A holiday trip

Exams are over now. Came home yesterday as soon as exam finished.
Lots of things happened (I was pick-pocketed) on the way back but don't have time to write now. I have to wake up early morning to catch the train. All set for 1 week holiday trip to Sikkim n Darjeeling. Here is our tour itinerary.

8th March Sun 4:30 AM Leave from Hall
9th March Mon 5:30 AM Reaches New Jalpaiguri (Breakfast)
9th March Mon 9:00 AM Board up in toy train
9th March Mon 7:00 PM Reaches Darjeeling (Night Stay)
10th March Tue 4:00 AM Departure for tiger hill in Darjeeling
10th March Tue 10:00 AM Return from tiger hill and have breakfast
10th March Tue 11:00 AM Sightseeing of Darjeeling
10th March Tue 2:00 PM Lunch and departure to Gangtok
10th March Tue 7:00 PM Reaches Gangtok (Night Stay)
11th March Wed 7:00 AM Departure to Nathula Pass
11th March Wed 7:00 PM Return from Nathula Pass (Night Stay in Gangtok)
12th March Thu 10:00 AM Departure to Lachen after breakfast
12th March Thu 5:00 PM Reaches Lachen (Night stay and sightseeing)
13th March Fri 6:00 AM Departure to Yumthang Valley
13th March Fri 8:00 AM Reaches Yumthang Valley (visit and sight seeing)
13th March Fri 8:00 PM Return from yumthang to Gangtok (night stay in gangtok)
14th March Sat 5:00 AM Departure to Pelling
14th March Sat 10:00 AM Reaches Pelling (Visit and Sight seeing)
14th March Sat 3:00 PM Departure to Darjeeling
14th March Sat 6:00 PM Reaches to Darjeeling (Night Stay)
15th March Sun 6:00 AM Departure to Newjalpaiguri
15th March Sun 10:00 AM Boar up in train to Kanpur

If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.

Good to be scared. Good to be embarrassed. Good to be hurt.

Go out. Look around. Take chances. Explore!

Exams

Every time library goes round the clock it is like ringing the bells for exams. tan! tan! tan! Your time starts now. Run!
And then we keep running for life. (read as making ourselves study). Everybody running here and there. All chaos. All sorts of abnormal things begin to happen. To list a few:

• Kush starts studying.
• Sleep cycle? No such terms exists. Sleep when you want. Wake when you want.
• Suddenly mess food appears filthier than ever.
• Half of hostel is seen in mess just as it opens for dinner.
• Flood (of students) in library.
• Orkut/facebook logins increase drastically. And what we do then is well a known fact. Let's coin a term for it e-bird watching.

For many of us (those who are graduating this year) it is practically second last time we are witnessing this event. I guess they will miss these days too when we they start missing college days.

And btw this is the ;ast post of February... Let's what is the number for this month... The number is 11

Skyping...

Spent quite a lot of time on Skype. with mom on previous night and with sis today. It works very good with decent internet connectivity. All credits to laptop integrated dell webcam.
Now days are becoming hotter. There is so much excitement in the coming days. The mid sem exams - not so exciting in a usual sense but yes they effect your life to considerable degree. They start from 4th and end on 6th. Then starting from 9th is our much awaited tour of Darjeeling. This is practically first tour with friends. A group of 15 together and 1 week of fun i.e. 168 hours! This is called life dude. Or rather the bright side of the coin.
But before it the former part of excitement is not so electrifying. So I'll have to make up for it first.

Current favorite Beatles' song are...
The Inner light
Misery
I feel fine
Not a Second Time
This Boy
I Don't Wanna to Be a Soldier Mama
Gimme some truth
The ballad of John and Yoko
Love
and the evergreen Hey Jude...

Back from home

From the beginning of this year there was drought of weekend visit to home. It ended on 20th of this month. It was more than 50 days I was away. As soon as I reached home it was observed that I had grown frail. Spent hell lot of lazy and comforting 2 days at home. Enjoyed eating loads of stuffs like goats. Lots of food. Tasty and sometimes healthy too. Momma made sure of the later. When it was for breakfast she made sure that the glass was filled with milk up to the brink. Matar-paneer and home-made apple jam were no less than trip to heaven!!!

After multiple trips to heaven I was back to hell... no hostel... at 11pm.

Few observant friends tell me about my writing style. My sister somehow believes that what I write carries a critical meaning. One of my close friends said to me today: why don't you pursue Ph.D. in metaphysics. Why? He says: you will contribute to it significantly. Another friend once said something similar. To quote: "u sound horribly like one of the poets 4m d Metaphysical school of poetry".

To quote me "I write what I think. It may be wisdom, it may be crap but it's all the same to me. I can add it is meaningful for me."

Had a break

Ahh...
back to usual style of life after a six day break. Friday to Wednesday was like extended weekend. IORC 09 was better than 08 in terms of competition but the enthusiasm was not like last year. The excitement of first time was missing. But all in all good event. 20 people solving Rubik's cube sub-60 sec is good. Results are here. Till Sunday it was Techkriti.
Left for Mathura to attend a wedding. One of my friends invited us at his sister's wedding.
Back to Kanpur on Wednesday morning. Slept the whole day. Then life starts from 10 clock sociology lecture in L-16. All in all good break. I wonder why I had not taken such break every semester.
Leaving for home this weekend. This is the first time I'm visiting home in this semester. It has been nearly 2 months. So out for 2 more days. :)

Techkriti over...
Out for 2 days

Techkriti 09

Techkriti this year has started. Opening night is over. This time I can really see whats happening in Techkriti. Last year it had been only one thing that filled - IORC.

One thing I am looking forward is the panel discussion Energy 2020. From he panel discussions that I've attended so far I learned that they are not that informative. In the sense that they mostly tend to exhibit personal inclinations of the speakers rather than the real picture. But this panel have some doers than talkers. R.B.Grover (part of Kakodar-Grover duo) is supposed to do the most of the argumentative business of the 123 Agreement. Kakoder is said to have played directive role in the historic agreement. I have a feeling that the discussion is going to stick around 123 mainly - the after-development outcomes.

IORC is 2 day this time. It will be enlightened by the presence of Mr.John Louis and Bernett again. It seems better this time in terms of participation.

A walk in the rain

Everything was favorable. Indian team grabbed a sensational victory in T20 cricket match. It has rained in the evening. Rain just stopped. मिटटी की खुशबु was calling us. And 5 of us went out for a night stroll.
We reached till the new MBA school building via MT. It was sweet cold wind. Although cold is always cold there are some types of cold which bring warmth. Like something sweet touching you. Believe me it's not just poetic imagination. That cold was really sweet! Ahha feeling!

It was not long when it started raining.Just in front of CESE building we had to run to find some shade. Now running in the rain was that fun I cannot tell. All in the dark and under a bus stop in front of Gate-1 waiting not for bus but for the water to stop. It was pouring heavily. The shade was failing us. Every time I found a spot to settle a hole in the shade found me. Half of my back was wet.
With the help of watchful eyes of one of our friend we were able to steal a dry moment and run all the way up to SAC chauraha and then to hall 1 back into our rooms. Back to the same old business.

I think everyone should try such a walk at least once. It is worth giving a chance. Give walk a chance.

Why do you do what you do?

Actions of an individual, says Max Weber, are a result of three things:

1. Tradition (so called Society)
2. Affective (Emotional)
   
3. Rationalism (ones own thinking)
   

You cannot always boast for 'reasons' in your action. For those, like me, who always crave for rationale in things let me tell you that when there is apparently no reason for someone's there is still reason in it. And that is accredited to the first 2 factors.

For me the order of importance is reverse of what is listed.

What are the things that govern your action?

Bubba Gump Shrimp

Once while dinning I bit my lower lips (inside). The very next meal in afternoon it was bit again at the same place. Then it got hit by someones hand next day. Three hits in a row!

It was only when I started medication that it stopped getting worse. It gave me sore lips. Lips like Bubba had in Forest Gump.

Wonder. Sleep.

I was asleep. I wake now. I talk to mom on phone. Then I am not sure if am asleep or awake. I think. I wonder. Then again think. Then wonder more.
I wonder what would happen if we were made to never feel the pain. The disaster we would suffer. Then I sleep. Then I sing. Then I wonder. Wonder if ever any governing equations can be written for the feelings that arise in us. Can it be predicted given all boundary and initial conditions? Does it violate of follow the Causality? If anything like Hawkins' 'theory of everything' comes then will it include this thing?
No answer. Just wonder.Wonder and sleep. Wonder and sing. Slepp and sing. Oh sleep.

Hail Exams...

Exams in the corner. 4 mid-sems within 22 hours. and the last 1 on third day. Lets see how much space can I make for sleeping!

Btw yesterday was vasant panchami and everyone back home woke up early for Saraswati Puja. And when I woke up it was 23 missed calls in my cellphone! I was being called to get up for puja. But the sleeping giant I am. It took 24 rings of phone to break my slumber! [:P]

Current Mood: Oh, I believe in yesterday!

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).