indeterminate

The greatest gift ..

2009-06-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

almost 2 months, and I'd complete a very-Long one year in the corporate world. To summarize in 2 words "IT-Sucks" .. i was so well-off wasting my time in IIIT, Photographing insects, Reading awkward stuff, and doing nothing..

Now i have to go to office, plan my offs, Calculate days left for next months salary, sleep in the cab..etc..etc...

Life it seem has come "full-circles"..After an year, obscurely I see standing my self amidst a familiar mist of cloudiness and confusion...abruptly i remind myself of Carl Gustav Jung and what he wrote in "Memories, Dreams and Reflections"

"..when no answer comes from within to the problems and complexities of life, they ultimately mean mean very little.."

Perhaps Jung could turn a blind eye to whatever he wants to.. or may be i am too ignorant to comprehend one single sentence..

I came to Kou's Blog, and ended up typing all this gibberish..any ways.. thanks Kou :)

the title of this post is same as the latest image i posted on my flickr.. A small girl of about 5 or 7 spent 7-8 hour long mountainous journey on her father's lap.. he sure must be tired..but felt as if can endure many more such hours...

anur@@G onFlickr

& i did my part by finding suitable lines for the picture too..

"The greatest gift I ever had..

..Came from God; I call him Dad!"

The Worri-Some ME!

2009-03-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

I sit here in the office late in the night I ponder, what makes us unhappy? As we grow we carry an illusion of what we ought to be. A perfect picture we dream of, we fantasize about. Things seldom fall in to pieces and all of a sudden we are in situations we never dreamt of before. Life’s not a bed of roses for sure. Some people argue that the very uncertainties of life make it worth living. They argue it’s not the happening itself but rather how we deal with it that’s important. How true! May be these are only the people who overcome all this.

As in one of his books Worry by Edward M. Md Hallowell, says plants and animals don't do it. Worry is a human "skill." And it comes in different forms. Some kinds indicate diagnosable conditions, such as depression, or Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Others, such as shyness, are built in from birth, and some seem plain old existential--stemming from broken trust or loss of faith. But worry is uniquely human. "To create worry," Dr. Hallowell writes, "humans elongate fear with anticipation and memory, expand it in imagination and fuel it with emotion. The uniquely human mental process called worrying depends upon having a brain that can reason, remember, reflect, feel, and imagine. Only humans have a brain big enough to do this simultaneously and do it well."

Is having such a brain that costly affair that people fall in to depression, suffer heart-strokes and when it becomes un-controllable commit suicide. The author further says we worry because we have this sense of “loss-of-control” as if we don’t have the power to control our surroundings.

Controlling our surrounding, now how easy is that. For some people surroundings offer conducive environment to thrive and for others it’s overwhelming. In overcoming unsympathetic situations lies the strength of character. That’s so hard to develop and so easy to be preached about.

I remember Al Pacino, in “Scent of a Woman” when he said this …Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard…

So how important are life choices are. The decisions you make that will ultimately make the difference where you end up. Not all of us make the right decision at the right time. And not all of us learn from the wrong ones either. There are ways to defend our own wrong doings, our self-defense mechanism works indeed flawlessly to give us that feel-good factor.

I sit here and think about my own state of affairs. Wonder about how my friends are doing at this juncture. Friends from school, from college, acquaintances, and relatives so on and so forth. Why is success so relative? Aren’t the parameters of being successful different for all of us? We can’t be compared on a universal scale !

Recession is looming large. People are still confident “By the third quarter of 09’ things will be better”.. “Worse is over” they say things to make you feel better. GDP growth rate for this quarter is down to 5.1% , A 4 % plunge from its peak. That necessarily means we lost 8 million jobs so far. And what if things don’t improve?

Yea! It will make us all worried!

smitten by blogging bug!

2009-02-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Second post in a day! After staying away from the blogging arena for Hundreds of days I seem to appreciate the bygone me who could think, type and make sense ocassionally to a handfull of friends who'd come here on this page often!

What to blog! Scream that life is delusive and its difficult is it to keep pace with this everchanging world. Blubber after waking up mid way from a dream only to discover this is not the world you ought to be in and you were way better-off in your dreams.

And then become a part of a perpetual warfare with your own ideal self and the real you.

And guesss what helps? Knowing what you are and what you really want!

I work for a great company which voluntarily assists her employees. They'd assign you mundane tasks that transforms you to a Bot with 512K of memory and no Intelligence. Then to make yourself feel better they'd email you a Counsellor's website they had affiliated with. And when you are to messed up you'd click seemingly inhostile link in your inboX

I too went to there website and did a few Self-Assessment tests!

My decision making style Impulsive, Intuitive, Agonising, Procrastinating, Compliant and was predominantly Rational with a word of caution.

-There are many decisions which are relatively minor where it is more important (and more fun!) to decide quickly. Not all situations merit serious weighing of pros and cons.

Another test was compute my stress level . As expected I was moderately stress prone, owing to the following intrinsic qualities of mine.

· Driven by ambition

· Self-demanding

· Rushed and hurried

· Aggressive

· Competitive – even in non-competitive situations *this was kinda funny!*

· Impatient· Frequently hostile

This time the word of caution was fierce "far more likely to have a heart attack or develop heart disease "

The third test was on Self Confidence where I did reasonably well and that was not an area of concern.

Now what purpose these tests solve is still debatable. They 'd be of any help whatsoever if a cognizant attempt is made to mutate your ills which is rebelliously tough. Why ? Cause we get so Hard-Wired committing same mistakes for years and how easy is it to resist change?

Yea! And for the pic, saw this "Jeevan hi sangharsh hai " on a tempo driving in front of me. :)

predictably Ir-rational!

2009-02-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

Well that's the title of this book I am currently reading. Some MIT professor, Economist by profession trying to mix Behavioural Psychology with economics. It started on an interesting note but half way through the author makes too many explicit observations which are based on common sense and thus it transforms to a dull reading. Any ways the title is interesting and that's why they advise us never to judge a book by its cover.

I saw this advertisement on a website offering 25% off on all books buy getting there membership for 500 bucks, and whats more you can order books worth 500 for free. It was so tempting and I ended up buying 6 books and spending around 1500.

I still believe that it was a rational decision. but isn't it that over spending gives us an absurd sense of achievement. We spend and feel happy about it.

We may buy books we'd never read, buy clothes to be worn only twice, or fell prey to lucrative SALE advertisements, where we ultimately end up spending more and buying stuff from which we don't deduce any value.

As the author says we do all this cause human beings are intrinsically afraid to loose. so very true and whats more this "irrational behaviour of ours is neither random or senseless. They are systematic and since we repeat them again and again Predictable!"

And its Unbelievable the amount of rationalization I have put behind buying my camera. S0 much that I don't have a camera yet, for almost 8 months since I thought of buying it in the first place.

I have pondered about it all from falling Rupee with respect to USD, buying it from grey or with warranty, from Delhi, Bangalore Singapore or US.

Its like more options you have and then you tend to decompose there respective benefits and drawbacks. You are ultimately left with huge number of IFF's and BUTT's to be mapped that grow exponentially beyond your cognitive ability to comprehend.

Only rational that seems to be plausible enough is the answer to this simple question

DO I REALLY NEED IT OR NOT? y\n

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish!

2008-09-29T03:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend I saw Steve Jobs address that he gave to stanford Graduates.... facinating it was.. some lines i found intresting !

....you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.....

....It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle......

...No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.....

...Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

flick-erred!

2008-09-23T10:48:00.001-07:00

distant watertank, originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/p_h_o_t_o_s/.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/p_h_o_t_o_s/
I got a new address! this time on flickr!
After selling off my camera it has been a long wait. Things don't seem to fall in to places to buy a new one in spite of the fact that canon has released two new DSLR's EOS 50D and EOS 5D mark II. My eyes are still set on the old favourite EOS 40D largely due to the cost advantage it has.
Life's has changed so ridiculously. Sitting in office all day and looking at the moronic interface of a dumb looking mainframe!
There was a time when I had my cam ready and I could be in the hostel balcony any time looking for composition. From labourers busy making the new boys hostel, our friendly cat or the distant overhead water tank of the college. All of them caught my attention more then this black screen with green colored text.
Its all perhaps because our intrinsic nature to resist change! who likes to wake up @ 6 in the morning after all.
If change is so inevitable I pray for the things to change once more...

sarcasm at work!

2008-08-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

..after spending 20 odd non-productive working hours in the office, I refuse to let die the old me. The stage was set as the so called "Campus to Corporate" instructor started a presentation. An old story of a rabbit and a tortoise. As soon as I read the title of the slide, I remarked "Oh! I got this on email", loud enough to be audible. "So you know this? Very Good. Now sit in front and click next to move through the slides". Was the response.

I did as ordered. These days there is a lot of talk about business ethics and integrity. Every one is forced to believe that being good has its virtues even though they are not evident at the first go. So there we were. "moral of the story" the slide said !. The instructor asked us the same. People say something or other. There are some who say too much. anyways.. some one knocked the door and the instructor had to leave.

There was this colleague of mine sitting right opposite to me and he shook his head leftwards twice, I made an attempt to pretend as if I was too lame to catch the signal. He wished himself to be heard "Next Slide... Next Slide" He shouted. Incidentally this gentleman was the one who wants himself to be noticed in front of every one. From innocuous looking HR ladies with barely a couple of years of work experience to the Vice President who was extremely quick witted and had an IIM-A guy moving with him to click next to his slides. He had great ambitions for sure and certainly I had no plans to be in his way either. I was just trying of myself to be what I am...

So with a wicked smile and subtle voice I said "Business Ethics! .You forgot didn't you ? ". He was not of the kinds who seem to give up easily when his "talking" was at stake. "But we never had our session on that" was his retaliation. " In that case this is your first lesson I guess.", there was it. I said it all the same tone and expression to bring this interesting conversation to a grinding halt. And I guess that was enough to soften him up.

The idea was never to overpower him. The consequences of having a similar conversation with someone senior must have been catastrophic. Now as I look back, I realize that all this happened in a quick succession. I barely took time to respond.

We were bare strangers before this point of contact and this incident made something to happen. We met after the session had a chit-chat. I always noticed him speak in the three days session so far and he did noticed me, may be for the first time :)

Sarcasm may have never killed anybody. It certainly made people sulk thoughl,and for the like minded "sarcasts" they became friends the moment they discovered the "mutual sense of sarcasm" they posses!

late by 60 minutes

2008-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

..this Monday morning, was the first day at my csc office and traffic did it to me. Exactly late by 60 minutes I was welcomed by a bouquet of pink flowers, with two female HR's saying "Welcome to CSC" in tandem. There were few pink roses in that bunch I least bothered to count as I hurried on to AG-31. Well that's the room I hurried on to and went to the extreme end of the as it was almost occupied by then. There may not be many people who travelled 50 Kms to reach there, I just thought in my defence.

I was prepared for the first day. That was in terms of selecting the shortest path with minimum traffic. Anoop was my friend whom I relied on this time, a frequent visitor to Noida he told me the shortest possible route in the longest possible time. After wasting six A4 size sheets for the map and almost 140 minutes on this route discussion, guided by the Google maps tool I tried to authenticate his road-map to the real one.

Half way through, I was lost. "Why men don't listen and women cant read maps" a book by Mr. Pease immediately came to my mind. Oh ! boy I always believed in this book until this precise moment of time. Or was my brain too feminine ? Falling back to the main road was like diving in to a sea of sharks. I counted on my instincts. "Move on..." I instructed my mind. After a while the ill-drawn lines in the map started making sense. Oh-yea!! that's the pillar i see as drawn in the map. Landmarks are so very important and I am glad that inspite of my reluctance to hear him, Anoop did recite this map to me thrice. I stopped by an auto rickshaw driver and almost pleaded to guide me through.In retrospect I think he may have been an angel that god just sent from heaven that morning to tell me to turn right and then go straight until i meet a dead end. These types of instructions are easy to remember and more simple to execute. Keep yelling "right turn" until you turn and then "Dead end" unless you see one. Some how I managed to get to the office. Entire day returning back was on my mind. This not what I was supposed to do at my first day. They asked us to fill some 20-25 sheets of paper with some redundant information five or six times. Records are important for sure.

On they way back that night I picked up a wrong lane, and somewhat similar thing I did when going back to the office second day. And the second day coming back a wrong turn cost me 40 minutes. I have learnt a lesson though. If going to office I turned right from a crossing. I have to turn left while coming back !!!

Convocation hues!

2008-08-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

So done with my decorous world at IIIT I resume my mundane life now. What is prescribed in these times is patience. Waiting for my joining letter and blessed with a 512 kbps line life's seems irksome, but that's how it is.

It was raining last evening,With my friend I was outside the HDFC bank, and suddenly I backed-off the last moment to withdraw the last supply of money saved for the rainy days like these.

Suddenly Kou calls "Convocation is on 12th, I am booking my tickets you wish to come, I'd book yours too." How can I decide something in the middle of a financial crisis.

"I don't know, perhaps I cant.You book your tickets I would tell you later. Okay tell me how do I get all my money from my bank at Allahabad here as soon as possible ?" I told him my present state, Kou advised me something which I knew of, any how I thanked him for resurrecting my belief.

"Oh boy, its raining hard outside, I'd get it some other day" I uttered, reversed the car and moved on.

Later Tiwari calls " Convocation is on 12th " .
"That's not a news, I know" I said. Then Tiwari's brought economics in to conversation.

"Rs 750 you pay if you get the degree in person, and Rs 1500 if you are an absentee".

"Who said" was my response, How the heck Tiwari remains so well informed without a dedicated Internet connection, I was bemused. Soon I figured out it was the college website which I always considered obsolete that had all these statistics lined up.

"So you coming, I am booking ticket with bengali" Tiwari seemed to be exited at the thought of wearing that red robe and posing for a picture with his hard earned degree, for me it has always been too flimsy. To be honest as to Kou's question I didn't knew the answer to Tiwaris question. "I'd speak with Kou, he is also planning to go there" I told Tiwari.

I phoned Kou told him to book my tickets. Then I called Lalli, he has always been oblivious to anything happening around.

"So you coming" I asked. Lalli asked if I was going, I was affirmative and Lalli too without wasting a second said "Okhay, then lets meet there on 12th"

So everything was set. The deal seem to be done after a series of local and STD calls.

Suddenly phone rang again. This time it was Tiwari.

"I am not going, My plan changed".

"What happened [:x] , It was you, who's idea it was after all to go there" I kind of half-yelled at him.
"Rs 750 plus the travelling expenses and all could well over go Rs 15oo, Whats the point?" Economically speaking Tiwaris retort was logical, perhaps he should have done something in economics rather than computers.

I kind of fell for Tiwaris logic, I was undecided about this convocation from the first time this question was asked to me. It was like an earthquake for those pillars of logic upon which my decision to go to the convocation was based.

I was left wanting for more plausible logic's to go for the convocation. I have always been undecided about 99% of happenings in my life. I read an entire book titled "Deciding" in optimism to get to the crux of my own nature. One learning I never forget from that book was, " In simple issues like how to reach to a place use logic, and in affairs like career and love go by your intuition." So logic was something I was desperately looking for to convince my whims.

I phoned Kou told him about "Tiwari-eco-nomics".

"Why do you wish to go" was a straight question to explore what reasoning goes behind Kou's head for going to the convocation!

"Well, Once a lifetime you do Masters and get the chance to be honoured, there are Nobel laureates present there during the convocation. We may never get a chance to see those many of them together in our entire life, We will click picture's and It would be fun I think" I hate Kou for piling up so many reasons for the things he does.

"..and why do you wish to go?" Kou applied the same trick to figure out why I had my plans to go. "So that I can withdraw the money and need not to wait for 3 weeks " could be the dumbest answer he would have heard for a while.

Now what I said was impulsive I mean it was real for sure and even I didn't knew that was the precise reason I was going for the convocation.

Kou was driven by logic, Tiwari by economics, Lalli by me and Me by non-sense as far as "deciding" on convocation was concerned !!!

and about the pic of the post, well this ghazal fits in perhaps "चाहे मेरे इन हाथों की तलाशी ले लो ..मेरे इन हाथों मैं लकीरों के सिवा कुछ भी नहीं...

feelings of listlessness and discontent

2008-07-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

After a series of sleepless nights, i woke up at 6 today. I have been sleeping 0100 hrs to 1900 hrs for the past few days and isn't it an weird time to sleep, but that's what I am all about being absurd. I went to the balcony and looked around. Fresh with a downpour every thing looked so wonderful. I wondered what I have been doing here for quiet some time now. I left all my books back at my home apart from DeBonos "Lateral Thinking". That's a nice book but is not suitable for the kind of mood i am in.

Life's so stupid and I want to be in it miserably. Doing nothing is so painful I desperately want to join the company and start working. I have started hating this emptiness now.. i want it to be filled with something constructive. There is this interview call pending that a consultant promised. She forwarded my resume and the company people didn't called so far that's making me anxious, but those things are beyond my control. All I can do is make myself a cup of tea and type on this keyboard.

I am not that kinds who sleeps-off on his problems. My problems make me worried doing something about them is an altogether different story. And these days i have learnt to Blog-Off my problems. I can read them again and remind me of they being still there.

The first is the thesis defence. I have to defend what I have did in the last 6 months of mine. But looking around I see people not worried about it and that makes me less worried too, peer-motivation you see. There were certain modifications to the code that were pending but they dont seem to be exciting enough. More importantly I don't see any rewards.

I have to yet to order my cam EOS 40D, buy external hard drive, get the thesis report hard binded, get my tickets done. That's too much of an asking.

Some of my friends have also left the college. I have tried to make new friends. The problem with people is they are unique, no one can take any ones place. They are simply not replaceable, at least for me its like that. I made so many good friends here. I am talking about the kind of friends you can count on. I am happy for that fact.

This old man was seen carrying his burdens with a stick doing the balancing act for him. This also my first attempt to use photoshop for such tricks I would have liked to make that bag on his head colored to highlight its importance. But it was not as colorful as his jacket :)

choices?

2008-06-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

"If I could start my life all over again I would make the exact same choices that I made . I think I would make them because of the person that I am and the things that I have learnt my making those choices. I am proud of who I am !!!"

I was listening to this Bob Seager song, and a show girl made this statement in the end. It immediately caught my attention. "Stupid girl,she is in such a situation that would equally attract contempt and pity" I expressed discontent in half articulated voice. If I could turn back the hands of time, If I can go back, would I erase my wrong-doings, stupid acts of mine which caused me trouble, let me down or hurt people around. Well the proposition seems to be exciting.. to be honest I do fancy at times that if I could go back say n number of years I would have not committed certain acts of mine.. or would have done this or that..

But isn't it absurd, the things we do in life are like our experiences.They shape our character. The present me is a culmination of the teachings that life offered me because of my actions, so if the very me try to erase those experiences and try to fill them with better ones the lessons that life would have taught me would be of lesser importance..Or in other words, the events and the happenings in the life are not that important as what we become out of those. Our reaction to those happenings is of more importance then the event itself. Someone elsewhere said, if you loose don't loose the lesson..

So the next time you are in a situation where you are at unease just remind yourself what lesson you learnt and avoid learning the same lesson twice :)

...perhaps that show girl was right..I would have made the same exact choices as well...

don't know how relevant is that picture to the post, i saw a young boy selling some prints about the benaras city. There was not enough light to get a sharp picture, neither did he had time to pose.

love actually!!!

2008-06-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

..its such a stupid sounding word for some and for others its much more than a word..People like me swivel in between. I am a fairly level headed guy not that much in and out of luv, attraction, fatalism, infatuation or whatever u'd like to name it.

I have seen all sorts of people.Some sensitized,some ignorant, some pretending to be simply not interested..but one thing that is so common amongst them all is the vulnerability to fall for some one..and that vulnerability had some relation with the persons priorities in life... so if u have nothing to and ur priorities in life are in a disarray u are more fallible..

Whatever we say, it is an intrinsic characteristic of all of us to get noticed.Get attention, love and get loved. So where is the problem? Well the problem arises when our expectations soar and the person at the receiving end fail to deliver.

But why do we expect, do we really luv or are we just being plain selfish. We being selfish and we don't even know that, or perhaps we don't want to accept that.

Relationships are such a funny thing. I mean its so different in case of humans. I remember when I was a kid I had a dog. I never had problems with him, I think he was not at all selfish. He may have sulked a few times..but owing to his characteristic brain, he suffered from selective amnesia and forgot all my wrong doings.

Humans are smarter, they have bigger memory and rich set of emotions. They keep things in store for future references. They link present situation with any experiences from the past and they never forget to include the bad experiences..

This pic, i posted there.. was clicked as I remembered mehndi hassan's Ghazal..
"अब के हम बिछडे तो शायद ख्वाबों मैं मिले कभी.. जिस तरह सूखे हुए फूल किताबों मैं मिले कभी.."
{if we get seperated then we will meet in our dreams..like we find dried flowers in the books#OMG - new age translator#}

But whatever i say.. Howsoever u criticize it.. its capable to give you and out of world experience!!! The overheads how ever are quiet high.. and if u are willing to pay the price.. u can take that plunge...

random thoughts!!

2008-05-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

its very dusty and windy here these days... m sick of wiping the dust from my laptop. anyways ... my parents are here, sitting with them in the college guest house.. everyones quiet.. me trying to finish my pending thesis report and they keeping themselves occupied with news papers or books... they are not so out going. Its the first time they moved out and came here to meet me.. m not liking this situation very much, precicely because i wonder as if i could ever take care of them as they did.

juss went with them outside today, they did not particulary liked this place either..after all they were here because of me and not for the place.. juss a stroll in the city and we got bored.. i kept my self busy with my beloved camera.. and i'd juss put this pic here... a grandpa and a kid eating icecream..grandpa sulked while he saw me clik them, the kid was too busy with the icecream and didnt pay much attention to me..

..camera is such a thing that cathes peoples attraction.. no one moves so casually with a camera as me.. looking in the viewfinder and moving along.. i may look weird to them and wen the pictures come they look weird to me.. wat an irony..

How difficult is it to strike a balance in your life.. time to ur loved ones.. time for oneself and time to your work..wonder wat if god was flexible in giving us hours in a day..

I was juss typing some thing on this linux terminal and i felt as if my blog is calling... in all this i could not give time to my poor blog for almost two months.. Nobody cares to read this and i am not complaining either...

foTograohy..phOtograPhy.... fotuuuugraafieeee

2008-04-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

What was meant to be an electronic device to capture and preserve some moments... has become a passion.... i bought this cam s5 IS in Nov 08, specially for South Korea trip.. since then a lot of things have changed... my abmition of becoming a computer engineer has changed to become a war fotoGrafer... whoohaaaa...
INsane... thats wat 'd idea seems at the onset... nevertheless.. fotografy has become a way of life.. i look around and imagine wat if i freeze every one around me in frames... how wud they look...lemme juss show u some pics here and wat it means.... welll the first one... shot a few clicks at the gwangju railway station... it was freezing cold... and this mom caught my attention... it made me feel nostalgic abt my childhood.. perhaps every parent has done this to there kid...

nie ways thats just the trailer... to bring statistics in to play I may have shot close to 4ooo pics before i finally sold this beautiful camera after 4 months of usage... reason of selling was evidently the desire to carry a bigger and better DSLR.. i pan to get it in few months... I have my eyes on EOS 40D (~1100 USD)+ EF 50mm f1.4 prime lens(~300 USD).. later I wish to buy 24-105 mm f4L lens(~1050 USD).. these three pieces of glass+metal+plastic costs a whopping 100K INR..

...if dats the price u have to pay for ur obsession... i m more then willing tooo....

hindi chiththa

2008-04-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

maine shayad kabhi ye socha na tha ki main apni maatrabhasa main kuch likhne ka prayas karoonga... agar mujhe apne in vichaaron ko shaaayad kalam aur kaagaz pe sachmuch hindi main likhna pade to shayad ye mere liye aasaan na ho...
mujhe ab bhi wo din yaad hain jab angreezi main bolne ke liye pehle humen hindi main soch ke use angrezi main anuwaadan karna padta tha... lekin ab stithi ek dum vipreet hai... hindi main likne ke liye angrezi se hindi main anuwaadan karna padta hai...

aaj saayenkaal main mai aur mera mitra bahsa ke silsily main vaarta karne lage...poori vaarta apni bhasha ko lekar thi... lekin gaurtalab baat ye hai ki usmain bhi angrezi shabdo ka prayaog koot koot kar hua tha...aakhiri baar jab hindi likhne ki aawashakta shaayad mujhe daswi ki aakhiri imtehaan (udru??)// pareekhsha main padi thi.. tab bhi shaayd hindi main mere ank bahut chintajanak nahi the..
humaare pyaare mitra tiwaari ji ka paasport(hindi??) jab aaya to humen ek patra likhne ko kaha gaya jismain hume is baat ko sweekaar karna tha ki tiwaari ji ka chaal chalan sahi hai aur kisi bhi nyayalaye main unpe koi aarop darz nahi hai.. isi baat ko hindi main vyakt karne main kaafi kathinaayoun ka saamna karna pada...
to hum sabhi jaante hain ki hindi humaari maatrabhasha hai... lekin kya ye sirf kahne bhar ke liye hai? hum aaj kal ilahabad main hai hai.. jo hindi bhaashiyo ka garh maanaa jaata hai... pehle din ek chowkidaar ne humaare friends [angreezi ka jaanboojhkar istemaal] ko sahpaathi kah kar bulaya to humen kaafi aashchariya hua... sahpaadthi...??? ek baar ke liye to maatha thanka ki aakhir ye sajjan kya kehna chaahte hain... lekin daswi ki pustaken padhe itne din ho gaye ki ab sahpaathi pehle dost bane aur fir friends...is bhaag main ab bhi hindi ka prayog bade paimaane pe hota hai...
dilli ki hindi aur yehaan ki hindi main dharti aur aasmaan ka farq hai... shaayad yehaan ki hindi asli hindi ke zyaada kareeb hai..

to vaad vivaad ka kaaran bhasha ko le kar tha... mera priye mitra jo ki maraathi hai... maraathi bhaaasha ka bharpoor prayog karta hai... wo internet[??] pe bhi apni bhasha main padhta hai... aur apni bhaasha main likhi gayi pustaken bhi padhta hai... aur mujh se jab usne poocha ki hindi main is peedhi ke lekhakon ke visay main mujhe kitni jaankaari hai... to main asmanjas main tha...jaise taise maine kaha ... they dont affect my life... so i dont care abot them... pata nahi ye tarq kis had tak sahi hai...

aisa nahi hai ki hindi ke visay main mera gyaan bahut zyaada hai.. aur is ke kaaran bhi hai... hindi ka gyaan ya to daswi tak kuch kavitaayen,jeevniya aur kahaaniya padhne ke kaam aaya.. ya fir kabhi kabhar hindi akhbaaron pe nazar ferne ... jahaan jao hindi ke saath angreezi main kuch na kuch likha milta hai... aur hindi likhne ki aawashakta paathshaala ke baahar bahut kam hi padi... aaaj kal agar shudh hindi ka prayog aap karen to aap apne aap pe vyang karne ke liye doosro ko aamantrit karenge...ise aap ek sachhhayi samjhe yaa badalte hue bhaarat ka hindi prem!!!

filling in the void...

2008-02-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

They say nature hates vacuum... and then what happens? something fills in...

These are the final few months of my two year stint at IIIT, I would agree these have been some of the satisfying years lived by me in complete consciousness. We all are assigned some thesis topic and we have to make some sense out of this topic. It may look difficult but the trick lies in how good you are at fooling your supervisor and his fellow friends. They expect us to publish papers in journals and they don't forget to mention that conference paper does not sound that impressive.

It seems to be a long semester. A month and half has passed and there is no sign of exit. Still I don't feel as if i have to rush through this time and start working for some company.
I have plenty of time here, the complete twenty four hours are mine and its up to me to waste it whatever way I like and for that exact reason I prefer to be awake the entire night and sleep by 8-9 in the morning. then @ 2-3 p.m. my day starts and to tell u the truth it feels refreshing...

...so wat do i do the whole night??? initally i watched a lot many movies. One day I had an over dose.. it happened like from 12 to 9 am i watched 4-5 movies... too much of movies that now i dont like watching em any more.. i prefer hollywood flicks..the latest one was "Stranger than fiction" and it lived up to its name... I later learned that some bollywood producer had already made a hindi version...

...I have a next door neighbour who happens to be my x-roommate and a good friend of mine, he updates me about all the hindi movies ever released on planet earth. He finds them very exiting and its useless to make him aware of the reality.. ny ways...
so wats new these days... some strange things.. Intrest in Indian classical music, Psychology Photography and tons of books to read.

Classical music -as if ghazals of Mehndi Hassan were not enough.. I had never thought i would listen to em but to tell u the truth if u are alone the entire night it's good sometimes.. I don't recommend it to every one cuz then u risk being insane.. people laugh, they make strange faces or simply walk out of the room on listening to em... i don't know why..its not funny i guess. I think i got one repellant to keep people away when I want.

The next thing is Psychology.. I bought this book by Sigmund Freud. Infact its a collection of 5-6 books. Its cryptic and was costed little over 800 grands...I mentioned the price here.. why??? I think Mr Freud may have an answer to it. Apart from it i also joined some discussion forums where people talk abt there Psychological problems... and guess what in almost 90% of the posts women have some role to play in the problems.. I prefer to be quiet in most of the discussion perhaps I have still a lot to learn from that fat book...

The next Big thing is Photography.. I got this canon camera.. Its not like the other poketsized cameras that i hate (reason being i find them too feminine) but its neither an SLR (which i now contemplate not buying)... But i can get some lenses (tele and wide converters) which apart from some functionality may also make my camera look like an SLR. To make an accurate assumption i have cliked almost 3000 pics from it since i got it on 8th dec 07... so much that now i get a special invitation from any birthday guy in our Masters batch and apart from that the I am also currently covering the college cricket competition.. and then share the pics @ my lab pc. And you know this is the most sensible and humane use of that machine which wore a deserted look 500 meters away from my hostel running from the date when it was first assigned to me.
For the starters there is a sports mode in the camera to click moving objects and for amateurs like me there is something like shutter speed that can be adjusted depending on the moving object to be captured.

And wat about other books. I buy them online or a good shop nearby. They have a lot to teach and in the worst possible case even if you are not learning.. they sill come handy...I sit in my room.. conserve my energy and eventually save the so called food of mess or I just remain calm...

The idea here is not to mention these mere activities. Moral of the story is neither that these are some wonderful hobbies ...

Perhaps what i wanna say is we all are passionate about some things or other.. apart from living my messed up schedule did I ever realized that i may find these things exiting.... perhaps not... Here comes the filling up the void thing. When we get some time in our chaotic lives no matter how little its up to us to fill it with something.. My friends have there own ways of filling it so do I.But do we all live our life realizing what our passions are ? Did we ever thought "Perhaps I should start playing the guitar this weekend for nothing being the reason?" or for that example "Hey! this book in the shelf talks about Philosophy, am I interested?"

...Perhaps we are always too busy to even "think" like this....

*** few years from now i would like to read this page again... ***

"all companies are selfish...

2008-01-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

...u say this during a placement interview and u may end up loosing money at the rate of at least 25k rupees per month or even worse..there are some crucial times in your life when u need to have control over your senses and u behave exactly the opposite as if you are on a high and you don't know what ever you are uttering is making any sense... i was exactly like that in the middle of that interview which i would like to forget.

It was a lovely Wednesday afternoon. Cold and Cloudy,and there were 5 monsters sitting in front of me trying to map my profile in to there job requirements. the interview was a typical one.. tell me something about yourself.. and all that kind of mundane questions which those people ask and i was well prepared to answer those questions even in my sleep...but today was different, today the creator of this universe had something else in store for me and I became too emotional and sarcastic in front of them...

Sarcasm is good to an extent when its used as a tool against your enemies or the people whom you don't like, but if sarcasm runs in your blood u may land up where i landed today.It does more harm than good. Who the hell in this world says that the company he would be joining is selfish and that too during an interview, and on top of that there was sheer arrogance... and to make it catastrophic I was even not conscious of the way I was answering

I rationalize after committing any mistake or for every opportunity that i miss or strike. I rationalized my behaviour and came up with the following lines to sooth my self.

Sometimes we do something that we regret doing the rest of our life. To be honest I hate my self for behaving that way although I don't regret not making through this company. Reasons being:

#For the various interviews I have faced I never behaved like this.
#There is no inherent fault in my thought process that impairs my intellect during interviews.
#It was not in the creators master plan to make me fit for that company and that is the reason that day I behaved in a manner which i never did before.
#The bigger picture is not yet visible. If not this then perhaps something better or equally good.

Not a firm behaviour of luck, I always fancied the slogan "harder you work the luckier you get". But there are some incidents that make you believe that somethings are not meant for you, you are not meant to go some places and even if the entire setting is perfect, you can still make a mess.

i've got stories to tell~~

2008-01-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

#1 two wolves!!!
One evening an old man told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy,sorrow,regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt,resentment, inferiority, lies, false, pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope,serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied,
"The one you feed!!!"

#2 one paragraph that explains life...
Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?
To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over -- 50,000,000 children start playing tennis, 5,000,000 learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"
Happiness keeps u Sweet, Trials keep u Strong, Sorrow keeps u Human, Failure Keeps u Humble, Success keeps u Glowing, But only God Keeps u Going...

anonymous.... who AM I ??

2008-01-19T12:00:00.002-08:00

Few days back a friend of mine read my blog. Today he came and was wondering about this whole anonymity thing. "What about being anonymous" he kind of uttered just for the sake of making him heard.

"What difference it makes ? was my impulsive response as if i was defending my act. Why do people defend there acts even if they have not done anything wrong?

The people who know me and read this blog any way know most about me as this blog is not that much advertised by me... and for the strangers who mistakenly read this it really does not matter who I am , unless i make some difference to them.

There are times u just wish to be anonymous as if you are writing all to yourself. u can criticize your self for the pettiest of acts and still feel proud of being true to yourself... perhaps that was the the idea i guess..m not sure although.. this blog is not an attempt to show what i am not... rather I'd luv to express what i am and if anonymity is the price for that i think its not much of an asking...

why anonymity? it reduces the accountability one perceive to have for his actions and removes the impact of ones action on his reputation. but who said my reputation is at stake because of this blog?? Contradictions u see... Ohh!!! lord i love contradictions... u passionately think of something being true and in the another flip second u think exactly opposite..and see how the entire setting gets upset and if u r weak hearted and you just doubt your intellect you end up being a confused ass.(ass in this context refers to a donkey because of his so called subtle thinking ability)

You may find critics for everything u do... its not they are wrong its just that they have different ways of perceiving the same thing..on a universal scale nothing is absolute and so is my anonymity...by the way "WHATS IN THE NAME??

frus-trat-ed ???

2008-01-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

yet another day in my life...some what i have xperienced before... frustrated at the core, not by seeing ppl getting themself thru the interviews of elite companies but rather on myself. its harsh wen u xpect too much frm urself cuz it hurts wen u dont suceed and the result is i tend to loose my sleep...phaps its gud for me.. i need to reevaluate my plans and my progress.. past few weeks have been a total waste of time and a testimony to my senseless existence..i wish i cud control the happenings in my life.. i wish life twists and turns as i want it to ... i wish i am happy with myself but alas none of it is true...
so wats next...another set of plans and "to do" lists? this time its now or never... juss few months left for these collg days to b ovr..i need to get the things back on track... i need to recollect myself...
...i wondered at the idea of surprising myself one day..one fine day wen i wud be amused of the feat i have achieved.. it makes me feel happy though i knw there is a gap between the way we think and the way we act.. unless and until u bridge that gap ur dreams ur hopes ur aspirations are nothing more than wishful thinking.. and it takes a lot to bridge that gap...i knw one things for sure i must work hard, relentlessly cuz achieving the end may not be important... its the means that count... i have to achieve the means and have to detach my self with the end.."law of detachment" ehh...

haPPy nU yeAr

2007-12-31T10:11:00.000-08:00

...few minutes to go and year 2007 would become history. i am as again in the same place sitting in my hostel room looking at my laptops screen and wondering isnt new year a time to rejoice as it has always been for so many years till now... this year is different looking back i admit yes it was indeed. i got 2 jobs no more jobless or to say the least i was not struggling for mere survival now, now its time to satisfy the needs at the higher level as marked in the "maslow's hierarchy of needs"

i cud hear people shouting happy new year.. some came to my room instigated me to shout along with them but the proposal was not xiting.. its funny u see hw ppl shout when they have to express there joys or sorrows... same expression for two contrasting emotions..

....nie ways the celebrations seem to be over now

people seem to be settling in, enthusiasm of the new year has dampned in few minutes.. there may be some ppl else where still rejoicing... i cud never understand why people get so exited for this very idea of new year... for me it has been juss another day and this specific new year day seem to prove that...m happy in my present state of mind but the only thing bothering me is this end sem thesis presentation...

so how it started!!!

2007-12-29T09:00:00.001-08:00

sitting alone past midnight i was struck with a new idea of killing time as if all the old ideas didnt seem intresting anymore... i erased all the pics those were there on this blog and decided to write.... but write what???

perhaps my present state of mind...lonely and depressed... juss back from my south korea trip back to this college hostel i try to draw the lines....the differences between the two countries are huge.Here we are concentrating on mere survival. i recall wen i spoke abt me joining an american company sounded foolish there."why shall we work for others" a korean muttered sitting casually on his chair. I was speechless, back here people feel great pride in working for americans, but shud we really be proud of working as slaves?