44am. I saw through the slanting windows in my attic room that the sun was out, and I decided to go the lab instead of being locked up in a room buzzing with corporate chatter. I put on some nice songs, to get me in the mood to get off my cosy bed and start a brand new day. Like Laura Veirs’ ‘Galaxies’ and Olivia Ruiz’s ‘J'traîne des pieds’. Switched on the tv while at it. Nothing interesting to keep me in bed a little longer - 'Loose Women' on ITV, another wildlife expert playing with rattlesnakes. Though Jada-Punkett Smith came on as a guest in some show to talk about her new role as the voice for the hippo in Madagascar 2, it got boring when she started talking about family life. 12.20pm, and I finally decided I had enough of the bed and got up. Brushed my teeth, saw the time was 12.30pm. Decided against having a shower in favour of turning up at the lab early. Well, atleast before lunchtime.

Left home, and walked to the lab. I prefer the alternate entrance to the Unit when I reach the lab after 12pm, and the main entrance, when am there by 9am. Not suprisingly, the alternate entrance has now become the preferred one. More so, as the lockers are on the way from the other route. No really. Once in the lab, I switched on the computer, and faithfully checked my gmail, webmail, facebook notifications, bbc newsfeed and orkut scraps which are thankfully rare. Can't keep up with multiple social networks.

I had a meeting with my supervisor at 2pm. As I had barely enough time to go out and get a baguette, I got a diet coke from the vending machine instead. Went through my hard-earned data (yeah, data not money), summarized my months of work into a single curve fitted with a double exponential, and discussed its physiological meaning. Tears of happiness should have welled up in my eyes, but I have now reached the point of no return (i.e., I don’t give a damn anymore). The data looked good, we all agreed. ‘All’ includes a PhD student as well, now a Dr., whose laziness in the first place resulted in an opportunity for me to contribute to this paper. The lesson being – a procrastinating PhD student’s laziness can result in the productive use of a motivated Master’s student. And because you don’t get the results in the four months of the lab rotation, you end up continuing as an RA to finally get that data.

Anyhow, the meeting finally ended by 6pm. Checked my inboxes again. I picked up from a link from a friend and ended up at Olympus Bioscapes Gallery. Downloaded several images and toyed with my desktop wallpaper for a while. Check out this larval 'brainbow' zebrafish image for a sample of the amazing collection of bioscapes. Then, read an article on how ordinary people on average do not enjoy more expensive wine as much as people with wine training, for whom the pleasure derived from tasting a good wine is positively correlated to its price. From there, I chanced upon another interesting page on a 'Dance your PhD' contest where grad students, postdocs, and professors ‘dance’ and express their PhD topics and research. If only one could dance out their thesis instead of writing thirty to fifty fucking thousand words!

Apart from this, I started writing this blog article and have hazy memory or actually no clue as to what I did in the next hour or so. Procrastination, what else?! And finally, I had a half hour chat with a finishing PhD student from the lab. We lab rats have to rely on each other for support (technical, statistical, editorial, social and motivational).

So, my day at the lab ended at 9pm, and I left from the main entrance for the weekly University Quiz Squad practice sessions. Well yeah, am a sucker for trivia. Left for home at 11pm, had chips from the local Kebab van for dinner and completed this blog post at 12.38am. Now, I have to get down to reading the manuscript and think of useful comments and criticisms. And then get some sleep for another early start tomorrow. No really!

Weekend blues

It is 1813 hours and pitch dark outside. I am here in the lab, illuminated by two tube lights, my table lamp and the computer monitor, of course.
Procrastinating online, as usual -

- Gmail (religiously delete alerts about events in Delhi even though I've reported it as spam; check jobs in biological sciences and psychology at jobs.ac.uk even though I've never applied for one and probably never will; remain invisible on google chat, its a rare day when I feel like having a chat);

- Oxford webmail (get no emails on weekends, but I check anyways);

- BBC iPlayer (just saw a University Challenge episode, might see more of Dragon's Den or 'How to solve a cryptic crossword', alas there's no 'Little Britain' episode I haven't seen yet);

- BBC Sports News (Federer's losing his Midas touch, Yuvraj's showing the Brits who's boss, Arsenal are losing sight of the Reds; my favourite West Indian cricket team lost another ODI series)

- iTunes (listen to an amazing playlist of eclectic rock on RadioParadise (RP) and note down songs and artists I like; check out their playlist)

- Facebook (note events in my diary even though its highly unlikely that I will attend them, check the latest status updates on my homepage, wish on someone's birthday, delete people I know from the 'People you may know' section, and of course the usual bit of 'networking');

- Oh, and finally, a friend's comment made me visit my blog and write some shit. So here I am...


The above might look like a research student's typically 'busy' day in the lab or it might be, as the case is, just another boring weekend. The sun was out today morning, and the entire British nation feels blessed and goes out shopping. Shopping for Christmas. It might be forty days away but not for the shops and the shoppers. Marks and Spencer's is all glitzy and shiny, as is their Christmas tree.

While the sun was out, I was cosy in my duvet, fast asleep till the nearby church's bells chimed twice. I was out in the pub last night, well it was Friday, so why not? And it had been more than a month since I had gin and Indian tonic water. How gin came to be mixed with tonic water is a piece of interesting trivia. A fellow neuronerd told me that British soldiers in India were often afflicted with malaria and the only remedy was to have quinine, which is used to make anti-malarial drugs. But since quinine in its native form was too offensive for the taste buds, someone came up with the idea of diluting it with gin, and voila, that was how gin and tonic water (which contains quinine) came to be.

Trivia apart, its been nearly three months since I last went to the Jericho Tavern, even though its minutes from my house. Its where Radiohead played their first gig, when they called themselves 'On a Friday'. Bob Marley's now beseeching us to "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights" on RP. On a Friday night, this country's youth can't even stand straight. Binge drinking, beer guzzling bastards.

Now that I'm sober I can write again. I come to the lab on weekends to check my mail. Yeah, that's why. It's not that I'm expecting a jackpot in my mail but I don't have internet at home. My new room didn't have an existing wireless or broadband connection, and I just got used to it. As Mersault's mother said - "Eventually you get used to everything." I rather like it this way. If I had internet at home, I'd be doing the same shit from there. I don't want to turn my home into my lab!
Plus, I get to do more interesting things this way. I read more nowadays (read Adiga's Booker winner - 'The White Tiger', Camus' 'The Outsider', two PHD comic books by Jorge Cham of late and am currently on Gandhi's autobiography); watch more movies; check out new music; paint if I'm in the mood and clean my room if I'm absolutely bored.

I rather like being in the lab. It almost feels like home. Did I really say that? Fuck, I have to move on. I think I'm scared of moving on. I guess that's why I'm still doing research, and voluntarily at that. Science is a cruel bitch, that's one lesson I've learned. While I was slaving away day and night for my Master's project, I never got the results I wanted. And now that I'm doing the same experiments after my Master's course is over, I get the results, every single time I do an experiment! I don't know who to blame - not the poor juvenile rats, not my jovial supervisor, not the friendly technician nor my helpful labmates. And being the youngest in the lab doesn't help much either! Darn, that doesn't leave anyone. The equipment maybe? Yeah! Damn you, devil's apparatus!

But Oxford's a nice place to be, while you can afford it, that is. My time here will run out soon, but for the time being I'm really enjoying all that it has to offer. Notable speakers come from far and wide to give talks here, successful companies come for recruitment presentations (wine and aperitifs guaranteed, that brings me to student survival skill #1 - 'Thou shall know where free food is served'), many student societies and groups are active here and I still get do a bit of quizzing now and then. All's well except for the depressing weather, the feeling of cultural disorientation and being an outsider, lonely weekends and authentic Indian food (Not that I miss Indian food, but at least don't sell Bangladeshi tomato gooey as Indian curry and mislead the innocent Indians out there). But then again, freedom comes at a price. The freedom that comes with staying alone, away from home, in a foreign country.

Its 1935 hours now and Goldfrapp's singing a song called 'Utopia'. Does it really exist - well maybe, but definitely not here in the UK. In India? Maybe yes, maybe not. 1937 hours: I think I agree 'Utopia' is 'A deafening distance' away, like 'God is an Astronaut', the group behind this wonderful instrumental piece.

I think 'Utopia' or as I'd like to imagine, 'peace of mind', might be a deafening distance away, but its not somewhere out there, but inside us, each one of us, in our very essence.

As Slackenerny says, its nothing but a 'state of mind' -












2031 hours:
It's time for me to prepare for that state of mind. On Saturdays, I like to make up for lost sleep. Restoring the balance of nature, you see! I must leave to do my bit.

The Formula 1 2008 season

The result is out – Lewis Hamilton is the new F1 World Champion, even though he won it in the dying seconds of the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos. Well, he is undoubtedly the new defending champion and the shining future of Formula 1. Of course, he deserves all the applause and I guess some respect from the shattered Brazilians and the embittered Spanish fans.

But does he really deserve to be called a worthy champion and a place amongst the ranks of Senna and Schumacher?

Well no, not yet. And certainly not, judging by the way he clinched, or rather scraped through to win the 2008 crown. In his favour, Hamilton is a man with sheer talent and speed and a lot of aggression and confidence behind the wheels of the McLaren Mercedes. What he has achieved in these two years as an F1 driver is unparalleled in its glorious history. In his first season, he was consistently at par, if not faster, than the then ruling world champion, Fernando Alonso and even he was taken aback and fiercely challenged by the young rookie. However, Hamilton has been a McL:aren bred driver since he was a young teenager and well groomed before he began his career with one of the top two cars in the field. F1 is about the man as well as the machine. Hamilton is undoubtedly fast, but he was also well placed to start his drive in a McLaren. Not many are lucky enough to secure their first drive in a top team. Schumacher started with Lotus, Alonso with Minardi, and Massa with Sauber I reckon if the highly impressive Sebastian Vettel was given a seat at Ferrari next year, he’d win the championship hands down and replace Hamliton as the youngest F1 world champion!

The car suited Hamilton a lot and he has worked well with the team to make it deliver more. He obviously has a great partnership with McLaren, and is cherished as a special member of the team, something which did not go down well with Alonso during his stint with them a year ago. So much so that Alonso left McLaren, breaking his contract with them, and returning to Renault and Flavio Briatore, who masterminded his two world championship victories. He is so embittered with his former team that he went on record to say that he’d like to help Massa win and prevent McLaren from securing the drivers title!

The 2008 F1 season has been nothing but scintillating from the very start with just a single point, the difference between the champion and the challenger. It was an incredibly competitive season which saw Hamilton, Massa, Raikkonen, Alonso, Kovaleinen, Kubica and Vettel finishing in front of the chequered flag. All of them are real challengers for the next championship and just shows how far F1 has come and evolved since the days of the invincible Scbumacher. Heidfeld was also a regular podium finisher amongst new faces such as Glock, Piquet and Rosberg. The FIA deserves credit for implementing new tyre, engine and qualifying regulations that have resulted in a highly exciting season and dramatic finale at Interlagos in the last two years. Its not just to do with the rules but also the progress and development made by teams like BMW Sauber, Renault, Toro Rosso (with a Ferrari engine) and Toyota that has considerably raised the stakes and pose a realistic threat to the likes of Ferrari and McLaren.

However, Hamilton needs to win a championship in style and with greater confidence to be counted in the league of Alonso, who has all the hallmarks of a truly great world champion, and who beat Schumacher in a Ferrari to win his two championships. Moreover, Hamilton does not earn much respect from his fellow drivers. It maybe down to jealousy, but there is something in his manner and speech that does not reflect humility. And being British, he has already become a huge celebrity, and already came out with his autobiography titled ‘My Story’ at the age of 22?! The British have a culture of making celebrities out of no one, best example being people like Jade Goody who participated in Celebrity Big Brother, who became famous overnight, wrote an autobiography, and started selling her own perfume and merchandise! Hamilton though, deserves his celebrity status and a celebrity girlfriend in the name of Nicole Scherzinger, from the Pussy Cat Dolls. It was Massa who drove like a champion in the last race but was unlucky to lose out to Hamilton in the way he did. Hamilton and McLaren had a very conservative strategy and were in the end, just lucky to win the title. However, if the entire season is taken into account, luck has been a major factor, with Hamilton being unlucky with some of the penalties he received and Massa, with engine failures and errors in the pit lane. If, Glock had had a smoother pit stop and got back in the race higher up the grid with less traffic, he might have just hung on to 4^th place and given the title to Massa.

Ultimately, I think, if you average out all the ifs and buts, Hamilton deserved to win the title, albeit by the margin of a single championship point. It’s good for F1 that Hamilton won, else it would have become even more difficult to win the championship in the succeeding years owing to stiff competition from other teams like BMW Sauber and the ever improving Alonso and the young challenger, Vettel. It would be very interesting to see how Hamilton defends his title and handles the pressure of being the reigning world champion.

Now I know, you'll be listening

"Impossible Germany
Unlikely Japan

But this is what love is for
To be out of place
Gorgeous and alone
Face to face."


- Jeff Tweedey, Wilco

NeuroTalisman

"Nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift."

- Steven Pinker

So this is Christmas, and what have you shopped?

There are at least two things you can't ignore in the U.K. in December - the cold, bitter weather and the Christmas sales.


Well, the Christmas shopping begins even before December arrives, that's what it has all frozen down to. The festive season unleashes a commercial extravaganza unlike anything I've seen back in India, with the Christmas spirit driving up to 40% of the annual sales of most shops and retail outlets. That is a mind boggling figure, and signifies the extent to which Christmas and shopping have become synonymous with each other. The shops, newspapers, and media has become such a powerful force in driving the commercial consciousness of the society towards exploiting the most out of these sales. Every ad on the telly makes you stop and think - "Wow, what a wonderful bargain that is." Well, who can blame the consumer if he falls prey?

I am no exception and got a good deal on a warm jumper to help me survive the winters. But, I must agree, that if it were not for the sales, I would not have been able to get some of the cherished stuff I managed to get my hands on -

1. U2 by U2 - down from 30 pounds to 5.
2. Oasis Definitely, and
3. R.E.M.'s single - What's the Frequency, Kenneth? at a clearance sale for 50p! (Do read the wikipedia entry on the above phrase)

But, Christmas came a few days early for me, when I saw Thom Yorke, the lead vocalist of Radiohead walk past me near Pusey House; I couldn't believe it was Him, whose vocals and music I resonate with the most. What amazed me more than anything else was that he was in plainclothes and not surrounded by any bodyguards, and appeared as normal as you and me, except for the fact that he is Thom Yorke! Given the fact that the band was formed in Oxford, and he currently lives here, I hope to bump into his path more often.

Lost 'In Rainbows'

No matter how much I loathe the British weather, the starch laden menus in the hall, the supermarket lifestyle to which I'm becoming a slave to, the one thing that I'll always love, apart from their tea, is their music. Period.

And the band that is currently dominating the airwaves in my room is Radiohead. Having no contracts with any record label, they owned complete ownership of their songs and the way they decided to distribute and give access to the songs of their new album - 'In Rainbows' is a truly novel experiment in the music industry.

The album was available for digital download on their website for any price that the customer would like to pay! Yes, that's the first thing I bought with my debit card. And even though I am not sure of the commercial success of this bold venture, what I can guarantee is that the album is another classic Radiohead masterpiece, and with songs reminescent of their masterful works like 'The Bends' and 'OK Computer'.

For a bright start to the day while on the bike to your department, or just to forget how cold and gloomy things are outside the window, lose yourself in the warmth and comfort of Radiohead.

Shawshank Redemption

Ratatouille

Ratatouille is a traditional Provençal vegetable dish that can be served as a meal on its own, accompanied by rice, potatoes or French bread, or as a side dish.

Recipe serves 3-4. Increase quantities to serve more, and add different vegetables as desired for variation.

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 eggplant (aubergine)
• 1 green bell pepper
• 2 zucchinis (courgettes) (cucumber also works well)
• 6 medium tomatoes, ripe (juicy) and peeled
• salt and pepper to taste
• Herbes de Provence to taste

Directions

1. Put a large casserole on the stove on medium heat.
2. Chop the onions and garlic. When the casserole is hot, add enough olive oil to just cover the bottom.
3. Add the onions and garlic and brown.
4. Chop the green pepper, zucchinis and eggplant. Add to the casserole. Stir from time to time.
5. Peel the tomatoes. Dice them or cut them into quarters, add to the casserole.
6. Five minutes later, check to see if the tomatoes have made enough juice to almost cover the vegetables - if so, perfect. If not, add water as needed (not too much).
7. Add salt, pepper and Herbes de Provence to taste. In general, 1 tbsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper and 1 tbsp of the herbs will suffice.
8. Cover the casserole and let simmer on low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Raging Bull

for some of my recent posts on things that make for interesting trivia, follow the link to Blog Obscura

When down
Escalate to the fifty-eighth floor
To look at ants

"Each year, as the mating season approaches, the male canary composes a new song to attract the female. The part of the canary's brain thought to be the neural basis for the production of songs grows substantially, forming neuron connections and expanding to more than twice its normal size. Presumably, the song pattern is established in the new neuronal circuits that form in this structure. After the mating season, the "song structure" in the brain atrophies or becomes much smaller. As this happens, the song is lost. The next year, as mating season approaches, the song strucure begins to grow again and the male canary composes a new song. In this extraordinary and specialized way the canary brain provides a structural basis for learning: it grows an entire new set of circuits."

Salvador Dali in the kitchen...

Not long ago, Time Magazine came up with a 'Time 100: The Next Wave', a compilation of the top innovators in the world. And the list happened to feature a 'Gastronomic Innovator', a Catalan Chef by the name of Ferran Adria! I happened to be watching BBC today at the right time, else I would never have realized that creating food is quite an art in itself! Now, this is one guy who has taken this art to consummate levels and is now heralded as a virtuoso in the field.

This is what wikipedia has to say about him:

Ferran Adrià Acosta is a Catalan cook born 14 May 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain) famed head chef of El Bulli Restaurant in Roses, on the Costa Brava, Catalonia (Spain).

Ferran Adrià started cooking in 1980 due to his job as dishwasher at the Hotel Playafels on Ibiza. Later the chef de cuisine taught him the traditional Spanish cuisine. Adrià then became an exponent of the so-called 'Molecular gastronomy', boldly experimenting with new technologies and unexpected textures and flavors. El Bulli is only open from April to September, Adrià spends the other six months of the year perfecting recipes in his laboratory/workshop, 'El Taller', in Barcelona. He is famous for his thirty course gourmet menu as a synthesis of the arts.

Today he is considered one of the best chefs in the world and holds rank 2 in the European Restaurant Ranking.

El Bulli has 3 Michelin stars and is regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world. In 2005 it was ranked second in the Restaurant Top 50, and it attained the top spot in 2006, displacing The Fat Duck in England.

El Bulli:
From the first taste of the apéritif offered at El Bulli — a frozen gin with hot lemon fizz — you know this is no ordinary restaurant. In fact, many claim El Bulli, operated by Michelin three-star Spanish chef Ferrán Adria, is the best restaurant in Europe and quite possibly the world. Few globally renowned restaurants are more out of the way than this one — it sits at the end of a narrow mountain road 100 miles north of Barcelona along Spain's beautifully rugged Costa Brava, near the town of Roses. Still, adventurous food lovers from around the world book reservations a year in advance.

Open only from the end of March through the end of September, El Bulli, which is named for the English bulldog, serves about 50 diners per evening — many of whom have traveled halfway around the globe to partake in the experience. The kitchen, with 30 staff members collaborating on Adria's creations, is almost as crowded as the dining room.

This page has more on him plus few of his own recipes...

You know what they say about fools...

"However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him."
- Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

"He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks."
- François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools."
- Herbert Spencer

"Looking foolish does the spirit good."
- John Updike

"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them, the rest of us could not succeed."
- Mark Twain

"The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year."
- Mark Twain

I guess, it came a bit earlier this year...

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance."
- Wilde, Oscar

Kya karen, kya naa karen...

Today's Holi!
If it were not for the sms, offliners on yahoo, n scraps at orkut, I would have been blissfully ignorant. Its been a long time since I had some serious fun on Holi. Last year I was but a mere spectator during the Balti Wars in the hostels. And I dont even blame the coming mid sem exams for dampening my enthusiasm for some much needed fun and frolic. I guess I just dont know...


Monday se Mid Sems...
I wonder why we have the mid semester exams? First of all, its not even the midpoint of the semester. And judging by the syllabi already covered, some teachers may even go on to say that we are ready for the end sem exams too! Seriously, they ought to listen to Floyd...

Till yesterday, I was all nerves and had no freaking idea how I'd manage to combat the minors this time around, when a good friend called up and asked me to collect movies from another friend. And he talked as if it was a question of life and death. "Bhai mere! Mid sems ka kya hoga?" And he assured me ki koi fight nahi hai. Mid sems ke liye kaun padhta hai? Ek din kaafi hai! And then I realized the wisdom in his words! Really, one day's enough for these 'minor' exams! Last sem, the two of us were merrily quizzing away on the weekend before the minors...which reminds me, there's a quiz lined up for this Sunday by a veteran quizzer at JNU but I guess I'll rather tune into Formula1 and support Schumi in a rejuvenated Ferrari team...


2046
Saw this sequel to 'In the mood for love' sometime last week. Interesting watch, no doubt, but I didnt get some parts of it...the theme once again rocked! And Zhang Ziyi looked stunning! There is some inexplicable innate beauty and sensitivity in this oriental flicks which makes me watch more of them...


Kailasa
Recently heard the song 'Teri Deewani' [download this song] by Kailash Kher on [V]. A beautiful song in the current age of groovy punjabi crap remixes...blah!

in the mood for love

My second chinese flick, 'In the mood for love' after the Zhang Ziyi starrer, 'The Road Home'. This is nothing short of an artistic masterpiece, beautifully directed by Kar Wai Wong. The movie takes on slowly but it gradually draws you in and then as if time ceases to exist...the soundtrack is perfect, yes perfect and the cigarette smoke scenes....nobody gets it better than Kar Wai Wong.

At times I've spent all 24 hours listening to its theme...its so mesmerising;and I've uploaded the theme here...so listen, learn and enjoy!

nothing brings me down

She is definitely my discovery of the year! She bole to Emiliana Torrini. Stumbled upon her while looking for Beth Gibbons and the Portishead. Her albums had such raving reviews that it was hard to resist not giving it a try. And the very first song that I heard was absolutely stunning. Her voice touches cords deep within and disentangles them forever! The only cure being listening to her forever and evermore!
I'm placing the lyrics of the song mentioned above -'Nothing brings me down'. This particular song has lovely lyrics but until and unless you hear her golden voice, you won't realize how modest I'm being in praising her...
If only I could upload the song somewhere? Anyone willing to lend some cyberspace???

Nothing brings me down

Home alone and happy
Nothing brings me down
Full of wine, unsteady
Nothing brings me down
What's left of the rain runs down my roof
Nothing brings me down
The night is lush the air is still
Nothing brings me down

The windows are open, the flies are in
Nothing brings me down
The phones are off the music's on
Nothing brings me down

Home alone and happy
Nothing brings me down
My love for you is ready
Nothing brings me down
My love for you is ready

faith in chaos

9:13
Personal Note: "When I was a kid, my mother told me not to stare into the sun...so once, when I was six, I did."

Thats how this bizarre symphony in black and white, 'Pi' begins and ends, though the time is different towards the conclusion. 'Pi' is a movie about a mathematician, who interprets the world through numbers and believes that mathematics is the language of nature. Leading a lonely and austere life, all he cares for, is working with numbers on his computer. He is led to seek a magical 216 digit number, which for some is the key to revive the depreciating Stock Market prices and manipulate him to serve their commercial purposes while for othere like this Jewish group, the number shall reveal the true name of the God. Sean Gulette in the lead role has given a remarkable performance which at times, reminded me of Robert de Niro in the 'Taxi Driver'. And yes, not to forget, this is the first work of the brilliant combination of Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell whose score for this movie is as good if not better than the beautiful music he composed for 'Requiem for a Dream'.



10:41
Personal Note: Life's been going great guns so to say, but i feel as if something's not quite right, as if contrary to the tagline of 'Pi', i'm experiencing chaos in my faith...

Lose Control...

"Tulli hokar girne se samjhi humne gravity
Ishq ka practical kiya tab aayi clarity
Na koi padhne vaala
Na koi seekhne vaala

Apni jo paathshala
Masti ki paathshala
Apni to paathshala
Masti ki paathshala!"

Sanskrit & Artificial Intelligence

Sanskrit, or "the refined language" has to be one of the most important contributions of India to the world. It is associated with a certain purity, perfection, beauty that few languages can evolve into. It is increasingly being adopted for classroom teaching by the elementary educational systems of countries like Germany, Ireland etc. The 1981 Census records a mere ~ 6000 people who primarily speak Sanskrit and another ~ 190k for whom it is a secondary language. I hope these numbers are on the increase with CBSE incorporating it as a third language in the schools it governs.

However, this post is about an interesting find from Wikipedia: an article about Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence by a Research Scientist at NASA.
Its difficult to comprehend this article if one has limited knowledge of AI, but it shouldn't be too hard to grasp the basic idea for those who learnt Sanskrit back in school.

Trivia: Sanskrit is claimed to be spoken natively by the population in Mattur, a village in central Karnataka. Inhabitants, of all castes, learn Sanskrit starting in childhood and converse in the language. Even the local Muslims speak and converse in Sanskrit.

The Dormitory Boys

Just stumbled upon this blog and YouTube, a great video broadcasting service.
I thought this video/song titled "Radio in my head" had to do something with Radiohead but it turned out to be something else!
A delightfully catchy song!The dude on the left is really funny! A must watch! Dont miss it!
For best viewing experience, watch this video after its played once, without all the interruptions due to buffering.

Quote of the day

"To be or not to be. That is not really a question."
- Jean-Luc Godard

A fellow quizzer recounted an interesting detail about the British physicist Paul Dirac ; he was known for his laconicity and could manage quite well with just these three expressions - "yes", "no", and "i dont know".

The Mozart Effect

I accidentally stumbled across this phenomenon termed the Mozart Effect and it turned out to be pretty interesting. Following is a brief extract from Wikipedia:

• A disputed set of research results that indicate that listening to certain kinds of complex music may induce a short-lived (fifteen minute) improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as spatio-temporal reasoning. ((It is the ability to visualize spatial patterns and mentally manipulate images over space and time. This ability, often referred to as "thinking in pictures", is important for generating and conceptualizing solutions to multi-step problems that arise in areas such as engineering, science, mathematics, art, games (e.g.chess) , and everyday life.))
  

• The "Mozart effect" is best known to the general public through the work of Don Campbell. His 1997 book, "The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit," popularized the theory that listening to Mozart(especially the piano concerti) will temporarily increase your IQ and produce many other beneficial effects on mental function. Campbell and others went on to recommend playing specially selected classical music to infants, in the expectation that it will benefit their mental development. These theories are controversial, though there is a considerable body of evidence showing the relationship of sound and music (both played and listened to) to cognitive function and various physiological metrics.

The Constant Gardener

The most dramatic movie of 2005, The Constant Gardener is not a romantic flick as the tagline in the poster suggests. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are simply perfect in their respective roles. Weisz delivers a stellar performance in a much more meaningful role after her stint with pestering Mummies, and ghosts, spirits, Keanu Reeves and what not in Constantine.

The movie comes down hard upon the present scenario in Africa and depicts how it is still being subjected to exploitation of the worst kind. Coupled with laudable performances by the supporting cast, exquisite cinematography, as well as a beautifully innocent background score - its in Swahili or some other language but the music touches the very core of thy heart. The end score is simply sublime.

Definitely, one of the best movies of the previous year, right up there with Batman Begins and Sin City.

The Truth about JEE

I came across these wonderful words recently which rekindled vivid memories and a yearning to relive those wonder years at VM.

"You all are race-horses and we are your jockeys in your race to JEE. Your parents are spectators in the stands with beer mugs in their hands...cheering you on...saying...bhaag beta bhaag...aur zor se bhaag" !!!

- Bade Bhaiya.

Word of the day

alimentary, ADJ. supplying nourishment.
The alimentary canal in our bodies is so named
because digestion of food occurs there.
When asked for the name of the digestive tract,
Sherlock Holmes replied,"Alimentary, my dear Watson."

btw, Holmes' fans should keep a tab on sherlockholmes.stanford.edu

"You talkin' to me?
You talkin' to me?
You talkin' to me?
Well who the hell else are u talking to?
Well I'm the only one here.
Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?
Oh yeah!
Ok..."

Another sem bites the dust; five down, three to go...
odd sems have always been a bigger pain n i'm glad i'm done
with the fifth one...
I guess thats what engg. is all about - survival, each on on his own...
its another playground to learn about life and its intricate patterns...

I dont think i have done anything worthwhile academically
in college other than passing my exams...seems to me a tougher job
as each sem passes...i guess same is the scene with a majority of
India's vast pool of engineers...n since thats the scene everywhere,
i feel i'm lucky to be at DCE where one can enjoy college life
to the full...of course u need to be a hosteller first! so there...

We have a lakhpati !

My blog is worth $5,080.86.
How much is your blog worth?

Alas, as before, it all amounts to nothing!
Why does it always rain on me ?!!

Of coffee, colgate, and Coelho...

1. Came across this piece in ToI, a few days back:

"Coffee is good for the memory, according to new research that shows it boosts brain activity. Experts have been able to see the effect of coffee on the areas of the brain responsible for short-term memory. They discovered that two cups of coffee increased brain performance."
For more, follow this link

2. In other unrelated news, Star News has cracked the case of Amitabh Bachchan's stomach/groin problems. According to the channel, a few days before Mr. Bachchan was admitted to the hospital(Escorts was it?), he had attended a Hasya-Kavi Sammelan in honour of his father, Mr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan. There, he had recited a few lines from his father's magnum opus,'Madhushala' and then was treated to several hilarious performances, where he laughed his ***** off which resulted in groin-ache and subsequent admission to the hospital for diagnosis!

3. Finally read 'The Alchemist', which together with four packets of Maggi Atta Noodles, four Colgate toothpaste packs, Milkybar Starz(yuck!) and a pair of pink socks, comprised part of the prize at a coveted quiz held in an eminent girls college of DU. We gladly disposed of the socks - gave it to a friend whose gf might fancy such colourful socks!
If anyone is interested in the maggi, the colgate, and the milkybars - kindly visit VVS 222 ;
all orders will be taken on a first-come-first-served basis! Close friends or those in dire need of any of the above items will get a complimentary copy.

Anyways coming back to 'The Alchemist', i liked the basic theme of the story. But the story moves on a bit too slowly and induces several naps on the way to finishing it.
Its interesting to note that it was written in 1988, but seems to have caught the public eye only recently. Also interesting is the fact that a majority of the people who bought this book also bought Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha' which i'm currently giving a second reading.
Meanwhile, Coelho has come up with his latest work, 'The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession'.

Carry Me Ohio

sorry that
i could never love you back
i could never care enough
in these last days

her tears
fell on her pages found me out
on her words i dont know what
to do or say

wading through
warm canals and pools clear blue
the Tuscarawas flows into
the prairie land

riding back
to where the highway met
dead end tracks
the ground is now cement and glass
and far away

heal her soul, carry her, my angel, ohio

lingering in
what about the sweetness we knew
what about what's good what's true
from those days

can't count to
all the lovers i've burned through
so why do i still burn for you
i cannot say

sorry that
i could never love you back
i could never care enough in these last days

heal her soul, carry her, my angel, ohio

children blush
and gather round the home she rests
so poor and gold with their midwest
moon and sun

flashes bringing on
my open eyes the lightning storm
the tortured mist felt soft, felt warm
on my face

craving dreams
a million miles ago you see
and the star that i just dont see
anymore

words long gone
lost on journeys we walked on
lost are voices heard along the way

sorry for
never going by your door
never feeling love like that
anymore

heal her soul, carry her, my angel, ohio

- Sun Kil Moon

Marching Bands of Manhattan

If I could open my arms
And span the length of the isle of Manhattan,
I'd bring it to where you are
Making a lake of the East River and Hudson
And if I could open my mouth
Wide enough for a marching band to march out of
They would make your name sing
And bend through alleys and bounce off other buildings.

I wish we could open our eyes
To see in all directions at the same time
Oh what a beautiful view
If you were never aware of what was around you
And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in.

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate half empty or half full
It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown

Your love is gonna drown
Your love is gonna...

- Death Cab For Cutie

Myths for thought

A common myth is that human beings only use ten percent of our brains. This is false; we use our entire brains. The myth likely had its source in an advertisement or a misunderstanding of neurological research in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Some psychics help to prolong this myth by asserting that the "unused" ninety percent of the human brain is capable of exhibiting psychic powers, and can be trained to perform psychokinesis and extra-sensory perception. A less literal interpretation of the statement is, however, valid. It can be reasonably claimed that most people only use a very small fraction of the cognitive potential of their brain, even though all individual brain neurons are busily working. Various cultural inventions enable humans to better utilise their cognitive potential, such as reading, education, solving puzzles, critical thinking, etc.

Though the brain still holds mysteries that are being studied, every part of the brain is known to have a function. A possible origin of this myth is the fact that only about 10% of the neurons
in the brain are firing at any given time. However, if all of your neurons began firing at once, you would not become smarter, but instead suffer an epileptic seizure. In fact studies have shown that the brains of more intelligent people are less active than the brains of less intelligent people, when working on the same problems.

"She"

A face glowing with flawless beauty and perfection.

As Billy Joel put it, she's always 'the woman' to me...

Whatcha say ?

Teki's Law of Relative Independence:
'The fewer the situations arise where you have to say "thank you",
the more independent you are.'

On second thoughts, 'self-sufficient' would be more appropriate instead of independent in that statement...???

Nice to meet you...

'...I thought about the difference between the interesting people and the nice people. And how they can't always be identical. The interesting people you wanted to be with - their minds were unusual, you saw things freshly with them and all was not deadness and repetition. Then there were the nice people who weren't interesting, and you didn't want to know what they thought of anything.'

- Hanif Kureishi, from 'The Buddha of Suburbia'.

The nice people are usually predictable - one can guess what they're thinking and what their opinion would be on some topic or the other.
And one cant really have a fairly long conversation with them...it generally goes like 'Hi! How u doing ?' and the likes...
But that's not so with the interesting lot...you can go on talking and discussing anything and everything with them...the interesting ones are generally the ones who would have read more books, heard more music, met many people, been to many places etc. etc. and would have many incidents to relate and experiences to share with you...

Of course, i dont mean to look down upon the nice people or appraise the interesting ones...a person may be considered nice by someone and interesting by someone else...there's nothing hard and fast about it...its all a point of view...

High and Dry

Two jumps in a week, I bet you think that's pretty clever don't you boy.
Flying on your motorcycle, watching all the ground beneath you drop.
You'd kill yourself for recognition; kill yourself to never ever stop.
You broke another mirror; you're turning into something you are not.

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

Drying up in conversation, you will be the one who cannot talk.
All your insides fall to pieces, you just sit there wishing you could still make love
They're the ones who'll hate you when you think you've got the world all sussed out
They're the ones who'll spit at you. You will be the one screaming out.

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

It's the best thing that you've ever had; the best thing that you've ever, ever had.
It's the best thing that you've ever had; the best thing you've had has gone away.

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry


- Thom Yorke,
Radiohead.

All we have is now...

Music
I have been checking out new bands of late...and the best that i've come across is Death Cab for Cutie. The album i've got is Transatlanticism. This is what the Rolling Stone mag has to say about this album :

"Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie's fourth album, presents a polished version of the heartstring-tugging formula that has earned the Washington state quartet its cultish following: melodic, melancholy songs about feeling both smart and confused, hopelessly romantic but wary of love. The eleven indie lullabies here -- ostensibly about a long-distance relationship -- are both tuneful and rough-edged, with singer Benjamin Gibbard's plaintive boy-next-door voice wafting delicately over crunchy guitars, piano and random percussion. The title track is an epic, fully formed tear-jerker, and more lighthearted fare such as "Expo '86" and the waltz-tempoed "Death of an Interior Decorator" get by on their childlike charm. Transatlanticism should be overwrought -- it's an album about young men enduring lost love in an ocean of memory; instead, it feels like a conversation with an old friend."

Another band of note is Sigur Ros, an Icelandic post-rock band with shoegazing and minimalist elements.
In other words, their music is very soothing, may be described as a relatively merrier version of Coldplay with fewer vocals and more experimental sounds.

Movies
Also, i have been watching quite a few movies in the hostel, the ones i saw recently are:
No Man's Land
Madagascar
The Girl Next Door
Pink Floyd The Wall
American Beauty
Rounders
Yahaan

Quizzing
Since DU's closed for the autumn break, there arent many quizzes around, but today i attended a quiz organized by a veteran quizzer at the Durga Puja pandal of Moti Bagh and Nanakpura...got to know quite a few interesting facts pertaining to Indian culture, cinema, history etc. and lots more about the Bongs' way of life and everything's that dear to them...
the question regarding Marconi and JC Bose also came up which we answered with utmost pleasure...thanks to our Bong HOD who relates this story to every batch that he teaches !

Sports
Arena, DCE's inter-departmental sports fest is currently on...got our first Gold in table tennis after finishing second to Mech. the past two years...also have a brilliant chance of defending the Gold in football...have a tough semis against the star-studded Comp. team but we can definitely get the better of them...and finally E&C looks strong to emerge as the Best Dept of Arena, after narrowly losing out to Civil the previous year...

Books
I'm currently on my third Hesse book - The Glass Bead Game...it looks as if it will take some time to finish this one...

Whatever...

1. I dont know whats the thing with our batch...we always get the worst teachers around...
there's Mr. BBC who treats us like nursery kids or someone who has the same IQ as himself...writes and solves each and every step, formulae, description etc. and that too ditto from the course book...and then there's Mr. AKS whose antics are getting on my nerves...
i wonder if there's a proper selection panel for the new teachers and if they're interviewed at all...the teachers here can do with some self-confidence and lessons in spoken english...

2. LiveStrong bands...seems to be the latest fad in college...i've seen them in all colours - black, white, red, yellow, green, blue...one of my friends wears a different band each day to go along with the colour of his attire...*phew*
i dont know what cause each colour represents except for yellow (cancer), and black & white(anti-racist)...but i sincerely pray that the people who sport these bands do know what cause they are 'supporting'...

3. now i am a firm believer of nalin's alternate year theory...the batch of freshers this year is definitely better than the one before them...and that has also been the trend with the previous alternate batches...they're more versatile and already active with various societies in the college...and this year the notice boards are never empty even for a single moment...one event or the other is scheduled for each day...thats really good for the freshers and the college as well...college life would be a mundane affair without such regular events....

4. third year is infinitely busier than second year...organised a quiz at dce and another at school...framing questions and organising quizzes is a hectic job...somebody out there should realise that and start paying us for the same...n it gets increasingly frustrating when colleges organise quizzes and forget about rewarding the winners...took part in a couple of quizzes at MAMC this week...it was the second occasion where a fee was being charged to take part in a quiz! the reg. fee here was 30 bucks but at one Dept. of Computers, DU it was a whopping 200 bucks!

5. we had various SPIC MACAY events from the 5th to 9th this month...the first day Ustad Sultan Khan had come...two of the songs he sang were - 'piya basanti re' and 'albela, sajan aayo re' from hum dil de chuke sanam...amazing numbers...couldnt let go off the tune and kept humming the songs...but what i noticed was that there are hardly any people interested in indian classical music...most of the audience comprised of freshers who were brought from transit hostel to fill the convo hall...very few came in voluntarily...but if there's a rock show/concert/gig somewhere in delhi, u'll find it jam packed with people dressed in black tees and headbanging their way to 'rock' numbers...or just plain white noise...?

Help!

Dear Friend:

In the wake of the destruction brought on by Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of thousands of Americans are facing an uncertain and challenging future.

We've all watched together as increasingly dire reports have come out of the hardest hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and right now our nation is trying to find its footing as it responds to one of the worst disasters that we've ever faced.

We all see the pictures on TV. Right now, they need water, food, clothing, shelter and medical attention, and soon they'll begin the long process of putting their lives back together... hospitals, sewers, schools...all the things that we take for granted every day.

As members of ONE, we must believe that Americans can't help people around the world unless we also take care of urgent needs at home.

You can visit the ONE.ORG blog to find a list of ONE partners and other groups working right now to help those in most need.

In the same way that our fight against poverty is both urgent and diligent, we now have a new challenge with the same rules, to help stop people from dying today and help rebuild their infrastructure for tomorrow.

In July, you answered the call of the poorest countries in the world, and now perhaps we can help you find a way to participate at this important time. Please visit the ONE.ORG blog and take action today.

Thank you,

George Clooney

P.S. You can also help by taking part in the "ReAct Now: Music & Relief" benefit concert that will air on MTV, VH1 and CMT, planned for Sept. 10th at 8pm ET/7pm CT. Please visit www.think.mtv.com for up to date information.

Meghdoot

Life Path No. 9

I'm not quite a believer in astrology, numerology, tarot cards and other such 'sciences' but i'm often amazed by their level of accuracy. I do read up such stuff related to my star sign(Virgo) but its forgotten as soon as i'm done with the particular newpaper or magazine.
Have often heard about one's astrological number, or the Life Path Number which for dd/mm/yyyy is calculated as:
(d+d)+(m+m)+(y+y+y+y)=xx.
Then, your Life Path Number = x+x.

My Life Path Number(=9) has this to say.

Nainital

Enjoyed a much needed break this weekend at Nainital. Hols were rather busy with training et al, so the elusive holiday came days after college reopened!

Some of the things to watch out for:

1.Tea, anytime, anywhere at the various eateries and tea-stalls on the way upto Nainital.

2.Maggi, at the shop closest to the lake at Sat tal. With semi-fried onions, it was the best plate of maggi i've ever had. Even though its priced at twenty bucks, its worth every single paisa.

3.Bhutta or maize, again at Sat tal - the corn is extremely soft and smoothly smeared with salt and lemon. The variety of corn available at Naini Tal doesnt quite taste the same.

4.Omelettes, i had bread and omelette for breakfast and for dinner as well. They really make it different up here.

5.Clothes,bags,candles etc at the Tibetian Market: this is the place to shop in Naini tal. You'll get a decent bargain on good quality clothes and apparel. Also you'll find candles and other traditional stuff to take back home.

6.The fog, the clouds and the hills: the Naini lake forms the core of the town surrounded by hills on all sides. Boating is also quite a treat. Due to rains and the fog, the 'snow view'(udankhatolas/ropeway service) was closed. It goes up to the top of the hills from where one can catch a glimpse of the snow-laden Himalayas, so they say.

7.Its a lovely place to go for walks, i.e. if you have the desire and the stamina. There are innumerable footpaths which lead you to one house or the other or as i found out, to the very edge of the hills. Flowers of beautiful colors and shapes grow in huge numbers in the valley. There are also Himalayan Langurs, dwelling in the trees that line the pathways. They are mostly harmless but you don't wanna see them angry.

#Momos: Weren't quite upto the mark. Have had better momos back in delhi.

#Murge ka achaar: Couldnt get to try it but its quite renowned for its taste.

#Apples: Sweet and luscious. Don't miss them.

Will post pics as soon as the film roll is developed and digitized!
I so badly need a digicam! Arey bhai koi hai? 2nd hand bhi chalega?!

It's not going to stop

Movie : Magnolia
Artist : Aimee Mann
Title : Wise Up
Mood : Sad

It's not
What you thought
When you first began it
You got
What you want
Now you can hardly stand it though,
By now you know
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up

You're sure
There's a cure
And you have finally found it
You think
One drink
Will shrink you 'til you're underground
And living down
But it's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up

Prepare a list of what you need
Before you sign away the deed
'Cause it's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up
No, it's not going to stop
'Til you wise up
No, it's not going to stop
So just...give up

Savior

Well today i saw this wonderful war movie on ZMZ, based on the conflict between the Bosnians and the Serbs. Its one of the finest war movies i've seen, one that really moves you and makes you empathize with the people whose lives are wrecked by such meaningless wars.

Read more at : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120070/

Japanese develop female android

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1.

She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner. She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human.

Repliee Q1 is not like any robot you will have seen before, at least outside of science-fiction movies.

She is designed to look human and although she can only sit at present, she has 31 actuators in her upper body, powered by a nearby air compressor, programmed to allow her to move like a human.

Prof Ishiguro further adds - "We have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her."


Well, she's got the looks for sure ! I think that humanoid robots will become a reality in the not too distant future. So far they've been the crux of movies like Terminator 1,2,3, AI, Bicentennial Man and few more. Asimov has propagated this in quite a few of his works, and he's done a brilliant job with the Robot series. A must read for all sci-fi lovers, and others too. It also deals with the impact of robots on the human society and the evolution of different kinds of societies with different human-robot relationships.

Missing from the pic is - Robots and Empire, the concluding novel in this series.

Random Thoughts

1. Life gets busier as one gets older. So treasure these moments of freedom while you can.

2. No matter after how long you visit your school, the teachers there still look the same.
New buildings may pop up, different food stuff may be sold in the canteen, the kids in class 11 may appear shorter than those in class 8, new teachers, new labs, but somethings never change and i hope that as time flies by, there'd still be something left of the old MIS i grew up in, that i can relate to.

3. School alumni meetings suck. People change as one migrates from the one school to various colleges in the country and beyond. The force that binded us all back in school is no longer there. We're like free birds now. Each one flying in his own direction. And you dont get free drinks.

4. The chocolate cake in school still tastes the same and even after so many years is still priced at Rs 10. Its amazing to see that there is still no presence of any commercial foodstuff and the items made in the Ashram are still popular with the students and faculty.

5. I miss playing cricket, tt, badminton, football, squash, tennis, clue, carrom, scotland yard, pictionary, hide and seek, vish-amrit, gallery, pithhoo, and cycling with friends in my colony.
Cycling was even more fun, esp after the rains. It was fun to cycle through the puddles of water and splash water on people who dare to cross our paths.
Till class 10 or 11 playing outdoors was a regular feature but as the entrance exams for the IITs, DCEs, AIIMS and god know how many institutes came closer, one by one ppl backed off and then there was no one left to play.
The kids who while away their time on the computers dont know what they're missing out on.

6. These are the days of easy money thanks to tuition and call centres. And these days one can even make money through the internet. No sweat.
The lure of money is too attractive for the young minds who give in too easily to temptation.
Its not wrong either. One learns to be independent, manage money matters and realize the power of money. But it also hits one with an inflated sense of ego or pride.
Its too easy to get carried away. Money is mysteriously powerful.
And as Spiderman's aunt said: "With great power comes great responsibility."

7. Don Maclean and then Madonna sang about the day the music died. I hope it never comes to that. But if at all it happens and one would have to let go of all music but for one song,
ill be happy to be left with the 'Stairway to Heaven'.

Esoteric Hitlerism ?

With the fall of the Third Reich, Esoteric Hitlerism took off as Hitler, who had died at the end of the war, was now able to be deified. Savitri Devi was the first major exponent of post-war Esoteric Hitlerism (see her Hitlerian Esotericism and the Tradition), and connected Hitler's Aryan ideology to that of the pro-independence Indians (specifically Hindus) such as Subhash Chandra Bose. For her, the swastika was an especially important symbol, as it symbolized the Aryan unity amongst the Hindus and Germans (and was also a symbol of good fortune for the Tibetans). Devi integrated Nazism into a broader cyclical framework of Hindu history, and called Hitler an avatar of Vishnu (preparing the way for Kali) and the "Man against Time," having an ideal vision of returning his Aryan people to an earlier, more perfect time, and also having the practical wherewithal to fight the destructive forces forestalling his vision from fruition--a combination of the best traits of Akhenaton (a vision, but ineffectual) and Genghis Khan (violence, but selfish).

"With mind distracted,
never thinking death is coming...
To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life,
and then to come out empty is a tragic error..."

Go America !

DCEtech Online Quizzes

We've come out with the first of a series of online quizzes at Dcetech.com, the student community website of the Delhi College of Engineering.
This will be a regular feature on the site and we'll have new quizzes uploaded after every fortnight.

Some of the rules:
1. Only one entry per person is valid.
2. Replies with missing info in the mentioned fields will not be acknowledged.
3. The quiz will run for 15 days and we'll have a new quiz after that.
So the last date for posting ur answers for the first quiz is : 9pm, August 4th

So watch out 'cos there are prizes to be won !!!
Happy Quizzing !

Here is the link:
http://www.dcetech.com/onlinequiz/register.php

Ars Magna

Thought of conducting a quiz through my blog for a change.

Solve these anagrams :

1. I play all the ABC
2. On! More stars!
3. A mob's tomb
4. A man hate
5. Laptop machines
6. Items at venders
7. General taxed earth
8. Radium came
9. A bar, etc
10. I cry that I sin

These are pretty simple as they contain clues to the answer. The answer may be a single word or two or a phrase. It may also refer to objects or famous people.
Post your answers in the comments section.

The Coldplay Code

The logic behind the cover of X&Y:

The coloured blocks are arranged in a code developed by French telegraph engineer Jean- Maurice-Emile Baudot*. The code uses visual representations of 1's and 0's in a 5 digit sequence corresponding with particular letters of the alphabet and typographic symbols. It was designed to be used by telegraphers transmitting messages across wires.

The Baudot code is truly the first digital code. It consists of only two states, both logically and electrically. Logically, the only states are "1" and "0". Today we call the unit that can have these two logical states a "bit". Electrically, the states are current flowing (or "1"), and no current flowing (or "0"). Each character consists of 5 bits. Two logical states and five bits allows 32 characters. Baudot needed 26 characters for the alphabet, 10 for numbers, and more for miscellaneous characters. In order to increase the number of characters, he used two special characters, LTRS and FIGS, to give a total of 64 possibilities. LTRS (11111) precedes Alphabetic characters. FIGS (11011) precedes numerical and special characters such as punctuation. In 1874 he received a patent on a telegraph code that by the mid-20th century had supplanted Morse code as the most commonly used telegraphic alphabet. The Baudot code came to be known as the International Telegraph Code No. 1.

To create the code on the cover of the album the colored blocks are arranged in columns. In the lefthand column the black and grey colors are one block, the blank space below it is one block, and the red/orange, orange/green and green/blue combinations below are each one block. A colored block represents a 1 in the binary code and a blank block is a 0. Reading down, the code in the first column is 10111 which represents the letter 'X.' The second column reads 11011 which stands for 'figure shift' and the next one is 00011 which makes way for the '&' figure.** The far right column reads 10101, the code for the letter 'Y.'

Hence, X&Y !!!
Q.E.D.

Read more on Baudot and Baudot Codes.

* The term "baud" (a measure of symbols transmitted per second) is named after him.
** The codes for the figures vary according to the version of the code used.

Credits : Anu, who supplied me this interesting trivia.
(I just researched and built upon it).

Digital Art

A beautiful pathway lined with trees and purple azaleas


A train chugs through the snow blanketing the San Juan mountains

Eagle nebula, taken from Hubble telescope

These art prints were created using a sophisticated digital printer. The Giclee printing process delivers a fine stream of archival ink on archival paper, resulting in vivid, pure color and exceptional detail that is suitable for museum or gallery display.

Electron Blue

Michael Stipe

Whoa! Around the Sun is such a wonderful album. REM is
back to its creative best. It was like love at first sight with
'Electron Blue' and 'Leaving New York'; the other tracks
are equally good if not better, backed by strong meaningful
lyrics and Michael Stipe's evergreen voice.

Electron Blue

You're on your ear, the ocean's near
The light has started to fade
Your high is timed, you found the climb
It's hard to focus on more than what's in front of you
Electron Blue
Adventure rings with a page and
When it dawns on you,
It singes blue
Your buzz beginning to wane.

Adventure has laid its claim on you
It's all you want to do.
You
You know where to run
You run Electron Blue.

And who am I?
I'm just a guy
I've got a story like everyone
But in your eyes
You looked surprised
And didn't know where to run
I looked to her
She's found the cure
Her future's already begun

Tomorrow's gaining speed on you
It's all you want to do
You
You know where to run
You run Electron Blue
You
You know where to run
You run electron blue

So bide your time
You'll feel the climb
Your high it builds like a lightning storm
It sings like pearls
You know that girl
And no one is any the wiser
So as if on cue.....
Electron Blue

Tomorrow's gaining speed on you
It's all you want to do
You
You know where to run
You run, Electron Blue
You
You know where to run
You run, Electron Blue
You
You know where to run
You run, Electron Blue

Music on the Rocks

These are the albums i'm dying to hear. Have heard a few songs from X & Y. 'Fix you' is my favorite so far. Am yet to hear the other three albums.
For those unlucky ppl like me who cant use p2ps anymore, i'd recommend the stations - 'Coffeehouse' and 'Random Radio *New*' on Yahoo's LAUNCHcast Radio. I was treated to new songs like 'speed of sound' , 'lyla' and a few others.

Where height = jobs + chicks + success

The Chinese are generally considered to be intelligent. I also agree. But what i saw on a particular programme on NGC contradicts the above statement.
The Chinese only recently opened their gates to the west. McDonalds opened their first outlet in Beijing in the early 90s. Since then there has been an ever increasing influx of western goods, trends and culture. Its all about looking good and impressive. And the deciding factor being - height. If you've got the feets you're assured of a successful life. 5'3 for women and 5'7 for men. If you ain't tall enough you're not allowed to sit for interviews, girls won't date you; well basically you're screwed for the rest of your 'short' life. There was this guy who was dumped by his girlfriend with the following repartee - "If only you were a bit taller!" Simply absurd. And it has become engrained in their society so strongly that people are willing to do anything to alter the situation. There is this doctor who has found a way of making people taller. It is a painful procedure and involves lots of risks. The skeletal balance may be distured, bones may weaken and the complicated operation may also deform the legs. But people are willing to take such huge risks. Only to become taller and socially accepted.
To its discredit, India has the caste system. Even though it is entirely unacceptable and contrary to the equality of all men, it can be said to be based on a certain system, sanctified by the Vedas. But this is totally ridiculous.

I was also contemplating as to how the Japanese may take advantage of this situation. They can come up with a chemical which causes stunted growth in newborns and pollute their entire water supply with it. So the chinks born would be even shorter than the preceding generation. Thus there would be large scale unemployment when they grow up leading to frustration and violence. The markets will fall and the economy crash leading to depression. And then the japs will be laughing at the chhote chinkis across the south china sea.

What's in a name ?

Recently finished reading The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel revolves around finding one's own identity in a country that is alien to you even if you're born and brought up there. Its about the conflict between tradition and individual freedom and Lahiri has done an excellent work with the characters in her story.

It got me thinking about names and their importance in one's life. I think names act like labels at the most as one's true self is independent of the label one attaches to it. You are what you are. But these labels do become significant wrt the context in which they are used. You may be X for your parents, Y for your sibling, Z for your friends while XYZ may be your official name. There are different aspects to one's character which reveal themselves through the various names one is identified with. But there must be harmony between the various names to hold your personality together.

In my case, i'm manu for my parents, teki for my friends and teki sundeep for the records. There was a part of me that was identified as sundeep, mostly by girls and some of the teachers back in school but it has been relegated into oblivion ever since and replaced by teki for one and all. Not that i mind! The last time i heard my first name was when satia called me to see if i'd respond or not!

All these names may be too confusing but i found the light in a particular quote from the movie - Batman Begins :
"Its not who i am underneath, but what i do that defines me."

Lessons from Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes, i believe is the greatest literary creation ever. The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov would come a close second, but thats the realm of science fiction writing. Sherlock Holmes is perfection personified to the finest detail of his character. When i first finished reading the entire collection of the 56 short stories and 4 novels, i marvelled at his genius in solving the cases that were presented to him so methodically and efficiently. That was when i was in class VIII or IX. Later in class XI my brother presented me with The Original Illustrated 'STRAND' Sherlock Holmes, The Complete Facsimile Edition with original illustrations by Sydney Paget. That volume rekindled the fascination i had for Holmes and i went through the book all over again. But this time i read the stories in a different light and paid more attention to the details of Holmes' character. He was the most perfect reasoning and observing machine, the ultimate authority in his field, and it was a line of work that he created for himself. Absolutely indifferent to human emotions, he was similar to a robot except for those rare occasions when he showed his emotional self to Watson, who cherished such moments to the core. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe or a sneer. He allowed nothing to distract him from his work and disturb the fine balance of his mind. For that reason he always maintained his distance from women and was full of contempt for the fairer sex. When involved in a case, nothing was more important to him than working out the solution to the problem. He would not eat for days as he 'would not spare nervous energy for digestion.' There are innumerable such words of wisdom from Holmes but i dont have all of them on my fingertips.

Here i'm reproducing a classic anecdote from the same book, which epitomizes his philosophy of knowledge and ignorance.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when i found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the cmoposition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled around the sun appeared to me such an extraordinary fact that i could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise."Now that i do know it i shall do my best to forget it".

"To forget it !"
"You see," he explained,"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment , and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out."

"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me ?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

I also advocated this theory and there was a time in my last year of school when i absolutely stopped quizzing, reading newspapers, and stuffing my brain with insignificant information. At times i still feel the same way and think of giving up quizzing, especially now when it has become so commercialized and a money-spinning business. But all said and done, quizzing is still whole lotta fun and excitement; no one's complaining if money flows into your pockets at the same time! Its much more fun in the college circuit than in good 'ol schooldays. I'm ever so grateful to Nalin for showing me the light in this regard.



A snow-covered statue of Sherlock Holmes

Wake up Neo

I made an observation today when i woke up. There is a little time interval between the instant your sleep is over and the moment you regain consciousness, when you can hardly feel anything. When i opened my eyes, things appeared blurred and i could hardly focus my vision. Initally, there was complete silence around me. And then slowly i could hear my parents in conversation in the other room. First you only hear vague words and then it takes some more time to recognize the language. I even had no idea of how i lay on the bed or whether i was sleeping on the bed at all. Soon i could feel my head on a soft pillow and gradually my senses became sharper as i regained full consciousness. It's as if you're lost between your dreams and reality. And then you are finally awake to embrace a brand new day.

• The technical term for this is 'Sleep inertia'. It is a physiological state characterised by a decline in motor dexterity and a subjective feeling of grogginess, immediately following an abrupt awakening from deep sleep. Typically, sleep inertia lasts between 1 and 30 minutes.
  

• Check it out @ Wikipedia

Enter the Matrix

O' Neo, where art thou ?

Friday i'm in love

Its been more than a week since holidays started and making constructive use of time has been such a pain.It is the usual late night sleeping and waking up when the sun is too hot to handle ans the showers running dry.Even the 'heavenly' food at home fails to lift my spirits, and more importantly my tummy which has been subjected to a long gruesome war with the mess food over the last one month.But hope springs eternal where there is music - 'the food of life'. The music channels like MTV and Channe l[V] are flooded with new remixes, the overhyped new kid on the block-Abhijeet Sawant and the singer cum actor cum now-music composer, Sonu Nigam.C'mon give me a break.However, there is no dearth of good music at any given time.And Coldplay is the most exciting band which has already made a great impact on the alt rock scene with their phenomenally successful debut and follow up album.The new album 'X&Y' doesnt seem to reflect the sad and contemplative mood as characterized by Chris Martin's gloomy and melancholy vocals on songs like 'Trouble', 'Sparks', 'Warning Sign' etc.Oasis and R.E.M. have also come out with their new albums.'Lyla', the new Oasis single comes with a different feel to it after 'Heathen Chemistry' which didnt quite live up to my expectations.But the song or rather the video which elevated me most is - 'Friday i'm in love' by The Cure.The video is so lively and fun to watch with people doing childish stuff and having a great ball at the same time.It just cheered me up and rescued me from the huge wave of ennui and lethargy which otherwise would have spelt my doom.

'Friday i'm in love'

I don't care if monday's blue
tuesday's grey and wednesday too
thursday I don't care about you
it's friday I'm in love

monday you can fall apart
tuesday wednesday break my heart
thursday doesn't even start
it's friday I'm in love

saturday wait
and sunday always comes too late
but friday never hesitate...

I don't care if monday's black
tuesday wednesday heart attack
thursday never looking back
it's friday I'm in love

monday you can hold your head
tuesday wednesday stay in bed
orthursday watch the walls instead
it's friday I'm in love

saturday wait
and sunday always comes too late
but friday never hesitate...

dressed up to the eyes
it's a wonderful surprise
to see your shoes and your spirits rise
throwing out your frown
and just smiling at the sound
and as sleek as a shriek
spinning round and round
always take a big bite
it's such a gorgeous sight
to see you in the middle of the night
you can never get enough
enough of this stuff
it's friday
I'm in love

- The Cure

Transmissions from a satellite heart

Xam Wars V : The Return of the Teki

Long long time ago...
In Bawanaland far away...
The war between the Teki(/tekaye/) and the Dark side was soon coming to a close.But it still had to be fought till the end.

May 18th:THE EXAM MENACE.
It was the last day of the war.Always the most dreary and gruelling day.Its like so near yet so far.I was preparing for my fifth and final paper - electrical machines due the next day,lying on my bed in a hot day-boring subject-heavy book induced posture that would have made Vatsyayana stand up and take notice.But it was just me and the book.And just then I got a call from Chinmay asking me if i'm game for Star Wars on the 20th.Hell yes.I could already feel the force.

May 19th.The last exam.Six minutes on,i still hadnt figured out which questions to answer.After a careful analysis i started with qst 1.Had to 'cos it was compulsory.
Which motor moves at greater than 3000 rpm ? Give eight applications of damper windings.Give eight applications of single phase induction motors.THE ATTACK OF THE MOTORS!

I was stumped.I offered whatever resistance i could.Dazed and confused, i stood my ground and awaited the next onslaught.Aha! It was a numerical! Bloody smart move, General Grievous.But i was trained to fight it by Master Kothari.I knew all the strengths and weaknesses of my opponent.Confident of victory,I turned on my pen and made a move.It fought back.A gruesome battle ensued.Many papers were lost.But still i couldnt get past it.After a series of attempts to dislodge the enemy it was still even stevens.My vision was clouded and i couldnt find a way through.Two more hours to sunset and i was still stuck battling the 2nd line of the enemy defence.I tried to contact R2D2 but he didnt respond.I tried to focus and remember what Master Kothari taught me.Eureka!A NEW HOPE!

Guided by the force it was only a matter of time before i decimated the numerical.I moved forward and it was smooth sailing for a while till i encountered General Grievous himself.Armed with four torches,he was designed to be the fastest hand-to-hand combat fighter in the galaxy.That was said of him by Master Lucas himself.I was dazzled by his quick and cunning moves.I strived to find an opening.I decided to cut down on his four arms,one by one.The tactic worked and Grievous was soon reduced to dust.The loss of General Grievous and Count Dooku who was dealt with in the third level proved very heavy on the empire.

One question to go and i was left with the greatest hurdle in my path.The Sith Lord himself.Or should i say Senator Short Notes.
I knew i had to write my pen off in order to finish him once and for all.Armed with the strength of four sub-parts he wielded his powers of the dark side straight on my hands.THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

I could feel the force diminishing in my hands.I struggled to regain my strength.The Sith Lord was strong and relentless.But i persisted.
I kept on writing page after page but time was soon running out.I focussed all the force i could on the Darth Lord but still he was far from giving up.I redoubled the force and soon he was losing his hold and i dealt a fatal blow on him and the Sith Lord staggered and was down on his knees.As a desperate move,he slowly uttered -"Luke,I am your mother." I was taken aback.Wtf is wrong with him? Why is he pretending to be a woman? Or is the darth lord having one of his dark fantasies before death? And did he say he was my mother ? Please.Of course,contrary to popular legend I knew that i was born out of the force.I was the chosen One who would bring balance to the force.He slowly repeated his words.Well whatever suits you bitch,and i cut off his head.
The war was over.No more exams.The end of the Sith and
THE RETURN OF THE TEKI.

Femme Fatale

A visit to the priya complex is always a treat for sore eyes.More so when its the premiere of Star Wars III : The Revenge of the Sith.The presence of people from school and college was pure coincidence.
The following are the lyrics to a song titled - "Femme Fatale".

Here she comes, you better watch your step
She’s going to break your heart in two, it’s true
It’s not hard to realize
Just look into her false colored eyes
She builds you up to just put you down, what a clown

’cause everybody knows (she’s a femme fatale)
The things she does to please (she’s a femme fatale)
She’s just a little tease (she’s a femme fatale)
See the way she walks
Hear the way she talks

You’re written in her book
You’re number 37, have a look
She’s going to smile to make you frown, what a clown
Little boy, she’s from the street
Before you start, you’re already beat
She’s gonna play you for a fool, yes it’s true

’cause everybody knows (she’s a femme fatale)
The things she does to please (she’s a femme fatale)
She’s just a little tease (she’s a femme fatale)
See the way she walks
Hear the way she talks

- Lou Reed
The Velvet Underground.

Beginning to see the light

Finally exams are over !
Its been a long time away from the world of internet and good food and good ol' rock music.Like the song in the new release - 'Bose', my heart sings out - Aaazzaaaaddiiii !!!
With a chicken biryani down my long suffering tummy i sat down by my comp to write a second post on my blog.
So while i was wondering about what to write,the next song on my winamp playlist happened to be 'Beginning to see the light' by The Velvet Underground and then - eureka !
What follows are certain basic truths of life as i see them with a brief interpretation of each.


-> What you give is what you get.

I have a habit of trying to express things by relating to the basic laws of science.The laws of physics are in essence the laws of nature,the laws of life.So there exist analogues between science and philosophy.

I find the above statement similar to the law of conservation of energy.The amount of energy given out by a system to its surroundings is equal to the energy it receives from it.So what you give is what you get.

We are bound to each other by invisible forces that form an action-reaction pair.But while the action is performed by a single person, the reaction one receives is from the rest of the world.Maybe thats why some people call this world a cruel place.Well now you know it aint.Its only you baby.

--> You may be through with the past but the past aint through with you.

This is karma for you.Every thought that comes to our mind,every word we speak and every action we perform is registered and we live to see it come into effect.If one life is not enough then it will be the next and so on.
* I picked up the above line from a movie titled - 'Magnolia' starring Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore among others.Its the story of ten different persons living their own lives but at some point all their lives intersect each other.In the end each one of them learns to deal with their past and move forward.

---> Its not going to stop, till you wise up.

There are times when everything's going wrong and you dont what to do,how to turn things around.We turn to others for help but to no avail.We seek the help of our friends,family,even psychologists in the rare cases but i guess everyone gives the same advice - take it easy; everything's gonna be alrite; its only a matter of time...
So i think the above statement is apt in such situations.

----> Pyaar se bolo, izzat muft milegi.

An interesting line i came across while travelling in a blueline bus.Its like courtesy begets courtesy.If you're nice to someone, he/she will also be nice to you.

-----> Women : you cant live with them, cant live without them.

Well, no comments here!
Just take it to be teki's zeroeth law of human existence!


*For fellow Star Wars fans like me,today's the day of release of 'Star Wars episode III:The revenge of the Sith'.
So go watch it and may the force be with you.

Unos, des , tres , catorce...

STATUTORY WARNING:
In order to view this blog u need to have a min IQ of 364572865690454 [!].Else this blog will blow u away.
So,come on ppl,i need company out here...

Well,i dont have anything specific to write on,n i'm not going to write about myself and give myself away,so i've decided to write about various aspects of life.
Well,there it is,the subject of my first blog - LIFE.

What is life? Why are we living and for what purpose ?
Questions that have eternally intrigued us.But still no one has a definite answer.At one end there is life and at the other end there is death.And we are blessed[?]/subjected[?] to make this journey between these two points.The 'we' includes all kinds of plant and animal life as well.All are subjected to the same treatment.So is life for us humans different in any way from other living beings ?Or is it meant to be different ? We humans are conscious beings,that is something that sets us apart from the rest.So does life hold special meaning for us? I guess the answer is yes.

The wise say that the purpose of life is to realize ourselves.Now what do they mean by that? 'Know thyself'.Thats what the Oracle told Neo as well.And what did Neo realize? That he is the One ? Well everyone knew this all the time but it took him some to digest the fact.Is it the same story with us ? That we know who we are,why are we on this earth,what we are supposed to do ? And are we waiting for someone to give us candy to make us realize that ? That we all are potential 'Ones'? That everything around is One.That we all are One.Now thats some food for thought.

And too much thought makes me hungry.I think i've written much without actually addressing the original question.I guess its not upto me to find the answer.
All i can say about L.I.F.E. is to Live.It.For.Ever.
Howzdat ???

And before i conclude,here are my recommends of the day:

<*>Song of the day : 'Baby i'm gonna leave you' - Led Zeppelin
<*>Movie of the day: 'Equilibrium' - if u loved The Matrix,then this is just what the doc ordered...
<*>Quote of the day: 'Free your mind' - Morpheus

Never bothered much about signatures, but couldnt resist this:

get teki'ed.