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.