Moments

A time of the year when most people in the world are enjoying holidays, IIT is also in a holiday mood. The winter vacations have begun and hostels are empty. Placements season is going on and there has been parties all around from those who got placed. Many final years are still working hard to prove themselves to the companies coming on campus for recruitments. We Phds, are not at all bothered by this struggle or by these little celebrations. We live in a life of perennial bliss with moments moving on and on and on. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.. May the Lord show you the path that you cherish to take.. And may the Santa shower you with whatever you want at any every moment.. For the research scholars, here is a quote that I coined. ' Phd is a journey in a tunnel. You never find the end till the last bend.'

Today I launched a new technical blog. Currently I am thinking of putting stuff related to my research work. Hoping that readers will comment and I shall get some idea for my PhD thesis. :-) For my regular readers (I dont know who) here is the link. बुद्धिमान तार - रहित उपकरण Please read it sometimes.. Kya pata kab aapko bhi research karne ka mood aa jaye... :-P

In this world where everybody is said to be selfish and unkind, yesterday I found a nice man. At midnight, I and my friend were waiting for an auto in a pretty desolate area of Delhi. After a wait of around 10 minutes, a cab went past us and suddenly braked. As we approached the cab, the driver told us to hop in and asked us where we were heading to. As there was not much of a chance of finding any other mode of transport back to our hostel, we got in the cab, thinking the trip would be rather costly. The driver told that he was going to the taxi stand near our hostel, so he offered us the lift. We got a pleasant surprise as he was dropped us at our hostel and said that he was not charging us for the ride. Kabhi kabhi aise bhi log mil jaate hain..

Oh yes! You guessed it right. It is about cricket. And in cricket if you talk about century then who else can it be other than our own great Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin has been in a great touch in this calendar year, yet this is the year in which he has missed out on scoring centuries on so many occasions. A little bit of statistics of this year's performance of our Cricketing GOD: Tests 2 centuries - both against Bangladesh scores of 91 and 82 against England 56* in first test against Pakistan (cant blame him for not scoring a century there :-) ) Again an 82 today against Pakistan ODIs Lone century (100 not out) against WI at Baroda in January 2 half centuries against WI and SL in India 1 half century against Bermuda in the pathetic ICC World Cup 6 half centuries in England Tour (2 against SA and 4 against ENG) out of which 4 were in 90s 2 scores of 70s against the Aussies 2 scores of 90s against the Pakistanis And out of the 6 nervous nineties 3 times he went back to the pavilion o...

After missing two earthquakes that happened during my past 5yrs in Delhi, at last I experienced one today morning. It was at quarter to five at dawn when Delhi rocked measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale. I was asleep under the quilt in my hostel room, when I felt the tremors. I thought that it was in my dream and ignored it. After a few seconds, I realized that my cot was shaking and the windows were rattling. As I got to my senses and got up, vibrations had died down. There was commotion outside as people were running out of their rooms onto the lawns and the courtyard. Most of them were excited and few were shocked. I waited for a minute to check if it was shaking. As nothing happened, I went back to sleep, under the assumption that I was safe under the thick quilt even if the roof falls down. :-) Today, I heard lots of stories about how people ran to save their lives ignoring others who were around, half naked, in their underwears, out into the biting cold. Well, I dont know whether ...

That ended the celebrations of my Twenty-sixth Diwali. How I celebrated the first 10 of those I dont remember now. But the remaining ones were fun. Probably better than Diwali this year. When I was in school at Renukoot, Diwalis used to be great. The festivities started almost a week earlier and we had nice time even at school. The climate used to be wonderful with the winter setting in and the early morning chillness and the mild afternoons. Though it would be tougher to go to school in the morning but Diwali time was something we never missed at school. The thrill of the sound of crackers in the corridors was a thing everybody cherished. Every year there would be strict warnings from our principal against bursting of crackers in the school campus. But invariably every year there would be at least one going off - either in the bathroom or in some empty classroom, either under the stairs or on the rooftop. Our batch was the most infamous of all but we were never implicated. There would...

Durga Asthami: It was Friday, the 19th of 2007. Anand Srivastava, a friend on mine from school called me and invited me for lunch on Sunday. Enjoying the mid-semester break, I accepted his invitation and was also glad to know that he has invited a few more of my schoolmates. That was the beginning of this year's Dussehra celebrations for me. I also had another get together planned for the weekend. That was visiting my cousin who has moved into Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi, after her marriage. She had been cajoling me to drop in at her place for the past three months and it was getting postponed due to some reason or the other. I had suggested a visit during the festive season but she had plans to go for a vacation to Rishikesh and Mussourie. On Friday, night I got the news that she has canceled her vacation, so I decided to go the next day. I also remembered that I had not yet kept my books for Saraswati Puja and resolved to do so the next morning. Maha Navami: On Saturday early morn...

जब पता चला कि हिंदी में भी blog लिख सकते हैं तो सोचा कि क्यों ना एक trial लिया जाये। यह blog लिखते समय google के इस नए transliteration tool का power महसूस हुआ। इतनी आसानी से हिंदी में लिख सकते हैं कि पूछिये मत। जल्दी ही google खोलिए और खुद ही type कर के देखिए।

The management at IIT Delhi has decided to block access to www.orkut.com from within the institute. Whether it is an attempt to police the innocent students getting over-enthused by the ongoing craze of dating or an inefficient means of regulating internet traffic, nobody knows, as there is not official announcement. But this abrupt blockage of the site using 'Content Keeper' has caused a shock to the student community. Orkut had been a topic of discussion among the faculty and the web administrators for quite some time. Many in the institute felt that students are wasting a lot of time browsing and scrapping on orkut. It may be true to some extent as I have myself seen situations in the lab where all the monitor screens show similar snapshots of orkut profile page opened up in firefox and people busy finding new profiles and scrapping to keep their network of friends going. A lot of BTech students are actively involved in various communities and are regular posters on all thre...

An old lady was sitting on the verandah of her house. She was in her 80's with gray hair and rumpled skin. Her voice quavered as she called her daughter in law for a glass of water. After waiting for a response, she muttered to herself, "Who cares for this old lady!" She was frail and spent most of her time on the verandah gazing at the street. Watching the busy market below was her hobby and favourite pastime. The sun was up near the zenith and the daily clamor of the people and vehicles was making the market look like a tableau of chaos. People were moving around with their bags full. Workers were unloading gunny bags and carton boxes of items from the pushing-carts and were taking them through the service doors of the shops. Amidst this commotion an old man was hobbling towards the traffic signal. His dress was shabby and was patched at lot of places. It could well have passed on as a designer stuff had he been walking on a ramp for a popular designer. But here the lad...

I am not talking about the cycle stunts that you see in your local circus. Neither am i talking about the motorcycle stunts shown by our Indian military during the republic day parade. Those are acrobatics. The cycle stunts that I refer here are the ones that I achieved in the recent past. Though it is belittling myself, but still I say here that two fractures that I have on my body are because of my cycle stunts. The first of them was 2 years ago. I was cycling back from the lab to my hostel at 4am. No I was not enjoying the morning air. On the contrary, I was returning after yet another night out, feeling sleepy. It had rained at night and the cycle had been washed clean in the rain. I was moving on the desolate road. The breeze was bringing in the frigidity of early morning and the overnight rain. I dont remember clearly what happened. After negotiating a turn, I find myself shaken up. The cycle had hit the divider. I was standing but I could feel bruises on my knees and elbow. Ther...

The journey from Udaipur to Abu road was a memorable one. The highway was in a total mess as widening of the roads into 4 lanes was under construction. The old highway was broken at many points with diversions made on to muddy tracks which were bumpy due to recent rains. To add to our woes, the driver was in a happy mood. Probably he was a rally driver who enjoyed such muddy tracks to feel his pulse racing. He was maneuvering the bus through the rough roads keeping us swinging left and right and bouncing up and down. It was a total roller coaster ride. The landscape outside was what fascinated us the most. We had been travelling in Rajasthan and never expected to see anything green around. All you expect in Rajasthan is barren lands and deserts. On the contrary, we were seeing lush green fields and bushes and forests as we passed from plains to the hills. We went through a few hair pin bends and it was like moving through the Western Ghats in Kerala, of which I have had enough experien...

Our day 2 started off from Jodhpur at 6 o'clock bus to Udaipur. The bus was a Silver Line (decently luxurious) bus of Rajasthan State Road Transport. It had push-back seats and provided us a not-so-bad position for sleeping. Sleep was necessary after the night out at the wedding, and expecting that we had finalised on catching this particular bus (The other buses in the morning are ordinary). The route to Udaipur was through a National Highway. The roads were good and the driver was a patient guy. He was in no mood to reach his destination quickly and so the journey took us 7 hrs where it should have taken only 5-5.30 hrs. Getting down at the Udaipur bus stand we were flanked by local guides, telling us about a few options for hotels. We took a guy in confidence to show us some cheap hotels to stay. The first look of the city had a depressing effect on both of us and the state of the art rooms of cheap hotels showed to us added to it. After rejecting a couple of pathetic rooms (rea...

A trip was on the cards from the time I got the wedding invitation in February. A wedding of my schoolmate. Attending weddings is a good excuse for a trip. You get leave from your boss easily. You please the friend/relative as you are with them on their marriage. And of course you are happy being there and enjoying the baraat and the music and the feast and the chicks. A treat for your senses, eyes, ears and tongue. So when I got this invitation, I phoned other friends to cajole them for a trip. Going alone to a marriage and that too when u r a friend of the bride, is very boring. A bunch of old brats is a better choice. After a few rounds of calls, I managed to get a gang of 5 (Amritanshu, Abhishek, Anshuman and Anoop) to join me at the venue of the marriage, Jodhpur. Jodhpur is a nice little city in the south of Rajasthan. It is famous for forts and palaces as are all other tourist places in Rajasthan. After a bit of googling on various tourism promotion sites and numerous travelogue...

Mohd. Sheikh was getting ready to go to school. Even on a cold winter day, he had got up early. Spring. Summer. Rain. Autumn. Winter. Whatever the season be, he used to follow the same schedule. He gets up at 5 o'clock and jogs 5 kilometers. He goes to the railway station and meets the newspaper boy sorting the dailies to be circulated in the town. Sheikh likes to get the newspaper at the railway station, to be the first person in the town to get the morning news. On the way back, he stops at the milk depot to collect two packets of milk. Today was the coldest day of the season. He had not bothered it. As usual, he handed the packets of milk to his mother and started getting ready. Now he was fully dressed in the white school uniform and black shoes. He was sitting at the breakfast table. Outside the sun had risen. But the thick fog cover had kept it hidden. It did not snow in this part of the world, but the blanket of mist enveloping the town brought with it the same kind of chill...

This is how my house looks like when seen from sky. You can also see the adjoining areas.

Today is the second anniversary of blogging. Here is the annual report of my blog. The number of posts on my blog site doubled in comparison with 2005. I had written about a few get-togethers, my first flight trip and a couple of incidents at IIT Delhi. During May, I finished my trilogy on evolution of marriages and went on to write the most controversial post in my archive about Love marriages. The post invited a lot of heated discussions and flame messages on my inbox and chat windows. When there was nothing much to write, I started a series called "Vaidya and his friends", the title being inspired from Malgudi days by RK Lakshman. I managed to write 3 episodes, but soon lost interest in it (though i had a few more episodes in my mind). As usual, the year was filled with trips to various places and a couple of travelogues found space in my blog archive. In my Kedarnath travelogue, I tried imbedding photos in my post. The past year saw a new dimension added to my blog posts....

Alone when I recline in my room, And see a rose in my garden bloom, I solace myself that there must be, Someone, somewhere waiting for me. Through the window I see the full moon, Waiting for slumber to take me soon. For in my dreams, I would surely see, Someone, somewhere waiting for me. As I wake up with the sun outside, I wish she was there beside. Blushing gingerly, i do agree, Someone, somewhere is waiting for me. I am sure this happens to her, But I would say to my dear. Our time is just to be, As I am here looking for thee.

After the research plan submission I and Anoop went to the famous 'Gali Parathe wali' in Chandini Chowk. Though the name would suggest that the place would be full of shops selling Parathas, the street is crowded with a lot of other shops. There are hardly 4 or 5 shops selling hot and fresh Parathas. We got into one such shop. The first impression that I got about the place was that of a shabby little dhabha that you come across while travelling on the highways. But the crowd there made me rethink. The place was buzzing with people, all cramped in the little space, with the waiters yelling to the cook as they took orders. Crawling through the narrow gaps between tables, we managed to get a table in a corner. With the aroma of pure ghee in the air and the hunger in our stomachs, we started our orders with some exotic parathas that they serve. Kaju Paratha, Gajar Paratha, Matar Paratha, Khurchan Paratha, Papad Paratha. And a lot more. One after the other, we tasted almost all kin...

Yet another new year! I know you would be saying, "Is this the time to talk about new year, a good 15 days into it. Where were you all these days". Well, I was busy deciding on my new year resolution and then busy getting it done. Very unusual of me, this year I had a new year resolution. "Decide on my future of PhD." There were a few critical decisions to be made. First and foremost was whether to continue with my PhD or to quit it. There were lot of reasons for that but writing about them will be long enough for another blog post. So let me defer it to some other time. When the new year started with a review of my research draft by JD, one of my guides, I was sure that this new year shall surely be eventful. With lots of concern about my research plan, he criticized the presentation, somewhat constructively. Constructive in the sense that it helped me clear my mind of entangled thoughts and showed me a glimpse of my future. After a lot of tussle with my inner self...