Hi !

A few days ago, someone told me that an IT engineer couldn’t get a cheque or something cleared in bank because his sign did not match, even after trying like 10 times… Reason: He hadn’t held a pen in his hand for many years… Well, I saw a similar thing happening with me since a few days… No, not with pen… but with the keyboard… I just couldn’t come up with something good to share about… not that I have always done. But you know, when come to visit your own blog once in 3 months, people do expect from you something worth reading :P … or the blog becomes obsolete… in my case though, now I feel it has already become obsolete, so I don’t really care what I write and not… I don’t understand what kept me away, lack of inspiration maybe. I even thought that I might lose the style I have, which most people love. I was afraid that a shade of sarcasm and a comic touch, they say it has, might go away.

As I went through some of my recent posts, I realized I am totally handicapped to even come up with anything close. Such kind of commitment and fervor and passion….! Most of my blog posts came up when I was graduating, after that I have not come up with many, and whatever things I have written aren’t that good….! I think it’s the constant working of your brain on different topics, no matter how lame, stupid or at times rational, that keeps your mindscape in shape and helps add to the blog’s landscape.

Let’s just hope that I am not free from the jinx of my style.

And please let me know who all still visit my blog.. please raise your hands… :P or … just say a Hi in the comments section, so I know who still has/have hopes from the hopeless… :D

Goodnight/day !

Ending From SCRATCH . . .

Let’s say you get a terrific idea one day- one which sends your head reeling into trans-Uranian orbit immediately. Assume you've discovered how to encode The Encyclopedia Britannica onto a tiny scratch on a six-inch bar of metal. And, as if that wasn’t enough to rock Neptune around the Sun(hehe), that scratch of yours wouldn’t even contain any information on it like those old
vinyl (short, medium and long) playing records used to.

While the whole World falls at your feet in delirious astonishment, you produce your stardom. There are (you explain to them gently like one talking to bunch of silent lambs) fewer than 100 different letters and symbols in the print Encyclopedia.

What you plan to do is assign a 2-digit number to each of these symbols. For instance, letter A might be 01, letter B might be 02, semicolon could be say 51, a space between words say 67 and so on till u have them all covered. Now just like with this cipher system the word "bat" could be encoded as say, 020120, you can also, and obviously encode the entire encyclopedia into one huge number.

As many earthlings faint with awe, you then unleash your master stroke by placing a decimal point in front of this monster number and converting it into a decimal fraction.

Then you place a scratch on the bar dividing it precisely into lengths ‘a’ and ‘b’ so that fraction “a/b” (a upon b) equals the decimal fraction of the code. All you have to do now is, have a Super
Computer, measure the rod, compute the fraction a/b, and print out a copy of entire Encyclopedia!!!

Two questions--
(a) Is there anything theoretically wrong with this premise?
(b) Could it work in practice?

COMMENTS DEMANDED….. Please make sure you do leave your thought over this………
Have a nice day/night!

Movie Review

Movie: Phas Gaye Re Obama.

Starring: Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, Amol Gupte, Sanjay Mishra.

Director: Subhas Kapoor.

A complete laugh riot, Phas gaye re Obama is a very intelligently made film. With a very small budget of 3Crore, the director himself seems to be quite impressive as a businessman, coz the profits he is gonna reap out is massive!

The movie is based on the global recession which started in the US and the upshots of this ‘bimari’ (as is stressed upon by the director time and again) on the kidnapping world. The hierarchy of the underworld depicted is so witty with the ‘respected’ Mantris on top of the chain of command.

Rajat Kapoor is, not surprisingly, brilliant. He is one of the actors I really adore, and lives up the expectations, as always. The otherwise glam-girl, Neha Dhupia, has delivered the role of ‘Munni’ (Gabbar’s sister), very convincingly. Full marks. There are no big names in the movie, but still the movie is carried really well. Great direction, apt dialogues and spanking new take on the recession hit underworld of India and big businesses in US.

Om Shastri (Rajat Kapoor), a successful businessman settled in US is worst hit by recession and loses all his property wrestling with it. To pay back the loans to the bank he decides to sell his inherited ‘haveli’ in India. In his quest of finding a buyer in recession-hit India, he ends up getting kidnapped by Bhaisaab (Sanjay Mishra), leader of a small gang in the city. The movie shows the pecking order of Om Shastri’s abductors, & how he manages to break out from kidnapper to the one above him in the kidnapping ladder, making huge profits for himself and his abductor.

A Businessman who came here to save his property in US from being sold out ends up not only in making huge profits for himself but also for the underworld gangs and the minister. And this is why I call it ‘an intelligent’ movie.

My Rating: A must watch !!!

Stars: 4.5

Goodnight/day

India Unbound

After thinking for quite a long time, I finally fixed on to writing a review of the book I recently read- “India Unbound” by Gurcharan Das. The author is a graduate from Harvard College & Business School. Former CEO of P&G, India. To know more about him click here.

The book eloquently analyses India socially, economically, politically in the post-independence era. How the leaders took wrong lessons from history and stuck to the Nehruvian philosophy for 40 good years which, to a great extent or completely, restricted liberalization and made India rigid when the globe and the Asian tigers revolutionized.

The British-Raj, The License-Raj, The Inspector-Raj, The plight of entrepreneurs, The bondages of Socialism and finally the reforms of 1991 followed by emergence of the economy as an uncaged tiger. Each period so powerfully expressed providing a deep scrutiny to the economic & political changes in India. The author grooves not only into the socio-economic India but also the managerial failure of the leaders post independence.

Author cites various examples from ancient history, relevant in the context of new India. Here I state one such, Alexander-Porus battle (326BC) signified the lack of team work of the Puru’s infantry-cavalry. The caste system in India since the very beginning engendered this disarray which prevails even today !

Author also elaborates on Marwaris’ and Gujratis’ acumen for business. What makes them so successful in their ventures and what exactly distinguishes them from others. He has quite satisfactorily tried to answer “If we were once rich, why are we now poor?”. Comparison between India and other nations (esp. China) made by the author at every significant point of time provides a lot of understanding.

In narrating the stories of most of India’s entrepreneurs, he paints his personal story into the framework of contemporary history. His family moves to America in mid 1950’s, his education in Harvard, his years in India as a young marketing executive, wrestling with social system which he feared would underestimate the country’s vast potential .His final decision to retire at the culmination of his career as a CEO in USA company and return to India in order to ‘make a difference’ in the Indian society and economy.

He concludes saying that, “India will never be a tiger .It is an elephant, which has begun to lumber slowly. It will never have speed but will have stamina. Although slower, India is more likely to preserve its way of life and its civilization of diversity, tolerance and spirituality against the onslaught of global culture.”

Well, I could have written more in the review, but I’m thrilled…..!!!!!
Wait for my next post ! sorry for leaving the review halfway thru…… :P but i gotto rush upstairs right now...

see ya...

My Bong Connection

This is one thing I always wanted to write, but I always procrastinated because I always felt I won’t be able to do justice to these two wonderful people I have met in my life! But today somehow something happened and it gave me a nudge to finally make an attempt to pen down/key down my feelings. Afterall, most of my posts have come during my semester exams :P haven’t they? 

Okay. Rewind.

July of 2006:
 Engineering Admission. Coming to Mumbai was a serendipity, shall post about it sometime later. So discovered that the college I took admission in has no girls’ hostel and I had to look for my own accommodation. Fine. Initial 20 days, I sought refuge in UDCT (later MUICT, later UICT) and now ICT, my college-in-law ( ;P ) And later, since my in laws were very stubborn about not letting it out to VJTIians, we had to search for hostels or Paying Guest accommodations. Hostels.. in july… ha! Ye hai bambaiii meri jaan.. everything is booked well in advance. Some hostel we checked near college, had a waiting period of one year ! :D

We knew a family in Mumbai and they generally kept a PG. We approached them but they already had a ‘bengali’ living with them. But they suggested us about Mr Mandal (Bengali), who also keeps PGs on rent. And this flat was just above Chaurasia’s in the same building. The result- A smile on my mom’s face. Hehe !

Mandal (Mondal) was the family I was destined to spend the BEST DAYS of my life with!!! College days are the best days, aren’t they? Engineering+MBA… ie 6-7 years you spend with someone, they sure become a part of your life. For me, uncle and aunty are my second mom & dad.

We celebrated birthdays, marriage anniversaries, and festivals together. They have tradition of making ‘payas’(rice-kheer) if there is anyone’s birthday in the family. They did it on my first birthday with them. I still remember how overwhelmed I was. Then to add to it, aunty gifted me a beautiful dress! How these small things matter a lot in life. I never felt I stayed away from home. And that always pacified my mom and dad.

Since they are Bengalis, I even learnt iktu-iktu Bangla, just by hearing to their conversations :P. First time in my life I was surrounded with people ALL of whom loved Saurav Ganguly, the LOVE OF MY LIFE! I felt like I’m in Bengal already :D  Sooo many Bengalis out here… Mr Das, Mr Pal, Mr Dasgupta Mr Chattopadhyay, oh the list just goes on ! We supported KKR together. We fumed in anger when Chapell-Dada tiff happened. We partied when Dada hit a double century! We were sad when he retired. We enjoyed when he led KKR. Again we abused Shahrukh for keeping Dada out of KKR. And now, we support Pune Warriors India! :D We call ourselves M.A.Ds= Mad About DADA !

I taught Shubham and his friends Mathematics, Science during their 10th/12th.I was always there to solve their doubts in the midst of their exams, you know, just like i'd've been there for Akshay, my brother. Still can't forget the smile on his face after his M1 paper of 12th boards, because 2 sums that I taught him the morning just before the exam, appeared in the paper :D.... running all the way to me and saying "Didi, you are the best!" Though I wish i'd've been there for my bro too :| ( but that's a different thing )Our Carrom nights ! Post-dinner, Me-Shubham, Uncle-Aunty, Carrom board, some cold drinks and hours of Carrom on Saturday nights !!!! Wonderful!
Our Badminton nights, me shubham and aunty used to play badminton at nights. Ofcourse, can’t have more of it now, ‘cause my college timings don’t allow me to  :|

Well, That’s the fun part. But how our relationship has grown from strength to strength is one thing I can’t stop wondering about. To be honest, I never had to pay them in currency (I mean 3500/month with food and everything is not a huge amount in bombay) We dealt in love and care. They loved me like a daughter. I loved them like I love my mom dad. When I finally got admission to MBA and was searching for accommodation again, Aunty offered me to stay with them, just like that, without even the minuscule 3500. Isn’t this a gesture of pure love? An unwritten and unexpressed bond of love.

The extra care she took during all my exams. Tea at regular intervals, so that I did not doze off. My favorite Aloo posto she’d make atleast once during exams. Oh and not to forget, Dahi-shakkar before I left for every paper of every semester exam !

Small things in life, eh !
Totally lucky me ! :)

Goodnight/day !

Informing about your death !

"The world's tallest building is 508m tall"

I came across this fact when I was just sifting out my all my books n random papers (cupboard of a to-be-engineer is full of Xerox pages, mostly crap). I read the fact again, and my brain resorted to thinking. As follows-

'If you fall from this above mentioned building, will u have enuf time to take out your cell and call your mom to inform her the catastrophe? Or call your the-loved-one and inform him/her that its all over, and say the last 'I love you…' before you hit the ground?'

Analysis:

(every analysis follows assumptions, that I'll key down later)

So,

1. To make this analysis, we need to find out the terminal velocity, I had to stretch my memory lane back to the days at Lakhakar's, plus some phone calls later, it was decided that terminal velocity for human with limbs outstretched is about 55.6m/s. (the amount of research that went into coming up with this blog is enormous. ;)
2. so, the body accelerates to this speed from 0 m/s at 9.8m/s/s (metres per second square), we assume. Time taken to reach terminal velocity from rest turns out to be a shade less than 5.7 seconds. (infamous Newton's Laws of motion)
3. and distance descended during this time is 160.6m, assuming, tho, that you don't hit the sides on your way to death :P
4. total time you take to hit the ground or so to say, to meet death is 5.7 + 6.27 = 11.9seconds.
5. is this time enuf to say, to your loved one, specifically that, "I'm falling from world's tallest building. I love you. Goodbye." -- assuming u speak 3 words per second?

The answer is Yes!

(You can test this one by phoning your loved one from the ground, saying these things, and timing yourself, to check out if it's possible. Ofcourse, do call them back to reassure them)

WARNING: You probably wont have time to text an sms.

Assumptions made:

1. terminal velocity,
2. the value of 'g'=9.8m/s/s,
3. you don't hit the sides on the way down,
4. the number is assigned to some speed dial key, n u press the correct key.
5. you press the key the moment you fall,
6. the recipient receives the phone at the first ring itself. `
7. The network coverage is great. (MOST IMP. ASSUMPTION)

Time it would take to hit the ground if you jump from---

-Eiffel tower(300m) : 7.7s
-Empire state building (381m) : 9.16s
-Mount Everest (8848m) : 2min 42s
-The depth of Mariana Trench(10924m) : 3min 19s

I guess three min is long enuf for death by heart failure than by hitting the ground.

Now, Wonder if Mount Everest and Mariana Trench were next to each other, the depth of fall from Mount Everest into the trench would be about 6mins and distance of about- 19772m.

Hehe!

"Oh shut it, let me sort out my books n arrange the cupboard…" says my brain after exploring those equations and those goddamn values . . .

Goodnight/day.

Candid Confessions....

There were certain beliefs/principles/ideas I used to believe in when I was very young.
It was very difficult to convince my brain and persuade it to let me blog it because one part, the merrier, knew how juvenile it was and the other, rather mature, had full conviction of its foolishness. : ) the latter always got the better of me only till today afternoon when I finally made the former more powerful.

These were really my misconceptions and I’m sure everybody in life must’ve had one, if not so many.

--If we light a candle from a flaming candle, the flame of the candle should get halved. (How stupid! but that's what i feel now.)

--If there are 2 people infronta TV initially, and if another 2 add up, making it total up to 4, the Audio volume of the television should be doubled too. That if no. of persons were doubled, screen size should be doubled, tho, never came to my mind (I wonder now, why)

--A typical ‘Doctor’s Prescription’ looks something like this…

Mom used to sign it and give it to patients. This means ‘blah-blah’ medicine (here, say, Combiflam). Encircled number (here, 6) means- ‘so many’ to be bought. This is rather hilarious. I used to conceive it in an utterly diverse manner! I envisioned what the patient does as- cuts the encircled part of the paper perfectly along the circumference drawn by mom, puts it in a glass of warm water and ‘those many’ number of tablets would precipitate out ApneAap! :P
When I confessed this to mom, she went mad in laughter! And Pa? he says its rather awful to even think of me to be a daughter of two Doctors! :P

--Spellings- I never had much problem with spellings ever. But in my more immature days, I was more dim witted, or say an extra-thinker. Anything. Once while I was in my ‘junior kg’ish days, I was going thru spellings of eleven, twelve et al. when the spelling ‘thirteen’ brought some skepticism in my mind. I ran to my sis, who was then in ‘mine+3’ std and asked her about it. She said what’s wrong with the spelling, dear. And I, totally bemused, asserted to her that the spelling ‘thirteen’ is wrong! And so are some more spellings following it. She said – WHAT !!! (she was shocked seeing my confidence, :P)
I explicated- see, it should be ‘thirtteen’. She says BUT WHY ??? My answer was- (innocently) one ‘t’ of ‘thirt’ and the other ‘t’ for ‘teen’ making it ‘thirt’+’teen’ = ‘thirtteen’. She tried her best to convince me of ‘thirteen’ as correct spelling but nothing seemed to quench it. Only over a period of time now, I’m satiated after observing entire world following ‘single ‘t’ ‘ in thirteen.

hehe...

Some more adding up to the list are as follows :)

--While a child, I used to think that more the hair are watered, like grass, more will they grow. This was rather very verry innocent... <3

--At that tender age daily soaps that mom n sis used to watch had some deeper & weird impact on me. I used to feel that WE sitting in India can watch these people, present somewhere else in the world, on TV. Whatever they talk, whatever they do, how ever they behave, we either like or dislike. And I used to imagine that somewhere in the world, ( I clearly remember the name of the country- RUSSIA :P, dunno why only Russia! )In Russia, people can see what we are doing as well :P… which probably gave me inspiration to behave well :D :D talk good… study good (in those days) :D The more I got exposed to reality, all these good things started to alleviate :) Sometimes I even used to look at the ceiling, in search of a camera that aids them to see us :P

--Whenerver I used to go out with mom, on two wheeler, seeing the vehicles flow on both the sides, I used to wonder, why don’t any two of them collide ever ???!!! :P Mom never even bothered to answer my question. :D !! Worse, why did I bother to even ask????

Goodnight/day.

A toast to my buddies..

There’s a reclining corner in everyone’s life, you know, a place where you can just tilt back, seek comfort, and talk and talk and talk yourself out, with the conviction that the person who you are talking all this out to, isn’t getting bored stiff and is listening to you with equal concern. Well, I’m lucky. I have made many such corners in life, the people I love, my friends!

I have been truly blessed. My friends- the major part of what makes me. I wanna tag a number of people here, to begin with: Janhavi, Neha, Renuka [din’t know which name to put first, thank God the alphabets have a sequence :D ] These are my friends since….ummmm……. ever. I dunno where it started. But we make the best best best of friends..

Friends!! Sometimes we have so many words to say about them and some other times we fall short of the very words. Today is that one odd day when I have so much to write but no combination of words will do justice to what I wanna convey! Reaching out to each other in times of dejection, sometimes just some long SMSs to undo the blues, talking about resp. boyfriends [ :P :P , @boyfriends: ;) ;) yes we do! ] recollecting all those hilarious gaffes; to mention a few- when renuka fell off the stairs in jnec college or the one at the ‘Monica Chowk’ or the fship day when I, completely drenched in rains, lost my footing and fell down. Each time we recollect it, we laugh, laugh even louder than ever before. There are special moments that bring us even closer, reinforce the friendship, tighten the bond and make us establish, every time, firmly that yes, these are the people I don’t wanna lose ever!

Minus 4 years:

Onset of a new life- the graduation, we parted our ways, so to say. Different cities……. different group of friends…. Lesser meet ups... To be honest, I was scared. This was the only concrete group of friends I had… I didn’t wanna lose them, sure, but more than that I never wanted them to have a group better than ours…. :P [Mean I am, I know]

And my wish came true …….. : ) its “US” even today for each of us !!! :D : )

Today when we are at the inception of a newer life… jobs and PG and what not… I hope things will remain constant as they have been till now. I love extrapolation. And the trend says, nothing will change : )

You all have endured my worst of behaviors and yet I have you guys there as the firm rock that I can rely on. There have been times when I have mistaken, misbehaved, crossed my line but each time you all disregarded it. What? What more can I ask you guys for? Thanks for being there through the best and worst of my times. All the happiness I have had in all my life, has mostly come outta the fact that I posses you all, my best friends… the best best best best people of the world !!! [ quite often, in describing you gals, one ‘best’ doesn’t decipher all the feelings, multiple ‘best’s fall short too :P ]

@Janu: I’m still serious about having our houses next to each other’s and all ‘those’ things we dreamt of !!! ;) ;) Oh what fun, it will be !! : )

Love you all…

Goodnight/day!!!

[ feels good being prosaic after a long long time, poetry is off for a while, I hope : ) ]

T for Time

I generally don’t get absorbed by nostalgia, perchance ‘cause I’m a completely mind-numbing when I’m alone. But once I’m teamed up with certain ‘things or people’, nostalgia starts oozing out. These ‘things or people’ are ‘friends and trains n rains’. The desk partners, their crushes, the teachers, their bloopers, the exams and the scores, quizzes and debates, the common offs and attendance, siblings and fun, everything just flashes in fronta my eyes when I m in train, as if the entire view outside the window is a slideshow of my life till now. It makes me smile in innocence or at times guilty of my mistakes. Or even worse, at times, makes me have certain realizations of how wrong I was then … all that and much more, ofcourse the inability to describe it here doesn’t condense its intensity. What I have in my mind are memories which I rarely feel inclined to go through, only to cherish them when I’m teamed up with my friends.

Friends, trains and rains have some magical powers to access my memories. Not the sad ones, only the glad ones. Some incredibly amazing authority to completely take hold of my memories, and then imparting an inertia to relapse to the Present! My mind gets completely soaked and all it wants is to remain there, not to come back in today’s worries or tomorrow’s uncertainties and (im)probabilities. It deports my brain to some sorta world in which there is no ‘Time Government’ unlike in the present where it governs you and will always do so in future too. Its some state of being where we have been and where we cant ever be again.

Sometimes I end up repining about how it has been, and sometimes cherishing that i-am-so-glad-its-been-this-way. Its mixed. Mostly the latter part though. Its some sorta gizmo, yes, memories are gizmos, that cheer you up! Memories are latent, something that is there but cant be seen. Its something that plenishes your blanks! I can stroll deep into these lanes and absorb myself in them until something external reverts me to present, only to the realization that, Time does exist no matter how much you hate it and will keep governing your life, no matter how much don’t want it to.

So here I’m, wasting my time, writing this obtuse blog, coz I really hate thing called Time. Waste it if you hate it….

Goodnight/day !!!!

an insect... whatever the name is...

An insect, found lying on the floor outside this hotel in Kerala, invited my attention when I was just just about to step over it : ) I observed it for some moments.. each time I turned it upright, it turned itself upside down as if it had jumbled definitions of sky and earth … :P I picked it up and placed it on a Tata Indica :) to get some good pictures of it before it was dead :P

Minutes later did it strike to me that insects turn upside down when they are about to die… Felt sorry for the little creature… it was breathing its last air..

Googled about why do they die turning upside down.. this is what I got through Yahoo! Answers…

“often we come across dead insects in buildings, that have died of insecticide. Most of these insecticides are organophosphate nerve poisons. The nerve poison often inhibits cholinesterase, an enzyme that breaks down acetyl choline (ACh), a neurotransmitter. With extra ACh in the nervous system, the insect has muscular spasms which often result in the insect flipping on its back. Without muscular coordination it cannot right itself and eventually dies in its upside down-position”

PS: Click on the pic to see the detailed/enlarged view... Thanks to Sony Cybershot... (The best shots are not posted :P)

PPS: Tell me the name of the insect, incase you know..

PPPS: Keep visitng !! :P

Goodnight/day!