Running

This Saturday I am going for a 5k Run. This would be my first. Recently I have been fancying idea of running a marathon. Umm.. maybe half-marathon to begin with. I talked to some marathon runners and one of them said,
To run marathon is not the point, to run injure-free marathon is difficult. But he also said that a lot of guys older than us run so it is not that bad.

My current status is that at my best I have completed 10km in 55 min. That included hydration breaks. Not that bad. Almost quarter marathon.

Unlike previous summers, in this one I have been running more than I was biking. Well, summer is coming to an end. Guess I am running out of time.

Very soon it is going to be cold and chilly. No place to run. :(

UPDATE: Aug 9: Completed 5k in 25:08 min

Sunday at the lab

I AM NOT GOING TO SPEND THIS SUNDAY IN THE LAB!

Nevertheless I enjoy this song and I think some of my blogger friends will like it.

Happy weekend (that includes Sunday)

Shakespeare inspires

"Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day"
-- Macbeth

CS Camping

When I told a friend that I hosted a stranger at my house without any connection whatsoever, she was surprised. When I told her that I went camping with a bunch of strangers for 2 days she didn't believe me. She did not expect me to do things like that. Well to be honest I did not expect it too.
But you know I'm that kind of person who likes to surprise people. I would do something totally not expected of me. Just for the heck of it.

So if you remember few posts back I started doing everything which negate my form shaped in life so far. Things I never thought I would do. To be honest I still don't have the answer to why exactly I am making the self-negating choices. May be just to surprise you. May be just to reassure myself that I was not-doing the things-I-don't-do by choice, not that I can't. I am not sure. All said there are moments when out of nowhere I would start missing being my old self. Introvert and enjoying solitude.

Here is what I did for the weekend. If you don't know what Couchsurfing.org is about, it is a website where you get to meet and connect with locals and travelers in your city and/or be guest when you travel. The beauty is that you are meeting total stranger. It is like facebook except you go talk to your friends instead of checking out their 'wall' passively. I went to a 2 day camping trip near my town and befriended a lot of strangers. 2 days in the wild I connected with people really well. It was a big group, some 30 odd people. It was difficult to meet everybody the same way but then some were there just to get drunk and date free of cost.
It was overwhelming to meet so many people outside of school. In school we are friends with very homogeneous group of people. They are all nice people, one of the brilliant minds, nothing against them. But when I look back and count how many friends I have in my town who are not in school (or their spouses) the answer is a whole number which is not a natural number. I think you get to learn so much by interacting with a heterogeneous group of people. I thought I could use a little diversity in my friend circle.

Anyway, here is a group photo of part of the group. I hope they don't mind the picture here. As someone in the group noted, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Problems?

Problems, problems, problems. Problems aplenty. Who doesn’t have them. Life is full of problems, isn't it? Yes it is. Of course. I have a secret formula to make all your problems evaporate into nothingness.
Read the stories from the other side of the fence that Gaurav tells here. Excerpt bellow.

"For Mr Ramesh yadav, pulling rickshaw is a child’s play; something which can be handled by his left hand alone. He never misses his right hand! He is pulling rickshaw for the past 10-12 years. With the combined income from rickshaw and the 3-4 beegha farmland in his village, he educated his children and arranged for the marriage of his two daughters!

I wasn't able to maintain an eye-contact with him when he said “इंसान को हौसला नहीं खोना चाहिए” (one should never lose courage) because I had tears in my eyes."

Read the full original article in hindi on BBC. Or read the english translation of the same at Gaurav's blog.

Okay by now if you still feel your life is full of problems then read about the "The Sacrifice of a Rickshaw-walla".

If you still feel your problems are big enough then you are just being unreasonable.

You know most of our generation (including me) , among the people I know, will never experience what necessity is. For them necessity is galaxy s3 or iPhone 5 or xbox or a new car. To KNOW what it is you will need to go the other side of the fence.

If you still haven't closed this tab then may be you will appreciate a little bit of political crap I get into time to time. It is about what A Sen and Jeane Dreze have to say in "An uncertain glory: India and its contradiction".

Sen and Dreze basically argue that the reason India contributes to 43% of children's death due to hunger in the whole world is because we don't have state subsidies in education, health and infrastructure. If govt. invests in these three areas they will help reduce the inequitable distribution of wealth. But govt. is more interested in votes than wealth distribution.

So what's the way out? As long as there are people working towards this goal there is hope. If you and I become apathetic to the cause and give up then the apathetic and pessimistic people who say "this-country-is-going-to-hell" win.

I hope to see the day when people form protest rallies for better healthcare system or better education system than for more diesel or petrol subsidies. That will be the day when "this-country-is-going-to-hell" people will be proselytized.

I don't know if I can do that on my own. In fact I'm not doing anything positive about it except ranting my thoughts on a blog which, at best, is read by handful. I only wish I can convince more people.

Noam Chomsky said in one of his interviews "what is striking about India is the indifference of the privileged class towards unprivileged class".

Haha

I am "like a sweet innocent flower, budding". One of my guests told me.

Really? Not sure if a lot of people will think that about me. :) It is a positive comment though. I guess. So I will take it.

A story to cry

I will tell you a story today. I am not a story teller. I don't know the art. I don't have good vocab. I don't have impeccable gramer. But I will go on because I need to.

Story starts before independence of India. It is about a little girl. From a small town but from a rich family. It was a family which owned at least one cotton mill, 3 town houses, several jewellery shops, countless farms and gardens. Everything was in abundance. Money, gold, servants, parents' love for this girl. You name it, it was there. She was youngest and dearest of all.

This little bubbly girl never realized why her neighbours next door living in small house are poor. Why would they live the way they lived. She was that kind of girl who would secretly drop packets of garden fresh mangoes onto their house. She would take her share of rice on the roof-top and pray to God that birds come and have it. Just for the pleasure of giving it.

Things started changing to some extent after independence when ceiling laws were enacted. Some property was lost but what was left was still magnanimous compared to rest of the country's population. At eleven, while life was still wonderful and seemingly she would never face dearth for rest of the years, the inevitable has to happen.

The Marriage.

If you think 11 years is too early for marriage I suggest you to buy a time machine and wind it back 60 years. It 'is' norm. Marrying their daughter to a son of elderly learned businessman in a relatively bigger town of post-independence India did not seem like a bad idea to her parents. While not a rich family her in-laws owned several businesses and were still well to do.

Few years into the marriage and she came closer to harsh reality. Not so friendly in-laws. Not an ideal husband to a teenage girl. Things started to become ugly when after few more years, as economy imploded, 'several businesses' waned into one. A fairly lively restaurant close to a large university. Not too bad, right? Not compared to what was to come. Several miscarriages at early age only added to misery and subtracted family support.

On a fateful summer day when she along with 3 children was visiting relatives in a far away village the greatest misfortune fell.

The robbery.

The restaurant+house was robbed to the last penny. Only things not robbed on the house were the bricks in the walls. What followed is a tragic story in itself. A story which tells how with zero family income she managed to fight hunger, disease and death. How she successfully raised five children with zero to minimum support from husband or family. From penniless toddlers to better strata of middle class the children have come. If the tale be told readers will cry blood. I know because I did. I will save you the torment.

If ever there walked a truly selfless human form on earth it was her. Now she is gone. Last night she took her last breath. RIP.

She was my grandma.

Why do we make self negating choices?

Sometimes I just like to do things that you would not expect from me. When I was little younger I started painting canvases. I struggled but I made my way to two beautiful oil paintings with the help of my sister. In the end it was a pleasurable experience and I learned a lot. There is always so much to learn. Learning how to paint was not only learning painting. Every new job undertaken gives a new perspective to a lot of things in life. My first painting was dusktime seashore. That helped me overcome this fear of dusk (I dont know if they have a word for it - duskophobia?) I had ever since.

I have housed a lean frame for around quarter century years on planet earth. For which I never complained, to the extent I liked it. I have had enough of friends and family saying every now and then - 'You are growing skinnier! Eat something'. So last month went I met nutritionist and started doing weights. Most difficult part of this exercise is maintaining a complimentary diet. Vegetarians always have the protein problem. So if you are looking for protein-atious veg foods I have a lot of suggestions right now.

I never played a musical instrument in my life. Closest I got was when we used to goof around our uncles piano as little kids. After hitting quarter century age Im learning to play an obscure instrument called Didgeridoo. It is fun! It is simple plain bamboo from the tree. What I like most is the simplicity about this instrument. It is nothing but one big column taken right from the tree. Like a pipe. But as Da Vinci says - 'Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication'.

This summer at least once I tried playing two different sports. Ultimate frisbee and Softball. Both are games endemic to US. I liked softball much more compared to frisbee. Partly because I fared much better at it than catching/throwing a disc plate. (It is a difficult kind of physics they never taught in m school!) And partly because it is one of the few American games in which no bodily-contact is necessitated.

So here I am making choices which would have never defined first quarter century of my life. I guess there are more things to come.

If you are wondering whats the answer to the question I asked earlier, well I don't know either. I'm on lookout. Till than I will keep going.

Camping

I had a feeling of dejavu when all the people who are graduating with masters degree in this month are leaving town.

Skipped 2 days of work for a camping vacation in Duluth on the 'coast' of Lake Superior. It was fun. But also a bit crazy. We rented all the camping gears and bikes from and then biked 10 miles south with all the load on backpacks. The ride was tiresome but totally worth it. I felt like I lost few pounds in these 2 days ;(
Here is a picture of the stuff that we carried. This was the place we camped overnight. We also went hiking on a part of Lake Superior trail.

Dream

Today I dreamt. I dreamt that  I was teaching to small kids. I was very happy and enjoying my time. Will my dream come true?

Road trip

It is a beautiful morning here. I woke up before sunrise after many days but alas. It is a cloudy day. We are about to begin a long road trip and I have this weird final destination kind of feeling. I want to let it go.
Mt.Rushmore and Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

Grey to green

Winter is gone. Signs of life come back in this part of world. In a matter of 2 weeks everything turned from grey to green. Lush green. Its amazing how fast the trees have grown leaves. Big leaves. Im loving it.

CamBuff

If  you have a DSLR and an iPhone here is a cool stuff to have for 75 bucks. For 75 you can have the cambuff device+app to remotely control any DSLR. Forget about the tini-winie IR remotes. I dont like the fact that it works only with narcissistic devices (read apple products). No android version :( But Kudos to the team anyway.



CamBuff - DSLR wireless control with iPhone, iPad, iPod touch from Buffer Labs on Vimeo.

You can order one here: http://igg.me/at/cambuff/x/530511

Holi

It looks like finally spring has come in Minneapolis. It took end of April for the momentous occasion. And we celebrated it with colours, playing Holi at the bank of Mississippi.
But as is infamous with Minnesota weather another snowstorm cannot be ruled out. In fact next week is not too exciting with sub zero forcasts.
Our weekly group meeting are moved to Monday. Very start of the week is to wind up everything. I think I liked the Friday ones better. You work all week, summarize it on Friday and get done with it. Now I get lazy in the week to do it and weekend takes the toll of my laziness.

NB - This is my 500th post on Blogger!!!

Blizzard

The semester is almost over and as usual Im already falling behind my personal goals.
Why is it that we are always behind our work targets? For once can it happen we are ahead on work schedule? I hope it does.

I think I need to organize myself more. Today morning I had to be in the class I am teaching and, can you believe it, I forgot. It was the same time as group meeting and I did not inform others about it. I don't know why I did it. It was pretty embarrassing situation. It was only after series of successive apologies that I was feeling less guilty.

Not to mention that I do maintain a calender. So let today be the day since when I started doing things on a daily schedule. And let tomorrow be the day since when I stopped giving up on it.

And tell you what. It is April 18. Eight'o clock in the evening. It is still some sunlight. And it is still snowing cats and dogs. We had a severe blizzard last one day. Too bad.

30 great opening lines in literature

Adapted from Telegraph article. Im listing down only the interesting ones. You can read full article at telegraph page.

--“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

--'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (1878)

--‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

--"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

J.D Salinger: The Catcher In The Rye (1951)

--"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticising any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)

--“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”

Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis (1915)

--“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”

Samuel Beckett: Murphy (1938)

--"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."

Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye To Berlin (1939)

--"All this happened, more or less."

Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five (1969)

Happy Holi

Sometimes I just spend time sitting on my office desk thinking about things. What if I hadn't left the country to pursue PhD? Had I been able to help Mom's illness better? It torments to think why we did not pay some serious attention to it much earlier. Probably we did. Met different doctors and nobody could do much about it and we just got used to it. Once the problem exacerbated, it demanded more care than ever. I was not around and couldn't guess whats going on. Had I been around could I have made a difference? I don't know. But in the hindsight I can say it needed more attention. Its funny how much you can analyze things in the hindsight

Coming back to the topic, Happy Holi to all my readers. No holi for me today. We may have a holi party in next couple of weeks.

Every Holi I am not at home reminds me of this one picture. Few years back I framed this picture and gifted to Mom on her birthday. She still cherishes this gift, specially on Holi.

End break

So finally I got to see the Atlantic sunrise in the morning. It was really beautiful. Picture will say the thousand words to you.

We had a flight in the night but we needed to leave early because of the 180 mile drive. But before we ended the vacation came the most amazing moment of the trip. The one hour snorkelling excursion. The beautiful underwater creatures were as colourful as they show in discovery channel. Let me tell you guys it is not a post camera edit in those videos. At one of the places the sea bed was very shallow and I could very clearly see the barracuda waiting behind a big rock to ambush a group of smaller fishes. I waited a bit to see the hunt but the game would take longer than I could stay there.
Those pleasing images are itched in memory like photographic images. I did not have a waterproof camera to take the images but you can catch something similar on google. It will take a long time for these images to fade from my memory.

Half break

The first half of the break gone. Actually more than half. Two days in city of Miami were good. The Atlantic ocean is majestic! truly majestic. First day was just hanging around the south beach, collecting some sea-shells and pebbles (old habits die hard). While walking on the beach I met a very interesting old man. He was Vietnam veteran and interested in history. Talked to him at some length before my buddies called me up. It is good to know the perspective of someone who had been to the down and dirty. He said his job was to fly small glider plane to be shot down by Vietnamese. This helped locate their positions.
Now I am in Key west which is southernmost tip of US. Im home blogging and rest of my team is club hopping. I want to get up early tomorrow. If I do I will be lucky enough to witness sunrise in the morning.

This is Atlantic Ocean as seen from Miami beach around noontime. Majestic, isn't it?

Break

After a long time Im taking a break for 4 day trip to Florida. I was not sure if I can go for it or not. It is in the mid of week. I will miss a lot of work that could have been done in this 4 days.