Love Lennon

Love and Peace!!! That is what John Lennon is about. And that is why we all love him. He was an artist, a dreamer, a revolutionary.

"It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you
love, how you love, it matters only that you love."

--John Lennon

Yet another wake up call

It's yet another wake up call for the exams. There is nothing great in this exam except its being the exam. But lets respect this fact only and get back to serious studies.

In past weeks I have been in and out of being 'me' but now it's time to get back into 'me' i.e. the geek who used to be a 'hard working fool' and had very few things apart from studies, friends and family. May be this is what is good for this geek. After all 'you are in IIT' so it means you should not be sticking around nose doing things what it doesn't suits to be IITian. You are just another stinking IITian who is expected to study lotsa technical stuff, earn high LPAs, do something which are said to be success, get married, have kids and then die as an IITian! Don't expect human things from him because he is just IITian. Nothing more.

I should not write these things. Because is people read this, specialy friends and well-wishers, they will start asking what happened to you. Are you fine. What is wrong. etc. etc.

Now this may effect my exams. So I will not write any futher in spite of the face I still have many things I can write. I will now be the geek.

Its (what is antonym of gloomy)... jubilant

I find every reason to be glad. It is only in near past I found every reason to be sad. It was all gloomy out there.

Sometimes reasons are so unreasonable that they gives me a jolt to believe that somethings just happen for it. Just like that. For no reason. You can witness it but you cannot explain it. Yes that is happening. But I find no reason to go around looking for reasons every time. Oh! I just realized what I said. It was a self contradictory statement. Anyways, I am happy and I feel fine. I'm so happy that I started dancing on a beatles' song in my room last night.

To my friends...

Friends are those.......
many things have been said since ages. Intellectuals, noblemen, sages, writers, poets, singers, mediocre, idiots, retards, morons and almost everybody have defined what do 'friends' means. You can find millions of quotes and anecdotes on friends
But for me a friend is one who stays friend. I feel blessed to have the kind of friends I found in my college. The best part of IIT life are FRIENDS. They will love you, they will bear you, the will bully you, they will need you, they will give you, they will ask from you and what not. They will share everything. And when I say everything I mean it. I heard during orientation that some alumni say they were 'closer' to there wingmates than their spouse. It could not be imagined then but now. It's hard conceive the idea of friends without the group of people called Y5-BBot (named after our batch in college and name of hostel wing assigned during 1st year). These are people who are assigned to you when you come to IIT. It was not by choice but by chance, fate, destiny, karma of intellectual design or whatever you may call it that you were born in family you were born in. So was I born in B-Bot wing of hall-2 in the year Y5 and that is my identity.
I wish I enjoy such friendship as long as I enjoy living.

From last few weeks I have developed a habit of ending with a song so here I will dedicate a song to all my friends:

A geek's way of expressing surprise and denial

Why do all the things you feel nice about always have to come to an end? And the way they come to an end has an expectation value of variable which is an array of index n (where n tends to infinity) each element of which have value infinity (that's a geek's way of saying 'totally unexpected'). The end result is not what surprises or rather I would say matters most but the way it comes. Like they cut your marks on the steps you take to prove a mathematical identity not the identity you prove. Identity is something invariably true the way taken to prove it are important.

I don't know what to write. It's like an exam. I'm feeling like I came to give an exam but by mistake I sat in classroom in which other exam was being conducted and with the question paper of the course I never prepared I'm puzzled how to proceed. Should I quit and submit the paper? Or should I try to explain now I was not meant for this exam? In any case I will get an F because invigilator is gone and no one to explain. I only wish invigilator would have shown more rationale(forgive the grammar). Call it luck, call it fate, call it destiny, call it Karma, call it will of God or call it Butterfly Effect (remember Chaos Theory) it is all that I'm into.

But given the emotional giant I am, my mother made me that strong (mentally) that I can even come out of schizophrenia, I will get over and soon-be-enjoying. I will soon be feasting upon the F. I welcome my failures also. It is just that this one was not in my list as to be defined as success or failure. This was not I would have confronted. But facts are more real than the shoulds and woulds. Soon I'll be sitting in another exam for good grades. and before that for tomorrows quiz!

But there is still one hope. There is 1% doubt if it was Mid-Sem exam rather than End-sem. I can recover in end-sem if given chance. But the scar of being 'tagged' bad boy because of F will remain. Of all those who know me know me as a good boy. I never intend to hurt anyone but sometimes it goes opposite. But nevertheless as they say policies do matter. My policies were right. I never felt bad about doing the right thing and I wish others understood it. But again shoulds and woulds do not always happen in life.

At the end of it I'll again sing a song get by:

“hazaron khawahishen aisi ki har khawahish pe dam nikle,
bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle”

And given the Beatles fan I am I will sing one more:

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

Fly high

From the childhood days I had a fantasy for kites. I never learned to fly 'em but always used to keep a collection. I remember staring up in the sky. For hours I will be on top most roof of my house (which happened to be in another town then). And momma will know where i am if not found in my room.

Now it is time to find the fantasy again. To fly high. Just go on flying. As high as the sky stretches.

"अगर देखना चाहते हो मेरी उड़ान को,
तो और ऊँचा कर दो अपने आसमान को ।"

C me live from your browser

Yes. Now you can see me live. You just have to request me for the URL and ask me to switch my video monitoring on my Dell. And then you can monitor me live from your browser (doesn't works with Mozilla somehow. IE of chrome work). You don't even need flash enables browser to see it.

How it works?
A software called Dell Webcam Center comes with the Dell Laptop Integrated Camera. It features remote monitoring which can capture images at regular intervals (user defined) and upload it on FTP. I'm using my website for it. In effect when I run the program it takes images at rate fixed by me (which I have set to 1 image/sec.) and keeps updating the web location every second. On opening the URL it looks like a bad quality video streaming with no sound.

So next time just ping me and get my visual. You can request for URL by writing a mail to me (see my profile if you don't know the ID).

Love

Many times I have written under this title. This post is just another one. Just saw a 2001 move Captain Corellis Mandolin and this dialogue is from it...

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

-- Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Beatles and Jagjit Singh

Both of them have one thing in common. Lyrics is most distinctive feature of their songs. So meaningful. Even if you see it without music. And with music its all what it is. Simply genius!
Jagjit Singh's Baat niklegi, and Har taraf har jagah and Beatles' While my guitar, Strawberry fields, In my life, A day in life, God, How?, Hey Jude are the best examples. Simply great.
It seems that some level of gloominess is contributed to the diseases I'm infected. It is called Beatlemania.

My current playlist

Lots of beatles on my playlist these days...

1) Hazaro Kwahishe Aisi (Jagjit Singh) - Excellent song sung by Jagjit Singh and written by Mirza Ghalib

2) Hoshwalo ko khabar (Jagjit Singh) - Live concert video is what I'm playing. Soft and soothing song.

3)Hey Jude (Beatles) - The first line 'Hey Jude dont make it bad' is worth falling love with. Sort of motivating and keeping from going paranoid.

4)Strawberry fields forever (Beatles) - What is real? How do you define real? What makes you happy? Reality or imagination. Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.

5)While my guitar (Beatles) - Must listen to this song and the next one. Sure everybody will like it. At least read the lyrics here.

6)In my life (Beatles) - Lyrics here.

7) A day in the life (Beatles) - Its tells a normal day in our life when we son't care about a lot of thing but they have significance of their own and worth a more introspective look.

8) How? (Beatles) - Its about feelings. Feeling of Love.

9) God. (Beatles) - What is this word. Is God something you believe in? Then you should'nt. God is a concept that is our necessity and all you shuld believe in is YOU!

10) Instant Karma - One of Lennon's classic. Everybody must be knowing about Karma theory, at least if you are in India.

11) Give Peace a chance (Beatles) - Bedicated to peace. All we are saying give peace a chance.

Its gloomy...

Why is the atmosphere so gloomy? It feels dusk even before the dusk. It is dawn much after the dawn. Nothing is motivating. Even the Lakshya song fails.

They say happiness like sand on the shore is made of many little things. So is the gloominess. It is difficult to credit some reason of the other

Nothing is happening in these days. Not much of gaming. Not much of studies. Only 2 chapters of 'The Great Partition' and then the book has been showpiece. It has just Beatles and Jagjit Singh (songs) that has been happening to me in last few days. And I again fell in love with both of them.

How can I?

How can I have feeling when I don't know if it's a feeling?
How can I feel something if I just don't know how to feel?
How can I have feelings when my feelings have always been denied? Oh no, oh no.
How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?
How can I give love when I just don't know how to give?
How can I give love when love is something I ain't never had? Oh no, oh no.

You know life can be long and you got to be strong
and the world is so tough sometimes i feel i've had enough.
Oh no, oh no.

-- JOHN LENNON

Bharat Mahima

I've been searching for this amazing poem by Jayshankar Prasad from a long time and finally got it. Specially the last two lines make you thrill.

हिमालय के आँगन में उसे, प्रथम किरणों का दे उपहार ।

उषा ने हँस अभिनंदन किया, और पहनाया हीरक-हार ।।

जगे हम, लगे जगाने विश्व, लोक में फैला फिर आलोक ।

व्योम-तुम पुँज हुआ तब नाश, अखिल संसृति हो उठी अशोक ।।

विमल वाणी ने वीणा ली, कमल कोमल कर में सप्रीत ।

सप्तस्वर सप्तसिंधु में उठे, छिड़ा तब मधुर साम-संगीत ।।

बचाकर बीच रूप से सृष्टि, नाव पर झेल प्रलय का शीत ।

अरुण-केतन लेकर निज हाथ, वरुण-पथ में हम बढ़े अभीत ।।

सुना है वह दधीचि का त्याग, हमारी जातीयता का विकास ।

पुरंदर ने पवि से है लिखा, अस्थि-युग का मेरा इतिहास ।।

सिंधु-सा विस्तृत और अथाह, एक निर्वासित का उत्साह ।

दे रही अभी दिखाई भग्न, मग्न रत्नाकर में वह राह ।।

धर्म का ले लेकर जो नाम, हुआ करती बलि कर दी बंद ।

हमीं ने दिया शांति-संदेश, सुखी होते देकर आनंद ।।

विजय केवल लोहे की नहीं, धर्म की रही धरा पर धूम ।

भिक्षु होकर रहते सम्राट, दया दिखलाते घर-घर घूम ।

यवन को दिया दया का दान, चीन को मिली धर्म की दृष्टि ।

मिला था स्वर्ण-भूमि को रत्न, शील की सिंहल को भी सृष्टि ।।

किसी का हमने छीना नहीं, प्रकृति का रहा पालना यहीं ।

हमारी जन्मभूमि थी यहीं, कहीं से हम आए थे नहीं ।।

जातियों का उत्थान-पतन, आँधियाँ, झड़ी, प्रचंड समीर ।

खड़े देखा, झेला हँसते, प्रलय में पले हुए हम वीर ।।

चरित थे पूत, भुजा में शक्ति, नम्रता रही सदा संपन्न ।

हृदय के गौरव में था गर्व, किसी को देख न सके विपन्न ।।

हमारे संचय में था दान, अतिथि थे सदा हमारे देव ।

वचन में सत्य, हृदय में तेज, प्रतिज्ञा मे रहती थी टेव ।।

वही है रक्त, वही है देश, वही साहस है, वैसा ज्ञान ।

वही है शांति, वही है शक्ति, वही हम दिव्य आर्य-संतान ।।

जियें तो सदा इसी के लिए, यही अभिमान रहे यह हर्ष ।

निछावर कर दें हम सर्वस्व, हमारा प्यारा भारतवर्ष ।।

Hazaaron khwahishe aisi...

Hazaaron Khvaahishen aisii ki har Khvaaish pe dam nikale
Bahut nikale mere armaaN lekin phir bhii kam nikale

Nikalanaa Khuld se aadam kaa sunate aaye hain lekin
Bahut beaabaruu hokar tere kuuche se ham nikale

Muhabbat men nahiin hai farq jiine aur marane kaa
Usii ko dekh kar jiite hain jis kaafir pe dam nikale

Khudaa ke vaaste pardaa na kaabe se uThaa zaalim
Kahiin aisaa na ho yaaN bhii vahii kaafir sanam nikale

KahaaN maiKhaane ka daravaazaa 'Ghalib' aur kahaaN vaaiz
Par itanaa jaanate hain kal vo jaataa thaa ke ham nikale

New chapter 2009

This is the first post of this year. I wish all my readers very very Happy New Year. I will try to write in more interesting way.

I came across an interesting quote in new year -

I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure.