bipin

sakad

2009-06-29T12:11:43Z

On Wednesday morning, I got off the bus at a truck-stop. I was on my way to Sendhwa, and from there to Sakad, a tiny village in southern Madhya Pradesh.

At the truck-stop, after gulping down some very hot (and very sweet) chai and vada-pav, I waited for the next leg of the journey. Forty five minutes later, I clambered on to an over-crowded bus. I was partly convinced by the persuasive conductor who job it was to scream every imaginable destination. Thirty Rupees and at least as many stops later, I was at Sendhwa.

After much hand-waving, I recognised Amit, Jayashree and Roshan at Sendhwa. Amit wore a dirty-green kurta over his dark blue jeans, his longish hair tucked neatly behind him. He wore glasses, and from behind them, was trying to size me up, I think. Jayashree wore a smart white kurti, with a printed pink dupatta to complement it. She was the only one who seemed to be smiling. Roshan was perhaps in his early twenties. He could have have passed for any one of us, perhaps after a clean shave, a vigorous shake and losing his khadi satchel. I was starving by now, and was thankful for the lunch we were offered at Amit's friend's place - chawal, bhindi sabji, roti and achaar.

Amit and Jayashree run a school for the rural children of Sakad. The school required a teacher for English and Math for this year, and given that I was supposed to have some proficiency in both, I had offered to come over and help.

Before heading over to Sakad, we had to pick up supplies for the coming school-term. It was decided that Amit and I would go pick up some books they had given to the printer, while Jayashree and Roshan would finish up some last minute details. At a quarter past three, having lost our way, and ridden every conceivable form of public transportation, Amit and I arrived at the publishing house.

The publishing house, was in fact, the publisher's house. After being offered, and politely declining 'koi thanda?' thrice, the kind gentleman took it that we did in fact want some thanda. I was grateful though - this part of the country is incredibly hot on a June afternoon, and Rasna has never tasted better.

We left finally for Sakad in a jeep at a quarter past five, and reached the place just after the Sun set. As we tumbled out of the jeep into the utter darkness, I heard greetings of 'Zindabad Amitbhai!' and 'Zindabad Jayadidi!'. And then, from where I could not see, someone said 'Zindabad Bipinbhai'. 'Zindabad... zindabad', I offered hesitently.

My bachelor pad is a room next to the cow-shed. I dropped off my bag, and after another quickly prepared meal of makki ki roti (a first!) and dal, I climbed a precariously positioned ladder to the roof.

As I lay on the floor (which amusingly was the ceiling), I had another first: my first glimpse at the Milky Way. I have never seen the sky with so many stars. The last thing I must have seen before I shut my tired eyes was the Big Dipper, for my dreams were littered with a giant scoop coming out of the sky for me.

Home.

Ink blue sarees are the rage in this year's summer collection. Everyone seems to be donning one of them. The little guy kept running circles around me until I decided to take a snap. You can see him peep curiously though.

I still can't believe the horizon is really this big.

The only night we had electricity. Reason to celebrate, eh? for those who 'get' /b/, new fag can triforce!

Urad dal: we grow and eat our own food at the school.

My neighbour just had a baby!

I was lucky for Sakad. The day I arrived was their first shower of the year. The landscape which was an unforgiving swathe of brown has these little saplings appearing out of thin air.

Ploughing the fields begins with the first rains.

Pictures of the kids... You won't believe the amount of spunk they have in them!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've come here. Rural India is almost a completely different country. There have been a bunch of unforgettable experiences and the most warm, incredible people. I know my friends though: they take pleasure in my misery. So here then, are the top two challenges I've come to face thus far.

The first challenge was something I went in expecting. The school here is a Hindi medium school, and everyone - at home, at school, at the village, at the store, the gola walla - everyone speaks only Hindi. Have a conversation with me in Hindi, and you'll immediately notice the problem then. My Hindi comes from Bollywood, so I'm a bad mixture of cliched Bumbayi phrases uttered while temple-bells toll in the background. I've been trying hard though, getting the kids to teach me Hindi as I teach them English.

The second challenge, at the face of it, shouldn't be a problem at all. It's something everyone of us (hopefully!) do everyday back home too - shower. Here however, it is confounded by the fact that I have to do it under a tap. Out in the open. In front of everyone. As I scrub myself with the body-wash, the little kids come pouring out, and sit down on their haunches. And then whisper among themselves as if critiquing my method of application of soap. It's quite unnerving, until you figure that you for the first time in your life, you can have a conversation as you bathe.
"Arre o chotte! Kya dekh rahe ho? Tujhe bhi dho daalu kya?" I wave out.

My family and other animals

2009-05-14T05:47:20Z

Rules for Game #27:
1. Think up an animal. A giraffe for example.
2. Pick a part of the body. The neck, perhaps.
3. Pointing out to the other person, exclaim "Your neck is there no, it's like a giraffe's neck!"
4. Laugh like it's the funniest thing you've heard all decade. Guffaw holding your tummy. Roll on the floor, thumping it with your fist.
5. It's now the other person's turn. He thinks up an animal, and a body part.
6. He then screams out "Your mouth is there no, it's like a hippopotamus's mouth!"
7. Tackle the other person down to the floor, laughing for a whole 3 minutes. If you run out of it, substitute fake laughter for the real deal.
8. Go to step 1. Repeat until Mum kicks the two of you out of the house for destroying her afternoon nap.

Ages: 2+

Skills learnt:
1. Names of animals.
2. Names of the parts of the body.
3. The fine art of insulting your opponent, and the much more controversial, "never back down from a fight" policy.

(Inset picture: At the Zoo. We'd decided to make faces at the camera. He cleverly backed out at the last moment to give his "I'm with stupid" grin.)

journeys

2009-05-07T05:46:19Z

I quit.

I joined Yahoo! before I formally finished college. Two months into the job, I remember walking into Venkat's office (we were less than fifty of us then, so everything invariably involved talking to the CEO). "I need to take tomorrow off", I told him "I have to give my finals". He had grinned and wished me luck.

Yahoo! was an incredible place to work. The first six months seemed to be just nights. Nights crammed with mad coding and pizza and 'rap-crap' and sugary sodas and movies and java-city. It was difficult to comprehend why people would want to pay you for things that you wanted to do anyway. Nine months into my first job, much to my disbelief, they thought that they had to up the stakes: after a sweaty afternoon at the Year End Party, football in hand, I went to collect the 'best employee award' for that year - the Yahoo! Ratna.

Shortly after that, I moved teams to work under Anand Ramani (who, by the way folks, if ever you get a chance to work with, drop everything ... everything .. and jump on boat). The team was innocuously (and rather euphemistically) named the 'Yahoo Image Search offensive content reduction group'. It was only later that I realized what the work entailed: making presentations to the company with pornography splattered all over your slides.

Well, to be honest, you also had to have come up with a algorithms to automatically find these images from the database of images we had (so that they could be flagged as 'not safe'). In hindsight though, the algorithms weren't the hard part. The hard part was tactfully explaining the patent you'd filed to beaming (and later concerned) relatives.

Two years ago I moved to the States to continue working for Yahoo from San Francisco. Two weeks ago, I quit. Having very little to do, I sold the little furniture I had, packed my belongings, and decided to drive across the country.

I called up the Yeti to tell him that I was going to leave the country and ask him if he wanted to come with me. His exact words were "Ok. Oh ok!". Then I rung up JJ to ask her the same. Her exact words were "Oh ok! Ok."

*
There are a few things that all travel books will agree upon. Start driving early, preferably by dawn. Drink lots of water. Drive through the early mornings and afternoons. Take breaks every couple of hours. Reach your destination by mid-evening. Switch driving with your partner every hour. Have a plan.

So, not unexpectedly, having driven for no more than three hours at a stretch before, I drove for eight hours straight on the first day; assumed that I was a poster-boy for Starbucks substituting water with copious amounts of caffeine; and reached Vegas at nine in the evening. In such states of delirium, gambling seems especially appealing. Especially when gambling at poker in a hazy, smoke-filled rooms with oil magnates with thick gold chains, leather pants, cowboy hats and cigars dangling by their mouths.

Vegas is exactly how I'd remembered it. It has the visual appeal of moist pongal. It's as if somebody has vomited gold: the elevator doors are gold; the lining on the red uniforms of the concierge is gold; the trolleys that move luggage are gold; the knobs on the doors are gold; the yellow light of the room illuminates a gold pen set upon a pad with gold letter-headed pages, each with the casino's name engraved upon it - "The Golden Nugget".

I woke up the next morning to greet a groggy Potted Plant contemplating inflicting painful measures upon herself to escape visual diarrhea that was Vegas. The United States, however, has a way of surprising you. Drive a few hundred miles eastward, and there's a treat waiting for your bleary eyes. Two canyons - a grand one - named appropriately The Grand Canyon, and a not so grand one (but perhaps even more spectacular) - the Antelope Canyon.

We began with clear blue skies. And oh, all these gorgeous photos are from the very talent JJ.

Sin City: The Golden Nugget at Las Vegas. They've got a MONSTROUS 161 lbs gold nugget here. Like everything else in Vegas, it ugly.

Though the Grand Canyon is mighty, it's the Colorado River that impressed me the most (you can see it trickling its way below). 'Colorado' means 'red river', but it pretended to be at least six other colours as we drove past it.

The most surreal place I've been to. Antelope Canyon seems like it shouldn't belong to Earth.

The landscape changed dramatically as we hit the Rocky Mountains. From the scorching heat of the West Coast to the powerdery snow of northern Utah.

Icy roads meant that I drove slower than I usually do. It's a miracle that we completed the trip in 7 days.

But as any travel writer will tell you, destinations aren't stories. It's what happens there - those fleeting atoms of The Present that can't be captured by an impotent camera - that makes a story. For the next couple of days we dove into the Grand Canyon in wobbly airplanes, played football inside three feet high tents, were drizzled upon by fine orange sand, bathed in dust-storms while attempting to celebrate the first 1000 miles of the journey, tasted local cuisine (rattlesnake anyone?), met 'pyuuure vegetarian' Brahmin boys who spend two months living all alone in the Rockies, drove the car onto road-dividers which were manifestly not motorable, were happy that Potted Plant was indeed alive as she squealed in delight (rattlesnake anyone?), took pictures of rainbows, and rushed past rain and sleet and magically powdery snow.

And then, we hit Kansas.

If the states of America were the keys of the keyboard, Kansas would be the 'Scroll Lock' key. No one really knows why it's a part of the confederation. It just lies there, doing nothing and completely boring. I suppose it must have some deep existential issues - baffled what its 'purpose' is and such. We drove for six hours with the eerie feeling that we'd entered a screen-saver: a single dead-straight pale gray road, uninspiring pale-yellow fields, and the pale blue horizon. That's it. There are no towns. There are no people. There are no cows. Nothing. Just boredom. A hour into Kansas, I picked up my first speeding ticket.

Toward the end of Kansas though, you come across the first indication that people might be coaxed into living there. Screaming billboards littered highway: "Abortion is sin!", "Pornography kills ... Jesus Saves!" and "Thank your mother she was pro-life".

I have very little respect for people who claim that women shouldn't be able to decide what to do with their bodies. And then justify their stance by strange interpretations of their favourite religious book. I just had to go check out the murky pit where these people spawn - the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

The kind folk of the museum believe that the Abrahamic god really did create the world in seven days, and that humans and dragons and dinosaurs and mammoths all lived together (because god made them all on one day), and that 'evolution is just a theory', while god's word is fact (hurrah!).

I went in, warming my hands in glee, ready to mock and sneer. To be honest though, I was a tad disappointed to find out that the museum was really fun. It had large immersive models with naked Adam and Eve frolicking with penguins, lots of really well done exhibits, and so many charming little dinos. All perfect for the 680 people who'd turned up in the morning. A Wednesday morning.

But just when you're all smug and content that the entire country is filled with bumpkins, they throw their best at you. My next stop was Boston, where at the Harvard University, I attended a class on Entrepreneurship. The class was a refreshing re-take on MBAs for me. Partly because they had Honest Tea served in class (it was their case-study). And partly because I found out that MBAs can't fathom why engineers think they're pretty stupid. Apparently 'Dilbert' is kept right next to 'An assorted collection of banned literature' in their library.

After 3,300 miles, I reached my final stop - New York. I shall withhold judgment now on the city, for I had just a couple of days in the city - most of which I spent eating the most splendid food. But I'll tell you this - the East Coast is certainly more masculine and brash than my lovely, tree-hugging, hippie-loving, pot-smoking West Coast. Even my host, who'd been perfectly fabulous thus far, began barking random orders at me - "eat your sandwich now!", "stand here!", "the cabs are yellow!", "right lane must exit!" and so on. I responded with "Heil Dilbert!", but she seemed not to notice. We'd missed a turn and now had to drive to Alaska to get off the freeway.

My trip ended as I flew over the Atlantic, having dipped my toes in the Pacific just a week before. I was finally headed back to India.

Kansas: The landscape was exactly like this for 6 hours.

Local cuisine: not for the queasy.

From the Creation Museum in Kentucky, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. There were only two age groups present in the museum - below 5, and, above 65.

Three thousand three hundred miles later: Jack, the most incredible car. No really, I'd go to battle for him. There's something about a car that screams freedom - the ability to fuel up and drive as far as you can. Raw, unfettered, throbbing freedom.

The route was quite unplanned. A storm in the nothern United States ensured that we also turned amateur weather-men.

They say your late twenties are the toughest times of your life. For it is the first time you come face-to-face with who you are. The ancient Greeks even had word for it - anagnorisis. The greatest tragedies, apparently, are revealed when you discover who you are. Or perhaps, more importantly, who you are not.

Yahoo! was an lovely ride. An incredible journey. But smooth rides entice complacencies. I know I began to cruise at work, and perhaps, at life. And when you cruise, towns on your journey are just blurry, unsatisfactory flashes. Devoid of memories and character and scents and stories. I think Pico Iyer captures it perfectly. In "Why we travel", he observes "We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves."

I applied to graduate school last winter. I seem to have had a rather large stroke of luck: Stanford University liked my application and made me an offer yesterday to pursue my Masters there. School starts in September. I'm back in Bangalore now, not completely sure what I'm going to do. Apart from travel.

San Francisco

2009-02-03T08:43:33Z

image credit: Thomas Hawk (CC license)
The Bay bridge, one the prettiest bridges, is one of San Francisco's most recognised landmarks. It's lit up every evening.

It's been a year and a half since I moved to the States. This apparently entitles me to a sense of smug superiority when I visit home. I sport an air of "Oh, but I have all the answers to elevate India out of its squalor", with blinding insights like "we need to improve our infrastructure!". All this while pontificating to hapless Americans "but you don't know what REAL poverty is!", and then instantly becoming the expert on destitution. I like this role thrust upon me - like I'm some sort of conduit between two great civilizations. And because of that fact, am apparently in a position now to provide cutting social commentary on both of them.

I'm sure you're all "But bipin, I don't need a social commentary on America. I know everything that needs to be known! I've watched every episode of Friends!". Well, I'm going to don my sinister voice, and ask you "But what about the weather?". And before you can recover, I'll plunge right into my narrative.

The Weather: Unlike the rest of world that has four clearly demarcated seasons, San Francisco has just three. There's (1) cold and windy, (2) cold and windier, and (3) cold and are-you-kidding-me windy. Temperatures dip down as low as 40F (which I hear can, with the help of supercomputers, somehow be converted to 4C).

There are two kinds of responses to such statistics. If you've lived in South India for the entirety of your non bed-wetting life, you'll be stunned that people actually manage to eek out their lives in such tundran temperatures. You might even say "Aiyyo!". That's the first class of people. Mark Twain was one of us; he once exclaimed "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

The second class of people will smirk at your '40F', and get all snarky - "oooooh, 40 did you say? Poor baby! Must be sooooo cold, no? Pussy!". For you see, it is not uncommon for people in other parts of the States to endure temperatures as low as -20F. I think that must be like -1000C or something. However, let's not get all defensiveFor we owe one of the most important milestones of human development to one of these people - the invention of the zipper, by a guy from Massachusetts named Elias Howe. I'm willing to bet that, having put on all those layers of clothes one particularly cold morning, little Elias figured that he just had to pee. The rest, they say, is history.

However, as was evident above, this problem of describing the States without resorting to crass generalizations is a difficult one to overcome - they really are 50 countries rather than 50 states. So instead of doing that, for the rest of this piece, I'll confine myself to California in general and San Francisco in particular.

Which brings us to important issue of how to communicate with .... The Gays. (cue for suspense music)

image credit: uunnngh (CC license)
When the Sun's out, so are the smiles.

The language: Some scholars believe that the American people speak a language which has had its roots in the English language. There is some evidence that support this hypothesis. Phrases like '33% tax', and 'Elizabeth Hurley naked' seemingly evoke the same response from the natives as it would from the best speakers of English in the world - Christian-establishment tutored Indians.

However, native English speakers are warned that some words that sound suspiciously like the ones they're used to, take on completely new meanings in 'American'. For example, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT, ask your female co-passenger to check the 'dickie' for tools to repair the car. It's called a 'boot' here. 'Boot' you might recall, in English, refers to footwear. Americans think 'crocs' are footwear. 'Crocs', in English, you might recall, are lean, mean, biting machines. Americans think 'lean' is a kind of meat ... and so on. You get the point.

Other useful conversions are as follows: unless you're paraplegic, ask for directions to the 'elevator', and not the 'lift'. 'Soft drinks' are 'sodas' , 'soda' does not exist, 'Rama' is 'Jeezus', 'You're welcome' is (a grating) 'uh-huh', and 'coffee' is 'gimme some vile, black ditch water'.

Please also bear in mind that when asked "So, where do you stay?" by a colleague, do not respond "Oh, I live with a roommate in San Francisco. We went to school together, so I thought I'd hook up with him when I came to the States." It would mean ... (suspense music in higher pitch) .. you've got The Gay. The right way to respond to it, in your heterosexual glory, is to say "I share a two bed-room apartment with a friend of mine. And like ... we drink beer and watch the game, while dissin' 'em hoes".

image credit: Genial23 (CC license)
The Folsom Street Fair: You really need to leave your inhibitions behind for this one. There's a WHOLE lot of nakedness.

The Gays: If you're a heterosexual man, you've probably just skimmed over the last section, and jumped right here for the scoop. For I'll tell you a secret which every man will deny: straight men are incredibly insecure about their sexuality. They've always got this 'What if I'm gay? ohmygosh, what if I'm gay?' thread running in the back of their minds. To really screw with their heads, gently suggest that you read somewhere the reason that contact sports are popular is that it satiates the latent, suppressed need for homo-erotica. Then be prepared for an evening of silence.

No, but getting back to main point. San Francisco has been affectionately named 'gay Mecca' and the 'hot-bed for homosexuality' by the sweet people at Conservapedia. But before you brush it off as exaggeration, let me tell you this: it is true. The hot-beddedness has it roots in World War II, when, rather than returning home, many men who were discharged from the army for being homosexual preferred to stay on in San Francisco. Today, SF boasts the highest percentage of gay and lesbian individuals anywhere in the United States, at 15.4%.

I use the word 'boasts' consciously. Because once you live in the city, you can't help but see the pride it has its people. I know I'm far far far left liberal, so I might be biased, but I'll tell you this: if everyone who opposes homosexuality just came over here, and spent a reasonable amount of time living here, they'd go back with changed opinions. For when you see two people share love, their genders do not matter. It's just as beautiful - the excitement in their eyes, their radiant smiles, the nervous energies as they stumble through their first date. And when you notice the tips of their hands discreetly brushing each others' as they walk down the street, you can't help but smile - for you know that they are feeling just what you did when you fell in love.

Local cuisine: I don't consider myself a 'foodie'. Partly because the word now has come to mean 'I eat like a hippopotamus'. I'm adventurous though - I particularly enjoy trying new food (except Pongal, for which there has been no conclusive evidence proving that it is not regurgitated food). San Francisco brags the most number of restaurants per square mile anywhere in the world. This makes it easier for me to justify my inability to make anything but burnt toast.

I must serve the reader a warning though - if you're brought to the city by a bored Bay Area resident, do not ask to be taken to a restaurant in the city. You'll be fed burgers and fries at some fast-food place which is as exciting as a Holland-Bangladesh test match. Instead dash off for some Drunken chicken at Rasselas - chicken marinated in gold tequila, ginger, garlic and lemon juice. Walk down the street to Fresca, and ask for their secret Cevicheria - oysters on the half shell - a dish not published on their menus because they serve it only to San Franciscans. Now that you've whet your appetite, jump into my favourite main course at Burma Superstar: steaming hot fragrant Jasmine rice with most heavenly Mango Chicken Stir - fried chicken breast with fresh mangoes, and a light chili, basil sauce. Finally, to finish the meal, head out down to the ocean to Ghiradelli, for some 'Midnight Reverie' - homemade dark dark chocolate fudge on two scoops of chocolate ice-cream, topped with still more dark chocolate chips. I never did realize chocolate and moonlight made for such an intoxicating combination.

I must hasten to add that local traditions prohibit you to go to these places without taking the person who introduced you to them. Unbelievable, but true.

image credit: lsk208 (CC license)
The city hosts a large number of Victorian houses. San Francisco is earthquake territory, so tall buildings are rare.

image credit: lsk208 (CC license)
From the summer of love to the winter of despair - Haight Ashbury

image credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid (CC license)
Pillow fighting: Surely the best way to spend Valentine's day.

The culture: Luckily for the Americans, having no note-worthy history what-so-ever (or at least, having obliterated the history there might have been there before they arrived), the people here are a free lot. There are no whiny bastards who go about kicking women and claiming that drinking in a pub is 'against our culture', or that the flag can't be worn by people who feel nothing but pride for the symbol. Instead, if walking naked through the city is heralded as fun by more than half a dozen people, that becomes a part of their culture. If pillow fighting, or screening movies in the park, or dark blue hairstyles catches their fancy, then that becomes part of their culture. Now that's a refreshing thought - that we can define who we want to be.

*

There is something however, I've noticed in the American psyche that seems fixed. Something unstated, unconscious, but deeply rooted - an unwavering sense of dichotomy. Their worlds, if you will forgive my generalization here, seem to be more neatly partitioned in two categories. They're black or they're white. They're republicans or they're democrats. They're either obese, or have completed triathlons with concrete-blocks chained to their legs. They're fundamentalistic atheists, or indoctrinated Bible thumpers. They're either Richard Feynman, or are perplexed at being given $1.15 when the amount is $0.65. They're jocks or they're nerds. Shades of gray that the rest of the world wades in just doesn't seem to exist in American society.

So much so that their foreign policy was summarized in 7 words "You're either with us, or against us". A culture so marinated in its twoness - the two monikers 'United States' and 'America' - perhaps shall forever be themed by bipartisanship.

2/2
I should have warned you before I started off on this: I'd spent my entire life in just one city before I came here. I was born in Bangalore. I learnt to ride my yellow tri-cylce in Bangalore. I got my first dog in Bangalore (it was a birthday gift! yay!). I learnt to urinate patterns up in Bangalore. I learnt how to splash aftershave in Bangalore, I learnt how to tear up the stairs, I learnt how to whistle and read my first book in Bangalore. I held a girl's hand for the first time in Bangalore, I ran away from home in Bangalore, I lied for the first time in Bangalore, drove my first car around the streets of Bangalore, and tied my shoelaces for the very first time in Bangalore.

So it seems odd then, to announce "I'm going home", and drive back on the 101 to San Francisco.

journeys

2009-01-20T03:39:01Z

Five years ago, did you think you'd be where you are today?

Santa's come early this year

2008-12-15T09:19:04Z

Last evening, after struggling through a year of self-imposed renunciation, I came home to a giant gift from Santa. As you walk past him, this is what catches your eye at first.

Image credit: chitra chaaya

And this is him.

The Jaguar S-type Sport - my new car
Needless to say, I require facial reconstruction surgery now. Not just because I think he's better looking than me, but also to unfreeze the grin I wear as I walk around stupidly.

I'm not used to be spoiled. Not by my cars. I love how he glides past the other cars with silence of rushed air. That he has rain-sensitive wipers that adjust to the intensity of the downpour; that he remembers who you are and adjusts the seats and the mirrors when you appear within his visual range, and then as you swing open the door, gently lifts the steering wheel to accommodate your entry; that he doesn't mock my sense of direction but instead comes with an in-built GPS navigation system, with arrows instead of arbitrary words like 'right' and 'left'; that he wastes an out-of-control audio system on me, and assumes that personalized 'climate control' is the right of every passenger; that when I get a call, he transforms into a four thousand pound, speeding cellphone (after automatically turning off the audio-system, and lowering the sun-roof). That beneath the gleaming jaguar model that seems to drag the cloak of glistening black every where it goes, the V6 engine delivers 240hp at 6800rpm (to put that in perspective, my previous car - the incredible Simba, a Tata Safari, whom one wouldn't dare call small - had less than half this power). That this is what he did for fun when Top Gear took him for a run on the Nürburgring.

I know, I know. I must sound like a freckled teenager in a black t-shirt and faded jeans who can't stop gushing about his latest crush. It's not true, I tell you. Because (a) I would never wear faded jeans and (b) you haven't come along for a ride with me.

"Whoa! Wow! Can I touch them? No!?"

2008-10-20T20:17:00Z

Now I don't usually post YouTube videos, but really, this is what I imagine bc to be like.

[
Edit: video removed from YouTube :(
Either way, here it is http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/995561/
]

mind your language

2008-08-22T05:22:10Z

We have no qualms denying the existence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Why do we have trouble stating that we have no god?

*
My recently acquired fascination for linguistics hit a rather unexpected road-bump last evening. For months now, the charm, for me, has been in excavating word-roots - as you brush away the dust, masks of past civilizations emerge: tales of origin and evolution so wondrous that they seemed to encompass entire bed-time stories. As you swim in the waters of Sri Lanka and trudge up the mountains of Laconia, you for once see patterns in the darkness - word-roots light up like fallen stars in the dark ocean of vocabulary.

But all that's when I'm not at work.

At work, I've inched my way from an engineering position to one in a 'pure sciences' team. The evocative call of engineering a solution no longer entices me like it used to. While the language I use to work the computer has evolved - from the flamboyance of C++ to austerity of Bash scripts; surprisingly, my 'human language', has also transformed, morphing from a declarative 'The data proves that A causes B', to a less sure 'the data tells us that A causes B' to a feeble, almost apologetic 'the data seems to suggest that there exists a correlation between the two variables'.

The evolution, in retrospect, has been affected by the people I interacted with - the smarter you were, the more cautious, it seemed, you would be at stating things with certainty. Claims were padded with qualifications, and probabilities softened what were once concrete conclusions. Intelligence apparently lay in the recognition that things were never absolute - that the cognizance of subtlety was the cornerstone of wisdom. The notion seems to manifest everywhere really - in art which evolves from the overt, upturned semi-circular smiles on drawings stuck on refrigerator doors to the is-she-really-smiling Mona Lisa; in love stories, where an undercurrent of romance evokes a far stronger reaction than an in-your-face rain dance; and even in stygian world of insults - the intelligent often supplanting patent hostility and physical aggression with the delicate sharpness of sarcasm.

To be circumspect about what you know about the world, or at least state it in such parlance, it seems, is the ticket to sagacity. It's little surprise then, that it's the mode now to declare on any issue, one's position to be one of neither extreme.

*

Language has its laugh in the end though: just when you believe that your perspective controls your vocabulary, it comes right back and 'au contraire's you. It has been long argued that the truth is diametrically opposite to our expectation - what you perceive is decided by the language you use and not the other way around. Last evening, I read one of the most fascinating experiments in linguistics perhaps, where it was shown that people were able to remember and distinguish colors for which they had names in their mother-tongue better than for those they didn't have words for. If the word doesn't exist in your head apparently, you brain ignores that facet of reality.

Read that again, for the implications of the assertion are quite startling. You don't see anything that you don't have a word for. You brain only perceives things that are present in its vocabulary.

Taken to its logical conclusion, if you didn't have a word for black, you probably wouldn't see it. I find that very hard to swallow - it just seems so counter-intuitive. But then I got thinking: was there an experience or a notion or an object that I discovered only after I learnt a word for it?

I learnt French (and a smattering of Norwegian) sometime over the last couple of years, and while doing so, came across a most beautiful word - 'enchanté' (pronounced somewhat like 'on-shan-they', only the 'on' is more nasal). It's a eccentric word, in that it doesn't have an equivalent in English (or any of the other languages I know), and reserved for men to use when they're introduced women. The closest English greeting is 'charmed', I imagine, but as if one had mixed it with dollops of the word 'enchanted'.

The greeting itself has a vein of unstated sexuality in it, something that the prudish English never bought into I guess. You've got to imagine it being said while delicately holding your paramour's hand, as the tips of her lips curve ever so slightly upward.

Here's the catch though: I know that it's only after I learnt the word that I began to notice the sexual spark that I felt when I met her - that rush of chemistry when the tips of your fingers first make contact with hers, in a kind of latent desire, if you must. You will too, from now on - the word's been introduced into your vocabulary - and now your experience of reality has forever changed.

*

But that's just one side of argument.

I think the crux of today's intellectual indolence is directly attributable to the fact that we're now using neutral language more than ever before. Our unsure language has cast us in a brain that can house only unsure thought. No longer is it acceptable to state your claim. To aver that one side of the argument is right, and that the other is wrong.

It is unsurprising then, that the voice of the atheist, for example, is dismissed as hubris, an overbearing arrogance characteristic only of the ignorant. The unqualified refutation of the presence of a supreme being seems to suggest naïvete, an unnecessary presumption of certainty.

Instead, it is prudent to state that you're agnostic. The agnostic position, in debates over dinner, is held up by what boils down to three shields: the first which could be mistaken to be our nation's manifesto - that of 'live and let live', or 'why say something that might offend someone?'; the second which insinuates that the notion of God is one that is necessary for the 'common man' to lead a moral life; and the third - a rather serpentine piece of logic that suggests that since we can't prove that God does not exist, we ought to give both propositions equal credibility.

Of course, each of these are easily countered, so much so that no theologian will ever present them as valid arguments any more: the policy of 'live and let live' is irrelevant to the human endeavor of understanding the world and seeking the Truth; the fact that the greatest philosophers produced by our country - Buddha, Mahavira, Vivekananda and more recently Krishnamurti - were all atheistic in their own ways and yet all appealed to the 'common man', fully aware that the masses could handle the no-god conjecture and; the placement of onus on someone to prove a negative being known to be a specious line of argument - one can never prove that something - Santa Claus or an invisible hippo with a red-bow in your living room - does not exist.

So even though you'd hardly hear anyone claim that they weren't atheistic of Ra, the Egyptian Sun God, or Helios or Thor, we refuse to state that we're atheistic about the current version of God(s). As Dawkins said, "We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." We have no qualms denying the existence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Why do we have trouble stating that we have no god?

It has been argued that the agnostic position then, is one of weakness - that they aren't able to commit to one stand - the theist's or the atheist's - only because they haven't the strength to convince their brains. I argue that our perception of the world, because of the unsure vocabulary we've inherited, has changed. And that, and not intellectual laziness, is the reason that we find the agnostic position attractive.

*

Our generation has adopted a language which makes it impossibly difficult to accept the position of an extreme. We are a generation who've been hit by the plague of compromise, of hedging our commitments. We deify the middle-road, and perceive anyone straggling it to be somehow lost.

We place little importance on self-belief, caving in to the whims of the majority. The trump card of tolerance triumphs over the virtue of honesty. We've surrendered our duty to state what we believe to be true, instead wallowing is convenient and what is socially acceptable.

*

As you swim in the torrent of words some evenings though, you notice that sometimes, the most common of them catch you by surprise. The courageous beauty of the word 'conviction' stands out strong to me. Repeat it to yourself for a few times, and you'll notice it grow on you, as if just saying it aloud magically empowers you.

It is unfortunate that such a beautiful word is being lost to mean a vile concoction of 'intolerant' and 'uninformed' today. Perhaps future generations will stare at, puzzled at the apparent negative connotation that the word caught on somewhere in the end of the 20th century.

It's sad that that will be our contribution to etymology.

password pragmatics

2008-08-03T20:06:04Z

I like my Internet. It's a fun place to be - mine's somehow got this new-agey, citrusy feel to it. However, as one flits from link to link, flirting with blog-poets, sites detailing the lamentable tale of two girls who had just one cup between them, and other such pleasures, ever so often, one comes across the nefarious Password Nanny Sites - sites which insist on some rather entangled set of rules and conventions for their passwords. Rules that promise you unassailability with their version of the online chastity belt.

Needless to say, dissolute as you are, chastity belts annoy you.

First, because they dictate how precious your account is to you. No, I don't need an unbreakable-by-NASA password for my BlockBuster video-rental site. What are you going to do?* Break into my account and send me a scaaaaary movie? Wooo.
And second, because of the arbitrariness of the rules they foist on you. I looked the other way when they made it mandatory to include upper-case letters in my password. I pretended that it was normal when they then said it was imperative to have digits. I defended that it was only polite to provide my mother's age, the number of moles my dog had, and my views on whether Kashmir really belongs to India when they demanded it as answers to 'security questions'. But when they caught up with the new fad of forcing me to adopt special characters - the #s, the &s and the !!s - in my password, I decided that it was time for me to lift my arm parallel to the ground, face my palm vertically at them, and say 'STOP!'.

For now, I'm going to prove to you with my amazing mathematical skills, that you stupid method for 'improving security' is stupid.

Let's say your current password is a mere 8 characters long, each chosen from the set of lower-case letters, upper-case letters and digits. This means that there are 62^8 (26+26+10=62) possible combinations for potential passwords. For the non-computer-sciency of you, this means that, at worst, ScaryMovieSender will have to try 62^8 passwords until, eventually, he gets yours right. Since us manly computer-science people think that 218,340,105,584,896 is a smallish number, we introduce ways to create more possible combinations. Rumor has it that we shall continue on this quest, of decreasing the chances of someone breaking our password until the odds are about the same as that of the average software engineer's chances of fornicating before an arranged marriage.

Either way, one way to increase the number of possible combinations is to increase the number of characters you can compose your password from. Ok, let's do it then: even if you have me believe that anyone not suffering from self-inflicted epilepsy would choose '>' as one of the characters in their password, and we include all 30-something special characters to the base-set, the cardinality of the base-set increases to 92. This means that the total number of possible combinations is now at 92^8.

So, it's 92^8 vs. 62^8.

Staggering improvement, you might say. "Staggering my ass!", I would respond, and then quickly wish I hadn't said it. See, that's an increase of 92^8 / 62^8 times, which deceivingly is just a mere 24 times increase in the total number of combinations. I use the word 'mere', because in contrast, increasing the size of your password by one character increases the number of possibilities by 62 times.

That means that going from the password 'toofew' to 'toomany' is going to fetch you far more 'protection' than being forced to include special characters in your password.

So, pl3ase st0p m@k1ng m3 typ3 my p@55w0rd$ like this. Let those characters be where they truly belong - in speech bubbles of Asterix and PERL code. Instead, let me choose my passwords on my own terms: I hear 'RedshoeBlueshoePasswordu' is a good one. It's apparently got the added advantage that it's in Kannada.

For the curious among you, here's a list of my previous passwords.

* SubodhSir shamed me into retracting that statement on 8/19. He now knows the status of my car-loan, what I scored in third-grade History exams, and oh .. my social security number.
Moral of the story - never piss off a guy who knows more Windows than you know Math.

domo-kun diaries

2008-07-18T04:36:59Z

Ok, y'all forced me.

I thought throwing my icy, oh-no-you-didn't-look contemptuously at you would have scarred you into mending your ways. I was mistaken, dear reader. Apparently, I have to pen an entry called Elevator Etiquette for Everyone Ever, listing rules which cavemen had mastered shortly after they discovered the need to go upstairs. So here goes, people. Listen up. On how to go up.

Rule-1: Do not make small talk with me, Steve. Yeah. 'Steve'. No one else does it, Steve. Not Rahul. Not Carlos. Not Enrique. Not !xobile. Just all you Steves. In any case, even when I say "Yeah! Isn't it?" in reply to your "What a lovely day! It's like 80 degrees today", I'm lying, Steve.
First, because I have no idea how much 80 degrees is in Celsius. I'm not standing there with a vacuous look, mumbling "cee equals eff minus thirty-two into...", while you pretend to be Einstein.
And second, because I think a 'lovely' day is one when it's cloudy, and just a little chilly. With a hint of the impending monsoons. We've taken several helpings of melanin at the buffet, thankyouverymuch - we don't crave for the Sun like your white ass does.

Rule-2: US Intelligence has recently declassified documents which reveal that until now, all elevators were to be programmed with a secret 'sense of urgency' factor: the time it took an elevator to approach a floor was to be inversely proportional to the number of times the call button had been engaged. In mathematically challenged MBA-speak, that simply means that if you engaged an already engaged call-button, by hitting it repeatedly, the elevator was to understand that you weren't kidding around, that you really want to go someplace; that it was to drop every other request and get to your floor super-fast. It was originally meant for secret-agents and fire-fighters and the like. Until .. until it was discovered by magnificent you.

If you think all this sounds rather dubious, let me remind you dear reader, that this belonged to the annals of Truth: the US Intelligence files. Rumour has it that it was filed under 'Where's my elevator: dude, where's my elevator?', alphabetically before 'WMDs gone wild: Iraq's rack'.

So yeah, now that the special urgency factor has been removed from all operating elevators, it's time for you to stop being 'special' too, and resist the urge to pound on the buttons. It has no use anymore. Once engaged, it will make no difference whether you leave it alone or make passionate love to it by the beach-side. Save your hand for other amorous purposes, perhaps.

Rule-3: Do not practice your jabs in the elevator until you've checked to see that there's no little Asian woman in the corner, shivering, and repeatedly hitting the red alarm button.

Rule-4: The only people I love more than the repeat-rambos from Rule-2 are your friendly neighborhood litter-bugs. Aren't they cute, ladies and gentlemen? Leaving us with mementos of their ephemeral stay as they hop from elevator to elevator, spreading the joy of squalor. Candy-wrappers, bits of orange peels, tantalizing bits of crossword puzzles, brake-fluid, little crumbs of donuts for the travel-loving mice, even chewed gum! Oh, I can't decide what I'd rather do more: read 'blog poetry' about unrequited love or endure the excruciating pain of screening out your filth, as my eye surreptitiously darts every so often toward it in morbid disgust.

If ever I meet one of you, I will personally bludgeon you to death with my fists. No, really, I will. Like in Ultimate Cage Fighting. And when you're screaming, I'm going to stuff that piece of gum back into your mouth.
(Editor's note: stringing a bunch of 'power sentences' together because you don't have the ability to coherently connect them together and calling that poetry doesn't make you deep. It makes you bipin-at-fifteen.)

Rule-5: There is some debate among in the Levitating Impropriety-Factor Theorists (LIFT) whether Rule-5 is just an expansion of Rule-4, but I will list it here because I know there are some people who need it explicitly stated. Please leave with everything you came into the elevator with: Rule-4 isn't restricted to solids and liquids. It's an enclosed space, with poor ventilation. 'Nuff said.

Rule-7. Ok, I know I'm sounding like an temperamental Michael Jackson in this post - screechy and child-like (oh the Pun! it burneth mine eye!) Here's a simple one then, to balance things out. The rule usually takes beginners marginally longer to master, but once you learn it, dear reader, you can be all smug and throw disdainful looks at the ignorant, which as we all agree, is the true purpose of life. I'll teach you this rule with the help of an example:
Say you're in the elevator with two other people, who want to go to the 3rd and 9th floor (respectively). You wish to go to the 7th floor. To meet me. I'm on the 7th floor. At home, and at work. Fancy that. But yeah, so you want to go to the 7th floor.

Which button do you press?

For those of you who answered, "ummmnn... 7?", I'm sorry to inform you that you've incurred a severe, debilitating loss in karma. The right answer is "5 and 7". Make them a sequence people! 3, 5, 7, 9! You can't travel with a '3, 7, 9'! And don't tell me unsequenced floors can make a pleasant journey. What are you going to claim next - that Joey and Chandler aren't gay?
Minor squabbles aside, let's move to the next example. For 2 points, which button would you press if the already-engaged buttons were 3 and 6, and you want to go to the 7th floor? Obviously, '3, 6, 7' is a terrible combination.

Before you proceed, dear reader, think.

The answer? Hit '5'. 365 days in a year. Then, when '3' gets off, quickly hit '7' to get the next combination '5, 6, 7'. Awesome! See, this is fun.

Extra credit: You're in the elevator, with Britney Spears. She's hit P1 (penthouse-1). You want to go to the 7th floor (ok, ok, you want to go to the penthouse with her, but Rule-2 prohibits you from hitting an already engaged button, and, in a serendipitous stroke of alliteration, hitting on an already engaged woman). Which button do you press?

This might confuse amateurs - how does one deal with a P1? What sequence do you make? 'P1, 7'? What does that even mean?
Thankfully, after having done this for many years now, I know all the nooks and crannies of this game. The right answer is '2'. See, P1 could only mean 'prime number 1', which of course, is 2. Not 1, but 2.
"You know it's fascinating," I tell Britney, "that 1 isn't considered a prime. Or a composite. The first prime is... no no... has been declared to be 2!". I like to impress the ladies with Math.
She looks up from her vanity mirror, and says "Yeah, how fassssicnating!"

My dreams are shattered: I never thought Britney would be sarcastic. People even claim she wrote a song about hitting something more than once.

I'm sorry baby, it's over between us. I should probably go now, and write some poetry on my blog about our lost love.

PS: In the first two case-studies, if anyone dares ask you why you engaged '5' and didn't get off, explain to them 'high five, of course'. Raising your arm as you make this request is optional.
PS: The observant among you would have noticed that there was no Rule-6. That's because a rule so drenched with floor-7s could only be a Rule-7. This kind of meta-reasoning which, to the untrained (but observant) eye, seems to arbitrarily violate Rule-7 (1,2,3,4,5,7?), is not uncommon. I would encourage you not to argue with me. That's like arguing with Superman about why he won't use the elevator.

the fight

2008-06-16T19:48:28Z

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If you've ever read my blog, you know that I've frequently been given to the latter option, rambling pointlessly on in fifteen thousand word blog-posts hidden behind lj-cuts.

But, as Obama would say, "It's time for Change".

So instead of the usual ostentatious, maudlin writing style, I thought I'd just post photos, to tell you what happened in the gore that was my fight.

Always protect yourself
Round 1
The fight's just about to begin, and Paris, the referee pulls us together. I'm the one on the right, with the blue head-gear and the black wife-beater. Paris looks at us one last time, and whispers the exact same, three-line chant every referee pronounces before a boxing match - "I want a clean fight. Listen to my command at all times. And always protect yourself."
Neither of us are listening to him of course. We're doing the macho stare-down. We touch gloves, and walk back one final time to our corners.
I wonder whether I should ask Paris if he thinks Hector is a greater warrior than Achilles.

The fight begins, and he comes out obsessively aggressive, pumped with a giddy cocktail of testosterone and adrenaline. I play out my plan for the first thirty seconds, ducking and going around him, getting him to miss me and punch the air. I can hear his punches whizz past my ear.
It's not all well though - he's managing to square me up a few times, and land some punches. He's got a hard hard hard punch. Three strikes later, my body's bursting to abandon my plan, and replace it with its own 'fight or flight' version. I cave.
I tiptoe on my right-foot, shift my weight ever so slightly onto my left, and contract my upper body in anticipation to throw my first punch - my favorite - my jab.

coiling up

the jab
The jab
Oooooo-mama. That felt good. I get him smack on the face. He totters back.
I close in to go at him again. A minute into the fight, my rehearsed plan is a distant memory. I drop my guard and my technique, and we end up spending the rest of the round pounding each other silly, without the slightest notion of self-defense. The gasp of the crowd when you land a punch is intoxicating.
Anyway, "always protect yourself" is for old men.

Round 2
I start off the second round, ready to push him a bit. My aim's to fire some sharp punches into his body, to weaken it for the next round.
Well, once the round began, those plans are again unceremoniously shelved (oh the surprise!) - I go at him like a fool, flailing my arms. He of course, returns the favor. It's turning into an ugly bar fight, one that's swinging from side-to-side every moment, just like our hideously exhausted bodies.

two in round two

Mid-way through the round, he plants a monstrous right hand. To my already distraught head, it feels like his fist's gone through my skull and into my brain. I can hear the crowd shudder behind me. The fight goes downhill from there - I never completely recover from that straight-right. He closes in on me, and pummels me repeatedly, and I can barely parry his blows.

As I stand there cowering, with my arms bent at the elbow, trying to cover my sides of my head, I can hear his arms come at me with a 'whooooosh', like a windmill, and then land on my face. Simon screams at me to back out of the corner and throw my jab, but my head's in a muddle, and I seem unable to comprehend or follow his urgent commands. I'm getting battered, and in hindsight, getting myself into quite some head-trauma.

Late into the second round, Simon throws in the towel. He's had enough. The fight's stopped.

the beginning of the end

disappointment
The end
Before Simon wipes the blood dripping off my nose, I make no attempt to hide my consternation: I know I can take more, and want to continue the fight. He looks at me in the eye, and says "Train harder to turn that courage into skill, brother.".
Man, this guy should write scripts for Hollywood.

boxing bits

2008-06-09T07:58:27Z

The stark cold austerity of boxing is, I think, one of the reasons if I find it irresistibly appealing. There are no titanium rackets, no entangled rules of what constitutes fair play, no conferred machoism that comes with loud bikes, shoulder-pads or which cheerleader you're dating. There are no time-outs, no audience gasps, no half-time shows.

Instead, sparring bouts are soaked in eerie silence. Just the staccato of leather meeting body, drowning out the occasional muted groan. Pap pap papp .. silence .. pap pap papp pap.

By design or by chance, the silence plays its bit in the magic - it sets the scene for some surprisingly laconic remarks. As you wade through characters who seemingly have materialized from boxing movies - the hard-as-nails trainer who everyone loves to hate, his blind-in-one-eye dog, the beat-up champion drifting on clouds of his glorious past - your memory is etched with their reticent retorts, distilled pure of platitudes you're so accustomed to in everyday conversation.

*
Achilles
I've always found it difficult to submit to the male authoritarian. In Freudian retrospect, I think it might have to do with my father's absence as a parental figure as I grew up, which in turn failed to create a wedge in my character to accommodate such a role. I grew up with pent-up defiance, spending most of my youth brawling with my brother who was always eight years, and forty kilos larger than I; refusing to pander to the martinet of our school - the legendary Iqbal Ahmed; and taking part in my share of skirmishes in an all boys school.

So it was no surprise that I stepped into the ring with Paul - the guy who used mockery and derision like an awl when training us for the past six weeks - punch-drunk with a need to dominate. After six weeks of passive submission, listening to him emasculate your efforts, you seethe with a primitive need to tower above him, and have him implicitly accept your standing.
(That's him on the right, by the way)

What I've failed to mention however, is that Paul is a Golden Gloves champion. Which can mean only one thing - I'm going to have my ass handed to me.

"Open sparring", he thunders in his thick Irish accent. We aren't going to be pinioned by a drill today. Instead, it's an open fight where everything goes - hooks, jabs, straight-rights, upper-cuts, clinching, biting. Everything. I circle around him, dancing on my toes, looking for my first opening.

"Put you fucking head chin down, maan!", he growls beneath his guard, alluding to the basic defensive posture in boxing. You tuck your head into your chest, making no room for your opponent's investigating fist. He's told me the same thing a thousand times when we trained. I pay no heed - I hate defense. I close in.

I find his right arm just a little short, and throw my first strike: a double jab. He isn't expecting a combination first up - he catches my first jab, but doesn't intercept the second one thrown a fraction of a second later. I get through his defense and graze his face.

"Achilles puts his head down for no man", I stare proudly at his piqued demeanor.

My pride is short-lived - the fight goes downhill steeply from there. Of the tens of punches I throw, I land none, while he breaks my defense at will. Two minutes into the first round, as I hold back, completely spent, he nears in on me, negating any advantage my height offers, and opens an array of body blows. Paul's known for his body blows - his 'shoe-shine' - where he swivels on his hips and repeatedly pummels alternate sides of your body. Today, I've been honored with the royal variety - he really wants to polish me off. I cringe, arch my back, and lower my elbows to parry the rain of blows.

All of which, unfortunately, leave my head completely unguarded.

That's when he really hits me: with a sharp upper-cut - a move where you pretend you're lifting a bucket - you bend your knees every so slightly, push from your thighs and thrust your curled right arm upward with all the force you can muster. And oh, make contact with your opponent's face on its way skyward.

I've never been hit so hard in my life.

I feel like my head's being ripped off my neck - corroborated by the fountain of blood that's spouting out of my nose. I reel back from his clinch, tottering on my heels as I head toward the ropes.

He bares his teeth at me. "Achilles never did bleed, did he?" he seems to say. Then, sadistically, he steps on the drops of blood on the floor, and follows the trail to the ropes.

*
The rest of the fight's a travesty - he constantly toys with me, laughing even - poking my defense and getting to my nose, tapping it as I recoil in pain. The bell sounds, and I prepare to leave the ring.
My face is a mess. As I climb out through the ropes, I look at his overconfident aloofness one last time. One day I'm going to stab him in the heart. One day I'm going to hit him so hard his brains are going to come splattering out of his ears. One day, I'm going to push his nose into his brain.

I'm aware though, that hidden beneath that mask of callous indifference is his uneasy cognizance of one fact: he's past his prime - he can only get worse. And I can only get better.

*
Fear
I clamber out of the ring, to the unexpected smell of cheap alcohol. We've been forced to a rather spartan regiment during the course of our training, so I'm rather surprised that someone would have the gall to come into the gym drunk. I turn around - it's not one of us. It's Carlos.
"You should keep your head down bro'", he notes getting a little too close to me for my comfort. "Uh-uh", I respond, undoing my gloves. He helps loosen my guard.
"You know, that's the problem with you - you don't use a man's greatest gift. I was a champion. I have the gift. I know the gift. Do you want the gift?", he slurs.

We're all used to Carlos. I'm in danger of another two-hour talk of his title-fight from 15 years ago. I'm trying to think up an excuse quickly, but Paul's blows have taken their toll.

"Fear", he announces, as if he were a magician who just produced a white-rabbit.

"Fear?", I ask incredulously.

"Yes, fear! You're endowed with it by Nature - it tells you when to fight, and when to flee. That what makes sure you don't get burnt when you touch fire. That you don't run into a moving bus. Don't stand there taking his punches, like a fuckin' dumb bag. If you can't hit, at least don't stand there and be hit, bro!"

I grin at him, and prepare to leave. As I walk away, it all begins to make sense - Paul's pedantic insistence that we direct blows at our partners' faces while training, his inability to articulate how he managed to stay just out of our reach when we fought him. We were doing a disfavor to our training-partners by being gentle to them. We never did learn an integral part of boxing - in our empathetic measures, we gave up honing each other's instincts, our fear.

Rivers of testosterone in the gym wash away words like 'fear' in their wake. It makes sense then, that only champions know where to find it and tap into its energy.

*
Bad intentions
It's surprising how quickly the novelty and romanticism of bleeding noses turns into a petty annoyance, something that you curse rather than preen about in front of the morning mirror. Boxing's no longer this Palahniuk-ian version of retrogressive machismo, it's no longer how many crunches you can do, or how many flights of stairs you ran up. Because, in the back of my mind, I know that all of that's going to evaporate once I get into the ring for my first fight this Friday. There's going to be no drill, no well-thought out combinations, no textbook defenses. No one's gong to ask you how you lost 12 pounds, or whether you can do fifty pushups right after your run.

It's just going to be two of us trying, quite literally, to inflict pain on each other.

Because, as Cus D'Amato, trainer extraordinaire of people such as Patterson and Tyson instructed - to win you need to "throw every punch with bad intentions".

Ominously, the fight's this Friday. The 13th.

*
Your right arm
Their witticisms aren't restricted to philosophy though, as was evident in my first week. Simon, Paul's partner in crime, was taking class, showing us the basic punches. He pulled me up in front, hoping to use me as a prop to demonstrate how he'd defend each of them. "Extend you right arm parallel to the ground", he instructed.
Now if you've been with me for more than two hours, you'll know that I have a tendency to retardedly get my right and left mixed up. But yeah, it was crucial that at this juncture, that I make it evident to the rest of the class. With the confidence bestowed only upon the idiotic, I extended my left arm.

Simon looked at me for a second, and then, with the nonchalance of a seasoned stand-up, remarked "No, not this one. Your other right arm."

boxing shoes

2008-05-13T22:03:22Z

The weekend chaperoned in a beautiful surprise: she bought me one of these - my first pair of Dark Dark black boxing shoes.
*
After five months of what I thought were grueling boxing classes, I dared to sign up for the bootcamp at the gym. SFGate describes it as the 'the most hardcore workout the city has to offer', and well, they were lying. They missed the adverb 'stupidly' before 'hardcore'.

Yesterday was my first day at boot-camp, and the warmup routine was set to this: 20 mins of jump-rope, 30 squats, 20 jumping jacks, 30 squats, 30 pushups normal stance, 20 squats, 20 pushups wide stance, 20 squats, 12 pushups close stance.

And then, after that, just as I'm about to curl up into the fetal position, Paul, in his Irish drawl stands less than a feet off my face, and bellows "Get up maaaan. Move those fuckin' legs of yours. A toooh mile run". I look at him in incredulously, only to scramble out as he begins to up the distance. The run tumbles into another set of you're-kiddin'-me-right jump-rope, stretches, the boxer's step-routine, a twenty minute round of sparring (finally!), two more sets of pushups, and concludes with a cool-down as intimidating as the warm-up - replacing the quadriceps this time with the abs.

Later, as I struggle the walk up the city's dark alleys, seeking refuge from the the biting cold winds under my jacket's gray hood, I tend to forget why I'm doing all this really. Until it hits me: in six weeks, I fight my first fight.

It's the oddest swirl of feelings: euphoria, trepidation and disbelief.

Hold your head up high

2008-04-03T06:01:22Z

You are born for a reason.

Stand up boy! The death of those before you, by tragic necessity, has thrust upon you the fiery torch. Summon those demons from the black abyss of human courage inside you, summon the will that you shall not be left down below. Know this: history will belong to you. Make them write about you. Make his children look longingly at you, wishing they were yours instead.

Stand up boy! You're alone here - no woman, no gold, no cloud will go to battle with you. You're no son's father, no lover's support, no king's pawn. Unfettered, undiscovered and untouched - you alone carry the fire on which the pinnacle of future human endeavor depends.

Stand up boy! For you are the prince. Greatness awaits you. Dispel those repugnant notions of mediocrity that pragmatism demands, and rip apart the gossamer black-iron moral links that tie you down. Stand atop the mountain with your arms spread out, arch your back, fill your lungs with bitter cold air, and scream out to the world that you have arrived.

Stand up boy! Hold your head up high.
The World is yours to conquer.

bangalore roof top film festival

2007-08-07T16:20:31Z

Bangalore Roof Top Film Festival (BRTFF) enacted their second chapter last Sunday, and since I spent the majority of the day in doing absolutely nothing to help, I thought I might chip in by writing a review for them.

For those of you who don't know as yet - BRTFF is drawn largely along the lines of the BarCamps. The concept is alluring - every participant is also a contributor and vice-versa. That means that there are no 'outsiders' - something that I miraculously managed to be, by being my anti-social self. Even so, this does leave me in unique position: to review the event deprived of a sense of fond attachment - something that should hopefully be closer to the truth.

To be honest, I was quite surprised by how well it ran. The organisation in particular was truly something to cheer (thanks Dhempe, Thejesh, Lavanya, Poonacha, Mutiny, Christina, glsandeep, Pawan, Vatsa!) The projectors were in place, the sound system perfect, the room secluded enough to allow for some thirty yuppies gorge on steamed momos and watch eight movies back-to-back. The geniality was positively infectious - you could not but help be dragged into excited chatter and uncommon camaraderie.

Ice cream cones
It was sad then, that such exemplary settings were to house such ordinary cinema. And that was not because the films screened were almost exclusively made by self-confessed amateurs, some trying their hand at cinema for the very first time. It was because, but for a couple, most films offered nothing - nothing that would have you excuse the technical aspects of film-making or the lack of production. Nothing that you could call Good Cinema.

The only thing that was more disappointing than the movies were the lukewarm discussions that followed. Discussions were demoted to feedback for the movie-makers - ranging from the harmlessly insipid "That was a good concept" to the outright insane "Let me tell you one thing - people like to watch things that are beautiful, and your film didn't show anything beautiful".

At the end of the day, what the screening missed was a professional - a Girish Karnad or a Kasaravalli. Someone who could objectively assess a film and provide understanding to the various aspects involved in watching a movie. A room-full of earnest film-makers projecting their work to a largely uneducated audience leaves everyone with an empty ice cream cone - happy but hollow.

It will be interesting, in such ideological strife, how BRTFF will forge their identity. Unlike the BarCamps of the computer world, from where most of their foundation is borrowed, there are very few in the forum who have the pre-requisite understanding or training in the activity. Will they end up pre-screening their movies and compete with the likes of Collective Chaos, Suchitra and Films for Freedom? Or will they re-draw their current ambitions and carve themselves a niche in screening amateur films?

Such clouds of unanswered questions are of course ignored by genuine smiles of new friendship and a sense of lazy Sunday contentment. In evenings draped in Bangalore's gorgeous dark-gray skies, beckoning the next set of whizzing images projected onto a white wall.

will you make frenship with me?

2007-02-21T07:34:53Z

I don't get Web 2.0.

Now, don't get me wrong - I get pretend-your-page-is-a-fruit-when-choosing-colors, and the turn-nouns-like-'friend'-into-verbs bit. It's very sixteen year old, but I understand that some mentally ill folk think that's the right direction for humanity to head. But what completely baffles me is what drives people to befriend strangers with orange scarves, tag photos of their dogs with labels like 'nice' and 'cute' and 'no-I'm-not-a-stalker', exchange personal information and generally waste space on the Internet. Everyone knows that that space could have been put to better use.

I'm not mentally ill. I'm adventurous though. So I decided to dive right in. Dumpster-dive, to be exact, into the dark murky under-world of social-networking. I got myself an account on Orkut.

11:45AM: Yay! I going to get myself an account on Orkut. I'm going to be hip. I'm going to be cool. I'm going to be 'connected'. I'll be surrounded by people at parties, who'll hold up their glasses of golden whiskey and laugh hysterically at my jokes. I'd probably do a Russian-dance too for them - you know, with my arms folded and my legs kicking about.

11:47AM: Registration: I notice Orkut's registration is like a first date. Bloody pesky little questions. What's your favorite color? What food do you like? What color underpants are you wearing? Are you a virgin? Gah! What next? Are they going to ask me how I like my sandwiches cut (diagonally - I can't eat them otherwise), which activity takes most time in my mornings (tieing my shoelaces - both ends have to be of the *exact* same length) or which animal didn't turn up for the party that the lion threw (the giraffe - it was trapped in the fridge, that sometime before held an elephant who was packed in 3 steps). People just assume that you'd answer any question they'd ask.
I plod along. I notice they have an question about which religion I'd like to register under. The dramatically large list of 6 options offers 'atheist' as one possibility. That's like listing 'transparent' under 'favorite color'. Must discuss with other smug atheists the gross injustice we're constantly subjected to.

11:57AM: Yay! I'm done with the interrogation. I'm now connected to 370 million users. No really. 370 million. I'm freakin' popular. And to think I didn't even have to list 'Russian Dance' under 'Activities'.

No really - 370 million. Apparently I'm connected to all the bacteria on the Earth too. They're just like us - going around telling other bacteria that they're on Orkut to 'reconnect with old friends' while in fact, they're there to obsessively spy on their ex's lives.

11:58AM: Now the tough bit - connecting. See, this is where I think social-networking fails: Orkut encourages you to contact people you've spent an entire life-time avoiding. There's a reason I'm not in contact with these people, you know - they're dull as light-brown lint on a dark-brown sweater.

Either way, I'm on my way. I add yathin and smokediceman and acmurthy. I add un4given_pthoo and noelladsa and adityaferrari and nithya. Halfway through through this essentially entertaining process of rating my friends, I notice I've been assigned a number. It stares me cold in the face. 'Bipin(17)'.
Seventeen.
bee i pee i enn. seventeen.

I look around my friends list. Noella and Nithya are 308 and 650. Crap.
Now anyone who's caught the slightest glimpse of me knows that I come from this organization of human beings who believe that the sole reason we're put on earth is competition. Sometimes, we're referred to as men. Sometimes we're referred to as 'stop-staring'. But yeah - the purpose of life - forget god and evolution and glory - is competition damnit. I'm not going to take 17 lying down!

12:07PM: Apparently, in this twisted little game, adding more friends gets you more points. I add teemus and g00fy and mekin. 'Bipin(20)'. Yes! I add floopilot and preets. 'Bipin(22)'.

12:09PM: 'Bipin(24)'

12:13PM: Jackpot! Jackpot! 'Bipin(31)'

12:15PM: Muhahaha! come here my darlings, come. I've got a little army of minions now - Orkut states Bipin(36). I shall rule upon thee with the mightiest force. Days will turn into nights. Ice-cream into milkshakes. The black reign of Bipin has arrived.

12:25PM: 'Bipin(40)'

12:32PM: I'm breaking into a sweat. I've been consciously avoiding my dirty, dark secret. I don't know 308 people. Who am I kidding? I'm never going to beat her. I'll lose. I can see her now, bowing down to the applauding crowd. She'll oblige of course, and do a Russian dance herself. Orkut ho', I grumble.

12:56PM: 'Bipin(41)'

12:59PM: Hey, look at this fascinating message left by one user:
"Hi!!!!!!! Gud day! I have long soft hairs, like you only. Make frenship with me, na? Plsssssssss!!!!!!!!"
I doesn't look like the girl befriended him though. It's a pity - by his description, he was an awfully cute, earnest golden cocker-spaniel.
No, but seriously, is this how boys are getting girls now-a-days? Smooth talking them about the texture of their hair? No wonder I'm single. And all along, I thought writing soppy love stories got chicks.

13:05PM: Ok, I'm befriending people I barely know now. People I was too good for in college. Crap. 'Bipin(44)'

13:47PM: Bipin(45).

14:00PM: This is just taking too long. It's rather ineffective, you know. They should provide us with and API or something to find the friends of your friends. Wait, maybe I can just write a little program to scrape the page, find friends, follow their friends, and send them 'friend-invites'. All automatically. I can personalize the message too - thanks to my patented algorithm which no one uses. Ok, here's the process then - find a user; find a friend X we have in common; tell her that X thinks that we should be friends. Give her the exact specification of the rate of growth of my hair, the shampoo I use and the luminosity of hair pre and post-bath. Sit back. Drink some cold, cold iced-frappe. See my score go through the roof.

Wait, automating the process is sooo web-1.0. Crap.

14:23PM: I know what I'm going to do - I'm going to change my user-info: I'm now 21. Female. And bi-curious.

'Bipin(4,456,234)'.
Game. Set. Match. Russian Dance. Bipin.

adi

2006-12-29T07:17:45Z

Ok, ok, since enough of you'll have bugged me, here's a pic of the brat.

High fashion - matching blue booties

With a fine fine 'dood' hairstyle, courtesy bipin. The dimple is of his own doing

Cuteness overdose. This isn't him - but another of my nieces - anjali

All you fawning females making strange baby noises - both of them love dark chocolate cake. Please bake some and give it to me. I'll pass it on. Really.

the lul-lull story

2006-12-18T20:23:26Z

To,
baby crocky,
who I miss more than words can describe.

Long long ago, deep in the jungles of Bannerghatta lived a ferocious lion called Lul-lull. Lul-lull was a majestic beast, with a thick, golden mane and shining black eyes. He wore around his neck, the most magnificent necklace - a sign of his royal authority. When he walked down the old jungle path in the mid-day sun, the red ruby of the necklace sparkled bright and far.

Bordering the jungle was a kingdom, ruled by a king called Raja Maharaja. As he stood in his courtyard, one sunny afternoon, his eye caught the glittering light of the ruby.

*
"What is that light that blinds even me?â thundered the king.
"Your majesty," replied his chief-minister, "that's the ruby from the necklace of most frightful lion in the jungle. It is said that it's so bright, it outshines the sun by the day and the moon by the night."
"I want that necklace!" demanded the greedy king.
"But your majestyâ¦â protested the courtiers, "that lion is big and strong and dangerous. Why, just last week, it ate three of our washermen! Can't you have some other necklace? Your treasury is already so full of the finest jewelry."
But the king would have none of their pleading.

"Oh, that's the necklace I want,
Don't ask me why;
Go bring me that necklace,
Before I begin to cry!"

The courtiers wondered and pondered. How were they to get the lion to partake off its necklace? Oh, what a predicament they were in!

"Maybe we could send in the blacksmith", suggested one of the courtiers. "He could make clasps and trap the lionâs paws, and then steal the necklace away". The next day, they sent across the kingdom's best blacksmith deep into the jungle. But alas, they hadn't anticipated the strength of Lul-lull. With a swish of his tail, Lul-lull broke through the metal bindings as if they were mere cob-webs, and ate the poor blacksmith.

When the king heard of this news, he was angered. "What is this!â he screamed, "all I asked is for one necklace, and none in my kingdom can bring it to me?".

"Oh, that's the necklace I want,
Don't ask me why;
Go bring me that necklace,
Before I begin to cry!"

The courtiers went into a huddle again. "Maybe we can send in the fisherman. He could cast his fishing-net around the lion, and have him trapped like a little fish! Then, in time, when Lul-lull's sleeping, we can steal the necklace".
The next day, they sent the kingdom's finest fisherman, with his toughest, widest fishing-net. Unfortunately, again, they hadn't anticipated Lul-lull's strength. Those powerful jaws ripped through the fisherman's net and devoured the poor fisherman too.

And so, one by one, the courtiers sent person after person into the jungle, hoping that he or she would bring back the necklace. And everyday, the lion would foil their plans, and eat them.

*
Until, one day, it fell upon the wood-cutter's family to go get the necklace.
"Father," said the wood-cutter's son, "let me go into the woods. I know how to defeat the lion and get the necklace".
"No son," said the wood-cutter, "you're too precious for us. I could never live if you were eaten by that lion". But the wood-cutter's son pleaded and begged, until his family finally gave in.

That morning, the little boy packed his lunch and set off deep into the jungle. By the time he'd reached Lul-lull's den, it was already mid-afternoon.

"Aha!" growled a deep voice from within the cave. "my lunch is here!"
The little boy was trembling before the huge lion. "Sir", he spoke meekly to the lion, "I am but a very small meal. I will never be enough for you. But, I have got something else - my mum has made the most delicious iddli and green chutney. And there's chirroti and milk, and to top it off, there's jamuun too"
"What strange animals are those?" screeched the lion incredulously. "Iddli and chirroti and jamuun? I've never heard of them!"
"Oh, but they're very very tasty, my lord", said the boy. "Why don't you taste them?"

And so the boy sat next to the lion and had the most amazing lunch. They dipped their iddlies in the spicy hot chutney, scooped the yummy jamuuns and washed it down with some delicious cold water from the nearby stream. It was late evening by the time they finished, and the lion's full stomach made him awfully sleepy.
"I'll go now Sir," said the little boy, "but I'll be back tomorrow"

When their son reached home that evening, the wood-cutter and his wife were overjoyed. "But mother, I need to go back tomorrow." The family was aghast, but the king wanted the necklace badly, and they had no other option.

So, the next day, the boy went into the jungle again. This time with cheese pizza and garlic bread and the juiciest zinger-burgers. And a bottle of cold lime-juice and two scoops of chocolate ice-cream. Again, the two spent the afternoon gorging themselves until they could eat no more. Late in the evening, the boy bid Lul-lull good bye and returned home.

*
This went on for a whole month - the boy would go to the lion with the most amazing lunch, and the lion would spare his life. And though his family was overjoyed that their boy lived to tell the tale, the king was getting impatient.

"Oh, that's the necklace I want,
Don't ask me why;
Go bring me that necklace,
Before I begin to cry!"

"Don't worry, oh Raja Maharaja!” promised the boy, "you shall have your necklace by tonight".

That day, the boy didn't leave for the forest at the crack of dawn. He spent the whole morning playing marbles and troubling his sister. It was already late afternoon when he finished his lunch and got ready to leave for the jungle. "Don't you want any food packed, love?" asked his mother.
"No mama, not today” said the boy, and bade her good-bye.

By the time he reached Lul-lull's cave, it was dusk. Lul-lull sprung before him, a crimson bolt from the depths of blackness. "Where were you the whole day!” he roared. "I'm so hungry and angry I could eat you right now!"
"Oh, I'm sorry sir," answered the boy in a calm tone. "It's just that my mother had packed so much yummy food, that I had trouble carrying it over. I huffed and puffed, but all my energy could help me lug it up here. There's hot hot rasam and rice, with chips and mango pickle. There's chocolate mousse and toast with strawberry jam too. And for dessert... oh, that’s the best of it all - there's the most amazing round, hot hot jalebis!"

Lul-lull's mouth was watering. "Where is the food?" he demanded, impatiently.
"It's right over the edge there Sir," replied the boy, pointing to a drop. "Just jump over, and it's all there".
Lul-lull didn't even wait for him to finish. He charged in the direction in which the boy pointed and leapt over with his eyes shut. Only to find himself going down the deepest ravine! The little boy had tricked him!

As the king of the jungle jumped, the necklace came off Lul-lull's throat and floated all the way to the other side of the cliff. The boy then picked it up and danced his way home to a hero's welcome.

"Oh, that's the necklace I want,
Don't ask me why;
Today I've got the necklace,
Peacefully shall I lie!"
*

Look up into the sky, baby cwocky - the story's been captured in the stars. Can you see that group of stars there - that one that looks like a lion. That's Lul-lull, jumping across the ravine. He's called Leo, of course, but that doesn't matter.

And look here! Can you see that bright red-star there - that's the ruby from the necklace. From the Belt of Orion.

Go to sleep baby crocky. Tomorrow's a big day. The forest doesn't have a leader now. Who knows, maybe they'll invite you to be their king. Who knows what tomorrow holds in store?

Good night.

rant

2006-10-11T17:37:23Z

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high... - Rabindranath Tagore
If we didn't exist, would love?

No. This is not a rhetorical question. I really want to know your answer. Before you go on. Think.

If the world in its magnificence stood, with pillowy clouds and fleeting birds perched on them; with marble sculptures yet to be scraped out from desolate stone and summery winds atop; and all that was missing was you and me and her and him and every single human. If we all disappeared, would the universe still house love?

Ok, let's twist the question a bit. Since you're so full of shit and are convinced that you do know the answer. Would 'good' and 'bad' exist if we didn't? Would the fiery lava burning out the ant-hill down the slope be bad? Would you term the dark sweeps bringing rain onto parched land as being good? Would the lion twisting the neck of the gazelle, punching holes into its cartilage, squeezing the sorry pangs of air out of its prey be bad? Would the Universe label any action or any consequence as good or bad?

I'll tell you. If you've got an ounce of sense in that befuddled head of yours, you'll be with me here. No. Good did not exist. Not until we invented it.

And then we return to what we'd started off with before. If we didn't exist, and neither did good, could love?

Love can be defined only in the context of good and bad. Listen carefully. Again: any action that we perceive as being good to another entity is defined to be an act of love. And an action to its contrary - an act of hate.

If we didn't exist, and neither did good or bad, love fails to be.

And entrenched somewhere in this complete nonsense, architected by the sissy, trembling pillars of love and hate is your 'sense of morality'. That some actions are worthier than others. That some ideas are worthier than others. That murder is wrong. That the gods decried that eating pussy is far holier than sucking cock. That throwing acid on a lost love is protecting your honour. That flashing your tits is obscene and we should have moral-laws against it. That being forced to hide your face with a veil however is a violation of human rights. That fighting a man is worse than going behind his back and cussing.
That she's not yours if she's not yours.

That some people are more moral than others solely because they adhere to some of those abberant notions. Of good. Of love.

Love cannot exist. And morality wholly dependant on love does not exist. Morality is a construct in your head, twisted and forged and beaten, cast in iron-shingles and convinced to be a part of you. Just because you believe it exists; just because you can't imagine life as being amoral; just because your pathetic vision of reality relies on a grandiose purpose, according to which you'll be judged for eternity. Just because you want to believe that we have a base morality that we're born with.

If every single human was convinced that at the centre of the Earth, was a giant, humongous over-sized diamond, would it spring into existence? If ever single human in this planet was convinced that morality existed, would morality spring into existence? I repeat: morality is a construct in your head. It does not exist.

Anything - love, hate, good, bad, morality - that dwells exclusively in our minds is just that - a long winded fantasy that your motherâs other breast fed you.

Worse, morality's got this sickeningly mediocre after-taste to it, forcing you to live your life by a deranged, inconsistent, illusory mental image of rules which make little sense outside of your sick head. You’re ill, I tell you. Delusional at best. You've got now to live. You will not exist further, and you've not existed before. Go out. Be one with the universe. A universe which has no such rules. Do what you desire.

Bite her lip until warm, dark red blood spurts out, trickling down into your sinful tongue. Make love to her until you can't go on, until she can't breathe. Until you can feel your soul being ripped out from you. Until every single cell in your body is in utter and complete pain.

He does not exist in your love story. It's you. And her. For eternity. Go on. Be strong. Be your hero.

And then be thrown into prison or a mad-house for acting against ephemeral lines of morality conjured by a deranged, trapped humankind.

wooohooo

2006-09-11T14:48:48Z

I really didn't think I'd write about this but: remember the Stanford course in AI I was in the US for? Well, I topped the class baby! Woohooo!

Be careful now though. If I see you on the other side of the street, I'm gonna tear across and tell you why I firmly believe first order hidden markov models are an oversimplification; why 'Artificial Intelligence' should really be called 'Computational Rationality' and; why the robot dressing problem is such an important case-study in constraint satisfaction problems.

All this while the dark-brown chocolate ice-cream drips past your sticky hands and onto the spotted dog by your side.

look who's here!

2006-08-09T19:30:48Z

I'm so totally thrilled. My sister-in-law and brother had a spanking new, shiny little baby boy this morning. Yay! Yay! Yay!

He's apparently a big baby. With big toes and big fingers. Dad insists he's kullae, which mildly put, means 'ugly as hell'. That reassuring - he's one of us then.

Mom, on the other hand is working overtime finding uncommon boy-names. No, Shoaib Akhtar isn't allowed. Neither is Nabisco. I already tried. I've got this sneaky feeling that she's asking for names (which she rejects instantly) just so that we feel that we've contributed equally and have unanimously come up with the best one - hers.

I've not lost hope though. I'm currently thinking up names which double as acronyms. I love those kind of names. Like "Hi, I'm MATT - Mayor-of All Things Terrible". Do you guys have any other suggestions? (I know women are known to save up names for their kids, by not saying it out aloud, for fear of it being stolen. That's why I'm specifically asking the guys.)

*
I can't wait to get back home and introduce him to spiders and dirt. And chocolate, of course. And airplanes and firetrucks and remote-controlled toy cars.

Oh, and I'm so going to try and make his first words 'hello, world!'

The first time we met

2006-07-25T03:28:48Z

Have you ever almost met someone before meeting them?

*

vinit had come over to San Francisco over the weekend, and had arranged for a bunch of us to meet up for dinner, notably from LJ, un4given_pthoo, anomalizer and of course, me. Then there were friends and co-workers and college-mates and significant-others and friends-of-friends, who also happened to friends of others - like a excruciatingly large demonstration of the six degrees of separation - all of whom, as fate or corporate schedule would have it, happened to be around the Bay area that night.

The 'city' as it's called by anyone living in lesser suburbia, hosts a galaxy of tiny restaurants, sparkling in the cold nights, serving cuisines from Italy to Bolivia to Brazil.

It was in one of these then, that I sat, watching familiar arguments of which city in India was the best - the Mumbaikars vehemently denying that their economy was a game gambled by the Mafia; the Bangaloreans insisting that the weather was the clinching factor in any socio-political discussion; and the Delhiites wondering who the heck Bangaloreans were when everyone knew that all of South India was populated by Madrasis. I participated only occasionally, partly because I'm for giving the horse a decent burial, and partly because I was lost in other things.

That's probably why it took me sometime to catch her stealing glances in my direction. She sat on the other side of the table, twirling her pasta around a bored fork, feeding her man bites when he took time off arguing. Our story began then, I think, though it had this uneasy feeling that it had begun well before. Of us distractedly continuing polite conversation with the others. Of darting eyes and extended sips of water, of batting eyelids when there was the slightest hint of eye-contact. Of positioning her body ever so slightly in my direction and noticing every single minute movement that her mouth made.

*

And then with him. And then with her.

Good-byes were being said, and as customary, I went ahead and shook everyone's hand. With people who I'd not met throughout the meal, and probably will never meet again. With old friends who you couldn't recognize because they had changed so much. And then with him. And then with her.

You'll never believe the essence of a second until you hold her hand. The gush of that extra moment, when it's past the normal hand-lock time, and you're still holding each other. That one connection that's made, like a full bodided river, gushing past you through your hand and into hers. Ravishing and tearing apart the cold, freeing the hardened shackles.

"You know ... we should probably go and do something .. ummn .. maybe get to the sea", I blurted out loud to everyone. The pack, who were just about to disperse, caught on. There were murmurs of the 'night still being young' (man, are we British or what), and Gautam suggested that he'd heard of this place Ocean Beach, where there'd be open bonfires and fun people with Vodka and music around them. And of course the ocean.

*

Ocean Beach
Ocean Beach, was nothing like what Gautam had described. It was pitch dark and cold, and without the slighest evidence that man had set forth defacing it. A secret beach of sorts. And, to be honest, I think most of us were glad for it. Piling out of the cars, brandishing cameras and sweetened peanuts(?), we shivered out into the cold.

Maybe I wasn't emphatic enough before, but it was complete and utter darkness. The thunderous black skies hid a rather introverted moon, and all you could see were half-smiles as he put his arms around her from behind, in the moments brightened by the camera flashes. I pulled up my collar, to protect myself from the winds that were protesting on my behalf, and slid away from them and the rest of the party.

*

Standing alone
Standing alone by the railing that delineated the road from the ocean, my hands in my pockets, staring at the endless sea, I didn't half expect her to come up behind me. Tugging tight at her coat, with just a hint of the shimmering black dress she wore inside, she must have been behind to me for sometime before she said "Which way do we head, captain?"

I whirred around, to see her smile. She was alone. I grinned back. "It depends on where you want to go miss" I returned.

She prenteded to look over my shoulder back into the sea. With her palm over her fore-head, protecting from an imaginary sun, she seemed to scan the horizon.

“Anywhere it's not so bloody cold, I imagine".

It's moments like these you can't explain yourself. You don't think. You just do things. And no amount of rationalization later that night will help you explain why such actions would escape from you. It's daft, but I did it anyhow. I pulled off my shirt and sweater in one clean stroke from above my head.

"Here," I offered her gallantly, "this might help. Keep you warm that is."

There we were, in the middle of the coldest Californian nights. One wiry boy without a shirt, trying his best not to shiver, and occasionally failing. And one girl, trying her hardest to stop grinning, and occasionally failing.

*

Come with me
We must have stood there, elbows on the railing, for a good half hour. Or maybe it was a minute. Staring into the horizon, into one common distant future.

Come with me girl. Life’s too valuable to play by the rules of calling. You shouldn't have to not be with someone because he didn't see you first. You shouldn't have to give up being with someone you are to be with, just because it might hurt. You shouldn't have to play it safe, because you don't want to risk playing it right.

Come with me girl. Leave him, and them and everything you know. For he may dance for you. But I will dance with you. For he may lead you into happiness. But I will walk with you through sorrow. For he may die for you. But I will live for you.

Come with me girl. Walk into the sea with me.

aaja re

2006-06-01T08:59:17Z

This post just had to be spoken out. Here's the mp3. Or if you prefer it in the ogg format.

The background score if from Mr. Bally Sagoo's Noorie. If you meet him, please let him know that I adore him to pieces.

trondheim, norway

2006-05-21T20:28:12Z

I've been in Norway for about five weeks now. Trondheim specifically. Five weeks alone in an alien land does strange things to people. It makes them believe that other people want to hear about their lives. And how the weather is. So I'll do the same.

If you're American, you're probably thinking Norway is a town in Kentucky or something. No, it isn't. It's a country in Europe. Remember France? The country that you boycotted by deciding to call 'french-fries', 'freedom-fries' (the whole world was impressed, by the way, apart from the British who were saying 'we told you to call it finger chips all along'). Yeah, so it's kinda close to that. Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway, following closely at the heels of ~~Olso~~ Oslo (their capital) and Bergen (more on this later.)

The weather: I promised you the weather and here's the hourly update. Being so close to polar bears and all, Norway believes that it has to keep up with the clean chic all-white look, snowing most of the year around. It's freakishly cold up here, with temperature wavering around freezing point. It's so cold here, they call 'cold cream' 'cream'. You can even go as far as just saying 'give him the shoulder'. Everyone will understand the implications of the temperature on the mentioned shoulder.
The Sun is the only thing that works overtime here - there's daylight from 0330 to 2330. No really. You wear your newly purchased polar-bear themed pajamas and get to bed with sunlight streaming in.

This is how the city looks when it's cold

And everyone piles onto the many outdoor pubs when there's the slighest hint of warmth. 5 degrees, I think is the limit.

The place: Trondheim goes to great lengths to keep their rustic, old-world charm. Old wooden buildings such as the ones below are never destroyed, and they've got laws in place which make it mandatory to build along the same architectural lines.

They make all their houses look like this. In blue and red and green an yellow.

Graffiti seems a bit of a problem though.

The names: That's what usually gets people when they get to new places. You're usually red-cheeked because you can't friggin pronounce the name of the guy who sits next to you. After saying 'hey there' and 'hi there' and 'hello there' and 'what's up man?', you quickly begin to run out of ways to avoid addressing the guy.

That's where the Norwegians have it worked out so well. All their names are at most four letters. These are actual people I worked with here: Stig, Ulf, Ole, Jon and Kim. No 'Venkatasubramanya Eshwaran'. Nor 'Hemalatha Chatodhapaya', nor 'Ramnath Balasubramanyan', nor 'Sidharta Seethana Reddy'.

Actually, they've gotten better. They've begun to name their kids 'junior'. Like in 'Stig Jr.'. Or 'Tim Jr.' That's where they are at now - two letters and a punctuation mark.
So we continue to dazzle with spelling (has anyone kept track of the international spelling bee champions? They're all little Indian boys and girls. Heck, they can spell their 20 lettered names, so fabaceae shouldn't be hard.) And they're going ahead and making sure they don't waste ink on application forms.

The language: You're at a restaurant. You've got the name of your waiter right, and being the devout Hindu that you are, you want to ensure that the meal you're gonna get is 'pyuuuuurely vegetarian'. 'Hello Tim ...', you start. And trail away. Because you don't know how to say it. Here's a quick lesson.
First off, they use the Latin alphabet. Like in English. So if you're reading this entry, you're already halfway there. Norwegian (that's the name of the language) is a little more structured than English is. So you're three-quarters the way there.
Now say these words with me:
takk (tah-kh) - thank you
tusen takk (two-sahn tah-kh) - thank you very much
ja (yah - their 'j' is pronounced as a 'y') - yes
ni (nigh) - no
bra (brah) - good.
dårlig (dorh-ligh) - bad
vegetarkost (veh-ghe-tar-khost) - vegetarian

You point to 'Shepherd's pie' on the menu, saying 'Vegetarkost?' with your eyebrows raised. The classic hope-the-answer-is-ja look.
Waiter: 'Ni'.
You point to the next item: 'Lasagne'
You: 'Vegetarkost?'
He: 'Ni'
You: 'Vegetarkost?', pointing to the next item.
He: 'Ni'
You: 'Vegetarkost?', pointing to the next item.
He: 'Ni'
You: 'Dårlig! Tusen takk anyway' and huff away. You're mighty pissed. Third consecutive day without food. You say 'bra' to yourself. It makes you giggle. And you're back to normal, you pervert.

The people: You know what, to heck with all that.
So their country behaves like a refrigerator - cold, full of meat and with the light forever switched on. So they completely ignore your dashing Asian looks. So the cost of an haircut could wipe out your rupee-bank-balance. So they believe that their personal life is more important than their professional ones. (for heaven's sake - they get 27 weeks of paternity leave. Say that slowly. First 'paternity', from the Greek word 'paternal' for 'beer drinker'. Then '27 weeks'.)

But they're still a bunch of warm-hearted, methodical, precision machines, whom you can't help fall in love with. I certainly have.

The good news: I'll be getting back home next week. Yay! Apparently, tonnes of people have been missing me. Ok, some people have been missing me. Ok, ok. A few people have been missing me.
Yeah. Ok. Have it your way. Nobody noticed I was gone. Hope you're happy now.

Credits: I stole all these wonderful photos from Trondheim Daily Photo. Visit the site - it's brilliant.

All's fair in love

2006-05-14T18:52:57Z

'Fair and Lovely' has been the protagonist in India's search for facial albinism for sometime now, catering to our obsessive need to turn British. It was the ladies they targeted for most of their while, but of late, they've chaperoned a new product - 'Fair and Handsome'. Apparently the Indian male has had it with being left behind in the global let's-get-sissy-and-turn-metrosexual movement. Of course, given the average facial features of the Indian male, we'd probably look less like Hugh Grant and more like the Queen mother if the product did take effect.

But thatâs not where the story lies. No ladies and gentlemen, the story lies in the advertisements Emami uses to sell these two, almost identical products. And how they differ.

The advertisement for 'Fair and Lovely' (the product for women), usually revolves around a girl, who's peaking at her sexual maturity - somewhere around late teens to the early twenties - wanting to 'get' her primary mate. She has her mind on one man, and no other. She isn't there trying to impress a host of boys. There's one girl. And she wants the one 'perfect' rose-wielding, lily-livered boy.

The advertisement for 'Fair and Handsome', on the other hand, goes something like this - there's a guy who enters a girls' hostel, seeking out anyone who'll date his traditionally black ass. He's rejected outright. Not because he's creepy, breaking into the girls' hostel when no ones around. Not because he skips over the girls' beds with his friggin' shoes on. But because his skin produces enough melanin for him to survive the summer.
He uses Enami, turns fair, and finds out that Tom Cruise looks as appealing as kangaroo-poop when compared to him. âGood stuffâ , he says to himself. He can finally achieve his goal.
He picks up not one girl, but a small harem of them. The girls are of all sorts - from curly brown haired to spectacled to downright ugly.

But the fact remains - he doesn't care which girl, as long as he's got another. One boy. Multiple girls. That's the male goal.

And this distinction - between the goals of the sexes â is impressed over and over in the advertisements. In the advertisements of Axe. In the advertisements of anti-pimple creams. In lingerie advertisements. Anywhere an advertisement uses human sexuality to sell the product. Watch the television closely the next time.

*

I was watching the television closely the other day, when suddenly, the door swings wide open and JJ screams at me "Lesbian Porn!" I'm not sure whether it's an accusation, so I pretend I can't hear her. But JJ isn't fazed but such tactics. She comes over and interrupts my television watching.

"I think you men are a bunch of pathetic monkeys", she declares. "Well, actually, all of us are monkeys," I interject. "In fact, we share nearly 97% of our genes with the chimpanzee." It's her turn to ignore that. That's the problem with JJ and me. We have parallel conversations. She says something. Then I offer something totally unrelated. And then she says something else which has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. And so on.

She furious today though. Her right eye's twitching. "So you know Brian, who I'm dating right?" I know Brian. He's got long brown hair and a British accent. And that makes his irrestible to the female of any species from the Indian sub-continent. She'd been going out with him for the better part of the month now, and I'm beginning to tire of her cooing about him.

"Guess what I found today in his apartment today" she says. "Bananas?" I ask. She's puzzled. "Well, you know, the monkey and all .."

"No, you idiot. Lesbian porn! I mean, what's with you men and your obsession about lesbians. Don't you get it. They're lesbians". She spells out 'lesbians' to me. "Ell eee ess ..."
"Lesbians. Who by definition aren't interested in you. Lesbians, the enlightened ones, who figured that you men were just not worth putting up with. It's like you've suffered brain-damage at birth, you retards. All of you."

I sigh. She's looking at me to apologize. But I'm not going to do it. I'm not apologizing for some Brian dude who wrote "JJ, don't open this box", and then stuffed tape after tape into it. Instead, I've got a theory.

"I've got a theory", I say. JJ puts elbows on the table and uses her hands to support her head. Semi pulling-her-hair-out look. She's mumbling to herself "Please bipin, not another theory. Not another theory". But my theory-telling, steam-puffing wagon has left the station. There's no stopping it now. That's what happens if you begin to spend time with me. I get used to you. And you get used to my elaborate theories.

"See, the only reason men are interested in lesbian porn is that it has more women" I tell her. "That's all there is. It's just the numbers. We like lots of women. Lesbianism assures you of at least two. That's twice as good as straight-on, I guess. Add yourself in the room, and it's one boy and two girls."

"Like in the ad-world!" she screams excited. I'm annoyed I didn’t see the connection before. I play the never-heard-you card and continue.

"We really don't care about their sexuality. It's as marginal as .. say .. your eyebrows. Or your shoes. If you got it, it's good. That's all we need to know - that you have eyebrows, that you have a pair of shoes, and you're interested in sex."

"So .. ", she calculates, "there's nothing wrong with him then? Brian's not going to one day suddenly realize that he bored of lesbians but now has the hots for the carpet or something?" . "No,""most likely not."

She breathes a sigh of releif. "I knew it" she lies. "He just sooo super!" .
"It's just not right" I complain. "It's not right that we don't get the white chicks while you get them James Bonds all the time".

She flashes an evil grin - "Well honey, it might not be fair, but it sure is lovely".
I hate her.