A new perspective to life!

I look back 5 months from now; I realize how much things in my life have changed. I was a Delhi wala then, now I am a Chennaite. Then, I was a complete atheist. I questioned each and everything. I wanted scientific explanations for everything. Now I know that there are certain things that just can’t be explained. They can just be felt. Then I was a 100% non-vegetarian, now I am 70% non-vegetarian, 25% pure vegetarian, and 5% fruitarian. Explaining that is too complicated. I have now given up on one and half years of hard work on a project, may be because it demanded something from me and my life wanted something else, and I chose my life. Again something too complicated to explain. Of course it was hard, but one great thing out of it is that, now I seem to have a lot of time for myself (readers discretion required on gauging the scale of "a lot"). And I have finally started watching a serial in IIT-M. Its not that I don't like serials. But I don't like serials that do not get over in just a single episode. They sort of either make you too anxious for the next episode or they become too predictive, that you don't really have to see the next episode. Plus they are an addiction. So if you haven't seen them before, don't start figuring them out now! My list of serials were always one episode affairs, and were essentially on travel, food or music. Some of my favourites were Highway on my plates, Musafir hoon yaron, Zayka India ka, Rangoli (I loved Rangoli on DD). Recently, I came across the Dewarists. I saw it and was honestly blown away. This is just the right combination of music and travel. I have seen two episodes of it and its just amazing.

Minds without fear, when it started off with the beautiful Samode Palce, I got reminded of my own memories of the pink city and its beautiful palaces. Vishal-Sekhar, by far are my favourite composers. Love each and every song of their's. Starting right from the likes of Musu Musu Hasi, Bahara, Allah ke Bande to the likes of Cash and Chammak Challo! The song that they made in the episode was superb. I would quote Drew Barrymore here, something she said about music in the movie, Music and Lyrics, and I liked it a lot, that "A melody is like seeing someone for the first time, the physical attraction, the sex! But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics, their story, who they are underneath. Its the combination of the two that makes the magic!". (On a side note, if you didn't really like that, for me, Drew Barrymore's accent is enough to like anything she says.. :P) In this case there was the lyrics of the Minds Without Fear, by Rabindranath Tagore, and the melody of Vishal-Sekhar and Imogene Heap (Didn't know her, but a Grammy to her name, must be someone great!). It had to make magic!

Kya khayal hai, again a great combination of Indo-Pak. If you cut the shit out of the Indo-Pak relationship, its just the same country with two different names. We all have grown up to the same "Mughalon ki kahaniyan" the same Sufi Music, the same Ghazals, the same Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the same Javed Akhtar, the same Hindi Movies, and even the same street food. I know, as I am writing, I am getting reminded of Chawri Bazar, and Chandni Chowk, the Parathe wali gali... I miss Delhi... Among all the four in this episode, I only knew Shantanu Moitra, especially for Parineeta, and the song Bawara Mann. This episode and the song Kya khayal hai, also turned out to be really superb. 

Now what I would really like to see one day would be a fusion of Rajasthani folk songs, Punjabi, Hindustani Classical and any other Indian traditional/folk music, something crudely in the lines of Mile Sur. Of course it's really really difficult, but just may be, one day!

The bottom line is, I have been through a really really tough times in the past five months or so, the most harassing, emotional, and testing times of my life. Thank you for being there with me, you know who you are. Even when you were not, I imagined, you were. I thoroughly regret and repent those two words, and always will. After a few great weeks now, the great Diwali, I find my jovial and funny moods are back. I am happy that I am back!! :) 

The "FUN" "ELEC" Trip

I know! Non Elecites, your first reaction would be, that is nothing but an oxymoron, two contradictory words put together. Long touted to be the most muggu dept. of 2009 batch, the most "RG"ing dept. of 2009 batch and don't know what all adjectives, we proved you absolutely wrong, when we pulled off that awesome trip to Mahabalipuram on 18.09.2011. I do not know what exactly it was, the pain of listening to "com'on people! ultimately whatever you do, you are screwed" or may be the forceful feed of "feel" of things that most of us don't really want to feel, or just wanted to live life with the insane amounts of cash people have got/going to get from interns, or may be just the Zindegi Na Milegi Dobara effect, people thought, we have done enough for the past four years, we really need a break, one spark on facebook, turned into a fire within a week, then partially dozed off and then caught up again just two days before the trip.

 I am sure most of us would not have made it to class if it was on a lovely drizzling Sunday morning, but we all made it to the bus on time, fully prepared for an exciting/adventurous/fun-filled trip ahead of us.Unable to decide what to do in the bus, we shifted from listening to music (starting off with KANK, what an irony!!) to playing dumb charades with movies. The trip was about loads of fun, games, soaking in water, sun and getting dirty alright, but it was also about getting to know each other better. Everyone revealed a side of their personality, unknown to others. And in dumb charades, it was Sidhharth Reddy Maryada (a.k.a Telengana), who revealed his awesome, highly encoded and absolutely undecipherable code language, when he rolled his hands, and we were supposed to understand it as "and". I told you it was highly encoded. We probably had 13 to 14 rounds of it, when we reached Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram), famous for its beaches and beaches alone. Did anyone say for historical monuments and world heritage sites??!!!

  Reaching there, we straight away headed to the beach, walking past the Shore Temple. Once there, we immediately started off with football. The most obvious team division was Odd vs Even roll numbers, cause that's how our dear Dept. has managed to divide and rule over us. The game was great, obviously because we won! And here it was Sohini and the even Meghana, who reveled their immense determination to win, no matter what, with their awesome defending. Shame odd batch.. :P 

  After playing for about 45 minutes, and getting the "feel" of scorching sun, we headed to get the "feel" of water. With strict instructions from my home ministry, I was not to go into the water at all. But then I thought maybe I ll just go, dip my legs for some time and come back. But then I was forgetting with whom I was. Within 10 minutes, I was completely wet. Abraham P Vinod, K. V. Siddharth, K Sreeteja and Rohan Sriram, I ll have my day.. :P. But honestly guys, I really would have missed all that fun if you had not done that. 

  We got wet, we got dirty (with sand!), we got sun burnt, we had loads of fun.

We ensured we were safe by forming small chains and going into water. And here, I must mention Abraham, who lost his glasses, almost blind (-8), (I know how it feels without glasses, with half the power of yours) still managed to enjoy the whole trip, without any issues at all. Hats off Ab.

  After all this, we were obviously hungry, and headed to a restaurant. (I advise pure vegetarians to not read this paragraph.. :P) We were in a sea shore, we had to try out sea food. So we took the menu, saw what all we could eat, and ordered one curry each of fish (not sure but tasted like pamphlet), prawn, and squid. And of course there were the good old non veggie dishes, Biriyani and Chicken with paratha, in case the experiment with sea food turns bad. 

 

^ We the Non Vegetarians!!!! Aaaaannndddd of course the Pure Vegetarians and one day vegetarians_ (Sigh!!!)

  After lunch, a round of chocolates and two to three rounds of ice-cream, we headed to the Tiger Caves. Anticipating real tigers in proper caves, I was disappointed. It turned out to be just rocks, apparently with faces of tigers, to me they looked more like monkeys. But the scenic, cleaner beach here made up for the disappointment. After this, we headed to the Kovalam beach, the so called best kept secret, turned out to be really really crowded and you-know-what Indian beaches are known for. We played dodge ball here and we lost obviously because the time keeper was an odd person.. :P, but it was fun!! 

  Obviously every good things come to an end. At dusk we started off for Chennai. Determined to make the whole trip memorable, we did not leave even a single moment without enjoying. Even when everyone was tired, we still managed to dance and sing in the bus... :)

The trip was in all an awesome experience. The biggest revealation of the trip was probably Jobin's. Anyone seeing him for the first time, would know, he is a very very serious type of person, but that perception completely changed when he showed off the really cool and funky new look, danced and sung!!
I do not know what part of me I revealed, but it was great fun!! "Elec is definitely fun!!... :D"
In the end I would just add, a rephrased version of a famous quote, "Ultimately whoever does whatever to us, the bottom line is, we will........."

The Food Theory!

And my obsession with food continues. In my last post "I am still a child!", I had proposed the "food equation". In this post, I intend to develop the complete "food theory!"

Introduction:

The "food theory" is a desperate attempt of a foodaholic to generalize the amount of food he can eat. It also has a various other applications, as described later in the section "applications".

Theory:

Assuming the ideal case, i.e. appetite is infinite, i.e. there is no natural (inbuilt) resistance to eat the food, the amount of food one can eat will depend on its taste alone (assuming no effect of ambiance, i.e. you would eat the same amount of the same food served along a lakeside with view of the setting sun and the rising moon, as well as alongside a buffalo and a pig in the midst of their holy pool of shit!). So first we need to setup a scale for taste. And its pretty simple. Assume the base level to be that of home food. Taste (T) can vary from -infinity to +infinity, i.e. food at messes in IIT Madras, Chennai, India to food at heaven. By personal experience, followed by stringent data fitting, I have arrived at the following relationship:

f=k*exp(T)+c

where k is a constant of proportionality and c is a constant corresponding to the minimum amount of food you have to eat to survive.

To find out the values of k and c, all you have to do is first come and eat at First/Second floor of Himalaya, IIT Madras, Chennai, India, precise coordinates: 12.9870 Latitude, 440.2632 Longitude. This amount will be the value of c for you, cause T here is -infinity (Note: I also found a new definitiion for infinity ;)). Now forget all the harassment you had to go through at this place, and head for some home made food.
K=(Amount of food you had at home - c). Cause in the defined scale, k_home=0.

Now let's define appetite. Appetite would depend only on time from last meal. Again by practical data, this time do not ask how, its linear. Hence,

A=pt

p is constant of proportionality and t is time. Now this term would represent resistance to food in the food equation. So lets define Antipetite (Resistance to eat food)=1/A.

Therefore the food equation becomes: f=k*exp(T)+c-1/A.

Note that this can go to negative. If it goes negative beyond a particular value, defined as the Vomit Threshold, you will vomit.

Applications:

• You can calculate/predict precisely the amount of food you will eat in your next meal.
• The prediction may even help you decide your menu even before going to a restaurant, if you know T for it.
• You can also predict the time, when you are going to vomit, and save yourself from some humiliation.
• Or even better, you can time/synchronise your vomit to a particular event. Vomiting can work wonders to get you out of something, if executed properly.

Drawbacks:

• Effects of ambiance has been ignored.
• No explanation of what happens to the food after entering into the stomach, known as the "excreation process". I have no intentions of thinking about it. If intrested, please stay away from me.

I am still a child!

Oh I am so childish...I still want everything that a tiny tot would like.
I love pandas and parrots and dogs and rabbits.
    I still search for my rabbit, which went missing 7 yrs back.
I still get angry, when my wishes aren't fulfilled. 
I still don't understand, when I am feeling hungry, and when I am not!
    At any instant of time, the amount of food I can consume is proportional to the
    exponential of its taste, and absolutely independent of appetite, or probably my
    appetite is infinite. Basically my digestive system functions like a non linear two port
    network, more like an ideal op-amp in a negative feedback loop. The infinite gain is
    analogous to my appetite, and the parameter being fed back is the taste of the food
    input to my mouth.
I still haven't been able to please my mother with my handwriting. 
I still have a piggy-bank, and in two years at IIT, I have collected a little over 240 Rs.. \m/. 
I still have all my milk teeth preserved. Probably the reason why I haven't met my tooth fairy yet.
I still have all the pens in which I ever wrote, whatever condition they might be in.
I love preserving my memories.
I love going to zoos and theme parks and museums. 
I still get glued to aquariums wherever I see. 
I still crave for the seat with the "best view", in whichever mode of transport I travel in.
I love anything and everything sweet. 
I love anything and everything colourful. 
I still don't know/understand/get the feeling of hatred.
I still feel guilty swearing at someone. Hence swearing and the so called "bad words" have never been part of my vocabulary
I still watch POGO and Cartoon Network, and almost 100 GB in my hard disk is filled with animation movies. 
I generally eat like a baby dinosaur, and sleep like a hibernating polar bear, and hence "Who let the dogs out" is the worst song ever, cause it wakes me up every morning :X 
I love listening to stories from my grandmother. 
I love arbitrarily stapling stuff. 
I still find the sound of flushing water funny! 
I have a bag which says "I am what I am" and I am what I am, the same old shy little Ankit that I always was.

The most inspiring lecture ever....

The most inspiring words I have ever heard....

 

Damn i just broke my vow, not to put anything external, in here, but this lecture was so amazing and inspiring, that it had to figure out here, in my archive of great memories... :-)

The perfect imperfection

Sometimes in life, bad things happen, but sometimes in life, things start off badly, but end up good!! A similar thing happened with me few days back. The first day at my intern, I was given a pair of gum boots, and an overcoat. I was asked to wear them everyday. But as luck would have it, I had left my overcoat at home one day, and realized it just before reaching the place. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't dare to go tell a Japanese that I wanted to break one of his rules, I couldn't think of going back 72 km to get it from home, daring 9 o'clock Delhi traffic either. So going in was absolutely not possible that day. I was really disappointed on my act of carelessness and irresponsibility. Probably seeing me sad or I don't know what, Bittu bhaiya offered me to show me what he did all day long after leaving me at the place. He promised it would be really great. I didn't had anything better to do either. So I said fine.

He then took me to a place just behind the plant, a small peak of sorts, which had a small temple on it and it could be seen from quite a far away. And when we reached there, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was nothing like I could have ever imagined in a place like Delhi. It was a really beautiful place. A cute little temple shrining the epitome of love of that of Radha and Krishna. Peacocks dancing in their full glory, and peahens admiring them as was I. The cool breeze that could heal any kind of heat due to the summer, and the peace of mind that came absolutely free along with it, felt heavenly. The greenery all around felt like I was back in IIT-M. I had probably done something absolutely right, that I was getting all this instead of the artificial jungle in the plant with inanimate humanoids and an air filled with the smell of grease and sounds of engines revvying around, perfect ingredients to cook you a headache and hence drive you crazy. 

The place was great but with the place also came a realization. A realization as to where we are taking our home, our planet earth to. I found myself facing the ugly truth head on. I was amidst a perfect contrast that our world is facing currently. On one side there was the lovely backdrop of a green terrrain, the seamlessly flowing air, filled with the smell of sand just moistened due to the fresh showers, and incense emanating from the temple. The sounds of birds chirping and the jingling bell echoing around. Peacocks doing their mujra and I seriously do not have any more words to explain the setting. Here are some photographs if they could help me explain:

 

And on the other side there was the booming metropolis, the hustling bustling city life, and all its mallices. I was awefully gazing at the tens of thousands of newly assembled cars that would hit the Indian and European roads within the next 15 days. Then there was the concrete jungle, with no tinge of green seen anywhere around, fire guzzling chimneys and the dark smoke coming out of them adorning the blue sky.

 

 

Is this how we want our future to be? Is this what we want our future generations to inherit from us?? Food for thought!!

Here is a song (the NDTV GREENATHON anthem) a true anthem for the cause.

You can click here for all the photos I took that day. I don't know whether it was the "awesome mausum" or the quaint little place that I saw, I was just in the mood and went on clicking and clicking and clicking.....

Eat Eat Eat

Mothers, they don't need introduction, do they?? Everything about them is just perfect, except probably one aspect. Their mission(s) in life when it comes to their children, which generally are the following: first: eat; second: eat; and third: EAT!!!

  They see you after some days, even if its a week, the first thing that they observe (by default I guess) is how thin you have become. They would prabably say the same, even if you had doubled your size!! They seem to have a myth that the more someone eats (and the more precisely includes the vegetables and fruits you hate the most), the healthier they become. I do not know how one gets to this generalization?!! There has to be some other alternative... and I seriously hate the guy who delivers vegetables to our house... bloddy, is there anything left that cannot be home-delivered??

  And when you complain, either they get into their "emotional atyachaar " mode, at the end of which you just have to shut up and eat whatever they give or to the "extremely innovative" mode!! I do not know how they can be this innovative?? More dry fruits find their way into my Matar Paneer than matar and paneer put together. Apples find their way into my mango shake!! and the killer of it all, Karela find their way into Dalma (a typical oriya mixed veg curry, which never had karela!!). Imagine karela in your mixed veg curry perfectly camouflaged, and you find it out later, geez!!! And this is just the beginning, I do not know Dal aur kitna kala hai?? quite literally....

My Summer Wishlist

MANGOES!!!
Beware all you delicious mangoes, cause Ankit is going to chop you, shake you up, sandwich you, and search all possible ways to gobble you into his stomach....

First and foremost PUT PEACE!!!
   This semester has been a hell of sorts. All of my weekdays in class, well, most of it, Saturdays in labs, and Sundays, Ummm ummm umm I need to refer to the dictionary, does anyone remember what a Sunday is/was??? Well, let me define Peace for myself. As soon as I reach home, my schedule is going to be a simple four step process, wake up at 11, have lunch, go back to sleep, wake up at 6pm, have dinner and sleep by 9, oh that was just two steps wasn't it?? (In case you are thinking, why do I need to wake up for lunch and dinner as well, well, that's one of the core reasons, why I would be in home, besides, my mother won't let me do that, I hope she doesn't know about my eating patterns here in insti...)

MOVIES!!
  This summer is seriously going to be freakin awesome in this regard. Sequels to some of my favourites, and some of the most anticipated movies ever are coming up this summer. Here's my list of musts:

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (May 20th)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (May 26th) (First day show for sure)
      Awesome as expected. The furious five and the dragon warrior save Kung Fu. And I love pandas.. :D 
Ready (June 3rd)
      Hilarious, action, filled with Salman's crazy stuff.
Cars 2 (June 24th)
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (June 24th)
     Teaches you life man! One of the best movies I have ever seen. And I am seriously going to follow it. I am going to forget all my worries, fears and live my life. The thoda kaam, thoda discipline and lots of masti, happy life I used to. After all, Zindegi definitely nahin milegi dobara so what's the point carrying all those worries on your head! Just forget them and say cheers to life.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 1st)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (July 15th)
      A fitting end to the biggest saga of our generation. What more, Harry potter and Ronald Weasley have kids now.
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift (July)

Any other Friday left?? oh yes there are vacancies... help me fill them as well :D
Any more suggestions??

Go Fish
  No seriously. I want to go fishing!!, well, literally, fishing. Fishing used to be my favourite past time at my grandfathers place, back in Orissa (oh no no we are not fishermen by the way, we have a small lake, and it has fishes in them). But its been more than five long years since i have done that last!! This time around, I am determined to stay a bit longer than the usual 2 day trip in the past few years... lets see if I can get this done...

IPL:
  It's the fourth season already and I haven't watched a single live!!! This time at least I hope to watch one..

Now for some serious stuff:

Internship:
   I hope I can make my internship a learning expedition of sorts, and make it a great fun filled experience. I hope to learn the real world applications of all the stuff I have done in theory as yet, and try and innovate something by myself...!!! pretty high hopes... but you never know... This is going to occupy my first 50 days of summer.

Shaastra Circuit Design Challenge (SCDC):
  The very fact that I am the first 3rd year coordinator ever for this event (previous coords were all 4th years, since this event has begun), straight away hangs a sword over my head, to try and maintain its standards, if not better. Its one of the trademark events of Shaastra and the flagship event of Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Shaastra, with cash prize worth 40K!! (I am sorry if I am sounding like publicizing my event already...) Stay put for the problem statements...

Projects:
  The last month of summer, I ll be back here in Chennai, fulfilling my commitments to all my current projects. I hope to do a lot of progress during this interval and step closer to the final goal. True that this means I ll be all alone on my 20th birthday something that has never happened to me before..., but when at profession, personal errands come later.

Heat Index

  The other day, after 6 hours of continuous work on an insane project, I was absolutely drained. I was working in CFI, cursing for the first time that Sunday was a holiday, cause if it weren't, labs in my department would have been open, and I would have been working at 21*C, <10% humid environment instead of 37*C and somewhere around 90% humidity!! After I came back to room, I had a bath, a 500ml of Grapo fizz, and 1L of glucose, and yet was feeling bad, dehydrated, and sort of feverish. This made me wonder, was it really 37*C, cause 37*C on any other day, I could have taken it with pleasure, oh not really but still wouldn't have been this bad, afterall its my body temperature on any normal day. A little googling gave me the answers.

 And the answer is the Heat Index. As I am writing, Chennai's thermometric temperature is 86*F or 30*C but the apparent temperature is 99*F or 37.222*C. So why is it so??!! Here's the answer:

  Our body loses excess heat in three ways — radiation, convection and evaporation. If the blood circulating just beneath the skin is at a higher temperature than the surrounding air, heat is lost through the first two ways. When the outside temperature is higher than the body temperature, evaporation is the body's way of losing heat. We start sweating and the evaporation from the skin keeps us cool. The problem is that the capacity of air to hold water vapour is not finite; it can only hold a particular amount at a particular temperature. The term used to indicate how much of that capacity has been used up is relative humidity — the ratio of vapour contained to the maximum the air can hold, expressed as a percentage. So, the higher the relative humidity, the lower will be the capacity of air to hold any more water vapour. That means evaporation slows down and hence its cooling effect too is slowed down, making us feel hotter.

Fig: A screen shot from Weatther underground. Click on pic to expand.

Courtesy: Google, Times of India & Weather Underground

The force that unifies India

Well, what else can it be, It's Cricket!! Whenever I see the whole India celebrating, on TV, after a huge triumph on field, I get reminded of two particular lines from 'Madhushala';

मंदिर मस्स्जिद बैर कराती 

एक करती मधुशाला 

     How true!! And it very well applies to cricket as well. It sees no religion, no caste, no status, no regionalism... It's all the same for everyone, the emotions, the sudden rush of patriotism, the sense of pride, and of course the warm blood getting warmer. 

     It's really great watching Delhi going to one of those mini Diwali modes, Kolkata getting drowned in the syrup of the sweet Rasogullas, Chennai getting frenzy in one of those Rajnikant styles, and Mumbai well, celebrating with all the Tare Zameen Par. You see images of Bhangra pouring in from Chandigarh, all the folk singers, with their tweaked versions of the ever romantic Rajasthani folk songs, to fit to the occasion, from Jaipur, the actual heros of the nation, enjoying themselves in the most weird fashion ever from Srinagar, or may be even from the most dreaded sectors of Drass, Kargil and Batallic. If the images from the rest of the country are mind boggling, the images from just outside the venue of the game are even more so. You see people dancing in a form called, well I don't know, may be a mixture of Kathak, kuchipudi, and Odissi!! ; with the tricolor proudly clutched in their hands.

    Now that India is in the finals, and playing Sri Lanka today, I just hope that these celebrations continue even after 11 O'Clock tonight. I just hope, I get to see all these, ummm!! get to hear all these through all your pings on to my g-talk. I just hope.........

Go India!!! 1.21 Billion (1,21,01,93,422 to be precise) people will be there cheering for you tonight....