cold stricken and jealous of brothers from the south

i was born in east india and have lived mostly in north and east india till now. north india gets very cold during the winters and its a common knowledge that south india does not experience as much cold as north india.

here at iitk there is a sizeable south indian population and the most amazing thing is that these guys are seen in a single t-shirt most of the winters. common sense tells us that these guys must feel more cold compared to north indians but such is not the case.

we north indians or east indians can easily be identified by our double sweaters, woolen caps and gloves quite easily. i m yet to meet a single south indian here who OWNS a full sleeves sweater. my eyes open wide is dismay and disbelief if i catch a south indian sporting a winter jacket.

is it the food they eat or the different chemical constitution that causes this? god knows i have wanted to find out the reason for a pretty long time.

any suggestions ???

Educating the Indian Audience

Though I am drawing the inspiration for this write up from my personal experience in magic. Infact any performance artist has to face this in India. Seldom do we find that the Indian audience applauds properly. Its like its too hard to appreciate or appear to appreciate a performance. The poor M.C. has to coax and coerce the onlookers to applaud.
Our western cournter parts however are much ahead of us in this department. I have fond memories of the T.V. broadcasts of Oscars on the DoorDarshan channel. The audience will hoot and clap and in general its fun to watch the proceedings. Not the same with our home grown stock. One may mistakenly think that we have airs about appreciating the art. I am sure that is not the case, its just that we have not been trained and educated properly. Just like there are schools that teach table manners , oh well if not a school atleast one expects the MCs to raise the awareness by reminding the audience to be polite and applaud. After all the artist has put in a lot of effort to present his or her art to the public.

motivation

i am one of those bastards who will do anything to find the worst reason for not doing their job properly. i am a cry baby, crying and whining my way to the end of my miserable life.

i did start this blog with the intention of being regular with it however i always found a reason to be not. ppl like me who want to be in the spot light, ppl who want to be the centre of attraction phony ppl with no real interest in what they are saying or doing. they just do it for the sake of being noticed or because they noticed somebody else doing what they are doing now.

my current reason is GS. he was my mate at IITK during his term here as an m. tech. student. head over to his blog here and read it and comment on it.

there was a time when i used to think a lot about the problems with this society and many a times i thought i had a solution to them as well. but now i am too old to solve other problems when my life itself is the biggest problem of them all.

but writing this blog is probably the only way i have that can be called interaction with this darn world. so even if GS does not egg me on, i will try to be regular.

thanks gs for all this. thanks a lot !!!!!!!!!!!!!

unholy matrimony

i m sifting thru the profiles of many a single men while i try to find a good match for my sister. at times i look at a profile photograph and instintively decide that the candidate in question is not worth a second look. i feel sick to my bones while i exercise my discretion in rejection the recieved interests. who the hell am i to dismiss a man's suitability by the looks of him alone. how lowly is this act of discrimination, i can't even begin to compare.

dussera and pujo

vacations started today at iitk. almost all the junta has left the campus and its simply impossible to find any bengali on campus. untill and unless u have lived at kolkata during pujo u will most probably not understand the fervour and frenzy surrounding the madness that is pujor bajaar.

i have no friends now except my trusty computer and my internet account. don't know what i will do without it. the pirated movies and videos that get downloaded by the download gurus on iitk has served the great need of a friend many a times. so its ok by all standards.

love and friendship

almost throughout my post-adoloscent life i have believed and preached that the best way to enjoy and long long relationship is to have her as your best friend. we have been together since the last 7 years and we never get bored of each other and we talk and talk endlessly. we do enjoy each others company. since 2003 however we are not living in the same city and although we have seen very less of each other. harly a day has gone by when we did not speak to each other. a rather strange thought has crossed my mind and i was caught unawares. i now seem to believe that love and friendship perhaps are two different things altogether. i still will not be able to define love, not many can i think. love is to be experienced, it cannot be defined. and its quite possible to not be in love and yet believe that one is.

i am really troubled over the thought of whether i have experienced love at all. its perplexing. the trouble is i would never know nor do i know if there is a way to find out. to all intents and purposes i am in love and the world knows it. i never would have questioned it however since the thought crossed my mind i am wondering whether it is friendship or love. perhaps i am bored with life and want that excitement that loves brings with it when you first fall in love. god knows. not that its the end of the world for me, its just that i am rather puzzled over this little mystery.

time will tell i guess.....

blogs and censorship

Indian ISPs have started censoring and blocking web properties.
source. i knew such a thing was happening in china but why india i donot understand. why does the government have to be so cynical of everything.
freedom of speech is only a vague concept then.

[ i got this news from iitk newsgroups . thanks to Anupam Gupta ]

Night on Earth

watched this fantastic movie today. its a nice movie with 5 different stories all revolving around taxi drivers in different cities of the world.

long time no p

that p in the subject stands for post ;) now u know !

well things are not moving quite well. i think i am stuck in hell for what has been the most meaningless 3 years for me :-(
back in 2003 i had a purpose in life, i was full of hopes and plans ready to be executed and then began the slow death of the active phase of my life. now i m a sloth and a "dharti kaa bojhaa"

incremental changes

The subject of this post may sound funny given its body. Wait a minute , I am not even sure what the body is going to be like. I have a vague idea that I now have to shape with words.
Back to business ... ah well !
The very reason I started this blog has more to do with this person and also because I love to be heard. But I find it hard to continually create beautiful things in words. Moreover I lack an audience too !
Well now I am really spilling words without any reason... let me now put an end to that.
To make a long story short ...
Read this. Its extremely funny !
By the way if you figure out that the subject of the post has no relation to the contents ... please don't be offended !

the art of hand cooing

Yep i like the bizarre and the cool ... look what i found on the Net !

http://www.riston.net/home/handcoo.htm

meaning less

Life must be meaningful. When you don't matter to anyone what good is being alive then. Your life is what you make of it and being young and stupid does not help making your life good. It helps if you have that all important ``guide" that helps you take the right decisions; but more useful is the ability to learn from mistakes after having made them. I don't learn from my mistakes. I always understand that I have committed a major mistake in life, I certainly suffer the consequences of having made that mistake and I psyche myself up to not commit that mistake again. But ...

endless curse of debating things

antaragini

Sometimes u feel u know the right from the wrong and yet words are splashed on ur face as if u r the single most deserving moron on the face of this earth! What do u do? U r simply pissed off. What makes me more angry is the thing that there will be some guy who will become the ``voice of reason" and try to tell u what you should be doing. ``Do the right thing Awi, this is not how u r supposed to behave".
I am of the belief that everybody , and I really really mean everybody is very much aware of the ``right things to do in life". We know one should not steal , but we do; we know that rape, but we do; we know we should not do this or that but we do. However not everybody does the same things. There is a reason and the reason is a simple one if u listen to me. Although everybody knows what the right thing to do is; they donot do it because they don't want to. To put it differently they choose not to do it. Evidently something else becomes more important to them than what is right. I donot know of a more simple reason than this to explain why ppl do what they do. And simplicity for me is the defining goal. We all want to make our lives simple. I have always maintained that we do something because it gives us pleasure. No, no. I have a better way to say the same thing. We do those things which gives us the illusion of avoiding getting hurt. I use the word ``illusion" since we cannot simply avoid getting hurt. Can we? No sir , we cannot avoid that. So what should be do? I am afraid that is quite a meaningless question. Though there are seemingly many answers to this question. None of them is right I am afraid.
I really donot know what is right from wrong. But I believe that one needs to believe that he knows so, otherwise it becomes difficult to live. Does it not? As DM says no can really teach u something, u gotta learn it for urself. And even though I know this and a lot of other things, I still cannot avoid getting hurt. And as I have told u earlier we do things which gives us the illusion of getting hurt. For me emotions are more important than intelligence. However intelligently used emotions, have a moving power that has me in its grasp. The written words in the literature and the spoken words in the movies just make so much sense to me, that to find sense in my own theories or beliefs I always get down to writing. Just as I debate with enlightened minds to better understand the basis of my beliefs, I also write to find clarity of thought and vision. I also look for appreciation and respect just like the kind I have for those who have shaped my world of beliefs thru their words and Ideas.
In the end a simple prescription to stay away from pain is to stop thinking at all. Keep urself so busy and occupied that no moment is wasted in thinking business. I feel all human minds should be labeled with the statutory warning: thinking is bad for health. But just like the smokers , I know I will keep doing it.

research is hard !

When I look back and evaluate the system that educated me, I find a lot of flaws. All we were supposed to do was to look for answers in the textbook and not think about the questions at all. If the question started as ``Why did Pallav leave his home?", the first reaction we had was to thumb thru the pages of the chapter and scan for a line which started with or contained the clause( or is it phrase?) "..Pallav left his home because...",
and as most of us will testify , ``Bingo" ! The same went for the science exams, there were set questions and set answers to those questions, all we had to do was to mug them up. It was more of a guessing game. "Ok , lets see, she ( the Teacher of course) has already asked question no. 1, 5 , and 7 in the mid term test and last week she enquired about how well we had studied the photosynthesis portion, so this fixes ( we used the word ``pukka") a 5mark question on photosynthesis; now lets see about the remaining 15 marks.....". As you can pretty well imagine, there was no scope for the awakening of the spirit of enquiry, which to this date, i suspect, lies still dormant. Given that now I am a research scholar, this does tell me as to how natural a part I have played in conveying to the Board/University of my most ``sincere" plans of being a researcher.
Cribbing has never given the right solution to any problem, so the real question to ask now is this:what have I got myself into?

the test

The chill of the winter nights and the strangely relaxing mystery of the darkness have always managed to bring out the author in me. A continuously ticking brain which has a ``mind" of its own(!!!) and the arcane sentiments from the Hindi ``nibandh" days (APEEJAY High School) egg me on. Sometimes I feel that this is the only battlefield I can fight on, the words are my weapons and the heart the platform that I launch them from while at other times I sheepishly admit that the fame aspect of it is too potent for me to resist. Whatever it may be, there is no denying the fact that I love to write; sometimes for the heck of it sometimes for the fame and ofttimes to really discover what's going on inside of me.