Vaibhav Garg's Blog

Some Great Science Fiction Novels I have read

2011-07-29T12:42:00.000+05:30

The City & The City by China Mieville .. Highly recommended, very surreal, won Locus Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, World Fantasy Award, BSFA Award, Hugo Award, nominated for Nebula Award, John W. Campbell Award

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi's -- a real mind twister!, biopunk science fiction, Nebula Award, Hugo Award , Compton Crook Award, Locus Award.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson .. Warning: very looong & complicated but rewarding as a whole. speculative fiction, includes the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and the philosophical debate between Platonic realism and formalism. Locus winner, hugo nominated

Wake by Robert J Sawyer -- really good. Hugo nominated. it is about spontaneous emergence of consciousness in the infrastructure of the World Wide Web

The Old Man's War Series by John Scalzi - every novel is in this series is a gem! - All the books were on the Hugo Awards nominations - about colonizing other works and space wars

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross - its a space opera -- a mind twister and wierd! Android love and stuff..

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - time travel without unnecessary technobable! and lots of history - its a comedy SciFi !

Red mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - Extremely long books! - very scientifically correct and detailed. it is like actually visiting Mars for real

Neuromancer - William Gibson - not for the light minded - this book created the cyberpunk genre - winner of Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award

Just started reading on my Kindle "Halting State by Charles Stross", one of my fav writers. I was saving this one so that I could read it back to back when the next book of the series is released. It has and is on the top seller lists as expected, namely, "Rule 34". Oh and check this chapter title out: 'Grand Theft Automatic'! how cool is that

Work from home woes...

2011-07-26T13:27:00.002+05:30

Work from home woes..., originally uploaded by Vaibhav-Garg.

Jigsaws

2011-05-23T11:26:00.001+05:30

I love jigsaws.

The state of my love

Some time ago I found the biggest and the most interesting one.

Since then I tried to put it together, everyday, but could not.

Amazing Texture

It occupies my dreams and casts a disconcerting shadow over the world when I am awake,

but there is a tiny moment in between, when my mind does not know if I am awake or dreaming .

That sings so many sad songs

That is when and only when I see it clearly. It is my own broke heart!

Why do we always focus on the beautiful one?

I hate jigsaws.

Nature is beckoning

2011-04-11T11:28:00.003+05:30

Nature is beckoning..

Pay attention..

The flowers are blooming..

Don't let'em wither away..

Unseen.. Untouched..

After all a life not shared, is a life not lived..

Pay attention.

Rose bud

Endless

A bunch of...

Blooming roses

Honey

Alien Monstrosity Inspirations

Rediscovering Biking

2011-01-16T13:23:00.003+05:30

View The Mussoorie Adventure (Track 12) in a larger map

Vroooooom Vrooo rooo roooommm....... :)

I have been having a lot of fun recently on my bike. When I bought it a few years ago, I wanted to tour whole of India with it but alas, as dreams go, it was not to be. Last few years gave me very few opportunities to go biking and I almost forgot how much fun it can be.

So for the last few months I have been getting my bike serviced regularly and keeping it clean and powerful. There is an odd thing about it. The more time I spend on my bike, the more adventures I seem to get into.

It is great that there are endless mountains nearby as I really feel bored driving on straight highway. On the other hand, being close to Mussoorie gives me a lot of opportunities to go for short rides. But I have to say a ride should be at least 100km long or it gets over too soon.

Track 12: Mussoorie Adventure
One of the most crazy rides I went on was with a friend who had to visit a client deep in the Mussoorie mountains. And deep really means really really deep. Like where there are no roads or bottled water to be found. :) .. It was so crazy that right at the end the road was at least at a 40degree incline and looked more like a dry riverbed with fist sized pebbles and forest silence. I was however technologically equipped to record the whole drive with the first real GPS track recording on my mobile.

The destination was way up there where clouds almost touch you and it was biting chilled. We spend some time around fire and had great mountain tea. The person who owned the place has turned into in a man-cave with caretakers and sofas and fireplaces etc.

New Year 2011 Snow Hunt
The next big one was on this new year. We decided we wanted to see snow and for the past few years show has been somewhat difficult to find in mussoorie, global warning and all ;), so we decided to just keep going upwards till we find some. We rode and rode and rode and took some poor quality pics and rode some more till be almost reached Dhanaulti and everything turned white. I was concentrating on driving and didnt really notice till my friends from behind tapped and pointed :) We went crazy. it was almost night and the only visible thing was the indigo of snow.

Pino Daeni

2011-01-16T11:48:00.005+05:30

(born "Giuseppe Dangelico" in Bari, Italy, November 8, 1939 - May 25, 2010)

His early paintings use soft and romantic stroke on women dressed in flowing skirts and dresses. Pino used warm & exciting colors and the subtle, his paintings and limited editions are in growing demand throughout the United Kingdom. He desired to express his thoughts & emotions even if many people underline his success as a commercial artist. We feel warmth, nostalgia, love & family from his canvases. The popular themes in his paintings are vibrantly sunny beaches in the Mediterranean sea where Pino Daeni grew up; a young boy or girl by beautiful women; inhabiting sensuous boudoirs or dressing rooms in anticipation of their lovers [wiki]

I am rarely associated with art.. but this one is just so ... inexplicably touching. I will I could enter this wonderful world created by the great artist Pino. There is so little information about this amazing artist, most of which is found in close circles and fan pages. It is also difficult to find hi quality images of his work.

Affection

Angelica

Close to my heart

Windswept

Day Dream

Elegant Seduction

Guitarist

Her Favorite Book

Maternal Instincts

Tuscan Stroll

Whispering Heart

Evening Thoughts

Parisian Girl

Pino Daeni and Peppino Gagliardi - Un Amore Grande

Un amore grande,
grande come il mondo.
Mi portavi la bellezza di un
mattino,
un sorriso nei miei occhi,
un sorriso che oramai non c'è
più.

Eri un amore grande,
grande più del mondo.
Cancellavi
con un attimo di vita
tutto il triste mio passato
come all'alba nasce un
giorno dalla notte.

Prima c'eri tu,
oggi quante notti passo ad
aspettare,
quanti versi improvviso nel sognare
stringendo un cuscino fra
le braccia
e rivedo te.

Che eri un amore grande,
grande più
del mondo.
Mi portavi la bellezza di un mattino
un sorriso nei miei
occhi,
un sorriso che oramai non c'è più.

Prima c'eri
tu,
oggi quante notti passo ad aspettare,
quanti versi improvviso nel
sognare
stringendo un cuscino fra le braccia
e rivedo te.

Che
eri un amore grande,
grande più del mondo.
Mi portavi la bellezza di un
mattino
un sorriso nei miei occhi,
un sorriso che oramai non c'è
più.

A great love,
big as the world.
I bring the beauty of a
morning
a smile in my eyes,
a smile that was not there
more.

You were a great love,
big plus of the world.
Erased
with a moment of life
all my sad past,
as the dawn comes a
night and day.

Before you were there,
now how many nights I turn to
wait,
in many ways unexpected dream
clutching a pillow between
arms
you and I see.

You were a great love,
big plus
the world.
I bring the beauty of a morning
a smile in my
eyes,
a smile that was not there anymore.

First there was
You,
now how many nights I turn to wait
in many ways unexpected
dream
clutching a pillow between your arms
and seeing you again.

That
You were a great love,
big plus of the world.
I bring the beauty of a
morning
a smile in my eyes,
a smile that now there is no
more.

Birthday Streak 2010 – Boo0Yah!

2010-10-14T14:30:00.001+05:30

Part 0: Outbound

The trains were so uncertain till the last moment. Due to the excessive rains this season the track out of Dehradun was submerged under a huge landslide. I was so worried that I wont be able to go (selfish?). But in the end the train did start on time. I was shocked when it slowed to and passed at snails pace in the landslide area. Hundreds of workers were still clearing the area. And when I passed Haridware city, I was so saddened to so so many houses half under the holi water of Ganga. I guess the powers that be thought the city needed ritual cleansing :( I have never been in a quieter compartment in the train. It was like the train itself was feeling sad.

Anyway, I reached Agra safely only 30mins late and was pleased to find my cousins to pick me up there. The silly guys didnt remember that I had a huge suitcase and came on scooters and bikes. God only knows how I carried the super heavy suitcase sitting behind on the bike and reached my Nani ji’s home safely ones again.

Part 1 : Relatives – Licensed to harass

Agra is my mom’s hometown so apart from showcasing the Taj Mahal, it is full of my relatives who have only two missions in life, i.e. to feed me to death(each one of them literally laughed when I said I was trying to diet!) and harass me with marriage talk. There was a lot of namastays and feet touching and humbly standing in front of them nodding nod nod nod nod.. :) Emotional Atyachar I say! But we Indians need that every now and then, I think... :-? and I was happy that my intestines were safely able to hold their own against the spice oily food :)

Part 2 : Cousins – Rowdy and proudly uncivilized behaviour

View Full Album

The fun part was spending time with my cousins, driving around on bikes and [censored] :D, spending my b’day with them. Watched Dabaang and tweeted some weird crazy tweets and messages and called a special someone to tell here I love her want her and what not etc etc (; there should be a sobriety test in the phone and social networking services ;). Had dinner at a very good place called Aachman and roamed around all the malls of Agra. Didn’t step back home for about 30 hours and after that slept for 12 hours straight. It was amazing that we were not found passed out somewhere and safely ended the celebrations. Even went to see the workshops of decedents of the artists who worked on the Taj Mahal and now make tiny Taj Mahals and call them ‘raja’.

In the next few days, there were two dry days (officially;), first, 2nd Oct was Gandhi jayanti and the next day, 3rd Oct was the Ayodhya verdict due to which the whole city was closed and had come to a standstill. I had no idea that the tensions would rise so much. I literally saw people bringing out there metals and polishing them and getting them ready for whatever may happen. I guess the current generation is not that concerned out the issues of decades ago. Personally for me & my cousins, it was another excuse for fun as the roads were empty of people and full of military and police. The whole nation was glad to be safe from riots and bloodshed in the end.

Since I met my cousins after many years, riding around like hot headed 18yo boys was too much fun. I had forgotten how worry-free we were just a few years back. It charged me up so much and I felt more alive then I have felt in the last couple of years.

Part 3 :The Taj Mahal – A lone gunman’s Love affair

I went to the Taj Mahal at closing time, packing heat (my Canon 500D) with full intent of shooting down anything not common :) My plan was to be ready to fire at sunset. For some reason I thought that the sun will set behind the Taj mahal but unfortunately I found out that it was the opposite. The sun rose behind the Taj not set behind it. I was very disappointed but still started taking a few quick snaps. Hired a guide for fun and insider-info. And started posing like a crazy tourist person.

View Full Album

It was amazing to see the overflowing Yamuna behind the Taj mahal that had completely drowned the huge garden behind the Taj mahal. There was water as far as I could see in both directions of the river. I was released that the Taj was safe as it was built with so much expertise that a small overflow like that wouldn't even trouble it at all.

One aspect was really repulsive, The Taj is beautiful but management sucks there. Every time I go back to the Taj Mahal I feel more and more restricted. This time they were like: cant go there, cant see that, cant take pics inside, cant touch the tomb, cant stand for long here, cant go up the meenars, time to go now… Screw you dumbasses! Felt like I was on a assembly line and just went in from one end, took a round on the fixed line and was shoved out with a No thank you Welcome back not. The Taj Mahal was also almost deserted due to the high security alert and Ayodhya issues. May be the heightened security played a large part in making the experience less enjoyable.

Part 4 : Delhi – The grand Indian gate, the peaceful Lotus temple, Friends Galore

Took the Taj Express from Agra to Delhi and reached comfortably in the cosy A/c coach. Reached Sidhu’s place and met a bunch of people Sidhu, Aman, Gurjeet(!), Ankit as was even to meet Miya visiting India (hope she really enjoyed India). Sidhu’s place was in the usual perpetual bachelorhood mode. The flight of stairs 3 floors up was a torture with that damn heavy bag, made even heavier with gifts and sweets packaged by my relatives to take home. The few days I sent there was amazing and reminded me of college times…

View Full Album

There was a lot of reminiscing and drooling over Sidhu’s awesome speakers and my top of the world Android phone :P and making fun of each other mercilessly like we did in college. The next few days were spent walking and visiting malls and walking more and visiting Lotus temple and walking some more and raiding Connaught place market and still more walking in the hot sun and visiting India gate and walking a lot more to get back home. Really missed my bike and remembered three years ago when I was staying in Gurgaon and did a few rounds on the Delhi-Gurgaon route. But anyway all that walking probably turned out to balance with all the extra heavy food I was exposed in Agra. The freakiness of life :)

Two days were really wasted idling around in the flat, First was a sunday when everything is closed and the second was Common wealth games opening ceremony day. They forced close the whole city for it. I wish I could attend the ceremony but that needed a lot of planning before hand and buying tickets etc but such holidays are rarely planned. Even watched Anjanaa Anjanni with was not that much fun and the seats were less then comfortable for the high multiplex rates in Delhi.

I was really glad and low at the same time when I saw the CWG ceremony on the Super Large screen at the mall. Glad because they finally were able to do well after all the controversy and finger-pointing and low because it was a perfect event to attend and photograph. My tiny lenses would probably have failed miserably but still.. I did get to see the fireworks from sidhu’s place as it was very near the Stadium.

Part 5 : Inbound

I was glad that I booked a reservation beforehand in the Dehradun Shatabdi train. It would have been extremely painful if the return journey was less then pleasant after that exhaustive holiday. Next to me were a few South African people going to haridwar to visit the Hindu Holi city. There were so athlete support dignitaries and very pleasant. Not too chatty and good natured about the different things and colors of India. I told them about hardiwar, its history and showed them some Pics I took in the last Kumb Mela in Haridwar. They sounded really happy and told we that it was so wierd for them to see so few swimming pools and a lack of sea shores as they have in their home country. The toughest part was to explain to them why people came around near the tracks in the early morning and squatted there butt-naked with a bottle of water in their hand!

I was also happy to see that the river Ganga had receded back to it’s usual path and the recovery effort was on going in Haridwar.

The one thing I liked a lot was that I was able to show everyone (travellers when going to agra, relatives in agra, cousins in agra, friends in delhi, South african travelers coming back to dehradun) photos that I have snapped over the past year and they were all so appreciative! Artists(I fancy myself to be one) love an audience no matter who or what or when or where they are…

In the end reached home all spent and still so full. Cant wait to go out somewhere else soon!

Love is subjective

2010-09-12T17:17:00.001+05:30

Have you looked at a firefly dance around a flame? It’s in love.

Have you seen a dew drop disappear just at the hint of sunshine? It’s love.

Have you felt a gasp when you see the ocean swell at tide? It’s love.

Have you looked at the night sky and tried to imagine its bounds? It’s love.

Have you felt an artist’s epiphany when he starts on a masterpiece? It’s love.

Have you felt god? Its love.

Have you felt your mother’s gaze on you when you are not looking? It’s love.

Have you felt a longing for someone or something unattainable? Its love.

Have you felt your heart melt for something or someone? It’s love.

So, if you think you have never felt love then you are wrong…

Or, if you think that love exists only between people then you are wrong too…

Or, if you think that one should love only another one then you are wrong too…

The Jaded heart…

2010-08-25T12:37:00.001+05:30

A HEART ONCE BROKEN,
STOPPED BEATING AND FROZE IN TIME,
NEVER TO BEAT OR BELIEVE AGAIN

…OR SO THOUGHT…

YET, UNDERNEATH IT ALL,
THE BROKEN HEART,
THE JADED HEART…STILL BEATS

…FEEL IT…

BEWARE, SURROUNDING IT ALL,
A CRACKED SOUL TURMOILS,
THE RAPTURE OF IT, BECKONS SOLITUDE

…LET IT FEEL…

THE JADED HEART…STILL BEATS…

- by a Rock star who wont rock

Boyz at large – #1 – The golden days

2010-05-25T17:37:00.001+05:30

Misclaimer: Memory is a tricky thing. It changes with time and adds layers that darken things we didn’t like and highlights things we liked such that the things under question are not the original things anymore. My memory is just clinically too good at that and thus anything I emit, consciously or unconsciously, partially or wholly, may or may mot be real, in the real meaning of the word real but real in the unreal sense of my real desires and timeworn memories.

This is my attempt at a fictional story series based on my school, my school friends, my school life. There is another story I wrote around 2003, in the same universe, which you can read here. Hopefully I will write some more about the boyz at large in the future.

Rocky and Subi were my closest friends in boarding school. We were very mischievous and did everything together. We were the usual suspects in our class whenever anything out of the ordinary happened. The teachers hated us but only when we played a prank on them. Crackers taped under chairs and squirrels inside drawers were our usual low profile missions.

Rocky was a genius but of the mad kind and crackers and crazy spring loaded contraptions were his speciality. Subi was more of a hot head and once he had his mind set on something, there was so other way. I always got caught up in between those two and their fights and arguments because I was branded as a know-it-all wise-guy with a funny bone that didnt help my case. More often then not I was forced to be the judge of their arguments, which I hated, as I would inevitably make one of them mad with my judgement. But secretly I loved to pull my own private pranks on the two by slyly injecting words that would cause an argument.

So according to one categorization, Rocky was the genius, Subi was the muscle and I was the underdog and according to another Subi was the green beret, Rocky was the infiltrator and I was field support. We came up with all kinds of categorizations after watching Saturday night movies or while talking endlessly under the stars on our dorm’s roof.

Our main objective, besides enjoying ourselves, was coming up with crazy things to do and not getting caught. It was a good time in our lives and we enjoyed doing things together and laughing at inside jokes. Everyone thought that we were nothing more than three monkeys and we were happy to oblige them as that gave us a good cover story for goofing around and not leaving evidence of our primary mischief.

Life in Boarding was simple, scheduled and sometimes sad because everyone missed home. Keeping the schedule was a bit tough sometimes and if one kid got sad with homesickness then it wouldn’t take long before everyone became gloomy. But we did out best to keep our minds occupied with fun stuff at all times.

***

Our school, The St. Georges School is situated in Mussoorie which is a small town in the hills with great views and sweet little shops around it. The best thing to me was the clean air and the solitude for the taking. The school is situated at the top of a small hill and it had it all. Football grounds, a rickety old bridge, a church, a graveyard, a clock tower, lots of kids of all ages, a stream, jogging path around the hill, a gym with a swimming pool, TVs in class rooms, a great auditorium, great architecture, just the right amount of old people, a lot of rumours and lots and lots of places to discover, to hide in and to do fun things in. But one had to be creative to do anything unusual under the strict but good natured teachers and wardens and not get expelled in the process!

A usual day started with waking up at 6:30am in the dorms, which was sometimes funny as there was always someone being tickled in the feet or a straw up the nose or a feather in the ears, if they didn’t wake up with the buzzer. One had to switch-on like a light bulb to avoid the craziness but it was always very funny when happening to someone else. Then we ran to the showers with tightly held PJs so that no one could pull them down from behind. It was also a race to the bathrooms as there can never be enough of those in a boys dorm. The bathroom stalls were obviously designed by someone stupid as the doors were too short with too much space on top and at the bottom and even the latches were flimsy but, even so, there were silent protocols in place, as everyone know that pranking someone in there will only bring them back to do even worse on the next day for retribution so it balanced out.

Then came the showering and putting on the school uniform and, most importantly, filling the pockets with little treasures. Surprisingly, there weren’t that many pranks in the shower room. Only god knows why. Mussoorie being a hill station the normal water temperature was very cold, the showers were powered by a solar water heater and so on cloudy days it was crazy with a lot of screams and giddy laughter. There were a row of partitioned shower stalls with curtains and the water pressure was always perfect. After talking a bath everyone rushed to the adjacent locker rooms and started getting dressed and then we head out.

The crazy part about the locker room was that there was only one small door for an exit and Sister Valentine stood there like a scary general looking at her troops. She looked at everyone with squinted eyes thru her cat eye glasses and a cane in hand, moving it such that it hit her other hand, slowly and threateningly. Even the meanest of the boys walked in front of her with heads bowed down, hands in front and in small steps. She gave everyone a quick glance and weeded out the ones who were trying to skip the shower or didn’t comb their hair properly or didn’t clip their nails or didn’t polish their shoes or didn’t tie their tie properly. It was impossible to pass her blockade without a perfectly groomed outlook. No wonder our school looked so neat and the yearly photos came out so nicely.

A about 8am, everyone assembled in the dining room for the breakfast. It was the best mean of the day with milk, break, peanut butter, samosas, bread rolls, eggs, jam, buns, chips, apples and what not. We were free to sit anywhere and talk as loud as we wanted. Everything was allowed as long as we didn’t start a food fight. But that was rare at breakfast as everyone was so hungry in the morning and it was all so tasty. It was easy to spot a double-decker sandwich or jam-peanut-butter-chocolate-milk-shake. We weren’t allowed to take any food with us but almost everyone try to hide away food, specially if anything solid and not so sticky was served. The trick was to take plastic wrappers with you beforehand.

Then, starting at 8:30am, there was a lot of boring stuff like morning assembly, a few PT exercises, morning attendance etc, then the classes began at 9am. A couple of 15min breaks were there between every 2 classes and I for one was very glad of those. It would be impossible to sit awake in more then 2 classes in a stretch. For the most part, the classes went smoothly with stern teachers and boring lectures. Any smart-mouth or mischievous activity sent us to stand in front of the principal’s office so everyone was rather good. However, all the fun was barely contained and it took very little to turn things into chaos.

The desks in the classrooms were very interesting as they had a small latch that could be locked, even though we were not provided with locks, and seating arrangement were not enforced so it was normal practice to lock things in or push things thru the cracks, that would get one into trouble and then declare that it is not my desk. Random messages to each other and silly drawing of teachers were routinely found in the desks as they were hurriedly pushed in like money in a piggy bank when the teacher came close. Other then that, there wasn’t that much to put in the desks because they could easily be broken into and everyone had separate lockers for books and personal stuff.

There were however a lot of ways to use the desk in missions and Rocky discovered most of them. These kinds of things were like high-value merchandise and one could get a lot in exchange from the person in need so we routinely tried finding various hiding places or tricky things and even had to exchange with others if they had what we want and we had what they wanted. It was very hard to show the value of what we have as we couldn’t as well tell the other exactly about it or he wouldn’t tell us his secret place or trick and have ours for free. I was the default salesperson of my group in such cases and it was so much fun that I will never forget it.

But getting back to the usual day at the school, we had lunch time at 1:30pm which was, with a general consensus, the least good meal. It may be also because everyone was so sleepy after lunch and, consequently, the classes after lunch were very difficult. It was like working thru a haze in one’s mind. This is the time when smuggled food was in high demand. There was only so much we could do before the classes ended at 4:30pm and then we again headed to the dining halls for evening tea. Evening teas was great and everyone was so charged and ready for the play time and free time coming up.

We had to go on a compulsory jogging on a, torturous in my opinion, path which snaked around the whole school and went thru the soft jungle just below the crown of the hill on which the school was situated. We had to complete the circuit in 20mins with the trainer, Mr Sukhpal Singh running at the back, hitting the slackers and keeping an eye out for boys skipping out. Then we had an attendance, after which we got 2 hours to do anything we wanted. There was basketball, football, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, badminton, cricket, baseball, running etc for official games and hide-n-seek, Catch-em, exploring the school, reading comics, trading stuff, thapley(a local game), Panch Pathar(a game with stones in hand), rolling about in the grass, playing cards etc for un-official games. It was not required to participate in any of the official games but everyone was allowed if they wanted to. Football was our main school game and it was tough to get into any of the teams. But anyway, Rockey, Subi and I were not around most of the time as we were off somewhere on some exotic adventure or making plans for some prank.

At 7pm the dinner started and was served till 8pm. We were free to have our dinner any time in between. After all this fun we had to go back to the classes, at 7pm onwards, for supervised study time. There was no teaching but some teachers were always present to maintain order and help students as they completed their homework and tasks from the morning classes. It was however not forced to study and it was up to the students to do what they wanted but without noise and disturbance. It was also not forced to sit in your own class so we could mingle around with students from other classes and move around. On weekend this study time was turned into movie night and the TVs in the classrooms was switched on and a movie was put on. The movie was chosen by senior students, from standard 12th, in advance but if a class wanted to watch some other channel then they were allowed to do so. Some of the classes were designated as channel names, like a sports channel class or nature channel class or news and current affairs class which was usually empty of kids and full of teachers.

At 8:30pm onwards till 9:30pm, we were allowed to go back to the dorm and change and go to sleep. Very few kids stayed around the classes till the closing time but Rockey, Suby and I loved to either be at last or the earliest to leave. It gave us a lot of flexibility to prepare of missions etc. We had a attendance when entering the drom and them fell like a rock on the bed and slept. It was very tricky but Sometimes we snuck up the stairs and went to the roof and sat there, talking and laughing away the night…

My school life was very interesting to say the least. There were good time and bad times, there were broken noses and bloody fists, there were chocolate smeared shirts and running naked after the guy with the towel, there were crying faces with homesickness and laughing eyes with a gleam. My eyes well up with tears when I remember some of the more interesting times and I think, alas, the golden days. - Vaibhav

Homemade goodness

2010-05-20T12:13:00.001+05:30

I have stayed away from home quite a lot. I went to boarding school when I was in standard 2 and then went away for college. So you can imagine how I feel about home and how familiar I must be with homesickness. But it was great fun to be in a boarding school and I had lots of fun and lots of friends and unlimited silly things to do.

Yesterdays Delight - "Homemade Veggie Chowmin"

But the one thing that I always missed from home was food! I used to savour the tastes in my mouth when I was hungry and lazy in the afternoons in the school.

It is something that cant be captured in any place other then your home, no matter how good the food may be. There is that something in it, which is unique. Because of all that I appreciate home food a lot. Last few years I have had a chance to stay at home and thought I might get bored or irritated of being at home sometimes, mom’s food is one thing that I can never tire of.

With all that history of savouring home food, I have also become somewhat good at tasting food and easily detect if something is too much or too little. So I am a tough customer for restaurants. Tho, I never object when I am eating out with friends as that would be plain weird to my friends :)

Random stuff

I can see going away from home again in the future not too far and I wish I will be able to visit home all the time. And will have to work hard on not drooling when I reminisce about tastes from home.. MMmmmm :)….. where is that yesterdays leftover…..

I am not a man of few words

2010-05-07T15:29:00.001+05:30

I am not a man of few words

A computer limits our written word just like our written word limits our voice.

In the same way, only more profound, our voice limits our soul's expressions.

but,

A soul needs a mind to express itself, in the same way a mind needs hands and voice.

But real expression is a dialog which needs a companion, a listener, a reader.

also,

In today’s world half of those are found online, onblogs, onforums.

I hang between limited expression and limited listeners but I must choose.

so,

It also follows that even if I dislike social networks, I must use them.

Now only if I would tweet all that. Curse the 140 char limit. Zip it?

- VJ

Kid's on Holi Festival

2010-05-02T11:00:00.001+05:30

Kid's on Holi Festival, originally uploaded by Vaibhav-Garg.

I was reading amardeep's beautiful blog post and became a bit nostalgic.

One thing I have started liking is, when i am lost in work and it gets evening and the kids in the colony come out to play. I get distracted and annoyed for one seconds by their giddy laughter but then I always always smile at the distraction.

The main open area is just in front of one of the windows on my room.

Reminds me of myself playing in the streets…

Sweet sweet (gone) days… :) + :(

Dard Hua Hai Humein - दर्द हुआ है हमें

2010-04-08T20:52:00.001+05:30

ऐसे लिखने का भी क्या फायदा जो झूठा लगे

ऐसे रंग का भी क्या फायदा जो फीका लगे

शायरी वो है जो दिल से निकले और जिसे सुनके

हर दिल में थोडा सा तो दर्द जागे

मोहब्बत में न पड़ना मेरे दूस्तों, मोहब्बत में बस रुसवाई है

पहले तो दिल आबाद रहेगा, आखिर में तो तन्हाई है

अपने होंटों पर सजाना चाहता हूँ,

आ तुझे मैं गुनगुनाना चाहता हूँ ,

कोई आंसू तेरे दामन पर गिरा के ,

बूँद को मोती बनाना चाहता हूँ ,

थक गया मैं करते करते याद तुझ को ,

अब तुझे मैं याद आना चाहता हूँ ,

आखरी हिचकी तेरे जानने पे आये ,

मौत भी मैं शायराना चाहता हूँ ,

अपने होंटों पर सजाना चाहता हूँ ,

आ तुझे मैं गुनगुनाना चाहता हूँ

-Raj Pradip

Thodi shayari - थोड़ी शायरी

2010-03-12T18:04:00.001+05:30

बुला रही है प्रीत, प्रीत की रीत निभाने आ जाना

कुछ मेरी सुनने, कुछ आपनी मुझे सुनाने आ जाना

दही बिलो कर ताज़ा मक्खन टांग दिया है चोके पर

मक्की की रोटी सरसों का साग पकाने आ जाना |

---------------------------------------------------------------

इन ख्वाइशों पे नाज़ हुआ जा रहा है आज

ये प्यार तखत ताज हुआ जा रहा है आज

आओ जो तुम तो उड़ चलें, आवारगी करें

मेरा जेहन जहाज हुआ जा रहा है आज |

---------------------------------------------------------------

के गम का आहेसास जिहने होता है रो सकते हैं

गैर के आक्ष भी आखों को भिगो सकते हैं

नींद आती नहीं फूलों पे खिरद मंदों को

आरे हम तो दीवाने हैं काटों पर भी सो सकतें हैं |

---------------------------------------------------------------

यही एक जुर्म है ऐ मेरे हमदम की, में खुशबू को खुशबू बोलता हूँ

तेरी आखों को देखा था किसी दिन, उसी दिन से में उर्दू बोलता हूँ |

My Morning cup of coffee is not just coffee – supercharge your true self

2010-03-02T12:07:00.001+05:30

I have found the perfect companion to the first cup of coffee, so to speak. Expose yourself to a the things you love to live for each morning before you take on the big fight called ‘life’. It invigorates ones ‘true self’ and lets one experience an experience to the fullest. And isn’t life really just that – a chain of experiences and their memories?

As everyone’s parents says, “Morning time is the best time to study”, I believe the base idea behind it is forgotten but true. In the morning our mind is fresh and at its strongest, after unravelling the previous day’s experience. But normally most mornings are begrudged with mundane routines which do nothing other then prepare our ‘external self’ for the day ahead. But then, what about our ‘inner self’ and isn’t that the most important ‘self’?

Most people waste the mornings with things that they wont remember a second later. I say we need to change that and add something to it that makes it memory worthy. For me, it is anything thought provoking like experiencing new ideas, puzzles, existential discussions, art (thought I don’t really understand must of art, but I do feel it) etc. It sets my mind abound. But you might have your own set of things.

What I am trying to say is, give yourself a few moments separate from the mundane routines and truly live those experiences that you love. You will find that it adds a new energy to your day. The mind’s eye is opened by what we love and once that happens everything turns vibrant!

One important thing is to remove the ‘search for the material things for that experience’ because then the search for the things becomes your first experience of the day and that is not very good. So think, do trial and error, invent, but try to achieve a method to reach the ‘material things’ without that search. It is not easy. for e.g if I had to search for videos on the internet or new photos (art :]) for the people I follow on flickr etc, then before I reach one ‘worth of experience’ item the moment will be gone.

So, I use a bunch of software and tools with my PC such that I don’t have to search. I use Boxee, Caliber, Kindle feeds, Flickr Slideshow etc. Hey, I am still ‘inventing’ and ‘trial and erroring’ to reach my optimum search reduction mechanism! :)

For the past month, I have become addicted to TED Talks (thank god they update almost everyday), flick photos of people I follow, photographing morning birds, sky, flowers in my garden and other interesting things in the morning, the perfect companion to the first cup of coffee.

(Aansu, Dost) आसूं, दोस्त - Jyoti Sandhu

2010-02-23T13:58:00.003+05:30

Some lingual comparison, Which goes down to your heart the best?

Hindi
आखों तक आ कर रुक जाते हैं आंसू, पलकों तक आ कर रुक जाते हैं आंसू, बड़ा दिल करता हैं बहा दूँ इनको, पर तुझे हँसता देख कर सूख जाते हैं आंसू\|	मुश्किल लगता है ये वख्त बीच का, बिना दोस्तों के गुज़ारा कौन करे , एक दिन की बात हो तो चल जाए, सारी उम्र गुज़ारा कौन करे \|
Punjindi :D
आखियाँ विच आ के रुक जांदे ने आसूं पलकां ते आ के रुक जांदे ने आसूं बड़ा दिल करदा बहा देवानं ईना नु पर तेनु हस्देयाँ वेख के सुख जांदे ने आसूं\|	औखा लगदा एह वख्त विछोरे दा, बिन यार गुज़ारा कौन करे, इक दिन होवे तान लंग जावे, सारी उम्र गुज़ारा कौन करे
Punglish
Akhiyan wich aa ke ruk jande ne hanju, Palka te aa ke ruk jande ne hanju, Bada Dil karde baha deva enna nu, par tenu hasdeya vekh ke suk jande ne hanju!!	Aukha langda eh waqt vichhore da, bin yaar guzara kaun kare, ik din howe taan lang jawe, sari umar guzara kaun kare

Gardening pays off :)

2010-02-21T12:30:00.001+05:30

A couple of months I took up a short term hobby of gardening. It was the first time I was out of my natural habitat of electronics, wireless signals and metal. The green of the carpet grass felt like a divine blessing on my eyes. I felt a bit sad that I never tried gardening before. Here you can see the first result paying off :)

Chlorophyll Metropolis Centerfold Nature's Swimming pool

Had to make a deal with my gardener. Since I had no idea about anything nature I was at a loss to express to him what I wanted so I just laid out the simple thought in my mind. I want flowers that I can photograph! He started rattling on about various flowers and seasons and colors and life expectancy of the same. I thought if i get an expert botanist to stand next to him and talk, I couldn’t tell the two apart! So I did the simple India thing. Bargain. I said just tell me the minimum amount of money I need to pay to get some good flowers in my home garden. That worked :)

Droplets About to turn sixteen Morning time grass

Next weekend, he bought the stuff (plants, manure, gardening tools, etc). I asked him to let me help so that I can learn a bit about gardening. And you know what he did, he laughed so hard that he sat on the ground! :) I smiled too. All he had seen me before was with a laptop or a kindle or a cell phone and never ever seen me even use the hose to water the garden. Anyway, I started some basics like upturning the soil so that the plants can ‘breath’, adding manure (felt more like cow dung yuck!), creating holes for the plants.

Runnnnnn! it is gonna eat you! Up close and personal with Ms. Dahlia White Flowers, as far as the lens sees..

We planted the big ready to bloom Dahlia first. It was amazing that one can get ready to bloom plants from the nursery and I thought, ‘Man, talk about the fast food equivalent for plants’. He had also brought some plantlings that were so tiny that I was afraid it will break then just by touching. But they went to the ground easy. Although they will take a lot longer to bloom then the ready ones.

Imaginationland slides Glorious Intense

I have to say, it is hard work. I sweated more then the collective sweat of the last month in that one day. But it felt so awesome to be squatting in the midst of plants, with tiny bugs crawling around, and the sun shining that it was one of the better moments of my life. Just don’t talk about the sore muscles next day.

Foldes of love New Dew Budding out, with a drink!

I kept up with it for about 6 weekends and added a whole bunch of plantlings(is that even a word?) and doing other maintenance stuff, like added support sticks to bigger plants. You wouldn't believe how big a Dahlia can get! Other then flowers, I also took to trimming and clearing the fruit and veggie trees around my house. Mango, Guava, Papaya, Leechi, Lemon, Red chili etc.

I hope you enjoyed this post and the pictures.

आशिकी

2010-02-19T16:42:00.001+05:30

वो लोग बहुत खुशकिस्मत थे,

जो इश्क को काम समझते थे,

या काम से आशिकी करते थे,

हम जीते जी मशरूफ़ रहे,

कुछ इश्क किया, कुछ काम किया,

काम इश्क के आड़े आता रहा,

और इश्क से काम उलझता रहा,

फिर आखिर में तंग आकर हमने,

दोनों को अधूरा छोड दिया |

- बाबा अमरदीप सिंह सिद्धू :डी

Reading madness

2010-01-24T20:18:00.001+05:30

I have been reading a lot lately and the surprising part is I have been reading faster then I can blog about it! Not to say that I blog too much anyway but that only amplifies my statement. Since I read 2 States by Chetan Bhagat, It has been a bookworm’s dream journey and I have read all sorts of books and a whole lot more blogs that in the past year!

To start with, My Google reader account only subscribed to about 15 or so blogs and all of them consisting of friends I know. I wasn’t really a big blog reader before and so only kept in touch with friends' blogs. But since I started using Kindle it has been crazy to say the least. I now have about 60 choice blog subscriptions and everyday more then 20 - 30 posts to read and that is not including the various news subscriptions I started pulling in using Caliber. Discovery, Science daily, Wired, Engadget, Economic times, The Hindu etc. Kind of like “You name it and I got it”. Have to say my morning refreshing time is a lot more interesting now ;)

In the novels department

I read the complete Old man’s universe series, which is an amazing saga that has won multiple awards and is spread over 4 novels. I liked it so much, as evident by my reading the whole series, that I don’t believe I will ever forget it.
Then there was Foreign Body, the latest, by Robin Cook (@Ankit remember Chromosome 6?) which is a read and throw away type of novel. But I wanted to read it specially because it was set in India. Very few mainstream international authors write their plots to take place in India. It is interesting to read the view of a foreigner’s experience of India and our diverse people.
Saturn's Children: A Space Opera, the latest, by Charles Stross, one of my favourite authors and this multi award winning novel was not boring even for a single microsecond. My body almost ran out of adrenalin by the end of it!
Spin and Axis, and madly waiting for the upcoming Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson. Spin was so intense I read it in two sittings only!
SuperFreakonomics the successor to Freakonomics, the long time waiting in list,
The monk who sold his safari (looking forward to The Saint, surfer and CEO) by Robin Sharma,
Catch 22, another long waiting to be read item but great,
Surprisingly, The Satanic verses by Salman Rushdie which was weird to say the least, but I was interested in reading about what caused so much controversy
The Help by Kathryn Stockett, her debut novel and at the top of the New York times bestseller list. It is one I have mixed feeling about.

These are the ones I can remember, which is not surprising as I have 190 more books in queue. It is ok if you want to bang your hear into the screen. :)

I am so impressed by the usefulness of Kindle (or any ebook reader for that matter) is that I will be gifting it to my sister and advising the same to anyone interested in the written word. It really opens doors to all sorts of stuff you always wanted to read and them some!

So in the end, yes I have been reading a lot :)

Sun rotating around the Earth?

2010-01-23T17:19:00.001+05:30

"Tell me," Finkenstein asked a friend "Why do people always say it was natural for man to assume the Sun went round the Earth rather then the Earth was rotating?"

His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the sun is going around the Earth."

And Finkenstein replied, "Well what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?"

Meaning of life stuff…

2010-01-18T10:30:00.003+05:30

Something nice is all I want, something simple is all I like.
Nothing special is all I got, nothing bad is all I do.
Love is a beacon on my radar, love is always so far.

Opportunities are many, failure never looses any.
Happy me is all I supplicate, felo-de-se is all I contemplate.
Hope is empirical, answers are still hypothetical.

Life has taught me that, born was I not like that...

-vj

Light and dark, hot and cold, God and the devil

2009-10-31T16:37:00.002+05:30

Got this in an email. Very interesting…. Read on.

A Professor of Philosophy speaks to his Class on the Problem Science has with GOD, the ALMIGHTY.
He asks one of his new students to stand and . . .

Professor : So you Believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD Good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor : Is GOD ALL – POWERFUL ?
Student : Yes.
Professor : My Brother died of Cancer even though he Prayed to GOD to Heal him.
Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill.
But GOD didn’t.
How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

( Student is silent )

Professor : You can’t answer, can you ?
Let’s start again, Young Fellow.
Is GOD Good?
Student : Yes.
Professor : Is Satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor : Where does Satan come from ?
Student : From . . . GOD . . .
Professor : That’s right.
Tell me son, is there evil in this World?
Student : Yes.
Professor : Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ?
And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor : So who created evil ?

(Student does not answer)

Professor : Is there Sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness?
All these terrible things exist in the World, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir..
Professor : So, who Created them ?

( Student has no answer )

Professor : Science says you have 5 Senses you use to Identify and Observe the World around you.
Tell me, son . . . Have you ever Seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor : Tell us if you have ever Heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor : Have you ever Felt your GOD, Tasted your GOD, Smelt your GOD?
Have you ever had any Sensory Perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor : Yet you still Believe in HIM?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist.
What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my Faith.
Professor : Yes, Faith. And that is the Problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as Heat?
Professor : Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as Cold?
Professor : Yes.
Student : No sir. There isn’t.

( The Lecture Theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events )

Student : Sir, you can have Lots of Heat, even More Heat, Superheat, Mega Heat, White Heat,
a Little Heat or No Heat.
But we don’t have anything called Cold.
We can hit 458 Degrees below Zero which is No Heat, but we can’t go any further after that.
There is no such thing as Cold.
Cold is only a Word we use to describe the Absence of Heat.
We cannot Measure Cold.
Heat is Energy.
Cold is Not the Opposite of Heat, sir, just the Absence of it.

( There is Pin – Drop Silence in the Lecture Theatre )

Student : What about Darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as Darkness?
Professor : Yes. What is Night if there isn’t Darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir.
Darkness is the Absence of Something¡
You can have Low Light, Normal Light, Bright Light, Flashing Light . . .
But if you have No Light constantly, you have nothing and its called Darkness, isn’t it?
In reality, Darkness isn’t.
If it is, were you would be able to make Darkness Darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, Young Man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your Philosophical Premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the Premise of Duality.
You argue there is Life and then there is Death, a Good GOD and a Bad GOD.
You are viewing the Concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure.
Sir, Science can’t even explain a Thought.
It uses Electricity and Magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one.
To view Death as the Opposite of Life is to be ignorant of the fact that Death cannot exist as a Substantive Thing.
Death is Not the Opposite of Life: just the Absence of it.
Now tell me, Professor, do y! ou teach your Students that they evolved from a Monkey?

Professor : If you are referring to the Natural Evolutionary Process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed Evolution with your own eyes, sir?

( The Professor shakes his head with a Smile, beginning to realize where the Argument is going )

Student : Since no one has ever observed the Process of Evolution at work and
Cannot even prove that this Process is an On – Going Endeavour,
Are you not teaching your Opinion, sir?
Are you not a Scientist but a Preacher?

( The Class is in Uproar )

Student : Is there anyone in the Class who has ever seen the Professor’s Brain?

( The Class breaks out into Laughter )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s Brain, Felt it, touched or Smelt it? . . .
No one appears to have done so.
So, according to the Established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that
You have No Brain, sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then Trust your Lectures, sir?

(The Room is Silent. The Professor stares at the Student, his face unfathomable)

Professor : I guess you’ll have to take them on Faith, son.
Student : That is it sir . . . The Link between Man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that Keeps Things Moving & Alive.

Here are some of my pics to spice things up:)

Funky Yucky++

2009-10-21T19:37:00.001+05:30

At Me … A Geek … No way!! Sangfroid said

He was elated. He could not believe his eyes. Keen to show it off, he let his flatmates have a dekko first. They drooled. Excited with their response, he rang her.

He covered her eyes, as she entered his room.
Switching on the light, he let her see.

She shrieked! His funky was her yucky.

and I though

Brushing her hair aside, She pressed resume on her pod. She looked at him then looked down. Slowly shaking her head she sighed. She left.

He cursed google. He though may be Emo really isn't Goth after all. His friends recommended googling ~Vamp.

He googled suicide.

I love that blog and eagerly away each new one of his(?) creations. And they say that mimicry, however lame, is the highest form of appreciation in nature. :)

Reading: 2 States by Chetan Bhagat

2009-10-13T10:57:00.002+05:30

Yesterday evening I got a bit of time and was able to spend it burning the midnight oil finishing Marooned in Realtime. I have to say the massiveness of the plot was really staggering. Time didn’t go over in years but in Mega years. To help you imagine, that is so fast that land will appear to be fluid before your eyes!

It was thoroughly satisfying and now I can safely say I have read ALL the stuff by ‘Verner Vinge’.Had some heavy dreams after that but I will live..

Next up is the recently arrived ‘2 States by Chetan Bhagat’. I couldn’t resist reading it a bit today morning. There are a couple of things I really liked so far.

The first is how in his work, the girls are so outgoing and bold. (A beer she said, did you hear? A beer!) and the boy is so down to earth (after all he gave up his rasgulla to her.. that is a huge sacrifice). I wish girls in India learn to be such way. It is hard for the boy to do all the work and ‘no’ is not really a response that girls have to fear.

The second was his awesome one liner – I sat between Kanyashree and five Mohits.. !! Literally made me go LOL. And he hits the hammer on the nail with the ‘sitting alphabetically’ Indianism. There was only one thing, which India student uses words like liberal-art? I mean I wish we did, as is evident by my last post, but we don’t.

All in all, It was quite good and really hard to put down just after 10 pages but, alas, one has to go thru the formality of working at their job in order to be able to actually afford spending time reading. Whoops circular dependency.

One neato thing happened though. I bought the book at infibeam for 70 bucks and got a 70 bucks gift cert with it. The offer is still there.

Hoping to get more time soon and meeting the book again at ramming speed.

I, Indian

2009-10-10T09:39:00.002+05:30

We all love to call our country incredible, great etc but is it really so? Remember that a country is just the collective average of its people.
Most days I am patriotic in the morning but a hater by the time I go to bet at night. But that just may be because I am an optimist in the morning. There are some days when I am so angry or depressed to be an Indian. Amardeep writes about this topic sometimes. Here are some of my thoughts about being one:
Corruption – No introduction needed there! But there is that extra mile people go that really makes me mad. I can live with bribing for getting a wrong thing done or for getting something done faster but why the frak do they want a bribe for doing the right thing the right way, i.e. their job? It kills me a little every time someone (mostly a gov employee) demands such action to do what they are already getting paid to do!
Red Tape – There is so much of red tape in India that it is incredible that anything gets done at all. I think if one collected all the documents and forms one had to fill in their lifetime and sell it to the kabadi wala, it would certainly cover the cost of one’s funeral. But what really gets to me is the sheer impotence of such stuff. For e,g. if you need to get a new utility service(telephone, electric connection etc) then you usually need a notarized declaration of some kind or other. Every time, you just have to give the notary or an agent 50 bucks and they will write even their own mother and father over to you. You can feel the pointlessness of the document even before you get it in your hand and submit it.
हमारी मात्रभाषा – How many people would you say you know, with whom you can have a decent conversation other then dumb joking between guys, saas-bahu between girls and pointless conversations between ‘grown ups’? Is there anyone with whom you can really talk about life, purpose, nature, emotions, science, god and such real topics pertinent to one’s existence? What really gets to me is when I hear people actually talk about this stuff.. notice how they tend to switch to English just as they get to such a topic or try to express themselves? Our vocabulary in our own mother tongue is so low that we cant have a real discussion in it! I didn’t used to notice it earlier but since I am in touch with some foreign people at work and love to show them stuff from India like videos etc, the first thing I get is how odd it sounds to them the mixture of English in Hindi which we talk.
Pretentiousness – We Indians live to be pretentious. Had to look around for a while to come up with this word but it is the right one. Anyone who has communicated with or met ‘western’ people(again) would know what I mean. I really hate it but the sad part is I do it too. Someone need to teach us to keep it real!
There are so many other things that I could add here but, well, I am not writing a book . May be a few more in short:

Incompetence is another one and I don’t just mean incompetence of people who provide service or sales, also talking about general people.
The hero is always the good guy even when he is the bad guy.
We love to keep our home clean but throw the garbage right out in the street, literally and figuratively
Asking ‘thoda aur?’ when serving a guest and the guest saying ‘nahi bas’. Repeat 10 times.
How many would help a stranger even of it is a small thing? We are happy to just walk by
We so proudly hold ‘Our Culture’ as an the winning argument when anyone compares our country and it's people to others. Not even 1% of those really know ‘our culture’. And, what do u think the other people are machine products? They have their own culture too!
Formality of life, we study as a formality to get out jobs, work as formality to get our salary, spend it as formality of social acceptance…...and so on

All this make me so sad. I still feel strongly patriotic, even if only sometimes, and I feel like I want to help to improve our country. But the really really worst part of this all is, when someone really takes initiative no one really supports them other then saying ‘yes yes’ as a formality and laugh at them in private. To add to the worse, most such people do it for selfish reasons in the first place!

Reading: Marooned in real time by Verner Vinge

2009-10-06T22:26:00.001+05:30

A couple of days ago I finished reading The Peace War by the same author. He is such an awesome writer that I lack the words to explain his work. Just read it to understand.

The new thing he introduces to us is a very different approach to time travel. Not really time travel but …. well no words to explain. It is called a bobble. Time stops inside it and it reflects everything perfectly so it is blood warm to touch.

So since the world could not get enough of it, he wrote a sequel titled Marooned in Realtime and it also top rated. I have begun reading it and feels every bit great…

This is the last book by this author that I haven’t read but it is going to be awesome. Hopefully he will write a lot more

Real Experience

2009-10-03T14:28:00.011+05:30

Sometimes it feels good, or rather right, to feel sad.

It might happen after a dream but only if you are fortunate enough to remember one after waking up. It might happen if you remember a college crush or a romantic movie scene. May be even after just seeing a stranger, maybe a girl, do a tiny thing like flick her hair in a certain way or walk by you.

Of course, you have to be open to these tiny suggestions of the universe in order to grasp even a wisp of this ‘real experience’. Otherwise they become everyday distractions which we brush away so easily in our hectic life. Very few people are fortunate to realise that, if you do have such a moment, it can be like a rebirth and revitalization and, may be, just enough to get you thru life up-till the next such moment.

It is a realization, that the chaos is not so chaotic if one has a complete view of it. Exactly what most movies try to do, they show us actions, events and emotions that are not completely visible to the characters. Like a sacrifice one made for the other but the other doesn’t understand that and reacts unfairly. That is to say, the complete view.

How many times we see tiny things of personal importance that might be ‘random’ to everyone else. Those tiny things can leave deep marks in our souls and are very hard to share, simply because we lack the ability to share raw feelings and have to dumb them down into words, expressions and touch. It is a subconscious goal of life to search for such events hence bringing to life – love, god etcetera

A flying bird, a fluttering butterfly, a dream or even the essence of its leftover feeling, a song, a video or a blog post (to be fair to the technological world), a gesture of a loved one are a few of the obvious ones.

I am sure only some readers will actually reach the end of this seemingly pointless/random/chaotic post but that is the point isn’t it.

Try to remember one such moment and I will guarantee that the you will feel the rest of the day in a new light. It is not difficult, you just, like looking at abstract art, have to keep you inner mind open and fill in the blanks with what is important to you and the result will be a ‘personal’ view of the chaos…

PS: I have a lot of odd things to write about so keep you mind open to true experience.

तस्वीर तेरी दिल में, जिस दिन से उतारी है

2009-10-02T10:00:00.004+05:30

तस्वीर तेरी दिल में, जिस दिन से उतारी है
फिरून तुझे संग लेके, नए नए रंग लके
सपनों की महफ़िल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में, जिस दिन से उतारी है
फिरून तुझे संग लेके, नए नए रंग लेके
सपनों की महफ़िल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में

माथे की बिंदिया तू है सनम
नैनों का कजरा पीया तेरा ग़म
माथे की बिंदिया तू है सनम
नैनों का कजरा पीया तेरा ग़म
नैन के नीचे नीचे
रहूँ तेरे पीछे पीछे
चलूँ किसी मंजिल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में जिस दिन से उतारी है
फिरून तुझे संग लेके, नए नए रंग लेके
सपनों की महफ़िल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में

तुमसे नज़र जब गयी है मिल
जहां है कदम तेरे वहीँ मेरा दिल
तुमसे नज़र जब गयी है मिल
जहां है कदम तेरे वहीँ मेरा दिल
झुके जहां पलकें तेरी, खुले जहां जुल्फें तेरी
रहूँ उसी मंजिल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में, जिस दिन से उतारी है
फिरून तुझे संग लेके, नए नए रंग लेके
सपनों की महफ़िल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में

तूफ़ान उठाएगी दुनिया मगर
रुक न सकेगा दिल का सफ़र
तूफ़ान उठाएगी दुनिया मगर
रुक न सकेगा दिल का सफ़र
यूं ही नज़र मिलती होगी
यूं ही शमा जलती होगी
तेरी मेरी मंजिल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में, जिस दिन से उतारी है
फिरून तुझे संग लेके, नए नए रंग लेके
सपनों की महफ़िल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में जिस दिन से उतारी है
फिरून तुझे संग लेके, नए नए रंग लेके
सपनों की महफ़िल में
तस्वीर तेरी दिल में

Song-Tasweer teri dil mein jis din se utaari hai (Maaya 1961)
Singers-Lata, Rafi, Lyrics-Majrooh Sultanpuri

Video: Pitbull's 'I Know You Want Me' Punjabi Style

2009-10-01T12:53:00.001+05:30

For the initiates the original(awesome btw)

And now the madness - V-Singh-Tu Mainu(punjabi Pitbull Remix)

में तेन्नु चाऊनदा , तू मेनू चाऊनदी .... ha ha

Ok. Enough time wasted gotta get to work now :p

तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है

2009-10-01T09:55:00.000+05:30


तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है
कोई साथी नहीं तेरा यहाँ तो ये कोई बात है
किसी को प्यार देदे
किसी का प्यार लेले
इस सारे ज़माने में येही प्यारी बात है

तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है
कोई साथी नहीं तेरा यहाँ तो ये कोई बात है
किसी को प्यार देदे
किसी का प्यार लेले
इस सारे ज़माने में येही प्यारी बात है



तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है

किसीका तो सपना हो आँखों में तेरी
कोई घेर करता हो बाहों  में तेरी
कोई तो बने हमसफ़र राहों में तेरी
कोई तो बने हमसफ़र राहों में तेरी
ये ज़िन्दगी तो वैसे एक सजा है
साथ किसीका हो तो और ये मज़ा है

तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है
कोई साथी नहीं तेरा यहाँ तो ये कोई बात है
किसी को प्यार देदे
किसी का प्यार लेले
इस सारे ज़माने में येही प्यारी बात है

तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है


ज़मीन आसमान से तो कुछ कह रही है
लहरें भी साहिल से कुछ कह रही हैं
चांदनी भी चाँद से कुछ कह रही है
चांदनी भी चाँद से कुछ कह रही है
किसी न किसी से कोई कुछ तो कह रहा है
तू दिल की बात कह दे कहने में क्या है

तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है
कोई साथी नहीं तेरा यहाँ तो ये कोई बात है
किसी को प्यार देदे
किसी का प्यार लेले
इस सारे ज़माने में येही प्यारी बात है

तनहा तनहा यहाँ पे जीना ये कोई बात है
बात है
ये कोई बात है
बात है बात है
बात है बात है
ये कोई बात है


❤ ❤ ❤ Feeling lonely....

[: Birthday - 2009 :]

2009-09-30T13:38:00.001+05:30

It was fun times. My birthday and all.

Got a couple of leaves from my job and adding to the weekend it became a serious holiday of 4 days :)

I had booked to and return tickets in Shatabdi. I love the way they keep you fed consistently during the journey and really hate the way they hand out feedback forms at the end and stand in front of you with puppy dog eyes until you tip them. They probably throw the less valuable paper(feedback forms) way and keep the other(money). As if there was any doubt that they really want to get feedback and improve! Never gonna happen. It is a minor miracle with each meal that it at least doesn’t ‘look’ dirty. Anyway before this turns into a rant against Indian Railways I better move on.

The journey gave me a good amount of continuous reading time and I finished the The Lost Symbol in a flat 11 hours :D (One side travel time is five and a half hours). The novel was not really as good as Da Vinci code but it was quite good. Specially when the identity of the bad guy ‘Mal'akh’ was revealed was awesome.

I reached Delhi and went to Amardeep’s place at about 12pm (curse the auto walas) and as usual it was a minor shock of revisiting ‘the college life’. The pile of clothes, the rank kitchen, a bunch of dudes cursing at the height of their voice, music on in one room and a movie in another and all that jazz of the crazy bachelor life.

Went to bed after a few rounds of hi and hello, thank God Amardeep had an AC installed. I woke up the next day all charged up, me as well as my awesome Canon 500D camera, and planned a nice outing. The others went jealously to their jobs and I went to get a much needed solitary photography jam all around Delhi. It is never as much fun with friends unless they are photogenic hotties ;)

Visited Chidhia Ghar(wild life sanctuary), Lodhi Garden, Qutub Minar, Chatarpur temple etc. (curse the auto walas) Will post the pics to flickr soon. It was great fun in the morning but as the sun went higher it became really hot. Like crazy hot. Man I love my cushy chair in my cool room in my cool town…

Around 4pm I was totally spent and went back to Amardeep’s (curse the auto walas) and crashed with the AC fired up full and a couple of Disprins. I wanted to go out again in the evening but Amardeep had another one of those crazy crazy office days and came back late so we just chatted about old times and went to sleep. The next day was a big excursion into the techy waters of nehru place to find the one love for Amardeep (a 1TB 4Core 8GB monster). We, as in, I, Amardeep and Aman were the partners in crime and you can read all about that M.A.D day in Aman’s ,awesome guy living at Amardeep’s place, in his post. I will only say that I am not going to buy anything from Nehru Place any time soon. It is just a collection of fools making a fool of others.

Partners in crime

Getting back, and narrowly escaping another rant, I had plans to visit my cousin Neha and her hubby Bhavya at their new home in East Delhi. It was a marvelous evening and left we with a warm feeling inside.

The next day I had to get up early to be on time for

the Microsoft Community TechDays event. After a drop of by my cousin, by a couple of auto rides(curse 'em), a short visit to pick up Amardeep and a couple of stoppages to enquire about the destination, we finally reached the place. The event would have gone on for the whole day but we had had enough by lunch time and skipped the rest of it(curse the auto walas).

Spend the rest of the evening in nervousness for my return ticket to get confirmed and out of the waiting list(otherwise a really really bad bus trip) and troubleshooting the messy collection of parts that the guys(fools who make fools) at Nehru Place like to collectively called a ‘PC’.

The fraking ticket got confirmed in the wee hours of morning after I had spend the whole night in sleepless stupor, almost feeling like ‘The Hand’ of God or whatever Dan Brown calls the supreme being in his latest thang ‘The Lost Symbol’. (Remember I had only read half of it yet and the rest was to be read in the subsequent return journey). Those who have read the novel will get what I am saying. :)

Finally, reached back a bit late(12pm) and directly into my waiting work chair and warm, from all the torrent downloading while I was not here, laptop.

Now, I am backed up to my ass with work but filled up to the brim with a fun from the very busy holiday.

नदी की कहानी फिर कभी सुनाना

2009-09-29T09:50:00.003+05:30

नदी की कहानी फिर कभी सुनाना,
में प्यासा हूँ, दो घूँट पानी तो पिलाना.

ये तन्नाहियाँ, याद भी, चांदनी भी,
गज़ब का वज़न है, संभल के उठाना.

नदी की कहानी फिर कभी सुनाना,
में प्यासा हूँ, दो घूँट पानी तो पिलाना.

साथ साथ मारने की कसमें तो फिर खिलाना
में तुम्हारा हूँ, पहले जिन्दगी तो साथ गुजारना.

- मेरे स्वप्न-लोक से

How did my passion for photography start?

2009-08-08T14:05:00.001+05:30

I am a bit different.

My main passion is Programming, Electronics, Technology, Symmetry. I actually am not very artistic but have always believed that everyone has a little artist inside them. Bringing that artist and expressiveness is however a different thing altogether. I also tend to look at photos with science and symmetry in my mind rather then art. That is however changing fast.

I got interested in DSLRs before photography, purely because they are the supreme mixture of the things I love and the best part, which I think is unbelievable yet real, it produces art, with the help of the user of course! (May be I got it wrong and it is vice-versa :) )

I don't think there is anything else with a more complex amalgamation of precision technology available to consumers. I am also one not to buy 'sub-pro, for general users' things so I had to wait patiently for about a year to buy the right camera. Before actually buying one I spent a lot of time looking at pictures on flickr and gradually buy the time I actually bought my camera, I was equally interested in photography. It hasn't even been a month and I am astounded by the things one can do with a DSLR let alone the beauty of science behind it.

It is hard to believe it has been less then 2 months since I got my first DSLR. What I thought I had learned before turns out to be a minute fraction of the photography world :)

Thank you for reading.

Long wait is over. I own a Canon 500D :)

2009-07-16T15:39:00.001+05:30

Nagraj Meets Taelons, originally uploaded by VaibhavKumarGarg.

It has happened. After waiting for a long long time I purchased a Canon 500D and it looks and handles awesome.

The camera is great and I am looking forward to do amazing things. More after experience :)

Video Jockey - May 2009

2009-05-07T11:54:00.000+05:30

Here are some videos I came across that are quite cool..

1. Large Hadron Rap

Yeah yeah I know, Half the world has experienced this cool thing. I did too some time ago and had wanted to blog it then but life has its ways of changing directions at the oddest of moments.

Anyway, I stumbled on to it again today and it was as fresh as ever..

Now I feel like rapping every moment of my life into a catalog too :)

2. कोई दीवाना कहता हे - कुमार विशवास

some heart touching words

Found it on ankit's orkut profile

Tagged !

2009-04-28T18:55:00.000+05:30

I have been tagged by Sidhu. The game is:

Go into your photo archive,pick the 4th folder in the archive,select the 4th picture in the folder,and write about it.Then tag 4 other people to do the same.

It was an awesome day at Wagha border (Amritsar). My first visit and I and Amardeep(in super talli pose) were overwhelmed with emotions and patriotism.

Looking at it now, the first thing i think is.. God! look at that khassi jacket I am wearing. but they were the golden days....

I am tagging Siddarth, Vanky44, Rainbow and P4Pagal

Google's English/Hindi Translation and Transliteration services

2009-04-28T15:38:00.000+05:30

Soon the written word will be completely comprehensible to the machines. With companies like Google dedicated to services like translation and transliteration, it wont be too long when English wont be the sole language of the internet.

I was truly amazed when I discovered the blogger.com Hinglish transliteration service some time ago. I even went as far as writing a couple of poems from my diary in Hindi. And now we have Hindi/English translation service as well from Google. This is so awesome and odd that I didnt know about this before.

For the uninitiated:
Translation is proper conversion between two languages by meaning.
For e.g. "Can you understand me" translates to "क्या तुम मुझे समझ सकते हो"

Transliteration is the conversion between two languages phonetically.
For e.g. "Kya tum mujhe samaj sakte ho" transliterates to "क्या तुम मुझे समझ सकते हो"

And then there is Google's 'translation this page' service capable to translate pages between Hindi and English. Try searching on Google for ' हिंदी ' and you will see the links next to the results.
Gone are the days when Europian languages ruled the world. Now what we really need is people who are occasionally willing to put in that extra second to post their articles in Hindi. Specially actual hindi(or other reginal language) content. It is really easy.as you can see by my last poetry post.

This makes me believe once more that ideas like the 'Universal Translator' in the Star trek series is not as dumb as I though earlier. At the very least Google translation/transliteration services are a proof of concept for it.

अब आप मुझे विदा दें|
See also: Wiki Hindi

A moment of insanity(or clarity) .....not sure

2009-04-27T17:44:00.000+05:30

I read this little thing on amardeep's blog. In general am not moved, motivated or touched with this class of art (poetry etc) but after reading it I ended up thinking what if a girl really said that to me... what would I say back...

Amardeep's post (इन हिन्दी :प)

अब तेरे मेरे बीच ज़रा फासला भी हो
हम लोग जब मिलें तो कोई दूसरा भी हो

तू जानता नहीं मेरी चाहत अजीब है
मुझ को मन रहा है कभी खुद खफा भी हो

तू बेवफा नहीं है मगर बेवफाई कर
उसकी नज़र में रहने का कोई सिलसिला भी हो

पतझड़ के टूट-ते हुए पत्तों के साथ-साथ
मौसम कभी तो बदलेगा यह आसरा भी हो

चुपचाप उसको बैठे क देखूं तमाम रात
जागा हुआ भी हो कोई सोया हुआ भी हो

उसके लिए तो मैंने यहाँ तक दुआएं की
मेरी तरह से कोई उसे चाहता भी हो

My thoughts(Beware intensity increases with each line)

मांगती है तू फासला, में तो दे भी दूँ
पर इन क़दमों का क्या जो सिर्फ़ तेरा ही रास्ता जानते हैं

कहेती है तू की तेरी चाहत अजीब है
पर इस चाहत का क्या जो एक शीशे के पार जैसी है

मांगती है तू ख्फाई, में तो दे भी दूँ
पर इस दिल का क्या जो कत्रा कत्रा खून तेरे नाम का ही मांगता है

कह्ती है तू के कोई सिलसिला भी हो, ज़रा ध्यान से सुन
हर साँस इस शरीक की अंगिनत सिलसिले तेरे प्यार के कहेती हैं

मांगती है तू बदले मौसम, में तो बदल भी दूँ
पर उस इशवर का क्या जो इस श्रिस्टी को संभालने का नाटक करता है

चुपचाप बैठ के देखती थी तू,पल पल उन रातों का मेरा स्वर्ग था,
पर हूँ तो इंसान ही आख़िर, तेरे प्यार की बूँद बूँद का प्यासा

सोच समझ के माँगना, तेरे प्यार का ये दीवाना कुछ भी करेगा
फासला, खफ़ाईयत, दूरी तो क्या, तेरे खुशि के लिया आपने दिल का क़तल भी करेगा

कहेता हूँ एक बार फिर, सोच समझ के माँगना
क्योकि चाहये ये आसमां फाट जाए या ये जान निकल जाए,
तेरे लिए तो में बेवफाई भी कर जाऊँगा…………..

– By Shri Great maha super guru Vaibhav Garg Ji dehradun wale

Insanity समाप्त !

CIA - The World Facebook - Information about India

2008-10-22T12:37:00.000+05:30

CIA's World Facebook is a very good general information tool. I was randomly browsing the net and came up to the site. The information on it was awesome and similar details are available on all countries/regions. There is all sorts of information ranging from Introduction, Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, Transnational Issues(this one is very limited).

I found out lots of interesting information that I wouldn't otherwise even think about.

You have to try it. Go here or, for the slightly-overly concerned, via a proxy.

The best part is it is updated very often (last update to India page was 9 Oct) and do i even need to warm up to the other 'Fun stuff' on the CIA.Gov site ;) . Bring out all the dust-gathering hacking tools for a hack-a-galore and do a reenactment. Muhuhuhahaha.....

Latest in Torture Tech - Indian railways

2008-10-01T14:13:00.000+05:30

Indian railways has always been a beacon of comfort. And our dear Railways minister, Mr Laloo Prasad yadav, in all his glory has done it again.

Uptill now there were only two seats on the side of a railway compartment partition, which were already so uncomfortable as small. Guess what, Now there is another one squeezed in between. It is hard to imagine how bad it is until you yourself haven't travel in it. It get worse during daytime as the person alotted the middle birth does not have a seat to sit in!

It is heardbreaking when you watch the humungus LCD TVs on stations just to show time and numurous other LCDs just catching dust on most stations. And the tech department of Indian railways are so left behind that they havent even updated the system to print tickets according to the new seat counts which results in infinit passanger fights over wrong/right seats assigned to them. It is inhumanely but still acceptable by the Indian public because of the currupt justice system and red-tape involved in going against the government and the who-cares attitude that has dissolved up to our DNAs.

God, if there is one, save us from this monster.

Astronomy: Meteor, Meteorite, Radiant

2008-07-31T14:36:00.000+05:30

As the macroscopic bodies penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, the air resists their motion and part of their energy is lost in the form of heat. The heat generated causes the ablated material and the atmospheric path to become ionized and, when the atoms recombine, light is emitted and the rapid progress of the body through the upper atmosphere is seen as a ﬂash of light along a line in the sky. The ﬂash might last for a few seconds. The event is known as a meteor (popularly known as a shooting star).

Radiant is a point in the sky from which the shower of meteors seems to originate.

Some of the larger meteors have such large masses that they are incompletely ablated or destroyed in the atmosphere. In this case, the meteor suffers an impact on the Earth’s surface and is called a Meteorite.

(Photo Source)

Astronomy: Electromagnetic radiation (aka EM, Electromagnetic energy)

2008-07-31T14:33:00.000+05:30

EM radiation has an electric and magnetic field component which oscillate in phase perpendicular to each other and to the direction of energy propagation. Electromagnetic radiation is classified into types according to the frequency of the wave, these types include (in order of increasing frequency): radio waves, microwaves, terahertz radiation, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma rays. Of these, radio waves have the longest wavelengths and Gamma rays have the shortest. A small window of frequencies, called visible spectrum or light, is sensed by the eye of various organisms, with variations of the limits of this narrow spectrum. The word 'light' is sometimes used in a broader sense, referring to EM radiation. EM radiation carries energy and momentum, which may be imparted when it interacts with matter. ( wiki )

Astronomy: Personal Equation Variation example, Color sensitivity of eyes ,Subjectivity of simple measurement

2008-07-31T14:13:00.000+05:30

Each observer can be considered to have a personal equation (variations in perception, state of the mind, physical ability etc.), which must be applied to any observation before comparing it with measurements taken by other observers. A perfect example is the in color sensitivity of an observer's eyes based on his or her situation.

It is well known that the sensitivity of color depends appreciably on the individual observer; some people have poor ability to differentiate colors and may even be ‘color-blind’. The color sensitivity of each observer also depends on his or her condition. Under normal conditions the average eye is most sensitive to the green region of the spectrum. However, if the observer is removed to a darkened room, the eyes become accustomed to the dark and maximum sensitivity shifts towards the blue. After a period of about half an hour, the effect is very noticeable. If an observer is made to do violent exercise, the slight rise in the bodily temperature causes the sensitivity peak to move away from the normal position towards the red end of the spectrum. Thus, any determination of color, being dependent on how the observer’s eye responds to color, depends to a great extent on the condition of the observer and the particular circumstances of the observation (Clarke & Roy, Astronomy Principles and Practice, 4th Edition, pp. 13,14).

A new element in the periodic table!

2008-02-25T22:44:00.000+05:30

Element : WOMEN
Symbol : Wo+
Atomic mass : Accepted as 53.6 Kg; isotopes may vary from 40-200 kg.
Occurrence : Copious quantities in all urban areas.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

1. Boils at room temperature
2. Freezes without any known reason.
3. Melts if given special treatment.
4. Bitter, if incorrectly used.
5. Sweet as Honey if given a proper treatment.
6. Radioactive emissions include two kinds of particles that can be extremely good or bad.

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

1. Have great affinity for Gold, Silver and a range of precious stones and absorbs great quantities of expensive substances.
2. May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for no known reason.
3. Insoluble in liquids, but activity greatly increases by that.
4. Most powerful money reducing agent known to man.

COMMON USES

1. Highly ornamental, especially in sports cars.
2. Can be great aid to relaxation.

TESTS

1. Pure specimen turns rosy pink when happy.
2. Turns green when placed behind a better specimen.

POTENTIAL HAZARD

Illegal to possess more than one, although several can be maintained
at different locations as long as specimens do not come in direct
contact with each other.

!! WARNING !!

PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO THIS ELEMENT CAN CAUSE SEVERE FINANCIAL
HAEMORRHAGING AND MENTAL DISTRESS.

The words and their meanings....

2008-01-27T19:10:00.001+05:30

Was surfing around and found a thread where a sad kid was explaining his first love proposal and the following rejection. You know the 'chatting wala love'. He posted his chats followed by a few sad smiley faces. Everyone ooooooh'd and aaaaaah'd and felt sorry for him but some outstanding people posted really good stuff-

Women has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way.

This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.

Love can happen anywhere. Love is blind. Love the inner beauty.

When on net, and you haven't seen her yet, you just loved her inner beauty! There are people who fool around on the net, but you cannot fool around with the same person for more than a few months, the real identity creeps in slowly.

Your love may even be truer than the love of many who met their girls in "real" life. Don't loose heart. She did not reject you, she has just asked for a little time time time time...

Which is something you should be happy about. She was not someone who would trust easily, but when she wants to trust you wonder if she is really of the opposite sex.

Dont loose heart or give up hope on her. Success gets $weeter with time... $$$$

A real LOVE can wait till eternity...

Infatuation says "Just Marry Me.. Just Love me..I cant wait..."
Love Says "I trust U, U know whats best for you.. I will wait... not 1 day..Not 1 year..Not all my life... But till eternity."

Infatuation says "I miss you so much.. I care for u so much.."
Love says "You are always in me... How can I miss u..?"

Infatuation Says " I will always Love you more then anyone else..."
Love says " I will love you as much as you want... Not more not less..."

Infatuation says " I am the best for you."
Love says "I want the best 4 you."

"Agar Kisi Cheez Ko Dil Se Chaho to Saari Kaaynaat Use Tumse Milaane me lag jaati hai..."

Replies- SRK, Om shanti Om :)

There was lots more stuff and i was sad and happy at the same time after reading that thread.

Overclocking AMD X2 4800+ and XFX 8800GT

2008-01-17T01:03:00.001+05:30

Today was a sweet day. I played with clock speeds all day long.

My present hardware -

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe
AMD X2 4800+ AM2 (default clock 12.5x200 = 2.5Ghz) (new clock 12.5x240 = 3GHZ)
XFX 8800GT 512MB Alpga dog edition (default clock 600Mhz/900Mhz) (new clock 720Mhz/1050Mhz)
2x1Gb transient 5-5-5-15 DDR2 667Mhz in dual channel

I started with my CPU as any one would and was totally baffled by all the various settings. It had been really long since i last did any sort of overclocking. I think it was abt 2 years back in the days of my AMD 3000+ which by the way was a very smooth overclocker.

Anyways, i got caught up at only 225MHZ FSB and then had to raise the stock core voltage from 1.35v to 1.4v that let me move up to 235Mhz and with a few more 100mv increments i reached the sweet core speed of 12.5x240Mhz = 3000Mhz = 3GHZ !!! That is 6GHZ on both cores baby! I am in love....

I had no idea this cpu was so capable. This core speed is equal to the AMD A64 X2 6000+, top of the line, processor. Now my love for Amd has renewed just as it did when i had purchased the A64 3000+ cpu way back.

I moved on to Mem OC but there i had a wall hard. couldn't do even a little adjustment to the RAM timings. I will try those some other time as proper RAM OCing is just another whole chapter. Anyways i was already rubbing my hands together as the shiny new 8800GT was next :D

I downloaded ATITool and RivaTuner some more stuff. setup crysis for benchmarks. On stock settings i was unable to get a decent framerate on all settings at High. Well guess what i reached the following whooping clocks -
Core Clock = 720Mhz
Shader Clock = 1782Mhz
Memory Clock = 2100Mhz and no artifacts even after i use the Auto cooling fan profile!!

As you can imagine, i am in seventh heaven right now. Passionately running Crysis at High settings with a playable 30FPS at last....

what a sweet end to this love story.

cheers.

Happy (Gaming) New Year

2008-01-14T21:21:00.001+05:30

This new year has been FPS freggin crazy till now. I got my new and shiny XFX 8800GT 512MB PCIe graphic card on new years eve and have been glues in since. Had been downloading new games in anticipation for the past few months and it has been worth every millisecond.

I have been tasting these games for the past couple of weeks -

1. Crysis - Yeah baby! now this game does not need any introduction to any decent gamer. Been 'Cast away' in the crazy jungle and loving it. Tho this is the only game i have to play on less then maximum settings. Even the bloody costly high end 8800GT cant pump enough juice that this baby demands. :D

2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Nothing like a few freaky anomalies to spice up ur love life. But i dont like the guns in this game. They feel so lame.

3. Quake 4 - Rock on. I had already finished this game on my old 6600GT but on low settings and it is a totally new experience with Ultra high settings. :)

4. Timeshift - Ok granted this game has the worst story telling ever but the visuals are stunning and the frame rate was above 60 all the time. The weapons feel so damn real. You can feel each bullet pass thru the muzzle. And then there is Time control. Yeah baby. Even seen rain when time is paused. Reminded me of The matrix. And
blasting thru squads of enemy soldiers on time slow is just cherry on the cake.

5. Splinter cell Chaos theory - Man this is a game i was in love with. I played it straight thru the night and i always waned to see how it would feel on resolution higher then 640x480. LOL

6. There are many more like Cliver barkers jerico, DiRT, Colin Mcrae, Call of juarez, NFS Most wanted, NFS Carbon and NFS Prostreet, Painkiller overdose and a variety of adventure games like the sherlock holmes series, Agatha Cristy series, CSI4 and lots more.

I will post more as i experience more. Happy fragging.

What happened (26, September) on my birthday!

2007-09-27T22:01:00.000+05:30

I just got carried away abt my birth date. Look at what all happened on 26 september

1580 - Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe and returns with a huge spanish treasure. The Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year

1777 - British troops occupy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the American Revolution.

1810 - Swedish adapt Act of Succession

1907 - New Zealand becomes dominion within the British Empire.

1914 - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act. The first consumer protection move.

1918 - Biggest operation in World War I: Battle of Meuse, resulting in the German Army's final defeat.

1934 - Steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched.

1944 - Biggest operation of World War II: Operation Market Garden fails. It was a high risk operation that failed. The allied plan, insed of succeding to end the war by Christmas 1944 prolonged it by one year and cost 17000+ lives on allied and 8000+ germans.

1945 - First American soldier killed in Vietnam. He would prove to be the first of nearly 59,000 Americans killed in the cold war.

1954 - Japanese rail ferry Toya Maru sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, Japan killing 1,172.

1956 - The wall street posted its largest drop since the Depression.

1960 - The first televised debate takes place in Chicago between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy proving to be the winning edge for kennedy.

1966 - The american heartbeat The first Chevrolet Camaro appeared.

1969 - 'Abbey Road' The last album started by The Beatles is released.

1970 - The Laguna Fire, the largest wildfire, starts in San Diego, California, burning 175,425 acres (710 km²).

1973 - Concorde makes its first crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.

1983 - The closest the world came to extinction. A fake missile attack warning alarm in Russia almost causes a accidental retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States. This insident heavily promoted the use of a Multi-confirmation systems - "Under no circumstances a decision to use nuclear weapons could be made on the data from a single source/system. A confirmation is necessary from several systems: ground-based radars, early warning satellites, intelligence reports, etc."

1990 : X rating abolished by Motion Picture Association of America. :)

1996 - Shannon Lucid returned to Earth aboard Atlantis, touching down at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Her 188-day sojourn aboard Mir set a new space endurance record for an American and a world endurance record for a woman.

2000 - Biggest Anti-globalization protests in Prague

Birth - Dev Anand, India actor. Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India.

It seems a lot of stuff happened today. Post your thoughts.
Well i am too tired of searching now so you will have to content on this much. :))

Tech Support Toughies...

2007-09-27T19:59:00.000+05:30

Well was just feeling in the mood for a bit more humor for my blog...here it is...

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "Send" key.

4. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his bathtub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

5. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "Bad and an invalid." The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.

6. A confused caller to IBM was having trouble printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer." The user had also tried turning the computer screen to face the printer-but that his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.

7. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happened." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse...

8. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, "What power switch?"

9. Another IBM customer had trouble installing software and rang for support. "I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk, and had some problems with the disk. When it said to put in the third disk, I couldn't even fit it in..." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" implied removing Disk 1 first.

10. A story from a Novell NetWire Sys Ops:

CALLER: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"

TECH: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"

CALLER: "The cup holder on my PC is broken -and I am within my warranty
period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"

TECH: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"

CALLER: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."

TECH: "Please excuse me. If I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"

CALLER: "It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."
At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller because he couldn't stand it.
He was laughing too hard. The caller had been using the load drawer of
the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and it had snapped it off the drive.

11. A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asked her if she was "running it under windows." The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window and his printer is working fine."

12. And last but not least:
TECH SUPPORT: "O.K. Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the
same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the
letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager."

CUSTOMER: "I don't have a 'P'".

TECH SUPPORT: "On your keyboard, Bob."

CUSTOMER: "What do you mean?"

TECH SUPPORT: “‘P’ on your keyboard, Bob."

CUSTOMER: "I'm not going to do that!"

Source: Forever beloved thinkdigit.com forum.

--Dictionary Info--
toughie - a particularly difficult or baffling question or problem.
--Dictionary Info--

S.H.I.T

2007-09-08T13:12:00.000+05:30

You guys are gonna laugh like nuts after reading this:

S.H.I.T !!!

Why geeks make good boyfriends

2007-09-01T13:08:00.000+05:30

I found this at a fellow thinkdigitian's blog. This is something u should not miss for anything...

In the wide world of dating, there are many options. Do you go for the flashy guy with the smooth smile, or the dude in the corner typing away on his laptop? The following are reasons why I think my fellow females should pay more attention to the quiet geeks and nerds, and less attention to the flashy boys.

While geeks and nerds may be awkward, they're well-meaning 9 out of 10 times. That smooth dude with the sly grin and the spider hands? Wonder what HIS intentions are... plus, I've never had a geek guy not call me when he said he would. Score major points THERE.

They're useful. In this tech-savvy world, it's great to have a b/f who can make your laptop, desktop, and just about anything else that plugs into a wall behave itself.

They're more romantic than they're given credit for. Ok true, their idea of romance might be to make up a spiffy web-page with all the reasons why they love you, with links to pics of you and sonnets and such... but hey. It lasts longer than flowers, plus you can show your friends.

Due to their neglected status, there are plenty to choose from. You like 'em tall and slender? There are plenty of geeks/nerds who are. You like 'em smaller with more meat on their bones? Got that too.

They've got brains. Come on now, how can intelligence be a bad thing?

Most are quite good at remembering dates. Like birthdates and such, especially if they know it'll make you happy. Due again to their neglected status, they're more attentive than guys who "have more options". Plus, with all that down time without a steady girlfriend, they'll likely have mental lists of all the things they'd love to do once they GOT a girlfriend.

Sex. Yep. Sex. I'm not really familiar with this myself, but I've friends who've been intimate with geek guys and it's raves all around. They say a virgin wrote the Kama Sutra... all that time thinking about sex, imagining sex, dreaming about sex, (they are male after all) coupled with a desire to make you happy? Use your imagination.

They're relatively low-maintenance. Most can be fueled on pizza, Twinkies and Mt Dew. No complicated dinners needed here, so if you're not the best cook, eh. Can you order a pizza?

Most frequent bars as often as slugs frequent salt mines. You won't have to worry much about your geek guy getting his "groove" on with club hotties because, frankly, he'll be too busy rooting around under his computer wondering where that spare cable went. You won't have to worry about him flirting with other women because, 9 out of 10 times, he'll zip right by them in a perfect b-line towards the nearest electronics store. I've seen this happen.
Me: "Eww. Victoria Secret's Models... They're so skinny. How is that feminine? You can see her ribs!"
Geek Guy: "ooooooo..."
Me: "Hey!" *notices he is staring lustfully towards the computer store*
Geek Guy: "What?"
Me: "Never mind..." In the wide world of dating, there are many options. Do you go for the flashy guy with the smooth smile, or the dude in the corner typing away on his laptop? The following are reasons why I think my fellow females should pay more attention to the quiet geeks and nerds, and less attention to the flashy boys.

For the complete post see jsemmanuel's full post. What did i say? It is really nice 'aint it.

Hit that road !

2007-08-24T10:25:00.000+05:30

Lately my blog has turned into a drain for my bad feeling. I want to turn that around now, so lets talk about my, highly anticipated, bike ride to delhi.

Play this beautiful music while u read-

Hit The Road Jack - By Ray Charles(one of my best)

Getting back. For those who dont know about the Hardware, i own a nice and simple black color Bajaj Pulser 150 DTSi :)

I love my bike and up till now she has only tasted highways on a train. Last year when i was in gurgaon i took her with me on the train and back the same way. She was angry at being man-handled n all by the packaging crew of our supreme Indian railways.

So, I promised to her that we would soon go on a long trip and there would be nothing in between us and the road. Now it is time to fulfill the promise. I am waiting for the start date of the institute and will start soon. I hope i get a variety of weather and get to meet some interesting people on the way, all hot centerfolds if it is in my hands. :D

I hope there is no jealousy from my girlfriends :batting eyelids: or odd looks from the dudes. I know the Bajaj ad shows the Pulser to be all manly n stuff. But I paid for it so i decide what sex it has... :) Besides, i really don't think guys would like to say I ride my bike anymore if it was male!

Ok. Getting back to the journey itself.. I will be going from Dehradun to Noida. The distance about 300 kilometers. I think i will have to break for the night somewhere in between as this will me my longest journey ever.

I need to prepare for it but donno what to prepare.. i already got her serviced n all. The main problem is going to be the luggage. There is my laptop and at least 3 sets of clothing. Then there is what gear to wear for the ride. I am gonna buy some new dashing sunglasses, a new helmet and find my leather jacket though it might get too hot for the weather. And also some rain protection stuff.. etcetera..

Boy! seems a long list. The only bad thing is i don't own a iPOD. would have done wonders for the ride tho.

Thats all for now folks.. Hoping all of u will click the comment button.

Life without internet and gaming... (Part 4)

2007-08-24T09:56:00.000+05:30

Chapters - 1, 2, 3, 4

Hello friend...

After all the internet issues i am just glad to reach the new post page. I again have good and bad news about my PC, about which u cant possibly care for. Anyways, the CPU came back from AMD support and they refused to replace it so I had to go surgical on it's ass. After a lot of patience and a few all-pins i was able to straighten the bent pin, against the silent angry shouts from my hardware dealer. He possibly thought no-one can actually show such precision as he had lost a lot of CPUs against accidental pin bends.

Moving on, I took over the workbench at the dealers PC repair shop and pulled together my system. But, as luck would have me, the system didn't start :( . Normally i would have gone mad at such a thing but i was prepared for it. It took time but i got used to getting my ass kicked by my PC's one-after-the-other devices failure. No matter.

I asked my dealer to get me another AMD 939 pin cpu and motherboard so that i could test what the hell went wrong now. After much calling and honey talk he was able to find a 939 mobo for me. It took some time but i tested my CPU and it worked! After the bent pin too. So, anyways i tested all the other components, like gfx card, smps, HDDs, DVDRW etc, for failure too. But all working so had to send the motherboard back to ASUS Mumbai for repair/replacement. There goes another 20 days.

Mean while i discovered the main problem for internet disruptions. The telephone pole that supplies connection wires to my lane was totally open and looking like an electrocuted girls hair. Wires running around at all grotesque angles defying any sort of order. It was a wonder then the telephones were working at all. The damn wires connections were all in the open and there has been so much rain lately. Who can blame the hardware, it is the f***ing linemen.

Anyways, met the SDO and everything... hopefully they will put a new junction box soon, :rolling eyes: Yeh right!

My old diary says - मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था...

2007-08-16T16:45:00.004+05:30

मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था...

हर चहरे में उनका चेहरा नज़र आता है
हर बात पर उनका नाम जुबां पर आता है

अगर इसे प्यार कहते हैं तो हाँ

मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था.

जब किसी के इंतज़ार में समय नहीं बहता
और उसके आने पर दिल झूम उठता हैं
अगर इसे प्यार कहते हैं तो हाँ
मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था.

जब दूर जाने के बाद उनकी याद सताती हैं
सब के साथ रहते हुये भी अकेला महसूस करतें हैं
अगर इसे प्यार कहते हैं तो हाँ
मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था।

जब हंम खुद से खुद बातें करतें हैं
हर गाने पर सिर्फ हम दोनो नज़र आतें हैं
अगर इसे प्यार कहते हैं तो हाँ
मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था।

उसके दिल में प्यार की कोई जगह नहीं
फिर भी उसके प्यार का इंतज़ार करना
अगर इसे प्यार कहते हैं तो हाँ
मैने भी किसी से प्यार किया था ।

Phew it was a really difficult to get the punctuations right...
still don't know how to write a half प or half क ....
Do thank me ok!

कविता: छूट चुकी है रेल

2007-08-07T13:38:00.001+05:30

Hopefully you all will like this simple कविता ...

जा चुके है सब और वही खामोशी छायी,
पसरा है हर ओर सन्नाटा, तन्हाई मुस्कुराई,
छूट चुकी है रेल ,
चंद लम्हों की तो बात थी,
कय़ा रौनक थी यहॉं,
जैसे सजी कोई महिफल खास थी,
अजनबी थे चेहरे सारे,
फिर भी उनसे मुलाक़ात थी,
भेजी थी किसी ने अपनीयत,
सलाम मे वो कया बात थी,
एक पल थे आप जैसे क़ौसर,
अब बची अकेली रात थी,
चलो अब लौट चलें यहॉं से,
छूट चुकी है रेल,
ये अब गुज़री बात थी,
उङते काग़ज़, करते बयां,
इनकी भी किसी से दो पल पहले मुलाक़ात थी,

चले क़दम किनारे उन पटिरयों
कहानी जिनका रोज ये साथ थी,
फिर आएगी दूजी रेल,
फिर चीरेगी ये सननाटा,
जैसे जिंदिगी से फिर मुलाक़ात थी,
फिर लौटेंगे और,
भारी क़दमों से,
जैसे कोई गहरी सी बात थी,
छूट चुकी है रेल,
अब सिर्फ काली स्याहा रात थी |

Source: ikshayar, but I corrected come spellings and punctuations.

Life without Internet and Gaming... (Part 3)

2007-08-07T12:20:00.001+05:30

Chapters - 1, 2, 3

This is a public notice!

In the near future I could be found rotting away in some jail after a murdering spree at my local PC dealer and the internet department of the BSNL telephone office. May be they will allow visiters one a year. But it would be a lot more peaceful then the present.

Aaaaaaaaargh!

Right. Aaaaaaaaargh!

OK. after all the shouting I feel better. May be I wont be a convict too soon. Btw the little thing that has got me going like this is my separation from the internet and my gaming rig.

Telephone lines are down in my street for the last 4 days and my PC's things are blowing out. Again!

The king of internet and telephony on my street, Mr Telephone Lineman, wont show up. I barely managed to get into my friends house, on false presences of dates with hot girls, to get hooked to his modem and answer a few of my mails.

Oh ya, did i tell you that both my UPSes also kinda stopped living. One of them, My precious, My beautiful, which I had custom modded my heart out with. The one that gave me 10+ hours of backup and kept the electricity headaches away. From now on, I will sadly have to remember to switch-off all my electronics with each light out.

On the PC front, I sent my box to the local dealer and the SOB calls me back after a few minutes and tells me that somehow one pin on my CPU is bent, and i mean bent really bad. He, obviously, blames it on me as I had called in thermal paste for my PC some time ago. I was pulling my hair out after the telephone call. I went to the dude and tried negotiating but u know these SOB resellers.

Now that the bent pin counts as physical damage so I probably wont get warranty on it. There goes a few thousand bucks down the drain. Will have to look out for a new cpu.. may be a AMD X2 4800+ which would mean i wont be able to buy that sexy Red Hot Geforce 7950GT graphic card for some more time.

To sum up I have lost 3 SMPS, one CPU, two UPS, one ram chip which still hasn't returned from warranty replacement, my gaming, my net, my pirated movies, my tv, some money and most important of all my happiness...

Seems like I am a good candidate for Red-Cross or Cry foundations. I fell like i am in a proper oblivion world with invisible goblins knocking me down with spears connected to electricity. I better find the Sigil gem fast.

-More later-

Harry Potter and his friends...

2007-07-21T01:33:00.000+05:30

I finished the seventh and the last book some time ago. I liked it but i think the end of voldemort was a bit too simple.. especially after the glorification of harry's special powers throughout the series.

To me the highest point of entertainment was during the Triwizard Tournament, the Horcruxes, Harry attacking Snape with 'human' boxes and kicks at one point.. as his magic was not affective enough due to the mind reading capablilities of snap, The DA meetings, the pheonix in dumbledore's office, the friendship of harry's father and his friends etc...

Some low points of entertainment(as in could-have-been-better) were the Order of pheonix, the death of voldemort, the confinement of the story to Britain, the excessive presence of love in a touchy feely sort of way in the last book, dumbledore's death etc...

All in all, it was a terrific experience and I wouldnt mind another series in the same magical world, may be with different characters. My advise to you all, if u havent read all of harry potter yet then by all means get out now and run to the nearest book store.

Some simple fun....

2007-07-09T21:37:00.000+05:30

Well they say a picture speaks a thousand words. Here you go...

They didn't study!

See They didn't study at scribd.com (a fabulous website) for lots more

The Prometheus Deception Review

2007-07-07T18:30:00.000+05:30

Just finished this great spy novel. It is filled with hardcore action from cover to back. The best part I liked about this book is the perfectly detailed fight scenes. You feel like you are in a Schwarzenegger type movie. There are about 10 major fights and there are not just point the gun and shoot, they are highly detailed like the spy finding out a lead, then scouting the place to infiltrate, then preparing his tools and cloths and then brilliently explaing the situaltion at, the target, like alarms, beams, IR cameras, smart guns (Popular Mechanics) etc. Then there is the grand execution of the plan. There are weapons like Glocks and Snub-Nosed .45 to Fingerpring activated smart pistols, there are cloths from scuba-diving equipments, fire resistant NOMEX suites to balaclavas and TAC vest with buoyancy compensator.

There is enough computer talk too as the wife of our hero is a advanced mathematician and a de-cryptologist. There are smart houses with personalization, supercomputers, low orbit satellites, encrypted phones, PDAs etc.. Read this excerpt from the book, here Elena , the wife, is working on tapping a Fiber-optic repeater-

She had come prepared with loads of software, both commercial and specially written for the occasion. She did what was called a "stealth scan" to fingerprint the system, see what sort of intrusion-detection software was present; and she inserted a pre written script designed to overload the system with an unexpectedly large quantity of data- create a buffer overflow. Then she ran a network packet sniffer to map out the systems on the security network, to find out what kind of network traffic was being sent and received, what the basic organization looked like. Within the space of a few seconds she "owned the box," as the hackers liked to say.

Simply amazing stuff. I had the pleasure of obtaining the original Ludlum's manuscript in text format. I converted it to Word 2007 format and applied the Automatic Modern style. Then I applied the automatic Table of contents feature, which also generated the document map. Just smooth! It was ready to read. Later i even did auto delete bad formatting to remove inconsistencies like double spaces, double line brakes etc. I have to say Office 2007 is a major improvement. These features were always present in the earlier versions of office but buried in those ugly tool bars and menus.

See more on the book here -
The Prometheus Deception on Wikipedia,
The Prometheus Deception on Amazon,
Robert Ludlum on wikipedia,
The Prometheus Deception review on Curled Up.

Well guys I definitely recommend this book to any spy novel lovers. It will knock your brains out and give you a lot of those NatGeo Jaw dropping moments.

Without internet and PC.... Aaaaaaaaargh! (Part 2)

2007-07-06T22:27:00.000+05:30

Chapters - 1, 2, 3

This is blowing me out my brain. It is like a stabbing pain, like the laws of physics themselves have taken it in to torment me.

Finally after dumb problems and small bribe issues i had my internet back. But, as if god was not satisfied with me, when i dialed for the 1st time it said 'disconnected due to non payment of bill!' Now how pathetic is that. these guys cut my line for one month and then put is back on and ask for money.

Anyways it all got settled(after major heavy duty language at the BSNL office) and i have net back on now.

But it is like the god damn Murphy's laws here or like the devil himself has a grudge against my mental peace. After i got net back i started paying more attention to my PC. it was being erratic for some time.

Now it is so f__ked up that i cant even depend it to stay up for a nice notepad session.

I tried everything.. software updates, driver updates, windows update :( , i ran all tests there in windows like scandisk, sfc etc tried memory tests like memstresstest, Prime95 and all other things.. tired win reinstall, linux... u name it and i did it!

My motherboard Asus A8N SLI Premium, the one I had a hard-on while purchasing, reports (thru the on board Voice chip) when it boot, in that hypnotic sweet female voice "No CPU Installed !!!" :-0 But the system still boots normally and goes into windows and crashes for no reason as soon as i try to get something going.

Will have to checkup with my reseller whether i have any warranty left for the product that is bad; which i still dont know! probably my mother board or my CPU. i wish it had just stopped working fully so that i knew what part had trouble.

anyways.. this is not over yet i guess..

will post more when i find out.

Without internet and PC.... Aaaaaaaaargh! (Part 1)

2007-07-01T12:03:00.000+05:30

Chapters - 1, 2, 3

Thats right! I am going mad. Phone lines had been down for one full month cause these freakin govt road builders cut the goddamn underground telephone cable while trying, i mean really only trying without much success as always, to expand a bridge in a key traffic area. And above that the freakin tele dept took a month for just joining it back!

You must be thinking that it is not so bad. F__K YOU! Net in the whole area is down, even in those hateful places called cyber-cafes. And more over that i have been studying ASP.NET! Now website building of course needs the internet.

I also seem to have developed a nasty case of not-keeping-contact-with-friends-by-cellphone-because-used-internet-instead!

Life here in dehradun is a bit slow for me in the technology lane as all my social life is around people who cant tell the difference between a TV and a PC.

The only thing left for me without the net was my other drug. Computer Games! I have a very able Multimedia and Gaming System setup and it has served me well till a few days back.

For some reason my PC is acting up and keeps hanging and rebooting itself both in Vista and XP. most probably a freakin hardware problem.

The only tech remaining in my life is my dear old weak celeron laptop.

That has been the only life line and you wouldn't believe this... I read the whole seven volumes of Harry Potter on it in his period of tech darkness!

--More soon--

My first Year Dalhousie trip

2007-04-28T13:50:00.001+05:30

Timeline: 2001
There are times when I don’t want to wake up in the morning because of the dreams i have about my college time. There are a lot of friends like Amardeep, Sanket, Ankit, Ravish, Pavneet and Bhagwant to name a few, in my college memories. And ususally there are a lots of hot girls involved in my dreams, supposedly to balance the fact that I didn’t do as much groovy time in the love jail as I would have wanted too. There were definitely some sparks but the time I spent with my friends enjoying life was definitely the highlight. The grand future predictions and technology inventions were coffee talk for me with most of my friends.

I would specially like to talk about the first trip of my college life which was to Dalhousie, a dazzling hill station situated in Chamba, North India and about 190km by road from my university(GNDU, Amritsar). It was a tour that was the first highlight of my college life. I made a new friend, Amardeep, in those days.

It all begun one afternoon when I was sitting in the crowded computer lab at the old computer department playing paintbrush. Ankit walked up to me and said that the result was out for our semester exams, the first result of my college life. I was exited to see if I did as well as I thought. I walked up to the notice board, the turf of Subedar sir, and saw that there was a big crowd hovering over the result notice. I could see lots of faces changing color, some went extra red and some went golden. Aah! what exam results can do to a student. Anyways my high spirits were soon crushed when I discovered that I had failed three out of seven subjects. I was surprised as I had honestly never though that I could do so bad. I would soon learn the cause – ‘small and to the point answers’ against ‘multi page horror stories’ that were needed to score at my college.

The real irony was the next day, when the first trip of our college life was scheduled. I was brooding over my result, as were some other guys. I felt sad and unwilling to go on the trip, but my friends encouraged me to join. And I being a bit extra high on free spirit thought, what the hell! after all we had paid for it. But the gloom cloud was strong and I wanted to be alone so I spotted a free seat in the front of the bus next to Amardeep. You know, the seat on the left side of the bus in front of the door, where everyone else sits behind you. I hardly know Amardeep then thus spent the journey towards Dalhousie in silence, in the shadow of my results.

Our journey begun on two buses, they were old and grunted while climbing and turning. Some hair-pin turns were traumatic to say the least. Our university had a guest house up in Dalhousie, where we lodged in for the night. The next day we went on a few hours trek to a serene place called Kalatop, high up in the hills. The trek, called Kalatop-Khajjiar Trail, was both exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. However, as I remember most of us were disappointed at the shabby rest-house at the top. We spent some time there and then trekked back to the lodge. The sleeping rooms were big halls with mattresses on the floor and separate for girls and boys. But (un)luckily the Bathrooms were only in one place and both sexes had to use them. I can remember some incidences and stories I’d rather not disclose, lest I want to be found dead in one of the dustbins or enjoy some drive-bys at my house. Anyways, suffice to say that we spent the night trading stories and cracking jokes at each other.

The next day we went to Khajjiar, a place which is like a huge valley, with a lake in the middle and surrounded by high hills, kind of like a bowl. The ground was covered with lusciously rich and silky grass and there were some small shops selling sweets and edible items. The view there is amazing and un-describable in words. We could see paragliders, a local tourist sport, floating like eagles high up in the hills. The valley was surrounded with a sandy road on which more tourists rode horses. We definitely enjoyed it a lot.

Then we came back to the lodge for the last night of our trip. Amazingly, some people had arranged for a DJ and festivities that evening, as we had to leave Dalhousie the next morning on buses back to the university. The music was good and the night was young, I bet a lot of eyes had crossed path and some love connections were made that evening. There was a chicken curry that deserves special mention because as tasty as it was said to be, the chicken used in it was bad. The next day it gave cramps, nausea and running stomachs to almost everyone who ate it. The effect was heightened because of the rocky ride in the old buses on curvy hilly roads. Our teachers had to stop the buses in between the road so that guys could scurry around into the bushes, with a water bottle in hand, to relieve their stomachs. It was hilarious, as I heard someone had soiled their undies in the other bus, filling it with the most disgusting smell. Luckily I didn’t eat chicken as I am a vegetarian.

It was in that return journey that I and Amardeep broke the silence between us. We talked about our less then satisfactory exam results and soon became friends. Later the journey became a lot more smooth when someone asked if anyone had music tapes to play because the local FM was giving headaches. I had a tape labeled ‘Best Love songs’ which I loaned to the driver and it made everyone’s day! I remember that the tape was played over and over again till the end of the trip. The journey became a cherished memory for me.

Tourists - Travel, Hotels, Wiki

Someone asked me to define love...

2007-04-22T12:13:00.000+05:30

One of the the oldest entries from my journal

When we are talking about love of our life I would like to tell my story too. But it is too long and may be boring to you. So I will just tell you the about THE ONE time I felt true love in my whole life, yet.

I have studied in boarding schools from Standard 2nd to 11th. This school was the greatest thing that happened in my young life. The school is situated at top of a mountain of shivalik range (Third range of the Himalayas). Cool breezes, seasonal streams, Paper Mountains in clear view are some of the smaller perks of the location. The school’s name is St. Georges College and it is controlled by Irish brothers. Visit the school's web site here.

I love that school. I loved to wander alone in the woods and blend with the beautiful love-thirsty mountains of Mussoorie and every Sunday I would go out there to quench my thirst of nature. I am not a person with many friends and I took young pride in solely trekking those mountains on stolen fast food from the school kitchen. Now this incident is from when I was in Standard 8th.

And as ideally as in grandfather stories, she was a local girl and the daughter of a baker, from whose bakery I and my friends used to buy hot fresh bread and buns to eat whenever we went for an outing from school. She was sometimes as her father’s shop. There was something about her that I admired very much. She was not a beauty queen by any standards but looked so sincere and caring that I always had liked her. She was my age and I used to saw her sometimes in the jungle near school roaming around often on early Sunday mornings. We had come to know each other somewhat from a distance and without much talking. I guess we had become friends.

The reason I went to trekking early in the morning was because I loved to collect dew drops from the trees and flowers from the jungle that belonged to the mountain the school was situated on. Whenever I could get up early on Sundays (I am a late sleeper) I went to see the sunrise. Sometimes she watched me and followed me from a distance. One day when I was running after a squirrel I bumped into her and from then on we started talking but only a little bit.

I had been planning for a week now to go to the jungle in early morning and collect the dew drops in a crystal glass I had stolen from my warden's room. I wanted to collect the dew drops and keep them in it. I replenished my stash of chips and buns from the kitchen and then one beautiful morning I went to visit the jungle and somehow there she was standing under a huge tree having an apple. Even the sun hadn’t come up yet and the sky was getting orange.

I had been meaning to do this for a long time so I went to her and showed her the crystal glass in order to ask her to collect dew drops with me. I was a very shy person with girls at that time, so it took me a lot of weeks to collect the nerve to ask her to come with me. In turn she stretched her palm with the half eaten apple and I knew she meant to share it with me. Not a word was said and we both somehow understood what the other wanted. The apple was sweet and juicy.

There was some kind of bird sitting above us and it woke up as the first sun rays were about to hit the jungle. So we went about collecting the biggest dew drops on the biggest flowers and leaves we could find. I have to tell you it is a very hard job as the water dries faster than you can collect it. But that morning humid and colder was more than normal. So after a lot of climbing, stretching, tumbling and laughing we managed to fill a quarter of the crystal glass with dew water. We had reached the top of the mountain. At that time the 1st sunrays started to hit us. The view was so breathtaking that it looked to my young mind as if nature has painted one of its masterpieces just for us. We were very tired after so much climbing and stretching and very thirsty.

We held hands and lifted the glass towards the sun as if saying 'cheers'. Then we both had a big gulp each of the sweet dew water. The taste you might ask was pure love. What was really special was that after a few seconds she kissed me on my cheek……

That was love.

Nostalgia - remembering the last year of my college

2007-04-22T12:10:00.000+05:30

univ2_0013
Originally uploaded by RollerCoaster VJ.

Those perfect days, always filled with joy and mischief. The tripple sichvwans at the road side food van and those long walks on Loranse Road. How can anyone forget.

This nostalgia attach was brought on by a post written by Amardeep, a close friend of mine, who was my flat-mate at that perfect college time.