Edge??

friday: Hmm..nice shall celebrate PST's bday watch match and mug for Matrix analysis. Start image processing tomorrow.

saturday: Image processing is easy..will do it tomorrow..Let me do timepass listening to songs and watching stupid movies like "Fitfth element"

late on sunday afternoon: Fuck yeh kya hai? mid sem ke pahele to bahut easy tha..yeh sab kab padhaya usne.. Oh!! shit mein to mid sem ke baad kabhi class hi nahin gaya...

I went into a deep NBD state..and started mugging...by monday afternoon I almost gave up..but somehow kept studying and went to the exam room...I was so nervous that I started laughing in the exam room...Yeah I do that when I am freaked out..How can I ditch this exam? How can I convince the prof to grade me on my mid term? I was thinking all this when the question paper was given to me and it looked very very easy...I started doing the problems quickly...

I had reached as far as the 2nd question when I got stuck and realised I dont know somethings that I need to know..The question was to localise an edge ...forget the technicalities and read on what happened after that...

I walk upto the prof..

Me: Sir, I don't see an edge in this function. Its derivative exists everywhere.

Prof: Oh no! think about the general definition of edge ..

Me: !@#$%^&

Prof: I had discussed it in class...do you remember Marr-Hildreth algorithm!!

Me: Oh yes!! got it. The one with pyramidal decomposition..

Prof: (With a smiling face) Ohh! noooo....Try to remember. It's easy and I have almost(!!!) given you the answer.

(After solving all the other questions xcept one)

Me: I kind of forgot the definition of the unconstrained restoration. Can you jsut remind me. (I dont think I have ever played so much on my luck :))

Prof: Oh what do you think you have to do?

Me: Sir, do "some junk".

Prof : Exactly !! thats write jsut write it down..

Me: thanks..hesitantly..(by now actually embarassed at myself for being so cheap)coming back to the edge problem...I can not remember Mar-Hildreth algorithm.

Prof: Oh..okay..what do you think you have to do to detect edges.

Me: Sir, Are you talking about the thing where we smoothen the image using....hmm... gaussian and then take ...err ..laplacian operatorrr...

Prof: (very excited!!) Exactly!!..(He seemed to be more happy on me being able to crack the funda.) Now since this is one dimensional problem what would be the Laplacian..

Me: (By now completely it ease with a thinking that even if I dont get it he will definitely tell me the solution) Second derivative?? so I jsut take smoothen using Gaussian and then take second derivative?

Prof: Actaully no need to use the Gaussian. That whole thing is another algorithm which uses this method. To localise the edge you just have to take second derivative and then find ..

Me: zero crossing. Okay thanks for your help.

This must have been one of the most funny exams ever taken by me. Anyways the moral of the story is always ask questions if you don't know something, be shameless and never give up ...

Paying the price of forgetting my nationality!!

If you are an Indian here is a big suggestion. "Never forget that you are an Indian, try to be cool and go and play flag football".Golu did his bit and tried to remind me so much that my body is made only to play cricket and not physical sports like amru futball. But I was like "koi farak nahin painda". Par farak to padata hi hai bhai.. Here is the result of the tournament.

matches played: 2
result: lost both

my contribution: I was a receiver and the game plan was to fake first and then run towards th post and the Quater back throws a long pass. I did the same, out-ran the guy covering me, jumped high up and caught the ball above my shoulders. In the mean time all the defence team was on me but I still heroically dogdged them and when they almost brought me down I jumped and stretched myself full length to get a spectacular touch down and in the process i badly injured my knee badly.

OK..this is what I would have liked the story to be!!!! In reality I was running , turned back to see where the ball is and I don't know how I had twisted my body that when my right foot touched ground I heard kat-kat and thats it. I ended up with a badly sprained knee, missed two days of lab (I dont exactly regret it), got bored and started writting blogs again.

But seriously it is fun :D :D Especially when you go for practise and your american friends talk like "hey!! Panda is natural man" ;) Don't fall for all this crap and just go and do what you are good at - play cricket!!

Anyways guys have a nice thanks giving break!!! Njoy the turkey with your family!!

The return of GOD!!

Maharoof drops the ball a little short, the batsman shifts his balance a little from front to backfoot and almost effortlessly picks up and pulls the ball for a mighty six. And you can surely say "GOD is back".

Yes! it was Sachin's first innings in like 6 months and what a innings it was. It was not as much as how many runs he scored but in what way he scored them. You could see the old tendulkar in there. The tendulkar of 90's. The tendulkar whoes arrival at the crease used to make the whole nation stop. There has been lot of debates about who is the best batsman of modern era and how Tendulkar can't be it for the lack of match winning knocks to his credit. How he fails under pressure while chasing. If you leave the numbers out for sometime and try to name the batsman watching whom gave you the most pleasure then I am sure Tendulkar would be right up there. And coming to numbers he isnt bad either. He has 51 man-of-the-match awards(ODI) and 29 have come while India was chasing. Infact I think Sachin can have a Phd in how to chase totals of 200-250 in one-day games!!

Anyways when India plays SA tomorrow, Tendulkar would become the most capped player in the history of ODI. Hats off to this run machine for providing us entertainment for over 15 years now!! And to think of it he is just 32. I just hope he bats this way till he retires!!

trivia: Who is the only current batsman whoes test strike rate is not on records??
ans: TENDULKAR !! Yes, among current cricketers he is the most experienced. And when he started paying innings length (in tests) was still measured by minutes rather than no. of balls faced. So his strike rate can not be caculated !!

One night in the lockup

"One night in the lockup and your lives will change for ever"

At 3am in the morning these words were uttered by a cop to me and my roommates and that resulted in the end of the fun party we had at our place - the house warming. I had heard that term a lot here and to me this sounded more fun than the more familiar "Gruh-Pravesham Pooja". So when we moved into our new house we decided to throw a house warming party.

It required some convincing to make PST (the old daddu of our house) agree to the idea. Then it was a case of just calling all your friends and we ended with a 80-odd strong list. While buying alcohol for the party my room-mates were very excited to discover what they call "daru ka walmart". Daddu was for a change happy that we were having the party...

The day came and it was all going as expected ..the house was crowded...alcohol flowed..nice music playing...the old cranky neighbor complaining about the noise..and then it happened!! Golu got drunk..now the guys who have seen him drunk will understand the impact he has on a gathering while he is drunk..He had a big "panchayat session" and it was lot of fun..and while all this was going on our neighbor kept complaining and calling the cops, the cops arrived once to warn us, hopkins security came and asked us to make sure nobody is outside so that we dont get into trouble, the cops came again and thought we were not making enough noise. But then our neighbours persistence paid of and the cops decided to stop our party at 2:30 am. And after getting all the guests out of the house the cop came up with the line while asking us not to repeat this mistake -

" You guys know right!! One night in lock-up and your lives will change for ever"

The funny thing was the affect this had on golu. Just two minutes ago this person couldn't stand on his feet and now was in total control of himself. After the cops left he was like "man this is the best medicine to get of high"...

Ashes!!

This years Ashes has been by far the most dramatic series of all times. If there is anyone reading this blog who doesn't know what cricket is then they should definitely follow this series and I am sure they will be addicted. The third test I think was the best. Till the last two hours of play in the test all the four results were possible. I think a draw was just fair as neither of the teams deserved to loose. But here is a incident during the fianal stages which amazed me.

"Before Stephen Harmison started the final over Stuart MacGill rushed out to tell Glenn McGrath to bat a metre out of his crease to reduce the chances of him being given out lbw. What MacGill forgot to tell the fast bowler - why are we always portrayed as being dumb? - was to get back in your crease once the ball had been bowled.

McGrath lurched forward to smother the second ball of Harmison's over but missed it, and Geraint Jones, the wicketkeeper, threw the ball to Matthew Hoggard, who was standing next to the stumps. Thankfully - it would have been a totally immoral way to win a match of this stature - Hoggard chose not to break the stumps, but this did not prevent MacGill feeling that he had almost cost his team a Test match."

Now if australia win the final test and draw the series they will keep the Ashes and somewhere in the bottom of Hoggard's heart he must feel guilty about it. Infact I think this article shouldn't have been published as it puts his live in danger in that senario. Personally I also think it was stupid of him if he did that. Thats a way of getting a batsman out and it is not immoral at all to use it.

Trivia: Did you guys know that all tests in England start on thursdays. There have been only three exceptions in history so far!

Will we ever grow up?

August 15th. A quick look at "Times of india" bombay edition -

"At Anand, state co-operation minister C D Patel and Anand district superintendent of police B S Jebalia saluted the national flag while it was yet to unfurl."

Mr. Patel and Mr. Jebalia have received a lot of flack over this. But what else could they have done. If they stopped the national anthem and asked the flag to be unfurled again I am sure the headline would have been about the same people direspecting the national anthem. If they would have moved to ask somebody else to unfurl the flag properly again the same result. I felt these are unncessary things to be reported. The media should mature beyond this.

"Dalit woman not allowed to hoist national flag in chhatisgarh."

If the earlier news was frustating this one is disgusting. Especially for people like me who always argue that one of the reasons why reservation should be removed is that there is no more distinction among castes in modern India. I if this sort of thing is happening after more than 50 years of independence, then there is something seriously wrong in the way the country's population is being educated.

The only consolation is these things are not unique to India. Such narrowminded people have universal existence!!

insensitive

Tsunami strikes south east asia. More than 30,000 dead!!

I read this and it doesn't affect me at all. I mean not at all. I read the whole article just as any other article. I attend some shows whoes earnings was supposed to be sent for relief fund. I dont get moved by most of the pictures that I see. Once discussing tsunami with my labmate, I suddenly realised that I don't feel anything for the people who suffer from this. The idea of me being so insensitive scares me sometimes.

"Mein marne se pahele ek baar apane potey ke saath khelna chahata hun "

I was watching the movie "waqt": some random hindi flick about father-son relationship. I tried hard but couldn't stop tears. I dont remember at what point but something hit me and I started crying. While I was crying, somewhere in my thoughts I was feeling happy that I am afterall not so insensitive. I do get moved somethings. It was quite relieving.

I realised news dont affect me but stories do.

Two of my favorites

After seeing many photoblogs, I am also getting enthu to upload some pics. Here are two of my favorite photographs taken during my sis wedding last summer.

The below one was taken on the afternoon of the weeding(wedding muhurat was at 2 am!!). My sis had just been painted with mahendi.

The first one is during the hasthbandhan. This is the time when the groom for the first time takes the hand of the bride in his own hands which is symbolic of "will be there for you always".

Arranged marriage

I have had many non-indian friends ask me of how arranged marriages work. After I joined the lab two labmates have got married arrangedly.(I dont know if this is a proper word!!) And after every such event the non-indian labmates are shocked as they dont understand how can it possibly work. Actually my labmates are awaiting my visit to India this december:).

Here I would like to put forth some facts which would explain the high success rates of arranged marriages. OK, my arranged marriage doesn't include child marriages or something like that. My definition of arranged marriage is subject's parents (or some omnipresent matrimonial aunty) find a girl and then the subject meets the girl two-three times and then based on the consents of the individuals the marriage can go ahead.

Now for the reasoning part. The human brain is very good at identifying personalities. The brain very quickly makes judgement regarding wheather the new aquaintance is going to be helpful or harmful to us. And more or less we reach the same conclusion after staying with the person for a long time. We see much more in a first impression than we realise.(Read the book "How to move mount Fuji?" to know more about the significance of first impression.) That cute smile, firm handshake, graceful walk, hair falling over shoulders, confident talk, husky voice, deep eyes - all this hits us together and the effect is much more than their combined sum. Our body says a lot about our inner self than we can imagine and surprise, surprise our brain can read all this. The marginal information that we gain is much less as we spend more time with them. So, the amount of information that you receive in those first n seconds more or less decides your relationship with the concerned person.

Now you guys will ask then why the two three meetings why not the first look itself. I knew this would come. The answer is "People excel at reading facial expressions quickly, but only when a countenance is genuine." . I guess in the first meeting people may be different from their trueself (voluntarily or involuntarily!!!). To bring out that inner personality we require a few more meetings.

Incase people have questions regarding all this can happen in love marriages also and this is no arguement for arranged marriage against love marriage, please read I never said I will do that. I only went ahead to say why arranged marriages work as well as they do.

Do you know poker?

Poker is a very entertaining card game. To explain in simple terms you have 2 of your own cards and 5 community cards and you have to come up with the best hand of 5 cards with these 7 cards to win. The fun part is the community cards are not made public all at once. But first 3 cards (called flop), then 1 (turn) and then the last one. (river) After every round there is betting and the next card is delt only after all the players who are in the hand match some particular bet. The order of the hands from low to high is high card, pair, two pair, trips, straight, flush, fullhouse(and trip and a pair), four of a kind, straight flush, Royal flush(highest straight flush). Now the chances of you actually seeing a straight flush while playing a game is very very low. And as you can guess its pretty exciting when someone actually gets it.

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I was at atlantic city last semester to participate in a poker tournament at a casino called Tropicana. Fortunately or unfortunately me and one of my friends (Allen) lended up in the same table. So, we made a deal if one guy bets then the other one backs out. This would make sure that atleast we dont lose money to each other and possibly will stay longer in the tournament. In one round the dealer deals me two kings (Now this is the second most strongest hand to start with!!) so I call the minimum bet. As the bet goes around the table, I got a big shock as my friend went all in with his money. I was completely taken aback!! Now as the betting circle continued and I got my chance and now it was my friends turn to get a shock. Now this put me in a very difficult position as you can imagine. I had one of the best hands so I started thinking. My friend was really confused and he tried to remind me of our deal in all the subtle ways like coughing and making eye contact. :) But at the end, I thought to go all in so that even if I lose my friend will have a big stack to play with and that way there is more chance of one of us winning. The rest of the table backed out. So the dealer asked us to flip our cards. My friend flips his "Two queens" and there were few murmurs at the table. And then there was a loud gasp when I flipped my two kings. And I could hear my friend going nuts. As I doubled up my money my friend was left with the minimum money to play a hand. I mean he had the money to just bet the minimum to stay in so he had to put all his money in no matter what hand he has.

Bouyed by the hand win I went all in in the next hand also. One other guy called me and this one went to the last card when I managed a straight to his trips and won the money. But the fun was not over yet. As the whole table was busy looking at our cards everybody forgot that my friend is in the bet by default. My friend gets up and throws his cards on the table and says "Shit man!! I have a straight flush!!!!". The whole table was amazed and it was worth a big laugh as the best possible hand helped my friend win so little money. (You can only win the amount that was matched to your bet in this case it being the minimum possible bet) The fun part in this whole thing was the contrasting feeling of my friend on getting a straight flush to any other person. He was simply frustated and cursing on why he didnt get it in the last hand. Oh boy, I love poker!!

The sky

The colors of sky have always attracted me. I have been so happy just looking at it many times. I had always tried to capture the magic of sky in camera picture but never managed it. One crazy morning, my eyes just opened and I saw the sky. I couldnt stop myself, ran out and immediately took pictures. But like every other time I didnt find the colors good enough. During my trip to NY, I saw this view of sky from kakkad's apartment and asked Gogo to take picture with his camera(costlier and better!!). And amazing, for the first time I felt the picture reflected the true colors.

Do I know him?

Has it ever happened to you that you bump into somebody whos face doesnt ring any bell in your brain but the other guy knows everything about you. And you get embarrassed that you dont know him at all. In such situations either our brain starts fabricating illusions of having met the person sometime (his face suddenly starts looking familiar) or you just put an end to the all your pains by pretending that you remembered the person and start having a conversation.

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I was once walking in IIT in my second year when I see the group of freshies walking towards H-4. From their talk I figure out that they are from hyderabad so I just ask "hey!! sab hyd se ho kya?"

They all turn back with consenting expressions on their faces. And just then one of them goes "Saurav..Saurav Panda..AIR 184 ...electrical department...Ramaiah evening batch..Ratna college."..Even I dont remember how I felt then but I was completely taken by surprise as the guy blurting out all these stats about me was a complete stranger to me..I was amused and I thought might be he knows this by some newspaper or Ratna advertisement..so I ask "abey mein itana famous hun kya?" and then the reply just killed me.."Abey mein Kapil re..saath mein bus mein aatye the..You are from Uppal na..no. 113 bus be..ratna mein tere baju baitha ta tha kabhi kabi...Ramanthpur mein utarta tha" You guys can guess my embarassment as I still had no idea about who the hell was this guy...But I just made up an expression of "oh haaaaaaaan.." and exchanged some pleasantaries and quickly tried to get away from the scene.

ps: Oye Kapil if you are reading, I am sorry but I still dont remember ever meeting you in hyderabad. But it doesn't matter anymore..

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I recently had a trip to NY with Ramya, her room mate (Shalu) and Sameer (Gogo). We met up Kakkad at NY and went around NY. Soon we found out that Soumitri(Mimi) was also in town and decided to meet her. We were pretty excited for our small reunion with old friends. And thats when I realised Shalu (Who by then had been through so many discussions about IIT) must be bored of this now. So I planned a prank so that she has her share of fun.(Sorry Mimi that it had to be at your expense!..) We tell Shalu everything about Mimi and ask her to pretend as Mimi's senior at IITB. This is what happened later...

After Ramya introduces Shalu to Mimi..

Shalu: Hey!! You rrrr..Soumitri right..I didnt know she is the Mimi you guys were calling up till now..
Mimi gives a surprised smile..

Shalu(now getting comfortable with her acting): You dont recognise me kya? You were in geology dept right..room 214..

Mimi: Oh my gawwwwwwd!! I am so sorry I dont recognise you ...You even know my first name..and pronounce it exactly as it should be (I dont know how everybody else pronounces it!!)

Then they have discussion of where they had met..And Shalu gave a full demonstration of her acting skills as she made Mimi come of with names of all the functions as she didnt know of the IITian lingo..

After about 5 mins Mimi was visibly embarrassed about the whole situation and says what we all were waiting for:).."Actually now I remember you vaguely now..freshies party ..hmm..yeah yeah..I remember you." And thats when I decided that it was enough and stepped into to explain Mimi the whole situation and she was even more embarrassed.

ps: Getting back to blogging and it feels good.

Ignorance is Bliss

I was in boston visiting my friend Mukul (aka magar). Giving me a guided tour of Boston, he took me to the MIT science museum. If you happen to go there definitely see the hologram section. It is amazing.

Being engineers, Me and Mukul were carefully disecting all the exhibits and having the "wow" affect when we discovered the principle by which the exhibit works. But one small incident made us both miss the times when we had no idea of how these things worked and simply enjoyed the exhibits.

We were making our calculations infront of a exhibit getting pissed of on not being able to crack the funda when a small kid comes to the exhibit, looks at the result, jumps in joy, laughs and leaves feeling very happy. We both stared at each other both of us had expression of bemusement on our faces. These are the times when you feel Ignorance is bliss.

Research

Such a grad student topic. I came to know of a guy who was doing research on "swear words used during medieval times". From the face of it it looks like some fraud research topic but to think of it it's a very difficult topic. How do you get all such data..certainly there is no literature on it..He actaully went through the court proceedings (yes!! court proceedings of times 700-800 years early exist in some european countries thanks to no natural disasters..) for them..He went through documents with no grammar or standard spelling which is very painfull...

Oh yes!! I know you guys want to know the conclusion..So one of the most offensive used swear words were "GOD's dick"..and people had been hanged for uttering these words..

This guy happens to be the brother of one of the profs in my lab. And after he told this we had a long discussion on how every culture has its swear words some of which dont make any sense at all when translated..for eg. choot ke pakode and jhant ke pasine..On hearing jhant ke pasine..the prof goes like "thats interesting..pubic hair is such an insignificant thing and so is sweat..why would you guys even use this!!"..

The post doc in my lab told abt how dutch people just say some words with the swear words just to have rhyming effect :). So guys we are not alone who come of with innovative things such as -

behen ke ghode ..
choot pakode...
maar ja laude..

Any ways I feel rather than the words it's the situation when you use it has impact upon the guy on receiving end..

ps: Yaar bahut din se kuch nahin likha tha aur kuch chamak nahin raha tha so this ..would come up with better topics next time..:)

Who wants Mokhsya?

Mokhsya is defined as the state where you know everything that is there to be learned. You have no material feelings and no desires. Nothing can make you sad or happy. In the state of Mokhsya you have your union with the one. You become the ONE.

Hindu Philosophy says that all living beings go through the cycle of life and death trying to achieve the Mokhsya. Until you achieve that state you will have to pass through all the pain of material life again and again and again. And our purpose of life should be to achieve mokhsya.

But given a choice, I would rather like to go through this life again. It hasn’t been that bad after all. I would want to again go through the playful and carefree childhood. Again go through the entertaining youth. Again bring smiles to the faces of people I love. Celebrate with them in their moments of triumph, console them in their moments of sorrow. Basically, I want to live this life again rather than being transformed into something with no feelings like a rock. I might be wrong in my whole interpretation but if I am right then I will try hard to do things so that I never achieve mokhsya.

"He was just doing his job!!"

"You must have shit in your pants!!" I said laughing out loudly. Ritesh sulked.
"Yeah, when you have the sharp edge of rampuri knife touching your throat I dont think you have many options!!!"
"Abey yeah very bad. These guys should be made to suffer in jail"
"No man, he was a nice guy. Good at heart. He was just doing his job."

* * * * * * * *

Ritesh was returning from another hindi flick. As the road was very busy he was taking the underground crossing. He was still thinking about the scene where aishwarya ray bends down for that now famous taal shot. He was oblivious to his surroundings. If he would have paid a little more attention then he would have realized that two guys who didn't look like meaning any good buissness were advancing towards him. Suddenly Ritesh felt as if he was flying in air and before he realised he was pressed against the sidewall..

"Sale humare area ki ladki ko chhedega?? madarchod"
"Ji aapko galat fahmi ho rahi hai. Meine kisi ladki ko nahin chheda!! "
"Chutiya dikh raha hun kya? Behenchod, tereko aaj batate hain ki ladki ko chhedane se kya hota hai?"

As one of the guys was doing all this talking the other one has been looking around and on finding no one around pulled out his rampuri from his pocket. The guy holding Ritesh lets him go. But before he can have a breath he senses the knife on his throat. And this was the time when he shit in his pants.

"Ji jitna paisa lena he lelo..please marna mat." Saying this Ritesh gives his wallet and watch to these two goons.

"Kafi samajhdar hai be..Sabko itana deemag hota to humara kaam bhi jaldi hota..sale aadhe timetak rote rahatey hain ki humne kisi ladki ko nahin chheda..maa ke laudoon..hume bhi maloom hain tumne kissi ko nahin chheda" ..With this they let go of Ritesh and started running towards the exit.

Ritesh was just trying to come out of this trauma when he heard the deadly voice again.

"Abey bus ke liey paise hain tere pas..yeh le panch rakh..chal phir"

He forces 5 ruppees into Ritesh's trembling hands and runs towards his compatriot who is waiting very restlessly.

* * * * * * *

To this day Ritesh still vouches that the man who robbed him of everything but Rs. 5 was much better than most of the other humans on the face of the earth.

The Award

It had been a tough week for Lal Bihari but the sweat had been worth it. Half the battle was won. He at last got his passport. After so many rejects, near-misses, heart-breaks he at last made it. Come on you guys must be thinking getting a passport is no big deal!! But he overcame a handicap that you can’t even imagine – He was DEAD!! Now the next hurdle, the US visa.

* * * * *

Govind comes running into the house. He is panting, wants to say something but words won’t come out of his mouth. The expression on his face is of complete astonishment.

“Bihari, who log tumhari zameen le gaye!! Kahtey hain tum mar gaye ho!! Saath mein police bhi hai!! Hum lut gaye, barbad ho gaye”

“Oye Govind! Kya bol raha hai? Pagala gaya hai kya? ”

“Arey nahin Bihari kaka..jamnagar mein jo aapke mama hain who aaye hain!! Kahatey hain peechale mahine ke train accident mein aapka dehant ho gaya..kuch to bahi-khata bhi leke aaye hian..”

“Uske kahane se kya hota hai? Tu chal mere saath..mere zinda hotey koi meri zameen nahin chheen sakata”

Yeah only if he could have proven he was alive his land would have been his own..But his uncle had all the evidences. Bihari had no chance in front of law..his uncle had a paper from the court and land registry office stating that the land now belongs to him after the death of his nephew Lal Bihari. Lal Bihari did all he could..cried, wailed, shouted loudly “arey bhai mein zinda hun..meri zameen mat chhino mujhse..mein zinda hun”..but to no avail..It was clearly written on the paper “Lal Bihari: Dead, in the train accident”..It also had the district collector’s signature on it..now it was Lal Bihari’s walking, talking cadaver against the word of the collector…Of course he was dead..Why couldn’t he understand sucha simple fact.. His uncle infact tried to console him from the grief of his very own death!!

So, his land was taken away from him. He could do nothing but just look at his uncle reaping the harvest from it. But Bihari didn’t give up. He decided to fight against this injustice. He tried his level best to prove that he was alive. He tried to run for parliament, kidnapped the son of the uncle who had stolen his property, threatened murder, insulted judges, threw leaflets listing his complaints at legislators in the state assembly and demanded a widow's pension for his wife. But this was not enough in the eyes the law. It’s not for fun that people made movies called “Andha Kanoon”. He was arrested after his acts and duly placed in prison. After all everybody knows how harmful dead people can be to our society!! And the law enforcement officials see to it that we lead a safe life.

* * * * *

The turning point of his “dead” life came when he decided to join hands with other dead people like him. He became the founder and first president of “Association of dead people”. To his surprise there were hundreds of his kind in the state. Shocking!! How people couldn’t see so many dead people walking all around them. Their combined efforts soon started reaping results.

It took 18 years of hard struggle of Lal Bihari for people to finally see the signs of life in him. Law could no longer attribute his actions to “late” Lal Bihari. He got his land back. He was happy. But the icing on the cake was when he got a letter from the “Association for Faltu Activities”. They had decided to award him “The AFA peace award” for his outstanding achievement of championing the cause of dead people who have been the most neglected faction of human society in whole history!! The award ceremony was to be held in washington, DC where president George Bush was to give him the award.

That night before sleeping Lal Bihari said to himself “At last, I can die in peace!!”

-Inspired by true adventures of Lal Bihari, who was awarded the Ignoble peace award in 2003.

Does democracy work?

I was always against reservation policy of Indian govn. . I am sure all the great minds behind its inception never wanted it to be this way. The way it is being implemented right now doesn’t come close to serving its purpose – “To provide equal opportunity to all across the society”. If you observe carefully you can see that this has done nothing but raise the gulf between the rich and poor of the scheduled castes and tribes. I agree it was started with a noble intention but if something hasn’t worked for 50 years don’t you think time has come to try something else. How can people be so blind? This has infact lead to India’s society being divided into two categories – reserved and unreserved.

But the most ridiculous thing is reservation in the house of representatives – the Lok sabha and Rajya sabha. I expected that in modern India, it’s youth will rise against such policies. But to my surprise a large group in India who almost form 50% of the population (read women) are asking for their reservation in the houses. Infact they project themselves being very fair as they are asking only for 33% of the seats. Bullshit. Any demand for reservation in the representative houses is based on three assumptions –

One, only members of one group can help others in that group. Two, Parliament must function like a pollster's sample group and constitute an exact reflection of the composition of society. And three, people don't vote as they should. Combination of these three assumptions cries out loudly - DEMOCRACY SIMPLY DOESN’T WORK.

So those fighting for this noble cause should first decide what they are fighting for. If such a large population fights for a just cause like removing reservation from all aspects of Indian society then I guess India will be a much better democracy as well as country. This is what I feel!!

Artistic Liberty

Yesterday I read an article about Indian govn. banning smoking scenes from movies!! Why? Coz they think it makes smoking look stylish and kids copy on it. Now movie-makers say they project the society and they show it because thats the reality. I feel the govn is taking a short-cut solution to the problem. I think the right solution should be to advertise against smoking and leave the decision to the people. Govn. can not and shouldn't start taking decisions for the citizens.

But on the same site I read a report about some sikh organisation (SPGA or something) calling for the cutting of scenes in a movie showing a sikh girl doing drugs!!!! If the above mentioned ban was ridiculous I dont know what to call this one.

But then I realised we come from a country where people in a train can be burnt to death just coz they were returning from certain place..In retaliation thousands can be killed...media can fuel fire to it and make sure more people get killed..Every body makes sure to benefit from the situation at the expense of common man..It doesn't matter which faith, cast or sect he belongs to. I don't know what others think but in such a sensitive country I guess it makes more sense for the govn to take decisions to stay out of trouble rather than thinking about artistic liberty!!! For me human lives are a higher priority than satisfaction for some one off film maker..

Jeongwook learns about India..

This is about how my friend Jeongwook (He prefers to be called Allen due to unknown reasons)got educated about India. It happened in bits and pieces and I am going to just mention some of these situations.

Lesson 1: Indians can speak english!

Me and Allen going to pick up golu from airport when he arrived in US for the first time.

Allen: Does your friend know english. I mean can he get around if we are a lil late.
Me: He is pretty good at english. And for the records I could also speak english before I reached US. We infact Indians do almost all of their higher education in english.

Lesson 2: Internet exists in India.

Me: I don't prefer to check e-mails in India.
Allen: You mean you can check it if you want. Is internet that accessible in India!
Me: Most of urban India and some parts of rural India has internet connection.

Lesson 3: There is satellite television in India and Indians watch many American channels.

Allen: So which all global programs do you watch in India?
Golu: X-files, Simpsons, Friends, infact all of your cartoon channels, and a lot of music and movie channels
Allen: wow!!
Wrong conclusion by Allen: So 50cents must be very popular in India!!

But the most funny of these conversations was actually the one in which Allen explained me the probable reason why Americans have such wrong notions about Indians.

Me: I am amazed why do most americans think like this about India when they can see so many well educated Indians around them?

Allen: The only hit movie in US which dealt with Indians through out the 80's was Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom. I guess you have a clue now!!!

'How do u get a girl, man?'

We are having this nice talk abt Thesis, Phd, Latex and everything else when Bhuvan asks "How do u get a girl, man?"

I am sure you have been in this situation in some exam, where you felt terribly helpless and very angry on the professor coz the question he has asked is out of the syllabus and simply can not be answered. I felt not exactly but something similar to it.

"Abey!! yeh kya hai??"

"No, man tell me. How do u get a girl? See you are a phd here. By the time you finish it you will be 28. I am sure your mom will find a girl for you then. In fact you will be running around her, asking her desparately to find one. In case you didn't realise, when you decided to get into Phd, you basically signed an arranged marriage agreement!!!"

Teaun!! This is the sound that comes from Mac's heart when sudden realisation dawns upon him. Now who is Mac is a not related to this blog. But for records he is just another guy.

Before I can come out of this Teaun, the hammer strikes again "Ok, Saurav! You tell me 'How will you get a girl, man???'. Suppose you meet up with a girl in a pub. What will be your conversation?"

---------Pub scene. Dhik chik Dhak chik music playing------

After initial pleasantaries...

Girl: What do you do?
You: Err!! hmm!! I am a student. I mean not exactly. I do research. You can say somewhere between 'a man with a job' and a student.
G: So how much do you make out of it?
Y: (Teaun affect again!!) Lets just say that I get a stipend.
G: Oh!! may be thats why you couldn't buy me that drink.

-----------Back to reality-----------------------------------

"So, Do you think you will get a girl like this? I am sure no. I have seen some indian grads settleing down with some other phds. But I think thats sad!! They reach a position in their life when any thing will do. They want to use it before the expiry date is over!!!"

(Can't this guy talk anything better than this!! I am sure I am going to have nightmares on it tonite!!)

"Abey!! Lets start an indian grad what-do-they-call-it matrimonial. I think we will make good money as well as will be doing something good for our fellow grads."

"This is the first good thing you have said today. But all this time I was thinking and at last got a way to get a girl! Finish Phd, get a great job, have tons of money and money will bring the girls!! And now you can leave so that I can sleep in peace!!"

I was happy. Swelling with pride that I atlast found the answer to the out-of-the-syllabus, can't-be-answered question !! Just than Bhuvan psyched me out!!

"Man!! how do you think to get a job with so much money after PHD??"

GRE

Fact 1: Indians find the GRE quant test extremely easy compared to the analytical test. (This test has been changed to essays siince 2003.)

Fact 2: Americans find GRE quant and analytical tests to be of the same difficulty level.

Discussion: It's not just that the americans find quant tougher, they find analytical test much easier than us. (Conclusion after discussing with the set of two americans !!) A bunch of guys(lukkhe PHDs from Hopkins) had a discussion on this on their way from library to "One world" for dinner. Here is the accepted conclusion.



The analytical test is about understanding a situation, assimilating the given data and analyzing it. So if the situations given are well known to the candidate he/she feels very comfortable with it and solves it quickly. On the other hand even if the situation is easy but involves alien terms the candidate becomes very careful. Indians get thrown off on seeing a question like jonathan was watching a baseball game with his friends julian and blah blah. They take time to understand and misinterpret it as difficulty. If the question would have been Krishna ramamurthy went to watch a kabbadi game with veera venkataramana, then the americans will find it a lot more tougher.

- The giant panda