It's been an Year .....

Thought i would never write such senti (aadat par gayi hai ab to)posts, but then i am giving away my inhibitions or wiping away the smoke that i have built over the past one year , pretending that i am happy being alone and independent , being somewhat indifferent to the feelings of my family members and relatives ..(as if i was ever concerned ).

Circa , July 3rd 2007 .. it perhaps is the day which has changed my life forever and for my good. I was bit apparent coming here , coz i had never been away from my family for 23 long years of my existence on earth .... or technically 22 , coz i did stay away from them during the year before ... but i did return to them in 4-5 days ....A sense of vacuum or a feeling of emptiness did develop inside me , during my early days of stay here .... i always thought (and still think) that Delhi is far better that bombay anyday ......i don't damn care about the night life in this city coz i hardly have one ... but the twists and turns of lutyens and bakers lane can never be eclipsed by the scenic beauty of marine drive or the the so called crowd at the bandstand. Mumbai might make people happy , independent and wealthy ... but to me it's a strange city ... a city where no one has time for anyone ... a city where people go into church gate station like swarms of bees ... , some how i do feel that i never belong to this place and never will.

But , then mumbai is called the city where you can make your own destiny for nothing , be it the bollywood or the financial hub , millions have made their fortunes in the city ... and perhaps i am no different .. but then my fortunes have come in the field of academics .. so be it . Before coming here i took things for granted , a sense of complacency had set in me ... which prevented me in fulfilling my potential to the fullest .. but being here away from my parents and loved ones a sense of emptiness did strike me .. and the best thing to get out of it was to devote my self to my passion of ...... u all can guess by now ....bloody ......ALGORITHMS .....:) .

I did feel some kind of independence here .. away from the constant bantering of my parents and relatives ...as if every move of mine was being scrutinized to the fullest ....( those crappy associations which i had last talked about ...) , but coming here i felt free to do whatever i wanted to do... In my present day i have become less opinionated ... not caring about others ... and somewhat selfish ... always weighing in the pros and cons for better of my self.... This has moved me away from my parents .... though i was never that close... i have never told them about the difficulties that i am facing , always trying to get out of it myself 's ... I generally do discuss about topics related to my career with them ... but never have felt the need to go into more of the details.... some how think that a distance has remained that i have never tried to abridge... for some odd reason ..which i have never understood and may be i never will. I don't care much about the things going in my house .... having built a cocoon around me ... always end up fighting with my father ..on any issue .. may it be Indian Hockey (his passion) or if it concerns me ....My mom does understand me somewhat ..(being a psychologist does help :)) .. she can make out by my face ... my happiness and disappointments ... but she observes me ....most of the time without interfering in my stubborn opinions ....she knows i am opinionated, but i do look forward to that day when she comes to know about my blogs :) .... i hope she won't be shocked or horrified ...( God save me !!!).

My parents always complain that i don't end up calling them for 7-10 days .. somehow don't feel the need to talk to them ...to tell them everything in going in my life .... perhaps it's the reason they don't know me ... or my friends too well ....they do know about some of my literary abilities..but then i have never felt the need in revealing this side to them ... perhaps i don't want them to be worried about me .. that much ....coz may be i am not that worried about them ...In the last one year i have developed the confidence to handle and resolve most of my problems .. and i want them to be happy coz some how i do feel that i have taken them for granted ..(most of us do that) .. so it's better that i don't tell them my difficulties if i can't share with them their's.

Barring all this i do think that i have the best dad , the best mom and best sis that there can be in this world and i am thankful to them for bearing with an eccentric son like me. For long i have worried them with my sudden and strange whims , but they have gladly faced them all.The times when my friends were made their parents proud by taking their first job , i was busy searching for my destiny, i hadn't been easy if i hadn't got their support and encouragement. They deserve an applause !!! I will be grateful to them till i exist.......

Bonferroni's gyaan

so Ladies and Gentlemen(if any) i am back with more of the "geek" gyaan ... that i somehow can associate with real life situations.... got this extraordinary ability to link theory with practicality of life ...(ya i know most of you would envy me !!)........

In short this is Bonferroni's so called principle............

if you look in more places for interesting patterns than your amount of data will support, you are bound to find crap....

so all the men will quite agree with this ... when they take their loved ones or so called their female "friends" .....( we all are tired of hearing the cliche statement , oohh.. we are just friends) .. out for shopping.Bonferroni's gyaan fits perfectly in this situation ... all the men have suffer the ordeal ... when the ladies ... just can't find enough of their passion for shopping , they go around and around mining for stuff ... that would even put the mining algorithm of used by Google to sleep ....zzzzzzzzz..., but then men can't even utter a single word in front of them ... though a volcano full of lava .. would be erupting in their minds for sure ... praying that the ordeal will get over soon,, promising to themselves that they would never come accompany in this shopping spree.... but all they can say in front of her is "anything for you ma'am" ..........

I also had the privilege of accompanying one of my friends to her shopping spree's on an eventful Sunday at phoenix lifestyle in mumbai .... though i was blessed with the fact that two of my good friends were also there .... nahi ..to i would have also joined the long list of martyrs ... who were blessed with such experiences of there .....thank god for that .... Now no words can describe the path or the journey we took ........on this auspicious day ..... even Dijkstra the designer of the shortest path .. problem would have pulled his hair out ... by looking at our adventures ,when hopping from one store to another ..... and surprisingly in the end ... she bought none of the stuff she was looking for ... surprising ???? ....Naaahaa....

Jokes apart .....(b'coz i am going to get a real bashing when i make her read this stuff) .... , Bonferroni's principle which i took up from web mining is applicable in our real life too.... , many of us would have felt at some stage in our life .. that we think too much . collect too much of information .. analyze it by using those crappy statistical tools and... in the end we infer our noble prize winning discovery ...which turns out to be crap...... . The best word the , the so called gyaan gurus have given is the "strategy"... writing realms of pages on how you can be successful , rich and powerful in this world... but if reading biographies of great people would have been the solution ... then all of us would be great and successful ... pity it's not the case ... So reading those crappy stuff for motivation .... is not the solution to your problems , coz what they did was to take risks ...which ultimately resulted in success for them .... they did not follow any so called blue ocean strategy ...... to reach their goals ... So the best thing is to clear all the clutter inside your brain ... without trying to look in for associations ....and patterns ....the best thing would be keep it straight and simple ..without much of the complications ...in life ( ya i am not that gyaan guru ... but can relate it from personal experiences.........).. the following lines from a song in Taare Zammen Par .. would sum up my thoughts.......


Tujh Mein Agar Pyaas Hai
Baarish Ka Ghar Bhi Pass Hai
O, Roke Tujhe Koi Kyon Bhala
Sang Sang Tere Aakash Hai

Ye meri kahani...........

No, its not that i have reached the end of my life , having accomplished everything ...., but surely i am at a state in my journey where i can look back and dwell upon the past five or six years. The following piece of Pseudo code( can't think of another term!!) bundled with the Aerosmith number best captures my journey .........

do
{
Dream on..............
} until , your dream comes true;

Ya .... for all the geeks would say that it's not the exact syntax of the do-while construct, but i am not trying to make readers learn any programming language. And for all the morons and non-geeks who don't understand even a bit .... it's a vicious loop that you have to enter irrespective of whether one wants or not .... The best escape route could be to surpass this loop and continue this journey of yours. But i did enter this loop ... at a very early stage of my life ... ever since i was able to spell my name .... though the "dream" always kept on changing.

In the early stage ... the dream was about getting good numbers in class ... to finish in the top three in the school ....which i somehow managed by FLUKE!. Then the dream reached higher orders of madness , to graduate from the best engineering college in the country .... that failed at the last hurdle .... but this failure spurred me on to think even more ...... transcending all the limits that one could do..... I started living it through the web pages of people i used to be fascinated with ...... their accomplishments of having published some 30 odd research papers on my favorite topic ALGORITHMS and OPTIMIZATION. The proofs, lemmas and the results fascinated me ...or you could say inspired me to dream on..... further and further ..... , some how felt if two scholars could revolutionize the way we search for information on the internet ... then given iota of a chance .. i could also replicate a fraction of their work.......

This fascination ... did urge me on towards studying papers and courses .. which were never supposed to be part of my UG curriculum , in the hindsight it proved out to be a good move .. whose benefits i am able to reap now....... I can boast , that i am a pretty good analyser of such stuff now.... But some how feel that i should have used these abilities in my practical life too. Problems could have been tackled with the same analysis as any theoretical design problem....perhaps the approach was not right ... In order to solve my problems , i used the easy approach of GREEDY ALGORITHM ANALYSIS , though the intention was to produce the result easily ...... the complexity in the worst case was high .... which always marred my progress further .... or in a layman's language ... the journey from point A to B ..... was not carried in a shortest distance possible .. i always somehow managed to route my journey via point C, ( Some how the fundas ... of displacement ..had stuck to me for long.. :) ..).

The best approach would have been to use a DIVIDE and CONQUER approach ... to divide my problems and conquer my fears... though these approach required many resources ... coz a recursive costs add to your solutions..... but the resources in this case were more time and effort .. which i could have managed... if i look back now....... Enough of this looking back business .... coz time cant really come back ... so after a really sorry and sad post ... which i had written some time back ... and got lots of choice words ... from a dear one .... i decided to look somehow positive in life .... NO the dreaming did not stop .... but the dream went to the background .... and the small aspects of life were PAGED into the .....my RAM (limited though) ...... these were always kept in the back store ... and never did i transfer them to the faster memory (RAM). Perhaps studying OS(operating systems) ...... was also useful :).... hough i wished i had followed this approach a little earlier ..... So after following this approach ...... i did start to enjoy the small aspects which i had somehow forgotten ..... the results were good ... may be my memory was refreshed after flushing out the PAGES .... which had stuck in it for ever................


So finally the dream .... is getting a picture of some sort ......surely i would be able to fulfill it in the coming months ......... just praying for it.........

PS: this one's for the numerologists and the astrologers..... , who the hell says 13 and 99 are unlucky ...?? remember it's us who make the numbers ..... numbers don't make us .........

For Akbar's Sake ,Please...............

So after an eventful sunday , on which i wasted the whole day on a doomed movie , did not have the courage and the will to write a review on JODHA AKBAR. Feeling priveleged that SAURAV has decided to contribute to my blog , by pening down the ordeal we all suffered on a fateful sunday. So here goes the review.................. thanks to Saurav once again

I couldn’t recall last where I had been let down so much. All the hype and hoopla surrounding Jodhaa Akbar had fizzed out in a 3:30 hrs ordeal.
Wondering what Mr. Gowariker could have done differently, I was in a fix!!
Hrithik hadn’t let us down yet again. He is one of those guys who will give up his 100% , no matter how substandard the script is, remember the string of flops that followed Kaho na pyaar , there wasn’t one film where the boy faltered.
Ash was her usual self ..’’All handwriting and no content”( Mahesh Bhatt in one of the umpteen interviews on television). Although, I guess we appreciate her that way. But age/marriage seems to have taken a toll on her,
boys- figure it thats out that for yourself!!
There wasn’t any problem with Ashutosh’s direction either.
Well quite clearly there wasn’t enough meat in the story.
A poor script!! Mr Gowariker had never faltered in this area of film making before.
To put the record straight,
But for the grandeur and scale , it would have been a soap opera running for at least
1000 eposides.
Hey did Ekta Kapoor pounce on that idea!!
A grumpy mother in law played by a hapless Ila Arun, well we never knew she could act also!!
A marriage of compromise and subsequent saas – bahu “nok-jhoks”.
Remember that salubrious meal, it already had few lips reaching out for it,
Anand and Vikas suddenly had their stomachs doing a “Ding a Dong…”
The director started with a noble cause but somewhere he seemed to have lost the track. The war scenes were presented with panache, but hey hold on!! There was hardly any fact to the story…
What is the fuss that these Rajputs are trying to create when there was hardly any fact or to put it simply…
It was fiction all the way with doses of History interspersed here and there!!
The producers seemed to have cashed on the name of Akbar…Well its paying dividend too!!…The movie is running to nearly packed horses all over the country.
Ever thought where to spend your dad’s 80 bucks in case u plan for this movie ..
I have a few suggestions for u..
To start with .. A laconic bargain with one of the college side vendors for a high octane Novel , and I would have my food and fodder for the next few days.
A HOT Cappuccino with Miss Wadhwa ( subject to permission from her bhaiya!!)..Stop dreaming, u idiot!!
Yeah, how do I miss out on those humorous anecdotes by Vikas, perhaps the only saving grace of the film.
DISCLAIMER: Those jokes were purely Non-Veg!!

IPL:The great indian circus

so ...20th feb was a historic day for indian cricket , when the corporate honchos splurged cash as if liquor was flowing all around the HILTON towers in mumbai (may be vijay mallaya's presence had some influence).At the end of the 10 hour CIRCUS (yes ,it was this only) ....and after spending 160 crores ... the likes of preity zinta , shahrukh khan ....justified there new found love for the game of CRICKET......(preity even remembered the 76 runs yuvi had scored on feb 19 )......:)...Now they may all be banking on the euphoria of india's 20-20 world cup win last September....but seriously ,there seems to be no logic on the kind of cash they have spent.

First the concept of IPL is somewhat flawed, they are banking on the city loyalty of supporters to help promote the league.Let's assume it may come true , though its highly unlikely .....i would never support brett lee knocking the stumps out , when sachin tendulkar is batting , no matter if lee is in my team ....but lets accept some morons ....passionately follow their cities , then would the live telecast attract only the city loyalists ?? ...This question seems to have no answers ... it's like a double edge sword to me .........

Second .... the way players were auctioned ... it was as if some commodity auction was going on at the chrsitie's or the sothebey's ...how can one treat players like that....they have some preferences ... on their price , for which city they want to play for ...but lalit modi's dream baby seemed to forget all these aspects and only concentrated on the moolahaaa.......

Third , some of the selections made mere even mind bobbling .....ricky ponting getting less than the one match (some 10 ball wonder ) manoj tiwari......, what was the rational for such selections ..if they went for marketing .....then it would have been better for the franchisees to select film stars instead of cricketers....They would amassed more money for them......because cricketing skills were not the criteria for selection..........There are some more issues which make it's viability somewhat circumspect... what if they never get a clear window for the IPL , then it would become a domestic 20-20 championship of local indian players. without international stars , you won't be able to find 80 odd domestic cricketers of the level and quality desired to attract the crowds..............

They want to follow the EPL model , but they seem to have forgotten that teams in EPL play all around , IPL will just last for 50 odd days ........football world cup comes in four years ...where as the nine test playing nations have a regular playing schedule all around the year...so the notion of associating players and fans with the city is highly unlikely....and the last point of contention is the format 20-20 ..it's like pyjama cricket to me ...with all hype and little substance.. it cannot produce the drama that sydney test produced....the verbal banter between the players ... three wickets in an over by michael clarke .......so spectators who seriously follow cricket ...and appreciate its quality would never accept this format........

BCCI and corporate world seems to be riding around 1.7 billion dollars on the back of the , fluke win in the 20-20 world cup final...all the best to them....but i see little light at the end of the TUNNEL.

L.I.F.E.

what's life all about , sitting today some random thoughts are coming into my mind ...what was expected from me , whether i have delivered to my potential , perhaps i have not .....so who is responsible for it ...it's only me and not someone else i would like to blame .....it's all ready three sentences and i still have no idea as to why i am writing all this crap .... to whom is it directed or whether i am venting my frustrations out by penning this ...by now everyone of you must have made it out that there is something wrong...yes surely something is ...

What started as a one off incidence has marred my life for all the years that i have started to dream about the better days that will lie ahead for me ,perhaps they will never materialize unless i start working for it .., I always tried to break the conventional mold surrounding me , never wanted to do what my peers have done , failed most of the times , perhaps each time ,even after reaching the target .some sort of extraordinary circumstances have denied me the moment where i could have basked in the glory ...but none of the others are responsible for it , it's me who is responsible for my happenings , i do take full responsibility for it.

I dreamt of being something in life (now i cannot even define this word "something")...as perplexed i am today , where there seems no light , in the open world leave aside the end of the tunnel ....i did kept running after things in life which i never achieved ...but then , what i was doing never gave me the challenge to put in all my efforts .I would not like to cram up things and then vomit them in exams ..always wanted to test my abilities to the fullest extent ...how far can i reach ...though all these resulted in failures at every stage of my life ,but i always tried to rise from them .., prove my detractors wrong even my parents were part of it ..in all these years i have realised that it's best to walk alone in life ..because no one cares where the damn you are in life ....there are other better things in life for them .I am happy that at least i played my game , never shied away from the obstacles that have marred me .

We all like to live in the safe harbor ,but then a ship never rests permanently in it ,because it is meant to sail ,bring in the revenues ,no one admires it standing still in the water ,all the beautiful canvases drawn show it sailing against the backdrop of the pale blue water. If one is happy with a routine life, the same conversations, the same kind of routine work then I have no judgments on that kind of life, all the best to you, but I haven’t met someone who’s happy living that kind of life. If you keep doing what you have been doing all your life you will keep getting what you have been getting all your life. Yet most people live their life that way, stuck in the cocoon of comfort ness and complacency. True joy only comes when you put your blood and sweat in the game and take chances, you will start to experience more failure, but the chances of success also rise, as the saying goes “Insanity is doing the same things but expecting different results”.The only failure is the failure to try, to dream and dare .The real risk is in living the risk less life, because down the life you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do rather than the things you did.

Perhaps the next 2-3 months are the most important for my life .. it's like make or break ..if i don't succeed then may be i will be lost somewhere ...never to rise again .. i shall try to fulfill my potential ,hope this time i am true to myself.

THE CHAMPS ,YES I CAN SAY THAT NOW

So finally i am back after a long sabbatical to update my blog , perhaps i did not get the time to write anything new or may be the good old writer's block had cast a spell over me ...whatever the reason ,i hope none of you would have missed my posts ....on the contrary my friends were happy that they did not have to waste their time reading ( i literally forced them to do so) and comment on my blog......

The time could not have been right to post this one ,YES we are world champions after 24 years be it 20-20 it does not matter now ...we all are all happy and proud to say that we have won the world cup .This victory is important in two aspects ,firstly the aura of the 83 winning team will diminish a bit , i have been tired to see the being interviewed before every world cup ...news channels ran after them because they were the only heroes we could recognize ( the last hockey world cup we won back was in 1975....) ,and secondly the importance of the holy trinity of the indian team would also be paid less attention ....what i say in this world cup was unprecedented ,the 6 sixes of yuvraj after the confrontation with freddie flintoff ,the fire with which they fought with aussies ,giving them back the mouthful which we have been getting from all over the years was fantastic to watch ...never even in the wildest dream i could have thought this.

Coming back to the victory we must have realised by now that it's a team game .perhaps now our obsession with numbers and centuries will die and we would all think that it does not matter whether a tendulkar or a ganguly hits a ton .....i would be happy if sachin scores 90's and we win, beacuse winning in not everything it's the only thing ....and mr vengsarkar would also take back his words of saying that we do not have enough talent , how can we find talent when we just give few opportunities to the new players?? , and this has proved none is above the game we can still continue and win without sachin ,dravid and ganguly....perhaps our nation is desperate with sticking to it's old heroes ...why does australia pay less importance to them because they find new heroes every year who win ,unless and until we can back our passion of cricket with results we will never find new heroes.

Looking ahead this victory does signal to the holy trinity to hang up their boots atleast in the 50 over game and give chance to youngsters ....the difference in level of fielding in england and south africa was colossal ....and we dont need to be carried away so much with this win ....i would not like to wait another 24 years for a victorious moment now .....the 20-20 game doesn't test teh temperament of a batsman which a test match would , so we have still a long way to blood youngsters in test cricket....but for now the nation is rejoicing........CHAK DE INDIA!!!!