chax's blog

an attempt to fly

2010-12-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

I strongly think that my financial status doesn't call for traveling within India using domestic flights. But yesterday I had to do that for personal reasons. I went to Bangalore and came back to Hyderabad by evening using air travel.

Ask anyone who knows me for even for one or two months, they will tell you in no diminishing terms, about my apalling dress sense. My family thinks I ought to be wearing more formals, where as my friends think, I do not look like a software engineer. In India, it translates to a dress code - bluetooth head-phone attached to one ear, jeans, tight t-shirt, an iPod hanging from the jeans pockets, a very posh looking watch, nice rebook shoes, and amazing deodorant smell, a nice laptop bag. Taxonomy would place these people under the genus - Charismo and species - technorica. The only difference between unmarried and married ones in this kind, is that married ones have some-what more visible paunch.

Like some guy poetically put it, I have all the vices and none of their virtues. I have a paunch and generally wear a loose t-shirt and cotton pants (comfortable, you see .. ), my laptop is eternally under repair and ipod now has video lectures on some or the other obscure comp.sci. topic. Some one stole my posh phone long time back and so my mobile is not something to write home about. You know what it's like. Not to bore you with my dressing habits and if you look at it, it's not just about dress sense. I lack the whatdoyoucallit,.... hahh .. character. Even though it's not my first flight, the situation I was in, more or less demanded class and so when there is a mismatch, you can expect unpleasantness.

For me it all started early in the morning in the cab to airport. Over the phone, the cab-wallah was all "I will wait for you, Sir. What time is the flight, Sir ?", surely with all the sense of feudal worship that is, in general, shown by him towards the overlords of flight-travel (here I'm talking about people of my age with more flight-character or people with money oozing out of their shirt buttons). I came down on time (5 am) to the cab for the fear of waiting-charges and immediately realized that it was the wrong thing to do. The guy was sleeping and when he got up, he drank me in with his eyes and I sensed the initial worshiping tone in his voice dropped to a formal reservedness when he asked me to get into the car in the back seat. It's almost like he said... "Ehh ... yyyoouu .. !! " He sluggishly opened the back-seat door for me. Again, as is my habit for any cab situation during sleeping hours, I left my bag in the back-seat and sat right next to him (determined to be wide-awake, just in case the driver is not), much to his amusement. In the meantime, as this was happening, very supportingly of course, my mother, wife and brother-in-law called in to check if I got up (lest I miss the flight) and if I had head-bath (I was going to a temple near Mysore). I assured them that it was so in my mother tounge telugu. This was another slip. He started off the cab and was as chatty as he would get with another cab-wallah. I noticed that at times, he almost restrained putting a hand over my shoulder as he shared some interesting current affair, all this in telugu. We talked about this and that during the 45 min journey. At the airport, I pulled out the exact change (like I do to auto-wallahs) and this time the look in his eye reduced to a mix of mere contempt and sympathy. I attempted to salvage the situation by providing him two extra 10-rupee notes, which he took happily but left that cold stare as I got down.

At the airport, of course, people are trained to keep their emotional reactions down while they speak to anyone holding a ticket. It's almost like they are afraid that the person would flash the ticket in their face, in case, they become less polite. So, it was all well, till the time an official came near me asking if I had paid the UDF charges for the airport. "Hah, yes, the ticket fair split up showed that I paid them already.", I replied triumphantly. He politely indicated to me that the charges increased by a 100 bucks more since the previous day, with that dude-dont-you-read-the-news look. So, with reluctance, I fished out a 100 rupee note and gave it at the UDF desk. The air-india check-in personnel smiled a 30A (terminal) to me as she handed over the boarding pass after doubly checking my identity in my passport. Do you know that these people put a good show ? Let me tell you. She knows upfront that given a chance I would like the window seat. May be I look like that guy. She asked me if I wanted a window seat. "I'd like that", I beamed at her naively. She pressed space and enter button twice and then alternated the sequence with a focused look on her face and told me that she was sorry as all window seats are taken. It doesn't take too long to realize that you have been hoodwinked as it didn't slip my keen observation that she's the only one in the air-india counter. May be you think I'm being paranoid. How do you explain, if the same thing happens during my evening flight as well with another airlines in Bangalore ? But that's that.

So here I was, waiting at my terminal, a singularity among many Charismo-technoricas. The air was polluted with combined fragrance that is emanating out of people's deodorants. When the time finally arrived for boarding, I got into the bus that will take us to the air-craft. My initial reaction on getting into the bus is to keep my bag in the corner and sit in a seat available. But I observed that, most of my fellow travelers, come in and keep their luggage on the metal platform provided and stand in the bus holding the railing on the top. The people who actually sat next to me are only about double my age. Aha. I got up promptly (taking cue) and tried to feel like one of them people standing. It didn't feel correct as this act put me right next to a very good looking girl and it seemed like I was being sleazy. I'm happily married and have a kid. And, I have the least intention to be sleazy. But who knows that ? Luckily for me another veteran occupied the seat I left and I was so relieved that he did. My neighbors in the flight were this college kid who was busy messaging someone, and this middle-aged couple across the aisle who were lip-locked for some reason (I know, what's happening to the world ?). I was hungry as I had a frugal dinner the previous night and got up early in the morning. The guy next to me and the couple declined the stewardess's offer for a snack, but I happily took it. It was some kind of veg-puff and bread, but that was god-sent at that time. It later occurred to me that I might have looked ravenous to my neighbours. But I think I don't care (placing me right out of their kind). Through out the flight, even as I was enjoying "Three Idiots" film on the in-flight entertainment unit, I was thinking about how may be I can be little spendthrift, just for once and I'd feel better about being one among my fragrant co-travelers. I decided to be lavish. I got down the flight waving a generous thank you to the stewardess near the door and attempted desperately to have an air of the dollar about me.

It was in this mood that I approached a certain "Akbar tours and travels" in the Bangalore airport. I asked the guy at the counter, if a taxi was available for taking me to Srirangapatna and back to Bangalore. After nodding an yes, he said that the charges would come to around ..... 3200Rs. What? This is outrageous. This is the amount I paid to get to Bangalore from Hyderabad. Controlling my emotions, I asked him if the cab will be available if I come after half-an-hour, as I had something to attend to. He said yes. So, I escaped the bandit. Walked out, took the airport shuttle to Bangalore. What do these people think ? They can walk all-over me ? Heh, I showed them that I'm not naive. Wait .. what happened to my determination for being a Charismo Technorati ? Ah .. somethings never change. It didn't take long for me in my bus towards Mysore to realize that I shouldn't try to belong there where I don't. My reverie was broken by the ticket-collector who asked me to hand him the ticket because he got the change he needed to give me. What a nice person, I thought, taking the 7 rupees from him. After arguing with the auto-wallah to my satisfaction, I headed to the temple. Again during my travel back in another bus to Bangalore after my temple visit, I was again broken from my deep thought by the ticket-man, who this time, asked me if I didn't want my lunch as the bus stopped only for 15 min, Sir. Then I started to realize that may be it is okay not to try and fit in the elite group.

Things got better as I just scraped through time to meet some of my good friends and the feeling of not-belonging somewhere was lost in the good half-an-hour I spent with them. As fate would have it, I was thrown back at this situation without much time to think again, during my return flight. I'm still thinking where do I fit in ? I'm sure my wife would much less share my dilemma if she reads this. What she can probably think of would be - why I didn't have proper dinner the other night and not to board air-india again.

kerning pairs

2010-09-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

You know how sometimes we hear a term and get pretty excited easily from the connotations. Here's what happened. Being part of an internal mailing list on security issues, I got this mail with the subject that reads something like "... blah.blah .. kerning pairs... dooodah ... multiple PFEs .... double free corruption .... " and I'm like ....
multiple PFEs ... PFE ... hmm Page File Entry ... this .. I know .. man .... awesome !!
double free corruption .. Super AWESOME ... double free corruption related to multiple Page file Entry ...
Kerning pairs ... well .. I don't know this .. but ... this must be something God-level as it is mentioned in conjunction with page file entry and double free ... and now there is the word 'kerning' which sounds like kernel .. ...... If I know this stuff, I can casually bounce it on an unassuming friend at tea time and shake him to his core ... and have him on his knees !!!

So since I don't know - 'kerning pair' ... I go look it up on the net - wide-eyed and bated breath .. (much like some one waiting for Tom Cruise on a hollywood premiere) and when I opened this wikipedia link, I was sort of stumped .. the link was talking about digital typography, which isn't what I remotely expected. The page sort of slapped me on my cheek and told me kerning pairs in digital typography refers to the concept of adjusting space between two characters in a font for more aesthetic appeal ... they talk of a V and an A as a kerning pair because they can be aligned by their sides .. etc ...
The bug was in some kernel module related to fonts ... ahhem ...
Probably I shouldn't get too excited when I see something like .... ThreadedVMProc pairs ... they might be referring to a dance form ... ;-)

grit my teeth

2010-08-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

It seems P.G. Wodehouse wrote his best comedy novels while spending his time at the German concentration camps. My scenario at the moment, though not comparable with German concentration camps, is somewhat grumpy on both work and home fronts. Taking inspiration from PGW, I'd like to occasionally take some time out to have a good laugh at myself.
What I have ahead of me for next few months will probably make the deepest impression on my cerebral dump, which is getting old btw. I just need to be doubly careful that my brain doesn't ooze out. Sometimes we have to , how do you put it, ... grit our teeth, bend our heads and go through shit to enjoy what comes after it.
There this telugu guy, my cubicle neighbour, whose ringtone goes ... "Jayammu nischayambura .. Bhayammu ledura .." (which roughly translates to .. Victory is certain, have no fear), which is sort of giving me the right vibes whenever his phone rings...
I stand at the edge of a precipice .. to take the leap ..
here we go ..
...
....

second lesson - part 1

2009-12-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

There are 5 variations to each of the full musical notes (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) based on a semi-tone seperation on the lower and higher ends. These are called Accidentals of a note. They are :
1) Double-flat (♭♭) 2) Flat (♭) 3) Natural (♮) 4) Sharp (♯) 5) Double Sharp (×)
♭♭is being used here for want of a symbol that looks can represent double-flat. Originally, it must look like the 2 flat symbols are stuck together instead of the gap. I must constantly be on the look out for a better utf8 symbol
When we refer to a note, say A, we generally mean A♮ - which is A-natural. With semitone separation between notes, there are 12 notes. C, C^♯, D, D^♯, E, F, F^♯, G, G^♯, A, A^♯, B.
Logically, then, there will be multiple ways to refer to a note. So, C can be referred to as D^♭♭ or B^♯. So, for the first time after I started learning guitar, I heard the term B^♯ ... or even E^♯, for that matter. Naturally, I got skeptical and curious and asked Deepak, what was this all about .. there is no such thing as B^♯ and so on. He said that is not true. Then I asked him, why accidentals, when we have clear cut representations for the 12 notes. Why even bother to represent them in multiple ways and create ambiguity ? As an answer he started me off on Circle of Fifths:

Circle of fifths:
The idea is to start of with a scale (major or minor) and write down the scale of the with the fifth note (from beginning or end of the scale) of current scale as the key. While doing this, we must make sure that all 7 notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B are mentioned with the appropriate accidentals. This is to avoid having to mention the accidentals of the same note again and again within a scale. For example, if we needed to mention A and A^♯, we rather mention A and B^♭.

Here goes the circle of fifths with C note as the first key. Both ascending (fifth from beginning of each scale) and descending (fifth from end of a scale).

Ascending Circle of Fifths:

C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
G	A	B	C	D	E	F^♯	G
D	E	F^♯	G	A	B	C^♯	D
A	B	C^♯	D	E	F^♯	G^♯	A
E	F^♯	G^♯	A	B	C^♯	D^♯	E
B	C^♯	D^♯	E	F^♯	G^♯	A^♯	B
F^♯	G^♯	A^♯	B	C^♯	D^♯	E^♯	F^♯
C^♯	D^♯	E^♯	F^♯	G^♯	A^♯	B^♯	C^♯
G^♯	A^♯	B^♯	C^♯	D^♯	E^♯	F^×	G^♯
D^♯	E^♯	F^×	G^♯	A^♯	B^♯	C^×	D^♯
A^♯	B^♯	C^×	D^♯	E^♯	F^×	G^×	A^♯
E^♯	F^×	G^×	A^♯	B^♯	C^×	D^×	E^♯

Descending Circle of Fifths:

C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C
F	G	A	B^♭	C	D	E	F
B^♭	C	D	E^♭	F	G	A	B^♭
E^♭	F	G	A^♭	B^♭	C	D	E^♭
A^♭	B^♭	C	D^♭	E^♭	F	G	A^♭
D^♭	E^♭	F	G^♭	A^♭	B^♭	C	D^♭
G^♭	A^♭	B^♭	C^♭	D^♭	E^♭	F	G^♭
C^♭	D^♭	E^♭	F^♭	G^♭	A^♭	B^♭	C^♭
F^♭	G^♭	A^♭	B^♭♭	C^♭	D^♭	E^♭	F^♭
B^♭♭	C^♭	D^♭	E^♭♭	F^♭	G^♭	A^♭	B^♭♭
E^♭♭	F^♭	G^♭	A^♭♭	B^♭♭	C^♭	D^♭	E^♭♭
A^♭♭	B^♭♭	C^♭	D^♭♭	E^♭♭	F^♭	G^♭	A^♭♭

When a major scale, such as a C major scale, is being worked upon, it is interesting to observe how the ionion mode of another scale would sound like, if the scale started off from the fifth note of the current scale. When writing these scales, to avoid ambiguity of having to use the same note in its natural and sharp format, the accidentals of a previous or a next note are used, so that all the notes have a representation within a given scale.

first lesson

2009-11-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

Guitar lessons from an advanced teacher have started for me. I thought it'd be good to capture the input given in some form. What's better than a blog ? Until someone answers that question, I thought here's the place to capture it.

We discussed three important concepts that have wide use in western music (they go under different names in Indian classical music). They are Scale, Key and Mode.

Scale: Set of notes belonging to a Key.
Key: It's the pivot over which a scale or chord is built and defines the notes that'll belong to that scale/chord. Eg: E_M scale belongs to the key called E_M.
So, what are more commonly known as major or minor keys are defined by the modes of the key.
Mode: Mode is a get of intervlas that are to be followed when playing a set of notes belonging to a key/scale/chord. The commonly used modes are the following:
Representing the intervals of a Tone and Semitone by Whole(W) and HalfStep(H), we have:
1. Ionian: W - W - H - W - W - W - H
2. Dorian: W - H - W - W - W - H - W (right circular shift of above by one step)
3. Phrygian: H - W - W - W - H - W - W
4. Lydian: W - W - W - H - W - W - H
5. MixoLydian:W - W - H - W - W - H - W
6. Aeolian: W - H - W - W - H - W - W
7. Locrian: H - W - W - H - W - W - W

The practice exercise was to do the famous caterpiller exercise without taking the support of the thumb.

finally ...

2009-07-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

Typing out 164.99.khrrmm.khrrmm for server ip and realizing that it is no more valid ..
Getting up at 10:30 am from the seat for a quick chat with team in a coffee break and realizing no one would come ..
Repeating the above step once again at 4:00 pm ..
Having to use the heavy RDP sessions only to 'interactive session' to a computer :-( ...
Seriously going to a cmd prompt and typing vi ..
Looking at code that starts with
'import System.WebSSO.Properties.Thingummy.WhatzitCalled.YouKnowWhat ...'
as opposed to a friendly
#include
Slowly knowing that around 50 % of work time need to be spent in editing automation jobs :-(
Miserably failing at configuring pidgin to work with Office communicator plugin ...
Getting angry on why I need to have a *in***s only box to connect to office ...
Trying to say "Ab kahaa hein aap ?" to a cab wallah on phone as opposed to a cute - "ellidira neevu ? ..... aaha .. avuda .. allinda swalpa mundey banni .."
Not finding time for guitar and listening to my favourite songs on iPod, imagining myself playing them ..
Carrying lunch box from home, as the food at office is freaking costly ...
Realizing that the floor I'm sitting in (5th) has about as much strength as my previous company ..
Getting surprised when a guy from Utah, USA picks up my helpdesk call at 4 in the afternoon ..
Understanding that Visual_freaking_Studio takes about gazillion minutes to install ..
Not knowing the phone numbers of my own team mates even after about 2 months of joining .. They do not know mine too ...
Figuring out why first line managers are called leads here and still trying to understand why I'm in first role of test after 4 years experience as Dev.
Absorbing the fact that medical checkup post employment can be so weird that the lab guy asks for a sample of stools after asking me to come empty stomach ..

hmm ... transition transition transition ... life changes.

cheer up bro

2008-09-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

Going back home from office with the realization there's no one at home is becoming increasingly tough for me. I wonder how I managed it for the past one and a half month. And I don't even want to think about the fact that I have 4 more months (minimum ... that is ...) to spend this way.

In India, it's a norm that the pregnant wife will spend her last 3,4 months of pregnancy and the first 3,4 months of motherhood at her parent's place. And it's a widely agreed school of thought, that the husband's feelings during that period must be like .... wow .... !! yuuuhuuuu .... !!! But, no ... not me. I got too habituated to the comfort of having some one to speak to (back home) to bear with the thought of having to spend about 12 hours all by myself everyday.

Here are some interesting techniques and skills I have painstakingly developed over months after marriage:
1) I can code for fixing an intricately involved bug even as I listen to home news bulletin from my wife.
2) I can actually repeat the news bulletin - word to word - in case my wife tends to think I'm not paying attention. (Later I also remember giving her a choice of listening to a short summary - 2 marks or a detailed discourse - 10 Marks)
(Actually I'm mid-way - developing a technique where I can repeat what she said - word-word in the reverse order, not that it interests her .... just very amusing ..)
3) With a single look (I needn't even have to hold them), I can differentiate between capsicum and a badly grown brinjal.
4) I can prepare these items (ordered in ascending order of expertise) - coffee, horlicks, maggie noodles.
5) I can carry about 7 kg of grocery on each of my hands and walk slowly (to match my wife's pace) with an unfading smile on my face in a heavily crowded market area. (Normal people will have to do specialized yoga to achieve this feat.)
6) It's only after marriage that I couped up enough courage to watch a full telugu movie. (A piece of cake for my wife :( )

Don't want to boast about it in the list of points above, but I'd want to mention here - in passing - that at one instance, I bravely argued with an auto-guy for a rupee (only once though).

And it all seems such a waste, that I have no one to whom I can show-off these skills.

But, just as things were turning worse from bad, a ray of hope entered my life this evening, in the form of a dog. Okay, don't get confused. I can explain.

This evening, as I had a few things to purchase from Nilgiris, I had been there and was coming back with a fairly big carry-bag in my hand. Here I was walking, and at about 25 meters from me, due north east, I happened to glimpse at a dog on the other side of the road. Even though some people will be skeptical on this, I happened to easily observe that the dog's eyes were on my bag. I wanted to avoid a scene. So I started walking faster and realized that the dog was doing same on the other side. The road was fairly well occupied with zooming vehicles, so everything is fine for the present. My razor sharp brain could immediately come up with 2 plans, as they show in the movies - plan A and plan B. At this point, the road became silent because of a signal further down, and as anticipated, the dog crossed the road to my side at about 43 kmph. I don't understand dogs, especially this one. I guess it thought that I was a pie-faced nincompoop or something. It was about to know that it misjudged me. We were separated by about 15 meters and it starting walkin towards me, it's eyes hawk-like on the bag. Distance between us slowly started reducing. (slowly - owing to the facts that i) I wasn't too keen to get near the dog and ii) the dog was stalking it's prey.). We are about 7 meters apart, when I stopped on my tracks. The dog stopped as well. I had plan A on the cards. So, I lifted my bag up over my shoulders. Our eyes briefly met. I mustered up as much malice into my eyes as possible. But the dog looked away indifferently, back at the carry-bag. I delivered plan B. I took out the umbrella that I had hidden in the carry-bag and walked towards it (the dog, I mean) in quick steps with it (the umbrella) uplifted in a threatening manner. I think it understood the general message I wanted to convey - about how superior I was. It immediately backed out and ran away to it's evening chores (which I'm sure involves - conversing with it's friends about the incident, picking at humbler targets etc).

I came back home thinking that life isn't that bad after all.

Number of company mergers - explanation rather than proof

2008-08-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

One of the famous problems in combinatorics that interests a comp.sci. enthusiast - is the Catalan's problem - that talks about finding the number of binary bracketings of n elements. For example, if we consider three elements 1, 2 and 3. We have :

((1 2)3)
(1(2 3))

as the binary brackets, in that order of 1,2 and 3. If we consider 4 elements, say, 1, 2, 3 and 4. The number of binary brackets in that order is 5 - and they are:

(((1 2) 3)4)
((1 (2 3))4)
((1 2)(3 4))
(1((2 3) 4))
(1(2 (3 4)))

Imagine 1,2,3 and 4 to be 4 elements held in the computer memory. In the above example, we have fixed order of retrieval of the elements, i.e 1,2,3 and 4.

Catalan has proved that this number is given by the formula:
C(n-1) = 1/n * (2n-2 C n-1) , where (n C k) is n choose k - or the kth binomial co-efficient.

It is easy to see that, this number also exactly gives the number of un-ordered full-binary trees of n-leaves (or n-1 internal nodes).


    o      0                0       0         0        0       0 
   / \    / \              / \     / \      /   \     / \     / \
  0   3  1   0            0   4   0   4    0     0   1   0   1   0
 / \        / \          / \     / \      / \   / \     / \     / \
1   2      2   3        0   3   1   0    1   2 3   4   0   4   2   0
                       / \         / \                / \         / \
                      1   2       2   3              2   3       3   4

Leaving this at that, let's look at a related interesting problem of counting various possible ways to merge N companies. This is related to the above problem because, in essence we are counting binary bracketings of companies. But here, the differnce is that, order matters. Since there are N companies - the merger process can be viewed as a full binary tree with N leaves. The number of such un-ordered trees is given by the formula mentioned above.

The points that effect the count are
1) The permutations of this set of companies and
2) Whether the A merging with B - must be treated same as B merging with A (commutativity). To view it differently, if A is a merger of K companies, and B is a merger of m companies, should we take into consideration the chronology of the events, because of which A->B is different from B->A.

Taking point 1, we have N! permutations of N companies.
Now consider point 2. Because of the properties of full binary tree, there are N-1 internal nodes with a tree with N leaves. Commutativity can be simply viewed as a mirror rotation of the tree (subtree) at an internal node. For example.


    O                                    O
   / \    == Mirror Rotation on O ==    / \
  A   B                                B   A

Since there are 2 degrees of freedom the number of such combinations possible for N-1 internal nodes is 2^(N-1) . This is easily seen if you view the two possible postions at an internal node as 0 and 1, and then count the number of N-1 length binary strings.

With this prologue, lets look at the two problems of company mergers:
1) Where the timing does matter: In this case only the first point (about permutations) need to be considered and so - the answer turns out to be :
T(N) = C(N-1) = N!/N * (2N-2 C N-1) , where (n C k) is n choose k - or the kth binomial co-efficient.

2) Where timing doesn't matter -- i.e. A->B is considered same as B->A, we need to nullify the effect of the mirror trees, because of which a division by 2^(N-1) is required. SO the formula turns out to be:
T(N) = C(N-1) = 1/2^(N-1) * N!/N * (2N-2 C N-1) , where (n C k) is n choose k - or the kth binomial co-efficient.

OR

T(N) = C(N-1) = (N-1)!/2^(N-1) * (2N-2 C N-1) , where (n C k) is n choose k - or the kth binomial co-efficient.

There is a simple proof that the number is second formula is nothing but (2N-3) !! (double factorial).

classical guitar

2007-08-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have seen classical guitar in its full glory. Apart from the fact that it has nylon strings and that the fret board is much wider (good luck ! fingers !!) I had no clue, that it can be played so beautifully. One of my music enthusiast friends pointed me to this video and I have lost my mind over it. You can see it here.

This song called "Bohemian Raphsody" is from a 70's band called Queens.

come back

2007-08-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

It was this afternoon, a bright sunday Bangalore afternoon, while I was chewing on some old novel, ... no wait .. take back that line .... it wasn't supposed to start like that. Just to erase any false impressions, I don't generally chew on old novels in the afternoons, you know, like sitting in the porch or balcony, sipping coffee etc. No, that'll be a completely wrong picture of me. It was just that I was totally bored from gawking at my lappy, trying to figure out a bug in my project, which is a darn wrong thing to do on a Sunday, btw. But, what can i say ? All the 4 movie channels, two music channels, two science channels and two cartoon channels, were airing nothing of the stay-glued-to-the-chair types. And that bug I was talking about, has been infesting my grey cells for sometime now.

Anyways, where was I ? yeah ... as I was pouring over one of my fav. literary marvels, I realised with a brief start that it's been exactly four months since I wrote anything here. And I judged it's only fair to give the future historians some clue regarding this gap and save them from some agonizing nights. To relate it in the style of Chris Gardner (Will Smith) from the movie "Pursuit of HappYness" - this part of my life, right here ? is called - "getting married". Yup. That's right. Everyone does it. I did it. You may look askance and enquire if I had no other good reason than that. But please, I got fed up of explaining myself to people, arguing with them and all that. I'm over that now. Not that life's been unpleasant or negative in anyway after I got married, no, I don't mean that at all. But I have relatively radical views on marriage. Yes, both of us and our families are happy. Ask the CIA or anyone.

Here's a link to a video generated by one of my close friends, capturing some glimpses of the historical event. So many of my college buddies are getting married in the recent past and going to tie the knots in recent future, it's like participating in a grand gala marriage fest. For me, out of marriage, I got a lot of things. For starters, I got a lovely wife. Okay that's kinda given. I also got to meet my brother, my sis-in-law and my nephew after 3 years (bro works in US). Got to meet lot of relatives, whose names I'd forget if I didn't meet them for a year or so more. Got an excellent electric guitar from my friends (watch that you tube clip). Definitely not the least, got my parents to stay with me here at Bangalore. What more can an orthodox-family-born-music-junkie-Bangalore-lover ask for ?

This guitar, it is just amaaaaayyzzzzing. I'm impressed by the kinda faith my friends are showing in me by gifting me an original Yamaha electric guitar (speaker being part of the package). All this considering I'm an amateur strum guitarist who plays the chords from "Hotel California" for the 20th time and looks around like he's composed the song himself. Just so my parents and my neighbours don't get hard of hearing, I got a universal-jack-to-speaker-jack converter plug and now, only I get to listen to all the cacophony that I generate. I was trying some relatively easy carnatic pieces on it and really got excited by the quality of sound. Expect me to post my musical experiments here. And so, beware. ;-)

The Remains of The Day

2007-04-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

"You ... most most ... jewel saar, life ... pakka jewel", said the auto guy, squeezing my hands and saluting when he was not squeezing. His face was assuming expressions varying from surprised happiness to appreciation. I was impressed, thinking that he was doing a good job of whatever he was trying to do and my ego satisfied (of course, assuming what he meant to say is - "You are the crown jewel of human race" or something to that effect ;-) ). Now, when I look back at the incident, I felt I just did the right thing at the right time, that is all.

Last night, it rained heavily. It started around 7:30 and was non-stop till about 11:30 types. The 8 pm cab which came at 8:30 to the office, gave us a thorough tour through the most muddy regions in Bangalore, and safely got us into the downpour at Sadashivnagar at around 10:30 pm. It didn't make sense to stand and get drenched, when i can rather walk and get drenched. So I started walking placidly, sandwiched between the shower from top and the 1-foot-high slushy water on the roads. After a while, I found an auto guy eyeing me with all the challenge he could muster into his eyes. I gave in and asked him if he can come to MES College (a landmark near where I stay). He replied a defiant yes, adding that it would be 50 Rs. Of course, this was plain robbery, knowing that it won't cross the minimum of 12 Rs from where he was positioned. I gave in to this too and smiled at him knowingly, at least to let him know that he wasn't just walking all over me. Things were going fine until about 40 sec after the auto started when it came to a halt and just didn't move. This guy tried whatever he has at his disposal, like swearing, pulling the gear violently, opening and closing the engine box etc.

As this was happening, I somehow felt pity for this man for whom that 50 Rs must be god sent, and how he was really excited about the prospect of loosing it. His efforts went on for a few minutes without response from the auto. I then asked him to just go back a few yards to a petrol bunk, where he can get his auto repaired, I'll pay him a 10 for the ride till then, and go walking from that place. I could clearly see that he was moved but not satisfied. He asked me to sit inside and pushed the auto back to where I had indicated earlier. But, as he came there he noticed that there was an parellel road running which was slopping down. He immediately said that the problem is solved and sat in the auto and let go, after a while the engine picked up and we were just fine.

As is my habit, as we reached and as I handed over the money, I asked him if he knew the route to where he needs to go then. At this point, without any warning he was holding my hands and praising me left-right-center. It was sort of unavoidable as he was holding the money and my hands together. It was 11 pm and and I was feeling extremely tired because of the heavily bumpy ride of 2 hrs in the office cab , the drenching in the rain and the blood donation from afternoon. I pacified this soul and got into the house.

My part in the whole incident, I feel now, was partially inspired from reading a book that one of my colleagues gave - "The Remains of The Day". It was a booker prize winning novel from a Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro. I was surprised at how a Japanese guy wrote in detail about the British psyche during the post world war times. The story is told by a perfect English butler who serves under an influential Lord for around 30 years.

This butler, during his holiday trip through rural England, recollects many of the reminiscences of those times during his service with his previous master and reassures himself that his life hasn't been a waste serving his master, whatever gossipers have to say about him. At many places during the narrative, there are good discussions on what is dignity, what is greatness etc. Though these were from a English butler's perspective, and how things changed over generations, the general message was not lost on me. What drives us most to do whatever we do, is a sense of accomplishment, that is , the task itself. Most of the time, if we were to be asked during the work that we were sure about the result, the answer would have to be no. But there is always hope and there always will be. It somehow feels nice to do the best thing possible given a situation. I can't explain but I'm sure many of you will feel the same way. You many not always be master of what you face, but you'll still be master of what you do when you face whatever you face.

For example, last night's situation. I was drenched. I can be more drenched and keep walking and catch cold or something. Or I can take the auto and leave. When the auto stopped, I could yell at the guy and stamp out bad tempered or I could have tried to help both of us out of the situation. This list goes on and on. It's like a binary decision tree. I do the best possible at a given situation or I won't. Really inspiring novel, it leaves you with a feeling of purpose in life.

I would recommend this novel for anyone who has a little inclination towards Victorian type novels.

my visual DNA

2007-03-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

Saw my friend PV get his visual DNA and checked out mine.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

babies will be babies

2007-03-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

I always get strongly reminded of assembly language mnemonics when i hear babies speak or being spoken to. For instance,a "AAA UMM" (meaning LOAD ACC) or a "SSS" (need I explain ?) or even sometimes a "DADA" (usually short for the warning "Do As told, Do As told") takes me back to that course that we struggled through during our grads. But, we are steering clear of the original purpose of this post. Ahoy !! full astern, me matey !!

I was travelling again this weekend, after meeting my parents, in a train which seemed to be preloaded with kids and babies all over. I particularly speak about a 1 year old toddler (you may ask me how do you know it's one year. One knows Dr Watson, mail me for explanation ..) who was in the same compartment as I was. My original plan as I entered the train was to sleep off early so that I could get up early and finish my novel in the solemn hours of the morning. It was a spine chilling Victorian murder mystery, where everyone including the narrator move suspiciously with conspirational looks, at night, with candles across alleys and black cats strewn all over. Such a thing mustn't be pursued at night, that too in train when travelling middle berth. Anyway, so here I was, trying to get some nap. Starting at about 11:30 into the night, a series of disturbing events proceeded to occur, as Agatha Christie would have put it.

"gaarrrrrrrrrrphhhhhh", an upstairs neighbor opined in his sleep.
This somehow didn't agree well with the toddler downstairs, so "aaawwaaaaa !!", he replied back.
I was very shrewd in imagining that things were getting hotter and tension was spreading in the already stuffy compartment air. Any moment now, the bubble may break.
The snorer didn't change his opinion even after the new development. "grrrrsnnnzzzz", he declared this time. The toddler didn't back down, he raised the bet by 10 dB more and returned the call in no mean terms with a scintillating "AWAAAAAA!!". After that the little champ was unstoppable. Good that the snorer was no way reachable to the baldie, for I had no doubt that he was looking daggers at the snoring offender. This, of course awakened the upstairs neighbour to the facts of life and he turned away subdued and humbled. In the meanwhile, the mother, father and other relations of the baby got up and started to calm him down. Very peculiarly, this chap needed no calming down, if the lights were on. So, as soon as the lights were on, he began to lie down beside his mom, seemingly deeply satisfied.

If you think that the unhappy episode ended here, you are completely mistaken. Young spirits, once set on fire, are difficult to extinguish. I was tussling on my berth for sometime now and realised that the reason for the fidgeting was that the light was still on. Immediately I realised the gravity of the situation. They say men must go through difficult times to learn. Here, I thought, was an opportunity. Not that I wasn't careful. I gave a few sidelong glances at the little chap for about 10 minutes. I feigned sneezing for a bit, just to make sure he was really asleep. After passing these tests, I made the mistake of switching the light off. This move truly aroused the fellow's sensitive feelings and he resumed his incantations at a level which the tennis players generally use while tackling a particularly difficult serve. He would have made Monica Seles feel like a puny ant. After I put back the light on, I murmured a few apologies to the parents and got back to my tussling. Only at around 3:00 am did the fellow slept soundly without taking offences at these silly things.

The night's incidents interested me immensely and I took up watching this warrior even by the day. I looked past the edge of my murder mystery every now and then. And the wealth of information I gathered by this act was very profound in nature. Here are some baby facts:
1) If you give a anything soft to be eaten to a baby, his algorithm to achieve this feat is simple. He first squashes the object on the floor with both hands, spreads it well and takes of pulp of the floor to keep in his mouth. Pretty savage, I know, but there it is.
2) Any object that is not squashable is to be put directly into the mouth for a preliminary examination.
3) Inviting the baby to you with a brief "CHUCHU" is quite comparable to a unassuming first year, crying out loud to be ragged in a senior corridor full of people.
4) Never remove the safely clothing tied around the waists of these fellows. Babies are quick to take offense and their general method to tackle the situation when this happens is to let go.

I got down the train, very wise and chanted the title to myself.

"hey you are a good pillion rider"

2007-02-24T07:35:00.000-08:00

As always (with the wonderful language that English is), we can't get the spelling of a word by the way it is pronounced. I was trying peelian, pealian, peelean with everytime the dictionary applet asking me if i wasn't sure it's 'pelican' that I'm looking for. Duh !!
This is a travel entry. So, readers are pre-warned. Go away now - Alt+F4 it or Ctrl+W it, as the case may be ..
Anyway, these were the words (ref. Title) my friend delivered, after he dropped me off on MG road this evening. This was after a 90 minutes ride covering Hoskote, Whitefield, KRpuram, Old madras road and halasuru. Twelve of us went to a resort called 'Park Field' - some 20 km from Hoskote, as three of us wanted to treat the rest, for various reasons which i will not go into here. We started off in Marthahalli on 6 bikes around 10:45 in the morning and reached this place around 12:15.

The place itself is good with good lawns and all that sort of thing. But the service was despicable ... no .. no that is too strong ... umm.. service was so .. so .. . Two of us came from Hyderabad for this get together and i could see occasional sparks of satire. Food was not that great, but our naturally complaining nature didn't find much to say about that, because it wasn't for the food that we went there.

The best part of the trip started off as soon as we reached there. I don't know what's customary in these places which have swimming pools as part of their general scheme of things. But here they had a playably big swimming pool (60 x 15 ft) and they provided pinapple juice as we were inside the pool. I definitely felt like i was a sleazy villian in a James Bond movie, what with those eye-brow-raising-posh-goggles and sipping-pineapple-juices-from-plastic-cups, colorful-tyres and a frisbee and a polo-ball floating around etc. Okay .. Okay somethings were missing .. but i can almost imagine Pierce Brosnan to slide over gently to my end and pester me about the secret plans, at a gun point.

I was having a blast there even after i was tired swimming, by lying down on a long white plastic chair thing (what is this called .. ) alongside the pool, looking benignly at the other empty chairs and my friends in the pool.

At last around 2 we started to have lunch .. i won't cover the spiritual pains we underwent there.
Then there was some TTeeing. I wasn't good at TT (any physically exerting sport). But, beside the TT table there was a chess board and I lost spectacularly to one of my friends by serving up my king deep into his den.
After that, there was the inevitable cricket. I was keeper almost through out except when i came bowling (yes ... chucking .. :-)) and batting. I took a catch, made a run-out, hit-a-four and surprised myself. As usual, people around me were very encouraging, saying things like "lovely ball" when the guy hit me for a six and so on.

This was followed by some of my friends again going into the pool and so around 6 we started back, each of us looking like a toasted bread crum.
The second best thing in the trip for me, was the initial part of the ride when we started back. The look-around was deserty in nature with a tree there and a shrub here. And, the sun was just setting red. The scene popped up a 1971 song that I was recently hearing abt a guy's journey in the desert - "A Horse With No Name". (Album: Sister Golden Hair, Artist/Band: America)

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all life ..
..... tum tarara trara ..
... something. .. something ..
.. .... ..............
I've been through the desert with a horse with no name
it felt good to be out of the rain ..
In the desert you can't remember your name
because there ain't no one to give you no pain ..
laa la laa ..

nice song ..
yeah ... and the ride was really good except for the minor set back that my friend who was giving me the ride (dude, if you are reading, skip this ;-) ) had to rush somewhere and he was freely swearing at anyone for the slightest provocation. Also, he was explaining to me occasionally how bad the roads are these days .. but when you are cruising at 80 kmph on a main road, it kinda hard to get clear understanding.
"hhheer no uch aa ffic .. but terrill ... drirring", he spits.
"sss ya .. i see ht", i spit back, trying to clean my face with a tissue.
"ay rebber aching a layt err ... height ?"
sensing that this is a confirmation question, i say .. "YEAH.. "
this went on for sometime, till both of us were in sync in our swearing due to the evident traffic as we entered Bangalore.
yes, as he dropped me off MG road, he said i was good pillion.
"what ?"
"pillion"
"what's a pillion?"
"the guy who sits behind on a bike.. you weren't tensed even as i was going high speed, you were balanced, didn't move this way and that .. etc ... you are a good pillion"

yes, i was. I mean after a day like that, who wouldn't ?

The Art of Being Painfully Grateful

2007-02-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

People who know me well, know me as one an impeccable example of those who lack the talent to talk up to the situation. But it's always been the case, that I land up in situations that need to be talked up to. For example, how about this lovely conversation with a friend over phone after long long time, (initiated by me)

"Hi"
"OHH HHHAAAAAAII !!"
"I called you up for asking if you have an mp3 of this song ...."
[I can imagine you 'ptch'ing and shaking your head sideways in disapproval. Where's all the "How are you, old egg?" or "hows life dude ? what's up?" and all such chummy intros gone ?]
"oh."
"So, you have it ?"
"eh ? no. i don't know. I need to check up. listen ..i'll call you later."
["there is a thing called tact, you know .. "]
"okay."

On retrospect, I felt I'll do some justice to the 'ptch'ers by calling up another friend and I talked on and on for 20 minutes till I could sense that the conversation goes like this ..

"hmmm"
"umm"
"that's what"
"yeah sure"
"hmmm"

And I didn't feel any better later. It must be clear, with this one singular example, that for me, being polite is the same as being frank. I have been recently seeing a lot of influence of the office environment over my friends. May be I'm a bit too rigid about my views. But there it is. There is a lot of "Thanx man"
stuff that goes around in office and I find myself getting dragged into it reluctantly.

"Hey, did you forward that mail ?"
"yes i did."
"Thanx man."

Surprisingly,

"Hey, did you forward that mail ?"
"No, i didn't. Will do it now" ... and then .. pat comes ..
"Thanx man."

This must be easy ... like ..
"Hey dude"
"Thanx man."
"How are you?"
"Fine. Thanx man."

So, I try out my luck over something similar and I get all glossy, face full of smiles from the opponent for me saying thanx. So, I declare to him,
"hey, thanx a lot for filing the bugs" [His job. He gets paid for that]
" :-) . Actually there are two more "
"Oh great. thanx man."

I felt relieved that I too can do this easily. So,
thanx, thanx, thanx, for reading this post. My words fail me when I try to express my unparelleled gratitude that my heart profuses for you for your highly condescending act of spending your invaluble time here. Thanx a lot, Thanx man, Thanx lady, Thanx, thanx thanx.

sunday outing

2007-01-14T05:31:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful creature, yet so dangerous when confronted alone. I have enjoyed taking this pic when we were going on a Lion and Tiger Safari this afternoon in the Bannerugatta zoo.
First 15 minutes of the ride was disappointing as there were 2 events going in loop. The events being:
1) digga .. digga...digga ... digga ...
digaa .. thump .. thump ... _ouch_ drrr ..
digga ... digga ... digga .. in that metal
contraption (they called it safari bus ... hmm .. people ...)
2) a war cry from our guide (a 15-17 year old kid) "Tiger allidey nodi .. !!" and confused hassle near windows ... whenever this guy tried to show us, the object of his excitement was a safe 30 m away under a tree other side - condescending to show (and wave) only its tail, or on a distant rock - trying to digest whatever they gave it in the morning. I was sure that at one or two places, he was feigning. By the time cameras start zooming into an appropriate position, the driver very cleverly decides to move. I was kinda frustated. And our white friend here was determined to help me. It didn't budge an inch from its place as the bus moved right beside it. And i was just 4 meters away (in the bus of course) when i took this pic. I
felt like one of those NG photographers .. only, as i said, i was in safe in the bus. And then, after just 3 to 4 minutes, this tiger here (right pic ->)also moved very close to the bus. Then, it circumambulated the bus, perhaps in hope to lick a healthy hand or two, but as it was not happening, it left the proximity of the bus rather disappointed. One thing i hated is the way the those forrest officials were throwing stones at them so that they move towards the bus. Though i would have liked to have them near enough for my pics, i felt sorry for them. The zoo was not too big when compared to others I have seen in Hyderabad or Chennai , but it's always nice to go to a zoo and look at other vertibrates in action.

_the_l ast_night

2007-01-09T05:42:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot to blog this.
So, just as I remembered now, i immediately started typing out ..

Sunday night i had a dream. Now, you see, I generally don't get dreams at night. I generally do all the dreamwork in the day. Just to be sure that I get proper sleep, and not wake up awkwardly stunned on the ground due to any bad dream, I make sure i think of something nice and happy before sleeping. I do not remember what I did sunday night, but I got up at 3 am literally drenched in sweat and scared to my bones.

For some vague reason, (you know, how dreams are ..), I'm in a cell with 2 more guys, both of whom I couldn't recognize. We three were to be executed the next morning. I was raking my brain (in my dream I mean) as to what great crime I had committed to get that punishment. And when I looked at these two other guys, they seemed gullible and innocent enough. I had no idea what country it was, where exactly I was. I was reluctant to speak to other guys and I sensed the same from them, as I saw them lay huddled in different corners of that (about 8x8) room.

As the time wore on, more than the thought of what I was being punished for, the thought that the punishment was death starting sinking in. I was imagining all that I saw, read about execution and it was in no way comforting. Very strangely, there was no trace of thoughts or ideas towards escaping. I was thinking and wishing what would be easiest way for the whole thing to get over. From what i saw, firing a bullet into the head would, by far, be the best thing that can happen, as it might get over in a second or two. I started wishing (praying ?) hard that this should be how it should end. Then I started thinking if it wasn't better to shoot at heart. Even as I was thinking, independently I was getting really really scared that it is going to be the end. Everthing except my bated breath and the beating of my own heart, seemed to have come to a stand still like in a painting.

I grew up in an ashram environment that always told me not to fear death and that it is as much part of life as life itself is. That was of no avail, as I was staring at the blank wall, thinking of the next day. Every now and then, involuntarily, as much as I was trying to avoid them, the incidents of more gruesome execution started creeping into my mind. To top it all, there was this unbelievable silence that the anticipation or presence of death often demands, and that silence was very very scary. Though it was just a dream, I had no idea as I was in the dream. I was a somebody who's going to be put to death, the next day. I was desparately thinking of all nice incidents of my family, my father, mother, brother, relatives and friends, the times I spent with them, their words, so that I can avoid this mental torture. More I tried to recall, more I started feeling their absence and my loneliness in that hell hole.

Imagination is a good thing. But too much imagination can be distressing as it happened in this dream of mine. After seeing so many people in realworld and on the cinemas undergo this strange phenomenon, anyone would think we would have gotten used to it. But no. Instead, all those images were corroding into my mind as certain possibilites of my immediate future. oh ! what I wouldn't have given in that situation for some company and assurance that everything is going to be alright.

It was very cold and slowly my face and hands started getting numb. I wanted to cry loudly but very strangely there were no tears. But there is this tremendous amount of fear that i never faced all my life. I was slightly shivering though i was sweating like I was outdoors working on a sunny afternoon. With one ultimate effort I shook myself up to wakefulness and found that I was really shivering and sweating and still in terror for about half a minute. It took me about 45 minutes to calm down myself and go to sleep with thankful prayers on my lips.

Man's natural fear of anything unknown or uncertain, shows its ugly fangs when it comes to pinnacle of such mysteries called Death. Sometimes I feel (I donno if I read it somewhere too) that all our lives we are given an opportunity of time to train ourselves to this singular event which alludes all scientific rationale. It proved to me yet again, how powerful and dangerous a tool that mind is.

domestic ramblings

2006-12-15T05:31:00.000-08:00

"Brinjal !!", she said, as her face lit up.
My sister was answering my question as to which curry was the easiest to prepare. She's been a mother to me ever since i had to come to Bangalore for my job. Domestic affairs bore me to death, so I was extremely interested in knowing how one can be happy doing the same thing everyday. Of course , we all do almost the same thing everyday and yet be happy about it. I'm a software programmer by profession, but i do a lot of things than just programming, I participate in decision making, technical discussions, etc etc I felt at least my job was not that monotonous as compared to, say, cutting vegetables, arranging the house back to shape after the mess that kids make, all through out thinking about food that someone else might like might not like ... psshah ! GOD help her.

I had put similar sentiments before my mother a lot of times. Her reply always satisfied me for the moment and then didn't at some later point in time. She simply said, she loved us and so she loved her job. My sister's sentiments were similar too. But then, she has an artistic bent of mind. So she also found happiness in different ways of making something, do a bit of embroidery and painting over porcelain whenever she feels extremely bored. Ah ! I must add, i feel that my mother and her sisters had a very comfortable time bringing us up (me, my cousins viz. my generation) when compared my sister bringing up my nephews. I strongly remember (me and my brother being the only children) my father insisting that we help our mother in the daily cores and we, feeling subtly happy, as we clearly saw that this help, though small, made her happy.
There is no such notion in the minds of my nephews. They entertain the impression that they are born to be served.

And the modern girls too. I'm not an advocate of girl-should-be-at-home-only philosophy. But, I always felt and feel that the delicacy of home making is a privilege and art better known to a female than to a male. In families where both father and mother work and the kids are kept in day-care centers, not knowing the mother's touch, and father's love for most of the time in the day are brought up in such an environment void of any sentiments.

I know husbands who don't budge an inch even as wife struggles beyond hope, cooped up in her domestic activities and I know also of families where both the parents work so much at office and home that the kids are be-spoiled. I crave for a family of my own (whenever that forms ;-) ) to be somewhere in the balance. Where the mother can love and care for her kids in the day without having to bother about money earning, be the first teacher to her kids, (her education is not worthless) and yet be upto date with her surroundings. Father comes home, spends time with kids, have a thing or two to help his wife and be happy.

Amen !!
~

existence

2006-12-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

yeah ... a scary thought indeed.
Existence | Ex*ist"ence |
n. Cf. F. existence.

1. The state of existing or being; actual possession of
being; continuance in being; as, the existence of body and
of soul in union; the separate existence of the soul;
immortal existence.
1913 Webster

generally, as a rule, i don't post any wisdomous (Joey ;-) ) stuff but i thought i'll
rant for a bit.
This question baffled almost all of us at some point in time or the other. I do not
profess that i have gauged the concept thoroughly enough to write about it .. but I
wonder ... is it even possible to know for sure ?
There are so many things involved that i'm at loss to know where to start ..
anyways ... when some one says I exist what does that mean ?
The thing that immediately comes to my mind is that - The possesion of the knowledge
that we see, hear, taste, smell and feel. This is true in the sense that, this is what we perceive.
But I donno if i can call it existence. I'll tell you why. Often do we come across
statements in mathematics such as .... there exists a number such that blah blah is not
doodle-do and so there can't exist a limit on the blah foo blah ... and so on and so
forth. Ahha !! a number exists .. !! where ?? Can a number feel, hear, taste, smell and
see ??? Imagine !!
Fine. People may say .. oh please !! there is a thing called logical existence and physical
existence. Well, lets draw some lines here. To us -
The concept of "physical" existence is more appealing as meaning for the word existence.
What are all these hearing, seeing and all this stuff anyway ? (people who saw the movie
Matrix will not entertain such doubts any more ... ) Myriad electro magnetic impulses that
go to and forth the machine that brain is. Now, my friend, what is '2' ? or '3.414' for that
matter ? Another such impulse ? Then why characterize it differently ? I donno.
I just want to "be" content sometimes with the thought all that out there "is" just huge
transfer of energies (electro-magnetic crap or otherwise) into various other forms.
I also "feel" most of the times that I'm better off not "thinking" and just enjoying the life
as it comes ..
But then, I have this unsatiable ego to know that I do what I please ... but with this existence
funda kicking in, I don't see it logically happening ... myriad levels of transfer of energies ...
huhh !!
i'll stop. [at last ..]

Me and my guitar will strum along ... :-)

2006-11-11T02:44:00.000-08:00

here's my first mp3... !! ;-)
Actually, it's just a very uncouth imitation of first part of a song 'You Are Everywhere'
by the famous grammy award winning singer Michelle Branch.
(in the pic here.. .. very incidentally, my guitar looks very much like the guitar she's holding in the pic .. except for the F-cut)

i fell in love with my guitar the moment my friend Sri selected it for purchase. From then on, its been (and still) a hell of a time at home and office for my family and colleagues seeing my struggle with my twwwweeeeess .. and krrrrrrsssss ...

at last i got the enthu to see if i can record something i have been killing people with. I tweaked around with KRecord (thanx to all those KRecord developers from KDE) and ffmpeg (again no words for that wonderful piece of s/w from mplayer devs ..) now i will be able to record mp3s. :-) ... . to start on people who don't get to bear my playing directly. I expect i shall post more and more mp3s as i can start playing more and more songs. Currently i also muff it up totally if i try to open my mouth while playing. No ... no singing and playing right now .. I'll be waiting for that day when i can do that .. till then ... all the best amigos .. :-)

Definitely with my Intex mike i can't expect to get great clarity in recording. I tried to get a studio level environment .. the silence and minimum distrubance due to other electronic gadgets, in this 20 sec piece .. for the first 5 seconds you'll hear some guy honking his car horn on the road adjacent to my place. so its just a 15 second pure cacaphony. Hope people enjoy it.

the travails of the less agile young men

2006-10-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

like me .. I almost added to the title .. that'd be too prosaic. So I didn't. This is the second occasion in a span of few days that I hurt my knees by falling down awkwardly. Once on the road and the second time - i'm sorry to say - on the treadmill in gym.
Sometimes I wonder .. in all those movies, even with minimum amount of action involved, people are falling all over, when being chased, when confronted and there is some sort of fight or the other and they all seem to be pretty okay about it . With just a couple of bruises over both of my knees and a slight muscle sprain in my left upper arm, I felt so dissolute when I pulled myself up beside the treadmill .
Why go for movies, all these atheletes and gymnasts doing somersaults, falling about 120 times a day .... god . how do they do it ?
Anyway, I find myself chanting "careful ... CAREFUL ..." , hoping not to become like one of those P G Wodehouse characters (Bertram Wooster i think) who supposedly can trip over a huge table in middle of a huge and otherwise empty room.

You've Got Mail

2006-10-23T03:49:00.000-07:00

i felt so nice watching the movie "You've Got Mail". May be the reason i liked it has something to do with the fact that my parents are in search of a match for me. But, whatever, i simply loved the movie. Though it's an old movie, it somehow happened that i had only seen it in parts every now and then, and have seen a couple of bad imitations in local languages. Seeing the movie as a whole was worth every bit of those one and a half hours.
Finding a soulmate to fill your heart with joy ?? I mean, how often does that happen ? On films, it may be cool thing to see but life is so different.
Coming back to the movie, I liked the fact that anyone, literally anyone, whom you may not even know, can be influencing you in ways you do not realise. Scary, yes. True nevertheless. It can't be a happy union, if husband and wife have the same interests in everything. It will get boring. As much as i loved the soft nature of Kathelene Kelly ("I love daisies, don't you love daisies, don't you think daisies are the most friendliest of flowers ?") - excellently played by Meg Ryan), i also liked the confident, business-like, yet sensitive character of Joe Fox (needless to say, great acting by Tom Hanks). There are so many lovely dialogues in the movie, which are worth recalling a zillion times. How about this -
Kathelene Kelly [ShopGirl] : The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings. So, thanx.
and I like this dialogue sooo much -
Joe Fox [NY152]: Would'nt it be great if i could pass all my zingers to you then i could always be nice and you could be nasty whenever you wanted to be. Although i must warn you... when you eventually have the pleasure of saying the thing you want to say at the moment your wanting to say it... remorse eventually follows...
I can keep seeing this movie forever and i definitely will enjoy it. Nice background music by George Fenton and some of the soundtracks are very good. I especially liked the
one by Stevie Wonder and the last song (played during credits) - Anyone At all.

programming

2006-09-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

A master was explaining the Tao to a novice.
"The Tao embodies all software - however insignificant it is ... "
the novice asks, puzzled, "Do the handhelds have it ?"
"Yes !!", came the reply.
"the video games ? what about the video games .. ??"
"Yes, even the video games have the Tao.", replied the master ..
"How about DOS for personal computers ... Does Tao embody it ?"
At this point, the master coughs, shifts his position slightly and
says .. "the lesson is over today .."
- The Tao of Programming

Fountainhead

2006-07-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

Completed reading this book recently and thought it's good to register the summum bonum
somewhere. So this post.
Ayn Rand has some interesting ideas presented in this book on what men should be like
and the direction in which mankind should be headed.
Man learns by experience. But then, past should not overwhelm the decision making or
knowledge acquisition in the present. The story is that of a bright young architect
Howard Roark, his struggle through life, as he tries to establish the beauty of
rigid scientific approach to architecture based on purpose and perfection rather than
fancies of ancient art that was prevelant evil among buildings in those days just for
aesthetics and occasionally at the cost of the purpose of the building.
Though the circumstances in which this is potrayed as well as the characters choosen needn't
have been that vague and violent, the idea is well communicated.
There are many occasions in the book where there is this idea of untold communication with just
looks that was bit hard to bite. For example .. oft will you come across lines like -
"He looked at her. And then she understood all that was not said." a bit too much ... of course.
Its a story. So accept things and move on. For people who read Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings
this shouldn't be too diffucult.
Self respect is important in life. We always seem to crave for what others think about us and
we let our actions get guided by that. There is a difference between this and doing something to
help others. Needs a bit of thinking. True, nevertheless.
Good inspirational book for work life.

the joy of music

2006-05-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

It has been for quite sometime now that i was pondering over what makes most of us (leave alone those occasional loonies who literally hate music) enjoy music. What exactly is it a particular sound or a series of such sounds and silences possess that arrests attention ? I'm not referring to individual tastes in music but music as a whole entity. I was sure that this question must have been thought over by many people by now, if a guy is thinking about it 25 years after his advent to this wonderful planet as compared to music that has been there since ages. But then, I wanted to know, why i love it ... hmm .. self introspection .. not easy eh ? I tried and here are the some "answers" (clues .. rather ..) that i got:

1) Even when I was a kid, my parents seemed to be happy (smiling, nodding head and all other signs of happiness) whenever they were listening to music (carnatic and a few film songs). So i was already being told that "music" is nice and gives happiness. Ok. if not parents, someone else. Someone in our lives must have been noticed by us as being happy while listening to "music". Though I know that this definitely will have some influence on "liking music", I strongly feel that there are more scientifc reasons than mere imitation of someone else's seeming happiness. (how did the first guy ever get influenced ;-) )
2) It is not hard to realise that there are 7 major notes (err ... frequency-levels for puritans) that are common to all the sects of music irrespective of their geographic background. And they all sound exactly the same. I mean .. come on .. how can this be ?? Call it do-re-mi-so .... or sa-re-ga-ma .... they are all there .. as clear as daylight, staring at you, the seven of them. If the frequency levels that please a typical human ear are exactly same in various (sometimes unconnected civilizations) there's got to be something about it. There are some differences in the number of notes considered for music between these sects. For example even in Indian music, carnatic has 14 notes altogether in a set (including these major - basic 7) and hindustani has 12. Notwithstanding these differences, it's still a ponderable point that those basic 7 are the same. why .. why .. why ??
3) As most of the living creatures we care for, communicate using sound (need not always be in the audible range for human beings - i'm considering sharks, dolphins, bats and other earthmates which communicate in non-human audible frequencies), it is a natural thing, it seems, to respond to a particular variation in sounds as it might correspond (though not immediately perceivable) to a similar variation in sounds that we make while expressing some emotion. Even a non-exponent of music can easily relate to a emotion while listening to a piece. I feel it is that way, for the simple reason that our communication is based on sounds. How many times have we not said .... "hey that is a sad song .." even before we hear the lyrics ... ?
I guess it gives us some kind of satisfaction if hear something so akin to our communication and yet not in the immediate grasp. ... u know ... kind of satisfaction we get while we unwrap our gifts..... , if you get my drift. ....
4) What we perceive as "taste" of a particular food item is actually the summum-bonum of the looks of it on the plate, the smell we get while we eat and the actual responses of taste buds on the tongue. Similarly i feel that what we "enjoy" when we perceive music ... is not just the variation of sounds, but also the emotion associated with it, the imagery we associate .. (next time you hear your favourite song, try not to think of any images .... it was impossible for me ... ) with the emotion or the situation. For example, when i lend my ears to an orchestra ... my imagery is that of synchronization, blending .. ... errr .... conducting .. etc ... ; when i hear a carnatic piece, my imagery is in accordance with emotion i feel while listening to that piece and so on.

in order to get at the why of "enjoying music" i got to these clues .... let me see if further thinking leads me to a comprehensive answer that satisfies me.

surely u r joking Mr. Feynman

2006-04-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

thats what i have been reading these days before i get to bed... and its been so long
since i blogged anything. Bro asks me over chat .. "i've been looking at ur blog ... nothing
after the kernel thing .." so i say to myself "come on .. !!"
this book is one of the most straightforward (yet amusing) accounts of personal life of a great scientist.
A must read for all researchers.
i was a big fan of Mr. Feynman since the time i was doing undergrad and found one of his
lecture series books in the library. It requires a lot of skill to be able to communicate an idea or a scientifc principle very effectively to a kid. I have no doubt that Feynman is stuffed with these skills.
Not everyone, however knowledgeable, can explain that way.

I had previously read "The Lost lectures of Feynman" ... an absolutely brilliant account of his work
in arriving at equations for the motion paths of planets using little more than high school geometry.
Ofcourse he wasn't awarded the nobel prize for that ... the was awarded for his work in accurately
measuring the influences of protons and neutrons over the motion of electron in an atom .

anyway, coming to this book i was reading these days ... it was written by Feynman himself ..
it has accounts of how he had a lab when he was young , how he used to confuse his classmates and
teachers with his wit, his work at MIT, Cornell, Princeton , in making bomb .. his experiments with
various languages ... etc etc
what inspired me most is his frankness and total focus on whatever he let his hands on (which is
a wide variety of things BTW .. geometry, algebra, almost all branches of physics, drums (yeah !!),
drawing, learning various tongues like portugese, japanese .. oh .. u must read this book ..)

the kernel hitch

2006-02-15T04:40:00.000-08:00

as much as there are fans for the linux kernel, there are more than that many things that
one should know while reading kernel for the first time.
(I must say the word "reading" is a very bad choice but had to be used for want
of better words)
Though it is really early for me to try and write something about this, I'll try to string my
initial impressions in words thus -
Very broadly speaking,
1) It was initially a academic project by a single guy.
2) You will be brainwashed about its design being "simple"
3) You will understand that what you know of C is simply peanuts.

More elaborately,
I) For most kernel code all your standard libraries that you have been using throughout
like you had been breathing air freely, *will not* be available. You may try and make
them available for your local piece of kernel code and get lost in the mire of complications
that arise. A list of most commonly used kernel API is documented.
II) Speaking of simple designs, suppose you were to completeky know what is involved in
opening an editor for a nfs mounted file and go ahead and edit it .... your simple mind will
boggle. If yours is not a simple mind, it will shiver slightly at the least. It is something like this -
1) The editor will invoke a local syscall such as read on the file based on its local inode
2) In this particular case the inode happens to be an rnode (non - local inode) and therefore
when the sys-call looks into the filesystem info stored therein and realises that it is nfs ...
transfers the call to the corresponding nfs-open/read/write/....
3) Then nfs-client code for open/read/write/... first checks the attributes of the file from
the local directory cache of the server state (if it the cache is still valid) or generates an RPC
call to get the file attributes by giving a "file handle" as a parameter.
4) From which it decides whether it can go about asking for whatever the upper layer wanted it
to do.
5) IF yes, it generates another RPC call for the actual operation .
6) The server (which has been whistling in the meanwhile) gets the request and checks to see
if the user has the permissions to do what it is being requested (i.e. to see if the story changed
in between the RPC calls ... ... ) .
7) If yes, generates a buffer with what is required and prepares an RPC message and sends it
across .... (If no ...it sends an error saying the client's brain is muddled with prejudices)
8) The client (which might be whistling ... (sleeping .. i mean ) is woken up and then it gives
back the results/error from RPC message to the upper layer .
all this not side tracking to the gory details structures and various points of failure and recovery.
The design may be a simple for the purpose but it is in no way, a "simple" design.
(Kernel guy: Hey !! I was just following the RFC ... ok ?)

III) You know what, C is almost OO. I mean .. u can write code in C in such a way that
you get almost all (inheritance ...etc included) objected oriented results. For example
the various file systems that exist in a typical linux kernel implement common functions
and structures already mentioned in the vfs (virtual file system) code ... and almost all
things in vfs code are like abstract base class in C++. I'll say no more here as it is fun to
look at the code and see things for yourself.

Anyway .. looking forward to some exciting kernel hacking.

tremensdelirious

2006-01-24T21:44:00.000-08:00

the readers of Astrerix comic series are very much aware of the hilarious naming conventions followed there.Last night i was reading (should I say revising for umpteenth time) "Asterix and the Caeser's gift" where an old drunkard legionary called Tremensdelirious who, as a punishment to use swear words against Caeser, is given the indomitable village of Gauls as a gift. I particularly liked the way they depicted his drunkardness and delirious speech. First of all the very picture of his face ... I really like the way in which his nose is all notched up and one can almost feel the trench of his breath ... here is a pic where he is *talking* to his mate in the arms ... (after he is totally drunk ofcourse ... )Absolutely hats off to Gosciny and Underzo for their illustrations and choice of names, dialogues, songs and everything else ... IMHO, one of the best comic series ever ...
To give a good idea about the naming skills of these two chaps just consider the name ...
"Squaronthehypotenus" for an architect. Basic high school goemetry that we study cosily in our classrooms today came from the romans and greeks. The very idea of keeping such a name for an architect in the story reflects on the ingenuity of their minds... I especially liked their depiction of tremensdelirious offering his to give his opinion on Julius Caesar.

for what the shuttle is worth

2006-01-20T03:06:00.000-08:00

been to Yahoo yesterday to attend a BLUG talk given by Mark Shuttleworth
(those wondering who he is ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth)
Jaya and Rp were with me.
thanx to jaya for his invitation .. i just know Mark as a founder of Ubuntu Linux
but the fact about his being the first african space tourist ... was news to me ..
(I hardly read news papers or see news channels .. so no surprises there ...)
Supposedly he paid some 20 million dollars for being part of a Russian space craft's
crew.
I realised that i was in my T-shirt and track pants as I got ready to leave office
and confirmed from Jaya that i wont be an eye sore there as many people do come
even more crazily.
First he talked abt his plans for Ubuntu linux .. the details of which i'll not get into here.
More interestingly (atleast for most of us there) he spoke abt his space journey
with such a passion that i started to appreciate that money was immaterial for him
to follow his dreams ... the talk was full of anectodes silly and serious that kept the
audience spellbound. (except ofcourse one or two of those occasional freaks we meet
whose main aim in life is to talk over the cell phone everywhere possible)
I was happy to be there, shake hands with him and get an autograph
("Follow your dreams _ Mark Shuttleworth") on the free Ubuntu Linux CD pack i got.

Had some very good snacks in Yahoo cafeteria and went outside with Rp and Jaya to
CoffeeDay and had some snacks there as well. In my hurry to get back home, made a
few kotlus while in the coffee day that need not be mentioned here ..if u get my drift ...

anyway, it was worth the time i spent in presence of ShuttleWorth and double its worth
the time I spent with my friends..

human relations

2006-01-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

yesterday evening as i was getting back home in the bus and it happened to
stop at a signal. To pass time i looked out and saw that there was an young woman
and her cute kid behind her waiting on scooty. I would put her at not more than 30
and the kid could be 3,4 years old.
She wore her hair, braided into a typical interwoven fashion that you find commonly in Bangalore.
But what the kid was doing caught my attention. He was pulling at her hair, brushing the last
bunch of unwoven part on his cheeks, occasionally trying his best to cut some of it with his teeth,
pulling it hither thither and so on . With all that traffic around .. and frustation caused due to waiting
i was expecting the mother to at least glare at him. But what did she do ?
She looked back, smiled at her kid, lifted him and put him in the front. The kid ofcourse enjoyed
his new position too as it seemed to him that he was riding the scooty. I forgot all my tensions for
a few minutes and smiled indulgently.
It made me nostalgic about the days when i was that kid's age and my life at home.
It is unlike me to be too expressive (if u ask anyone very close to me they'll say i'm too
silent and hide whats going on in my mind ) but i felt that i should do this ...
I love my parents, my brother and rest of my family so much.

Swami is in Bangalore

2006-01-16T19:32:00.000-08:00

Got the news yesterday that Swami came to Bangalore.
hopefully i'll go to Brindavan on the weekend.

laughter in uniform

2006-01-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

at last yesterday i faced an incident that's worth publishing in
in "laughter in uniform" series in Readers Digest magazine ..

i was having lunch with my team mates ... (as is common I suppose
in any organization ... ) and i get a call to my cell phone ... I picked it up
and a booming voice on the other end asked if it was 9xxxxxxxxx ?? ...
It being so ... i confirmed that much .. and then the same voice
congratulated me profusely for winning a lucky draw of a gift worth
7000 Rs ... (u can imagine my eyebrows raising and twiching vigorously..)
... then fell the axe ... he asked me politely if it is possible to get my
wife and come to such 'n such a place for collecting the same ...
(i untwitched and unraised my eyebrows ... if i may use the expression ..)
and i answered him sternly that i was not married and was not interested in
what he was saying ... and i hung up...
wait ... the fun part is all my team mates over the table heard just this much
from my side of the discussion ... "I'm not married and i'm not interested in you"
(i actually said "your offer" .. but u know how sometimes we hear only what we
want to and not what is actually said .. )
there was laughter for next 1 minute on the table and i unwillingly joined in ...
u know these things do happen occasionally ... it is fun to be part and enjoy it ...

the usual gyaan

2006-01-10T03:22:00.001-08:00

i frequently remind myself of Einstein's quote, when some one praised him thoroughly.
He said ".. i'm not great ... i'm just passionately curious ... "
I tried to emulate his "passionaltely curiousness" in my work and found it
very useful. bug fixing started to grow on me for sometime now and i'm afraid if i will
like to handle any other kind of work. Hopefully yes .
it's a delight to catch a bug and be able to fix it ... it is like ... what now ... hmm. ....
yeah .... some kind of crime investigation. Suddenly you are like this famous detective .
in novels who weighs premises and produces a conclusion.
and BTW i realise that i'm blogging after a looooong time unlike some of my friends
who blog almost everyday ... i sincerely admire their patience .. especially pv, saka and
jagpa ... hats off ... really ... come on ... for writing this piece i waited for like ... 2 months ..
now whats that when compared to blogging everyday...
things are fine at office and home ... and i'm buying a worldspace radio tommorrow .. YAY !!

the classical humour of Mark Twain

2005-11-14T19:52:00.000-08:00

the other day I was reading this Adventures of Hucklebery Finn by Mark Twain
after a long long time and couldn't but help appreciate his subtle humour.
Here's a piece of conversation between Huck and the pig headed, good hearted
nigger - Jim ....

*****************************************************************************
"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French."
"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"
"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said -- not a single word."
"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"
"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy -- what would you think?"
"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head -- dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."
"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French?"
"Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"
"Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's WAY of saying it."
"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."
"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"
"No, a cat don't."
"Well, does a cow?"
"No, a cow don't, nuther."
"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"
"No, dey don't."
"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't it?"
"Course."
"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?"
"Why, mos' sholy it is."
"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk different from us? You answer me that."
"Is a cat a man, Huck?"
"No."
"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man? -- er is a cow a cat?"
"No, she ain't either of them."
"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"
"Yes."
"WELL, den ... Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like a man? You answer me DAT!"

I see it warn't no use wasting words -- you can't learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.
************************************************************************

This is the sort of humour that makes u feel pleasent about life and its mundane subtleities.
You wouldn't be rolling on your bed catching your stomach and laughing out loud .. but it
makes your mind smile .. as one of my friends put it to me some years back.

the dbus daemon

2005-11-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

funny thing we don't seem to care exactly about those things that we use so often.
software is no exception to this general statement made above.
It was just a week back that I knew about piece of software called dbus,
which seemingly is responsibel for a hell lot of nice things that happen on a desktop.
Not an uncommon sight in open source, it's current version is not even stable.
the API's are not complete (dbus-0.5). Yet there are loads of things that depend on it ..
There is a library called 'libnotify' that uses dbus very tightly. Some of the desktops
like GNOME and KDE run 2 instances of this daemon - one for system use and another
for user. ok now .. all that hype apart ... what is dbus ?
to put it raw - a message passing type of IPC system and a lot lot more than that.
when I said desktops use a dbus daemon for system - i meant things such as event
occurences ... (like .. "new USB device detected", "keyboard unplugged" so on and so forth)
the next question that comes to a logical mind is why .... why ..... WHY dbus ?
(a little more knowledgeable mind spits out words like CORBA, IPC, RPC, SOAP)
the thing is ... dbus is tailorcoded (if i may borrow the expression) for talks between
desktop applications *in a session*. open source CORBA or bonobo is an overkill for
such type of applications....
lot of "nice" things can be done over a desktop with dbus API. should find some time
to poke around this a bit ... hmm...

2005-11-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

testing gnome-blog-poster

this post is for testing the working of gnome-blog-poster

love to see it work .. :-)

Rains - Floods and Bangalore .

2005-10-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

going to office everyday from Malleswaram is awful enough.
to top that ... imagine having to wade through the traffic and water
Why ? just .. yesterday .. our office bus had to go places .. before we could
reach the other end of Hosur Road near Madiwala. ... (an hour's journey
for what could have actually taken abt 10 minutes)
Ofcourse the journey had its plus points... it gave us a really clear picture of rural
Bangalore like nothing else could have done... looking at those places ..
it is hard to imagine that we are so near "Silicon Valley of Asia"
funny things do happen ... and though we started early ... (5pm) taking
into consideration .. the traffic and all ... first half-an-hour was spent in
trying to get the exact route by which we can reach Madiwala totally
avoiding Hosur Main Road ... we went this way.. reached a dead end ...
and we went another way .. stopped ... clueless looking at the slush thro'
which we might have to swim ... we jogged along .. this way that way ..
and finally hit upon a route.. (which by the way had lot of traffic .. BTM buses
to bullock carts ... ). Even with Radio city going on in full swing inside the bus..
it was not difficult to catch the beautiful Kannada swear words of some of
the villagers there .. ;-) ...
In the morning .. on way back .. as if the existing traffic was not enough ...
I saw NDTV and AAjTAk vans swarming the exact point where the traffic
is at its peak (silkboard junction near Hosur flyover..) I got a strong urge to
go out and start .. a whats-the-big-ideaing at them .. (or much better .. kick them .. )
but controlled myself with lot of effort.
Whatever the reasons .. people might give for the stagnant water .. from ..
Deve Gowda to Bommanahalli villagers... this week will be remembered by me
for a long long time as the week in which i had to travel three hours to reach home
from office...
with

what race conditions can do

2005-10-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

if you ever feel that there is a part of your code that might lead to a race
condition. don't u dare neglect it.
I had learnt this from a bad experience with alarm notification code for
evolution groupware. there was a call for alarm_init from two places
(one in the main loop and another in the bonobo factory initialization)
after checking on a condition if it is already inited or not ..
but the problem is that the two calls can be so near in time that it lead
to a race condition in which alarm_init gets called twice on the whole by
two different threads and all ........... yes indeed ... ALL the data structures
are duplicated .. The alarm notification was occupying double the memory
than it should have .. and the reason being negligence in checking for race
conditions ..
the fun part is that this problem surfaced in a seemingly independent way:
when an alarm notification is made ... each alarm summary was shown twice ...
since the alarm list is a static global list both the threads update it. with two
instances for a single appointment... Chen happened to trace back the problem
to this race condition and I have learnt an important lesson ..
"never mess with threads" (a parody of "never mess with pointers" heh ... )

buidling a software

2005-10-06T01:36:00.000-07:00

there are a number of details that are very essential when one tries to build a software
in linux. and yeah .. those who use rug and/or jhbuild too .. beware ...
last three days i struggled due to my ignorance regarding automake .. autoconf, libtool
etc which are literally the "building" blocks to build a software ...
not that i know in and out now ... but i'm better than what i was.
typically building software from a source involves running makefiles in various directories
and subdirectories .... now .. it is not so easy to make sure everything goes fine for
your environment .. If u leave all the environment - platform checks for the user
one of this might happen :
1) he might give up installing the software and look for an alternative.
2) he might bang his head on the keyboard till his head aches.

software may involve a variety of components that need to be made platform independent..
compilation of a big program needs
1) inclusion of a hell lot of shared libraries
2) dependencies on versions of those libraries
3) number of compilation options as per the needs of the user.

many huge software sources provide a autogen.sh which takes care of generating
the necessary configuration checking script called configure (autogen.sh generally
uses a configure.in file to achieve this feat)
running configure makes sure the three points above are taken care and generates
Makefiles for various directories and subdirectories (making use of Makefile.am
and Makefile.in present in each directory)
now running a make and a make install in the main directory will install the software.
Now people might think "hey what are rpms for .. eh ?" .. yeah sure ... rpms are for
knaive users and these are tips for devel builds needed by developers of the software.
all ye developers:
1)thou shalt assureth that thy PKG_CONFIG_PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH be free
of any errors.
2) thou shalt do a make clean and rebuildeth the sources if it happens that location of
any of thy dependent libraries changeth,
3) thou shalt assureth thyself that multiple versions of same libraries are not used to
build the software unless absolutely essentital...

happy building software

come back

2005-10-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

blogging after a long long time....
if feels like ages and ages ...
I can see that many of my friends will be surprised at this.
'll try to summarize the main events after my previous blog.
* Enjoyed two month vacation at home.
* Joined Novell.
* Got into Evolution (groupware suite) project.
* Working like hell from then .... :-)
now ... what made me come back ?? I donno...
may be i just felt "its time ..."
I get this initial blogger feeling ... what they call
premier intérêt ... that I should continue blogging
at a rate of atleast once a week ... i'll try my best...
first things first ...
i have surprise my friends of my come back ... :-)

polar express

2005-05-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

i was so busy last week with synopsis writing and
corrections that I had little time to check mails .. leave
alone blogging.
Last saturday, i invited all my x-batchmates for looking
around IIT and see the film Polar express. Only a few turned up.
Leng, Sudhindrudu, Harikesh, Pandu (junior) . they all were
there by 6:30 in the evening (sudhindrudu came late .. 8 pm .. he
had some work till then.). Hairkesh was the first to arrive in
his car with pandu.(5:35 pm). Before that in the evening I called him
up thrice saying different dos and don'ts in IIT and how to reach
my hostel. He assured me confidently that he'll turn up on my door step.
And he got lost and went to Ganga hostel which was supposed to be
a dead end and he called me from there. I went and got him to my
room. Guyz really think that IIT is some sort of place u can't do
whatever u want.. u know a sort of high security sector, Leng turned up
on his bike (with an mp3 player in his ears) by 6.
Ofcourse makka and trishul (junior) were with me and we all took them to
a local cafe and had some chat items and fruit juices and cool drinks.
Leng, harikesh and pandu work in corporate banks and they pulled each
other 's leg by talking in office language. Mostly it would go like..
Harikesh would say something.. then leng would say .. "Mr. Harikesh
I approve of what you are saying. I'll send my comments in mail .."
and spent some time narrating their funny experiences in office.
Then we went around IIT in Harikesh's car .. swimming pool, hostel
zone, residence zone, stadium, departments.. and it was already time..
around 7:45 we awere at the gate waiting for Sundhindrudu. Now,
Sudihindrudu was my roommate and my Vedam guru and seeing him
after almost an year felt really nice. makka went to bakery and got some
eatables and back we went to the Open Air Theatre (OAT) in IIT for
seeing the movie Polar Express.
The movie was about a kid who doesn't believe in Santa Claus and things
like that and gets an oppurtunity to go on the Polar Express to see the elves
and Santa Claus himself. Tomhanks played the ticket collector. this kid makes
friends with 2 kids in the train and a helpful ghost on top of the train..
Overall there was not much story. But the animation was simply superb.
Tom Hanks animation character was just like him.
I should recommend sseing this movie for its animation and some cool
moments.
Anyways leng and Pandu left in the interval itself and others left after the
movie. it was a nice evening we spent together.

those doordarshan programs

2005-04-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

i still remember being all fussed and hurried into
geting ready by 9 on Sunday mornings to see
the TV serial "Ramayan" and a few years later..
"Mahabharat.." .. the title songs ring in my ears even
now .. ""
I also faintly remember rushing from school to see
"Giant Robot" at 3:30 .. i loved it ... even "Street Hawk"
Some of my best programs were.. "Turning Point"
"The World This Week" and "Bharat Kee Khoj"
(with Nehru narrating ... ) and ofcourse.. my best
ever ... "Surabhi" ... hmm ..... I miss all that !!

British English

2005-04-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Guyz who read enough Victorian novels would be familiar
with the ways of the British. No offence meant ... its polite
and all that .. the fact that it is so very different from the way
other people write or speak English makes it a matter of many
jokes.. For example .. if a girl wants to say "Stop irritating me"
to her friend this is how she would say in Jane Austin's
"Pride and Predujice "
"You take delight in vexing me, you have no compassion on my nerves. Pray cease humouring at my expense. "

Even if two guys challenge each other for a duel ... a typical conversation goes .....
Sir Blahington : "Pray specify the time and place for the deal, Sir"
Captain Almer : "I sincerely hope that thrity minutes past ten this night is most suitable to you Sir."
Sir Blahington: "I would be ready to pull your nose at the appointed hour, Sir, please be sure Sir, I certainly would".
Captain Almer : "Indeed Sir, so would I."

It is a different experience all together reading Victorian classics like - "David Copperfield", "Pride and Prejudice" etc. I read things long back ... something stirred up these thought in me and so the outcome is
this blog..

desparate

2005-04-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

i haven't blooged for quite sometime and I felt the need
to blurt out some thing that happened all these days since
I blogged last.
I have written my synopsis (more of a cut-copy-paste-organized
my synopsis from the two papers I have written) and waiting for
Prof's permission to present it. In the meanwhile, a senior HR guy (Sushil)
from Novell came down to Chennai to meet me.. make sure I'm
joining Novell and things are ok with transfer and accomodation
in Bangalore.
Amma is staying alone at HYD 'coz naanna went to Parthi to do
service for a few days.
I have to finish thesis within next week...

my mother

2005-03-29T22:49:00.000-08:00

i should have written this as my first blog to
show how much I love her.
As a resident of Chennai during the fearful
Tsunami period, downpour of concern through
telephonic calls from relatives is a common thing.
I'm not yet married, so I defintely do not know how
it feels to be a parent whose children are in an area
of dire distress. within a span of 2 days, I received
4 calls from my mother asking if I was ok ...
I'm so moved by her love.
The very thought of her gives me immense strength...
and I do not know how I'll surivive if she is not there.
I have no doubt that my father and brother love me in
similar way. but I somehow feel mother's love is the
purest of all .. no strings attached .. pure unconditional
love...
I love u so much my dearest mother...

egyptian hieroglyphics

2005-03-28T07:14:00.000-08:00

till yesterday, my idea of egyptian hieroglyphics
was that they were semigraphic in nature.. i.e.
the characters in the script represented a concept
or a word as a whole .
I was reading "The Code Book" (a history of
cryptography) and found this notion wrong.
It seems everyone believed so untill Thomas Young
(yeah !! u r right ! the double slit experiment guy from
Optics) discovered that the egyptian script is phoenetic.
But it seems Young was so fascinated by the existing idea
of it being a semigraphic script that he rejected his own
discovery as a faulty one. Later one linguist (I forgot his name)
took up where Young left and proved that egyptian script was
phoentic in nature by using a ancient tablet that had same
inscrption in egyptian and then in greek.

3 years back

2005-03-23T00:18:00.000-08:00

On this day, 3 years back I was busy preparing for one
of my post grad math exams (I guess it is Mathematical
Modelling or Statistics .. i can't remember which)
all tension in the air ... because most of us had spent most
of our even semester preparing for GATE exam rather
than concentrating on the course work. GATE results
were due on March 31st and all the college was waiting
and expecting great results from us because of the hype we
all created in preparation. The next day's final semester exam
seemed remote and unimportant. We went through all that ..
all our classmates ... through that tension .. supporting each
other... a sense of togetherness .... I can't forget the unity
among us. Now here I'm three years older than I was then ..
typing away about what happened then .... Most of us did
not even bother to ask each other how we did the final sem
exams .. even CK, I remember was unusually quite after
any og those exams .. Those 7 days constituted the slowest
week in my life till now.. after long last March 31st did come ..
and the GATE results were to be announced in the afternoon ..
I still remember Jaya walking off after lunch to Mandir to do
meditation for some time so that he can be ready to face
whatever the result might be .. First time ever in Maths dept ..
our guys achieved what was not thought abt b4...
Jaya got All India 11th rank in GATE(Maths) and Sagar got
31st. I got 154th rank in GATE(CS), PVSS got some 50th
rank in GATE (M) .... and many other guys got good ranks
in Physics and Chemistry too.. by God's grace... we were
rejoicing the whole night ... I still remember those days with
happy tears in my eyes....

Shivrathri

2005-03-09T01:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was shivraathri.
Went to Sundaram temple
in the evening and attended bhajans for
about an hour and came back. Again around
2 in the morning went for a few minutes
to the Jalakanteshwara temple within IIT
and then went to bed. Got up very late into
morning and chanted Namakam after bath.
Have to revert back to the schedule of
sleeping early and getting early.. lets see what
happens. I still fondly remember those days I
had spent in Puttaparthi during Shivraathri
when Swami would take out lingams from His
mouth.. I miss all that .. hmm

my family

2005-03-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

Its great to have support of family in everything you do.
Tommorow is a gr8 day where I'll be able to give my MS
seminar by God's grace. and from yesterday I got calls from
my brother and sis-in-law, my parents, two of my sisters (cousins)
wishing all the best. Its a nice feeling to see so many people are
are behind you to give their shoulder.
God, thanx a lot for such a nice family.

the way we spend money

2005-02-25T08:37:00.000-08:00

this is after a nice dinner we (2 more labmates)
had in hotel eden(continental) . For having a soup, a starter
and one main course item I paid 165 Rs.
had nice time ofcourse.. but looking back at it,
I feel it was slicha too much.
the enthusiasm shown by me for this dinner
is not half its amount when I was asked to volunteer
for Tsunami relief or in giving a poor old woman
a rupee or two on the road.
I'm happy that this thought did occur to me..
I'll do better next time I get an opportunity.

One Fine Evening

2005-02-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

this blog takes inspiration from a close friend of mine at
math grad. We used to go over to our college premises
during study holidays (before exams) . It was a Sunday
morning and the next day it was Group theory finals.
Me and another guy were busy cramming as much as
we can into our muddled brains totally oblivious of
the beautiful sorroundings... and this chap walks up
to us with a poem in his hands .. "On a lazy Sunday
morning .. " .. though we appreciated it for fun I got the
full impact of the incident just now.. As u go through life
nothing matters but what u feel... It was not a matter to him
on that lazy Sunday morning, at that hour that the next day
was on of the tough exams (he was a brainy. of course) .. ,
all that mattered to him then was that It was a lazy sunday
morning.. All that mattered to me for the past 10 minutes
is that I must dedicate a blog for this chap even though there
are many other important works at hand...
Living in the present is most important.. hmm...

Pre Graduation Musings

2005-02-24T02:28:00.000-08:00

It seems strange that all my classmates have finished their thesis
seminars and are all set for the industry while I'm stuck here.
It was like yesterday when I said to my mom before joining that
I'll finish the whole thing in 2 years. Father was apprehensive abt
my joining research.
Anyway today my guide approved of my giving seminar and
I'm a happy soul.

chax's blog

an attempt to fly

kerning pairs

grit my teeth

second lesson - part 1

first lesson

finally ...

cheer up bro

Number of company mergers - explanation rather than proof

classical guitar

come back

The Remains of The Day

my visual DNA

babies will be babies

"hey you are a good pillion rider"

The Art of Being Painfully Grateful

sunday outing

___the___l ast___night__

domestic ramblings

existence

Me and my guitar will strum along ... :-)

the travails of the less agile young men

You've Got Mail

programming

Fountainhead

the joy of music

surely u r joking Mr. Feynman

the kernel hitch

tremensdelirious

for what the shuttle is worth

human relations

Swami is in Bangalore

laughter in uniform

the usual gyaan

the classical humour of Mark Twain

the dbus daemon

Rains - Floods and Bangalore .

what race conditions can do

buidling a software

come back

polar express

those doordarshan programs

British English

desparate

my mother

egyptian hieroglyphics

3 years back

Shivrathri

my family

the way we spend money

One Fine Evening

Pre Graduation Musings

_the_l ast_night