Images from back home

I went home after a long time, tried to capture some pics that took my fancy. The resolution is horribly poor because my cell-phone camera is totally screwed up but I kind of liked the eerie affect it gives to all images.

motion
Man on a cycle, life passing by

flight
A flock of birds flying over my house in Jamshedpur. Something that I was so fond of earlier and never realized it went out of my life without me even noticing it.

queue
Taxis awaiting their turn on Howrah railway station.

rest
A rikshaw puller resting after a tiring day. They STILL have hand pulled rikshawas in Calcutta. So INHUMANE !!

It was a rushed trip home. Could not get to meet my friends, a very handful of who are still there in Jampot. Had a nice chat with Parnil, she is joining HLL this June. Was missing Soma aka "Chomraj". But all in all a good journey home :D

PS: My MOTO RAZR works like a charm with my Powerbook :D My earlier Nokia 6600 was totally diagreeable... And balls to Nokia UI, this phone has a much better and well thought of interface.

Back to the basement !!

I went over to meet Obaid today in the basement Lab 001. Its been more than 2 years since I last set foot in the lab and most of it came back like it was yesterday. The faint smell of agar, bottles of fly culture, chemicals and of course the EP lap :)

But some where I realized how naive and unsystemmatic I was when I first started working there. I wish I had been more organized, and then maybe I would have stuck to neuroscience. But then again that was a field where I was completely overwhelmed by the amout of information (NOT knowledge) and the monotony of the work. Though while discussing several problem with him I was able to realize how my problem solving process has evolved considerabley over the years, asking specifics, on the toe thinking, more mellowed and deep analysis. Quite unlike what I was like when I was in college, where anything and everything seemed possible. I have become more result oriented in my approach to things, personally and professionally. And I believe the transformation is a good step towards the "consolidation" of my efforts.

Anyways got to see a lot of familiar faces. Some pretty ones too that I remembered from some distant past. After a long enough time has passed all most people can say is "Hi" and move on with a smile... Like a great abyss of time seperating people, they can see each other, but only so vaguely that all that comes back is a faint recognition. Saw some new ones too that were prettier than the old ones :) Well girls is one reason I should have gone into Biology in the first place ;)

Apart from that the place pretty much remains the same. Like what it was when I went there for the first time with Madsy. Just a little more crowded...

[Book]The Alchemy of Desire

Wicked book :'( Made me extremely restless.
Go Read !!

On a lighter note read my blog on colors :)

UPDATE: All lovers the same in love/lust? Do they desire the same things, go through similar emotions of passion? So predictable... ??

Your Birthdate: June 5

You have many talents, and you are great at sharing those talents with others. Most people would be jealous of your clever intellect, but you're just too likeable to elicit jealousy. Progressive and original, you're usually thinking up cutting edge ideas. Quick witted and fast thinking, you have difficulty finding new challenges. Your strength: Your superhuman brainpower Your weakness: Your susceptibility to boredom Your power color: Tangerine Your power symbol: Ace Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

To the lighthouse

The lighthouse at Long Island beach

And where am I?? High up in a plane trying to keep the camera (not this one) stable and get some jerky videos of the lighthouse :D

I am working on this project where we needed some aerial data, so a coworker was great enough to take us to the airport and ask us to hop on his plane. Off we went shooting, all over Princeton, Route 1 and couple of places around that are classified ;)

It was so much fun being up in the air. And believe me being in one of these small planes is a far better experience than sitting crouched in the Boeing 777. For the first time I was really able to make out the curvature of the earth, I could look in all directions.

And John, our pilot kept doing all these manouvers, much to our pleasure. And none of us were airsick so it was a real swell. I was able to capture the famous bridge at Trenton that says "New Jearsy makes and the world takes" We approached Philidelphia, not all the way though. It was like one of those action movies when you can see the sky hugging buildings rising in a distace, growing at amazing speed.

There are so many pics that I would love to share, but a couple of them wouldn't do too great on the net *wicked grin* Would post some soon that are mild and neutral :)

GMAT Essays

Since I have been advising people on how to write their B-school essays, I think its high time I earned some money to do that ;)

So here it is, in true DD fashion:

"Hear ye, Hear ye !!!

Don't have time to write your essays??
Don't know what to write? How to write??
Do you know someone who is tearing his head tring to complete his application packages??

You need someone who can take the burden off your shoulder and provide the much needed shoulder to push you cart around.

Mail the super wiz at vibhanshu AT gmail DOT com.
Complete satisfaction guaranteed !!!"

LOL !!! Well though I am pretty serious about it. The deal is INR 10,000 or US$ 300 for a set of essays for ONE college. You can pay me if you like the essays. But I chose who I wish to write for AND you would need to work in tandem with me if you want your essays written :D

All work will be issued under Creative Commons. So that means if you get a high paying job at the end of it you need to send me some grub. Well just kidding. But some cookies wont hurt anyone ;)

I hope my dear blog readers will spread my fame FAR and WIDE :D

Adobe

Well first things first - Adobe labs should have been /Labs rather than <labs>

The site redirects to labs.macromedia.com if you click on any of the link. Its nice to see that Adobe is continuing the Macromedia tradition but it would have been neat if they exposed some of their technology to the world. I hope they plan to do that sometime in the future.

Adobe is the ONLY company that understands digital media in all its entirety, with product lines ranging from the creation to distribution. Some things that I think could become opensource or public knowledge - PS Level 2, the Vector Graphics project that the marketing shelved due to competition to the earstwhile MACR, libraries for processing images, videos. API's to build cool plugins on top of the Acrobat framework.

I think Adobe is in a great position because it has a great fan following and some of the users are actually people who can write "good" code. Exposing APIs would be a great step for Adobe to bring the hacking talent of these people to good use which can help enhance the product to a much greater extent than its current team of engineers can do.

Lets see how the future of Adobe unfolds...

Another year, lets start all over...

Let this be a time to build bridges that were broken down,
Countries that were torn down,

A time to wipe away our blemishes,
To revisit promies that were never kept.

Put an end to the ever growing strife,
Of endless greed and pride.

So that the sun,
May someday, rise

Born into Brothels

Watched this amazing movie last night. A photographer from NY spends some time with the children in the streets of Sonagachi, Calcutta. The movie potrays the helplessness of the kids that are born to these sex workers, especially the girls who are marked to become a part of this ever consuming flesh trade. The conditions these kids live in is something that cannot be put into words, I think only experience can make you aware of their incapacity to get out of this world and the pain such resignation brings with it.

And very enderingly it bring out the fact that all kids are equals, they have the same squabbles, the same laughter, the same sense of comraderie and above all the same innocence. Why is then that they are born into such situations so that there is no freedom from their shackles? Why is it that they are doomed for life? These children need more care and attention than the prostitutes themselves, still the society turns a blind eye to their existence. It does not provide any means of escape from such a shithole... Can such a cold and heartless society even justify its existence?

The lady, Zana Briski, teaches the kids how to take photographs and I was REALLY AMAZED at some of their compositions. Some of them were the most beautiful pictures I had ever seen, the line, the shapes and the tones were all just perfect. It was wonderful to see the way their creativty was given a vent to grow and enrich. The movie in itself is really well made and beautifully shot. And ultimately the impact that the movie has on these children's life is great.

But its really sad that this movie had to be directed by a foreigner. Sometimes it takes someone from outside to show you whats ailing within you...

Would I have ever gone to Sonagachi to do something like this for the kids? Maybe not... But yeah maybe some time in the future.

An Ode...

... to love

Life is as purposeless when u are in the embrace of your lover, your bodies clasped together as it is when you are standing alone staring out at the city, waiting forever to feel her warm breath on your skin.

Only in the former situation your senses are too saturated to realize...

FOR: Dear Misty and Tess >D<

Suicides @ the IITs

About a couple of days back all national newspapers where resounding with the shocking news that 3 students at the IITs took their lives due to the extreme stress they were under. I think there is much more to the matter than meets the eye.

The IIT system as such is extremely flexible and it gives you as much freedom as you could ever wish for. Sadly that freedom sometimes translates into a myopic utopia, where students hardly go to classes, drink excessively and when they are not able to perform end up taking their lives. Well sometimes really hard working students also undertake such drastic steps but I can not think of any reason they might have to do so. Someone who is regular with his studies should not face too much problem managing the course work. At times there is stress, but that is nothing that people should take their lives for. That prepares them for the world they would face once they are out of college. And TOI's claim that "...And there are questions reverberating through India's 'techno Ivy Leagues' about our academic cream being put in harm's way. " is pure crap.

Why someone would take away his life is not a question that I can answer, but I think there are/were ways such incidents could have been prevented.

1. Ragging: I know its a very controversial issue and not many might agree with it but I would like to share my experience on the matter. We used to call them introductions and not ragging at Kanpur. It would normally start off with the fresher introducting himself and go on with the seniors grilling you with gruelling questions. Mind you there would never be anything physical, but facing them would be harder than solving the JEE paper. Once wrong answer and they would take u for a long ride, torturing you mentally for hours. But at least all seniors I was ragged by were extremely considerate seniors and I guess that was the normal case. They were not saddists to say the least. It was just a breaking in session where you would learn how to handle stress and a whole lot of humility. Something that prepared you for your 4 years at IIT. And once they were satisfied, they would be your best friends for the years to come. Advising and helping you through your years at school and later. You could always turn them for any help you needed and they would generally be more helpful than you peers, at least in the first few years. This camaraderie that forms can help you through any problem you face in life.

Sadly even this form of constructive ragging is looked upon badly in these institutes. What the faculty, the freshers and their parents do not realise is that it used to make us better personalities, and helped us come out of our shells. This was one way of passing down the traditions of a great insititution called the IIT. It is this interaction that makes the IITs great and not so much so as what you learn in the classrooms.

2. For once the people of this country have to realise that children that go to IITs are normal kids, they DO NOT metamorphise into Einstein the day they enter college. They are students who work hard during their school, some of them were smart but most of them were very average students or maybe a little above. So please do not burden them with the resposibility of chaning the world. Eventually they might do so, but it is terribly unreasonable to expect that a 16-17 year old can carry the responsibility of so many expectations. They are kids, let them have a normal carefree growth, I think only then they would be able to realise their potential.

Somehow I have felt that the standard of the students in the IITs declined during my stay there. When I entered college there were these seniors we could really look upto. Fantastic individuals capable of taking the world through the next revolution, but sadly there were very few of them as we moved down the years.

And making the enterance eaiser would not in any way solve any problem. It might escalate things in the worng direction as far as I can see.

Antheen Yatri

A poem by Dharmvir Bharti I came across today, and feel so in love with. You keep running around all the time, taking life as it comes, too busy to sit back and ponder. But sometimes when you do, your entire life passes in a jiffy. You do not even realize that so much time has gone by. The only thing that connects you to the real work is the numbers changing on the calendar, everything else looks like a dream. Yellow tinted, motion blurred. You travel to so many places but you cannot connect with any place in particular. You move away before it is time for the roots to penetrate the earth and get a firm grounding. There is no place you can call home. Wandering forever, without meaning, without a destination, like a gypsy...

Thats what I have been feeling like today :-(

I guess this too shall pass.

Happy Deepawali

May this diwali take away all your sorrow and anguises and fill it with eternal joy :-)

What's kept me busy...

My product is going to come out in some time :D



And yeah I know I work with for the Devil but somehow I don't feel any regrets. Not as of now at least...

Read more about it here. It def looks like something out of those si-fi movies ;-) The first time I saw portions of it I thought it was a new version of Google Earth. Well its "better" and truly r0x0r !! A pity its for gov use :'-(

WOW !!

Jamshedpur selected for the UN Global Compact Cities Pilot project

"Jamshedpur: Jamshedpur will be among the six cities chosen to participate in the UN Global Compact Cities Pilot Programme. The other five being Melbourne (Australia), Porto Alegre (Brazil), Tianjin (People's Republic of China), Nairobi (Kenya) and San Francisco (USA). Jamshedpur will represent South Asia."

How come I didn't didn't know this earlier :-? Well maybe becoz I haven't been home in such a long time. I am all excited to hear this though :D

Jelly Fish in the sky

Once in a while you see nature in all its magnificance, which makes you stop and observe normal commonplace things with awe and amazement. The other night there was this wonderful ring in the sky around the moon and it looked so beautiful. To me it looked like a jelly fish spreading out its tentacles in the sky. I was anxiosuly waiting for the diaphanous structure to start puslating and swim across the sky. Such an amazing sight !!

Night view someone ??

The military objectives of the US Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program have created an aesthetic byproduct — a composite photo of the planet, taken during nighttime hours. More than 99% of these representations of actual light sources are indications of human activity on the planet. For example, this image includes more than a million man-made fires, most of them in the Third World, chiefly propagated for agricultural purposes. Population centers are easily identified; however, the amount of light represented here is not necessarily proportional to the population size. Imbalances arise due to unequal electrical consumption. Japanese consume 15 times as much electricity as Chinese per capita, and Americans consume 21/2 times more than Japanese do.

God...

What if God was one of us

If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him
In all his glory
What would you ask if you had just one question?

*And yeah, yeah, God is great
Yeah, yeah, God is good
Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

If God had a face what would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that
you would have to believe
in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints
and all the prophets (*)

Trying to make his way home
Back up to heaven all alone
Nobody calling on the phone
'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome(*)

Just trying to make his way home
Like a holy rolling stone
Back up to heaven all alone
Just trying to make his way home
Nobody calling on the phone
'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

Joan Osborne

Apun ka naam aaj se pakia ;-)

Monica di suggested this name for me, and I quite like the sound of it. So from now on you can call me "Pakia" :D

And since I have been christened again, here is a matrimonail in keeping with the times...

“Apun Pakia!!!
umar chaubis saal,
wajan sattar killo
aur 6 phoot height ..............kya! abhi who bole to.. kya hai na.........
apun ko bhi life me settle hone ka maangta , isiliye yeah
advertisement apun blog par chaap re la hai...
Maanta hai apun Tapori hai bahut log ka pungi bajayela hai magar
kya hai naa apun ka bhi izzat hai baaaaap markit mei!!! apun ko
bhi public shaadi bya mei bolati hai... who bhi izzat se! Saaal
ka 5/6 peti to apun aaram se kama leta hai...
buri aadat bole to daaru aur bidi, ab who kon nahi pita yaar
akkha bada bada log apun log se jaasti chada leta hai...
Ab chokiri apun ko aisi chahiye ke saath me nikele to public ki
tho jal ke raakh hojaye! bole to aik dam jhakas , patakha aik dam patakha...
thoda padi likhi hogi to chale ga kion ke saala yeah kabhi kabhi
form bharne ke liye saala apun ko 25 log ka haat pair jodna padta hai..
Apun jo hai na shaadi ki baad aik dam sudhar jaayinga imaan se...
apun ka baccha log ko padalikha-tapori banayinga... bole to
Tapori Doctor, Tapori computer waala aur bohat kuch...
Maa kasam shadi ke baad apun aik bhi chikni ko line nahi dega...
Dekho baap apun shadi ke baad me koi chokri ki phamily ka lafda
nahi chahiye haaan ........
bole to.... kabab me haddi nahi ban ne ka kya!
abhi yeah sub accha lage to apun ko contact karne ka ...kya!
Munna Mobile……
Pappu Pager Ka Right Hand
ShanPatti Nagar, Hairan Gali No. 420 Pareshan Road, Bhai Ka Area."

Anyone interested ;-) ??

Tid-bits

Walking into the mist

One of my favourite pics I found out while going through my harddisk which is close to a "Terrabyte" now ;)

Neways since I have nothing profound to write like most other times here is some trivia from my life over the few days.
1. Met an accident, some bruises. Worst of all my baby took a bad fall and was squished in one corner. No internal damages though. Apple r0x0r :D
2. I am working on a product that goes into Baghdad in November. [Did I see some eyebrows being raised ;) ]
3. You can spot me on Brigade Rd these days taking images for my personal project ;)
4. Read "of no fixed address" by Kaziad Gustad. I can so relate to the book. *sobs*
5. Planning to start a book bar at my place :D U get the booze, I'll get the book and then things would r0x0r !!
6. KG - THE DICKHEAD was here over the weekend. He also happens to be my ex-roommate :D
7. I feel so jobless :p