The mind speaketh what the heart sayeth

2011-07-11T02:17:00.001-07:00

censorship

2009-07-18T18:21:00.001-07:00

Why on earth do people censor horror movies !?! .... I mean i understand if its a kiddie movie - but this was a freaking PG13 horror movie - and here's some of the ridiculous "censoring"

The guy on screen says asshole - the voice dubbing says airhead

fuck - fine

son of a bitch - sun of a gun

Just got me thinking - this kinda language is spoken by kids and preschoolers in public here. What the heck are they trying to do by making it "taboo" (and in essence creating a greater desire in kids to use them) ?? I just dont get - who're you kidding !

Windows 7

2009-06-06T09:41:00.001-07:00

Okay ... I f****in HATE vista... so much so that I dont mind accepting another Microsoft OS (only becoz I have no other choice).

So I decided to get the RC for Windows 7 - which is available for download (FREE).

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Here's what you should know though

- you're flying solo. Unless you've done OS installations before and can figure your way around software hitches (missing drivers, disk partitioning etc) then don't go for this.

- From the microsoft site - Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you'll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You'll also need to install the programs and data that you want to use

- Most of your software MAY not work, or work weirdly without OS support

- Make sure you get the right version of windows 7. If you're a 64bit, get the 64 bit version like I did.

Installing is pretty straight forward ONCE you get vista (!@#$#$*^&*) to allow a new partition. A lot of us unfortunate souls have Vista pre-installed on laptops from vendors like HP (the losers couldn't even give the Vista installation DVD, instead eat up 11GB of your hard disk as recovery).

When you have vista preinstalled, usually there's only one C: - which you now need to partition before installing 7 (unless you wanna clean sweep Vista out of C:\ and not do a dual boot). Vista being the wonderful OS that it is - has a disk partition tool that will usually refuse to partition C: - with errors like "no space available" or "space left to shrink = 0" etc.

Here's what you do (google these steps you'll find hundreds of guides)

- Disable System restore on C: . You can turn it back on after partitioning.

- Disable hibernation

- Use a 3rd party partition tool. After a lot of tries - the only one that worked (i love this tool) was EASEUS Partition Master 3.5 Home Edition. The nice people give out the home version for free. A lot of other "miracle partition managers" are 40$ or more.

Now let me warn u, the partition step IS a lil tricky. It could possibly create boot problems. Because vista (oh how wonderfully crafted it is) will recognize that someones gone around it. This is when you'd need the boot DVD/Install DVD/Restore partition on your Laptop. Usually manufacturers that are lame enough to not give you the install DVD have a restore partition - so you should be okay.

Now once you go past the "windows is f***ed, fix it" screen - it does some "restore" and get you back onto vista. Go to your "my computer" and verify that you see your new partition nice and snug there :). Once you see that, its smooth from then on.

Burn the Win7 ISO onto a DVD, write down the product key - and boot from the DVD and the install takes care of itself. All you need to watch out is to make sure win7 installs into your new partition - which is a simple, hard-to-miss step unless youre drunk...like REALLY drunk.

Happy installing - takes bout 30 minutes depending on your version and processor.

Disclaimer - if you screw up :) thats your problem. But there's a lot of help you can find on the internet in case you end up screwing up your computer - so take a chance. Get Vista out the door and into the garbage, where it really belonged to start with.

PS. If you have a NVidia driver that shipped with the Laptop, you might not find an equivalent for it in Windows7 - causing it to install a Generic driver. The generic driver makes your screen look like crap and goes to a max 1024x720 resolution (Windows 95 lol). I searched everywhere on the Nvidia site for a matching driver but couldn't find a 64-bit Windows7 driver to match my GeforceGo 7150m card.

Here was the perfect site that had an answer. They hack the existing NVidia driver INI file to have the latest driver to support your driver

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

All things done - I now have Windows7 running (faster than Vista, even with Aero enabled) - and now I need to start fiddling around it and see if it'll be worth upgrading to in October.

Yenjoy - and happy Installation !!

independence....hmm

2009-04-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

Strange thoughts come at stranger times.

Here i am in USA, watching Gandhi - and wondering - what the hell is going on back home! If Gandhi was alive today, he would probably weep and invite the British back .... just so we have unity in the country again .

The thing he fought for first was unity, and later freedom - somehow, it seems like the rule simply shifted from a bunch of foreign powers sucking the country dry to a bunch of indian powers sucking the country dry. This is not freedom.... and worse, in the guise of freedom, we've lost unity as well... if India was under foreign rule, at least people would be united against a common enemy instead of fighting their neighbors ...

What a sad state of political system the country has.... religion is fodder, criminal background is essential and even something of a prerequisite, education is optional and even a disadvantage ... disgusting....

But with that thought in mind...please check this link out - and to all my friends in and around mangalore...if you love your city, vote for him... the ONLY guy fighting for peace apparently, among a bunch of mofos who could care shit about you.

http://election.rediff.com/interview/2009/apr/06/-from-nj-to-mangalore-a-scientist-poll-tale.htm

wokay wokay

2009-04-07T15:28:00.001-07:00

Heh... im writing, but im not sure what to write about. Anyway... something has been on my mind since a while now - based a friend's dilemma.

This friend of mine, has met someone online - and fallen in love with that person. They've seen each other through pics and spoken a couple of times on voicechat, but spend hours everyday talking to each other.

This got me wondering on what love really is - if someone can fall in love without even seeing someone for real - it couldn't possibly be about physical attraction.

Maybe u can tell me?

2009-02-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

I've been out for a while - i know. Lot of friends are mad at me - for not writing enough to them, for not calling enough, not staying in touch, not meeting up before suddenly disappearing from bangalore ! Well, now that the winds of change have started blowing in familiar directions, and it seems like a home close to heart is farther off than a house close to the brain - i think its right for me to fill everyone on whats been "up" with me....at least before I'm back to tell y'all in person!

First things first - Sorry i couldnt meet many before going. I hardly had any time. I had 3 days (yep) to pack, ship my stuff, get my tickets/travel sorted and fly !...That left me with 3 days with hardly any time to even eat....and Y'all know if i didn't get time to eat - that means i really didnt have any time at all.

Ok...now coming to the weird things that happened around the time and my realizations in life.

1. Never get lost in music, at the airport - I was supposed to go to udupi, to say bye to the beach one last time. But thankfully, after a lot (LOT - as one of you know!) of rush, i reach the frekkin airport 2 hours too early, only to find the frekin flight delayed by 1 hour. That gave me 3 hours to contemplate the meaning of life in the airport. And of course I had to listen to music, and relax. And of course, i had to watch cricket - something I've never done ..except during the 20-20s. The freakin flight (Jet airways, you suck - im no longer flying you) changed the departure gate, and announced it (which i missed thanks to the music), and the flight came and went ! I always wondered how it is to miss a flight - now i know!
Moral: Being too prepared for something can actually be worse than being not prepared at all - coz being well prepared is one step away from complacency !

2) Always complete packing a few hours before the flight - 2 days after my great adventure missing the flight, I was supposed to leave home at 3am. Thankfully my parents were around to force me to pack (well, they packed anyway hehe) well in advance. At 1030pm I get a call from British Airways that the flight is cancelled due to snow in London and that the alternate Lufthansa leaves 4 hours earlier than my scheduled flight - giving me 1 hour to pack my ass and leave home !! Thankfully I was more or less ready, and only thing I missed was dinner ! So much for my long speeches that last minute packing is best because u dont forget anything that way... :-D...
Moral of the story: Sometimes life kicks u in the ass and tells you, "you're philosophy is like pissing in the rain"

3) Never trust a brand name - I was all happy this time around that I'm not going Air India. That innate feeling that air india sucks in quality because..well...its "made in india" (no offense). I was glad to be flying Lufthansa - so glad that I even applied for a frequent flyer card (which never arrived even to date). But imagine this - for all that jazz, the economy class on the Lufthansa is like a frekkin domesting Kingfisher flight. Air india is a million times better. The journey till Amsterdam was like travelling in those TV buses from Electronics city to Jaynagar. Looking at some stupid TV hanging on the roof, playing some nonsense. No individual TV panels !! So much for Lufthansa quality. Thankfully, at least the flight from Amsterdam to Chicago had the TV panels - so I was content at least by the time I reached my destination !
Moral: Always "patafy" the girl who wears no make up. Once the make up comes off, you might end up shocked and scarred for life!

5) Staying 4 star rocks - until you see the bill :) - I ended up misunderstanding a document of reimbursements (hehe) and decided that my company will pay for my stay at a 4 star. The bill was maginificient, and it felt awesome to be pampered ! Thankfully, I found out about the REAL policy before I had to file bankruptcy and moved to a cheaper one..hehe...
Moral: Check your socks for holes before wearing sandals with socks (deep thought required here!)

6) Second/Third home - now I'm in my smaller hotel (still costing around $90 per day) - feeling like the reverse slumdog millionaire - hehe. Coming back to minneapolis feels strange...and comforting. Everything seems familiar, and "been there done that" - so its easier to lay back and enjoy the real feelings. Its so amazing how much you can miss when excitement is the only feeling you can feel ! Once you relax and see things, it just feels so much different - and amazing. Went to watch delhi 6 and ran into a bunch of friends from my ex-home (from last time's stay). Went downtown shopping and saw familiar cops/shopkeepers/busmates.... suddenly you realize that the world isn't that big when you know the world!

Ooh, one thing I must add - AR Rahman is forgiven. I had decided to quit listening to him, after getting PISSED BEYOND WORDS for ruining Beethoven's 5th Symphony by remixing it with Salman Khan blabbing shit (in Yuvraj).....the thought of hearing the idiot's voice instead of the sweet melody makes my blood boil. Anyway, thanks to Shruti - I heard delhi 6....and I was blown away. The delicate tones of Masakkali and Dil Gira Dafatan, have absolved Rahman of his sins.

Moral: You're nuts if you managed to read the whole damn thing !!!

Religion versus "Real"igion

2009-01-12T01:48:00.000-08:00

I believe in God, and the existence of a higher power. I believe that the only message any version of God, in any part of the world has - is peace, and love. This is what I'd refer to as spirituality, or rather the knowledge and belief in a higher power, something and someone that binds all energy, and life.

Religion on the other hand, is what man came up with. This statement will get a lot of criticism - I'm sure, but I honestly believe, the world would be peaceful if not for religion. Religion is what man, through the ages, has concocted to give a "divine" justification for his own evil intentions. And this is not restricted to ANY one religion. Starting from the oldest religions - Christianity, Islam etc to the newest ones - Scientology, Kaballah....religion is the interpretation of spirituality, distorted by greed in one way or another.

Countless wars have been fought in the name of religion - crusades, jihad, ethnic-cleansing - whatever you call it. Anyone with a brain can see the malice. Does anyone, honestly believe that God wants one to kill another in the name of doing good ?

Lets look at some things through history what nonsense has been done in the name of religion

1. Crusades - bunch of kings expanding their kingdom, in the name of repossessing the "holy land". So much for following Jesus, who wouldn't even hurt someone out to kill him! So much for following a religion that specifically says - don't worship places, or things but rather that God is where you pray...so why did the kings want holy land? It was for the resources in the middle east - and they justified it using religion as a veil

2. The whole Jew-Christian nonsense that ultimately led to the holocaust. Apparently the Jews killed Jesus. But who were the rulers at that time - Romans. Who was the guy who ordered the execution - Roman. And who're the people who ultimately became the "holiest christians" on earth - Romans. Where did the Jews come from ?? OK, I'm not talking out of my ass here. Pilot was a ruler of the whole area there, he would NOT have let people decide what to do with Jesus, that would be giving up his position as a ruler. This is simple historical analysis that any historian of that era agrees to. But somehow in the Jesus story, the great governor of a province allows for common folk Jews to decide whom to kill ?? This is again a distortion of history.

3. Jihad - this is again a screwed up myth that has come up with Islam. Islam is a religion that's close to Christianity and Judaism. Lot of texts in the Bible and Quran are similar. Yet somehow these 2 religions are mortal enemies - why? Because one says Jesus rose to heaven, other says Jesus died - although both religions have step-by-step agreement on Jesus' teachings - PEACE. Quran again preaches peace, like any other religion. Taking texts out of context, and out of historical milieu - evil is being injected into innocent minds in the name of "Gods will"...

Every religion has this. I've only mentioned those I understand, but you see it everywhere. What started as a way to worship has become an industry, an empire, a hierarchy, a way to justify evil - the SOLE purpose that EVERY "God"-man has sought to fight !

Ironic isn't it?

Vacartion

2009-01-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

This was just a natural hedge made from trees surrounding a bear enclosure at the reserve. I knew when I clicked this pic that it will appear on my blog in the exact form its here now :)

I'd like to think this coconut came from some faraway land, travelling thousands of miles across the ocean - without a Visa

Shy tiger "aw shucks"

Wild flower. Found this while walking around a nature reserve. People were wondering why i'm sticking my camera into the trees while everyone else was clicking the animals

A common indian firecracker..

No clue what this is - but found it in my garden @home

The hardest pic I've ever clicked. Super hard to get the sunlight to gleam at the right angle, with the wind blowing the web in all directions !.... and yea this web was the size of a 1 rupee coin.

SOS

2008-12-13T11:20:00.001-08:00

I was talking to my friend today about how no one really even reads my blog anymore, except maybe 4-5 people (and they do that coz they're my friends!).... lol

So here's a open discussion (if i get less than 3 replies, im officially planning to have a funeral service to my blog hehe) - what can i or should I do, to have more people visit my blog!! I know some of my friends get major blog traffic, so I could use some free advice ...

Pecos - the yearly yaatra

2008-12-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

Pecos used to be a regular hangout 2 years back, but as the friends list grew smaller and smaller we kinda stopped going there, but I always make this theerth-yaatra to Pecos once a year (at least).

Having completed my pilgrimage for this year, here's a few things I found (comparing the old pecos to the one I saw today)

1. The place looks a lil renovated, which is good. I personally LOVED the rundown look of the old one, but then most of my friends didn't. So I'm guessing thats a good thing now.

2. The crowd has changed considerably over the last few years. The older, smoking, pony-tailed, musician type crowd has now slowly changed into lot of young college-types. This change I particularly didn't appreciate - nothing against kids, but the kind of changes they brought in. With the kiddie crowd coming in, the music has gone softer - moving into playing only the popularist songs (I heard 6 pink floyd songs IN A ROW today....) as against the amazing collection of stuff they had earlier - deep purple, zep, clapton, jethro tull, ELP etc etc... In fact they even played a REM song today (!!) which had some dude rapping (WTF !!)...Thats when i kinda got too pissed to stay there anymore, and left.

3. The food still ROCKS. I had my regular chilly beef - although the price has shot up from 55 to 95 now, the quantity had also slightly increased and tasted just the same - totally excellent. Pecos is one of the few places in Bangalore that serves good beef, and its cooked in a very mangalorean/udupi way, which is perfect for me.

Overall - pecos still is pretty good. The ambience and food is still unmatched, compared to ANY other place in bangalore. But here's a shout out to the old fans of pecos - RETURN, RETURN....please come back to pecos, and REQUEST the guys there to play the good music again... or else you'll soon find pecos playing Bryan adams, or even worse - EMO shite!

Stairway to hell

2008-12-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

Before: A staircase

After: Stairway to hell...lol. Weird name inspired by "Stairway to heaven" and "highway to hell"

Communication

2008-11-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Divine communication versus human communication.....which stands taller ??

LOL - no I'm not on weed.....haha...just in a metaphoric mood!

PS - thanks to my friend K, for enabling me to take this pic !

el estúpido (the stupid one)

2008-10-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Yes... I am he. Why? Because I'm only realizing now that there are certain things in life that never change, and ironically change is the only such thing that never changes! I'm learning that the hard way...

When I moved out of India I didn't really realize that life goes on, just as well without me in Bangalore. Things change, and people change - not for better or worse, but they just do. Somehow I had made up this imaginary world in a time capsule, to return back to - a dream homecoming.

Where I'm returning to things where it was left off. Where I pick up things where I'd left it. Where everyone still knows my name, and everything's just as green as it seemed ever since I left the country. Somehow I guess thats what became my undoing and ultimately my downfall.

Here I am 8 weekends down the line (after coming back) still hoping to relive the "good old days", meet the "same old friends", do the "same old things"....guess its a little stupid of me and definitely immature to expect that. Somehow things like that happen in movies only - (eg: Rock On, where a 10 year fight ends with just one hug - and everythings back to normal).

To my friends reading this, please please don't hate me... I'm not writing this to be sarcastic nor to guilt you ! I'm writing this because I have to. I have to get closure on certain irrational situations I've built up in my head - and move on. I need this to get re-familiarized with Bangalore, make new friends, renew old friendships and to move on .... as change did.

Hidden gems

2008-10-18T12:37:00.001-07:00

A lot of times the less publicized things are better than the ones hyped about. One recent such thing I noticed was in the movie rock on. Yes the songs by Farhan are decent but there are 3 songs that are really amazing in the album but are hardly getting any coverage.

1) Zehreele - not a song for the light rock listeners who call even Bryan adams as rock! This is the only song I feel thats proper metal and has made it to any movie in India. Sung by Suraj Jaggan, its got really good vocals - proper vocals you'd expect from a metal singer. What surprised me is that this song was also composed by Shankar ehsan and loy. To imagine some mainstream music directors composing a metal song was shocking but in a pleasant way \m/

2) Ye Tumhari Meri Baatein - this is the soft song that comes in the movie for a minute when the lady comes back home after leaving Farhan. Sweet song with nice soft vocals. Really pleasant song.

3) Phir dekhiye - IMHO this is the best song in this album hands down. Its got the most sensible lyrics as compared to ALL other songs (lets face it, the "magic" songs' lyrics are childish). I like this song best because of its simplicity. Its got like 2 guitars and a piano but has such a powerful structuring that its effect is amazing. Extremely soothing song, and sung perfectly by caralisa monteiro.....what a voice!

Listen to these 3 songs!...EVERYONE. Lesson to be learnt, whenever there's something thats hyped it might be good but there would be stuff out there better than whats hyped and marketed ...

*****************

Adding the link to songs http://www.bollyfm.net/bollyfm/mid/1369/movie-mp3.html

Om

2008-10-13T02:48:00.000-07:00

Now dont get any ideas. I am NOT "converting" to hinduism, nor am I becoming a hare krishna.... I just found this pic somewhere in my collection and thought I can make it more interesting with some light post editing. Lemme know what you think

Home

2008-10-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

These pics were taken at home - few hours before the political-religious nonsense unfolded, with violence tearing apart the silence in my hometown. Thankfully, people in mangalore and udupi are smart enough to know when politicians use bullshit to destroy normal life - and life is returning to normalcy now. The culprits, needless to say, are roaming around freely - as with any other case in our great demo(n)cracy.

However, although the nonsense destroyed my "dream" homecoming; although the idiots who caused this created lot of distress to everyone in my family; and although I ended up spending close to Rs.15,000 thanks to this madness - these pictures capture what udupi/mangalore will always be to me - Home.

A peaceful, wet, lazy, sleepy town with great food, great people, great music and 360 degree greenery - bursting with all kinds of critters.

Irony

2008-08-16T18:08:00.001-07:00

Evolution isnt without Irony. Imagine this - the commonest non-vegetarian food, chicken - comes from a class of biped dinosaurs that came from the family of biggies like Trex, allosaurs and raptors.

It just seems funny that today we're eating the chicken while 65 million years back the chicken's ancestor was eating our ancestors for lunch!

Imagine what the situation might be a few million years down the line (if humans haven't blown up the earth by then) - one big comet crash is all it would take to change the equation right around. Who knows, chicken might once again rule the earth!

Before and after 2

2008-07-31T16:18:00.000-07:00

Another one.... not as impressive as the last one..but weirder

Before and after

2008-07-29T19:46:00.003-07:00

I deserve an oscar for doing this with a freeeeekin laptop using a touchpad

BEFORE shot

AFTER shot

wallpaper

2008-07-29T19:19:00.001-07:00

straight from the cam...

no post editing done

Ballpark figure

2008-07-23T21:26:00.001-07:00

To the people part 2

2008-07-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Continues..

To the people who blame India and China for world food price - really ? Do you want to play that game? The average indian poor man gets less calories than a PET in your house. Would you rather believe facts or the most ridiculed person on earth ?

To the 'music directors' STILL copying tracks in bollywood - GET A LIFE losers !! Bappi was the only one who had that right to copy, because 90% of india at that time didnt know those songs. You're now in a country where music from outside India plays as much as music from inside India. You're gonna get caught....its just a matter of someone finding the right song on Youtube.

To the parents who buy their 16 year old kids new ferraris - are you nuts ? You might as well hire them a hooker, give them a .99 caliber, and make an advance reservation for them in a good rehab center !

To the people

2008-07-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a new series - to the people....where i randomly rant at people doing things I find weird and meaningless.

Disclaimer - I really mean no disrespect, just speaking my mind
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To the people who enjoy suspending themselves with meathooks because pain is good - GIT A ROOT CANAL DUMBASS, YOU'LL BE IN HEAVEN FOREVER !

To the girls who first tattoo their boyfriends name on their body and then cry about getting it removed when dumped - GET ALL DEM ALPHABETS TATOOTED ON YO ASS, AND JUST CIRCLE DA LETTERS DAT SPELL YOUR CURRENT BOYFRIEND'S NAME WIT A PEN!

To the rich bitches who cry nobody loves me - GIT YOUR BOTOX ASSES OUT OF YOUR MANSION AND FEED A HUNGRY CHILD IN AFRICA, AND MEAN IT.

More to come - I get pissed off easily :-P

Dasavatharam

2008-07-05T20:57:00.001-07:00

My first movie review folks - (effect of a 3 day weekend with nothing better to do)

Thanks to some blessed soul who put up a subtitled version of this movie, I was able to watch and enjoy it. I'ma give y'all the bottomline on the movie - watch it coz its a fun watch, but don't watch it for Kamal hassan and his make up

Reasons why I liked it
-----------------------
1) The movie has a decent storyline, which keeps you interested in whats going on. Kinda wannabe-knight-shyamalan type story, but still the movie keeps you riveted

2) Kamal hassan has always been good doing multi-roles, and his indian avtars are as good as ever. The telugu Rao he does is excellently done - a typical telugu-tamilized accent and mannerism - done perfectly. The other role that stands out is the old lady, which he does quite well post Indian, and post Chachi 420. Dialogs are quite funny, and the heroine (whoever she is) does a decent role of a gaav-ki-chori.

3) Decent action scenes in the start. Some of the action sequences shot in the start if shown to me by themselves would have me guessing Transporter or somethin, coz they're pretty good.

4) CG scenes are pretty good especially in the start. The scene with the big old boats lugging a huge statue is amazing. The CG, just like the action tends to become less sophisticated as the movie goes on - but by then the story makes up for the lost interest.

Reasons why its not that great
======================
1) Fake accents - No matter how much Kamal tries, his Bush accent isnt perfect. Neither is the CIA agent accent. His vowels sound okay, but the intonation and pitch control are still indian - not american. Malika sherawat's fake accent is HORRIBLE...she should have just used a dubbing voiceover

2) Make up of the non-indian avtars are not great. The american and japanese Kamal hassans are not done well. It always reminds me of one of those bobby-head dolls with a big head. The makeup makes these avtars and their heads larger than normal in proportion to the body resulting in a weird look.

Well- overall though i'd still give it a definite watch potential. Not the kind of movie you'd wanna watch twice, but definitely once. !

independance day

2008-07-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

Attended the Independence day fireworks today - it was fun ! But one thought came up to my mind over and over- our indian independance day celebrations are SO LAME

We have parades, here they have public fireworks shows that go for 20-30 minutes. We have idiot politicians blabbing nonsense, here they have public music shows, rock shows.

In fact the american independence day felt a lot like Diwali celebrations in Bangalore. There were crackers going off all over, well into the night. The whole city was covered in a warm-ish haze of cracker smoke. Everything sells on discount, happy people having fun.

Lets see something like this on our independence day !!

Do americans love their country more than we do - enough to celebrate their independence day like a festival?

Om shanti om

2008-06-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

I'm alive - in case anyone has been using the blog here as a sign of life and has declared me "Late shri shri shri Prax". However, if that someone is en-route to planning a thithi-oota - DONT STOP....just postpone it till im back ...hehe

I'm dedicating this random post to om-shanti-om the movie.... OSO

The other day during a long boring flight i decided to watch it and suddenly had a major feeling of nostalgia. It was a mixed feeling of "I've come a long way" and "I miss the old days".

It was the same movie - om shanti om - which had created such a hype when i was in Bangalore.

I remember anxiously waiting for the movie to release and the songs to be available. I remember running home early from work to watch the movie in "Theater print", with a special order of chicken biriyani from a hotel near Brigade. And I remember the mouth-wide-open-feeling on seeing the sheer beauty of Deepika.

And here I was this time around, watching the movie in US - DVD quality - on my laptop, flying 23000 feet above the ground, returning from Texas, and on my babies - Bose headphones....eating "low cal" packaged food, and sitting in a plane full of girls who could compete with Deepika any given day.

Now before u start thinking "show off" - there's a reason why I'm specifically mentioning how different the circumstances were between my Bangalore "showtime" and my USA "showtime".... coz when I watched the movie in US, I FELT bangalore.

Even though it was in total comfort that I was watching the movie, I'm not sure I enjoyed it more than I did in Bangalore. Coz I think the whole fun in watching a movie like OSO is it gives you something to talk about. I remember calling my sister, and then my friend (who I always say is the next best thing to Deepika) - and talking for hours on how amazzing Deepika is, and how amazing Deepika has acted, and how she's an angel etc etc etc.

But this time around - I realize, I have no one to talk to....

Its a strange feeling, when you get what you want - and realize that you'd had is what you want now !!

Park pics

2008-06-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hmm

2008-05-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

Something supernaturally spooky about this one - is it the resemblance to the Cross with a halo around it ?

The Simplicity of Beauty, and the Beauty of Simplicity

2008-05-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend - and it was the simple things that made it amazing.

Making new friends - it was really strange how I was comfortable in the company of friends I knew for 2 days - whereas I know people in minneapolis since 4 months that I cannot even be myself around.
Discovery of the macro mode on my camera - just another thing i did not know or knew and forgot - the result was the amazing picture (by fluke as usual) above.
20 Kryspy kreme donuts - Just my luck that i land in the one state that does not have a single kryspy kreme shop. Finally got to eat these babies !
Spanish music - listening to spanish music at 3am - and getting an explanation of the songs from my Bolivian bhabhi(ji)
Watching a weirdass movie at 12am - cloverfield- dont watch it when youre asleep. The camera shakes so much it can make u feel dizzy !..hehe....and the creature looks weird !!!

figure it out !

2008-04-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

The lone wolf hobbles by the river of blood and tears,flowing like the wingless bird's flight towards the purple sun, as it sets in the distant horizon. He gingerly tries to make his way through the scrubs and bushes that suffocate him from his feelings.

The body wants to give up now. The mind has already sung its swan song, shot the swan and served the dead swan to its demons in a grand buffet. A banquet that never ends - just lingers.
The body falls and the spirit rises, or so he hoped. But the gambling gods wouldnt grant him his freedom. Death it seemed only comes uninvited.

*************************************************************

The wise old man in the village had spoken to the lone wolf - "never listen to the viles of the heart my son. Never let your guard down. Heed these words of an old man who has seen the world through red colored glass, and felt the bloodlust in man and the pain that it brings."

But the wolf was a loner. Advice and experience had gone for a hike up the mountain of dead he left behind. He was battling the world, but a war raged on inside his maggot infested mind, as it fluttered like a fish out of water. But one thing was certain - Whichever side won that war - he loses.

Twenty and seven moons he had waited inside the safety of his lair. All alone. But safe. And alive. Then came the west wind that beckoned to him. "Come my dear - someone awaits you". The old man was right - never listen to the viles of the heart. But the wolf was a warrior - who wrote his own rules and never followed them anyway.

So he followed the wind and its mystic overture, down the path he had just returned from, wounded. The lures of a cool breeze had his senses and his sense frozen, like the white mountains that watched on in pity - helpless, and frozen like the wolf and his heart.

He could smell the danger, feel the rain drops falling his forehead and down into his bloodthirsty eyes - stinging them, pleasing him, with some sort of perverted pleasure. But his heart told him to tread on, just another step on wet ground, just another shot that hope hadn't betrayed his faith in destiny again.

Should the arrow touch him again, he knew he would feel the worst pain any animal can feel and yet have the consciousness to wish for death - a death that would never come. Only a life of pain - a pain that lingers on, slowly gnawing away on the shattered pieces of a broken soul.

And to pain he was no stranger. He turned around and looked at the wounds from the last arrow - and cursed it - as the rain water splashed down his tears. "Cursed arrow, why did you leave me - and take away everything that meant anything to me - why didnt you take me first ?"

Yet, hope is such a strong feeling. Love is a stronger one. But the worst - is the hope for love. And that unstoppable force dragged his broken body further away from his sanity - down a familiar path - right into the tracherous land of death.

And thats when he felt it - the wind had betrayed him. As the arrow sliced through his body - he felt a strange sense of happiness - a feeling he had forgotten how to feel... And along with the happiness came the feeling of hope that had betrayed him. Or had it really ?

Maybe his hope had him act out what his heart really wished for - sweet release. To feel freedom once again. To feel one again with nothingness - and to leave all his loneliness behind - if that makes any sense - to leave behind what doesnt even exist.

My favourite things

2008-04-14T17:06:00.001-07:00

Was just watchin the "favourite things" song .... sigh.. so here I am - these are a few of my favourite things (sing along if u know the song)

" Chilly beef at pecos after gettin drenched in rain
flying thru traffic with a driver gone insane
autos and signals and babes riding bikes
these are a few of my favourite things ". .. ..

ok that doesnt sound too smart now that I've typed it and read it... jeez i need to write something interesting for a change. This blog is becoming a reflection of my life here in this city - boring to a degree of inhumanity.

Random rants 4 - imaginary (underlined) note

2008-03-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

Why do you still occupy real estate in my mind? Why does the spring breeze still remind me of the smell of your hair ? Why do the laughing children only remind me of your innocent smile ? Why does my heart beat faster every time I think of you ? Why do the colors of the world appear brighter everytime I start my day with the sound of your voice ?

The concepts of "hearts" and "clouds" now are clearer to me. The cold breeze of the winter only reminds me of the warmth I used to feel when you were beside me. I miss your gentle touch like the flakes of snow that gently kiss my forehead in the winter storm.

Although its only an ocean that separates us, it still feels like we're light years apart. There isn't a flight thats fast enough to get you into my arms. Now that I'm here there are so many things I wish I would have told you when I had the chance. I dread the day when I'll come to know its too late to tell you those things.

And all I'll be left with are memories of you, memories of the songs that remind me of you, memories of my thoughts about you, and memories of how I lost you before I even found you.

Random rants 3

2008-03-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

There are lots of people who are in dire need of a personal galileo

Whats Galileo got to do with these people ? Well - these kind of people go around the world and life thinking that the universe revolves around them. Someone needs to give them a total reality check and let them know that they dont own the universe outside their own tiny minds.

Random rants - 2

2008-03-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

I hate f**in smoke alarms - I absolutely hate those bloody things. And I dont smoke. These bloody things are "Mandated" by law in every house. Stupid things sit like idiots on dope, and go off when cooking food !! Ive set off the alarms twice now, and only due to cooking. And when it beeps the only way to make it stop is to cover it with a towel or cloth, and just wait and hope it stops beeping - you cant even yank the f**in thing out of the wall - as that is illegal again. So much for "safety device" - just another form of control....piece of sh**... I'm so glad we build houses of stone and bricks in india - and not wood, and so dont have these crappy things installed by "law"

----------

Bloggers seem to be optimistic - whenever a bad thing happens, instead of cribbing they immediately think of it as new material for the blog and become happy about it instead. I was just talking to a friend recently and she confirmed the same !

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Scientists are going mad. They've injected spider DNA into goats - and now use the goat milk to extract proteins to make some strong thread like spider thread ! What the hell.

--------

Fruit flies that bore offspring late in their life systematically passed genes of longer life span to their offspring . So over 100 generations, the offspring of the offspring of the offspring of the....(100 times) of the initial fly - had 3 times longer a lifespan.

So scientists think that if every offspring of humans started having kids late in life around 30-40yrs - by the year 3000, we'd have humans living 200-300 years easy.

But this kinda also reminds me of something i read in the bible - there are mentions of the first women on earth giving birth to children well into three digit ages, and people living 500-600 years....strange isnt it.

so doing reverse engineering, somewhere along the way, women must have started having kids earlier and earlier till we ended up with short life spans as we do now !

-------------

Its hard to wake up in the morning. And its just a mental thing. Not the time zone, not the temperature - just all in the mind. Weekends i get up at 6 and cant sleep even if i want to...weekdays no matter how much I sleep (and i sleep at least 8 hrs or more) I find it hard to get up at 6

sheesh

----------

There are potholes in usa as well - not just an indian phenomena. Only difference is here its fixed at least within a few days or weeks of its appearance, unlike in india where potholes become landmarks. People can even tell directions based on potholes "take the road to the big hole on the road, take a right to the next hole, and ...". There are potholes in udupi that grew along with me. As I grew up in size (all directions) so did the potholes (in all directions) - i miss my friends

----------
Socks turn up at the weirdest places. My gray left sock's long lost twin suddenly turned up today - but i have no idea as to where it came from. I am sure there is some abduction conspiracy out there - they are abducting my socks one by one and doing tests on them and returning them to my room.

The Yin and Yang

2008-03-16T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is a real incident that I'm gonna describe. Some of it might be hard to believe, and some of it is really disturbing - but its the absolute truth. I'm not gonna reveal the source of the story, for the safety of someone I really love and respect - who played a major role in the story.

This is the story of a little girl, not even 2 years old. Shailaja - "lovingly" called Shailu - but she's not known any form of love in her life. A little girl who's been through so much, though she's not old enough to know what she's been through. A little child who was raped - yes, you read it right - RAPED, by a sick fucker.

This lil girl had everything working against her even before she was born - her mother is a labor worker (read one meal a day or less) living in the slums of vile parle in mumbai, her mother is a widow, and her mother has 3 other daughters to feed. This is the life she was born into - and this is the context through whole ordeal - and i must urge you to keep this context in mind as you read further.

Shailu was raped few days back. And this situation boggles me to no extent - how a man could even think of doing such a thing to a little baby. And the man isn't some crazy lunatic, or some pedophile out of jail - he is an everyday well to do person, owning a design studio (no less) in mumbai. It even sounds too ridiculous to be true - but the proof is for all to see.

Little shailu now lies in a hospital - covered in bruises and ...i cant even get myself to describe her condition. I'm just gonna paste the chat I had with the person who told me this.

"tht sick man actually bit her cheeks and stuff..."

"one side of her face is completely gone..."

"she gets scared if anyone so much as touches her head"

This came out to public knowledge in sometime after it happens, as it always does in the news, before people move on, and such matters go to dust. But this time there was something different. This person (who i have unlimited respect for now) actually decided to take up this cause, coz living in mumbai she knew very well that this matter would take 2 days to disappear as unexistential.

So as any citizen would do in a child related crime - her first action was to call CRY - the so called world crusader for childrens rights - only to be told that they cannot involve themselves because the child is not an orphan !

Now it was clear that unless something was done - and done by people themselves - nothin would transpire out of this.

She took it upon herself to do whatever necessary to save the child. Her friends also got into the movement - supporting every step of the way. This is the true youth of india, that we talk about and hear about in so called nationalistic songs - and not the idiots with knives and swords who go on a rampage when some old fart sitting in power tells them to.

Anyway - so these bunch of friends first gauged the situation. There were couple of important factors to consider to solve the matter.

1) The mother of the child was an unstable character in this. She was ready to sway either way depending on the money factor. If the man who raped the child gave her money, she was ready to take the child and give it to the man who raped her ! Now this is where the context comes into play, for a mother of 4 this kind of money means more than 1 child - when survival is at stake, money is money, even if it means letting go of one child.

2) A police case needed to be registered and this guy needed to be caught. And as any indian would know - getting caught in india is just a joke - its whether or not you get a witness to testify that matters. And at this point again it came to whether the mother would take back the case for money.

3) Once the man was behind bars, what would become of the child. Knowing the situation in india - he would probably be out, scot free in no time - putting the little child's life at risk. So something needed to be done to save her life and future

So first they called a charitable mission (name withheld on request) which thankfully responded at the first phone call. They came to the child's rescue, and are now getting set to take care of the child. However, again at this point the legality comes into play since the child officially has a mother.

There was the option also, where one of the "good guys" offered to take care of the entire family (the mother and 4 girls) for next 5 years.

The mother of the child now had many "good" options in front of her, along with the offer from the bad guys to take back the case for money. Meanwhile, the bastard who raped the child was arrested (a rare occurance in itself, for rich indians) - thanks to constant persuasion from the group of friends and this person in particular (who told me about this).

Imagine a person who's never even stepped into a police station taking initiative to get a criminal arrested !! This is what the drive of "doing the right thing" can achieve.

Anyway, as we were chatting about this - she got a phone call from one of her friends - an update on the situation - that the mother was willing to let go of the child for a price (not too much but a hefty sum for a dailywage laborer). One of the youth group , a kind doctor has agreed to pay that price - and officially "release" the girl from her mother - so the organization can take care of her, and away from the slums and the criminal who destroyed her.

So right now the hope is that

1) the lawyers of the criminal dont try buyout the mother again and mess up the situation again
2) the girl continues to recover and be safe in the hospital
3) the charity mission doesnt back out from this due to political pressure
4) the youth are able to spend their time, money on this without any pressure from their parents - coz generally parents talk all big, but when kids get their hands dirty in a good cause , want them out of it.

Thats the story of Shailu - a story that got a "twist" before it even got the plot.

But in all this dark mess that went on - there is good that happened - in a crime of total brutality love triumphed. Yes, this was a horrible incident that happened - but - through the bad rose a lot of good. The yin and yang.

A bunch of young people now know how it feels to fight for the unvoiced. And I know for a fact that these people will not stop here - coz the thirst to do good is like an addiction that sticks on in your mind. Once you know how wonderful it feels to see someone smile through their pain - you can never settle for anything less. Love prevails over all - and now i know that there is at least one group of people in mumbai that will not keep their eyes, ears and hearts shut.

In closing , a couple of quotes from my friend who spearheaded this - God bless her.

"those smiles i saw thr made me realise tht life's more than just being religious and having a clean image u know.....its just about making a troubled soul smile....even if u dont get a loud credit for it"

" i can never forget the way she smiled when i gave her a small bar of chocolate...she cud not eat so she said she'll keep it for later whe her "boo boo" is better..."

The next time some fear-preacher comes and says - the world is going to end, the world is going to dogs - tell him to shove it.

We make the world what it is, and what it will be.

*****************************************************

Update on Shailu (March 18) - Shailu is now doing better. Shes able to have food now - and just had lunch today. She's also been shifted to a much better hospital. The hospital administration heard of her story and are charging very less for her treatement.

And heres the best part - She is going to be taken care of by the charitable mission (yay) and is headed to Pune on 20th.

Showbiz

2008-03-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Just a bunch of lights really...but something about this pic soothes me

Artistic pipes

2008-03-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what these pipes really are...they pop right out of the ground at 12th street on Nicollete avenue. They look cool though

BOSE !!

2008-03-06T17:06:00.000-08:00

Just bought my first pair of bose headphones .... These babies cost me like $200 :( ... But its worth it.... Bose is something I've eyed for a long long long time - from visiting the showrooms all the time just to take free demos...to checking the bose websites every now and then to see if they reduced the prices (ha)

But finally thought I should give myself a present - a delayed birthday gift. After all I've travelled halfway around the world and managed to settle down pretty decently...So thought of treating myself to this luxury.

I will try not to blab too much about bose ... but imagine a single company thats now synonymous with good sound. Bose is not necessarily the best in the world, there are better - more expensive speakers out there....but for a common man - when someone says good speakers - it rings the sound "Bose"

Anyway, these babies sound as good as I hoped they would. The bass is crisp and clear, I even had to turn off my equalizer settings coz bose is designed to amplify natural sound frequencies so amazingly that any extra fiddling through software ruins the experience. The sound is cleaaaaaar and amazing. I'm hearing bass lines that I've never heard before, parts of the sound track that are crystal clear but never heard on normal speakers

The downside - now that I know how good it CAN be - i wont settle for nuthin less now. My good ol' sony earphones and LG headset will never sound the same again. Its like giving a cocaine addict a coffee ..hehe..

Anyway, for 200 bucks, im glad its just as amazing as i hoped...coz otherwise I'd be banging my head on the walls !! And now my only hope is I dont break these things too soon ...coz unlike headphones and earphones that can be bought without a second thought - this will require a lot of thinking before a second buy...or will it...hmm

For gazal

2008-03-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

Damn...now see what u've done... I've to write what I dont like about women ?? Its bad enough that I'm single already - with this post around I'm gonna die single

I refuse to write against human women... ! hehe . Instead I pick mosquitoes that bite humans, which are also all women, and write what I dont like about them.

But 10 things I dont like about mosquitoes = and suggestions to ANY genetic engineers here

1) they buzzzzzzzzzz too much. Someone should develop silencers for these critters, instead of DDT and malaria

2) Mosquitoes bite in bad places, where u cant reach to scratch. They should genetically engineer mosquitoes to bite only acceptable places.

3) Mosquitoes make a bloody mess (literally) when u squish them. Someone should inject the anemia gene into these buggers.

4) Mosquitoes can see in the dark, you cant - hence u end up slapping yourself 100 times to hit the mosquito 1 time. Someone should inject those "glow in the dark" thingies into mosquitoes

5) Mosquitoes can communicate with their friends. One bite is often followed by 200 other mosquitoes that come in to join the party and enjoy the buffet (you). Someone should destroy the mosquitoes' communication satellites and cellphone network (BSNL - just as irritating as a mosquito)

6) Mosquitoes sometimes sit on the food. Now that is just ewwwwww. Mosquitoes bite in humans in different places, without discrimination. Now imagine they sitting on your food after visiting the disgustingly dirty hairy bugger living nextdoor and biting his..er... u get the picture. Someone should design washingmachines for these girls so they can cleanup before getting on the food.

7) Mosquitoes are not the best of conversationalists. They say only "mmmmmmmmmmm". That kind of helps when you are talking about your problems, they can give a "mmm" in agreement or "mmm" in disagreement. But this kind of gets monotonous after a while u know. They need to learn a better vocabulary. Now this is a job for the english professors here (gazal - mission for you).

8) Mosquitoes are generally bad with their manners. They come in unannounced and uninvited. There are some parties where you just want the flies around dammit, not everyone wants you bloodsucking vamps at every party - take a hint. Someone send them to "Culture exposure, Humans 101" at the university of Mosquitochusets

9) Mosquitoes are partial. They are also sometimes racist. They should always see that everyone gets equal pleasure of being bitten. Its not fair that the fat guy in the room gets bitten 100 times and everyone else wonders why this guy is hitting himself and scratching like a flea ridden dog. "Culture exposure, Humans 101"

10) Mosquitoes dont taste good. When they are dumb enough to go inside your mouth as you snore, they should at least have the decency to taste good. Someone should genetically engineer flavoured mosquitoes. Seriously

Well. Thats about as much as i can write about mosquitoes. Now see what you've done gazal. I'm gonna have the MMM (Maaskito mahila morcha) catch the next USA flight to come and talk to me about my attack on them

:( I blame you gazal...totally...

2008-03-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

The purpose of life it seems, is to complete life itself. We all wander about life as if it were a maze lined with candies and fluff, leading us from one point of temporary pleasure to the next. Vague as that might seem, that seems to me how life is today - we really are moving from one emotional high to the next...like drug addicts in search of the next new pill on the market.

However, at the back of everyones mind and at the front of everyone's thoughts - everyone yearns for a simpler time, a happier time, a cleaner place and a safer life.

Look at the things humans create and then spend their time and more money worrying how to destroy them !! Its like we dig holes for ourselves, and then worry about not falling into it - instead of not digging it in the first place.

Im bored.

Snow day

2008-02-28T15:55:00.000-08:00

Well ...snow evening at least..
hehe

I had the pleasure of being in a snow storm today evenin...just reached home and indoors ...and couldnt think of doing anything except blogging about it. Few things I learnt today thanks to the snow.

1) Falling snow is really cute, and fun....seriously....Not like coming out in the morning when its all snowed out. Falling snow is cute, and makes everything look so christmassy...and beautiful

2) Snow is fun when its warm (read 0-4 degrees) . Thats when the cold feel of snow on your skin doesnt really hurt, and u can feel the cool snow melt...really funny feeling, but its nice !!

3) There are huge traffic jams in US too..lol...was stuck in a major traffic jam here today

4) Whatever the traffic situation people still dont break rules. There was one completely empty lane when the other lanes werent moving since 10-15 minutes...no one switched lanes to get ahead....that was very surprising ...Also, no honking. Everyone just waited quietly..

5) Kids love the snow...hehe...i saw so many kids running around today, more so than on some warm day.. They were eating chocolates, playing in the snow...sigh i wish it were christmas all over again

6) You get a major major meat craving when it snows. I dont know if its just me, but im back in from the snow and i cant think of anything but a nice warm big ol chicken to eat !

This was a random post...but then, it was my first spontaneous post, minutes after the experience !

Global daal

2008-02-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Like all my posts, this title doesnt make sense ...lol

Lemme explain...i was feeling hungry, reallly hungry - and didnt feel like throwing away $20 on pizza ... so I thought of cooking dal...the only way i know how to, which is without a recipe.. :D

I call it truly global daal becoz of where the ingredients come from

1) Dal - of course from india
2) Chilli - from mexico (South america)
3) Sausages - from US (North america) - and yes, i put meat in dal, coz i love meat !
4) Coconut milk - from Thailand (Asia)
5) Paprika - from egypt (Africa)
6) Garlic/Ginger mix - from China (Asia)
7) Rice - from Japan (Asia)
8) Swiss cheese - from switzerland (Europe) - yup, its original swiss cheese from switzerland and not american made swiss cheese.

lol.... so here i am with almost every ingredient coming from a different country/continent...and i think except for Antarctica i covered all the continents with my cooking!!!

Thats why i call it global dal !

And it did taste pretty good !

good times

2008-02-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

A nice grandfather clock i found at my new place of stay...we had a full size one at my place back home...

plantz

2008-02-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

I kinda like the way this plant has grown indoors

Gimme all yer money

2008-01-28T06:07:00.000-08:00

This was the money slot in the laundry machine...but strangely enuf, all it reminded me of was bowling !

Indian experience in Texas

2008-01-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

I was staying at this hotel in Austin, where the hotel caretaker just happened to be Indian.

And as I've observed before, indians are generally helpful to other indians outside india ..hehe..and Avinash was a really friendly guy. Helped me get around town for some shopping, and suggested some good places to eat...and on Friday, invited me over for an authentic indian meal.

For a couple of hours i really didnt feel like i was in USA. Coz the weather was warm, and rainy and the room was like a typical indian room with puja rooms and stuff, and the aroma of gujrati food all over the place !

And in the end there was a wonderfully tasty meal...VERY different from the "indian" food being sold in "indian" hotels around....this was authentic indian food in USA ...paratha, mutter paneer, dal, rice and papad...yum.

I need to start cooking again....

Discovery Series - 1

2008-01-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

Since food forms a major major part of my life, im dedicating an entire series to food :).... I'm gonna cover those foods that I've always wanted to eat, but never really got the chance to in india. Food that I've finally got a chance to eat here, and how they measured up to what I'd made it up to be in my head

1) Beef steak Burritos - $7. I had this in a proper mexican restaurant in Denver. And it was really nice to see that the hotel staff were true blue mexicans, and not just from a mexican lineage. The food was yummy. Lots of meat, lots of yummy sauce, lots of spices and lots of beans ! And the best part - being indian, our stomachs can bear mexican food quite nicely.

2) Pasta with chicken - $?. Got this for free so i dont really know how much it costs. I've had pasta lots of times before in india, but this was different for 2 reasons. One, the pasta sauce was kinda bland, not really upto what i expected. Two, the chicken pieces were HUGE. Thats one thing i really like about food in the US. Meat of any kind here is always supersized. So, this pasta thing had like HUGE chicken pieces all over it !

3) Turkey barbecue - $6 - Had this in Austin, TX. MMMM Now this has got to be the one thing that I've always wanted to eat besides fried snakes. And it was yumm-mee. Tastewise it was close to chicken but a lot more tender, and scrumptious. The steak came with some freebies like coleslaw, barbecue sauce, and potatoes. Visually it looked kinda like chicken but bigger and slightly pink...Now that I've had turkey, given a choice between chicken and turkey, i'd opt for chicken ..

4) Krispy kreme - 49c - Well...this is something I had first in Bangalore, my friend had got this from Australia. Krispy kreme is undoubtedly the softest, yummiest donut in the world ! It comes in many flavors, but the one i love the most is the glazed one..which is pretty much just sugar coated donut...but its just so sofffft and smooothhh....mmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhhh.

5) Hot Dog - $1 - Had this first in Austin. Well we get pretty much anything and everything between 2 slices of bread being called a hotdog back home. But I had the chance to have some authentic fatty hotdog. This means a beef/ham/chicken sausage between bread, and topped with other stuff, often mustard sauce (im allergic to that stuff) and/or chili sauce and other good stuff. A really nice and filling snack to have

6) Indian food in USA - $17 (!!!) - This was really stupid of me, but i found this madras hotel closeby, and went there thinking ill get some good indian food for a change for a reasonable price. Oh man...i had some alu paratha for like $5 (200 rupees) + kurma for $10 (400 rupees) and paysa for $4 (160 rupees) !!! This kinda really made me think, if i should start my own indian restaurant in US - i could be really really really rich charging such prices !

7) Waffles, bagles, etc - typical breakfast stuff that I'd read about a lot in comics and on TV shows. Wasnt too impressed with this food...Waffles tastes more or less bland, and maple syrup doesnt really improve the taste. Bagles again tastes like bread...eh....give me idli+vada for breakfast anyday !!!

This was just part1. Lots lots more to follow ! Everyday is something new to eat !

2008-01-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

I was hoping thatht I would be writing this from a nice warm hotel room in Austin. But looks like that aint never gonna happen...coz today as soon as i reach the hotel i GOT to sleep

Sleep is a luxury ive not really had thanks to having to travel almost on a daily basis...Last 4 days I've been to almost 7 different airports in 3 countries, and 4 states within the US. I'm starting to feel like Tom hanks in that movie where he starts living in an airport...Which isnt too bad if you're in US. Coz its warm and insulated, got free internet, has hundreds of shops selling pretty much everything, has large empty seats to sleep on, and has clean bathrooms every 10 meters.... what more can you ask for !

The reason I'm writing this from an airport and not from the hotel, is due to an overbooking done by united airlines....which has left me and many others being unable to get onto the flights. But anyway, I met another Oracle employee who was also stuck - and we struck up a deal so that the airlines fly us both (First class of course) to the nearest airport, and give us enuf money to rent out cars to drive to Austin. heh..So this is officially gonna be my first road trip in the US !

Many things I've learnt over the first 4 days in US, and the journey getting there

1) air india sucks...the in flight food is great, and the journey is comfortable and everything, but they have absolutely no sense of time. There were flight delays at every transit in the journey, adding hours to the final destination time - ultimately leading to hundreds of people missing their connecting flights and getting stranded till the next day to catch a flight home.

2) Global warming aint a joke .... look at the temperatures in USA. Places like chicago, which arent really known for freez temperatures are now at temperatures close to -18 F ! Unfortunately, thanks to Air india I had the first hand experience of what COLD meant. The "COLD"s of Bangalore, Mangalore are like red hot ovens compared to this ! Thankfully I had some warm clothes coz i was on transit to a cold place, but there were many from india - some with babies - who had no reason to pack warm clothes since they were on transit to a warm place. But all these people were stuck in that freezing cold. AIR INDIA SUCKS

3) Indians tend to identify, help and group up outside india ! This is a very strange outcome of being in a larger reality. Apparently its only inside the country that we cant stand each other. When stranded in Chicago, many of us "singles" who didnt have families to look after the luggage when running around air india people to reschedule tickets grouped up - and formed "quasi families" where some stayed back and watched luggage while the rest booked tickets for everyone.

4) Accents change - couple of days here, and already my accent is changing. But strangely enuf, whenever I talk to indians here, the good old bangalorean accent comes back. Which is good, coz i dont want to be one of "those" people who speak with heavy accents only to be looked at as "show off"s or "wannabe's" by the educated crowd.

5) NEVER convert dollars to rupees, or you'll starve to death and live like a beggar....Coz even so much as a coffee comes at lke 2 dollars, which becomes a good 80 bucks...hotel rooms cost anywhere from 50 to 100 dollars (even the cheap ones) which comes to a good 2000 to 4000 rupees. So with all that conversion it might seem like stuff is super expensive. But I've learnt to ignore that now. Coz with all that conversion calculations its impossible to survive here.

6) I Love US for the fact that its designed for supersize people...hehe. Everything in india is designed for the average indian who is thin. But here, the average american is large, so everything here is nice and cozy for me. The seats are bigger, the legroom is much more, the food is supersized, single beds are as big as double beds etc. And another thing, people dont look at me like i need to lose weight... LOL

7) People are generally very friendly here contrary to what people say. However the definition of friendly might not necessarily be what we would define in india. Friendly can mean giving the right useful information without actually doing the work. For instance, if you want to go somewhere instead of offering to actually drive you there they might give u the entire routemap of how to get there. The simple rule of life here is - do it yourself.

More to come...once...no, make that an IF...i reach the hotel.

IT

2008-01-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

A lot of people in bangalore think people with a tag (read IT people) are overpaid, rich slobs. This kind of mentality is quite evident in the way prices of EVERYTHING without a price tag double the minute the tag becomes visible.

I used to kinda think the same way when I was in college doing my engineering, that once I get into some IT company - its gonna be one heavenly life, getting payed and sitting in front of a computer all day long. At that time that seemed like a thing I'd wanna do all my life.

But now that I've worked in IT let me tell you the inside story. Its not all peaches. And its definitely not what people build it up to be. Here's why

1) Non-existent work hours - IT is probably the only job, where people going thru bad luck spend more than 15-20 hours at a stretch in office. This is not only taxing physically, and mentally but also psychologically. I know this doesn't always happen, and at downtimes there are many people who dont even go to office and get paid for it.

But on an average, I can say that people in IT, work more than 10 hours a day. This may not necessarily be sitting at office and working, but add up all the time spent in office with the time

a) Checking office mails at night from home

b) Answering calls from clients/colleagues at home
c) Working from home sitting late at night doing unfinished work
d) Working weekends to make up for lost in the weekday in traffic

and this all easily averages out to more than 10 hours a day.

2) Stress - I've written a lot of articles on stress, and if you've read any of them you'd know how stress is the world's biggest disease today. It can work in 2 ways killing you faster than a pack of cigarettes a day !

a) Stress reduces body immunity, creating an open pathway for all kinds of diseases
b) Stress weakens the heart, kills brain cells, and creates all problems in the long run

So consider the IT salary as an installment for all the medical treatements availed by stressed IT people over the course of their life - and the salary wont seem so much. There are a lot of treatements that now cost HEAVEN that are regularly availed by people in IT over 40 years. Think heart attack, think lung cancer, think heart/brain surgery, think carpel tunnel, think diabetes -- all of these have a higher occurance in IT people.

I wont be surprised if very soon Insurance companies start listing IT jobs as risk factors along with high risk jobs such as sky diving !

3) Social costs - this is where the measurement becomes more vague coz you cant really measure the value of a quality life. Among all the job niches in the world, who would you say spends the LEAST time with family ? The answer would easily be a unanimous "IT". Social costs can be seen at many levels

a) Disintegrating marriages

b) Disintegrating parent/child relationships

c) The only time to onself being the time spent on the toilet !

d) Social isolation, with people not knowing or knowing how to interact with other humans beyond friends and family. This can be seen easily in bangalore/mumbai.

Social isolation is never a pretty picture. Not only does it destroy the society - but also from a family and personal point of view, social isolation by itself INCREASES all kinds of health problems. A study done recently revealed that people who isolated themselves socially have a HIGHER chance of getting flu, than those who mixed well with people ! --- more expenses !

From a family standpoint think of all the money being spent on kids to compensate for lack of time, all the money spent in going to fancy places to compensate for actual quality time/life - and all that "IT" money seems to evaporate.

Conclusion

All things weighed...yes the money is more than most jobs, but look at the quality of life and amount of expenses in terms of medical bills and otherwise unnecessary expenses - and overall IT jobs would seem just as good as any other white collar job. Now only if someone could make the auto drivers read this blog....sigh

Mother Nature

2008-01-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

I was not sure what to call this one - coz it says so much - but settled on Mother Nature. It can mean nature the mother, or the nature of a mother, or the mother of nature, or natural mothers, or......

Wat eet ees ?

2008-01-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

I have no clue what this is.... Was talking to a friend on the phone, and with my other hand randomly fooling around in an image editor.

This was the result....doesn't look like anything - but qualifies as "modern art" i suppose...hehehe...

I'm putting this up for you to decide... kinda like a psychological "spots" test - identify what you see...based on your state of mind, you will see something different each time.

P.s. I've tried to achieve a kind of "clothy" feel to it, and a "russian" look to the drawing. I used to have these russian story books as a kid, where the drawings were like this, they had a very different look to them, with prominent borders, and colors drawn using lines and textures.

Purple rose

2007-12-31T22:39:00.000-08:00

This is my first original work of ..er..art (if you can call it that) - and yes, I've copyrighted it...LOL

But seriously, I really felt like art was a side of me I lost touch with over the last 10 or so years. Thanks to concentrating on studies, more studies, computers and music - I'd kinda lost touch with art, something I used to be good at.

But yesterday, I watched "taare zameen par" which has such wonderful use of colors in it - and such a neat presentation, that I felt compelled to draw something. This was the result

Now, this was just a random expression.

I didnt start out intending to draw this. I just put random lines on the canvas, of 4-5 different colors and started randomly smudging around, till my subconscious took over.

This was what came out...hehe...and the thing it resembled closest is a rose, hence "Purple rose"

Tell me what u think..

Before and After

2007-12-20T21:28:00.000-08:00

Many of my friends asked me to put up a before pic along with my "edited" image, so they get an idea of what the original looks like too.

So here goes... The original was shot on the roof of a building in kerala. And then edited and played with

to give you the "After one"

Full Day

2007-12-16T06:03:00.000-08:00

I had a full day today. Before you start laughing - let me define what i mean by a full day... It doesn't mean a day when you were up 24 hours, or an entire day in the office...When I talk about a full day - I mean such a day - where you look back on it at night and you feel like you've made complete use of that day.

I had a full day today.....I got a haircut, spent hours at a salon getting my hair straightened - got some free gyan from the barber about how the straightener/colorant works. I got re-acquainted with Java, a long lost friend with whom I'd lost touch over the course of 2 years. I installed some new software, learnt some new songs. I cooked. I met up with Gazal and Satya - two of the most intelligent people I know - and had a relaxed chat about just bout everything. I watched a lot of old Disney cartoons. I studied some more. And I blogged.

After a long time, I felt like I did something useful on a weekend - which could be otherwise described as - Wake up, eat, movie, eat, movie, eat, movie, eat, movie, sleep. Seriously !! Thats all I otherwise do on a weekend (and my figure is attributed that that lifestyle)

I don't know if I'm the only one - but I think we all have our own definitions of what constitutes "useful" things, and what are "useless". However, not many have the luxury of filling a day with only useful things - and more often than not, the day is filled with routine tasks that we could do with our eyes closed.

I'm gonna bring in a wee bit of biology here - when we are doing things that are "routine" its actually a different part of the brain at work. There are two distinct sections of the brain at work - one when you are doing things under conscious flow, and the other under subconscious flow. This might be the subtle difference between a musician who is on stage feeling the rush while performing - and another musician who's on stage, playing a song perfectly - but for the 100th time, not even realizing he's on stage.

Anyway, so at these times - when we are "aware" of things we do and enjoy them - is what builds up to a Full day. That's when the brain is actually working, and consciously acting rather than going into "auto-pilot".

Sometimes, these things may not really be enjoyable - studying, in my case - but these are things that at end of the day, make you feel like you've utilized the time available doing something good and productive.

I guess it all comes down to one thing - how you look at things. ...

This might be one of the most mixed up post I've ever put - but I've had a day pretty much the same - a mix of unrelated events, that were enjoyable by themselves, and as a whole.

Feelin blue

2007-12-15T02:26:00.000-08:00

Biology of Psychology - Stress

2007-12-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

Stress Kills - literally !!

Let me start by taking you to a familiar place - and I'm sure all of us have been here - some as tourists, and some have acquired citizenships here.

You go to sleep after checking your mails - knowing that you have "n" tasks for the next day. You have very troubled sleep, thinking about how and when you're gonna finish off your job. You wake up late due to all that unfinished sleep - and rush to the bus, cursing all the way. On stepping into the bus, you realise you've forgotten your wallet, and curse some more. You finally reach office, angry and frustrated - after a 1 hour traffic jam - to find that a colleague has not yet finished a task you've assigned to him/her. And then - Apocalypse erupts.

This is what stress does to you.

There are 2 kinds of stress - "good" stress and "bad" stress. In terms of daily life, good stress is the kind you were under when you miraculously turned out a deliverable within its deadline, even when you were working on 2 other deadlines at the same time. Bad stress is the kind that made u worry so much, that you couldnt even get started on one of the 3 deliverables due.

Physiologically, "good" stress releases a whole set of hormones into your bloodstream - catochelamines, adrenaline, noradrenaline - which help you sustain your efforts while remaining calm, and focusing on the task. Some people call this state of mind "flow" - when you seem to be so "engrossed" in the task at hand, that time seems to stop - and solutions seem to generate out of thin air.

Strangely enough, when in a state of "flow" the brain activity is very less - thats because, when in flow the brain is working "smart" and "efficient", rather than random super active chunks. Kinda like how a concentrated laser light can cut things better than a huge wrecking ball. So at this point only the perfect set of neural networks that will let you solve the task at hand fastest - are active.

"Bad" stress on the other hand releases another deadly hormone along with the ones above - cortisol. This is an "impulse" hormone generated for keeping you on alert. This also puts your "amygdala" or "emotional brain" on alert. So someone already stressed out with something, is easily thrown "over the edge" - like a parent who scolds a child for a harmless mistake, after a bad day at work.

Bad stress causes the brain to fire erratically - mainly leading to multiple parrelel trains of thought, which ultimately lead people to breakdowns, or panic attacks - where the stress by itself overcomes the brain to a point that an otherwise simple task will be beyond someone's ability. But more than a temporary attack, stress also harms the body over longer durations. Prolonged stress can mean higher levels of cortisol in the blood - which lead to hosts of problems such as weakened immune systems, high blood pressure, death (YES u read it right) of brain cells, loss of memory, osteoporosis, liver damage etc.

So increased stress over time is as much a riskfactor (insurance peoples...u know what this means) as smoking, drinking etc.

So now that you know what stress can do for you, lets see how you can get rid of stress.

The mind and body are highly connected - and as you can see with stress, people when stressed out have higher heartbeat rates, higher breathing rates, increased bloodflow to the extremeties etc. This kind of interconnection is what causes the health problems that are related to stress.

However, this kind of coupling between the mind and body is a double edged sword
Just like mind patterns affect body patterns, certain body patterns can over time affect the mind. This is where techniques like meditation, relaxation come in. When you are meditating, or relaxing with a good book, or with some good music - your body goes into a non-threat mode.

Thats where your heart rate slows down, your breathing relaxes and your muscles relax. This kind of "non threat" mode puts your mind at ease. Thats when the body kind of affects your mind into calming down, slowly shutting down the parallel thoughts that interfere with thinking, and goes into a relaxed state with the focus on one task, or one thought.

So the next time you see stress coming on, take some time out - to calm down - before you proceed. Now that you know there's actual Biology behind "calming down", it should help you believe in the fact that a little relaxation before a task actually works in helping you perform better.

Sunset on a "trip"

2007-12-09T01:19:00.000-08:00

This is purely by accident. Was just fiddling around with some color curves and stuff, and something very spooky yet groovy came along. Reminds me of the "trips" people describe under certain substances...hehe...

Cute Chicks :)

2007-12-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

Many friends have told me that I should shoot and put up some cute chick's photos here, instead of boring trees, bugs and buildings.

So here you go :-D

hehehehehe

Beeeeee - (video upload)

2007-12-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

I Literally risked my life trying to get this video shot. These are bees that hung around our exec building in Kerala.

But it kinda proves a point, even though i was like less than 5 meters away from the hive, i was nto stung. Bees dont sting unless u bother them - they just ignore you.

Disclaimer - if u listen to me and get stung - dont blame me :D

Ek Do Teen....

2007-12-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

This tree is probably older than me, or my dad ... It was at the jungle (Yes...there are still jungles left in india) behind my grandma's place.

Its interesting to see that 3 stems come out from the same central base.

Triplets of the plant world ???

Broken promises

2007-12-02T01:05:00.001-08:00

These are tracks that have been lying in prime condition, yet unused for almost 10 years now - thanks to the dirty politics being played in india.

Eitherway, now after almost 10 years - the Mangalore-Bangalore train tracks open up again for passenger trains on December 8th.

This comes as a relief to people who had been stuck to travelling in aeroplanes (who conviniently increased tarrifs almost 200%) or travelling by roundabout bus journeys that could take anywhere from 10-18 hours (..people have been stranded for longer..).

If you're wondering what happened to the regular roads between Mangalore-Bangalore, they kinda faded away into non-existence over the last 2 years, thanks to the careless attitude of the government.

It seems the only way the government fixes one mistake is in an effort to cover up another bigger mistake !

Hunted

2007-12-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

I wanna start by saying that I don't, in any way, support hunting of animals/birds ...

Anyway, this is a very interesting artifact I found in my mom's friend's house, nestled in Udupi. Its a authentic old style house, probably built more than 100-150 years back. Back then it was tradition to hang up one or more animal's horns/antlers/bust - as a show of good hunting abilities and also as a kind of status symbol.... probably like the "hood ornaments" of today's vehicles.

I'm not really able to identify what creature this set of horns belong to - its probably a kind of wild buffalo of some sort, which were quite common back then in the "jungles" around udupi. Jungles that are long gone, surviving only as memories in the minds and tales of the elderly around udupi.

For the first time in the history of the earth, extinction can be seen within a span of few generations !!!

Of Dosas and Parathas

2007-11-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

I love cooking.

Not something anyone would expect from a 23 year old single guy, staying away from home...but then as anyone who knows me can testify, i'm not really like most humans my age...

Cooking gives me time to think, to clear my mind up and think about life's big questions - what is the meaning of our existence, are we alone in the universe, why is my chapati resembling an amoeba, etc.

One such PROFOUND thought came to my mind today, while making Aloo Paratha. At the onset here I must say thanks to Gazal who rekindled my love for aloo paratha with her DELICIOUS cooking. A love which had kind of coughed, sputtered and died - after eating loads of burnt, tasteless parathas at office - which might have as well been someone's used slippers.

Anyway, so here I was making aloo paratha - when I had the "enlightenment" - Aloo paratha is SO similar in its construction to our very own south indian delicacy - Masala Dosa.

I mean think about it - the same bhaji kind of stuffing goes in, the same kind of principle of combining a stuffing inside a dish that can be eaten even without the stuffing. The bhaji even is pretty much made of the same kind of ingredients - except for minor spice level variations.

This all in all lead me to ask the famous question - Which came first - Masala dosa or Aloo Paratha? (And i maintain that this is NOT a rip off from the chicken-egg conspiracy).

Isn't it possible that waaaaay back when Paratha was just paratha, some uncle/aunty from punjab might have come down south to visit their relatives, and seen this "strange" dish where the dosa was being stuffed with "bhaji" to make a yummier variation of the yummy dosa.

Isn't it possible the same uncle/aunty went home - fully enthu to try out this new technique, and used the next closest thing to dosa up north, which is a paratha - thus giving rise to one of india's most famous inventions - Aloo Paratha. And over time Aloo paratha could have given rise to its successors with Gobi, Paneer, Methi etc being used as stuffing.

But, then isn't it ALSO possible - that a south indian uncle/aunty went up north and saw Aloo Paratha being made - and came back home to try the technique out on a dosa (Of course !) - thus inventing the Masala Dosa. And over time Masala could have given rise to its own set of variants - rava masala, mysore masala, onion masala, paper masala etc.

The geneology of the two MUST have a common parent node, somewhere, way back in India's past...the resemblance is uncanny...so at the end of the day (night) - the question is - "Which came first !!!!"

I leave it up for an open debate, since I seem to have a healthy number of people from all over india out here on my blog.

Innocence faded - Part 2

2007-11-23T20:41:00.000-08:00

Hehe. Ok . This is really a comment to what Jiju said about my original "innocence faded" post. But as I was typing the reply, I noticed it was getting so big that I might as well make a post out of it.. :) . So here goes

Welcome back jiju

Ok...now that ure free i can start the debate again.

I totally agree...growing up conditions our mind to recognize things that are safe, and those that are dangerous.

Deep down in the brain, whenever something bad happens to us - imagine a child who happens to touch fire - 2 things happen

1) The "conscious brain" stores information as a factual description - you saw fire, your mom said "dont play with it", you touched it anyway, u got burnt, it hurt a lot
2) The "primitive brain" or rather the brain stem/lymbic system stores information information in a more mushy form - fire looks nice, you felt it was exciting, your mom felt it was dangerous, you took the risk feeling great about it, you felt a sting a burn, and hurt

So, now at a later point in life - say when you're required to go near fire of any kind with bare hands - 2 things happen again, in the order of whats mentioned below

1) Even before u can do anything, or sense anything your lymbic system rushes your brain with thoughts such as fear, caution, pain ... All from that single instance in ur childhood. This is because the kind of "pattern matching" done in the primitive brain is not very accurate. It was necessary from an evolutionary viewpoint to keep you away from the saber toothed tiger as soon as u sensed it, and even had time to think about "if its safe or not"

2) Next your neocortex gets the information of fire, where the info gets processed in a more detailed manner - Fire wont hurt me when i dont touch it directly, its required for me to do something, its ok for me to go near it if i dont touch it ..etc

This situation comes into play however, also when we are doing other things. Maybe as a kid you fell down while dancing stupid, or got laughed at when you were dancing like mad - although the real event may be deeply buried in your "conscious brain", the true feelings you felt then - will be stored in your lymbic brain (in computer terms, a superfast cache memory of sorts).

So the next time you really see kids dancing, and feel the urge to let go - the first thing that would come into your mind would be the rush of emotions from your lymbic brain - telling you things like "you'll get hurt again" "you'll feel stupid again" "you'll be insulted" etc - and eventually stop u from going and really doing what u want to.

At this point, you have to consciously get yourself to think - okay, will just dancing make me fall down...or...do i really care what people think... etc. These are a set of rational thoughts that we have to sometimes train ourselves to think - so at the end of the day we're not left thinking "I really should have had some fun, but oh well...."

P.s. This kind of thought process often goes through the minds of people trying to cut down on any kind of addiction - cigs, booze, and other good stuff. This is when people start "rationalizing" instead of thinking rationally. The conscious thought is a strong thing - and can get people to do stupid things, when reasoning is done in the wrong way - as to find some kind of justification in doing something they know is wrong. That is NOT what i'm propogating here :)

The human mind is a powerful thing. And with great power comes great responsibility !

Biology of Psychology Series - "First Impressions"

2007-11-21T05:48:00.000-08:00

Lemme ask you a question - is there any one you've ever met or known, who you "knew" you would like "the instant" u laid eyes on him/her ....even before he/she spoke to you" ?
Chances are - the minute you read the question, someone popped up in your mind - maybe your first crush, your first teacher, your first boss, your distant relative etc.

Now here's a follow up question - Why do you think thats possible ? Or for the sceptical minds - DO you think its possible ?

To begin answering that query - we need to trace a little bit of neurology.

The human brain consists of a lymbic system, which rests in and around the brain stem. This is one of the most primitive parts of the brain, and for people who believe in evolution - this is a part of the brain that is common to all species. The lymbic system primarily controls what are often called "instincts". These are the essential drivers for survival that were needed when man (and other mammals down the chain) were still at a phase where survival depended on quick reflexes and quick response to the signals from the 5 senses.

To illustrate this better - here are a few examples. When we are surprised we raise our eyebrows - this is a lymbic response to allow more light to pass through the eyes to survey the scene better. Or when we are afraid, blood rushes to the extremeties for "fight or flee" - causing the "pale-facedness".

Above the lymbic system rests what is called a neocortex - essentially found in only some species like primates. This is what makes humans what they are - giving the ability to store information better, analyse complex patterns, have complex abilities like art, philosophy, feelings, feelings about feelings etc.

The neocortex in humans is the largest among all species - allowing for man to rise from a creature to a person, build societies, have culture, creativity etc - adding a lot of flavour, and possible nuances to the basic drives coming from the lymbic centers.

Fascinatingly enough, in species where the neocortex is missing in the brain - we can see behaviour which is often attributed as "inhuman" among humans. Some snake species for instance, lack the neocortex and in these species the concept of "motherly bonds" of love are absent. The babies born often soon have to go into hiding to prevent from being eaten up by their own mother !!

So we have identified two of the many systems in the brain - lymbic system and neocortex - effectively the "feeling" and "thought" centers.

At the heart of the lymbic system sits the Amygdala - which acts like a center for storing, realizing and retreiving feelings and emotions.

What your senses perceive, generally take a route from the senses to the thalamus, where the information splits - into one going to the neocortex, and the other going to the amygdala - essentially as parallel routes. However, the information travels much faster to the amygdala, because of years of evolution wherein it was important to "act" first - to avoid danger, to survive, to hunt etc - based on the immediate feelings we got from this superfast circuitry.
The same circuitry is still in place in the brain, although its use also goes to other planes of our daily life.

So whenever we spot someone, before the signals from our senses go to the actual thinking centres of the brain, it first reaches the emotion centres. This is why we often "know" that we like or dislike someone even before we really register what or who we are seeing. And these "know"ings come from the Amygdala, which receives sensory information, matches it as closely as possible to something that its already stored - and reflexively tries to come up with an emotional response that worked for you, at some earlier instance in your life.

To make this more clear - imagine that you had a grandfather who had a big thick moustache. The time spent with your grandfather even as a child (possibly before you even learnt to talk) would be registered in your amygdala. More so - because in an infantile stage, the neocortex is hardly even developed - so most of the sensory information coming in store themselves as emotions/feelings deep in the amygdala. Now 20-30 years into the future, suddenly you meet a man - who has a distinct thick moustache like the one your grandfather has.

At this point, the visual information flows first into your thalamus - and then bifurcates into the amygdala, and the neocortex.

Since the amygdala gets the information faster, it does a kind of rough match (amygdala matches are quick, but sloppy) to its memory system - and retreives the feelings that you had towards your grandfather - feelings that may have even been registered there, ages back. At this point, these feelings flood into your prefrontal cortex (part of the neocortex), thus having you already "know" whether you like or dislike someone the "instant" you see or hear or smell or sense the other person.

However, thankfully enough - though these initial "flood" is strong - the second route of information that went to the neocortex begins to act up - where it analyses the moustache and goes through a thought process that confirms that this moustache is a common bodily feature and doesn't in anyway mean that this person is like your grandfather - and that they are 2 separate people, and you needn't like or dislike him till you know him, etc.
So thats where the second wave of thoughts that hits your mind.

Its the combination of these 2 waves - which happens in matters of milliseconds or even less - that basically combine, and depending on your personal brain pattern - form a kind of first impression of that person. And all this happens even BEFORE any real contact of any kind is made with the person !!!

Amazing isn't it ?

The wrong experiment that went right ?!?!

2007-11-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

Ok..heres what...a lazy sunday morning....and as usual I was hungry

But feeling too tardy to actually go and shop for something, I decided to play the scientist and prepare something from the raw materials already lying around the house.

However, through some stroke of luck (it couldn't have been anything else !) - it actually turned out good ... so im calling it the "sunday surprise"...hehe

Ingredients
=========
4 potatoes, semi boiled
1tsp oil
1.5 tsp turmeric powder
Soya sauce
Ketchup
Oregano
Thyme
Garam masala (not the sambhar powder, but just powdered spices)
Pepper
Cream

Ok...here's what i did...

First fry the potato in oil a bit, and then add the turmeric powder and some water (so that the powder mixes evenly). Next add some soya sauce (around 2/3 sprinkles) and ketchup (around 1tbsp). Sprinkle some thyme and oregano on top, and put on lots of pepper (hehe...if u dont like pepper use less of it ...lol)

Next top it off with some cream, or if u dont have cream u can use milk, or even cheese+milk.

Then add around 1/2 tsp of garam masala powder. Add some water to the whole thing and let it boil till u think potatoes are edible.

Last add some salt , as u like

======================

Word of caution: I've not yet eaten the thing i cooked...its still on the fire (literally). So if this is my last piece of correspondence over the next few days - TAKE THE HINT !

Mind Filler

2007-11-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

What isnt, is often what is ...

What is the first word that came to your mind when u saw this pic ? Was it "spokes" or was it "wheel" ? A majority of people would have said "wheel" - and not spokes.

This is kinda the way the mind works ... trying to fill in the missing information, where the final result after such a filling is simpler, and familiar. But this mechanism, which worked for our survival, can also lead to "blind spots" in our thinking...

Always think twice :) !

One for the season

2007-11-10T10:44:00.001-08:00

Happy diwali !

Innocence faded ?

2007-11-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

" Innocence faded " - a song title from one of the dream theater songs.

I've heard this song hundreds of times, without really thinking twice about the meaning of those 2 words. But today there was a brief moment, possibly driven by boredom and hunger, when these 2 words again came to my mind - and this time round, made PERFECT sense.

At a diwali party today, around the time the live band started playing - one kid (a super duper cutiepie) went up near the guys and just started dancing. The pure joy on her little face was evident - and it spoke of having not a single thing to care about except that very moment.

That moment was for enjoying the music, to dance and have fun - and not for anything else.

Not for thoughts like "who's watching me?", "do i look okay", "what if i make mistakes", or "what if someone laughs at me". Not for distractions like food, water, mosquitoes or her mummy calling her to step down :).

And this kind of pure energy is often contagious among kids, coz soon (and im talking in terms of light speed..hehe) she was joined by a gang of other kids who were at the same state of mind - just purely enjoying in the moment - and dancing away to glory !

Thats when the thought struck - where did we "grown up"s lose that spark ?

Somewhere along the "growing up", it got lost. Where was the whole concept of "living in the moment" taken away. Would any of us go up and join a bunch of kids dancing ? Could anyone "grown up" possibly dance in front of a crowd of total strangers, on her own - just purely enjoying the moment itself rather than anything else in the moment?

Innocence faded .... but is the process reversible ?

Sensory Orga...

2007-11-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

Yup... You read it right... I said the "O" word. My guess is, the average reader on this site is an adult, so I'm gonna proceed...If you still didnt get what word that was, its a subset of the word "Organism"

Don't worry, this is still gonna be a "G" rated post. I just couldn't think of a better word to describe what I'm gonna write about.

Let me try and explain what I mean by an SO. It means the ultimate, pure, release of energy and pleasure that happens deep in your brain - due to something that assaults your senses, be it your taste buds, your hearing, your smell receptors and so on.

Anatomically speaking, its something that causes the sudden release of dopamine, noradrenaline and adrenaline (and possibly some other hormones that I cant spell :) ).
Now that you know what I'm talking about - let me cite some examples

Auditory SO - Just the other day, I was feeling super bored at work - and desperately switching the FM Channels for something to listen to. Strangely enough, inspite of the fact that Bangalore has close to 10 FM channels, beating all the probability theories - all of them were playing what I call as anti-music :) (hehehe).... Basically, here is where the receptors in my brain started kicking into what is called the "craving mode" - where you create a perceived need for yourself and desperately look for something to satisfy that craving !

Just then by chance, I happened to land on a kannada FM channel that was playing some old kannada song by Illayraja. And thats when it happened. Just as the sound waves started registering in the auditory networks of my brain, slowly but surely there was a sudden release of the hormones i mentioned above. It was a feeling of total perfection and bliss - a complete blackout of thoughts in the head...a feeling of being one with oneself and everything else in the universe. This is the auditory SO I'm talking about

Although auditory SO is common with music crazy people, there are also other senses that can cause an SO. Imagine the culinary experiment that you tried when you were famished - spending a lot of time and effort - and having it turn out exactly the way your mom did it. The aroma and taste of the first morsel that goes into your mouth in this situation - is what can be described as Olfactory (smell) and gustational (taste) SO.

Visual SO again happens quite often - without you realising it. Imagine being stuck on a road, completely filled with honking cars, multitudes of people, dust, dirt and of course -throw in the hot noon sun for good measure. Also add to that, a very important meeting with your boss where your promotion is to be discussed - and your boss is going to leave for USA the same evening, right after your meeting. Now that you can imagine the swear words you'll be mouthing, as you seethe in the car - imagine that first sign of movement, that first sign that the traffic is clearing up - Visual SO.

Tactile (touch) SO is comparitively rare, coz its often on a plane that goes somewhere along the lines of the original big daddy of SO(you know what i mean).But it can also happen in totally non-sexual situations. Its often seen in prisoners kept in solitary confinement. Its one of the strongest punishments - so much so that hardened criminals even dread being in solitary confinement because of the pure famine of human contact. At this point, after possibly a month in solitary confinement, imagine a criminal gets a warm (heartfelt, not fake) hug from someone - the relief felt can be Tactile SO.

Well that was my "Thesis" of sorts....trying to make sense of non-sense is your job now :)

If you identify with any of this, put up your own SO experiences on the comments !
Who knows, some people from Nobel group might just happen to browse this page, and might give me that award i SO DESERVE !!!

Lessons learnt

2007-10-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I learnt a lot of things, the least of which was - never drop noodles on the floor, and if you do, dont let it stay there, and if you do, wear slippers, and if you dont - well...youre an idiot :)

It all started with a biriyani - a bachelor's attempt at shaahi cooking. Trying to keep in tune with the spirit of Eid, good Hyderabadi biriyani was the order of the day.

But after all that sweat (mine) and blood (the chicken's) spent - it was a WASTE of time, coz the "Biriyani Masala" claim on the readymade masala packet turned out to be a complete dud.

First lesson learnt that day - and a note to any non-cooks who visit my blog (not many of 'em, i know) - never EVER rely on the readymade masalas...unless you have gotten it as a recommendation from a friend/family who has a reputation for being a good cook.

So finally, after swallowing my pride and my "biriyani" (that incidentally cost me twice as much as it would if I'd just ordered take-away Biriyani) - I was a full, yet hungry man (MAN and not a BOY - this one's for my sis)

Dinner time came and went, with more of the leftover "biriyani" ...sigh...in fact I was so deeply committed to forgetting the bad taste of that biriyani, that my brain successfully deleted from my memory that I even ate anything - which led to the noodles being cooked in quick succession to dinner.

Noodles was ready, with Soya balls (i dunno what you call them...hehe...couldnt think of a less..er..controversial name). The thought of a hot, albeit simple meal to end the day was really a comforting thought.

Heading out from the kitchen though, I saw the water bottle on the floor. And just like any other self respecting human being, on seeing water I felt thirsty. Then came my my second lesson of the day - don't try to bend and pick up a bottle on the floor, with a plate overflowing with HOT noodles in your hand.

Sigh..

Over the weekend I realised a lot of things, the least of which was - never drop noodles on the floor, and if you do, dont let it stay there, and if you do, wear slippers, and if you dont - well...I AM THAT IDIOT !!

Drums for thought

2007-10-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

Hehe... This is a nice drumkit somewhere in bangalore. Yamaha is no match for Tama, Pearl, Mapex, etc....but still a very good kit to play.

If u notice carefully u can see my reflection in the bass drum...hehe...trying to position the camera on a monitor speaker (Sonodyne), to take this pic

Salt'n'Peppa

2007-09-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

I dunno what to write about this pic ..hehe...ill let you decide

Are you a navigator ?

2007-09-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

Ask yourself this - who controls your life? Who decides where its headed ? Are your choices your decisions, or are they someone else's opinions ?

Think about it...

(sk)etched in memory

2007-09-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

Call this indulgence, but I've put up this pic here purely because its of a place thats important to me...

Another pic of my school...

Wat eet ees - 4

2007-09-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

For those who've been following the blog so far, this should be easy..

P.s. this is not a close-up pic of my hair when im getting electrocuted

Are you well ?

2007-09-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, im really down in the well today. Or rather, I wish I was in one... and I would have , had there been one in Brigade millennium :)

You all have those days, i guess - like the one one im having now - when you wish to be shut out from the world, your jobs, your responsibilities - and just want to be left alone, to listen once to your thoughts. Thoughts you haven't listened to in ages....thoughts that resonate around the well in your mind, echoing in the emptiness, waiting for a chance to reach your soul....

Wat eet ees ?

2007-07-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

One more on the "guess what" series....should be quite simple to guess .

Hint: This is not an X-ray

The water still runs....

2007-07-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

This is a pic of an old tap, at my school.

Thankfully, even though the school has grown exponentially - it still preserves and maintains the old hangout spots that many of us used to spend our kiddie hours at.

This tap has many memories attached to it - splashing water on the enemy (girls), cleaning up after PT, watching the water trickle when made the "outstanding student" by the teacher.....the list never ends

Aura

2007-07-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Random pic, but somehow looked like the aura of the image was also captured along.

Maybe it was a ghost :)

Beauty on stone

2007-06-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

The reflection of a friend (a crazy lil bachha)- whose identity i won't disclose (as she's a celebrity) on a granite table which, strangely was clean enough to reflect !

The food at this hotel was terrible, but i guess we cant complain about their cleanliness

Rest in Peace

2007-06-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

Poor critter. I don't know how it got into the house and the cause of death. But I think we can say safely it had a natural death. What caught me was how peaceful it looked.

Rest on lil buddy - this one's for you

For my love...

2007-06-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Not much of a nature photographer...but somehow this came out better than i dreamt it would

Distant ships smoke on the horizon....

2007-06-11T22:49:00.001-07:00

Comfortably numb, while taking this pic :)

hehe.. another pic on a rainy evening at the beach

note the gradient near the ships - thas the rain in the distance

Wow

2007-06-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

Im just so amazed at this pic....how a simple thing like drops of water on a leaf can look better than a thousand diamonds on the most beautiful neck

That rock is mine !!

2007-06-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

.....................................2 cute pups on the beach....playin blissfully without a care in the world...wonder why we forget how it is to just have fun

Polka floats

2007-06-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

Taken from a flight - not sure if its legal or not..hehe...who cares...looks cute though !

Does it really have a 100 legs ?

2007-06-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

Another wonderous creature that comes to life around the time it rains....beautiful coloring ! ...nature has a way of being the best fashion designer EVER !

Curvature

2007-06-11T22:39:00.000-07:00

Not sure what this is - must be modern art

pearls of joy

2007-06-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

Taken on a rainy sunday morning at home....just love this pic

Days gone by

2007-06-03T05:01:00.000-07:00

Now, im too young to talk about "good old days" , but somehow i miss the good old days :-)

Center of thought

2007-06-03T04:58:00.000-07:00

Again at kala kutira.....funny that most bangaloreans dont even know this place exists. They travel to far off places to catch culture while centuries of culture rests right in their backyard

Moo

2007-06-03T04:55:00.000-07:00

Why does a skull evoke fear ? Its some thing that every living mammal posesses, including humans - but somehow its always the symbol of doom....isn't the brain that resides inside the skull more dangerous ?

Entrance to the past

2007-06-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

Authentic old style door. Reminds me of my granny's house...

We dont get to see these too often now...although, strangely enuf, these doors are stronger than any of the so called modern doors !

oblique

2007-06-03T04:47:00.000-07:00

This is a nice cool room at Kala kutira, where generally practice takes place. I just loved the way the glass let lights stream into the room

Stone

2007-06-03T04:43:00.000-07:00

A stone - yes, but even a stone can have bruises...lots of them

Flow of electricity

2007-05-28T02:04:00.000-07:00

Strange sight this was - to see electric transmission lines run through the ocean. Wonder why the boats didnt get electrocuted....mm...is wood an insulator or a conductor, or was that a driver ?

Hmmmm

2007-05-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

No idea what it is about this pic, but something here just appeals to me...

Maybe it beckons to the hidden pirate in me, staring at the sun shine behind the mast after a long days toil, bringing home the day's treasures

holy pipes

2007-05-28T01:57:00.000-07:00

One of the oldest working pipe organs in mumbai.

and yes - believe it or not - I went to church !

Sweet mistakes

2007-05-28T01:53:00.000-07:00

We walked 3km, through a traffic jam, on bad roads with fish d(r)ying on the side (lovely smell that gives...fyi) - only to discover that reached the wrong beach.

Hehe....it was the best long walk i ever had...and having this pic as a trophy to show off for all that effort