The way we love

I have promised in a couple of posts ago that I will be blogging on a couple of things. Like any movie-director worth his salt, me the aspiring movie-maker is keeping my promises in the increasing order of the interest it can generate in the audience, well readers, ok reader, ok ok (what the heck lets face it) me, the only reader.

Now I thought I will post on the way we love changes over the years. This thought like all the good ones, struck me while I was on the road waiting for the walk signal. There is this beautiful girl in my college and she just crossed the road from the opposite side and walked past me. After I do not know how many years, I had what can be loosely called 'butterflies in the stomach'. You know the way love used to be in the teens. For the purists, lets call it infatuation. The 'I-felt-the-smell-of-the-gutter-and-had-a-deja-vu-of-the-days -I-lived-in-an-apartment-by-a-gutter' experience passed; and I ended up promising people I would blog about that. I would not have kept this particular promise, but some important developments gave this post a kick in the butt.

I was in love among others with this particular girl in Bangalore. Apologies for using the word love very loosely, at the end of the post you would be screaming at your innocent monitor, no that is not love that is just a crush, get over your infatuation and grow up pally. You could rather spare your monitor the trouble until we communication engineers make telepathy official. As I was telling, she is getting married and the usual stuff, I knew this all along but the time has neared it seems. Like how poverty-in-the-world stays dormant at the back of our mind and hurts us only when we are uncouthly reminded of it by a documentary, I also felt sad when reminded of the up coming marriage by a friend. I felt bad for a really long time, the time in which an average satellite communications carrier signal would have oscillated roughly two billion times (let me do the math for you it is half a second).

Well now what is wrong with me? I am supposed to be totally upset, drink some vodka or something and do some stupid things. Here I am hale and hearty watching sitcoms, eating bananas, sleeping for 12hrs a day, solving Bessel equations and what not. You may say well then it is not 'pure love', it only 10% love, 50% infatuation, 25% crush, 30% admiration, 40% youth messing around, 30% attention I was getting, 90% nothing better to do. And guys if anyone is starting an association or a cult or a mailing list or even an orkut group that has members claiming to believe in soul-mates, pure-love, holy-crap etc. Count me out.

Its like saying only one cloud can pour rain on one person. Why today, I got drenched by a Persian cloud I saw in the swimming pool (boy it hurts when a girl, especially a beautiful and thin one does twice the amount of swimming you can), and saw her being very very courteous with the gym door to a fellow student with a load. She is at Tech and wears glasses, which means she is slightly geek, which is a turn-on btw. She is extremely beautiful, she can dance (at the next Swing Dance party, I know one more person I am going to ask - that will make it three - not to worry an average night can accommodate up to 20). It is impossible not to love such a person after you get to know them better.

Err now what am I trying to drive at? There was a butterflies-in-the-stomach kind of love, then there was this-woman-has-an-awesome-attitude kind of love, then there was this we-think -alike kind of love, then there was this we-need-not-talk-our-eyes-communicate kind of love, then there was this her-life-must-be-having-a-great-time-being-her-life kind of love, then there was she-knows-me-so-much kind of love, then we are back to the simpler she-dances-so-well-and-swims-so-well kind of love.

Get wet it's not going to rain for ever.
It's ok to miss, it is going to rain again.

Vanity Stall

I thought I will write a small post on good things that happen in my life. Trust me, though for the most part of it my blog sounds cynical, I have what most people would call a very successful life. However, remeber that most people are wrong most of the times about things that matter the most to you.

I had this interview for a summer internship today. It was telephonic, within two hours of the interview, I was made an offer. I think by now I am damn good at these interviews. It is one of those moments when that old raka with his love for coding and analytical stuff momentarily comes out with his friend the business savvy and confident raka to win things that give the present 'sick-of-it-all' raka a confusing time!

It feels a bit good to know that you are being wanted. For a second there, I felt like Mishti Srivatsava. It is this girl from college who used to have a long following, who used to win them all without doing a thing except being herself (I guess, was not one of those guys in college so no authority on that). But atleast I be myself, its a lot easier that way.
Now, Did someone say vanity is a sin?

Passion River

If there is one thing that needs to be mentioned in a blog titled 'anything passion anything', it is the olympics. The winter olympics just got over and I feeling like a kid who is weeping when the prosession is over. I am not sure if it is the NBC coverage or just the love for the sport, but I miss the olympics a lot.

Passion is a word that is used very loosely. Ambitious marketers just throw it around and the word tends to get too hackneyed. I hope my attitude towards life does justice to my using it in my blog a lot.

Anyway, the Olympics had their tag-line as 'Passion lives here'. For once, for a change it was not a trite usage. Infact it is no exaggeration to say that it was one of those rare occassions when passion as a word falls short to decribe; to describe the spirit of the olympics. The sage like existence the atheletes lead, the life they dedicate to the games. It is just so great, there is a glamour to it, a completeness, a perfection, a symmetry to it (to quote 'Gone with the wind').
You can feel the love of the atheletes for their games. I would say Passion flows around there. I know I am just rambling about a personal love.

My favourite events in the olympics were. All of them! But the most favourite was, you guessed it - the figure skating. Especially the couples. The event was the greatest display of the olympic spirit. The winners were Tatyana Totmiyanina and Maxim Marinin. They had an amazing tale of recovery to tell. In one of their earlier perfromances they had a terrible accident where he had dropped her on the ice, where she fell unconscious. Now they were back in the olympics after six months to claim the gold. The way he was handling her was so careful, like how you treat a bird. They performance was very catuious, thus rendering it very graceful when most skaters tend to make it very animated at the cost of grace. The chemistry, which I would attribute to being trough rough times together, was so good. I do not think the joy of winning the gold medal was much more than just participating in the olympics and doing it flawlessly.

Speaking of flaws, are we not entitled to our own share of them! The pair that came second were Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang. Mid way through their performance, the Dan had to suffer a nasty fall while attempting a a throw quad salchow. I thought they were out, the lady seemed really hurt, but when asked by her coach, she said that she would continue. Participating in the olympics is a great honour, its a dream and its about living that dream, more than anything else. Inspite of deducting a point for the fall, they come second. The spirit of that lady is so admirable.

Other fascinating stories include Cindy Klassen. This beautiful lady resorted to speed skating after she could not make it to the national hockey team, to become the most decorated olympian in a single winter games. The sad story of Michelle Kwan who could not make it to the olympics but has won all the major titles in figure skating. Sasha Cohen who won the silver in womens' figure skating inspite of falling twice. And the lone medal winner for Japan Shizuka Arakawa. God! is she so beautiful. What are the women made up of? Gold? The Germans who are always at the top. The scandinavians who have the highest medals per capita. The list just goes on and on.

Well I think thats all for now. I am planning to go to the Vancouver olympics in 2010, before I go back to settle in India, let's see if the united states can hold me here for so long. When will India ever win a medal in the winter olympics. I want to live to see the day, what the heck I want to make these few things happen. i) India winning a medal in the winter olympics ii) Participating in the football workd cup iii) Hosting the summer olympics. Hmmm... ambitious? Thats me!

Soul Sellers Inc.

Regulars at this blog know that the lines they read are from the finger tips of this very talented software engineer who hates technology and hence computers and hence software. A lot of people say that I am very difficult to understand. A 'successful' person who is dissatisfied. A tech-hater at one of the world's best tech schools.

Neway, software giant Microsoft thought I am in computer science and sent me an interview offer, and as a preparation, I was asked to go trough one of those 'we-are-such-a-cool-place-to-work-at' web pages. A strong believer of preparation is the key to success(how ever dis-interested in that succsss you might be), I was going trough those 'oh-so-cool' job profiles. I was depressed, now who wants to develop software systems, how ever kewl the HR people may make it sound? Acknowledging life's great capability to suck, I went on to the other pages.

Now there was this page on the locations of Microsoft. They have one in the Silicon Valley like any software company worhty of its code does. They have this stuff about how close it is to SF, Palo Alto, LA, LV, Lake Tahoe etc. To quote them verbatim 'Did someone say road trip?' Suddenly the dream of SW descends on me. How cool it would be to go to Stanford at Palo Alto for the dance classes and parties. To SF for some football and fun. To LA on road trips, to Lake Tahoe for skiing. To Vegas for some sin. In that BMW that you bought within a month of joining work?

Being a rich bachelor (thanks to your lousy job) sure does help. Though that still leaves us with our having to the 'lousy' aspect! Is life like this? You work those 50 hours a week just waiting for it to be over to earn some money to spend the 25 hours of weekend? Is it impossible to make your passion your profession.

PS : Please do not wish me all the best for the interview. It does not matter, if or not I get the internship offer. It will only be a painful reminder of the pros. life.

Road to Dumb-ition

A lot of thoughts come to you when you are on the road, or when you are in the shower. You will think to your self, Hmmm.. I need to blog these. But by the time, you can pull your self to the nearest computer and get yourself to logon to blogger, the wave of thought ebbs away. But sometimes when a computer is at hand, and you get a thought, (well, it is highly improbable that you get a good thought with a computer before you though), yeah well, when a computer is at hand, you make a hasty promise saying that these are what I am going to blog about in the near future. Now good friends who do read your blogs (even though you think you are writing for no one to read) ask sweetly, "when r these gonna be 'up n running?'".

After first wondering, how such a football coach type (or is it a running coach) statement could be said sweetly, and later wonder how anything, like a blog could be up and running, and later wondering "what can I do to while away three hours of time in front of the computer giving the impression to my boss that I am working?" This 'wonder'-ful idea strikes you. Let me get my post err.. well.. up and running.

I am a strong believer in the 'first things first philosophy'. Generally, anything I believe in, I believe in it strongly, except a couple of things like 'the first man on moon', 'fighting pairs are a signof mature love' etc. Any way, lets not digress here. The first thing as I mentioned is 'How grad school makes one dumb'. Though this is not what you would want 'up and running', I stick to my strongly believed philosophy.

You know, I was a smart guy. Now, when was that? Let me recollect. Yup, right after college. My dressing sense if not great, it used to be much better. After that a series of events took place, one thing lead to another and here I am dumb. These are two incidents that happened in the last two weeks.

Situation: I was playing pool with my friend. I was attempting a shot into one of the holes, and saw that the hole was almost full to its brim with balls that were previously in. It still had place for one more. But the sight of a full hole was kind of deterring my concentration, so I thought I will empty it up. But then there was no place in the room to put them. I was lost, I gave up. My partner in the game, saw my plight and took some balls out of the hole and placed them in the other holes. Boy, was that a great idea. I was impressed. I thought to myself "Boy are these IITians smart".

Second incident, I brought myself thirteen hangers. Now why thirteen. Did I want to keep the devil outside my closet? I do not know, for what ever reason, Wal-Mart sells them in sets of thirteen! I think it is a way to increase sales. After all, everything in the US is a way to make you spend more. The problem came when I realized that I had more than thirteen garments. I was baffled, after a day or two after being in the closet for sometime and pondering over the crisis, it struck me, I can hang more than one shirt to a hanger. I was thrilled again.

Now why is it taking so much time to get even half decent ideas. I just got dumbed. How did it happen? There are three prime suspects.

Software. The world of Software is a grim one. Like a silent coal mine, or like a graveyard haunted by the cyber ghosts also called bugs. It is bereft off all creativity. The only time creativity ever comes anywhere near it is when people frustrated by software write blogs like this or make movies like The Matrix. The bug falling on your head like water dripping from a leak, slowly seep trough your brain and render it dumb.

Second: PG Wodehouse. We are speaking the genius of dumbness here. Oxymoron it may sound, but true it is. His third greatest achievement must have been to remain sane among all the dumb characters that populate his books (and his mind before they enter the books). I read too may of them at one point, that I started to become one. So I would say. 'Wodehousers ye' be warned'.

Last and the greatest of them all is the great grad school. You are given assignments so abstract that you, who opened the book with a ferocity, only a chinese warrior could have possessed, soon find yourself confounded by a seemingly small problem that keeps on blowing up as you poke it. For example I was given this problem as a part of the assignment.
Prove that c.O = O. Where O is a null vector (which is the equivalent of zero for vectors). Of course, anything times zero is zero, now to prove that, phew!

Now here I am intimidated by every little challenge that comes along. Am I getting old-minded or is just that I am realizing that life could be far more complicated and hence I far smaller in the big picture? I guess this is what Jorge Cham is trying to tell in these comics.