Happy Deepawali / Diwali

No matter which way you spell / pronounce it.... its Diwali and its my favourite festival!!!

Hope it brings light, joy and cheer to you and to all your loved ones!!!

Happy Deepawali !!! Happy Diwali!!

Mystery.....Suspense......Fame........Intrigue......Love.....Deception.....Passion...

Sounds likea general list of emotions that would make up a potboiler hindi movie..isnt it?

OR ...could it could be a book ...a work of fiction, perhaps?

But, in all events, they are hardly the kind of adjectives that you would expect to be used to describe a non – fiction book....

Strangely still....a non fiction book whose premise is probably the most un-emotional topic of all - Mathematics :) :) :)

Before you think that i have gone stark raving mad..the book I am talking about is called “Fermat’s Last Theorem ” by Simon Singh.

The premise of the book is the quest to solve a mathematical mystery that was put forth by an eccentric mathematician a few centuries ago..and what probably resulted in one of the longest lasting unsolved mysteries . The book deals with the topic right from its origins and tries to give a picture of all the people who impacted and influenced it over the annals of time.

To someone like me, who loves a good mystery, the charm of a genuine mystery that endured for centuries in itself was a delight to read and understand about...

But, in this case, from a purely emotional perspective, I couldnt help but get attached to and really feel....through the personalities of people who were involved in this quest ....their circumstances and even their emotions around this so called holy grail of mathematics...

The way that so-called different fields of mathematical thought were combined together by different people and how it all came together beautifully in the end ..was a sheer thrill to behold. It gave the feeling of having combined different pieces of music composed by different composers into one beautiful harmonious symphony.

Cheers,

Me

Stating the Obvious:- A subject is never emotional. Only humans are. And hence ANY subject associated with a human has the potential to be.

Some random musings...

Been a while.....

I usually pick up books that I have never heard about mostly based on their name and then i go through the back cover / preface to see if there is something there that would interest me to spend some time with it..One such book that has intrigued me since i heard of it and that was way back in 2001/2002 was "One Hundred years of Solitude". To me, it was a very interesting name and something that warranted further investigation even though i knew nothing at all as to its contents..

Finally got around to reading it sometime this year...I started off gung -ho and I must say that as i moved through the initial chapters ..."Confused" would be the only adjective that applied. I am never good when it comes to remembering character's names and the fact that here was a book about a LARGE family having spanish and deceptively similar names meant that i was having a tough time groping around just trying to figure who the hell was doing what...the fact that they gave a family tree at the beginning of the book was really no help...coz a lazy bum like me really doesnt flip back pages to refer to the family tree...even if i am not quite sure who is killing whom...

I persevered through this initial tough period with the book...with serious reservations as to whether i could get through it...and things started to improve. As the book unfolded, i realised that there was a poignancy which held me spellbound especially at some specific junctures in the book. Its a book mainly about a place but also about a lot of people who are or become related to that place and the smaller stories of people like the piano player who came to Macondo(i forget his name :)) within the larger story of Macondo....intrigued as well as entertained.

I must admit that the Geography of the place- Macondo - did also confuse me as to where the author really intended it to be. Even if it is a fictional place,there are references to real places which did end up confusing me to some extent. At one point, i stopped trying to figure out where Macondo really was supposed to be and just took the authors word for anything geographical. It would have been much more enriching to me had i been able to pinpoint the general Geographical location of Macondo - maybe i guess it can be done from the book but it needs more concentration than what i put into while reading the book..

Just my opinion....but its no where close to my favourite list of books...but its definitely a book worth a read once...

Cheers,

Me

P.S : Happy Independance Day !!

Ref: One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

These are a few of my favourite............reads...

I recently replied to one of my friends (that’s you, Shilpa) who asked…”where are your emails? “ , that very few things come to my mind..so I really have nothing much to write about…

But one of my friends (that’s you, Lord J) sent me a list of his favourite books and asked me for mine and that eventually prompted me to get off my lazy arse and made me write this out…

This is the list that I could come up with unaided, just relying on memory. I am sure that there are books that I love that are missed out in this list..

The ones that I can remember off-hand even with my sieve like mind, in no particular order are:-

1. Joseph Heller - Catch 22

2. Robert Pirsig - Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

3. Mark Twain - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

4. Mark Twain - Adventures of Tom Sawyer

5. Charles Dickens - Pickwick Papers

6. Mitch Albom - Tuesdays with Morrie

7. Antoine De Saint Exupery - The little prince

8. JRR Tolkein - The lord of the rings

9. Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn - Yes, Minister

10. Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn - Yes, Prime Minister

11. Charles Dickens - A tale of 2 cities

12. Henry Cecil – Brothers in law, Sisters in law, Alibi for a judge, The Painswick line and a host of others that I cannot recollect, but I have rarely read a Henry Cecil that I didn't love (and I have read about 15-20)

13. PGW - Everything (and I mean it)

14. Bill Bryson – A short history of nearly everything

15. Paramhansa Yogananda – Autobiography of a yogi

16. Ernest Hemingway – The old man and the sea

17. Arthur Conan Doyle – Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

18. A.C. Grayling - What is good?

19. Life of Pi – Yann Martel

20. R.K.Narayan – Life of Malguldi, Magic of Malgudi and others

21. Ayn Rand – Fountainhead

22. C. Jung – The Undiscovered Self

23. Richard Feynman - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

24. Douglas Adams – The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (All the 5 parts of the trilogy )

25. Bill Waterson – Calvin and Hobbes – ALL

Zen is one of my favourite books…I have read it twice over and the first time was a few years ago..when I didn’t exactly get it..but it interested me enough to read it again last year..and I just found myself more and more fascinated by the book..

What is good? Is one book I really liked…I found it very interesting..i read it a few years ago actually…I think I even sent across 1-2 quotes from it in my then regular emails

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy or H2G2 as it is commonly known as ….i just find to be brilliantly imaginative and funny

Of all these books though, the one I fell in love with…years and years ago is catch-22..i remember reading catch from my dads collection when I was in school and finding it too obtruse..but I read it years later..and have never tired of it since..Its a book that can be read as a novel or short stories..and its sad and its funny….i just find it brilliant..

If you like a book on science and to read of an highly individual character along with….i highly recommend Feynman’s Surely you must be joking….Recommended to me by a friend(Kaus, where art thou?), i really enjoyed reading it…

Cecil was part of my dad’s collections of books….and till recently, out of publication in India When, a few years ago, I saw them in re-print..believe me, i rejoiced. His knowledge of the law along with the inimitable characters that he portrays are something that unerringly fails to tickle me pink..

I love Shantaram..but there is a double reason for it…its not just for the book but also for the setting..it is set in the city that I love in the time when I was growing up in it..and a lot of the situations and characters are something that I actually can relate to..so it made it a very unputdownable book for me..i think I read the last few hundred pages just sitting through one night…

Argumentative Indian…is very lucid and insightful…..i think it’s one of the best non-fiction books I have read.. a collection of related essays by Sen in which I find his insights very interesting and thought provoking as well.

I have read 2 of Rushdie’s…the one I listed and Shalimar the clown and honestly…Shalimar was a disappointment..i have yet to read his supposed greatest work yet “Midnights Children” and I will reserve my judgment till I read that but so far….1 for and 1 against..

Cheers,

P.S. I stay away from the abridged versions..i made up my mind years ago that if I wanted to read something, I should read it whole or not read it at all. It can be classified as a silly obstinacy of mine but it’s nice to have a few idiosyncracies to call my own..

P.P.S “Complete and Unabridged” is my motto J

Angry, Happy, Jovial, Dumb, Morose...and the list is endless

Its typical of the way we classify people....we bracket them into boxes as boring, sad, jovial, adventurous....and on and on and on....

But the reality really lies in the fact that each person encompasses ALL of these qualities or behaviors and more.......and our perception of people is just a very narrow view of them depending on the circumstance that we encounter them in...

I guess when you read this..it seems as obvious as the fact that night follows day..but the next time you try and make a comment about someone "that chap is a bore", if you can still have this in mind, it might just make you think twice...!!!! Atleast it made me...and that made me wonder........Actually practicing keeping an open mind is WAY tougher than thinking or talking about it...

Passion for technology ...contd

Before you start reading, let me warn you that this definitely qualifies as a *RANT*

Software Architects and “Passion” for technology.

A lot of the time when talking to people who are in the field of software technology itself, I get the distinct feeling that people feel that “passion” for technology is the same as having a “knowledge” of technology. I tend to disagree. And Strongly.

In no way, is KNOWLEDGE (either in breadth or in depth) of technology the same as a “Passion” for technology. There is a HUGE difference between the two. Knowledge of technology is what provides the technical know-how to create a solution. BUT, “Passion” is what ensures that this know-how is used in the best and most suitable manner.

Let me cite a simplistic example:

Common SQL best practice: Dont use Select * in your Select statements. But, i have come across a specific scenario in my projects where i thought it made SENSE to use Select * because the usual drawbacks associated didnt apply in this case and the benefit was flexibility, which we wanted.

So, if i go just by the standards, i would end up writing a lot of different SQL statements for something that got very cleanly handled with just one statement.

What i am trying to highlight here is that there are always standards and references but not always is the decision to choose which is applicable and which is not, IN A PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE, always a straight forward or a obvious one. And in such situations, I think it is the “Passion” that I refer to, the “FEELING” to do the “correct thing” which makes a difference as to whether the selected choice is the best choice.

I thought about it honestly and wondered if I could just call this feeling “Common Sense” but I decided against calling it that because I have myself been in a lot of situations where my “Common sense”, if I use it, points me to the right solution, but I have honestly not “CARED” enough about technology and have had no qualms about choosing the worse of 2 available options just because the worse one was more convenient or faster or easier or something i already knew and did not have to spend time learning about.

Think about it: You must have worked with people, maybe even yourself, who made mistakes inspite of knowing that what they were doing were a mistake. I definitely have detected loads of code review defects, which i thought should never have been there, especially coz the developer agreed point-blank that there was no justification for them not implementing it. This is a direct result of the lack of the very “passion” that I am referring to.

There is another commonly used argument against “Passion” which is that people with “passion” for technology are so absorbed in it that they will ignore the customer needs / project constraints. I again disagree.

a. I think it is more of a assumption that people have that a person with a “Passion” for technology is oblivious to customer needs / constraints. I think any reasonably intelligent person understands that there are ALWAYS constraints in doing anything and that applies to software as well, just like to any aspect of life, for that matter. So, the assumption that someone who is passionate about technology will forgo all his customers needs or benefits or all the constraints that apply to his work, outside of his control, seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to the “geek” cliché rather than anything else.

b. I dont see any reason why a person who is passionate about technology will be any more oblivious to his overall environment than a person who is not passionate about technology. Does being passionate about technology make a person unreasonable or vice versa? I think neither.

c. A Passion for technology is not something as narrow or restrictive as “I like .NET” or “SAP is the best”. A passion for technology is the belief that SCIENCE (which gives rise to technology) can and is being used to provide and create SOLUTIONs to PROBLEMS that exist. And anyone who thinks with that defintion of technology would probably not be easily swayed from his customers requirements or constraints that exist.

So, at this point, to rephrase a question once put to me,

Would you rather have a architect who is passionate about technology and who can understand and work with it within his client’s needs and constraints

OR

Would you prefer to have an architect who understand the clients needs and constraints and knows technology (but doesnt really care much for it)

Independence Day.....

Independence Day TV…

It was inevitable, with all our television channels and all our scores of news channels, that something like Independence Day would fall prey to the same commercialisation that everything else has fallen to in recent times..

There are all sorts of channels and programs having NOTHING relevant to Independance day being advertised all over TV and Radio, all just trying to cash in on the “holiday” and use it to their advantage to get the maximum number of eyeballs and eardrums for that day.

There are movie channels trying to exploit the afternoon of Independance Day to get us to increase their TRP’s by watching “KRRISH”

There are news channels trying to exploit it by conducting some INANE first ever Indo – Pak opinion polls...

There are positives to everything and probably the saddest but greatest positive here is that were it not for the ads promoting KRRISH, a LOT of people may not even remember that it is in fact India’s Independance day today.

Sad but true.

National Anthem at the movies…

I was one of those people who treated the idea that some Maharastra government came up with to play the national anthem before every screening in theatres in bombay with scorn and contempt. To me, it was just another inane, nonsensical political gimmick....

But, everytime since, whenever i have stood before the 70MM screen and watched the National Anthem being played, I have, in all honesty, really relished it because ever since leaving my school, where the national anthem was played everyday in assembly, i had NEVER ever got a chance to sing / hear the national anthem and forgotten what a great feeling it really is....especially when you sing along to it.

Its sad that other than people who represent the country officially, the common man, whom that very flag represents, rarely gets a chance to even hear it, leave alone sing it in any aspect of his normal life.

So, in a warped up way, i am thankful to whatever politician came up with that idea, for whatever his reasons may have been, because it gives me a rare joy everytime i go to watch a movie. It takes me back to school in a very nostalgic way.

One last word…

Wordweb seems to think that Independence = “Freedom from control or influence of another or others”

If that is a correct definition of Independance, then honestly, from 1997 to 2007, havent we been going in the OPPOSITE direction?

After all, our markets are dependant on others now. When NASDAQ falls, so does the BSE. Our economy is more prone to get affected by external factors. Even our Nuclear program now has external influence on it. We are dependant on others more and more now than we were before 1992. Am i just being simplistic or maybe i should just take WordWeb with a pinch of salt?

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Rains...and the Casualty section...

Its been a few years since I have actually been in Bombay for the entire monsoon (last was in 2004) and I have missed it...
Rains, especially the crazy kinds that happen around here is just something that i am so habituated to that anything less than that makes me so left out...
Its been raining almost non-stop for 48 hours now...and incessantly throughout the week....And if my manager found out about the time i spent at the window, i would have to log in half the week time atleast as leave :)

I happened to be in the Casualty section of a local hospital earlier this week and it was raining just as much that day...and in the short half hour that i was there, there was a steady stream of people of which atleast half of them were there due to some accident caused by a mixture of the rains and the poor civic infrastructure in my city....
Weather like this definitely doesnt do any favours especially to the vast majority of the people in this city for whom life is generally a struggle, without the added pain caused by circumstances like this.

Listening to Kailasa's latest. Liked most of the album but special mentions for CHHAP TILAK...lovely song...and the title track..JHOOMO RE....loved it...
Reading : David Copperfield :)

Re-living my childhood, as some like to say....but i maintain that i never grew up....

Cheers,
Me

P.S: I love the queen of rain...
P.P.S: As brain gets more and more addled, mails get more and more intermittent....so till next time, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night :)

Extras....Dostoevsky and Bheja Fry

Wonder if you ever noticed some of the so-called extra’s in any scene especially in ads and in movie scenes. By extras, i dont necessarily mean the lesser known actors but just those who are in the frame of action but not in the spotlight. Most times, i have found that the expressions on the faces of these people are so hilariously funny that its worth missing the real dialogue of the scene or the catch phrase of the ad to spot the look of cluelessness stamped on the faces of these chaps...

Khaasi : remember the guy in the Anchor toothpaste commercial that you brought our attention to once :))))

Just finished reading Crime and Punishment...its a nice book, i thought. But i must say that you have to read it to understand the starkness and at times hopelessness in atmosphere that the author is capable of creating...Definitely not light reading and I used to find a regular dose of PGW was needed to help negate some of the after effects that a book like this is capable of creating. A lot of good / bad things can be said about him but no one could accuse him of being a ray of sunshine, this Dostoevsky chap :))

Saw Bheja fry. Short, Funny and if you like characters, definitely a must – see :)) The I-T officer inspired by music may sound cliched but turned out to be a genuinely HILARIOUS character well acted out by Vinay. Kudos.

Peace,

Me.

P.S: I cant wait to see Spiderman- 3 !!!

Buddha hoga tera baap ......

Thats the catch phrase plastered all over the hoardings over most of the major stations on the central railway on my daily route...and i must say...i love it !!!!! :D :D

Using a popular slang phrase which a lot of us might have heard in anger...in a pretty comic way...is something that really tickled my funny bone :))

I think that the creative team who thought of the usage of this phrase, coupled with the name of the tv series that it is advertising...”Mera Bharat Jawaan” which in itself is a rip-off from the ever so popular “Mera Bharat Mahaan” deserve to be applauded for what is, to me, a sheer stroke of genius...

i wonder who these really imaginative people are...who are capable of just coming up with these ideas.

BTW, the ads for the series itself is out on TV and that is hilarious as well....wherein there are a bunch of geriatrics, led by the perennially old aged A.K.Hangal, mouthing the above dialogue and showing off their attitude....nice!!! :)

Peace,

Me.

P.S: I think A.K. Hangal must have been born old. I do not recollect any movie / tv series of his in which the character played by him was aged less than 60 years old ..he truly deserves the tag of the “Old Man of India”

P.P.S : If any one can recollect any movie / series that features A.K. Hangal wherein he has deviated from his trademark age, do let me know. I have a morbid curiosity to see what that would look like. It is impossible for someone of my limited imagination to even imagine that.

P.P.P.S : Disclaimer : The series mentioned above is not even out yet, i think, and the ingenuity (IMHO) used in its nomenclature is in no way necessarily reflective of the same standard in its execution.

The Great Gatsby.....Trekking time....

Read this book last week....loved it...the story, the style of writing...F.Scott Fitzgerald has written a gem of a book, IMHO.
Its a thin thin novel but i was totally absorbed in it till the end.

Went for a trek last weekend, to a place called Harishchandragad, in Maharashtra. The 3 day trek was good exercise and a lot of fun.
Rode in a truck, slept under starry skies, lived in a cave, climbed a lot, relieved myself out in the open, saw a snake and a scorpion at arms length, peered off cliffs at 4700 feet above sea level..and generally had a ball of a time.

Its crazy how the clammy feeling of fear can blank out everything from your mind...even if only temporarily.

It would be great to share those scenes with with you but given my abhorrence for cameras, I will have to wait for science to be able to print memories from the recesses of my brain in order to do that. :)

Anyways, have a great friday tomm and a great weekend ahead.

Peace,
Me.

2 quotes from the Great Gatsby :

1. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.

2. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

When it rains..it pours

I travel in a local train to work and since its a good half hour everyday...i generally have something to read or listen to inorder to bide my time.... I have a small mp3 player that has some songs that i generally listen to when in the mood...I am a bit careless with my player and generally tend to drop it every so often....(No respect for hard earned money, my parents always complained)

I recently dropped my player at the platform on Dadar station and something really unique happened to it since then...Probably some component got badly shaken up but the net effect of that is that now....when i play a song, the lead singer / music takes a backseat and the backing vocals / music is pronounced for most of the songs। I am guessing that the wiring for channel which carries the input for the leads somehow has got messed up in the fall....

The best part of this is that I am now seeing my old songs in a completely different light...the same song can sound so distinctly familiar yet distant when the voice that you are hearing is that of the backing vocalists...and the lead is but a shadow in the background। Ditto for the instruments.

I am also hearing notes that I never heard in the song ever (There is only so much clarity you can get on a cheap portable player :)).

The feeling of seeing what was once centrestage and the cynosure of all eyes being relegated to the wings and those seemingly unimportant non-entities taking pride of place by an abrupt and sudden twist of fate is a unnerving and a humbling feeling...

Till I bug your lives again, Good Bye and Good Luck (A really really good movie. Thanks, Nikhil, for the recommendation)

P.S: Two mails in quick succession, you must be saying, if u managed to reach this far :) Congrats.
P.P.S : Leave you all with a poem. A wonderful one albeit sad. So ditch reading further if you are in a good mood :P

When we two parted - Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

A Moral Dilemma or am i just too touchy ?

On the flight back from Seattle to Amsterdam..2 weeks ago…I was lucky enough to get a aisle seat (thanks to 24 hrs internet check-in) which is always a great relief. Though I am no Gregory Peck, squeezing my legs into the cramped economy class leg room is a huge pain and with a 10-hour flight ahead, I definitely don’t want to get stuck in a middle seat…

So, as I was sitting blissfully happy in my aisle seat trying to decide which movies were worth my attention, I noticed that there was a BIG Indian fellow in the adjoining aisle. This chap must have been definitely taller than 6 feet in height and a good 3 feet in width…and he didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect of the long flight ahead but was probably buoying himself with the consolation of being a little more comfortable with his feet stretched out in the aisle….

I have no idea if u have seen dreams being shattered in front of your eyes but this was the closest I have got…A middle aged Indian lady who had the seat next to our big fellow came and stood in front of him in the aisle and REQUESTED him to let her sit in the aisle seat…citing her AGE as the reason for wanting to sit in the aisle seat….Our chap, brave lad that he was, started to explain that he had specifically picked this seat as it has more legroom and that it was extremely difficult for him to fit into a MIDDLE seat..At this, our dear lady actually cited her age and her health as reasons and made a blatant and poor attempt to try and act old and frail.. In the face of this emotional assault coupled with our sometimes silly emotionality, our poor Indian hero succumbed and actually made way for that lady and sat himself in the middle seat….

I still vividly remember the crestfallen look on his face as he squirmed uncomfortably in the middle seat. I couldn’t help steal glances during the rest of the flight to check on our Indian hero and I think his face reflected his pain so clearly along with the expression of “If only I hadn’t…”
The scary fact is that I kept wondering what I would have done in his position and it is a toss-up as to whether I would have acted any different.

I wonder if it is all the so called values instilled in us during our formative years that prevent us from having the courage to stand up for our rights resulting in us ending up as suckers for a sob story.

Moral Dilemma : Respect / Concern for the aged and infirm V/S Being taken for a ride by pretenders

Cheers,
Me

P.S: Some great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs : (Been listening to them for some time now)
Daata ke ghulamon ko.. Haqq Ali Maula .. Hae Kahan ka Iraada sanam.. Gham hain ya Khushi hain too… Dulhe Ka Sehra…

P.P.S: I haven’t heard a singer yet whose voice reflects pure passion the way Nusrat does. Brilliant!!!!

P.P.P.S : This P.S’ing habit is a relict of the Infy KEC-General days J Don’t remember the name of the guy who was most famous for it back in the day. Chandrashekhar Garre, was it?

Logic...

Logic...helps us reason.....decide....think....

logic is common sense...logic is the explantion....logic is the key..

But there will always be things that throw logic out of the window.....there are just so many variables..and i guess thats what makes us human or else we would all be Vulcans a la Mr Spock (Star Trek)..

Hey ...even Spock took an illogical step when in dire circumstances (or like he said.... a logical decision to do something completely illogical :))

Hope you had a great weekend...Have a good week ahead.. and while on the topic...here's a song to keep you company.. Listen to it..if you can...its a mindblowin song.....

Peace.

Supertramp - The Logical Song
When I was young It seemed that life was so wonderful,

A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical

And all the birds in the trees

Well they'd be singing so happily

Oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me

But then they sent me away

To teach me how to be sensible,

Logical, oh responsible, practical

And they showed me a world

Where I could be so dependable,

Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world's asleep

The questions run too deep

For such a simple man

Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned

I know it sounds absurd

But please tell me who I am

Now watch what you say

Or they'll be calling you a radical, A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Oh won't you sign up your name

We'd like to feel you're Acceptable, Oh respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable

At night when all the world's asleep

The questions run soo deep

For such a simple man

Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned

I know it sounds absurd

But please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am

Atheist ...am I ?

"He who says of me that i am an atheist says and knows nothing of me. The question as to the existence or non-existence of God, the opposition between theism and atheism belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but not to the nineteenth. I deny God. But that means to me that i deny the negation of man. In place of the illusory, fantastic, heavenly position of man which in actual life leads to the degradation of man, I substitute the tangible, actual and consequently also the political and social position of mankind"

- Quoted by Feuerbach in the book Essence of Christianity

Liberty, Feynman and the Deep Blue Sea

Saw the statue of liberty a few weeks ago. It is imposing and when u stand and stare at it looming down on you with its stelly eyes...it kinda goes through your soul. The celebration of a spirit of freedom that it conveys hits you like the river breeze. There is an abandonment, a defiance in its stance, the broken chains at its feet, the folds of her clothes especially at her sleeves...every inch of it a cry for freedom...every detail conveys a defiance to fight for it

Feynman - I enjoy reading about Feynman...maybe because he was such a character, a showman but mostly because he chose to have the freedom to do things the way he wanted to. Maybe also coz of his irreverence to all things that were deemed to be reverent but not to him. Maybe because he was pretty brilliant, to say the least or maybe most of all, because of his desire, if not his ability, to want to find the simplest possible way to convey even the most complex of topics...he noted once that if he could not put down any topic in a manner simple enough for a freshman in college to understand, then it just meant that he didnt understand it completely...there may be exceptions..but i think that observation holds good...even outside of phyiscs..Read the first chapter of Six Easy Pieces at Amods place....will try and read the rest sometime...:)

Deep Blue Sea...what better symbolism of freedom can i think of..than the unfettered, the unbounded deep blue sea. I love the sea :)

Cheers,
Me.

And what is good, Phaedrus? And what is not good? Need we ask anyone to tell us these things? "
- (Its actually from the Symposium by Plato but most people are likely to remember it from the first page of a very famous book - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

Thinking Apples and Oranges...

I thought of something...and its been years now since that last happened..so I thought of bragging to u all.

If I had 4 apples and 2 people amongst whom I had to equally divide them, then 4 / 2 would mean 2 apples per person.

But if I had ZERO people to divide them amongst, then 4 / 0 = Infinity or Undefined (as per what i remember from school)

Does that mean that anything is infinite / immeasurable in itself as long as there is no one to start dividing it up for ?

Peace,

Me.

Quote : No matter how desperately you may want something at one time, give yourself the chance and with time, you will find that its nothing you cant do without
- Me :)

It tickles me....

there are just so many things....in us...around us...that if we take a genuine interest in them....then there is no way that we can have enough time for them all..

But, should we choose to concentrate on just the select few from the varied many..there are just so many things that we might never know....or feel..or do.......so much time...and yet so little.... (there's a catch...there's always a catch..catch - 22)

I know its been long...and i hope u all doing great...

Till we should be in touch again... have a good time...and do what u like.....and some that you dont....and try everything in between..

Books last read:

The Argumentative Indian = 5/5

Freakonomics = 4/5

Mostly Harmless = 5/5 (but anything related to H2G2 is something that i am totally biased about :))

Songs last heard:

Title song - Fanaa = 4/5

Teri Deewani (Kailash Kher) = 5 /5

Wish you were here (Floyd - Pulse) = 10 / 5

One Dialogue :

Gaonwalon ne kaha gaon chhod do, Bauji ne kaha Paro chhod do,

Paro ne kaha sharab chhod do, Ma ne kaha ghar chhod do.

Ek din woh kahega *pointing heavenwards* duniya chhod do"

Peace,
Me


Quote : Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two - Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Whats in a subject..???

Life is a Toy in the Hands of a Child called Fate - Anon

Quotes from 'After you'd gone' by Maggie O' Farrell;

Sent forward by a good friend of mine...worth a read..so putting it up for all..

---

From: Viswanathan S

Sent: Fri 1/13/2006 3:53 PM
Subject: Quotes from 'After you'd gone' by Maggie O' Farrell;

Quotes from ‘After you’d gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell

I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in cushioning your insecurities with a system of belief that tells you, ‘Don’t worry. This may be your life but you’re not in control. There is something or someone looking out for you – it’s already organized.’ It’s all chance and choice, which is far more frightening.

I’d like to think that as the lift swooped up the floors I sensed that something important was about to take place, that my life was about to split away from my expectation of it. But, of course, I didn’t. Who ever does? Life’s cruel like that – it gives you no clues.

‘You must come. Please. We need to talk about things and I think we should both get out of London. It’s all arranged. It’s the most beautiful hotel ever. You’ll love it. It’s completely vegetarian.’

‘How did you know I’m vegetarian?’

‘You told me in the canteen when we did the interview.’

‘Did I? I don’t remember that.’

‘Well, I do. Alice, please come. What do I have to do to convince you? Tell me and I’ll do it.’

‘You are the most arrogant person I have ever met. Give me one reason, one good reason, why I should cancel all my plans this weekend to spend a weekend, where it will most probably rain, with a man with a…a…dubious secret.’

‘Because,’ he says softly, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to bear it if you don’t.’

The office is quiet today, everyone’s back bent over their computer screens, and their ears, Alice imagines, turned into her conversation.

‘John, what’s that thing?’

‘What thing?’

‘That thing in the tank upstairs.’

‘Oh,’ he laughs, ‘it’s an axolotl.’

‘A what?’

‘An axolotl. They originate from South America. One of my cousins breeds them. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’

‘But is it a reptile or an amphibian or what?’

‘They’re the larval form of salamanders. If I let him get used to being out of water, he’d become a salamander. They’re the only larval form in existence that can breed.’

‘So he’s stuck in constant adolescence?’ She shudders. ‘What a horrific thought. That’s so cruel. You should let him grow up into a fully fledged salamander and put him out of his misery.’

‘Didn’t you like being an adolescent?’

‘No! I hated it. I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave home.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I was an awful teenager – horrible to live with and horrible to look at.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true. I wore black all the time, did nasty things to my hair and didn’t talk to my parents properly for five years.’

‘Have you got any photos?’

‘None that I’d show you. Anyway, don’t avoid the issue: you’re trapping that poor creature in that terrible no man’s land.’

‘Not really. It’s more like he’s permanently in his twenties – he can breed, he can have relationships, he can lead a happy, normal axolotl life. He never grows old, which is a pretty good deal, I think. The Dorian Grays of the amphibian world.’

‘He doesn’t look very happy.’

‘Not at the moment, but wait and see. He’s nocturnal. He’s sleeping just now. In a few hours he’ll have woken up and will be zipping round his tank, churning up the gravel. Just wait and see.’

What are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?

At that point where Alice’s clothes meet John’s, a red slip dress hangs next to a blue cotton shirt, slightly crumpled. It makes Ann cry, their clothes hanging together like this, it makes her cry a lot. And she’s not sure who she’s crying for: for her daughter, yes, the thought of whose death makes her feel like a glove pulled inside out on itself; for John who should never ever have died when Alice loved him so; and a part of her cries for herself, whose clothes would never hang like this with anyone’s.