Question

I was asked this very interesting question.

In the London subway, there are more escalators going up than down. Why?

One answer is that people don't mind walking down a flight of stairs, but hate walking up.

However, there is a more fascinating answer.

I am heading to India in a week. I very strongly think that the amount of nostalgia that you experience is inversely proptional to the time left before you head home. 90% of the Tamil movies that I watch in the US are in the few weeks preceding my flight :)!

It should be fun. Actually, much of next month looks good. I am returning back on Jan 7th, and heading to LA on the 12th for the Martin Luther King Day weekend. And then, its close to the end of Jan - 70% of winter is done with. At the rate at which this winter is going, it should feel like summer by then.

Ah Summer! Spring comes in between, but lets not get into that.

Also, there is work. In Finance, the 2 things that people obsess over day and night are volatility and correllation. Volatility is the amount by which a thing bounces around. Correlation measures if things bounce around together or not. Its fun when things go up, and not so much fun when things blow up. Well, the volatility in my life is highly correlated with the volatility in my work. If work isn't getting done, life sucks. If work is getting done, life is cool.

Well...

..how weird is that?

Atleast, the numbers have gone down.

This and that

The Economist, Dec 2nd - Dec 7th

p18 - Blast from the past - America's nuclear deal with India
p48 - India's Muslims - Don't blame it on the scriptures
p87 - Indian Cinema - Let them come to Bombay

The Economist, Nov 25th - Dec 1st

p 42 Kashmir - The invisible scars
p 64 CSN v Tata - Steel the prize ( This is so good. The East fights back! If this deal works out, 2 out of the top 5 steel companies in the world will be of Indian origin : Mittal Steel, Tata Steel.)
p73 India's Economy - Too hot to handle

India seems to be doing quite well for itself, seeing the amount of press it is getting.

..The successful young director of KANK was asked by a fan at the the Toronto film festival when he expects his career to bring him to Hollywood. " Never! Let them come to Bombay" said he.

In other news, Chicago is bone-freezingly cold.

I might go to India, for about 10 days in early Jan.

We need some kind of bill that prohibits analysts from being driven like slaves. Spending all Sunday trying to get some shit to line up to 2 decimal places isn't fun. Why don't they round prices to the nearest dollar?

Whats up with OJ Simpson writing a book about how he might have killed his wife, if indeed he had had the opportunity to kill his wife, hypothetically, since he so obviously didn't kill his wife. The things people do.

I am almost done with 'An Equal Music' by Vikram Seth. I have been reading it for ages. This is especially embarrasing since it isn't even that long. The book is quite nicely written. Its all about Schubert and Vienna and the Musikvieren and the Trout. There seems to be a kind of melody to the words themselves. To really appreciate some aspects of it, I feel one should have some background in music. Also, I feel I am too pragmatic to truly appreciate the love story, but its very touching at times.

Thanksgiving II

What would you call Con Air, if it was shot in Illinois?
Corn Air.

What would you call American Idol, if it had a Tam-Brahm participating in it?
American Idli.

Ha ha. Very funny.

I had an interesting Friday. Usually, my floor is bustling with activity fairly late into the evening. This time around, there were exactly 4 people on my side of the floor. It was nice, because no one was actually hoping to get any stuff done. Mostly holiday banter and exchanging of plans for the weekend.

Its quite the experience to play softball soccer on the 37th floor. You kick the ball. It flies towards the lake, towards millenium park, just to the right of the AON center, bounces off the glass and comes right back. Sometimes, you don't really feel like playing soccer, but would rather just push your face up againt the glass. You are suspended up in the air. You see cars snaking their way through the streets 40 floors down, through myriad lanes, through the highway going out into the horizon. Light glinting off the lake in the distance. A lazy boat bobbing in the water. Clouds. White, fluffy and free. Thousands upon thousands of buildings, filled with people, eating, sleeping, living; caught up in the infinite detail of their lives. Each with family, friends, an education, anecdotes and scars; worried, happy, anxious and relaxed. You then step back and see the synthetic carpet beneath your feet. Its time to head to the cooler for a can of coke, back to the desk, back to work.

I head out early, at about 5. I need to buy a suit. There is a cocktail party next week. I have little experience buying suits, or attending cocktail parties. However, its the day after thanksgiving, and an ideal time to pick up discounts. I head down to Michigan Avenue, and in the maddening holiday crowd, I bump into my boss and his partner. I find it shocking how often I meet people from work outside of work. It is almost as if, people who work in the same company, have almost identical preferences in general as well. However, they don't have the same purchasing power! Life in many ways remains a rat race. As you grow older, the tracks change, but the race remains the same. Should I earn more, just so that I can afford a suit at Nordstorm? Or a Tag Heuer watch? Anyway, I head over to Macy's and buy almost the same suit, at a far more reasonable price.

Its 7:15PM. I have a train to catch at 8PM. I don't have enough time to head home and pack. Its the day after Thanksgiving. Almost every car in Chicago seems to be out on the streets. Wisely, I decide to head directly to Union Station. I pick up my tickets at the counter and board the train to Champaign.

Thanksgiving

Well, its the eve of Thanksgiving. Its 5:45. I am sitting at my office writing this post. Which makes me wonder, why am I sitting at my office writing this post? To add injury, to this insult, I am coming in on Friday as well. See, Thursday is Thanksgiving. Saturday and Sunday are holidays (duh!). So, most people with a functioning brain take Friday off, and fly to the Bahamas. However, I took last Thursday and Friday off, on a trip to Vancouver to get my H1B Visa stamped. (Its one of those stupid semi-humiliating things you need to do to work in the US of A.) Given the fact that I have guilt issues, I have been unable to bring myself to taking this Friday off as well. I shall be coming into work, starting up emacs, and running crap through gdb, while the rest of the universe basks in the Bahamian sun. (If you didn't know what the first part meant, its just some technocrap.) Bah! Life is unfair!

To make things a little better, though not all that much, I shall be setting off to good old mid-western praire desert freezing cold and very windy dwelling place, Champaign-Urbana, in the Land of Lincoln, Illinois. This is like a fairly loser thing to do, but who am I to disagree.

Che

No more of this crap. I want to go to Madras. Madras nalla madras.

A nice apartment, a fun interesting job, and nothing really to complain about. However, there is no place like home :).

Besant Nagar Beach. Mount Road. Gangotree. They have the best Bhelpuri I have ever had. Its sad to see the prices being hiked over the last few years.

I want to sit around at home. Have my mom make tea for me in the afternoon. Nice food , nothing to do. Take a walk down the beach in the evening.

Kalakshetra has become so crowded. Why does everyone have to come there?

I miss my grandfather. What would he say if he saw me today? I can't even seem to remember him that clearly. He just seems to come in my dreams.

I want to meet my grandmother. I want to go to Tata house and just sit with all my grandfather's books.

I want to go to IIT. Go around the hostels. Pity I am likely to know little to no one. But, thats ok.

Its December. I have been to the Chennai Open ever since it opened. I probably won't be around this year.

Tennis at Nungambakkam Stadium. 50 bucks an hour. A little expensive but not all that bad.

I want to laze around at Landmark. Go to Satyam with my old school friends. Walk around Khader Nawaz Khan road. Nothing that complicated. None of the fancy bullshit. Just cheap nice pure fun.

Can I have that? I think not. That is life I guess.

On Ballerness

A couple of years back, a Professor from Princeton wrote a book called "On Bullshit", a fine commentary on the chronic human tendency to mis-represent information i.e. lie. That prompted me to name my piece "On Ballerness". It deeply investigates and explores the subject of ballerness.

Historically, balls have always been linked to strength and capacity, though some theorists assert that no real statistically significant link exists between the size of balls and the ability to swing from tree to tree (an obvious manifestation of strength and capacity). There are a number of problems that prevent an establishment of this link, reliable data points being one. However, as we have seen time and again, scientific accuracy has scarcely held back the establishment of beliefs, and this is no exception (Creationism for example).

With the passage of time, the variety of usage of this (spurious?) connection grew. There came to be many word forms.

"Balls to you!" - Which means, you don't possess the article.

"Balls!" - Which means, I posses the article. The article is big and strong, and is a noun, and not a verb. I can swing from tree to tree. If you bullshit me, I will wring your neck and chuck you down from the nearest Banyan.

Soon, this word transmogrified into a verb.

"Ballin" - It is an assertion of the ability to swing from tree to tree. It no longer refers to the possesion of the article that enables the act, but an actual reference to the act that results from the possesion of the article.

"Baller/Ballerz" - It refers to the person who posses large and copious amounts of balls.

The word that greatly interests us right now is the word "Baller". We have all agreed that it refers to this supersonic person who has the ability to swing from tree to tree with reckless abandon. However, as swinging from tree to tree is a dangerous activity, alternate forms of expression of the same primeval ability emerged. Also, the introduction of clothing could be interpreted as necissitating a proxy for the size, stregth and luminosty of the aforementioned article. Thus, different ballers are characterized by the kind of proxy they use. A natural heirarcy surfaces.

In ancient Nubia, your ballerosity was mentioned by the number of random people you could slaughter every day and get away with. The non-baller was the person who got slaughtered.

In ancient Arabia, your ballerosity was measured by the size of your harem. The uber baller had an harem, where each member of the harem had their own harem. Ballerosity was also measured by the number of humps on your camel.

In 1600's England ballerosity was measured by the tightness of the clothes you could get your companion to wear. The super-ballers got their wives to wear corsets. The non-ballers wore looser (and more comfortable clothes). It was also measured by the number of extra-marital affairs that could be had whilst escaping the guillotine.

Moving on to more modern times, the traditional homie homeboy type of mega baller, is measured by the amount bling, ka-ching, cribs, bi-syllabic vocabulary and hoes possessed. The lack of blink or ka-ching or cribs or hoes or a bi-syllabic vocabulary leads to lower ballerosity.

The ph d. toting research megaballer has a research area that is completely un-decipherable. For example, "Strings in AdS(3) and the SL(2,R) WZW model. Part 3. Correlation functions." is more baller than "A study of monkeys doing strange things in the jungle".

The high tech megaballer knows "XML and CORBA/RMI/XML-RPC based MOM (message oriented middleware) for Java/C/C++/Perl/Tcl/Python" while the not so baller can "Code a bit in Java".

In the investment banking industry, ballerosity is measured by the number of monitors the individual sits in front of. Information Techology (IT) slaves sit with 1. Analyst crum sit with 2. IT slave drivers sit with 4. Trader megaballers sit with 8. Relative ratio of money accumulated (quantified ballerosity) is given by 2^(# of monitors).

Thus, through this study we learn about the classical conservational property of balls. Balls cannot be created or destroyed, but can only go from one form to another.

PS: As you might have guessed it is random crap. No intent to offend anyone! It started of with an obervation of how people in my firm (especially the junior ones) measured their importance by the number of monitors they sat in front of. That kind of led into how people like to display how successful they are. Then, I couldn't make it a pedantic monologue. Hence, some dubious analogies. There!

Some people are attributing this fine piece of prose to insanity caused by excessive work. That would be open to interpretation. What is the definition of sanity?

Done with..

Exams! Yes, even though I am in a job, I have to write exams. In any case, they are done! No more exams for the next couple of years.

La Vie

I sit in my office writing this post. What does that mean? Nothing deep, just that I have some time to spare. The training program is winding down. I have passed all my courses, which is actually a big deal as 6/17 failed, and had to retake. Writing 3 exams in Investments, Options and Accounting, after a month of preparation, is a pain in the derriere. I didn't know a debit from a credit when I joined the job. Finance was this weird field whose point of existence I really couldn't get. See, its the only profession that doesn't produce anything of its own (e.g. Steel makers make Steel, Law firms make legal documents, Financial firms manufacture money?!). I wasn't even sure why I had quit my Ph. D. program.

See, I had no real problems with my Ph. D. I found my research interesting. We were developing computational methods to wade through the flood of experimental data that current high-throughput methods were producing (the days when you stare at the test tube for 2 weeks for something to happen are over!). I liked my advisor. I had a fairly fun social life. So, no real complaints. However, I was bored. A Ph. D. might be a number of things, but fast paced it is not. Also, I tend to lose interest quickly with most things. So, for fairly random reasons I got this job, and decided to take it up.

Then, life wasn't boring. It was the opposite of boring. Ok, not the opposite of boring but crazy. The opposite of crazy is sane, so technically life was the opposite of sane. In any case, I survived and learnt a fair bit about finance. For example, I know that Sarbanes Oxley is this new totally hep accounting rule, that is forcing companies to spend billions of extra dough on accountants, and give employment to all the Keshav Patels down in Bangalore. Then, as I said earlier, I wrote my exams. Didn't do that well, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, (usually I ***@#@ hate excuses, but an exception had to be made, or I have to dent my self image, and assume unto myself a less capable persona).

Then, lady luck decided to throw some change my way, and I found potential employment in this group that pays me to study nice problems. And so the tale comes back to the point where it started. Thus spake Zarathustra, throught Nietzsche, for no specific reason really.

In other breaking news, winter has arrived. It snowed a bit last week. So, the jackets and pullovers and skull caps and mufflers and gloves and snow boots and thermals are out. I live right by Lake Michigan, and as I walk back home from work, I feel like one of those heroes who against all odds, continue to trudge through the dark, foreboding, wind swept, snow laden fields, not knowing what miseries lie ahead of them, never slowing, never yielding, showing no fear, whatsoever.

Random Comments

- I saw Science of Sleep. A sweet idiosyncratic movie. Has Gael Garcia Bernal of Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien fame. It is weirdly humorous and bittersweet. Its a French production, so there is quite a bit of people speaking French. As you might think, its more on the arty side, and not a mainstream blockbuster type release. The Illusionist rocks too. The story is totally tight and gripping. The Covenant is a piece of shit.

- Science of Sleep has made me want to go back to France. I want to listen to people speak French. My French is too horrible to speak in, but is decent enough to pick up stray words and decipher meaning. And, I sorta like listening to people speak French. I want to go back to Lyon. Cathedral Fouvier. Perrache. Saone. Frankfurt will also be fun. Europe looks so classy in the winter. Darkness descending, with lights here and lights there, snow falling over the cathedrals and narrow lanes, shapes moving in the shadows.....you feel like you are in a WWII movie.

- I am likely to find employment with an exotic derivatives group. Usually, when nobody knows wtfigo (what the fish is going on), complex math comes into the picture. There is a lot of complex math in this stuff. Most earth shaking financial catastrophies (Barings for e.g, when Nick Leeson vaporized a tonne) come from the folks engaging in random fun with derivatives. Derivatives are like stock, except that you can make ginormous bets putting up close to no cash => lots of people get baited doing stupid things. The average lifetime of a derivatives trader is 3 years, in the business that is, I wouldn't think he commits suicide.

Fireworks

Finance is like one big movie. There are times when all is snug and cozy, and everyone is smiles and giggles. However, the most anticipated and fun parts of any movie are the action sequences. Well, we have good blow ups around here, albeit a trite expensive. In what might be the most expensive fireworks display ever, trader Brian Hunter blew up hedge fund Amaranth. Cost = $6 Billion. Newspapers expand out the number and multiply with the local currency to get a really big scary number, but you can do that yourself e.g. (6,000,000,000*45.53 Rs). Here is the story! Go to news.google.com, and search for "Amaranth" for more juice.

FAQ :
Whats a hedge fund?
Its a firm that trades the financial markets for a profit. Unlike a mutual fund which cannot do whatever it wants with investors money, a hedge fund can take huge risks. Thus, it has a potential to make a lot of money. As has been seen, it can also lose a tonne!

Power and Presence

So, the whole of last week was spent improving my "Power" and "Prescence". It is one of the many steps on my way to become slick and insinc..errm..smooth and sophisticated. There were 2 sets of people who came in -

1) Firstly, there were actors from The Actors Institute who came in to give us a quick image makeover. We were bundled into groups and made to do some role playing. Then, each and every little thing I said or did or appeared to say or appeared to do, was analyzed, dissected and basically torn apart. I was told that I use a lot of filler words - I feel, I think, basically, essentially, the point is etc. etc. At a deeper psychoanalytic level it appears that I don't like silence. From now on, I have to practice just saying a couple of words, and then staring intently at the other persons face.

2) Secondly, there was this marketing woman who used to work with "The Pitchdoctor", a guy who helps doctor sales pitches, so that countries can win rights to host Olympics and stuff like that. So, she imparted us gyan on how to ace "touchpoints", i.e. situations where there is potential to have your ass on fire if you don't talk and walk properly. I got imparted all kinds of vague fundas about body language, eye contact, tone of voice, gesturing and movement.

Its scary how subtle changes in tone and body language can drastically alter the context and meaning of a message. Sarcasm, anger, agitation, enthusiasm, friendlines are all incorporated at a subtle subconscious level, and much of the message is this stuff. Your actual words do not really matter that much! We had these examples where we had to say the same sentence in 2-3 different ways, with variations in tone, gesture and eye contact, and they came out so differently.

I somehow feel that all girls figure out this stuff almost as soon as they are born. So, they are free to wreak emotional havoc on poor guys, who have almost no idea what is going on. Its only after courses like this do they realize the true nature of their situation. That melting voice. Those soft eyes. Those fleeting looks. You dont fool me now!

Anyway, moving on. Quite interestingly, it also turns out that there are 4 types of people.

Type 1 : The Expressive - Like me. Keeps talking. Thinks in vivid descriptive form. Hates detail. Loves big fancy dreams.

Type 2 : The Driver - Get the job done. Type A heart attack case. Obsessed with closure.

Type 3 : The Feeler - Very relationship oriented. Hates conflict. Loves emotion. All those people who say "I don't feel the same way about you now, like I did", and go into high drama.

Type 4 : The Analytic - The detail obsessed person. All those people who describe holidays like this - Day 1 Place A Did XYZ Day 2 Place B Did X1Y1Z1 Day 3 Place C Did X2Y2Z2.

And, there was a lot more. You have to pay me for that. Nah, just kidding, I just dont want to type any more.

Anyhow, it was fun. A lot better than sitting in the office and reading 300 page annual reports of companies that make caskets and medical equipment (yes, there is one that makes both!!), and looking for 'misvaluations' (thats like the most misused term ever in Finance. Oh, there is another one 'alpha'. Which means 'risk free returns' a.k.a. free money, of which there is none obviously. Of course, none of my readers are likely to have got the context, but its ok. :). Just trust me.)

Elevators

One of the most interesting things about working in a high-rise are the elevators. It actually makes you feel very 'wall street-ish' to scramble into one and zap up to the 37th floor. However, the problem with an elevator is that its a confined space from which there is no polite escape. That basically means that if you are with a specific person X in the elevator, you will have to remain with X for the next minute or two.

This creates a weird problem for people such as me. Every once in a while I end up getting stuck with some super-senior member of the firm. Its one of those situations where its very hard to find anything relevant to say. My eyes suddenly start finding very interesting patterns on the floor and ceiling.

This is what I want to say :

"Errm, do you think I could keep my job. I know I am an insignificant ant, but I will improve. You know, I really am not as bad as the HR people might think...."

Obviously I cannot say that.

"So how are things going ?"

I mean, innocous as it may sound, how could he reply in a manner which is in any way relevant to me. So thats out.

"Rainy day huh?!"

Might work but sounds lame. I hate discussing the weather. Its information both parties already know, so why dish it out all over again.

So, you get the picture. I need to think of something deep, meaningful and very appropriate to say over my 2 minute journey on the elevator. See today I was stuck with a senior partner, and he asked me a couple of questions and I spewed total crap. Embarassing! Why can't I be a more confident, composed, poised, a male miss-universe-ish version of myself under these situations and get as many brownie anti-firing points as I can?? Bah!

Wah

I couldn't think of anything more meaningful, so pardon me for the title.

• Last week finished last week. I had 3 exams in 1 week. Believe it or not, I did accounting! If you even remotely know me, you will know that such things were anathema to me till even very recently. Accounting, as many of you may know, is complicated. It has the same consistency, desirableness (and general effect on health) as a large bowl of spaghetti into which has been poured half a bucket of sticky melted cheese.
• That brings me to an interesting question. Why is accounting so complicated? A more general question would be, why are law and accounting so complicated? An even more general question would be, why are all these things that control the behaviour of people so complicated? Thats simple. Thats because, people do bad things. Some of the bad things break rules so those people go to jail. However, some of the bad things don't. So, you need to change the rules so that those bad things do. But, there will be still some bad things that don't. So, you need to create more rules so that those bad things do. Its like this whole cat and mouse game. In the end you are left with one psychotic mess.
  
• This week was fun. We went competitive sailing! Bunches of 4 got popped into 25 foot boats, and we randomly careened around Lake Michigan for a couple of hours. It was good fun, though its way too slow paced for my liking. This whole thing was a company 'socializing' event (i.e. free food and alchohol).
• Over the last few days, my training program has transitioned from the 'learning' phase to the 'practical' phase. So, we had some senior guys coming to give us talks about their respective businesses. Some of these guys were totally amazing. There is this guy who was about 35. By the age of 32 he had become the CEO of one of the top electronic exchanges in the country, which he had started up a few years earlier. This was for a guy who had graduated from school with a GPA of 2.7/4.0. Maybe he didn't study. (Because, he had almost qualified to the Olympic Fencing teams in 1996 and 2000!) His energy and zest for life was phenomenal. You would think that he would be like this super intense wired person. He was just the opposite! Great sense of humor, relaxed, loved what he did, and well as you would expect, knew exactly what he was doing! Something that did strike me about him was that he seemed to be one of those born risk takers. One of those guys who always keep moving on to new and fun things, and wouldn't do anything that others found easy to do.
  

Tag

I have been tagged by Lakshmi.

One book that changed your life?

Well pretty much everything I do is contained in one book or another. Of course, there are also these emotional type reactions to reading a book, but nothing I can clearly identify. I loved 'The Great Gatsby', its a simple beautiful story, and very unlike what is paraded as 'happiness' in general.

One book you have read more than once?

Well, I have read my Asterix and Tintin comics collections like a million times.

One book you would want on a deserted island?

"How to get out of a deserted island really fast"

One book that made you laugh

The Hitchiker series of books by Douglas Adams. His humor is something that is closest to what I like.

One book that made you cry

I am reading 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry. The story is touching.

One book you wish had been written?

' A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth. It must be so hard to write a book that is 1400 pages long and sticks together. I also love how he has all kinds of insights about people and situations.

One book you wish had never been written?

Lots man. Lots. Take the Tom Clancy rubbish, for example. I would be embarrased to be like this overgrown kid who still hasn't got over warships, guns and spy satellites. They just kill.

One book you are currently reading?

'Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry.

One book you have been meaning to read?

'An Equal Music' by Vikram Seth. I have this whole reading Indian literature thing going.

Who are my suckers?

Prashanth - He would like to do this.

Alraqs - She would to.

Megha - Its kind of honoring to link to a superstar type blogger who gets 220 (really!) comments per post.

Intern ?

I don't think anybody else reads this blog :). So, I shall stop there. To, that statement of mine there has, much to my joy, been protests. So, to some extent it is unlikely to be a completely accurate representation of facts.

Blah

1. Oh my week was so much fun. You know, I met so many people and learnt so much about them and life is so beautiful and smiles and sparkles. Yeah right! I get up at 7 in the morning.

2. Well, Lollapalooza came to Chicago this weekend. Its this really big music festival held in Grant Park. The highlight of the 2 day event, was the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. For reasonably guessable reasons, I didn't go to it. However, I did manage to listen to them for free during my Sunday evening run along Lake Michigan (Grant Park runs right by Lake Michigan)!

3. I made myself a music system. Bought a Sony receiver and Bose 301 speakers. The Bose 301's are the closest you can get to musical heaven without going to hell with your wallet. They cost about 325$ and have been made by Bose for the last 30 years. They have pretty much mastered the thing. Most Bose speakers are universally light on the bass, and are designed for the kind of sound you would get from a live performance. I kind of like the non earth jarring bass. However, if you do want more bass, you could just buy a sub-woofer.

They also have this new fangled ultra-hep Acoustimass range that is bloody expensive, mainly because the speakers are in the form of tiny cubes, and the whole thing runs wireless. However, they sound like crap. There is this basic physics thing about sound that the frequency of your note is inversely propotional to the amount of space you are generating it in. Case in point - tweeters are small, bass modules are big! They claim to have engineered the speakers to generate all frequencies, but frankly they end up sounding totally flat and lifeless. However, if you don't really listen to music, and are basically looking to impress friends, then its worth getting! ;)

4. Have a bunch of tests from Aug 14 - 18. Its pretty important for me to do well, and the whole thing has got me a little anxious. Anyway, can't wait to get done with them.

Allo

Allo. Yes, I am alive and mostly well. It has been a long time, and there is much to be said (in the fullness of time). For now -

• I shall henceforth be known as the Artful Badger. It is a rather cheap take on one of Charles Dicken's classic characters. It is to show people that I know such things. Also, god knows what all I signed away when I attached my name to that contract (From this point on, you are indentured slave, you to work now, work hard, not sleep...blah blah). Also, I am a little scared about random people being to Google my name! In academia no one cares, but in these settings its wouldn't be cool if something I say here comes back to bite me!
• Also, though I am no longer a grad student, the name sticks. You see, its all about what you feel inside and jazz like that (ask any woman in love in a romantic comedy). More specifically, I am too lazy to think of a new suitably witty title.
  
• Some crackpot (whom I am yet to identify) has hijacked my Yahoo and Gmail accounts. So, please refrain from mailing them, unless you desire the perusal of him/her/it/whatever. The email address you should mail to is on my profile.
• I apologize in advance for not having read/commented on any blogs over the last 3 weeks. It was only today that I got it my internet connection.
  
• Anyway, will be back. Soon!

The Nimzo Indian

Hip Hop Homie : East Coast put your hands up. West coast put your hands up. East coast. West coast. East coast sucks west coast rocks. West coast sucks east coast rocks.
Guy in Crowd : Yo dawg yo yo we in Spokane, Illinois man.

----

Well I am back. I was supposed to have spent the last couple of weeks with my uncle in Vancouver. In reality, I spent exactly 12 hours there thanks to some sundry excitement, the kind of sundry excitement that can only be provided by visa and passport offices. So, I returned , and spent the next couple of weeks (Sleepless) in Seattle (ha ha!...errm).

Seattle is a nice relaxed city, bang in the middle of the Pacific Northwest. Its not as bustling and businesslike as Chicago, and nor is it a California style mega strip mall. Its the home of Starbucks and Microsoft. It used to be the home of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Bruce Lee, before the guy in the sky requisitioned their services. It has an interesting and fun feel, but just a little bit weird. It rains most of the time, and that appears to have driven its residents just a little bit crazy. You will agree with me if you see them back up 50cm behind you on 40 degree grade traffic lights. Yes, the rockies are hilly. And the sky is blue.

Of course, the most fun things about Seattle are not in Seattle. Mount Rainier and endless opportunites to bike, trek or just simply enjoy the rockies are a couple of hours away. There is also the ocean, you can kayak, sail, scuba dive, or just simply head out to check out the Orca whales. What amazes me about the US is how well kept up and organized its natural resources are. One can just buy a tent, a sleeping bag, some biscuits and head out on a trek, blindly following directions. You can choose the 2 mi trail or the 20 mi trail depending on what suits you. It makes me sad because in India, despite all that it has to offer, its just about impossible to organize a trek. Your only choice is to go through overpriced agencies, that make the whole thing a deluxe holiday type affair - not the fun relaxed out experience you are looking for.

There are also a number of quaint sleepy townships, Vashon, Port Townsend, Bremerton, San Juan ... , that pockmark Seattle, most well preserved from the late 19th century. Here you can get a feel for small town America - sans Walmart, sans Best Buy, sans McDonalds. The movie theatres play only a single show a day and most shops pull down shutters by 9'O clock. It isn't really as liberating as one would imagine it to be, used to the concept of anything anywhere at anytime!

That is not to say, that there aren't any fun things in Seattle. There is the Boeing Factory and the Museum of Flight. There is the Underground Tour. Till the early 20th century, Seattle used to be on a marshland, before the entire city was raised a full 3 metres. There is the Experience Music Project. The EMP is a rather cleverly done thing. In addition to checking out Wacko Jacko's 'Thriller' glove, for 10$ you can get stage time and record your own concert. Its fun. However, the one thing that should be avoided like the plague is the Space Needle. In addition to the Sears Tower, Empire State Building, Petronas Tower, Eiffel Tower, John Hancock Tower, etc. etc. , there really isn't that much of a need for tall buildings. Agree?

---



Seattle is named after Chief Sealth. Of course, the ethnic name had to undergo Anglical corruption!



The city was built on marshland. When the city was raised, the ground floors went below the ground, thus giving us the....underground.



Downtown. Most downtowns look nice, and this one is no exception.



Downtown up close.



'3 beers and 50 cents'. At a bar called 'The Bishop' in Vashon. Vashon is a small town a couple of hours out from Seattle.



A lonely theatre. A solitary movie. A single show.



Most of the trouble starts when you start getting god into the picture!



Cafe in Vashon. 'Bar Bishop' moonlights as 'Cafe Bishop' during the day.



I simply love this shot! I took this past midnight from the youth hostel in Vashon. Its grossly overexposed. Thats why it has an eerie surreal feel.



On the drive to Mount Rainer. The road winds through the forest, with 100ft pines on either side of it. I took the shot with a 10 second shutter from a moving car.



On the flight back.



Mount Rainier from the sky. Both these shots were taken around noon, so thats why the images just glare the eye :(.


Your beloved photographer :). My reflection on a pair of doors across the street. There are 2 images because one door is at slight angle to the other! Oh dear oh dear, aren't mirrors so fattening?

Nice Article

I like to read 'The Hindu'. Its a nice newspaper that is not given to scandal or sensation. I even more like to read the Sunday Magazine. One of the reasons is V. Gangadhar who writes these wonderful nostalgic articles. This one is on the South Indian passion for 'Kanak' i.e. Maths ( or as the witty lady Smugbug might say quickmaths). My family is no different, and historically we have had quite a thing for it.

The problem of unreasonable expectations was created when my great grandfather was born with a huge brain, with which not only did he make a lot of money (and lose it promptly, long story, sometime later), but he also became the Principal of Vivekananda College and ran the Maths Department at Loyola College. My grandfather, ever the rebel, refused to do anything more than a B. Com. However, his father (i.e. my great grandfather) imposed his expectations on his dear daughter in law (my dear grandmother :)). Thus, my grandmother technically became smarter than my grandfather when she did a B.S. in Mathematics. She became the first grandmother in history capable of recognizing integral signs. She even got a gold medal, which no family member (male, female) has emulated since then. My uncle did many smart things, but not as smart. This was followed by me who decided to top things by making a career out of buying and selling peanuts.

Anyway, if you allow me to, I will digress till kingdom come. So, lets cut to the chase. Here it is.

The Theory of Renormalization Groups

Now now, I have been getting all serious and super intellectual, boring y'all to death. My sincere apologies. May you rest in peace.

- In ancient times, when life was tumultous and violent, the typical student (say, studying Philosophy under Socrates) would have paid 5 gold coins for a nice weekend by the beach, free from the murder, deceit and bertrayal that soaked his everyday life. However, in modern times, with efficient police departments and sufficient jails, life has become boring and sanitized, and the average gradutate student is forced to spice his life up getting himself thrown out of a plane at 14,000 ft. Yes, you guessed right. I am commiting suicide in a rather expensive (and classy) manner. No actually, I am going skydiving tomorrow.

Psst - If I don't reply to comments it means that I have become one with the rather boring prairie of the midwest. As a tribute to how much I have enriched your life, and as a sign of how much you are going to miss me, please send a cheque (in multiples of $1000, min $2000) to No 3 East Coastal Cross St, Kalakshetra Colony, Chennai 90. My parents can assuage their intense pain by treating themselves to a nice cruise. My rather cool brother also has been bugging me for a double kick pedal. So, through your contributions, he will remember me for a week or two.

- There is something that keeps bugging me. We keep saying that how we are liberated and modern and all that. It just sounds so fake to me, because, I really cannot understand how as a species we can change in 50 years. I work in this thing called Computational Biology. We basically write programs that look at how the DNA of one species differs from the DNA of another. Even in 50,000 years, at the most a species will undergo some barely discernable extremely minor change. Some things like sexual behaviour are loathe to change. Because, if it changes you don't have anyone to have sex with :), and you cannot propagate and you die (like that fat ugly guy). So, most of the so called 'forward' things have been around forever, and it's just that in our sense of bloated self - importance, we would like to think we are indeed different from those a generation before us. Do you think that the baby elephant is any different the mama elephant? Or the baby centipede is any different from the mama centipede? Why should we be any different?

I feel that, by historical standards we are actually rather stuck up. Unlike in the past, today can I build a temple full of statues of naked people getting all worked up, or write a book cataloguing different reproductive techniques, and still be legit (except maybe if I was in Amsterdam)? No!

- I have also had a rather painful last few months. Most of the pain has come from the fact that I have started playing soccer. First, I sprained my left ankle. Then, I sprained my right ankle. 2 weeks back, some stupid guy kicked the ball into my face and knocked off half my left incisor. That was the fun highlight of my soccer playing experience. (Actually, I was his project partner in a course the previous semester. I just hope it didn't have anything to do with that.) In a recent development, I sprained my right ankle (yet again). Its a huge swollen ball that erupts in pain whenever my step slips a bit. No, I cannot run. See, I can barely walk. Did I tell you that, I play with a bunch of crazy people who in addition to traumatizing me in the aforesaid manner, also feel the need to elbow me in the ribs and kick out my shins. Wonderful. Its the modern equivalent of those great big battles with screaming hordes of people rushing at each other with assorted pieces of sharp metal and doing nasty things.

In 20/20 hindsight, I am rather thankful that my dad put me in Tennis. Before Tennis, he put my in Bharatanatyam class with the Dhananjayans (show off show off, I know). I feel that the single biggest mistake of my life was to get all red faced and bail out of dancing. What was I thinking?? All those random kids would have made fun of me, but today I would have had the acquaintance of a most huge number of "extremely good looking sophisticated cultured people" (*ahem*). Also, as a guy, being able to dance would have been my single biggest selling point. Those same kids would be begging me today to "put intro". My life would have been one long list of instances where I would say "Yeah, I like you but I don't like you like that" and "Yeah, I like you but you know we really aren't going to work out", as opposed to "Please please please I will do whatever you want if you would talk to me for 30 seconds".

- There was another incident where in a shoe shop I got into a rather long conversation with this guy who turned out to have served in Iraq. He was the bodyguard of a 3 Star General. Those who know me will know that, unlike many others, the less I know the more I ask. So, in my nice diplomatic manner I kept asking him this and that. There is a reasonably reliable technique to question people - first say something that makes them feel good and affirms them, then obliquely ask what you want. Its very important to be able to backtrack when things get hairy. So, I rather innocently asked him "So, did you talk to the Iraqis ? How did they feel about the war?". He said, " I spoke to a couple and they seemed to be very happy that they were being liberated". I quoted some of the recent Iraqi news and asked him if he has been following it. He said no. He said he wanted to be out of it. Then I asked him how it was being a bodyguard to a general - " Were you witness to any of the battles?". He told me that he was. "How did you feel about the death and destruction? I am sure you would have seen quite a bit of the battlefront". When I told him that he got rather disturbed. He was visibly agitated and tried to exit.

Rather than answering my question, he started giving me a spiel about how the war was for the liberation of Iraq etc. Since I just asked him how he felt, he had no real need to get defensive. He just had to tell me how he felt. The only reason why he needed to get defensive was because he couldn't tell me how he really felt. Even before we started talking, he kind of struck me as needy and lonely. He asked me like 3 times if he could help me look for a shoe, and actually started the conversation by asking me what I did etc - which I found very weird because shoe shop guys really don't ask such things. I am willing to take a bet that he got out of the army because he got sick of it, and is having a bout of post traumatic stress disorder. I felt a little bit sorry for him. He seemed to have a blind belief in the 'cause' as was spelt out for him - and was in denial of how really he felt about what was happening. You can say what you will , but it really doesn't make him any different from the average Jihadi who is made to think that blowing himself up with 20 others will gain him entry into paradise.

With great power...

..comes opportunity to cause great harm; as has been shown time and time again throughout history. However, it takes courage to shoot yourself in the leg when you are doing well in the race. I am sure most of the people who read this are aghast at Arjun Singh's amendment to the constitution. Apart from the obvious losers - meritorius students, no one really benefits from the move. Maybe a politician or two can hawk it for more votes.

- Over the last couple of years the Indian economy has been booming. India is finally becoming competitive on a global scale. Unlike China, whose selling point is labor, India's selling point is knowledge. There are a large number of educated people in India, who are willing to work for much less than their American counterparts. Sitting in Bangalore, Wipro and Infosys are able to compete globally. Boundaries are steadily fading, and what you can do counts for a whole lot more than who you are. Over the next few years there will be a lot of scope for enterpreunerial activity. In the US, startup activity pushed by the top .1% of the population has created jobs and wealth for the remaining 99.9%. Unless you are willing to promote this top 0.1% the remaining 99.9% aren't going to benefit. I can see the same happening in India. Dividing the country on caste lines is probably as regressive as you can get.

- Life is unfair. Face it. Money attracts more money. Talent attracts more talent. The guy in the Ferrari gets the townhouse and the pretty girl. 90% of Nobel Prizes go to professors from about 5-6 universities. These universities are consistently able to attract top talent simply because of the brand created due to previous generations of top talent. It takes a while to get there, but it's a position of strength. Harvard has an endowment of $5+ billion. Thats more than India's Education budget (spanning all levels from primary school to univesity). It produces a steady stream of highly successful individuals who come back to contribute to it. IITs are close to that now. Many of it's graduates from the 70's and 80's are in positions of power and wealth, and many have chosen to contribute monetarily, or come back and teach. An arbitrary reservation system would alienate it's alumni, as well as having repurcussions 20 years down the line when it's current students are probably not as successful as they should be.

- Though, it might come as a shock, the IITs, in the past have had a reservation for rich, yes rich, students. It was through this program called DASA - Direct Admissions for Students Abroad. NRI kids who score above 1400 on the SAT were allowed in. The only downer was that they had to pay about $8000 a year, about 10 times what most of the others paid paid. Surprisingly, once they got in, many either left in a semester or two, or remained to get massacred. They totally lacked the background to compete with those who got in through the JEE. They end up taking jobs they would have got even if they hadn't made it through IIT. They would have been better off paying a bit more and going to the US for their studies. A similar thing happens to those that get in through the SC/ST reservation system. With the introduction of the 50% reservation this phenomenon is going to be taken to an absurd level. The top half of the class is going to be way smarter, simply because the same position is so much harder to get. The bottom half of the class is going to be way weaker, simply because the standards are so much laxer for them. There is going to be a large variance of skill. A Professor catering to one half of the class, would leave the other half in a bad position.

- Also, even if this were a legitimate move to help 'backward' students, I really haven't seen the system work till now. Most of the 'backward' students who get in happen to be quite well off. I think the real bias is towards urban and rural. Students in urban communities have better opportunties to prepare for the exam than rural students. This is something I feel should be addressed.

- Rather than lowering the bar it makes more sense to teach the same 'backward' segments to jump higher. Why not give 10000 scholarships to gifted SC/ST/OBC students every year, give them the best possible academic training, and get them to write the same exam.

- This affair also raises the question of equality. How is it to be interpreted? Do all people have an equal right to opportunity or outcome? Meaning, do all people have an equal right to write the Joint Entrance Exam or get a seat in the IITs. The two are very different exam.

- A story that most comes to mind is of the duck that laid golden eggs. It wasn't a good idea for the farmer to cut it open.

There are some interesting articles that I have come across over the last few days.
Karan Thapar interviews Arjun Singh
M Balakrishnan, Professor, IIT Delhi
Photos of Police Violence Against Students- SHOCKING!!

PS: Though, I have been self-absorbed enough to speak only of the IITs, I was referring to other educational institutions as well. I would be loathe to have my heart operated upon by a doctor with dubious skills!
PPS: There is an E-Petition doing the rounds. I am tempted to provide a link to it, but somehow I feel it is pointless. I really don't think anyone is going to give a rats ass about it :).

Commencement

Oh well, I graduated. We had commencement this Sunday. So, I got my degree. My undergrad convocation was filled with emotion. Flashing images of 4 years of ups and downs. You look at the tennis court and remember all the times you played there. You go to your lab and remember the insane all nighters. You go to 'Gurunath Cafeteria', and remember all the coffee and omlette sessions with 'wing junta'. You think of all the things that did and didn't work out. You wonder about what the future has in hold for you.

Well, this time around there was nothing. All, I could think of was that I needed to go to Chicago to hunt for an apartment. And, that I needed to pay the rent and return library books. And, that I needed to make plans for the summer. Even, the commencement ceremony didn't seem to hold any charm. It was way too crowded (what with 8,000 + students graduating), and impersonal. The speakers (or I) seemed jaded, and I expected the usual message of 'You are going out into the world, go get it.', and thats exactly what I got. Of all the people I have met here, well, I am going to continue bumping into them on and off in the future. Of, all the times I had, well, I am sure I am going to have good times in the future.

I am looking forward to my new job and entering the 'big bad world'. Living alone is going to be an interesting experience, as I have never been 'alone alone'. Time to 'grow up grow up'. Also time to use a lot of ' ' ' ' expressions :). I recently got a letter from the HR lady wishing me a great summer as 'we would be keeping you very busy once you join.', and I suppose they don't lie on such things :).

WYWIWYG

I have no idea what to blog about. Also, I am sure you are sick of simply reading my post, commenting on it to be polite to me, and carrying on with your business. So, lets do something different here today. Its a little game. It is loosely based on a literary style that has quite caught on in recent times. Here are the rules -

1. If you are reading this, you have elected to participate. So, don't you walk out on me. Ok, please don't walk out on me. Pretty please.
2. I am going to write a para.
3. Person 1 reads what I have written, and adds a para in the comment section. He/she also suggests a title for the piece.
4. Person 2 most nicely reads what Person 1 and I have written in and adds another para with an appropriate title.
5. And so on and so forth.
6. In my next post, I shall stich the paras together, choose a title from the titles given, and present it to my dear readership.

Sound like fun ? *Psst - Yes it does!*

Feel free to sound exactly how you would like to sound! You can be as melancholic, melodramatic, insane, inane, idiotic, absurd, vile and anarchistic as you want to be. Violent murders, alien invaders, mushy dialogues with too much eye contact, exploding cars, lilting poetry *add to list* - anything goes.

A Million Little Pieces

Starting Point 1

..(VS)

Ahh ahh, what a catch!
What a highly suitable match!

Why he has not married yet,
Always playing hard to get.

Famous poet, so they say,
"Besh", decent in every way

...(Alraqs)

She giggled, and wiggled out of this one,
Unbeatable catches and suitable matches,
All end up the same way, up in flames, I say,
Or slip off the tips of your finger-o.

..(Ramani)

Highly sceptical, or so she seemed,
On healthy dislike, she had been weaned,
Unbeatable catches and suitable matches,
All end in flames, with none to blame.

Starting Point 2:

..(DA)

Meanwhile, he woke up, blearily. Wandered blearily round his room, opened a window, saw a bulldozer, found his slippers, and stomped off to the bathroom to wash.

Kettle, plug, fridge, milk, coffee. Yawn.

The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with. Yawn. He looked it again. It seemed to be quite big. He stared at it.

... (Dee)

He remembered last night's latest Bollywood horror flick.

Bulldozer- Be careful while you're dozing.

He shook his head in disbelief. He couldn't believe he'd watched that movie for a girl.
And paid for it.

To find out she wasn't the one Atul had 'fixed' him up with for his blind date.

...(Intern)

"Ahh! The inevitable element of surprise of such trysts. The wandering mind. Movie with a blind date. Bulldozer? Eyes Wide Shut? And I paid for it! Sheesh! So which movie was it again? What a waste!"

But, he coudnt keep his eyes off her.

..(Siddhu)

But what chance did he have? She had already seen him count his last few coins - including the 1 penny coins - as he tried to piece together the horrendous amounts that cinema tickets cost in these vile days. She had seen the look of disgust the chap at the ticket counter had thrown at him as he pushed the little pile of coins towards him. She had probably heard the same chap mutter violently under his breath, 'Must either be a tramp or a graduate student.', as he tried to add the coins up. (Hardly anybody can tell the difference between the two life-forms at the lowest rung of the ladder - ask any graduate student whom his supervisor mistook for the friendly neighbourhood tramp).

But nevertheless, his eyes remained fixed upon her visage, and his hand moved inexorably towards her. Just as Nicole Kidman was preparing to take her clothes off for the 650th time in the movie, flesh pressed flesh. And then it happened...

..(Pavan)

A cockroach was crawling over his left foot. He panicked. How could he scream? He really couldnt reveal his fear for cockroaches and one-eyed aliens (and annoying girls). It being his first (blind) date, he started to hum to himself in an attempt to shift his concentration.

Then suddenly his blind date screamed. She was freaking out on seeing the cockroach. But something was wrong. Her scream was a constant high pitched "trrrrrrrrr" - like the rattle of a Californian Diamondback crossed with the whining of a kettle. How could that be ?

Then he realised that it was his alarm and it was all a dream. It was a Freudian manifestation of his fear of relationships. He then sat in a chair, thinking deeply.

..(WS)

Though everyone else knew why he was sad, he knew not. His mind was tossing, like a little boat in the swell of the ocean. He was weary. He knew not how he caught it, found it or came bit. And such a bore this sadness did make of him. He really did not feel like he knew himself.

..(Megha)

But he held on. To this little wisp called hope. Like a buoy, bobbing about in the middle of the sea.

He chuckled inwardly at his own corniness. Come on now, get a damn grip, he told himself.

..(Prashanth)

"What I need is a vacation, to cure me of these morbid thoughts!" he said aloud, to nobody in particular. The ancient rocking chair in the corner creaked, as though to show its agreement.

But I'll settle for some good company, came the thought unbidden.

PS: What You Want Is What You Get

..(Intern)

A man left alone with his thoughts - does that define good company? He had read somewhere that it does. In the thick Friday night he suddenly wanted to go out on a long walk, to come to terms with the voices exploding in his head.

She had clear vision of the situation. He needed sometime alone. She left. Did he notice?

..(AYTIDA)

He thought for a really long time and only then did he realise that the blind date he was set up with was really "blind". He could not belive it. HE was tricked....cheated... He thought again and realised that maybe it was only in his thoughts that she was really blind. Now he was really confused. Was she blind and his date?? Or was she just a blind date? He was going to call Atul immediately to ask if the girl he had set him up with was really blind.

He was shocked when he called Atul. He immediately knew it was not Atul that answered the phone. "Hello" said a female voice and he recognised it. It was the voice of the ghost from the bollywood horror flick he went to last night.......................

..(VC)

He couldn't seem to recall her name. He begged his mind to focus on the blue china vase which held his dog Dimpu’s ashes and practiced the 50$ deep breathing technique taught by Swami Yogananda .Something triggered in his memory, his heart skipped a beat, the name reminded him of strawberries and bile juice. Savithri was her name.

OTG is back! Yet again! And etc.

Today in class OTG happened to sit to my left, and Timor to my right. We had an especially boring lecture, and thus were reduced to having to talk to each other. The following conversation was duly recorded.

OTG: So what do you do?
Me: I am in Computer Science.
OTG: Ok, the computer stuff. Ah so you write that..whats that called..
Me: *Wow! With new found respect....* Code. We design the different programs that you use.
OTG: So, can I call you the next time something goes wrong with my computer?
Me: *Ahem* Not, really. I might know what to do, but we aren't really taught that stuff. You will probably need to go to Best Buy.
OTG: Can you help me recover data from my crashed hard disk?
Me: *Ahem ahem* Not really. *Very cleverly.."* Its like asking the guy who designed your car to check your brakes.
OTG: Something.

Things might not have been great, but they weren't bad either. Then, attention shifted to Timor. The magic stroke came. (The word stroke here refers to wishing you would drop down dead.)

OTG : So, where are you from ?
Timor : Belarus
OTG : Which country is that in ?

I was tempted to say - 'Asia', but I just shut up.

Randomly associating, this reminds me of another time, when I had to speak about my country in, yes, French. I had just joined the exchange program, and there was a 2 week intensive French course to bring us all up to speed. So, towards the end of the course, when our vocabulary had kind of built up, we had to draw a map of our country and describe it. My friend Amit and I went on and on. Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs. Ganga, Yamuna, Sutlej, Cauvery. Himalayas, Eastern Ghats, Aravallis, Vindhyas. Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali. We had succeeded in putting everyone to sleep. Except for this very unhibited Brasilian couple that decided that they really couldn't wait till they got of class (the US is kind of stuck up that way). As someone or the other might have famously said, one never knows when inspiration strikes. There was a flash right there. What is India without the Kama Sutra! 'Poof', the entire class revived from the dead. Like water soaking up a dry sponge. Like oil sliding over, encompassing and lubricating a rusty metal joint. Questions were asked. References were requested. Dates and locations were demanded. Looking at this enthusiastic response, from a sense of public duty, we felt it responsible upon ourselves to offer some live demos, but *sigh* there were no takers :(.

Continuing this random association business, do you remember as a child when your mother used to buy you clothes that were a couple of sizes too big. You had to fold them up around your ankles so that the cloth didn't scrape against the floor. They used to look awkward, and like you couldn't afford decent clothes. You couldn't wait till you got taller and the clothes fit you properly. Do you also remember as a child when your uncle from the USA didn't get you that Columbia backpack that you always wanted? So, most embarrasingly, you were reduced to carting around your books stuffed in your paati's shopping bag. Well people, you need to be embarrased no more. Its all good. Its all high fashion. I don't know what the first trend is called. The second thing is the Man bag. Much of my inadvertant interest in this topic was spurred by this guy I hung out in Chicago with. I shall call him Jean the Jean Man. (The first Jean should be prononced in French, and the second in English. All for a purpose.) From a distance of 25 metres he could identify the brand name, styling and cost of any pair of jeans. Based on this data, further identification of individuals was made as 'cheapo', 'just pass' and 'high maintanence'.

On a more serious note. How many of you know about the Kaavya Viswanathan scandal?

• She is a 19 year old sophomore at Harvard who published her own book at 18.
• Now, she is in hot water because a number of paragraphs in her book have been found to be suspiciouly similar to the writing of Megan McCafferty, an ex editor of Cosmopolitan.

I feel pretty bad for her. Firstly, at 19, she is hardly old enough to handle the kind of publicity that she has been getting. Putting it in a manner that many of my co-bloggers can identify with, she is being 'trolled' by the entire nation. For the next how many ever years she has to live with being 'that' person. Secondly, if she is smart enough to get into Harvard, she is definitely smart enough to realize that copying material will get her into trouble. More generiously, I am sure she is talented enough to not have to rip off other people. I can imagine how it might have happened though. If I were a 19 year old guitarist, I would try to imitate the chords of say Eric Clapton or Steve Vai or whoever. I wouldn't think twice before incorporating them into a song of my own. How could I even imagine that its going to be playing on the radio, and Clapton is going to hear it and sue me? Also, the insane competitiveness of her existence probably pushes her to do such things. Thirdly, she is of Indian origin and Tam Brahm :). I support all people of Indian origin who are doing well for themselves. Further, I doubly support Tam Brahms of Indian origin who are doing well for themselves :).

On a happier note, Pramod Mahajan was shot by his own brother. As they say, weeding out corruption starts at home, and what could be a better way to go about it. If only all the kith and kin of politicians would take the inititative and pump some lead between their misguided relative's heads. Misa Bharati do you hear me? Sudhakaran can you hear me? All you people out there who have politicians for relatives, you know what to do.

Reality Sucks

Now, if you have come looking for a whiney self-piteous rant about how life sucks and so on, you have come to the right place. However, my dear friend, you have come at the wrong time. What I am talking about is reality tv. It’s the new form of popular entertainment that has given us The Apprentice and Surreal Life, filling our lives with the images of attention needy people like Donald Trump and Ice T. I had earlier given a description on how to create your own reality tv show. Now, I am going to focus on one or two specific shows.

I don’t know how many of you watch MTV. There is this show called Date My Mom (DMM).The basic structure of the show is as follows -

• 1 hot guy
• 3 girls and their moms
• The guy cannot talk directly to the girls. He speaks to the moms and decides which girl is likely to have got the best genetic material.
• Or 1 hot girl, 3 guys, 3 moms….you know.

It is exhibitionist, crass and has plenty of eye candy – so everyone watches it. It’s like drinking – continued intake might cause brain damage, but short doses do lead to instant gratification. Anyway, I was watching DMM the other day. There was something that I feel took their (lack of) creative process to a new high.

So, I saw this girly looking guy as the ‘hot catch’. 'Ok', I thought, 'Maybe he is one of those metropolitan or whatever type guys'. Then, I see his arms flailing all over the place, and his eyelashes started doing the batting thang. That got the alarm bells going bring bring. Then there was the final straw, the guy got all giggly and went ‘Ohhhh I luhveee Britney Spears. She is soo cool!!!’. As I suspected, the producers had decided that the only way they could attract viewer ship was by hooking gay guys up. Don’t get me wrong here. I am all for freedom, and believe its your personal right to decide upon whether you want to engage in intimate relations with guys / girls / donkeys / rabbits / cockroaches / eels / snakes / crows / frogs. I mean, if you aren't going to let your sex hold you back, why should your position on the tree of life? Think about it. Aren't we all the same? Aren't we all just bags of protein and DNA? If, you knock off some of my genes, won't I become a weird mutated creature? Aren't all our DNA subject transcription? Aren't all our RNA subject to translation? You get the picture. I am all for non-discrimination. However, a guy professing love for Britney Spears on a music channel is a strict no no.

There is another variation of this called ‘Check out all the trash in my room, and decide if you want to marry me’. I forget what its called. Yes, Room Raiders. Replace mom by rooms. Instead of checking out the mom, you check out the room and decide whether you should pledge your troth to the owner of the room. That got me thinking - where are things going from here? What would be the next big thing in reality dating? Eureka! It struck me! Like a flash of lightning! Like Date my Mom, why not, Date My Iguana. However, the thought made me feel guilty as Iguanas are classy animals, a little endangered, and would be quite averse to besmirching their reputation through such shameless displays. Also, PETA might complain. We would just have to settle for Date the Cockroach in My Sink. These are pretty decadent creatures anyway, hanging around the sink and all that. How can you judge if he/she is 'the one'? Simple! If the cockroach is emaciated you know that I have a clean sink and am worth marrying.

Travail

I wonder why 'travail', which in French means 'work', means 'difficulty' in English ? A strange co-incidence, or is it not? Just a random thought. Actually not such a random thought. Why is it not such a random thought? Well, you need to read on to find that on. Yes, read on.

So I just spent a most fun weekend in Chicago. It was a new hire gathering party by this company I am joining in July. As most of you might have noticed, I usually avoid going into the sordid details of activities that I must perform to keep arm and leg together. Also, I am most wary about disclosing work related information, as knowing myself I am likely to shoot my mouth off, which just might result in me getting shot off in turn (fired :)). However, in sum, they do have large sums of money, and seem to be ok partaking some of it on their new hires. I have no objection to that. Who doesn't ? Isn't my rhetoric business getting on your nerves? Or is it not?

So, I got put up in this most heavenly hotel. Earlier they had put me up here. I would have prefered cold cash instead, for the following reasons -

• I am not really into the watching tv while soaking in the bath tub.
• I don't care if the soup has minerals from the "cold reaches of the andes". I just wan't to be clean without smelling like a florist.
• More importantly, I am having serious issues breaking even with my rent. Thats 6 months right there handsome.
• Also, seeing Bentley GTs and Porshe Carreras parked at the entrance is most self deluding. Though I do love to travel, this is an ego-trip I just cannot afford. I have to keep reminding 'Bugger %$**#^&**$*(*#& you DONT have that kind of money. So, don't get any bright ideas!'. (However, I must admit that I have been most tempted to filch one of those things. It's quite easy. The keys are with the valet. You just need to act really smooth and suave, pretend you have lost your slip, and get him to fetch it for you. Just to get the image all together, give him a 100$ tip. He needs it, because he just lost his job. He he.)
  

However, I must admit that I do like this most alluring voice that calls me at 7 in the morning and says, "This is your wake up call sir. Is there something you would like have for breakfast?". You feel all important and like half a sneeze from you can push the Nasdaq 100 points. Also, you are reluctant to disappoint such an enchanting voice - you wake you.

Now, with all this staying in fancy-pancy hotels, there is this most frightening increase in expectations. There was a time, when I would been overjoyed if my room had a stainfree bed and a flushed toilet. Now, I very carefully scrutinize how the foyer is done up and reach a most irrevocable judgement. I guess J-Lo notices if her bed linen isn't made from the finest French satin. See, how much ever you have, you still succeed in feeling miserable! Cool! Yay!

The other thing that goes with such lifestyles is this tendency to delude oneself. Looking at gold bars doesn't make you rich. You need to rob a bank or two. I was with some kids who already work there, and some of the conversation snippets went like this -

Him : Dude, the penthouse costs 4.
Me: 400,000? *gulp*
Him: No dude, 4 millon.
Me : Okkkk. * $%^$%$^% - insert your choiciest string of expletives*

Jokes apart, I found my 25 or so co-hires to be most smart and impressive. Almost all of them were FOBs (Fresh Off the Boats) or 2nd generation Americans. Also, most were of Asian or Eastern European origin. That scares me a bit. Though I would think that I am a pretty competent type person, this competition business is most emotionally straining. I spent 4 of my undergraduate years in a class where over performance was the norm.Its not so much fun I tell you.

*Begin Digression*
To give you an idea of what happens, if asked to write a program that adds 2 numbers, half the class will come up with simulators that can calculate the trajectories of inter continental ballistic missiles. There was once, when they found out that a couple of guys in the class had managed to sneak through a couple of research publications. Such publications are very prized, because they validate that you can do 'research', and are looked on very favorably by all Amrikan Universities. So, since nobody wanted to feel left out, before the end of the year, there were about 15 publications between the class! Consider this with the fact that, yours truly after 2 years in graduate school has managed a grand total of zero publications. In my defense, a couple of publications are in the pipeline. Don't say mean things about me ok?
*End Digression*

Anyway, coming back, there was this one person from the group whose mother used to change linen in hotels. Another, whose dad is a big investment banker in China. One is from Harvard the other from MIT. One could possibly have funded half her class through college, the other possibly not. Its all about what you can do, not who you are (or more correctly what your daddy did). Fair. If only our Indian politicians can learn. Whats with this 50% reservation for the IITs? You cannot have the cake and eat it no. Either you can favor those you like or those who are good. You cannot favor those you like and expect them to change the world.

Someone gonna get a very very famous

Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced today (April 11, 2006) the precision measurement of extremely rapid transitions between matter and antimatter. As amazing as it may seem, it has been known for 50 years that very special species of subatomic particles can make spontaneous transitions between matter and antimatter. In this exciting new result, CDF physicists measured the rate of the matter-antimatter transitions for the B_s (pronounced "B sub s") meson, which consists of the heavy bottom quark bound by the strong nuclear interaction to a strange anti-quark, a staggering rate that challenges the imagination - 3 trillion times per second.

Read the press release here. If you are a little smart you can read this. If you are really stupid or really really smart, you could read this. I am actually crazy enough to sit on in the Physics department after class to listen to random talks on topics I really don't know jackshit about. I wandered into a special seminar convened to announce the result. It was a talk by Kevin Pitts. That guy was so excited and totally wired during the talk. You could see it. Like you have just won the lottery or ..the Nobel Prize. The only problem is that there have been about 700 scientists from 27 institutions involved in the project.

PS: Regular programming will commence very shortly :).

OTG Returns

I am so happy I took that psych course, simply for the sake of our dear lady OTG (overly tanned girl or hither leather). After having entertained us earlier, she has most kindly agreed to give us some more delectable blogable material. With every passing moment, I grow more confident that she has some kind of fetish, because her foot seems to have found a permanent home in her mouth.

Firstly, some background - you are emotionally intelligent if you are resilient and regenerative. Resilience is when you face life for what it is. Regeneration is when you make an about face, and get drunk. Its important to know when to do what. So, the teacher asked us for personal examples of how we deal with stress.

Q : How do you regenerate physically?

X : I go to the gym.
Y : I do yoga.
Me : I play squash or tennis sometimes.
She : I like to get a tan.

Q : How do you regenerate spiritually?

X: I take some time out for myself and think.
Y: I go to the church.
Me: I blog when I can.
She: I like to go shopping. I also like to contemplate about life when I tan - like if I should grab dinner and go for the group meeting, or go for the meeting and then grab dinner.

Q : What do you think will make you happy?

X: Blah
Y: Blee
Me: Bluu
She: I don't mind being one of those sit at home wives with 2 kids, as long as I have lots (editor's correction - pots) of money and can go shopping everyday.

Audience Q: However, won't you get bored shopping?

She: No it's not like that. You can keep going on to buying more and more expensive things. You just need to keep going to the next level. It really is very satisfying.

This merits a song.

You better watch out,
Or you will go dry,
You keep your eyes peeled,
I'm telling you why:
OTG is coming to town.
She's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Shes gonna find out
Whos loaded and iced.
OTG is going to town
She sees you when you're sleeping.
She knows when you're playing quake.
She knows if you have money for the taking,
So watch out for goodness sake!
Or, you will go dry,
I'm telling you why:
OTG is coming to town.
OTG is going to town!

Apart from putting me in the hallowed prescence of people like OTG, the course has also given me access to an abstruse and highly literary skill called obfuscative fillibusteration.

"I had a nightmare and died." =>

"Serious doubts might be raised on the validity of the interpretation of my experience in a non-negative light. A more careful analysis will reveal that I suffered from serious soporific hallucinations which ultimately hastened my demise."

In less higher society its called 2 pages for 20 marks or simply gas for marks.

On blogs and stuff

So, I have been in this blogging business for 2 years now. It started out when I was on an internship is some weird ass foreign country where I couldn't speak the language and had no friends (not that I do have now, thats why I blog) and was very desperate and lonely and the whole shebang. Ok. You get the picture? Right, now where was I? The blog thing. So this blogging was some random timepass and the only useful purpose it was to me was that I became one of the first people to get a Gmail account!

*Digression* Getting the email account was the most fun thing. For once, I beat out my geeky compatriotes in the ultimate geek quest. Yeah, I got a cool id as well. *End Digression*

So the basic problem was that I didn't really know that other people blogged, and that you could actually link other people's blogs, and wonder of wonders actually read them. Even if you did read them, I used to think it rude to comment. I was alone in my happy universe. My loneliness was disturbed once in a bluemoon when some equally lonely friend who decided to drop a comment, mostly out of politeness to me. Then sometime last May, during another blah phase, I realized that there were other people in the universe who also blogged.

I also found out that it was socially acceptable to comment on other people's blogs. It was weird that it was A-OK to pour your heart out to complete strangers. Essentially some kind of therapy that comes for 50 cents an hour (to me it's free, graduate students are technically below poverty line, and thus eligible for free internet). You will have a bunch of people therapizing you, and the only catch was that you need to therapize this bunch of people in turn. Now that sounded like a way better deal than the 50$ an hour or so you paid to your usual shrink. So, I realized that I really did need a shrink, and considering my monetary situation, this blogging thang did fit my budget pretty well.

So, I began blogging and reading blogs. And reading blogs. And reading blogs. Yeah, I read a lot of blogs. I started reading so many blogs that I considered going to another therapist to get me off this blogging therapy addiction. Thankfully, nightmares about my bank account force expediated recovery, and now I am in a post addiction 'steady' state. I am still guilty of reading blogs -

- First thing in the morning. When I get up, I don't brush my teeth, I don't check for emails from my advisor which politely say 'Dude you better get locomoting and git some work done!'; I check blogs for replies to my comments.

- During class. Of late, the only thing that I do in class is read blogs. In one way its good, see its an incentive for me to actually make it to class. However, the downside is that, none of the course material actually makes it to me. It makes it through me. Yeah, not so funny joke. Think about it? What do you prefer? The latest scandalous escapades of Hawt Chick 143 or some gyan on the optimization of twice differentiable convex functions?

*Digression* What is slightly irritating about engineering courses is that they make extremely unwieldy conversational material. An English major who decides to pout un-encumbered on Vikram Seth vs Rohinton Mistry is actually going to be considered erudite, cultured and sophisticated. What about me? How many people would want to listen to this really clever thing I did to tie in a hidden markov model and a regressive model? *Sigh* Of course, the upside is that, you can start another company like Google and become quite well off. Not that it will actually happen to me. However you need to keep saying stuff like that to keep yourself going. Its an art. See dude, if you can lie to yourself you need not lie to anyone else. *End Digression*

- After coming home on a Friday or Saturday 'evening'. Reading blogs on 'weekend evenings' is the biggest sign that.....you (no insult, as in I) need a life!!

So, by now you would have got the picture that I read a lot of blogs (apart from a lot of not so flattering things about me). A little while earlier I had done this post classifying blogs. Now, after the ten or so months that I have spent timepassing blogs, I have come to realize that, blogging most closely imitates life.

Firstly, lets see what is need to make a blog popular.

1. The most important thing is that you need to be a chick.

2. The most important thing number 2 is that you need to be a chick. This is incase you didn't understand 1. The key word here is chick. I really do hope I am getting my point across.

3. If you aren't a chick. You need to get everyone to think you are a chick.

4. Once that task is done, to get down to business, you need to get down to writing some scandalous stuff. Scandal usually attracts a lot of attention, and, all the guys who could never have spoken to you in real life, let alone had access to this scandalous information, are going to be on your blog. See, this has presented a legitmate haven for them to pass comments, and actually even get a reply. Make a lot of 'friendship'.

5. Keep repeating 4. and you are home. No not literally. Duh! Figuratively.

Analogy in real life - Paris Hilton is far better known than Warren Buffet. Capiche?

*Digression*
Jon Stewart : Which is the only Hilton you can get into for free?
Answer : *Loud cough with a few hiccups and a sneeze*
*End Digression*

We know that in real life, for every good looking girl, there are 1 (or two?, if it's one of those nasty egoistic types) 'friends', 10-20 admirers and whole lot of stalkers. Now using the principle that there ain't nothing like a free lunch, and that you can seldom have the cake and eat it too, if and when you decide to be 'attractive', you should be prepared to attract everything from lions to locusts. So, the downside to this whole attention thing is a swarm of psychopaths with a whole lot of free time and a whole lot more 'advice'. This is where the therapy thing goes wrong, because the cardinal rule is that you pay the dude 50$ an hour to listen and not hurt feelings and stuff. He deserves the money. Anyway, my point is, once people stop listening to you and start saying mean things, its almost like you are paying (for your internet connection) to be traumatized.

Paris Hilton Analogy : When she decided to become famous, did she realize that every tabloid is going to report the fact that she has lost her..mind..errm...cat.

So, finally, which are the blogs that nobody reads?

- Mine.

What does that mean?

- I am Warren Buffet.