Me in black and white

In front of Lake Burlington, Vermont

In front of some frozen lake on Route 17 in Maine

The Don in Camden, Maine - Memorial Day weekend 2007

Musings on a hot Boston afternoon

The last time I posted was in May 2006. I know that it does seem like I had abandoned writing - but the truth is I was too lazy to write anything. Besides, the 6-7 months after April '06 were very miserable for me which awakened the dormant philosopher in me. In the past 12 months, I have changed so drastically, sometimes I wonder if I have any similarity with my previous self at all.
It seems like someone just infused a new soul into my body...so physically I look the same...give or take a few pounds...but in terms of personality I think I am poles apart from my previous self.

I guess a part of it could be the fact that I have matured a little, but I would argue that its more than that. Anyway, I have rambled on quite a lot on myself. So...I rest my pen for now. Hope to keep writing more frequently.

P.S. The tandoori chicken I ate for lunch is taking its toll now....zzzzzz....zzzzzzz....zzzzz

Austin Capitol Hill, March 25 2005 

Trafalgar Square in London, April 15 2005 

after a long time

its been a long time since i wrote anything here besides the occasional snap or two. Right now I am feeling pangs of loneliness on a late Sunday afternoon. So, I thought..what the heck let me just pen down my thoughts and let out some emotional steam.

Babu da was right .. I think of so many things but I don't get anyone to share those thoughts with, which is very true. I don't know if I will ever find the special someone with whom my thoughts can resonate. Will I ever find someone who "thinks" like me...or someone who is intellectual enough to understand the depth of my thoughts? That's a question I guess only time can answer, as for me...I can only wait and hope. I don't say that I am a philosopher or a great intellectual thinker, but nevertheless I feel I do reflect on life more than an average person. In today's fast paced world, where time is a luxury emotions have been reduced to a weakness, pondering about the meaning of life and life itself is a rarity. Technology has improved the quality of life, but each improvement comes at a cost. There is a trade off somewhere. Just today in the morning I was talking to my Dad and he was marveling at the fact that I had got in touch with some childhood buddies through the internet (Orkut) after 18 years. Internet is definitely a boon and has made life so much easier in so many aspects. But it also comes at a price. Somewhere, the personal touch gets lost. An e-mail cannot replace the joy of getting a letter.Period.

Life has a wierd sense of humor. That's what someone wrote to me the other day, and I couldn't help but agree. It plays funny games with us. I always loved to plan out things...plan for which program I am going to study...where I am going to live...when I am going on vacation...and how I want my life to shape up. Then after the "mishap" on my birthday this year, I realized how futile it is to plan ahead in life..or at least planning ahead for the unforseeable future. My whole world came crumbling down, I was shattered. Everything that I had hoped for, everything I had dreamt for was reduced to dust in a matter of days. I would like to believe that man is the master of his destiny. I still believe that for the most part, but things like these seem to challenge this belief. There seems to be some supernatural force which can toy around with my life at will. Forces come into play which I cannot see, whom I do not know and I have to fight them blindfolded. And, it is very difficult to emerge victorious in battles as these....or maybe these are not battles at all...its just a way of making us humans realize our insignificance in the cosmos.

Life kicks you in the arse, humiliates you, tries to break you down. Life can take away everything a man has... but there's one thing it can't take and that is his resilience. You can't snatch away his will power, his ability to bounce back and fight all odds and come out victorious. Life is a war...but every strike that life inflicts on you doesn't make blood gush out in spurts, the wounds are unseen...the pain is invisible. But it is there, but man fights on...doesn't give up. With each wound, he emerges stronger and more confident of his abilities. He falls down when life kicks him, doesn't know what hit him...is bewildered...is hurt...is pained. But he doesn't give up..doesn't let go. Slowly and surely he gets up, gets his bearings and fights on. The question that comes to my mind is...how long does he have to fight? How long does he have to go throught the pain and endless sufferings? How long before he knows that its over? Does the battle end in his death-bed?..or is there a point in time when every man feels his life has been a fulfilling one and that he has won? Or does death signify the futility of the life long struggle?? Are life and death two mutually exclusive concepts or do they go hand in hand? Does man win against life only to be taken up by the clutches of Death? My mind is full of questions...the answers to which I don't have.

My precious!!! 

Don't you dare eye my drink!!! 

The warm days of summer are long gone... 

The first snow

Hey..Today we had the first snow of the season! yippeee!!! Well, technically we had snow in the last week of October too, but that was very mild. It was a nice feeling, waking up in the morning and then looking out to find everything blanketed by a layer of snow...and the cotton like snow flakes drifting down from the sky. The first snow almost has a magical feel to it.

I will never forget the first snow of my life. I don't remember the exact date, but I am guessing that it was probably 13th December, 2004 or its whereabouts coz the next day I had my first finals of the Fall term. It was early evening...arounf 7-ish, and Prshant called me up from Jersey to say that its snowing!! Now, I was obviously very excited and rushed outside the buidling. At that time I was living at 503W 121st Street Apartment. The streets were kind of dimly lit, and I saw some people scurrying about in the streets. Then I looked up and around me, and saw the snow flakes. It appeared as if the world was moving in slow motion. The snow flakes come down real slowly and if there's nothing else happening in the vicinity, it does seem like the everything has slowed down, like in the movies.

I took a few snaps today....have a look (you probably have already, but anyway). The top left is yours truly standing outside the back entrance of my house. The top right photo shows the green line "E" train (it's a tram for all practical purposes but is a part of the subway "T" system in Boston) . The bottom left is the view we get from out house of the park in front. The bottom right are the railway tracks at the Northeastern T stop.

That's all for today....signing off

I blog, therefore I am

hehehehehe....I know the title of today's post sounds kinda cocky! The original proverb "Cogito ergo sum" ( "I think therefore I am") by Rene' Descartes was used as a proof of his existence, or so wikipedia says. Anyway, jokes apart, I have heard this proverb so many times, read it on t-shirts but I never really knew what it meant. And I am pretty sure, a lot of people who sport it on t-shirts and posters on their bedroom walls don't know either. But, right now, I lack the frame of mind to dig into philosophy. Maybe some other time....some other place...

Today was a pretty crappy day for reasons more than one. But let me not go into the gory details. The only good thing that happened today was that I finally got my passport. I had applied 25 days back! If you applied to the New York consulate in person you would get it the same day, but since I applied by post I had to wait so long. I know this is nothing compared to the hassles you have to go through if you were in India...but nevertheless, its a very harrowing experience to be in a foreign country without a passport or any documents.

hmmm....you know I have been writing this blog for the past 3 hours now...not continuously though. Its coz something or the other keeps coming up and I leave the blog. This kind of breaks the flow. I mean the blog is more like I am talking to someone...or rather I am thinking aloud. Sometimes, when I read the blog later, I try to come "outside" of me and evaluate myself and my writing from an outsider's point of view. I think that's a great way to "introspect", to scrutinize yourself for faults and to improve oneself.

Anyway....moving on to more lighter stuff, I cooked Alu Gobi yesterday and surprise surprise!!...it turned out amazing! Well, it did'nt actually turn out the way I wanted it to be ....but it was freaking awesome! And if you don't believe me, I can get my roomies Tushar and Shyamal to vouch for it. I finished cooking pretty late, so by the time it was done everyone was famished and we just went at it like a pack of hungry wolves. But, I did derive some satisfaction from the fact that it turned out fine. Cooking can actually be very relaxing at times...specially on weekends when you can do it at leisure and cook something exotic unlike the everyday chhhole and rajma.

Anyway. folks...that's all for today...until the next time...."Good Night and Good Luck"!!

After a long hiatus

Okay guys...I am back again. Well, it kind of feels funny to say "Guys I am back again" coz I really believe that no one really reads the blog apart from me. Ahh...Saurabh has been kind enough to go over some of my posts and had some kind words to say about it.

Hmm....now what do I write here? Where do I begin?...Its been ages since I wrote here and so much has happened in the meanwhile. My folks were here in US for a month long trip. Pity I had those summer courses, or I could have accompanied them to the west coast.

Okay...now the last two paragraphs were written in October...and right now its 10:45 PM, 28th November. So obviously, whatever I write now is going to seem disconnected. I must confess, I have been really lazy with blogging. Well, I think part of it is due to the procrastinator's creed that I religiously follow and partly because I don't have much of motivation for doing this.

It's not that I am "always" lazy. I do slog...only when there's something to be had in the end. I think the "carrot and stick" policy works perfectly for me. Even when I was a kid in school and then later in undergrad, I would slog only if I found that there would be some direct benefits of that. Now that's what I call "instant gratification"!! I do agree that this is not necessarily the most optimal way of doing things, (which is why I am an Electronics engineer and have no clue whatsoever of how a triode works) because, more often than not this attitude tends to be short sighted and you miss out on "learning". Now, I realise tha it's more important to focus on learning the material and having a "couldn't care less" attitude when it comes to grades. Maybe, if I had realised this sooner I could have derived more out of my undergrad and could have even become a VLSI engineer ( whatever that's supposed to mean ). If I have started rambling incoherrently here, and all that I am writing is making no sense whatsoever, (no, it's not because I have had a peg too much of Absolut) it's because my roomy is chatting on the phone with his girlfriend and I need some peace to write sense!!

Anyway, now all that stuff about hard work and motivation has got me fired up, so let me write about a very common misconception people generally have about one of the most widely qouted sayings from BhagavadGita. It's the concept of "Nish Kama Karma". I often hear people say that this means that one should work towards one's goals tirelessly, selflessly with single minded devotion without any expectation of reward. Now, that is not really what Lord Krishna meant. "Nish Kama Karma" says that one should not "think" about the outcome/reward at the end of the task we are doing, while we are at it.. It is only human to expect something at the end of our efforts, but what Lord Krishna implies in the saying is that if you think of the fruits of your labour while you are working on it, you get distracted from the task at hand and you end up giving less than your very best, which is evidently not desirable. Okay...that's enough of "gyaan" for today.

Disclaimer: I have not turned religious. I happen to know the quote because it was written on the verandah door of Room no.48, Hostel Block 1, VNIT where I spent a very eventful year of my life.

Now, let me wind up this post by telling you guys about this great book I read over the weekend. It's called "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon. It is a very beautiful book. The author has spent considerable time working with autistic children, and this book tries to show the mind of an autistic child. It shows how misinterpreted these children/people are. Most people think of them as stupid or retarded, but it is cerainly not so. You will understand it when you read the book. The book is written from the point of view of such a child. I would say it's a must read.

Last weekend was a long weekend coz it was thanksgiving....but that is another story and I'll write about that later. I have to sign off now coz its 11:38PM and I have to wake up at 6:30 AM and go to office!! ugggghhhhh...I hate early mornings!!

Graduation Dinner of the MSFE program, 30th June - (L to R) - Moi, Prashant, Professor Derman, Dushyant, Rishabh