Adarsh's pensieve

Simman

2010-01-06T02:36:00.001-08:00

Testing HTML

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Heartbeat

2009-10-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Dud dud dud Dud.
I'm alive !

Coast to Coast: Across the Plain

2009-07-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

'Trains from Chennai usually leave on time" cautioned Adarsh, though he had turned up late as usual the Suburban station. We were on the last train that could safely take us to the Mangalore express on platform 3. Parktown suburban where the local left us, is across the road to Bangalore. The late-comers Anupam and Adarsh after having enough of the adventure, decided to take the safe subway. Negotiating the twisting barriers and narrow steps they found themselves ahead of the rest of the gang, so much for the five o clock rush in front of Central.

Finding the A2 coach was not some much trouble as getting us to find a place to sit together. We were allotted side berths throughout the coach, was it that computers had finally decided to avenge developers. Not to be outdone, with the TTE on their side the gang won the coup.

It was a game of cards that got them started with the festivities, but soon graduated to 'Thief'. A wonderful mind game, salute the creator. Rounds upon rounds went on brilliantly conducted by Dennis.

Of the four villagers, three theives and an all knowing god, the crafty thieves always won much to the frustration of many time god Gaja. Raja's indecisiveness complicated the already muddy waters drowning the poor villagers. The thieves who knew each other through Dennis' open-eye close-eye ceremony at the beginning of each round managed to weave strategies that no hapless villager could see through. Loud but veiled revelations by the all knowing god were of no avail. This brilliant game mirroring human behaviour kept them engrossed late through the night until exhaustion got to them.

The train left them at Coimbatore from where they went to Udumalpet at the foothills of the great Sahya. Gaja's and Suren's houses played host to the group which had now swelled to twelve, counting Celestian who had arrived by the Thiruvandooram express. Morning under the cool shadow of the Annamalai hills was made tasty by the endless plates of paniyaram that came of Suren's kitchen. Adarsh made a point not to miss any set, not out of obligation, but the novelty of home-made paniyaram !

With idlis and chappatis the 12 primates set out to monkey falls across the windswept plains of Udumalpet under the watch of tall windmills.

Getting a new PC

2009-03-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

Rewind to 21 Oct 08:

My old PC, now three years old had begun to show signs of age. It worked fine for most things that people do. It did have some trouble with Windows. Some drivers not available for the antique motherboard I had purchased second hand!. Thats another part of the story. It produced a very shaky screen. Poor old processor made software rendering on Linux a lil bit slow but workable.

Then in happened, a power surge burnt out our tubelights, mobile and laptop chargers and anything that happened to be connected to the power supply. This included my old PC. I decided that patching it up will bring more trouble than needed, so better get a new one.

Thats when indecision got hold of me. A bad one that even one month later I could not decide what I wanted. A month was to pass and no comp.

One night my roommates decided end this, which by my opinion was the worst time to go, night was falling, which meant the shops were closing and thunder was rumbling in the background. I tried to pull back, my mind would not let me go, for I had not decided. It was just that we had set out and Sooraj wanted us not to step back that we decided on this crazy project.

We rode Mount Road in the drizzle to Richie Street. Most shops were closing, we did not know where to head, with just the name of one of the shops. The rain had become harder and puddles had started forming. Three shops later we could not find 'Supreme' in the messy street and crosses, until by chance we spotted it.

It was crowded and we managed to get the order, I was relieved to find that there were few options which I had to choose (Remember I did not what I wanted). Agreed on a spec and rushed to the assembling area to supervise what was to be the last and most tiresome putting together of the day. The workers were tired and the customer touchy.

It did finally boot up, and was about to face its first test as we brought it down, rain. It had become a full downpour by the time we reached the doors of the shop. All they could find for us was a black cover two inches smaller in width than the comp case. It could be fit by any hook or crook. The rain was growing angrier now, more noise and heavier drops battered our shaky minds. I cursed the times we made the impulsive decision.

It was decided that we go ahead come what may for no autos were to be found. A small sheet of back plastic covered the top of the comp case, everything else was bare. I sat pillion the bike, tore the cover accidentally as I tried to fit it better. There I had a irregular piece of plastic and big rectangular box to cover in the driving rain.

The box was placed between Mirshad, the rider and me. A part of the plastic sheet covered the top held in place by my jaw, the front facing the direction of travel part by Mirshad's back and rest by the flapping piece I held by my outstreched and frequently numb hand. The two sides of the box was bare cardboard. The bottom and back face was afforded whatever protection that my body could give.

Thanks to the gods, the box arrived in Perungudi 15km away dry except for a patch where my jaw had slipped when I tried to talk.

For all the ordinariness in the story, it was deep satisfaction of doing things that I would not have done under those circumstances.

How I spolied my day

2008-09-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday rose well ahead me as always. It was a nice beautiful day, just that a lazy and procrastinating me did more of those.

I wanted to go out today, but was too lazy to tell everyone at home, an attitude that has caused a lot of troubles. It all came to a head when I could not muster enough courage to play cricket again. This time there were a lot more players at the park nearby.

I grew morose and listless. Added another failure in the list of things that I wanted to do, could do, but didn't.

A journey down troubleslane.

2008-08-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

I felt hungry late into the night of Independence day. Too late for good food, all I could get was a veg burger in a shop that was closing for the day. Maybe it was time I started believing the Butterfly effect.

I had forgotten that fifteenth is a Friday and a holiday, forfeiting independence from misery! Deciding to go home, just a week before 'independence' is bad idea as everyone would say. No tickets. Fortunately the four o clock super-fast had space to spare, so did an unusual midnight train for the journey back.

Unexpected showers in Chennai had brought its share of disease, which I had fallen victim, and I didn't know about it, until things turned ugly.

In spite of repeated attempts by the colony folks to call us for the flag hoisting, I slept through to midday. Then had a quick bath and went on to have fried rice for lunch halfway through to the MRTS station. Darkening skies made me go back home to fetch an umbrella against the wishes of Mirshad who was driving me to the station.

He was right, a train had appeared on the tracks about a kilometre away. I could still make it. I ran to the counter, only to find a large Hindi speaking group trying to get tickets from an attendant who spoke only Tamil. My instincts told me to run to the platform, but I wanted a 'ticket', more for righteousness than the unseen ticket checker! In the midst of the confusion outside and the conflict inside the train slipped away. It was 3.00pm.

Reassuringly, according to the timetable there is another train at 3.15 for my 20 min trip to Central. Until at 3.10 I realised, much to my misery that the new electronic board says 3.25. I decided that a train is still my best option. The train arrived promptly at 3.30. The sky as well my belly rumbled as I chalked out strategies to use 10 minutes I would get after getting off to walk 250m to Central, find the train and get on to it.

Swaying and shaking of the train had started rumblings deep inside me, which quickened as we pulled into Park Town. My plan started ticking. Run. I ran through the crowd, up the stairs down the road. My heart missed a beat as felt wetness in my pants. In the confusion I missed the turn to the subway, scrambled for it and got to the other side. I ran again.

Only to be stopped by an array of policemen. They checked my bag and found my laptop. 3.57. "Sir, laptops are not allowed on trains today, its an emergency." The clock, the spreading blot on my backside and more rumbling from within, I was cursing myself, and the moment I decided to take it. 3.58. I was sent off the supervisor, who wanted a company ID. Unfortunately my company does not identify itself on employee id cards, the PAN card did not help, the supervisor was suspicious and walked away for further consultation. I lot hope. 3.59. 'You can go'. I ran.

I ran to the display, it said platform One. The one farthest from where I was. Praises to thee and numerous references to 'the blot' escaped my lips. I had gotten so far, to miss now would be a terrible misfortune. The green flag was waving and the train starting as I rushed onto platform one. More praises to thee as I got to the last steps of the last compartment at last.

The journey was uncomfortable and hungry as train food scared me further, that I decided to have nothing but a pack of biscuits. People stared at a sweaty and panting holding onto his pants. Getting to change in a railway restroom, with each sway of the train sending water splashing all around was a nightmare well forgotten. Sleep was hard to come, I tried to sleep as I had to wake up at 3am. Loud belching of an awakened volcano continued through the night snatching away precious sleep for a tired body and a humiliated soul.

The alarm ran at 2, I was just a hundred kilometres away. More rumbling both from within and without as the train ground to a halt and my belly started running. Alarmed i stared out of the windows for any movement. I don't know if the train was sympathetic, it moved. I was ecstatic. The joy was short lived. It stopped again. This cycle of hope and despair continued three more times. At last the sleep Town station chugged into view. I ran again, mentally asked father to step up on the gas. I didn't feel bad enough to tell him then.

Reached home, had a tired afternoon until I decided to travel down to the city. It was in the car that it dawned on me that I had booked returns tickets for the very day I arrived. Five minutes after midnight on 17 Aug is on the night of 16 Aug, I got stares questioning my sanity from everyone in the car. I was in no position to travel.

A long weekend along with the Malayalam new year had ensured that trains were full until well into the week. Tatkal waiting lists smiled back with two digits while the normal ones frowned with three. I decided to fly back two days later.

A polite call a day later told me that the flight would leave 2.5 hours behind schedule. I was happy as I didn't have to wake up too early for this. Arriving at the airport broke my heart with three consecutive 10 minute delays. Midday on Tuesday I land back in a cool and cloudy Chennai.

In the spirit of revolt I decide to give autorikshaws a slip. I want to see if I can get to office without 'touching' and autorikshaw. I rush past the 'greedy' eyes triumphantly down the subway to Tirusulam station. I'm not sure how my dishevelled appearance and unsteady gait contributed to this triumph.

The triumph started turning sour as the 11.56 train failed to arrive at 12.15, and when it did at 12.25 it was bursting at the seams. Blame my luck I stood right before the first class compartment with a second class ticket. Thankfully I ran to the door, to be pushed barely inside the door by the 'door hangers'. With luggage in hand it was a memorable trip to Guindy. The bus to Madhya Kailash was uneventful but an MRTS train left Kasturibai nagar as I got down the bus.

Share autos were an option, but against my no auto stategy. I didn't want to break it for the last leg. I waited half an hour to catch a train that took me 4km down the IT highway ! Interesting what people do for their convictions, rather how foolish can men be. Meanwhile the Chennai sun had turned hot and mean, I walked from Thiruvanmiyur to Ascendas, weary and tired to start a whole new week at office.

Infinity of infinities.

2008-06-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

I can't help but wonder about the powers of human reasoning, limits that seem to be present on it and most of all by our inability to understand the very process.

When I was in school, the teacher taught us numbers from 1 to 10. We went from 20 to 50 and then to 100. I thought all the numbers have ended. All i needed to know about numbers was known! I could count, recite the whole list, write them. How happy I was and how wrong.

Addition caused a lot of problems, there were two carry overs in 87 + 34, too much trouble. The possibility of numbers with large number of digits seemed absurd. After all who would bother keeping track of them when the teacher asked you to add two of them.

Subtraction in class two, thankfully could be performed only from a larger number. Unfortunately numbers could be added and added, a whole new symbol of infinity appeared. I was perplexed. Why do we talk of numbers we cannot express. People have gone crazy. Then there was negative infinity and the square root of negative one - things that valiantly fought and held fort against my 'heroic' efforts to map them to real world objects.

Fractions were another set of troubles, adding them required you to have a common denominator. I wondered who came up with such complex rules. Mutiplying fractions was much easier, the product table could be put to good use here. In a next few years I learnt calculus, you can only approach a limit, but never reach it. An infinite number of points lay between you and the dreadful limit that the question paper asked. Only a leap of the mind to a theorem that summed the infinite set could make the professor happy.

All these years I have wondered, why we built infinity on infinity sought out to explain very abstract things as numbers. After all numbers don't have any connection to the physical world unless your mind makes one. Yet we struggle to understand the infinity of natural numbers, the infinity of reals that lay in between them and the same amount of numbers stretching away with the elusive i as a companion.

We have discovered rules to generate a number from the previous, one in between two others at all times. Yet every number is special, there is inly one pi and that occurs between the symbols 2 and 3 in our regular notation. Only a few sets simple restrictions like the pythogaras theorem. Some there are an infinite, some there are a few.

I still wonder, whether I an still the class 1 student who thought all mathematics was over when he could count upto hundred.

Cricket at last

2008-06-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

I'm happy at last, I felt that I played cricket properly after a long time. Given the fact that I had tried to play cricket on few occasions I look upon this as a memorable moment in my life. To set your thought to the right perspective, I don't know how to play cricket. Making such a statement in cricket crazy Chennai would be suicidal, but I do be believe in the goodness of men.

Today a lazy Sunday, I had done nothing. Just slept the day off. After a refreshing tea at Perungudi, Sooraj and I went to the park next door. I took a pair of badminton racquets and few worn out shuttle cocks, with the intent of getting a very reluctant Sooraj to play a game. However cricket lovers had conquered the badminton court and we ended up watching a slowing game. The ball kept going over the wall too many times, a sudden thought of the door left unlocked got us back home. A triumphant Sooraj and a dejected me.

I desperately wanted to do something, he at last agreed to teach me Cricket. Maybe my persistence paid of, or he felt ashamed of a guy not knowing cricket; whatever it was we got to a cricket learning session in our front courtyard.

He agreed to let me bat, but had to come back to me after the first ball. I didn't know how to hold the bat! A lot of demonstrations on how to hold the bat as you pick it from the ground and moving your arms keeping the wrists and elbows fixed, I was at the crease facing the first ball, after a good session on cricket theory. I missed. The ball managed to get back to make contact after a few attempts and was soon get driven straight back to him. I was ecstatic, never have I managed to do as much as touch the ball so many times in a single session. Foot work and sweeps followed by batting demos went on until a rogue ball and a rookie bat sent the ball to depths of the swirling drain, ending my lesson.

My my most humiliating encounter was when I was bowled out by a young lady during our office match in Bangalore. I hope my lesson had taken place before that unfortunate encounter.

Detachment

2006-11-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

The moral of the story is whatever the long nose says close your eyes and flash a thin smile.

Reserved Writing.

2006-06-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

This post would deal with the amount of reservation and the means of implemention. As I had said earlier providing a helping hand to a significant portion of the population in the form of allocation of a certain part of the common pie to them is not a certain death of quality of education.

However the means of the implementation have to be devised in such a manner that the existing system is able to adjust in a positive manner for the good of all. This brings us to the issue of the amount of reservation. I believe it should be based on the following ideas.
1) The number should be based on a broad idea of a community, which should necessarily have caste and regional diversity, the current idea of OBC is good.
2) It should not be in direct proportion of population of the community.
3) The numbers should ensure representation, without bringing in a sense of complacency.

The basic thread among the above ideas are to provide a healthy atmosphere and enpower weaker sections in a dignified manner, rather than doling out extravagant quotas. The first point is to prevent the fragmentation of the quota with many castes figting over it. Smaller and specific quotas are difficult to implement as well as ill suited to large diversity that is present in the deprived communities. The second and third points are related. The system should provide a motivation for the community to move towards the ideal statistical distribution based on population, rather than providing it through means like quotas.

Talking of implementation,
1) A staggered implementation over few years is required.
2) The list of deprived communities should be dynamic and require movement outside the list, based on well defined criteria.
3) Increase in number of seats should follow the realities of each institute and quota implementation should be independent of seat increases.

Staggering of the implementation is suggested so that the academic community is able to deal with the change in demographic profile. A sudden change can sow seeds of mistrust and suspicion which would take a far larger time to go away. It would also make the benefitting community ready to send spirited students in numbers that are required.

A long term problem is the monopolisation of the advantages by sections within the deprived community. Sufficiently advanced communites (judged on number of students admitted) should be required to be removed from the the list.

The macro problem that we are dealing here is the shortage of good educational facilities and their equitable distribution. A long term solution would be the improvement of higher education facilities and reducing extra hype over certain institutions.

This table is reserved Sir.

2006-05-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Reservations have become a very emotional issue among students and the population in general. However the whole matter now has turned into a black and white affair, of whether we need reservations and such. I would like to look into this standoff in shades of grey.

Reservations were mooted to provide an equality of opportunities to disadvantaged section of the national population. In a large country like our which had a huge machinery of inequities to keep people under control for a very long time, it is only natural that sections of the population go beyond the edge of society. We have a very interesting situation where an extremely large section amounting to a majority of the population being disadvantaged by this criteria. Distinctions can be made in terms of social and economic status.

Though it is not necessary that social and economic backwardness go together, they are usually found together. This leads us to believe that these two factors form a vicious circle which further compounds the inequities. In order to break the circle, strong and sustained measures need to be taken.

I believe that reservation is indeed a way to achieve this goal, though it might not be the only way. It does indeed have many short comings. However it does provide a good means of balancing the inequity. It has served us in the last 50 years, not without a fair amount of success - there are quite many families that have reached good economic and better social status solely because of this policy. Reservation is thus important in the absence of a better alternative.

What is a good reservation mechanism? In my view, it is one which identifies the best talent in the deprived communities which would have normally removed, and raise the hopes of those communities to work harder for a better statistical distribution. A better statistical distribution is one in which the average community representation roughly matches the demographic distribution. In more practical terms it should also be able to provide a healthy idea of society to students.

This brings to us the notions of amount of reservation and identitifcation of deprived people, which I would deal in the next post.

The eluding definition of God

2006-05-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

In the previous post I had shared my opinions on futility of assigning attibutes to the phenomenon that we call God. However it is extremely unclear what this phenomenon is. I would like to share another negative feature, that the experience of God cannot be shared!

We all take pride in our abilities to reason, to argue out arguments, theorems lemmas and even the right to walk in the middle of the road. But arguments need to rest on a fundamental bedrock, which is usually the definition of the problem agreed upon by the arguing parties, if they are clever enough. Which is sadly not the case in many arguments. There must be always a certain amount of belief to even start an argument.

Consider the case of a formal proof, we would require a certain set of axioms/conditions that are necessary for the proof to be valid. These axiom sets are indeed different for different theorems, however we cannot do away without them. So axioms are a fundamental and basic necisity of any formal proof.

In case of passing knowledge to another person, we invariably need to believe in the meaning of words and usages and the fact that that the other person is able to understand what we intend to say at some level.

We can thus conclude that an axiom/belief is required to reason and a shared belief is required for communication.

The edifice of modern science is built upon these very foundations reasoning and repeatability of experiements. We thus have to believe that axioms are the essence of our understanding of the physical word, the rest is just built upon it. As Godel showed, we cannot have a complex enough system to completely explain the natural numbers and yet be without contraditions.

Therefore the we may define the phenomenon of God as a collections of axioms or beliefs. These sets differ for different people and different situations, thus God is indeed not one.

The non-commuicabilty of this particular phenomenon is what gives rise to the personal God, for the God is the sum-total of all your beliefs. Every person has their own beliefs, which many are shaped by unique experiences some shared. Only the shared part which I believe is small is capable of being communicated. The rest shall remain in you and die with you.

So the concept cannot be argued upon since we have agreed upon no axioms! We cannot expect ourseleves to communicate these beliefs, making any argument on God, including this superfluous.

Oh Lord, give me understanding.

2006-03-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

Why you cant say that God exists.

Its a rather interesting question of God, of relegions of theists and atheists, of which many a man has spent his much of his neural power. Can it be that this riddle that has perplexed humankind for centuries remain forever unsolved. That would sound quite wierd though - that indeed no satisfactory solution may be in sight.

It all started out as a benign discussion on the possibility of writing truly parallel code that it came to truly identifying God. These are thoughts of a different kind I thought I should share.

I believe it is resonable to assume that every man should be allowed to hold his opinion. That would mean that he should also be allowed to believe in his own God. The attributes, form, power, benovelence, knowledge that man may assign to God may be numerous and unrestricted.

That would mean that for every single attribute that I assign to God, there can exist a person, who can assign an opposing attribute to God. The number of God(s) may also be considered an attribute, so does existence.

We can therefore conclude that either the expression of godly attributes is always incompletely captured by human language, or that even thought is always incomplete. That we may be forever doomed to pondering this question, unable to convey any understanding that we come across in this matter to fellow humans. All we try will always describe a part that will be incoherent with others.

From all that I have said, it could also mean that whatever I say may not be truly what I fell for I am incapable of expressing it.

2006-01-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

What is in a font?

Fonts are just those little pictures that appear on the screen to aid the computer show you what it has in graphical form. So that is a font. Maybe a little more, a lot of fonts exist, right from the plain and straight to curves and blobs. I started noticing serifed and sans fonts, but that was as far as my classification would go.The people who made fonts where people who would draw a few glyphs as they please and index them by their character ids.

I got a whole new perspective when i had a chat with one my friends Anand doing a course in design. I never knew that making a font involved lot of careful design. Fonts or rather typefaces differ on the intended use in the text as well asthe mode of display.

Calligraphy was an art that i would relate to days of copywriting by hand, a good hand always got the first look indeed. The carry over of this aestheic sense though the varieties of printing press from Gutenberg to photo-offsets and computer monitors.

Serifs look great on printed text, with lots of matter. The serif has evolved from printing, when it required ink to seep into corners. The serif may also have prevented uncut edges from appearing by trapping dust. The origins have been claimed to be difficulties in making right angles with a chisel, leaving a notch. The serif is easier for the eye, providing a line of flow of text. The modern innovations being the larger and larger contrasts between thin and thicker lines.

Sans found to be traditionally not pleasing to the eye, has its way on the web, where the low resolution of computer monitors makes it easier to display them. More commonly used on shorter text like headlines in print, they are known for cleanliness! Sans also comes in many forms - humanist is most aestheic while mathematicians would love the simplicity of geometric shapes.

There is much more to reading a book and for that matter this page than a lonely author writing away. The font is the face of writing that conveys that affects reading in subtle ways.

Fonts are indeed the petals of the beautiful flower of calligraphy. Any tribute to typhgraphers who brought this page to you as countless others, would always fall short.

2005-11-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hope

Days of hope are here at last, the work of a semester seems to have sped past. Yet i'm here again at a post semester void, not quite a void yet; there are things to do. Sometimes the feeling that better times are yet to come will bolster more vigour. This is what seems to have taken place today.

The lull in blogging, could have no other explanation. It had tied me down to a think deep, but a whole lot less wide. I ended up having nothing to write down. The world around seemed to be a movie with less things to concern myself with, i had become a lesser human being. Looking back, it does seem to bring a lot of hope, first i was able to think this up and the mind feels a lot more free.

Things that changed were a bad quiz at the end of a sem, with a wonderful musical birthday to be a part of. Dhananjay soothed my grey-cells into contemplation with renderings that sometimes send a tingle up ur spine. It did jump start my sleeping right.

The chill of winter being partially offset by my new comp, which manages to keep my room warm and cosy. It somehow reminds that side-effects are not that bad at all.

May order arise from chaos,
May blur give way to clarity,
May hope spring from despair.

2005-09-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

Order

Order , order , this has been the catch phrase of judges in bollywood movies and many a sattire. Pondering on order can lead to the murky depths of logic. It has been that I did have to ponder since my seminar is to be on the orderings that allow equations to be solved by computers.

Leaving that aside it did make me think that orders are in fact a basis of our understanding.Orders are everywhere we say up-down , more-less , higher-lower and even good-bad. All these define some kind of order that we choose to belive. The basic order we tend to believe are the existence and non existence. It is generally belived that its better when something is there rather than when it is not there. Another area where orders dominate are counting , this fundamental ordering has an important place in modern life. Life without these would have been impossible to think about.

There are uncountable orders of measurement also , without which we would be very poor without. The process of reasoning about the world , what scientists do today are very strongly based on mathematics which takes order very seriously. Orders seem to be present in all walks of human endeavour.

If we belive that existence and non-existence does in fact constitute an order , we can almost define an order on anything that can be represented - digitally - thats too less to ask for in an order. This blog would have made dozens of comparisons which mean that I'm doing an ordering somewhere.

Orders are present everywhere and only their identification and understanding is required.It would be a rather sweeping statement to make , but seems to be true. Making sense of the percieved order around us is infact knowing the world around us.

Orders orders everywhere,
Above this line
and below the bridge
bigger than that
and smaller than this.
Wherever I look,
Orders orders eveywhere.

2005-08-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

River Linking

There has been a lot of discussion on the advantages of linking rivers , and plans of thousands of crores to make this dream come true. I believe that this idea seems to be flawed.Though it may seem interesting at first sight and may gives hopes of better distribution of water over flooded and parched regions, it has hidden within it big unknowns that may sink whatever good that we may perceive to come out of it.

One of the problems is the building of large dams , that threaten to destroy a large amount of forests and displace many a tribal. Not only are we short of forests, which we can ill afford to loose, large dams result in breaking the flow of the river causing irreversible damage to the river ecosystem. The history of dam rehabilitaion in India has been only been dismal with poor and weak people being shifted to lands that are much worse than what they lived on - often without basic facilities , even of a rural habitation.

The second problem is that inter-basin transfer involves in every case an inter-state transfer which is a potential bottleneck, causing large problems during the working of the project. Demand for water is bound to grow and surpluses may not remain, which cause more political friction and delays.

The third and most serious argument is that changing the pattern of river flows can highly destabilising, river course changes , bank collapeses , damage to rich ecosystems at the river mouth and larger host of related problems. The basic problem is that this project involves shifting a large amount of water from one basin to another.This causes a deficit in the water volume in the source basin, which may disrupt the natural cycles in the river.

The premise that floods are bad , is qualified , that floods are bad for urban settlements. Floods are a natural cleansing action of a river , action that deposit silt - increase fertility of agricultural plains and bring nutrients from the moutains to the deltas. It is only when humans have inhabited and monopolised river banks that floods assume their terrible form. By seeking to deprive a river of floods we are trying to remove a part of the river. The consequences of this are hard to find , but can come in unimaginable forms. We cannot afford to kill our rivers , for most of India revolves around rivers .

Save our rivers.

2005-08-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Independence Day Thoughts

Today or rather yesterday was the 59th Independence day of India. India has grown and matured and is well past middle age , she has made many big leaps and floundered on small ditches that are still sadly most of what a typical Indian motorist sees today.

We need to keep going ,and fast too. In the lazy pace of the yesteryears aerodynamics mattered little, now that we wish to go faster even scratches on the paint can slow you down.Its time to look into development that helps the average Indian lead a good life and become a great Indian, rather than leaving him to hopeless despair. We need plans that bring hope back to people , build their confidence and hold their hands to build a greater nation and a greater world.

Grandoise plans to link rivers are not a one size fits all solution, rather we need to have regions come up with plans for themselves - for they know their land and its moods well. What is built should be sustainable , and this necissitates projects that come with the participation of people whose life it seeks to improve and affect too. A large number of small projects whether for irriagtion , power , roads etc are are much better than a small number of large projects. It is not to say that we do not need large projects , but they should be built only when they are found to be required in the strict sense.We need to develop closed loop , feedback systems in administration that can cater to the rhythm of life rather than disrupting it.

India is growing at paces that were unthinkable years ago, but that is in the economic sense - other sectors are not coping up. This unhealthy situation can lead to problems with the social fabric which can create problems later. We need to still tackle abject poverty and despair moreover in the heart of many Indians. Only well thought out policy initiatives by the governments can bring any respite here and now is the time to act - for we have suffcient funds and social hydras have not begun to raise their heads.

It does seem that our engines have suffcient power to make more 'speed', but will the old suspension and steering mechanisms keep us out of danger ?

2005-07-31T06:17:00.000-07:00

Mumbai deluge

It was an unusual tuesday.I had my best clothes on . It was raining heavily - and to the people around it seemed normal. I did ask a few people does it rain so hard in Mumbai. Most people replied in the affirmative, so i in all the non-chalence went to the computer lab. Here u are insulated from the vagaries of the weather. Water had started to fill up on the walkways as the drains had begun overflowing.It was a just a heavy rain.

The real power of the rain flew in my face only at about 8:30 when I decided to end my cyber-adventures. Water had entered the coridoor leading to the lab. I started walking back to the hostel. Workers were trying to prevent water from entering the library , mind u its at a high level and the sheer force of water was forcing it up the walkway into the entrance. As I made my way down in the incessant rain - the roads were full. Walking was getting dangerous - luckily i got hold of a buddy amd we made our way thru the roaring road.

As we neared the hostel , the water was unsually rapid.The grounds had overflowed and water was going over the roads. I had a feeling that hostels would be saved - we had the lake nearby and its can be relied upon to keep its level. But the hopes were dashed people were wading in knee deep water. The hostel lounge had become a big dirty pool. My heart sunk - i knew that with so much water and a lot cot that i had i was sure to have a drenched bed. I was so sure that i decided not to try to save it. I went to the mess.

The mess was in a mess , but luckilly they had made us food unlike other flooded hostels. As i was having food the power was switched off. Dark in the flood is terrible feeling. Mobile phones with torch lights came to the rescue and i was able to get out of the mess. I was still a bit afraid to go to my room. I went to the porch to find no one and a survey of the people i knew turned up negative. So all alone in the muck (alone in the crowd) i decided to rtry my luck with checking my room . I navigated by stray lights on the street (the street lights were'nt somehow affected. and feeling the walls. Found my room with the plywood in the cot detached and floating with my bed on it. Found a torch , i made my way back to the porch. This time i made a quite a lot of friends as people wanted the use of my torch. The next few hours were spent assessing the damage in other rooms. Computers on the floor were in a nasty condtion so were boxes and bags. Luckilly i had thought those of mine to be an eyesore and put them up safely on a high shelf.

No power , a lot of mumbaiya mosquitoes - they have a different kindof sting. It would't alloew our group to sleep. We had thought of going to other hostels, but had dropped it as dangerous in the flood. The water had begun to recede and the rain to stop. We were refugees in the hostel 5.

Dawn broke - i returned to my room to find it filled with slush ankle deep. Cleaning it is another story.

This was just about a thousand times less tham what Mumbai suffered. Not only did they have water in their room - no power , no water even to drink , toilets that did'nt work . It was hell to most of others. Thank God that it was just small demonstration of Nature's powers here at the IIT.

2005-07-24T03:16:00.000-07:00

The way on the Konkan

Travelouges are not ending yet , i'm still teavelling. This time up north along the pristine railroad up the Konkan. I was on the Netravathi express starting at 14 hours .The beginning is uneventful as in it was still passing through the familiar sights of Kerala. The deep rivers near the end of theirs as i was to begin mine , sense of apprehension of new things that is always there seemed to get over me , we crossed the Periyar deep and swift turned into the hinterlands to Shoranur.

Here was our tryst with the Nila the beloved of the poets and the cradle of many a Malayalam poem. The river though in middle of July had not yet filled up to the brim. I must mention that the lean season is a real sad sight with un-connected streams and wells in the river bed. Things were good , the full Bharatapuzha seemed to mirror my heart full with dreams and wishes. Twilight had a strange effect on the water as the train moved along kissing the river. Darkness had fallen as we neared Kadalundi , a train had jumped off tracks here, it did send shivers down my spine, as we are to travel the whole length the Konkan rail - so dangerous in the rains.

The day went down as i made my bed amidst the clattering of the train.

2005-07-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Third Day

The third day was mostly spent in the College, we set out around 3 in the afternoon , it was racing against the night and the harthal.There had been rumours that an all India harthal had been called for the next day.It was against the oil price hike that had taken place.The funny part was that there was a harthal for the very same matter a few days ago in Kerala.But no one there had any inkling of what was happening or even the call.But we cud'nt afford to be stranded for a whole day in the middle of somewhere.

So the race had begun, we wanted to get out of Tamil Nadu by 12 which was supposedly the time where it should begin.Palani was reached in no time and it had only started to get dark.We refilled the car and our stomachs on the way to Pollachi.Dark in TN is dark indeed,even the vehicles are dark indeed.None of the lorries we met in so great numbers along the road had any tail lights.Driving into the back of a lorry was the best or rather the worst was of knowing it was there.Thankfully we never had to do that.The derserted roads were some consolation.

We were within the "Kerala sphere of reach" and very upbeat, the only problem was that the road we took when we came here was in too bad condition to force us to take it again,moreover we would have wanted a better approach to Palghat. So we took the direct route to Palghat ,it was a great road except that we lost about an hour at a railway cross due to an overzealous bus trying to get through the small crossing along with two other vehicles.The signs of the hartal were showing up ,as trucks began to thin out and eventually disappeared.It was much easier to driver and more nervous too.A drizzle had started already itching our frayed nerves.It was like driving through ghost towns - not a soul in sight.Our speed was broken occasionally by few invisible gutters on the road that had lay hidden in the water of the rain which had now grown stronger.As we neared Palghat the rain stopped leaving us wondering wheteher rains occured only in tamil country.A heave of relief and entry into kerala, but no sign of a good settlement.

We had a break 25 km from Palghat and learnt that the harthal had been dwongraded to a lorry and bus harthal.It had struck 10 and we were wavering on whether to spend the night there or press on.Though we did enquire into a hotel - the rates forced us to seek refuge at home 115 km away.It was here the fun started.

Nature decided to remind us that it does rain in Kerala , that too the hard way.It began to rain real hard, the roads began to get flooded and visibility was going down ,the only way to know a vehicle now seemed to be it bright headlights.It rained so hard that the shoulders (the sides of the carriage way) had been washed away and any hard left turns could end up in big messes.

A new phenomenon had begun to cause us trouble - trucks in huge numbers lying on the road sides had begun to stir as on disturbance from an invisible hand.They took to roads in convoys kilometres long - slowing the whole highway down. Not only were they slow they were too hard to overtake in the rain, a good stage for frustration.One convoy led to the other as news spread that the strike had indeed been called off.There was no respite untill the Kuthiran where the trucks slowed down too much and let us pass easily.

Sleep was beginning to get us after the tiring 3 days of driving and the shops showed no sign for satisfying an urge for a tea.We drove on to Angamally the 4 lane point and soon to Kochi to reach home by 1.30 in the night. The end of a 831 of road ,the first on our Maruti Omni at a stretch.

2005-07-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

Next day

The next day we had the darshan of Sri Subramanian and took a ropeway down the hill. The off-season did remove the long queues and we even had time for a double darshan.Later in the day we set out towards Madurai.

I must say i love the roads in Tamil-Nadu , they are not like the ones you will find in Kerala - surrounded on both sides by human settlements .They are straight to a degree and cut thru vast open terrain. The Western Ghats make a wonderful scene all along the NH-209. Majestic mountains capped by peaks clothed in dark clouds emptying their contents on the green forests on the other side.

It seems the people here are used to the clouds cheating them, Any kerlalite wid expect a good shower from the dark masses u see in the sky but wud'nt rain a drop.No wonder people live around sources of water .The next things that really caught my attention were the windmills. Its very windly down there with winds catching out car. No wonder they put these huge posts to catch the wind. They are few score metres tall with a single blade of the rotor fitting a big trailer truck. U can imagine the sizes now ? Its not one or two rather hundreds dot the flat hilly landscape. Then we caught a glimpse of the college which my sister is to join and later took a turn south on the NH-7 towards Madurai.It did'nt even seem that this road would be part of the important North-South corridor. A road thru the same kinndof land but without the comfort of roadsigns that lead our way on the 209.

It was a happening city - the ancient capital of the Pandyas.The 16 acre 16 storey Madurai Meenakshi Temple left us spell bound on what could be accomplished in stone.The size and beauty of each pillar and slab that adorns temple are beyond description.So are the shrines of Meenakshi and Sunderaswar.

One thing i remember well was tat we locked ourselves out of the car at Thirupurakundram. All efforts to slide the glass and open the lock were failures.Untill a clever guy in crowd got a piece of hard wire that he managed to prise in between the now slightly open window. The best thing was that he twisted the key out of ignition. That was a real help without which we could have been stranded in the middle of Tamil country without any Tamil on our lips - a very unenviable position.

The rest of the day was uneventful and we proceed to the rest house of the college to spend our night.

2005-07-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

Driving

I had always hated to drive around untill last week. I had gone on a long trip (by my standards) to the heart of tamil nadu. It was a 800 km round spread over 3 days.It really got to me to start liking to drive around , feel the pulse of the car as it goes thru a novel experience.

The trip upto Thrissur was uneventful , just the plain old road with rains in between , things got interesting with the 'kuthiran' a difficult hill crossing on the highway. It must have been routine for the rest of the folks but to pass thru the mist did change something in me. Rains that pattered heavily had reduced to showers and drizzles as we moved towards the plains of Tamil Nadu.We did have a glimpse of the Coca Cola factory in Plachimada a reminder of a similar transition in the lives of people in Perumatty. Tamil boards started to appear and we officially crossed into Tamil Nadu thru a broken down checkpost at Meenakshipuram.

The next point on the route was to be Pollachi - a realtively wet place indeed as we go to know. It did look almost like the other side of the lofty Western Ghats which always loomed in the background. It seems that the palms which on the other side had failed to bear a few fruits are here weighing down heavily with them .Vast tracts of light green signified rice growing .Food for the Malayalees now has to come from outside the state - for they have grown too lazy to produce it themselves.The rain still drizzlled and churned the chocolate under the tyres. The road has been removed to lay new one ! The delicious paste stuck to our horns making them blare hoarsely and shorted wires that lay exposed under the vehicle. It beats a hurdle race to drive without a horn in Pollachi.

Our destination for the day was Palani a good hour's drive away.The landscape had dropped to the standard tamilian plain though the mighty ghats were visible to our right.The vegeation had dropped to bushes and people got to be scarce things to be seen . The roads grew better , smoother and faster as night fell. It was earlier than usual for us on the west coast. The tiredness of it all had begun to take it toll . the lights of the holy hillock did keep up our spirits fron afar.We entered Palani late into the evening and had a good night's rest.

2005-07-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

The fear factor

I'm on way to a place quite up north , about a thousand kilometres off, but anyway it has managed t o start giving me the creeps. The fact being that it not even due untill a fortnight.

The creeps are a mix of hope and apprehension. Its going to be a big city , with lots of things to see and know and after all the institute being one of the best in the country does fill in a lot of hope.

But certainly i'm not exactly fearless - not after u see the hindi screen this time around ;). It not that , its the inertia to change thats affecting me - one of being far from home for the first time for such a long time. It may be rather a decrese in the level of hope that i wish cud fill up to clear things up.

2005-06-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

X-macs

I'm an Xmacs now.Its a really contended feeling when i step out of the shoes of the MACS chairman i wore for the past year.It was an eventful year , in fact founding years have to be eventful. I discovered a few good friends , whom i believe will remain thus, many whom i would not have known had i not come into MACS. It did teach me the importance of initiative and persistence, virtues that had been lacking me , but did surface in times of need and still remains.

I had been writing too many good byes - so things i say now look stale to me.One of the great wonders was that it did work , i did have fear that i would'nt be worth them. One thing that i may take pride is in the website , to the extent that i sometimes check to see if it still looks the same.

To leave the group was a great difficulty, i persisted (a quality i learnt here ) though i had managed to gracefully withdraw my collegues.The maxim "Leave when U are at the peak " seemed to have its influence ad i withdrew yesterday. I had tested it out once and found that it works fine , it really saves u and ur successor from a lot of legacy.

It gives more pleasure hand over reigns to people whom u can trust to take it to greater heights.

2005-06-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Energy of the future

Human beings have been energy-maniacs since they discovered fire.They have since used it for all sort of purposes from the holy to the satanical , to create as well as destroy and to enlighten as well as incinerate. It seems the circle of fire has come a full circle - the times when earth was terrorised by the humans' control over energy to the growing fear of 'oil'. This can be seen by the steady increase in the prices of the staple food of the economy.

The human world and the economic order so painfully created by the industrial revolution is sustained by burning thousand of tons of oil and gas per minute depleting resources and polluting the air we breathe.This state of affairs cannot continue for long , too much depens on it to be left to the whims of a few drops of black-gold.

The energy crisis enveloping the world is caused by the geographical concentration and separation of world reserves, this causes it to be subject to political fallouts from very explosive regions and shipping constraints.We must therefore go ahead in tapping energy sources closer to the regions of demand.
Of all alternatives to oil - electricity produced by hydel and nuclear means is the cleanest. Hydel power when designed with sensitivity can alleviate ecological concerns ,so is nuclear power whose ill-effects are much too exagerated.

Bio-fuels have strong contenders for replacing pertol and diesel and have undergone tests succesfully in many countries. Drinking Cars with ethanol drives are round the corner and bio-diesel for trucks.The biggest advantage to this alternative is that it requires minimal changes to the present machinary and moreover the pollution problem is significantly reduced by the use of atmospheric CO2 by the plants used in bio-fuel manufacture. The actual energy being derived from the sun a perernial source by the good old photosynthsis procedure, the carbon being just a carrier. This being in contrast to the current situation when the carbon of old forests are being burnt to change atmospheric CO2 levels and the resultant climate change.

Say no to smoking , yes to drinking for ur car - use green fuels.

2005-06-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

Whats the better way to start writing a blog than with thoughts on the Almighty. The concept of God seems to be unique to humans , animals seldom exibit comparable behaviour. Is this due to some highly peculiar way in which the human brain is constructed or more in the way that it understands or tries to understand the world around it.

Its my belief that such a concept has evolved out of the system of reasoning that is followed or can be followed by mortal humans.Its mostly got to do with the phenomenon of understanding which always seems to require a something understood before a new understanding can be made. This certainly places it in a very awkward position. The very first understanding! This can be called a belief. All understanding stems from there. It can be as simple as a cause for everything you notice , trivial things as 1+1=2 to things as the physical laws that govern the universe. All of our reasoning is derived from assumptions , even mathematics and physics.The sum total of all our assumptions is what i may believe as the phenomenon of God. As everyone has a unique set of assumtions it may be supposed that everyone has their own God.Our own God whose manifest forms are attributes that we chose for ourselves for our satisfaction and therefore of our God's.

2005-06-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

This is the first post on this blog, i would like to tell u that this is not my first blog . I had another at http://seaofthoughts.rediffblogs.com which sadly was left unattended to for quite sometime. I decided that a change may inspire me to maintain this better . I would like to tell u that the contents of this blog may bear a good resembleance to a junkyard. A junkyard of ideas - discarded things , but u never know whether soembody will resurrect them and get them to heights not even dreamed by the author. I would also like to hold out many of my half baked opinions on the things and the world around me.

All the prologue
Wait for the first post.