Research versus Money

This is a topic that recently got me worked up a lot. I met a principal of a school catering to children up to 3rd grade in a train journey. She casually asked me what I was doing and I told her proudly that I was doing research. For which she replied "ohh thats very common". Her data was that one in every hundred people was doing research. I was trying to explain to her that that was not true. Another point she made was that people do research so that they could earn lots of money. I was really hurt by this because I am doing research inspite of the need for money and being paid like 18k per month where my relatives and friends in other fields are earning 1-2L per month. I was wondering if she confused research with engineering. I'll never know because she didn't let me speak and my respect for elders made me shut up and not try correcting her after a bit.

I don't want to be judgemental and I will accept the statistics even if I am wrong. So lets do some calculations shall we. Firstly the population of India as of March 2015 (ref1) is 1.28 billion. The total number of research institutes in India is around 400 (ref2). So let us say each institute has around 100 students on an average which gives us 1 research student per 32,000 people. Thats two order of magnitude different from the quote the principal gave me. Moreover I analyzed the students from my own institute which comprise of students from physics, mathematics, computer science and computational biology. Most of the students are from middle class families with earning parents. So all they have to do is support themselves. A few support their family (including parents and wife and children) from the stipend they get which is as I said 18k per month. I remember a researcher from physics who had a family of five (wife + 3 kids). One can imagine the amount of money raising three kids would require. Schooling nowadays has become so so expensive. Many of the computer science students left high paid jobs in companies like Intel and have come to join research. The point they made was that one doesn't get the freedom to work on what they want at such companies. So the answers that I got from students doing research as to why they were doing research were freedom and no fixed working hour schedule. None gave me an answer "Money". This is the scenario with many theoretical institutes, similar to mine, I guess because the pay scale is the same. Moreover if we look at the jobs that most of my seniors have taken after doing research is to be a Faculty at some Research Institute and continue doing research (a few left research for reasons I don't know). So even the future of these types of research is nothing. It definitely won't make anyone rich monetarily. (Rich in knowledge ohh definitely for sure.)

As I said earlier I want to give the principal the benefit of doubt. So the only research that I can think of which leads to high paid jobs are topics like chemistry (pharmaceutical companies pay a lot for their research staff) or current biological research which leads to cure for epidemics and such.

My thoughts: 1) Not all fields of research are the same and 2) listen to the arguments before you pass judgement on anything.

Acts of Kindness

Today I saw two acts of kindness which affected me in a way that I had to blog about it.

The first one happened in a Pharmacy. An old lady had arrived there before me and was ordering some medicines. One of the medicines an ointment, Bengay, was not available at the shop and the shopkeeper told her to get it from some shops which sold medicines from abroad. The ointment was apparently one that the old lady's daughter gave it to her during her visit from US to India. She was trying to ask him to get it for her and failed miserably and finally asked the shopkeeper to cater to me first. Later she would probably pester him further, my assumption. I asked him the medicines I needed and he packed and billed them. While I was paying two shop helpers arrived and one of them lets call him X knew the old lady. (Obviously X is going to be important else I wouldn't have bothered naming him duh ...). So X asked the old lady about her health and stuff and they had a nice conversation. Finally she asked X if he could get hold of the medicine for her. She said "vangikudu kanna" which is such a sweet way of asking. I felt as though my grandma had asked me for something. X immediately agreed and noted down the name of the medicine. I don't know what happened after that as I left the shop but X did a good deed today and if he delivered the medicines to the old lady as he promised he would have a nice life.

After this as I walked back, I saw an old couple carrying giant cylindrical cases. Seriously the length of the cases were more than the height of the couple. The cases were probably folded yoga mats. I noticed them because on the t-shirt of the old man there was a quote saying "Ancient Wisdom Scientific Practice". Cool quote yes... They were walking on the downtrodden road full of pits and heaps of mud. It is difficult to walk let alone walk with giant cases. Suddenly their daughter came in a scooter from nowhere and picked up the cases from them and drove their burden away/home. They now walked freely on the stupid road. So nice of the daughter to stop and help them. I know its such a simple thing but nowadays who does even these simple things.

These two episodes really made me feel that all is not lost with humanity. People somewhere are kind. Amidst the politics, the jealously, the anger, the pointless hate there are people who are kind and helpful and good in the heart. I quote one of the youtubers I follow @joshuadtv : "Be nice to people"

Preknowledge - would you consider it bad?

Not so Chirpy today! A dull day actually! Don't feel like working so much. So I'm blogging? Yeah coz that would make life better! (being sarcastic guys). Anyway all that sarcasm isn't going to stop me from blogging. So an incident happened today. Duh that's y you are blogging. No brainer that is. You don't have a description that says you blog when an incident happens!

Okay Okay. Stop having conversations with yourself and move on gurl!

So here's what happened. One of my friends who has gone outstation needed an important piece of document which he forgot in his flat. Thankfully he had given his keys to me before leaving. He asked my other friend Neal, lets call him Neal to courier the document to him. No I don't actually have a friend named Neal but I think it would be awesome if I did. Look at me talking about all the stupid background story instead of just getting to the point. Now wait is this because of my inherent problem or do I just want to make my blog bigger as probably the story is so short. I will let you decide.

I must clarify my friend didn't ask me (which would be a simpler situation to handle) to get the document as its a guys apartment and you know how messy they are! Hopefully my friends are not reading this blog! Okay so Neal comes to me to pick up the keys. I initially give him the wrong keys and immediately realize my mistake.The flat key was huge and I instantly noticed the size of the key I gave Neal and then gave him the right key. So Neal comes back four hours later and tells me that I gave him the wrong key. I say to Neal, no Neal I distinctly remember the key and hence have given you the right key. Wow, I'm using the word Neal way too many times. No I do not have a crush on this friend or on anyone named Neal! Though would I have a crush on Neal if I knew a Neal.Probably I don't know. I should meet a Neal sometime. Mental note put "Meet a Neal" on your vision board.

So my theory is Neal didn't try to open the lock carefully. Neal remembered the key switching situation and thinks that I gave him the wrong key and has not diligently tried to open the door. So his mind just told him to stop trying and he came back! Well this is my theory! Now he has to go back and try again. So do you think my theory is correct? Did the key switching thing prejudice his attempts? If such a thing happened then its bad. You might miss on some great things if you are prejudiced! As they say never judge a book by its cover! 

Girls dont be cheap!

Something happened today and I thought I most definitely have to blog this! You need to know this to understand the story better! There is a girl in our institute who has too much attitude (Not that she is the only one with the attitude problem.) She is a super super junior of mine don't even ask how much junior. Let me give you a glimpse of her rudeness. One day I was walking back from lunch and she slammed the door at me. She knew I was going to pass through the door and yet she did that to my face. So I just try to ignore her presence around me from then on. 

My story begins today in the morning when I was sort of bored from looking at my code constantly.

So I was looking outside my window onto the new office complex. I was actually looking into empty space thinking about you know life universe and everything! An hour or so later I recollected an incident that happened when I was looking into space. My brain did a really weird thing and recorded an incident without my knowledge. 

This girl I just talked about and another junior were walking in the corridor of the new office bldg. I'm guessing that the guy had an office there. He asked the girl to wait outside and went into an office (presumably his own) and closed the door after him. I have faced such a situation before with my friends and most of the times the reason would be some of my friends office-mate would be sleeping in the office and everyone would be uncomfortable if a girl entered into the office at such a time. You know how it is with guys and waking up time. So I usually just stand outside the office and play with my mobile. In the back of my mind which was recording this incident without my knowledge I was thinking this girl would do the same. But no! She was playing with the handle of the door. She was swinging for sometime and then after making sure that there was no one around to notice her she slowly opened the door and peeped in. How cheap can you be girl! The guy has asked you not to come in. He has closed the door. Why are you so curious? Don't you have any shame! What if you were in your night dress and some guy peeped into your room? Would you like that? 

After sometime another green shirt guy comes out of the office and just hangs around in the corridor. This girls friend then comes out and the green shirt guy pulls the girls friend guy away and from her and whispers something to him. It looks like a heated conversation. I'm guessing he saw her peep in and he did not like that. Then the girls and her friend walk away! The green shirt guy walks back into the office. 

This whole episode was stored in my brain! What an episode I must say! After this episode I have a strong dislike for her and girls like her. Have some dignity gurlz. Don't be cheap that's all I have to say!

Movie sins - Maatraan

Good Morning everyone! Hmmm I seem more chirpy than usual. Well I am sure something is going to happen to make my day bad but till then we follow Inertia.

Yesterday night I saw a Surya (very famous Tamil actor) movie in Hindi. You know nowadays most Hindi movie channels telecast these dubbed movies. Apparently they don't have enough money to buy original Hindi content! So if you wanna see some latest regional movies high chances the Hindi movie channels will telecast them much earlier than the regional channels.

So the movie called Maatraan is a story about the lives of conjoined twins. They are born to a very loving family where the genetics scientist father kills ANYONE who finds out the secret of his past present and future. And that my friends is the short version of the story. I have a few points I'd like to make about the movie.

For starters it is surprising to see that the world accepted them as they were. Wow the world is really changing fast! Really!!!

A journalist swallows a highly controversial pen drive and people are trying to retrieve the pen drive from her stomach! Just a thought wont the pen drive chip get damaged and I'm guessing it cant be used ever again! Also if the information was so important why did she swallow it?

After this scene I came to know the importance of being in the right place at the right time (BIRPART). I'm guessing the movie wouldn't exist if this were not so.

BIRPART 1) Kajal Aggarwal gets a phone call which she picks up near some people who are discussing about retrieving the pen drive from the body. So she somehow convinces the guy to give her the pen drive instead of the croonies (not shown but that's what I assumed happened) and she had that much money in bulk  on her (as though she went to the bank in the evening and got that much money or she is so rich that she carries bundles in her bag all day!) to bribe him. The croonies are late! What the heck the croonies don't even wait nearby so that someone else doesn't swoop in and take their product away! Please don't tell me the world is like that because of course the world definitely is not like that!

Now spoiler alert one of the twins dies and his heart is transplanted to the other twin!

Somehow all the people reconcile the brothers death really fast!

BIRPART 2) Now somedays later Kajal Aggarwal comes to their house and notices an ipad which is open. And whats running on it when she clicks it? The video where the twins discuss about their love for Kajal Aggarwal.

People from the food control department come to raid the company owned by Suryas father. They looked through all the papers and just made a mess of them but missed one IMPORTANT DOCUMENT which would give all the information away. Now they left the stuff as it is.

Surya who picks up after them get the most important pen drive and gets a watch which immediately reminded him of the scene where a robber stole the watch from his brother which he ACTUALLY didn't  notice at all else he would have helped his brother to push the robber away!

BIRPART 3) For some reason they arrive at the conclusion that Surya needs to go to Russia. Kajal Aggarwal very conveniently has an Indian friend in the Russian embassy.

Kajal's friend, the Indian ambassador fellow in the Russian embassy has access to all of Russia's secrets which are so incriminating to them that they actually staged a murder wait not one not two but murder of a bunch of 36 that's right 36 athletes just to save face!

BIRPART 4) Now in Russia Surya is bring followed by his fathers crooks and two conjoined twins walk at the right place and right time in front of Surya making him notice the car of crooks following them.

People in car take pictures of Surya openly even when he was right in front of them.

Somehow Surya and Kajal get caught by the embassy and the Head is so gullible that Surya easily takes the gun from him and threatens him. Come on please be Realistic. After this episode they still keep Surya and Kajal around so that they can cause more damage to the country.

The Head knows that the Kajal is translating all that he says and inspite of that he discusses secrets with his countries' top scientist in front of them. Please don't be stupid!

Then there is the typical Villans fight where they are more powerful than Russian government. And of course Surya saves the day!

Ohhh I forgot one important plot point! The Russian scientist comments that researchers in India have less equipment to detect various poisons. So PAY RESEARCHERS MORE MONEY RIGHT NOW #hikefellowship

The Walk

After the gazillion health problems that I have recently developed and after a lot of pestering from my MOM, I started walking. Every evening I go for a walk near my institute. The first two days I just took a walk on our road. Then I became a little bold and decided I would go for a long walk.

For people who are familiar with my institute and the surroundings, I walked from my institute upto hospital crossed the overhead bridge and walked back and crossed the foot over bridge near station and back. This was last Sunday 10th Jan 2015. I had a lot of fun walking. I was thinking about the problem that I am working on and made a huge progress in understanding what was happening in the code. The road was deserted as it was a Sunday but peaceful and it went well.

So I decided the next day which was a Monday to walk the same route again. I thought on a weekday there should be no problem. The lanes would not be deserted but that's okay I will not concentrate on them and I would still have my personal space. Gosh the moment I thought this thing some advanced  being responsible for our creation must have laughed mischievously and said "That's What She Thinks".

So I start walking happy and concentrating more on the code. I reached the corner of the foot over bridge and noticed a father and son wearing dhoti and asking an auto wala something. I assumed it was directions to a place or something. I crossed them and moved ahead. It seemed as though they were not happy with what they heard from the auto wala. Then they started walking in the direction I was going. Then I noticed a few construction people going back home also in the same direction as I was going. There is a bus stop near the station and the construction people went to the bus stop. There were not many people on the road as I would have expected. Then after I crossed the lane near the bus stop, there was this rag picker who was walking by scrapping his slippers on the floor. I could distinctly hear this sound. He tried crossing me a few times. Looked at me to get my attention and so on and so forth. He was on alert when he saw some policemen on the road but after we crossed the policemen he was again crossing my path and looking at me and stuff. I was annoyed and irritated to hell by now. I noticed he was following me. There was no one else nearby. And somehow I didn't get the thought of going back then and there. So I went into the hospital just so that the rag picker would go away and then I could continue my path peacefully. The rag picker didn't enter the hospital and I thought great! I just took a small circle into it and came out and continued my walk. That's when I noticed the rag picker a little distance away hovering around as though waiting for me. He didn't see me though or that's what I assumed. So I told myself chuck it lets just go back from here today. A shorter walk but so what. One day I walk less that doesn't matter.

So I started retracing my steps. I noticed that outside the hospital sitting on the bench were the father and son in dhoti. I thought "ohh the boy must have been tired walking and his father must have asked him to take a seat there". There are no other seats on the road I was walking. Little did I know someone above was just unhappy with me and wanted to take revenge. The dhoti father and son started following me. I was like what the heck people don't you have any shame. The son is with you. Don't you people have any inclination that the younger generation follows you and so you should set  good morals. You are probably spoiling your sons life. All this going on in my head! I was thinking what kind of a sick pervert this guy is. I started walking fast and by now I was just interested in reaching my institute as soon as possible. Ohh by the way these people also made distinct sounds which would let me know they were there behind me without me looking back. The son would keep mumbling something. I thought it was a chant or something. They followed me on till station bridge and then there were quite a lot of people on my road and I didn't hear the constant chant and I almost ran into my institute after which I looked back to see if they were there anywhere nearby and they weren't and that ended my walk that day. Instead of feeling happy, that day I was irritated. I didn't get time to think. There was no peace! I cursed all the men in the world and was worried about how children in this world were going to survive.

Ohh and then I changed the direction of The Walk from the next day onwards!

Random Song

Thots for the day ???

Do you want to build a snowman?
Yes I want to build a snowman
But theres no snow in chennai
Yes I guess thats a big problem
My friends from Canada are boasting
Ask them to go for hiking



hehehehehehe ... Get it Get it .. go take a hike so hiking .... No... you didnt get it?? Come on thats so funny right ? ... No it isnt... Damn

#random#jealous#frozen#crushed

got that atleast ??? frozen crushed snow ... No .. really ... #sad

Tongue - Untied

I have one small problem. When I am asked a question first of all my brain gets clamped and I start thinking about a lot of stuff. And hence the answer to probably a one line answer would come out as a whole essay of stuff lingering in and around the topic in the question. May be this behavior stems out of being asked lots of essay type questions in the Indian educational system ;). After entering research I decided to get over this problem and try to be as concise as possible. Try as I did, this problem didnt get over.

But there was an incident when I succeeded. Once during lunch someone asked me a question and I replied in just one line. But out of habit I wanted to continue more and was on the verge of getting entangled into my disconnected and boring set of statements when I realized done. I had answered the question. There was nothing more to say about that topic to that person at that moment. The realization brought a sudden sense of achievement and fulfillment. At that moment and at that time a smile came on my face and the person whom I was chatting with was wondering what was so amusing about the question. Ah! what a moment it was!

But that moment and time passed and I am back to elaborate and confused self that I begun with. Trials to be concise still persist...

Morning Walk!

The idea for writing this new blog sprung from my wish to share my morning endeavors. Recently I decided to walk every morning to my Institute. The walk takes around half an hour and I reach all sweaty. Initially I thought my being sweaty will completely demotivate me from working and the whole purpose of walking would go to waste. But no! I am very fresh and all up for working after a brunch that I have in the institute. I have it at 8:30 am and yup I still call it a brunch as I skip lunch after that :)

Today morning walk was slightly more painful and thought provoking than other days. I took my laptop to the Institute and that made my bag heavy. Here I was walking and thinking about how to save my career and life, when I saw this cute labrador barking!!! It was marking it territory of course but that still brought a smile to my face. That got me thinking as to what the dog would actually see. Communication gap of course. And that lead me to this scene that I recently saw in the movie Taalash. There was this clip in which a murder scene was being investigated and some of the witnesses reported that Lila somehow knew that some thing was wrong. That Lila happened to be the name of a DOG! Hilarious scene.

There were so many things that I was thinking about which sort of if not discussed immediately goes down the whole day and by the evening when I sit to blog about it nothing comes to mind and I am left wordless! Ah that is an unfortunate end to my tale, but hopefully I can blog something more interesting than a dog barking tomorrow!

ANGER!!!

I have had a few incidences in the recent past related to the title of this post and that got me into putting my thoughts to pen though I am still wondering if one should really change the phrase "putting my thoughts to pen" to something that is more let us say modern agey.

Anyways coming back to the title of the topic. My reminiscing started when the other day I went to a Baskin Robins place to get some ice-cream. out of the blue I was reminded of an incident. A few months back my friend had taken ill and had to be admitted to Malar hospital. I used to keep my friend company during the day and some other friends used to cover the night shift. One day I got really angry at my friend because my friend had had ice-cream from Baskin-Robins the previous night inspite of being sick. I scolded my friend and was rude and that sort of created a wall between us that I probably would ever be able to break. The problem with my being angry is that I might tend to make stinging remarks like a scorpion which I later regret having made.

My later visit to the Baskin-Robins made me ask the question: Why was I really angry at my friend? I realized the answer to my question. Because my friend had had ice-cream without me. It was as simple as that. I was purely being childish.

This realization got me thinking about all the times I have been angry in my life and realized that most of the times I have been angry for stupid reasons which could have been sorted out without much ado. For example the ice-cream episode could have been sorted out if I had just left my friend got some ice-cream from Baskin-Robins and had it together. Period.

The story doesnt end there. I have had a weird kind of experience with my being angry as well. Recently we have some new computers in our office and the keyboards are not very good. In the sense that one makes a lot of noise while typing. This one day I wanted to take a bit of a nap in the office when my officemate was busy working. I got a serious headache from my officemate typing on the keyboard (it seemed like a rattlesnake had entered the office) and I really got pissed off and angry. So I got up from my resting position with a rage that would burn the whole of matscience as Kannagi burned the whole of madurai. I also started typing hard on my keyboard with full music on (of course i didnt want to hear the drumming). This was supposed to be my revenge. Surprising enough I managed to complete a section of my work which had been pending for I dont know may be ages. I was surprised at my capabilities actually. Thankfully this officemate of mine knew me a bit more didnt judge me and we are friends still! These types of incidences have happened to me before. In the sense due to anger on someone I was able to shut that portion of my life completely and shift focus fully to a new thing at which I have excelled.

But now I am totally confused. On one side i have my anger ruining my relationships and on the other I have anger trying to help me to work better.  What I take back from this reminiscing is that if I do get angry then instead of shouting and being rude, if I could just channelize my anger to something else then I might actually do something good.

Outraged!!

What in the worlds hell is happening in our country? I seriously want to know.

I open Facebook and I see a post from my friend about an article publish in Times of India that says that people are looking for Brahmin sperms. How crazy is that? I mean don't you people know that the childs mind develops depending on the situation and the circumstances that it is in. So if you carefully nurish the child he will grow to be a wonderful person. Isnt that what they want? Or do they want to completely strip the kid of its creativity. I am stunned at this behaviour and want to know why you want a kid in the first place.

I go down below to see another post from another friend about the recent program that has been started by Amir Khan called Satyemave Jayate. He has posted a blog in which the guy had alternate view about the program. Firstly what does the program do? The program is an Indian analog of the Opera Winfrey show.  Two episodes of the show have been telecasted as of today and the topic that were discussed were female foeticide and child abuse. Social causes that the government is doing nothing about. The program creates an awareness among the people. I didnt know for example that the percentage of female foeticide in the urban areas is more than that in the rural areas. I was under the impression that education make people broad minded and I see that a person who is a doctor whom we go to to save our lives is killing his own seed. Another misunderstanding got cleared today when I came to know that among children boys face a larger share of abuse. I am sure a lot of people would have been under this fog.

 Coming back to the program, I do agree that it gets a bit emotional and may be the issues could have been handled better. But the ulterior motive of the program is good and I guess that doesnt get into the minds of the people. Returning to this blog from which I took a small detour, that had an alternative view about the program. Not three episodes of the program has been telecasted and this guy talks about doing just things that Amir has asked not to do. What is the mind set of this guy and people who support him.

It is not just this program but most programs in india are treated emotionally because believe it or not indians are emotional. So if thats the way to attract the public to social issues then so be it. Even a program like Roadies which mostly used to be about bikes and difficult tasks to perform has now stooped down to the level of talking about peoples personal lives. Its possible that they are doing this for their TRP but knowing that there are people in the world who have faced similar problems and have come out of it colourfully gives hope to survive. Hope to fight and that is the what is needed.

The message that I would like to put forth is that think about what you are doing before doing it. 

How important is a title?

A new day begins with a new post!! The day usually begins in the same usual manner: I get up, brush take bath and head to the office where a number (usually greater than 45) articles are waiting for me to go through in Google reader. Looking at the number of articles to read puts me in a bad mood but as i start reading the titles of the articles and see that of the junk of articles one or two are relevant to my field and then i am happy as i have few articles to read. It also boosts my moral as it shows that the field is not that popular that zillions of papers are published in a day and I can still survive in this field :).


One thing I realized from reading these articles: the title of the article is the most important thing. If the title is not catchy or doesn't contain some keywords I don't even bother to read the abstract of the article. A very sad incident related to this happened to a friend of mine recently. My friend et al strived really hard in writing a paper and sent it to PRL for reviewing and publishing. A day after they sent the paper, my friend got a mail from the PRL editor saying that the title of the paper has been changed! He was feeling as though "neeche se zameen phisal gayi ho".. the after effects of the shock was seen even after two days of this event. The changed title was the worst ever possible. It seemed like the editor felt that the work done by these people was crap! My friend et al went through the rules and regulations of PRL submission to check if this sort of thing could be possible and revolted against the editor. Well the fight is still in progress and hopefully it will be a win for the right!


Recently we had applied to a contest conducted by NVIDIA. There was a one hour long discussion as to what could be a suitable title for the proposal sent by us. We didnt want to make the title too technical so that the common masses wouldnt understand and at the same time we didnt want to be too non technical such that it would sound cheesy to the tecno guys. But alls well that ends well and we came up with a very nice title the details of which I shall post after getting to know the results of the contest. Well we hope to win or atleast come in the top three. With that hope I end my post. ADIOS! 

KK the singer

I have not thought of a topic to write on but decided to go with the flow of my mind....
So what would i like to say today i think.....
Of the top of my head, I have been working a lot on group theory lately but lets not discuss that....
hmmmmm ......
Lets talk about the singer KK....
Oh for this i can go on and on but I shall try to stop somewhere ;)

He is a versatile singer .......
He sings in various languages .....
There is a spell cast on you when u hear him sing.
One is completely mesmerized by how he can pitch his voice really really high...
It seems like he really feels the lyrics when he sings the songs.
And also somehow he choose the songs with the correct rhythm that just fits with his voice.
I have been his fan from a very very long time and i simply adore him even now...
And his voice suits most of the actors that he has sung for. So the whole package seems a good deal.
There are some songs which were neither solo nor a duet but a group song like "Hum dono jaisa" from the movie "Mere yaar ki shaadi hai" and even there the group just piece up together ... Is it because of his good relations with the other singers or because of very good sound mixing i dont know but what matters is that I love his songs even though he has not been appreciated by the indian film board. And I dont think he minds either as I have not seen him cursing them for not giving him credit. This is a quality that very few people (definitely not me) have.
A few songs of kk like "I am very sorry", "Maine dil se kaha" are on my playlist and I shall spend the rest of the day working with this background

A Penny for a thought

It has been quite some time since my last blog and that definitely is not a good feeling. When I was in Pune i used to have long walks in the fields of trans (not transalor ;) ). After coming to Chennai and off late I feel that I have stopped taking these walks and hence stopped writing blogs too not that i used to frequently write blogs in Pune as such but atleast there used to be something worth thinking about and I really treasure these walks. Recently my mind seems clogged by stuff and there is no room for a peaceful idea. With lot of determination and some plumbing there is a start for the flow of words.

 Today was a special day in many ways ... Got up really early in the morning .. actually forgot how 6 'o' clock looks like  :) and experienced an amazing weather ... there was cool breeze giving a sensation of rain... wow simply amazing!! This sort of inspired me to write. And then that got me wondering inspiration seems an important motivation for writing. Most generally a sad moment in life triggers a thought process that makes one think about what lead to the sad moment. So are sad incidences the only seeds for inspiration or can happy ones also blossom into something as beautiful as a string of sensible and rhythmic words? When one is happy, one is enjoying the moment so much that one just doesn't think about putting their thoughts to pen. Another inspiration for writing seems to be solitude. Would you call this a happy or a sad moment or is it just a moment away from the mundane day to day routine? I have no answers for these questions right now but whatever may be the reason, i am happy that all is not lost and somethings can be revived ;)

Pune !!!!

This story starts when a friend of mine posted a youtube video of a song sung by Avhdoot Gupte. People who are from Maharashtra will know him well and for those who dont, he is a pop singer who has sund songs like "pori zara halu halu chaal" and "tujhe dekh ke meri madhubala" . This particular song which my friend posted on facebook is called "kande pohe".
Well the story is not about him, but what he represents- Maharashtra and in particular "Pune".

When I left Pune, I told my friends that I would never miss the place and that I shall be the most happiest person to get away from there. But now I realize I really miss pune. I have spent the maximum part of my life in Pune. I cherish the wonderful time that I spent there.

During my bachelor, I used to stay in a private hostel around a 15 minute walk from the college (It actually takes only 5 mins to the gate and the extra time to reach the department. The college campus is so damn huge !!!!! ). Our exams (in the second and fourth sem) generally used to be at 2 pm and my room mate and I used to walk in the scorching heat to the College. It was her idea to take an umbrella with us to protect us from the sun burns. Besides the sun there used to be a breeze that always managed to fold our umbrellas and make us late to the college.

I have lived in Pune for 6 years and in that time I have changed hostels/pg's like 8 times ... oooo I didnt realize it was that many times. Each place was in a different locality and each place had a different impact on my life .....
The best were my stay at the hostel during graduation and during post graduation. In both places guys were strictly not allowed !!!!

During my graduation, there was a strict rule that there would be no food in the mess on sunday night. So you have to go out and eat. The road on which we used to stay, called the F.C. road, is very famous for its restaurants. People from all over Pune come here during weekends to spend time with their loved ones. Some used to come looking for someone to hook up with. There used to be a bunch of guys from NDA (clean shaven, well dressed and their hair cut! I love the haircut) who used to look for girls whom they can take as dates to the NDA ball which is a pretty prestigious affair. There was food, booze and good music. The only thing missing were girls (very few girls chose a career in defense) and they came searching for them.

And then we used to have a lot of birthday parties. We used to play loud music at 12 in the night during the parties and the hostel warden would kick us off to bed... literally !!!! Our group of 10 was well known (not for the good !!!!). After a while these birthday parties got so tiring that we decided not to have it any more !!!!

My post grad hostel was far far worse than my grad hostel. But well we got used to that too. I have this really nice habit (annoyin to some it may seem ). Suppose Im in a really kool mood, and my room mates are talkin (in hindi), then I start singing a song which involves some or a few of the words used by them. During exams, when I have just worked out some lengthy calculations in qft or am satisfied with the amount of studies, I get into one of these moods. My room mates used to kick me out of the room ... What lovely days !!!


I miss Pune a lot ... the people who were there with me, the infinite number of crushes (i dont get to see any good guys here :( ), break ups and make ups with friends, the gurudwara, the cold coffee (at durga...), the pani puri (at canal road, or at KNP), the restaurants, the food (even though i hate every maharashtrian dish except khichdi, kadi, bhagar, poha, pav bhaji, thalpeeth, and a few more), the aayapan temples, the treks, the fights, the shopping with my room mate, ABC ohh the list is endless !!!

Independence !

My random thought process led to the topic of discussion. It all started with a clutcher, and by the end of it I remembered an incident where my friends told me that they are totally dependent on their parents for buying some of their personal stuff. Lets stray away from the details of what that stuff were and focus on the point, "Independence". Then I started thinking what is it in the first place. It is that which lets you make decisions of your own.


In most of the foreign countries children leave the parents after a certain age (in most cases it is after high school). In India the case is quite different as you will see. If you are a girl, your parents will support you till you get married after which your so called husband will support you. And if you are a boy, then your parents will support you, till the time you start supporting them (This trend is changing, but it will take centuries to reach the final state.) Parents will take all the decisions for you. They will tell you which field is apt for you which is miles away from your capabilities. They will take decisions for you in such a way that you will feel there are no other options, what they are "suggesting" is the best solution. In fact you will feel there could be no other solution. In the end you will be made to believe that it was your solution all along !!!!!! This is the reason why people are not able to make good decisions. They are not even able to get their priorities right.

It is very important to be able to make your own decisions. You may not make the right decisions always, but you will never blame anyone else for the wrong decisions. You get to learn from the mistakes you make. You get to know how to handle your life your way. You get to know how good you are at managing.


I realize that I cannot live a life where I was bound to something or someone (no offense). I appreciate it as a lot of what I am comes from this independence.

Holidays

Generally in matscience its very difficult to get a holiday. Why? 
1) In a year there are only 8 festive holidays.
2)Some profs miss the regular classes due to their children's illness and so take extra classes on saturday and sunday.
3) There is generally a non trivial assignment that we need to submit and so the whole day goes off, workin out the assignment.
I think these are sufficient to explain my point.
So by mistake if we get a holiday on which we are actually free then what we do is sleep the whole morning, go directly for lunch and then lazily start studyin ... But nowadays when we have lectures in the mornin and I need to get up by 9 ( atleast) to attend class at 9:30 I dont feel like getting up. And if once in a blue moon when I get a holiday, I get up at 8 and start workin like a machine. Strange !!!!

Old is Gold!

Today I was listenin to some old songs- some sung by kishore and I realized how happy some songs can make you. I mean these songs are way before my time, but still I wonder without even watchin the movies, how do I know the lyrics of some of the songs? Strange aint it! Now when I go about watchin the movies, I feel they are really absurd! But the songs still linger in my mind!
         Our marriages as in tamil marriages generally go on for three days. Why suddenly this talk about marriages?? I will come to that in a moment. The main event of the marriage when the groom ties the mangal sutra on the brides neck generally happens on the second day in the morning. The second day afternoon, there is a session in which the bride and the groom play a game with coconuts and some chips (appalam in tamil). During this session, there is a music round when the family members of both sides sing and have a gala time. This is generally a sad time for the bride's side because after this officially the bride is sent off to the groom's place forever. The family members generally rehearse for this the previous night. All age old senti songs for the bride's send off (bidaai we say in hindi) are sung. Since our family listen to both hindi and tamil songs one gets to hear them practice both. Some of my relatives cant sing well but they have a very good collection of songs. I love this part of our marriages and thats when I realized this - this part of the marriage session is how I know the lyrics opf some of the age old songs that i frequently used in antakshari.

The songs that are sung nowadays do not have that feel to them. The lyrics are much more vulgar and definitely not smooth. I am not claiming that old songs are very pure. For example the other day my office mate played one of akshay kumars' song called "Zeher hai ki pyaar hai" and I had an expression on my face that said what the heck was going on in the 90's. One who has seen and heard the song would share my reaction. So the movies did go through a period which now seems absurd! all the same there are some  old songs worth treasuring and that really rejuvenate your existence.

Say what you want!

I was going thro' the blog of my friend today and I was amazed at how wonderfully he put his thoughts into words. It was just too good. I really suck at sayin exactly what I want to say. Most often I am misjudged. I always wonder why. When I start analyzing what I have said it doesn't seem to me that I have said something to offend people.  A friend of mine once informed me that in field of research, it is really important to convey your point to absolute precision. Like once I was discussing lagrangian formulation and I wanted to say that if I change the Lagrangian by a total derivative term that vanishes at the boundary, then the equations of motion do not change. But somehow I ended up implyin that the action remains invariant due to this. See how totally different the two statements are. In my mind its absolutely clear what I want to say. But the process of measurement (sayin it) leads to a delta function block in my throat and I end up sayin crap! To rectify this process I have started to think before sayin what I want, try to put it correctly and then say it. But by the time I say it, the moment has passed and I end up silent as the lambs.

My Knowledge of Chennai

It all started a month ago when I had a bet with my friend on which station would lead us to Chennai Egmore. We were using the MRTS. I lost the bet of course and thats when I realized that I knew nothin about Chennai (By the way its been 5 months since I have been in Chennai).

My knowledge is relative to Matscience which is near to Indira nagar station ("not Kasturibai nagar not Thiruvanmayur but INDIRA NAGAR STATION!!!!! " This is what you will have to constantly repeat to the auto walas if you take an auto from Adayar).

There are two main multiplexes in Chennai. One at City Center which is INOX and one Satyam movies near Thousand lights. So if you wanna use the MRTS (we use the train which is by the way the best way to travel around Chennai), you get down at Lighthouse and walk from there (a short walk) to city center where you will find INOX. For going to Satyam on the other hand you need to get down at Chintadripet station and from there take an auto which shouldnt cost more than 30. A direct auto costs around 100 during the day and 150 during night (You will definitely need to bargain though).

Oh! I almost forgot. Say you have to go to Chennai Central or Chennai Egmore. There are three stations which cause one hell of a confusion (and this is the reason I lost the bet) Park, Park Town and Fort. I have finally figured it out. To go to Central you have to go to Park Town and walk up or go to Park and the station is right across. To go to Egmore you need to get down at Fort and take another train. 

And just last week I found out that to go to Marina beach, you again need to get down at Lighthouse and walk the opposite direction to city center. The very famous Queen's Mary college and Stella Mary's college (if you see tamil movies you would know why these are so important) are on that same road connectin city center and marina beach.

As of now this all I know about Chennai. More exploration after the semester end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!