The day we won the cup

June 25. 1983.

Greatest day since independence. You bet.

India won the Prudential World Cup by beating the mighty West Indies.

For all you newbies, this Australia team has got nothing on the West Indies of 83. No other team in the modern era had a bowling attack like they did---sure other teams, at various times, had Waqar & Wasim, McGrath & Gillespie & Warne, Pollock & Donald.

But the West Indies firm of Roberts & Holding & Marshall & Garner was something else--- four of the most accurate, fearsome gentlemen ever to have walked the cricket field. And all of them did it together on that day in mid summer, June 25 1983.

The batting was not too bad either. Three of the greatest one day batsmen ever were in the West Indies team that day---------Greenidge, Haynes and Viv Richards. Backed up by the mighty hitting Clive Lloyd, the steady Larry Gomes and the artistic
and athletic keeper Dujon who was the best keeper-batsman before Gilchrist.

And yet they lost the biggest game of their collective lives.

They lost to India.

India, which then looked about as threatening as Bangladesh does today. Kapil was the only world class one day player in the side. Gavaskar was a liability in ODIs, the bowling attack of Binny, Madan and Sandhu would give no opponents sleepless nights and the other players---well not much could be expected from them. Or so we thought.

When the World Cup began, there was no excitement in the country. We did not care about it and you could not blame us for that.... in 2 previous editions we
had beaten only East Africa (even lost to Sri Lanka before they got Test status). I remember buying the pre-World cup "Sportsweek" (now defunct) and asking my
father what chances we had. (I was 7 then) My dad nodded mournfully "Winning the cricket World cup is as much a pipedream as winning the football one."

This time however things were a bit different. My dad did not notice it then and neither did many people----but in retrospect it is evident now.

Just before the World Cup, India toured the West Indies. Needless to say, they were plastered. But it was not in vain. A 3 month tour playing against the world's best opposition was exactly the right kind of preparation going into the cup.

In addition, two significant things happened on that tour. Mohinder Amarnath rose from the ashes to become India's leading batsman. Amarnath used to be known as
a pathetic player of the short ball whose career was in jeopardy after he got hit on the head by Rodney Hogg. After a layoff, he came back a changed man. He had stood tall among the ruins in the Pakistan series (where Imran and Safraz razed our batting) and then attained legendary status on this tour to West Indies.

The West Indian speed merchants peppered us with the short stuff. Gavaskar ducked. Gaekwad took it on his body. Amarnath hooked. The West Indians had never seen
Indians hooking bouncers. The faster they came at Amarnath, the more vicious he hooked it and such was his dominance on that tour that both Imran and Marshall accepted that he was the best player of pace in the world.

The second significant event was that we actually won a ODI off the Windies. It was the last one---rather insignificant in terms of the series, but of great significance for what was to follow. At Berbice, Gavaskar finally got into the groove of one day
cricket (forgetting his 36 over 60 overs) and Kapil blasted the West Indies bowling attack. A mere blip on Windies' radar-----------but at least we knew we could
beat them.

Well not only was it possible to beat the West Indies, India made it two in two defeating them in the first match of the World Cup. And then, after a few wins and
losses, it all came down to the match against Zimbabwe.

My dad had a small radio. When I turned it on, India were 15 for 4. Soon they were 17 for 5. I was deliberating whether to skip drawing school but this did it. I trooped off with my paint brush and was ensconced on the cold floor along with scores of
others, drawing "still life." My mind however was anything but still.

There was the unmistakable drone of transistors coming from outside. That means people were still listening in. Soon the drone increased. More transistors/radios
had come on. What could that mean ? Was India still "in the game"?

It was hot inside the room. And I desperately wanted to leave. But I had to wait to get picked up by Baba. And then the first sound of "chakka" (sixer) from
someone next door. Soon others followed. My heart was pounding, threatening to jump out of its socket into the paint bowl.

Baba where are you? I want to go home.

Baba came. A big smile on his face. Kapil was smashing Zimbabwe all over the place----he was in a marauding mood. Going home, I caught the end of India's batting
on the radio. India wrapped up the game in style with the commentators describing the fielding as brilliant. India had made the turn--------cricket would henceforth be India's national sport.

Semi final. I knew India would lose. I was sanguine. I also thought that if I thought India was going to win, God might punish me for my hubris and defeat us. And
by God, did we need godly intervention to win against England.

India bowled first. The fielding was exceptional. The runs were choked and England made their mistakes. Alan Lamb was run out by an exceptional bit of fielding, Gatting was bowled by a gem from Amarnath and Botham was castled by a brute of a delivery from Kirti Azad. Then India came into bat. Also went out the lights---power cut ! Or what we used to call "load shedding".

I have this problem. Whenever I get tense, I start shivering. So here in the month of June, on a hot Kolkata night with all power off, I was shaking. With tension. You see I had maneuvered myself into a lose-lose situation. Long before Azhar and Jadeja, I had bet against my own team. I had a running bet with an uncle---if India makes it to the finals, I will treat him to a "Rajbhoga". Which cost Re 1 in those days.
Something I was not willing to give up since it constituted about 20% of my "personal stash". I wanted India to win. Desperately. And I also wanted to avoid losing my Re 1.

Yashpal Sharma flicks Bob Willis for a six. Sandeep Patil hammers Allot. The power comes back on for us to see Yashpal Sharma getting dismissed. But no further
hiccups and Kapil races back to the pavilion after the winning run as he is engulfed by the teeming population. I lose my Re 1. Which, I refuse to pay when uncle asks for it.

Then June 25 dawns. No more bets. No more debts. India vs West Indies.

Sunil Gavaskar. 5 feet and a few. Joel Garner. 7 feet and a few. Garner hustles in and hurls them from sky high and Sunny is all at sea. He is soon taken out of
his misery. So are we. Srikkanth, on the other hand, looks cool and composed.
Well as cool and composed as he can look. Roberts is hooked over fine leg for six and then Sri gets on one knee and creams him through cover. Shot of the match. Twitches his nose, walks towards square leg. And then gets beaten by a beauty from Marshall and is trapped in front.

Amarnath has dropped anchor. Runs are difficult to come by. Holding goes wide of the crease, angles one in. Amarnath plays down the wrong line and his stumps go cartwheeling. My heart sinks.

With runs not coming, Yashpal Sharma loses the plot and gifts his wicket to the innocuous off spin of Larry Gomes. Kapil also holes out to deep square leg
attempting a mighty heave. Then Doordarshan loses feed. Damn.

Back to the radio. Azad and Binny are blown away. India's tail fights back. But my heart has turned to cinder. I knew India was going to lose but at least a
fight was expected. This was abject surrender. Everything is going according to their script. Their script. I almost feel like crying.

Power is back on for the Windies chase. Only good news, Llyod has pulled a hamstring. Fat chance of Lloyd batting though. Richards is enough.183 is nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And then it happens. Pure magic.

Gordon Greenidge, one of the world's most technically correct batsman is at the crease. Sandhu runs in and bowled a seemingly innocuous outswinger. 183 to get...60 overs. Plenty of time. So Greenidge reads the outswinger and shoulders arms to let it go.

Nothing wrong in that. But the ball is charmed---- the collective will of so many Indians makes it change its line. Late.... very late it swings in ever so slightly and clips Greenidge's off stump. Greenidge stands there with his bat raised --incomprehending, incredulous. Sandhu is rushing towards keeper Kirmani clenching his fist. India has drawn blood.

The Man comes in. Chewing gum, twirling bat, utter disdain for the opposition. Madan Lal is dismissed from his presence with a swipe to square leg. Binny (India's version of JLo---if you have seen him you know what I mean) is thrashed through cover. And then Doordarshan loses transmission again.

"A good thing" my mother says. It is torture watching India lose. Now we can all go back to our respective lives. But the radio is on. My dad mutters to himself ---"Richards has got to go".

However it is Haynes who goes, unable to keep a drive down off Madan Lal. The wrong guy....the wrong guy....we need Richards.

The fall of Haynes has no effect on the Man. Richards is no mood to step off the center stage----determined to finish off the match himself and repeat his murderous innings against England in the 1979 World Cup. Runs flow from his bat with precise
inevitability.

" He is out. Gone."

The commentary drowns out amidst the thunderous applause. It's true. Viv IS out and Madan has scalped him. Richard's overconfidence has done him in. He bludgeons Madan Lal uppishly and Kapil Dev, runs back and takes the most significant catch in Indian
cricketing history. Crowd goes silent and then the Indians erupt. But we all saw that later. For now, we are simply jumping up and down with joy. We are in with a chance.

Clive Llyod is not being able to play his normal flowing game and Gomes has gone into a shell. Binny takes out Larry Gomes with a late moving outswinger. And then "Big Cat" Lloyd, strung by a hamstring, plays a nothing shot and is skinned by Kapil at cover.

I run around the room in the unquestioning glee of childhood.we have won, we have won. My father tells me to calm down. Half of the side still remains. But yes, we are in with a chance. Now we are cursing Doordarshan. Doordarshan obliges by restoring live feed. Bacchus is scratchy. Dujon looks solid but watchful.

Srikkanth hits the stumps on a direct throw. The Indians go up in appeal. The umpire does not oblige. Srikkanth runs around like his pants are on fire. My mother opines that it is better luck when there is no live feed. Maybe she wants us to just have our food but there is logic in what she says. As long as I was watching the game on TV, India kept losing wickets. When the feed went off, India's batting fought back.
And now also just after the feed is back on, things have stalemated.

Sandhu comes back in and bowls one wide of off stump. Bacchus is no Richards but tries to be. He swings hard hoping to send the ball screaming to the fence. It
takes the edge and Kirmani dives full tilt to his right and brings off a blinder.

India's problems have always been in getting rid of the tail. How many times has it happened that we get rid of the main players and then the fringe guys come and bite us on our bum?

Marshall, who was a fairly decent bat, digs in. Dujon works the ball away into the gaps. No more of the frenetic, disdainful heave-ho of the top batters------Dujon and Marshall have gone over to Plan B. The Indian fielding is tight, Binny beats Marshall
all ends up. But the edges are not coming.

Kapil is striding like a wounded tiger----the team is pumped up. I am shaking like crazy. Please let us not lose this from this state....please God.

God answers. Mohinder Amarnath is called into bowl. He lopes in, the only bowler in the world who decelerates as he comes to the bowling crease. A loosener, gently
going down off. Dujon takes an exaggerated front foot movement and seeing the line of the ball raises his bat.

And as he raises it, the ball miraculously takes the inside edge of his bat, comes back, bounces once in front of the stumps and hits it !

Dujon slaps the ground in digust and I am airborne with joy. Amarnath is not done. He induces Marshall's edge and Gavaskar clutches onto the ball for dear life.

Kapil brings himself back on. A lot of overs still left. This is a gamble.

Andy Roberts. Shuffling across he is pinned to the crease by a Kapil inswinger. The finger goes up. Kapil is growling now and the Indians are all over the place. Andy Roberts wends his way back accompanied by a fat white man who keeps on lecturing him. It is still a wonder to me why he did not smack the guy then and there. Garner and Holding hold on. They are not scoring runs but they are not getting out either.

Amarnath bowls. Holding launches into a wild swipe. It misses, strikes him a bit high on the pad. Who cares? The umpire's finger is up, Holding looks dejected.
Amarnath has already gotten hold of a stump.

The Indian contingent is rushing onto the ground. The TV flashes " India has won the World Cup". Kapil is smiling from ear to ear.

The Goliath has fallen. David has won the World Cup.

Many years have passed by since then.

I have since become an atheist. I don't know what to believe or trust any more. But there is one thing I do believe in and that is in miracles.

Because I saw one myself. On June 25, 1983.


==

Special thanks to Uday for sharing this article. Original Blog.

CCSL = Contextual Contemporarization of Sacred Lore

I have been away from blogosphere these days, courtesy some heavy but really good work at company. but Today came across this, so-called, CCSL from someone called Aashray. In short, Mahabharata Reinvented. They say it's latest hit in the blogosphere. The Author spoofed stories from Mahabharata in present context. People are praising it like anything. They are not great, but they definitely have their moments. Start from here. I admit this guy definitely has read the Mahabharata and his knowledge is above B.R. Chopra's version. While reading, I also came across Secret Diaries of Cassandra Claire. Laughing like anything since then...

Powered by Google

Recently came across a nice strip. Can't resist to post it here.

Happy Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving is a phenomenon special to North America. Traditionally celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is a big time holiday. Americans must be blessing those who decided to have thanksgiving not on a date, but thursday, which results in a four-day weekend.

I have come to understand (thanks to FRIENDS) this is festival is considered to be a sort of family and close friends get-together thing. This is especially relevant in USesque countries where family generally stays in different ends of the country. Turkey somehow is flavour of this season. This festival brings them a chance to be together and express their gratitude for the things whatever they are thankful for, but most thankful this year would be the producers of Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire. Already started with 102 million dollars in first weekend, fourth movie in this fabulous series is expecting to continue its run for the money in thanksgiving weekend and could easily be largest block-buster of the year, surpassing all previous HP movies. Only time will tell. Anyways, Wishing you all HAPPY THANKSGIVING with a couple of nice comic strip (including my favourite PHDcomics :-) ).


Link of the day : The first thanksgiving

Hats-off Manju...

There is no dearth of career opportunities in India if you want to make a career in corruption. And you are in big trouble if you are on the other side.

It was around two years back when I came to know about Satyendra Dubey, whose efforts to stop corruption cost him his life. When his second death anniversary is approaching, I hear a good news and a bad news. Good news is that end of 15-year Laloo-raj is very much in sight and much more bad news is that one more fighter has been sacrificed in his fight.

IOC official seals petrol pump, is killed

This time it's an IIM-L alumni, Manju Nathan, an IOC official who stood up to the corruption and sealed a petrol pump and received same prize which Dubey got. I know you are making a sigh and feel pity for Manju and will forget by next week or next month, if not tomorrow, may be so would I. Is this what they deserve? Is this what they die for? This incidence took place two days ago and I didn't came to know about it through any newsagency, but a blog. They were all busy in Covering NDA win and speculating whether Chennai-ODI will be wahsed-off or not. In few days, some online petition will start and lots of us will sign it and would demand independent inquiry. Is that all we would do? They deserve much more than that. It's not only about filing petitions or give support to the person. It's about living the principles they died for. I grieve his death, but more than that I am proud of his principles and his boldness to stand upto them. Please don't start bashing politicians and start crying about corruptions everywhere and blah-blah. Better would be to strengthen belief in our own principles and live upto them no matter what. That, according to me, would be true obituary. Hats-off to you Manju. May his soul rest in peace.

It's 15th November...

Original plan was to call her up and tell her that she was lucky enough to share b'day with me and she could join me in my b'day celebrations. She could fly-in for a day or two and then get back to whatever she is doing right now, which is NOTHING!! Although overwhelmed, she denied and said she would rather celebrate it with family. ok. Have fun then!!! No points for guessing that it was indeed Sania Mirza.

Enough of sillyness!! but when it comes to birthdays, I am still like a 10 year old, who expects lots of gifts, lots of wishes, lots of phonecalls(otherwise how would you justify buying a prepaid in so hurry and sending out numbers all around) and lots of mails (well, that's all I get these days). Birthday bash started with Kicking & Screaming. To be specific, Madhav and Bharat were kicking and I was screaming. That's not fair. As soon as it struck 12, I started getting calls from multiple directions. Not only mine, but Uday's and Madhav's mobile also started ringing. I had to do multiplexing all the time, and between all these I got bumps, GPLs while I was still talking on the phone. The callers must be sympathized with me by my screaming, but our neighbour didn't. They started screaming even louder than I was. "shouting at midnight..","you are grown-ups, don't have enough sense not to shout so loud at night..","people are sleeping at this time of night.". I thought of replying, you are making more noise then we did, but was not in position to say that. Apologies did the job, but it helped me in a way and brought Bharat and Maddi to Sudden Death ;-) To my pleasure whole day phone kept ringing, messages kept pouring in. Happy enough!!

In the evening, went for dinner and then had ice-cream, but I still miss that IITKesque b'day celebrations with a big bunch of people, cake cutting-eating-decorating, CC snacks and all of it, but it was fun overall. Waiting for November 15, 2006 :-)

Link of the day : Birthday Paradox

Dilbert picks IIT.. again!!

I have been away from the blogging for quite sometime. Last week was quite busy with family due to Diwali and it was wonderful Diwali. (That would be next thing on the blog :-) )

I decided to start again with some light and heartwarming. IITs are back to Dilbert once again. Last time it made Big news when Scott Adams had all praise for IITs, with a character called Asok who is IIT graduate. Here is the latest one, which appeared on 31st October :

The Thesis

Today was getting bored,and was surfing and saw the link of PhD comics on Puneet's blog. Had heard of it but didn't read it much, so thought of giving a shot and started reading from the start and man.. it rocks!!! well, I am not a PhD but atleast was a masters' student and can relate very much to it. Here is just an example through movie. Which one did you ask? What else can it be apart from THE ONE.Go through it...

Movin'

It's official now. I am leaving Symantec Software and would be joining Read-Ink Technologies, Bangalore by the end of next week.

Tomorrow will be my last day here at company. Moving too fast eh? I joined just two months back and already packing my bags. When I was finally done with my thesis work at IITK, I didn't have much time to think about as to what I want to do with my career, and just to be on safe side, I opted for Veritas Software (now Symantec). Two months over here gave me some time to think and finally became firm in my plans for PhD and so decided to move to Read-ink, experience of which can help me in apping. Read-Ink basically works in Handwriting Recognition technology, which is very much related to my field of interest (Machine Learning, Image Processing). It took me a bit long to consolidate my faith in myself and my vision, but finally I did it. In the words of Neo,I've made my choice. :-) so that probably would explain my early shift.

Two months here at Pune was fun. Pune is really a good city and makes me feel like home especially after living at Kanpur for two years. Not only city, but around the city there are lots of places to just roam about. Experience was enriched by friends over here Gopal, Somu, Shaji, Shweta, Dolly, my cousin Romil (and his room mates, those kids are fun to be with) and for short time Naishadh too. At Veritas too, these two months were full of fun and Frolic. Sunil's support made me comfortable. My team mates Madan, Nitin, Naval were fun to be with. How can I not mention my cabin-mate Suresh, whose interest made me too move into Stock Market :-) Abhay, Pooja, Girish, Bhaskar, Sachin, Sameer, Peeyush, Shubhangi, Ishwar to mention few more whom I befriended in so little time. Although I wished to work more for Frolic and be a large part of it, I couldn't. Still it was fun to be with Frolic members Yogesh, Suchitra, Rolly, Nitin, Nikhil, Nikita, Amol. During training period at Veritas somebody had mentioned to me Your first job is like your first girlfriend. In future, you may get better, but you'd never forget the first one. So true!!

Was that just a weekend?

Sometimes you do so many things together that you forget that you did it in small time of two days? That was precisely the case with this weekend.

This weekend went out to a picnic courtesy Veritas. umm.. Where to start? Let's start where we started. It was not so hard to convince Gopal, who was enjoying his well-earned weekend sleep, to drop me at Parihar Chowk for the bus. Left Pune at 8. Things were going on as boring as this post on my blog is right now. Inspite of nice Pune-Mumbai express highway we were travelling on City roads as driver hadn't filled up the fuel tank and worst part of it is Pune Roads. It's talk of the town these days. Potholes everywhere and add to it traffic. and I was like Oh God! Why am I here? It would have been much better if I had been to Ahmedabad to bid adieu to my dear friend Jay, but things changed once we entered the express highway. When you are on way from Mumbai to Pune or the other way, travelling itself is a great pleasure. Throughout the highway, it's like you are in altogether a different world, especially in monsoon, where you are surrounded by green mountains and clouds and add to glory it was raining too when we were on our away and my agony?? just like that.. it's gone, nobody has ever seen since then :-)

We reached Rishi Garden Resort which is around 100 km from Pune. And we were ready to rock!! Swimming Pools, Water resorts have some magical effect on me :-) It was long back at IITK when I used to plunge swimming pool, but adrenaline started pumping when I saw water rides and swimming pool and wasted no time before diving. It was total fun and frolic to enjoy after such a long time, albeit I had one regret that couldn't dance long in rain dancing as had to move for lunch and then to Alibag, a nearby beach. In the afternoon we were ready to move to Alibag.

The best thing about Pune is that there are lots of places to roam around in vicinity. While going to Alibag, we were moving along through different mountains and just after some time we were at beach!! That was pretty cool ;-) Alibag is not glamorous beach as Juhu or Nariman Point is, but that's the good thing actually. Not many people come here and thus no pollution, no crowd. It was wonderful evening. We had a walk, played football. Someone said that A man becomes philosopher when he goes to sea. True! Atleast for me, many-a-times, I just feel like sitting on the beach and keep thinking. I start putting facts in balance sheet of my life. Anyways, it didn't end there, we had been told that the fort of Shivaji (visible at the horizon of the sea in pic) can be reached just on the foot at the time of low tide. It didn't look probable as it was more than a kilometer away from shore, but again god helps those who help themselves :-) so four brave men started their journey and believe me although it looked very far water never raised above our waist. And we celebrated our triumph to the fort. Soon many other followed. We visited canons and temples over there and not to forget all our stupid Mangal Pandey acts over there.

The night and next day morning was all-filled up with games. Housie, Ad Mad Show, Treasure hunts and what not... BTW, no luck for me as I didn't win in any game until next day morning Naval's Ballon blowing, my puzzle solving did the trick and we won the first prize in the team event.. yeah!!! and won a nightlamp enabled clock with alarm ;-)

We had planned a trek in early morning to the fort (visible in the pic) and Karnala bird Sanctuary , but we were advised not to move early because of very dense forest and high probability of snakes. so we moved after lunch, but only 6 of us as rest of us decided to stay and resort only. It was yet another joyful patch of our trip, although we couldn't make it to the top of the mountain due to time constraints, but atleast we moved up quite a lot and guess what!! we also got full mobile coverage over there, which was not at resort ;-) and came back. Yet another daring act by few brave men (and yes a woman :-) ). back to base and a photograph session courtesy our photographer Nitin.

During this trip I had some strokes. Strokes of dance. Unsufficient time for rain dance, DJ arranged by another group during first night, and garba arranged by Gujarati group who arrived there Sunday afternoon, all added to my desire to dance and that was finally fulfilled when we started disc in the bus itself, this time courtesy Girish. Dumb charades and Antakshari followed soon. Speaking in 7th standard student way, masti masti mein Pune kab aa gaya pata hi nahi chala!!! Yeh trip mein zindagi bhar nahi bhuloonga. It was indeed a memorable trip! During trip I couldn't carry camera as I didn't have one. Some memories are best kept in hearts than in photographs (or probably that's other way to say Damn!! I should've taken a cam with me.)

PS:- "someone" might notice that there is no solo photograph of mine this one. Don't ask me who that is. He knows I am pointing at him.

The tech commandments

BTW, 11th one was "Thou Shalt not check your email every 5 minutes" :P

Ganpati Bappa Moriya

The best thing about staying in different part of country is that you gotta see the best of all. Well, Kanpur is an exception, because there is no such thing as "best thing in Kanpur" ;-) Anyway, after coming here I got to see best of two places.

Last month, I had been to Mumbai and luckily landed up there at Janmashtami itself. Who doesn't know about towering matkis at this Govinda festival in Mumbai and I got chance to see that too. On the road just opposite to our house, they had placed a matki and it was so much fun to see they finally broke the matki. They did it in first shot!!! Dadar area is said to have highest matki which takes 7-8 layers of human pyramid to reach, but couldn't be there.

Now this week I am at Pune at the time of Ganesh Chaturthi. It's said that Maharastra has best Ganpati festival in India and Pune has best Ganpati festival in Maharastra. In our gully itself we have 6 ganpatis !!!!! Mind well, it's just a gully with not more than 150-200 metres. Concept of Sarvajanik Ganpati was given by Lokmanya Tilak until then people used to celebrate Ganpati in their household only, which people still do. but Sarvajanik Ganpati has taken a big leap since then. Yesterday we decided to go to have darshan of Dagdu Sheth Ganpati, which is quite famous all over Pune and Maharastra. Due to our foolishness and ignorance about the area, we walked a lot but that was all worth it. Pune indeed is Ganpati Capital of India. :-) I remembered my good old days when I as a child used to go to have darshan of all sorts of Ganpatis at Baroda. A friend with me was getting bored initially and was giving all sort of philosophy (such as ganpati is ganpati, ek ke darshan karo yaa dus ke bas shraddha honi chahiye types), but I was not in mood to listen and thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Ganpati Bappa... Moriya...

Why I love Linux

It's been a month since I am here and for a month I have been working on Win2K at my office. Haven't seen Linux in loooong time. Missing it, especially today.

Today I needed to do some scripting in Windows, for some personal work. Due to inefficiency in finding some advanced features for wget and in the presence any good download manager, I needed to shift towards this scripting. Oh God, What an unfortunate soul. Need to work in windows and that too with scripting. After coming to real world (read industry) I started loving linux more, you know why? because here you can't use pirated softwares any more and this is not IITK, where you just switch on your DC++ and download any bloody software within seconds. Thought, Let's take a dive and at unfortunate moment started scripting.

Now, I needed to make a FOR loop. After trying out different keywords found out following command

FOR %%e IN (1 2 3 4 5 6) DO ...

Now why would you need to type two '%' to mark a variable?? Anyways, this command will run for six time take value from 1 to 6. Now what would you do if you need to run loop for say 100 times are you going to write (1 2 3 ... 100). Well, you have to, I couldn't find any other technique. So thought let's try some another technique, something similar to while loop, implement using notorious GOTO. Now the question was how to set a variable and use it. tried out various combination

i=100
%i=100
%%i=100
...

Neither worked and suddenly remembered good old days where somehow I studied AUTOEXEC.BAT and they used something like SET for setting a variable. %$@@#$%%@$#. What the hell? why to type something extra as SET, I bet even Bill Gates won't be able to tell you that. Don't lose the spirit, go ahead. I thought. Now, came the next ultimate question, how to increment a variable? again combinations...

i=%i+1
i=%%i+1
%%i=%i%+1
...

Again, no luck. There exists something like INCR in dos, but for some reason that won't work in Win2K, so here is where I am stuck up. No clue to get out of this. Don't think I didn't Google for any of this stuff. After hard work on Google, I am pouring out my frustration here. Should get back to search now I guess. God bless me!!

Recent breakthrough : Finally managed to find out the way to increment a variable. it goes

SET /A i += 1

Now don't ask me why to put extra /A for doing so, in one other achievement, I found out that IF syntax would be like

IF NOT "i"="100"

but I am still unaware about use of < or > in IF, because if I use those, it says unexpected end of statement or something like that. Let it be whatsoever it is, I am done with my job. After I was done with my download thing, I am enjoying the geeky strips I downloaded and sharing one which is very pertinent with this one.

Google Talk

Big G has struck again and this time it's Instant Messenger Service. After rounds of rumours and denials, it's finally there and it's called, Google Talk. Agent Kujan was right. "Rumour is not a rumour that doesn't die" :-)

As Google's trademark, it's just beta as of now. Official google client is available only for windows, but as it supports jabber protocol you can use iChat for MAC and Gaim for linux. As of now, it doesn't have many features. Only basic text chatting and voice chatting, not even emoticons and no audibles, nicknames... NOTHING. Owing to which client is very light and easy to use. It has raised lots of criticism for Google, because when Google launches something, people expect it to be out-of-the-box thing. Take for example, Gmail, which forced email market leaders like Yahoo! and hotmail to increase the mailbox size. Similarly, Google Earth. Where in the case of GTalk, there is nothing new, infact much less than state-of-the-art IM services.

BUT, look at it from this point of view. Google is just trying to add a dimension to its Google Universe. It's a universe. A universe where user can avail all the facilities and don't have to switch between providers. (Much more coming up, rumours say that Google is also coming up with Paypal like system) Everything in just one login and one account, so this is just another dimension, which doesn't deny the scope of lots of development before official release. Imagine the future (I bet it won't be too far) where in all you need to do is just say few words and Google will do rest of the job for you. One point I noticed especially is the voice chat GTalk provides. Quality of voice is really good and is almost real time. First day feedback has been satisfactory as per my survey goes (Launched before less than 24 hours could be the reason, which results in lesser initial traffic as compared to Y! or MSN, but just wait-and-watch). The buzz is also that Google may extend voice chat to phone lines. Yes, you would be actually able to make a call to landline phones through GTalk. BTW, it's official announcement has not been done yet on Google Blog, which may solve lots of puzzles and may reveal some of the Google's plan for improvement in GTalk. Hold your breaths till then...

Quote of the day :- A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

Link of the day :- So who cares about pennies huh?

Jugaad

I learned this word during my stay at Kanpur, only to realize that I was Jugaading all along my life although I didn't know the word ;-) Jugaad is formally defined as follows:

Jugaad n. An improvised or jury-rigged solution; inventiveness, ingenuity, cleverness.

well, this formal definition is too small to define the actualy depth and greatness of the word. It'd be impossible to visualize anything running smoothly without this powerful Jugaad. Starting from the national government to Laxman's common man won't survivie in India without this Jugaad. Mind you, Jugaad is not to be taken in the negative sense. Jugaad is an essential part of every thing which needs to run on time. Today read an interesting article about (link) fabulous Mumbai suburban railway network, lifeline of mumbai. Scheduling and management of suburban railway can be best exercise in contraint satisfaction for hardcore mathematician and practially it really has been nightmare to theoretically come up with the solution, where a train arrives every 3 minutes on all the stations between Churchgate and Virar, the tracks run for 60 kilometres. Over 3.1 million people use 1,007 services on this network every day to get to their places of work and back home. That translates to 50,000 people for every kilometre, making it the densest suburban rail network anywhere in the world. But since 80 years (1925-2005) this is running perfect without glitches, owing to omnipotent JUGAAD. Here is Google's tribute to Jugaad :

• Definition : Jugaad
  
• Management by Jugaad
  
• Jugaad... the new buzz word
  

Parineeta

Bollywood these days is experimenting with all sorts of techniques. One of them is trying to recreate magic of old work. After success of Devdas with Grand sets and wonderful music, now it's Parineeta. No this is not going to be another review of movie, but what made me come here is the music of the movie. Managed to watch movie last month and must say I liked and it was treated well with maintaining proper backdrop of '60s.

I heard this album first time when I was working on my thesis report at 3 am and it really moved me. I could feel the music deep within my soul. Only few albums/tracks have managed this. Again, today I am sitting in my office and it's 8-15 in the evening and it's time to leave, but after long time I have managed headphones and can't hold myself back from completing this whole sound track second time before I leave for home. (Anyway, I haven't got anything to do when I reach home ;-) )

Album starts with Piyu Bole by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal. I feel this song is dear to more after I watched the movie, because the chemistry between Saif and Vidya Balan is very well depicted in the video and song seems natural and not forced in the movie. Kasto Mazza includes superb use of the sound of a chugging locomotive like some '60-'70 movie.

Soona Mann Ka Aangan is the paragon of the album. Sonu Nigam manages to fetch millions accolades from me for this one. He managed to put in all the dard required and wonderfully accompanied by my favourite new age singer Shreya Ghoshal.

Kaisi Paheli Zindgani by Sunidhi is on the lines of dil ko hazaar baar of Murder, but once again consistent with backdrop of the movie. Raat hamari toh is melodious solo by Chitra. Dhinak Dhinak Dha is nasty song and typical wedding song. OK types.

Album ends with title track, Sonu Nigam-Shreya Ghoshal duet Hui Main Parineeta. A romantic and sensual song to fit wedding of Shekhar and Lolita. Both Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal are going up and up in my favourite singers. Cheers for both of them.

PS:- You can listen songs on Raaga.com Here is the link.

Pune says welcome Nishit...

Away from blog for a long time, and back to blog now...well, almost...

Landed here in Pune, two days back. It was wonderful scene from window of my plane and made me feel that stay here is gonna be wonderful and added to it just started raining making the atmosphere cool... reached the office and whole day went in formality stuff. Filled up some forms and became employee of Veritas now Symantec and reached to friend's house. Well, this was just starting. "Real" life began then. It was raining through out the day and the rain continued, when we reach the flat basement was already in the water and water level was rising and lo! no electricity (which is not restored even after 3 days, may be because of water in the basement, it has been switched off intensionally and hope to get it restored when I go back home in the evening). Water was upto knee-level. Next day I was supposed to report to my office in IT Park - A, which is just walking distance and building 'A' is closed and we have holiday \:D/, albeit we enjoyed wonderful breafast in other office at IT Park -B :-) As reviews have come, best thing about Veritas is its FOOD :D and I agree after having a lunch and a breakfast. so, me and Gopal went around for some shopping and after roaming around when we reached home road was blocked due to water!!!! and we had to take another route to reach home and after seeing water level there, we were sure that we won't be able to come out until the water drys out, but had to take the plunge and this time water was waist high. Worries didn't end there. Took bread-butter and bananas for dinner and not to add the darkness.

Well, God has already warned us now. My dear son, your days are different now. Gone are the days when you had no power-cut, 24 hour water supply and nice drainage system. you are in REAL world now. Accepted my lord. We enjoyed all the "candle-light talks" and "daily bread". No complaints my lord.

Today began on good note. When my eyes opened at 0600 hrs in the morning and opened the windows. All the water was gone and for the first time after arriving here I saw the actual terrain around the building. Went for a morning walk and finally saw sunlight in 3 days. Phew... and back to office now, hopefully today I'll get my cabin and will get all the things done. Till then good bye. Well, lot more things to come on my blog from my one week mini vacation, but till then Adios...

Road Trip

It's rather unusual for me to have post on blog for consecutive days :) but, here I am after yesterday's wonderful trip.

After submitting thesis and having done some of the formality stuff, I was thinking of starting making presentation, but just then these guys came up with proposal of going to canal. Ah!! my long chersihed dream. Since last year or so, I had thought that I would go to this canal nearby, but plan never materialised, but when they asked me, I didn't hesitate for a second and that was just the beginning of a beautiful road trip.

We (me, Sheetesh, Rawat, Ritesh) chose the road behind the Hall-7. Oh yaa, forgot to mention we were on our bicycles, well and biking in that terrain was no less adventurous then tour de france. up-and-downs, right-and-left and not to mention all of them just kachcha roads. That turned out to be the best start of the trip. Going through such a rough patch, was kind of biking I was doing after a long time. Makes you feel like no you still have that dare spirit inside, you are not rotten after sitting in airconditioned office and keep looking at stupid computer screen all the time. :)

Soon, we reached the canal and a tree fallen on the road, automatically decided our returning point, as it was already getting darker and it would be difficult we don't return from there itself, but it was the best place we could have stopped at. The trunk of the fallen tree was extending to canal itself, so added a bit fun to stay over there and doing all the childish masti. Sitting on trunk thinking we have done such a dare act, wetting legs in the flowing water, splashing water over one another. and yes not to forget, our photo-session all along the trip. When Sheetesh is with you, don't need to worry about documenting your trip. We clicked some nice photographs over there. These photographs in blog are clickable.

On the return trip, we decided to choose another route, which will be touching GT Road and eventually to IITK. And all along the road, it was like a typical village, such as in a Yash Chopra movie ;). Lush green fields on both the sides all-along till your eyes can see. Yesterday nature too was in aesthetic mood and we got to see some beautiful colors in the sky and yet again, we didn't miss to click it. Took so many photographs there too. Unfortunately, Sheetesh missed to recharge his camera and we soon ran out of battery, so our photography session had to end there itself, but the fun didn't end there. Road trip continued and after long paddling got to see the road again. and this time it was Lance Armstrong act for us. On the highways, we enjoyed some fast biking. It was also dinner time and we decided to stop on dhaba on the way. Bijji da dhaba is what it was called. Well particularly not dhaba but modernized dhaba. We were suspicious about the kind of food, we'd get. But somehow this tour was meant to be great and the dinner to didn't disappoint us and food was much better than what we get in CR (our Campus Restaurant). well, it was a treat from my side owing to my thesis submission :D. On the way back, when we thought we were not far, it took us really long to reach back to IITK, but in the end all of it was worth it. We did atleast 15 km of bicycling yesterday!! and my long cherished dream was a reality thanks to these guys.

Thesis submitted \:D/

Whew...!!! long awaited moment finally came. I submitted my thesis today and will be defending on July 23, 2005, Saturday. :D

Feels like a relief. Although I am yet to make presentation and prepare for defence etc, but certainly it's a welcome change. Well, today I thought of something while I was all day busy for finalizing the thesis after changes, getting it printed, getting it photocopied, submitting to DOAA, then giving copies to my guide and the examiners. When I went to DOAA office for submitting my contingency form, the guy over there said, "aap computer waale kitne bhi software bana len, abhi bhi paper work to hai hi... aur aage 10 saalon tak rahega." He made me thinking while I was going here and there to get my work done. He was very right. In the age of computers and automation, atleast as far as India is concerned, it takes lots of paper work. e.g. we get to do NO-DUES in order to obtain provisional degree certificate and would you believe it takes 18 signatures from all the places over IITK and that includes NCC, Central workshop, Glass blowing factory, Students' Gymkhana cultural office, the places where I've not been a single time in my stay of two years, and still need to get NO-DUES done from there. As sepultura says "Paper work... bloody paper work!!" and ironically all-of-these, all of the efforts of two years for a single paper, albeit laminated :), the degree certificate. Anyways, on the positive side, automation scenario is changing fast at IITK. Registeration and related stuff in every semester has been automated since quite a long time and I heard that this tiring no-dues procedure is also under automation. Well, hope it hits the road soon and next year people won't have to roam around whole IITK in order to get it done!!

Diverged to somewhere else from where I started..:P. Anyways, we had real cool trip today, when we (me, Sheetesh, Rawat and Ritesh) went to a canal nearby. Story will soon be blogged with photographs :) , but right now get to go to sleep and start making slides from tomm. Adieu.

DUS : Funniest thriller of the year...

Well, these days movies seems to rule my blog, but watched many movies in last some days. And this unexhaustive list contains some very good movies like Raincoat, Sarkar, Hitchcock's Notorious, Guns off Navarone, Al Pacino's Scent of a woman, but here I am going to talk about something for people like me who think that standard of bollywood movies is improving and someday we'll be at par with hollywood.

... few Priyadarshan movies are yet to be released in this year, but I bet you won't find any of them funnier than this creation of Anubhav Sinha. We were laughing like anything when we came out of hall after watching "Thriller" DUS.

so here is a plot. wait a minute... was there anything like plot? probably there was. Few brave men from ATC(Anti Terrorist Cell, cool isn't it?)decide to save a big jeopardy which they even don't know about except that it was going to happen on 10th May, but these are brave soldiers. Now IMDb tells me that Naa Tum Jaano Naa Hum and Ab Ke Baras were released on 10th May, but probably more dangerous disaster exist in world, so they are searching for it. After some furious action and some "relay bombing" (as Suniel Shetty can't directly throw grenade, he would pass on that to Zayed and eventually Zayed on flying bike would throw that into car and before grenade could explode lo! Zayed is standing beside Jr. AB and Shetty inorder to give that high-profile action movie look). Well they have found some clues and caught a man who helps them in searching the villian Jamaal or Jambal or Jamval or something like that... and when finally so called Jamaal is killed Sanjay Dutt tells them that man who pointed them to Jamaal he himself was Jamaal. Shut up you all morons if you said that this is copied from 'Usual Suspects'. Our intelligent ATC chief Dutt Jr. finds out that disaster is going to happen at stadium. Now at the climax, they found out where bomb is and AB Jr. is on plane with disastrous C-4. Only way he could save Canada is that he jumps along with plane and his love Esha Deol, wait but somebody said she was traitor, but she has to die anyway. and then starts eternal dilemma. Whether Abhishek should die and save people or He should leave Canada to God. Everbody forces him to leave the plane, but he is "true soldier" and saves Canada. May his soul rest in peace.

I strongly recommend that everyone should see last 15 minutes of this movie (if you manage to survive till that point). No matter what will happen to that bomb, but Zayed tries to convince Abhishek that not only himself but both should take care of Dia Mirza. Sanjay Dutt is into tears and doesn't care to stop Jamaal who is not running away, but waiting for elevator to come. Sunil Shetty is shouting.. "fenk do bam, mar jaane do logon ko.. kud jaao Shashank..." Director will teach you geography which you've never learnt. He'll enlighten you that AIIMS flyover is situated near some sea or something. I bet you didn't know that.

Well, there are few saving graces for movie. 'Dus Bahane' and 'Deedar de' are treat to hear. Pankaj Kapoor proves that he is definitely one of the frontline actors and AB Jr. proves himself again after Sarkar. and yes, how can I forget Shilpa Shetty and her stunts (a la Trinity) and one must not forget the guy, whosoever it is,who made the trailer(download) and posters (see the one in my blog, doesn't make you believe that this one is definitely going to be different) and made people believe that this is movie worth watching, so go and watch in theatres. arre bhaiyo, suno, agar movie dekho to upper/stall mein dekhana aur mazaa aayega...

Raincoat

And the monsoon continues. Last weekend I decided to give a shot to this movie. Rather it was raining outside and I couldn't resist myself for seeing this movie *again*.

Yes, I had seen this movie way back in December when Punet was on his trip to India. That was bizzarre. In the theatre, we did everything but watch the movie. I found it too slow and boring. Then after sometime I came across O Henry's Gift of the Magi, from which this movie was inspired. And I realised that Raincoat had something which I missed and since then I had decided to give it one more watch. With the help of a guy, I managed to download DVDRip of the movie from net. and finally rainy season did it and I watched the movie again. and here is my word : AWESOME!!! I was completely into the movie this time. It took me by real surprise that how could I have ignored such a wonderful movie and that too in theatre. I regret that probably I spoiled mood for Shalin, who probably liked the movie at that time.

Manoj/Manu(Ajay Devgan) is in Calcutta, looking for some money from friends so that he can start his business and decides to meet his childhood love Neerja/Neeru(Aishwarya Rai), who is happily married to some rich guy in Calcutta. Movie is about just one afternoon they share with each other and pretend to be happy in their respective lives. Movie is quite subtle. All-of-us... All-of-us wear a raincoat all the time to hide ourselves from one thing or the other. We are afraid, we are concious and as Rituparno Ghosh puts it, we are PLAYERS. Protagonists Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai are credited as Players in the title. If you really are into the movie it makes you ponder. It was more of emotional affair for me than philosophical one.

Movie excels in every department. Direction, Cinematography, Acting. Aishwarya Rai proved that she can do much better than just glamorous roles. Ajay Devgan has now definitely established as a versatile actor and this movie just strengthens his stand. Annu Kapoor and Mauli Ganguly excel in their cameo. Director is succesful in keeping the environment dark and gloomy as was needed. full marks to Rituparno Ghosh and all I can say is I am more than happy to see this movie again. Puneet, are you listening? :-)

PS:- For Gujarati readers, Jay Vasavada(Gujarat Samachar) had written a beautiful article for movie Raincoat in his weekly column Spectrometer. Worth reading. you can access it from here.

PPS:- Crossposted at InFiCa, where I am.. ahem.. critic now.

Sisterhood of travelling pants...

Yesterday after getting bored doing coding. I, finally decided to see this movie.

Somehow I had this feeling that it won't disappoint me and it didn't. The movie is about 4 girls Lena, Tibby, Carmen, Bridget, who haven't left each other since they were born. They're best friends, but one summer they had to seperate, so they decide to rotate among themselves a pair of jeans which magically fits them all. Then starts the summer. Each of them goes in different directions with different goals, with different emotions and share all these with one another.

Let me tell you, this is not just another teen movie. I mean, it's more subtle than any teen movie I've seen. Although people say the movie is much different from Ann Brasher's book, from which movie is made, but who cares as long as it's enjoyable. This one depicts emotions properly in emotional way rather than sentimental. The Narrator, Carmen, in the end says "It would be easy to say that pants changed everything this summer, but looking back now, I feel that our lives changed because they had to. and real magic of pants was in bearing witness to all of these and somehow holding us together, when it felt like nothing would be the same again."

Yaa, at some points it's like a typical hindi movie thing, but worth giving a try. Do give it a shot in your free time.

Rain, Rain, Come Again...

Last week has been fabulous at Kanpur, as far as weather is concerned. After burning heat of 47C, the arrival of monsoon has brought great relief to all of us over here.

It was almost midnight when first heavy rain came. It was pitch black sky and sky started being thunderous and as expected it started raining!!! First sight was really something. First rain brought air of relief, literally. I and Maddi decided to jump in. alas! it didn't last long, rather we decided too late. Rain stopped. :-( Next day scene was really cool. All trees and plants had become lush green after getting washed in the rain. Temperature had come down to around 35C and whole environment became ``user-friendly'' so to say :-)

We didn't have to wait long for next rain. My dear bro was here and we were enjoying the time and rain started again. We made no mistake this time, me and maddi set out on wandering on our bikes. I don't remember having enjoyed this much in monsoon in my last two years' stay at IITK. Just imagine, how great Aloo Paratha would taste after this when you rush to mess and you're all wet. I still feel it in my mouth.

Next time, it was even bigger. Accompanied by wind, this time Indra Dev had decided to go full-fledge. It was more than half-an-hour that me, Niral and Maddi kept dancing, singing, going crazy... This time it was Maggi that accompanied us in this pleasure. Only a man without heart can deny that this wasn't scene to cherish!!! This was best monsoon I had at IITK.

Reports are coming in that many parts of Gujarat are in flood, especially Vadodara. Divya Bhaskar says 95% of city is affected by flood. Hopefully, rain will slow down in coming days and Gujarat will return to its normal state again. That's all we can pray.. Amen!

New Avatar

Life is all about change. When man gets bored of routine, decides to do something new. For that matter, even if he is not bored a good change is always welcome.

Today, me and maddi decided to take same welcome change. Forced by hot weather of Kanpur (It's really getting hot over here, maximum temperature recorded is 47 C!!!), we decided to shave our heads. and here is the result. You got to see "bode plot" (tribute to KCJs??!!). It really felt nice after getting shaved. You won't believe but people say I look better after getting my head shaved. *blushes* . Anyways, people believe it or not doesn't matter much though. I found it pretty *cool* (pun intended).

Now, two of us are finding this very enjoyable and we strongly feel that everyone should get their shaved. For once, if not all the time. For more, you can also ask the guy who is accompanying me in the photograph. He will also agree. So bhaiyo aur behno, aage badho aur apne baal katane mein koi sharm mat rakho. Jab bhi marzi aaye apne baal kata len aur ganje hone ka mazaa len. I seriously apologize you all if you find this all writing crap, because I also do. Bahut neend aa rahi hai, but it had to be there on blog. so...

Halting Problem is solvable

Sometimes you come across articles which always remain in your memory. Here is one such funny article, which says Halting Problem is Solvable :-) (For unenlightened, Halting Problem is one of the very fundamental problem in Theoretical Computer Science). So here I go...

From rec.humor.funny archives

Recent Results in Theory of Computing - I

Halting Problem is Solvable

Bala Rajagopalan (raja@cs.uiuc.edu)

A fundamental question in the graduate computer science curriculum can be posed as follows: Given an average grad student doing a Ph.D, will the student ever complete his dissertation? This problem has been termed the "Halting Problem," and it has been an open problem thus far. In the following, we show that the halting problem is solvable. Furthermore, the problem can be solved within the time stipulated by the Graduate College for Ph.Ds or, in the worst case, with only a constant number of petitions for extensions.

The halting problem was first formulated by Alan Turing, who observed a number of his graduate students being apparently busy all the time but never graduating. Turing tried to solve the problem by first stopping all assistantships after the sixth year and then by purging all games from the research computers. Needless to say, his efforts were fruitless. Later, Church almost succeeded in solving the problem when he placed notices in grad students' mailboxes indicating attractive jobs in industry with several orders of magnitude higher remuneration. The so called Church's thesis was that the halting problem is solvable, given enough financial motivation. Church's idea backfired when grads found out that they have to actually work to earn money in the outside world. Thus, far from solving the halting problem, Church aggravated it (After this, we are not sure whether Church himself graduated). Recently, Cook et al have shown that the halting problem falls under a new complexity class, "NP Hairy." (NP hairy is the class of hopelessly complicated problems with no known solutions. The hardest problem in NP hairy has been shown to be the problem of trying to claim standard deductions in the 1040 form).

In the following, we show that the halting problem is indeed solvable. For this, we assume the existence of a "Super Grad," who is capable of working in any area in CS (except possibly numerical analysis). For notational convenience, we call this super grad, S sub G sup i,j sub * (written using a funky theoretical CS font). The property of Super grad is that, given the description of any grad (mostly in terms of the number of newsfiles he/she reads every day) and a description of his/her thesis topic, Super grad will either halt with a dissertation or keep publishing technical reports indefinitely. Now, we give Super grad a description of himself and his own thesis topic. If Super grad halts, we are done (and so is he) otherwise we get a stream of technical reports. But by the "fundamental research theorem" of CS Departments (refer to the graduate study manual) any five arbitrary technical reports on unrelated topics can be compiled into a Ph.D thesis. Thus, we are done in the second case too.

Finally, how long does it take for a dissertation to be completed? The time is either less than or equal to the duration allowed by the Grad College for the completion of a Ph.D or it is greater. In the latter case, infinite number of petitions can be filed for extensions. Since the Grad College never remembers previous petitions, the total number of petitions received by the Grad College is always one, a small constant. (QED)

"Des-Ni Nanav" My name is...

STAR WARS happens to be my latest passion. Around a month back I completed whole series.

IV - New Hope
V - Empire Strikes back
VI - Return of Jedi

I - Phantom Menace
II - Attack of the clones

and like any other STAR WARS fan, I am eagerly waiting for Episode-III : Revenge of Sith. Finally, Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side. Goerge Lucas confirms that it will be more of emotional affair. Anyways, today series of events forced me to finally write something about STAR WARS on my blog.

Today while returning for dinner, I was discussing this whole STAR WARS thing with Nitya and got in so much enthu while talking about whole series, then courtesy Slashdot, I came to know some people actually made something like lightsaber. How stuff works explains How a Lightsaber works. Since then I wish to own one. Trying to convince friends so that atleast of them gives me one. Puneet, Vraj has already denied :( . If you want to be the one who wants to have opportunity to gift me one, you can select anyone from here. While searching for all these stuff also found build-your-own-lightsaber kind of thing. Well... that didn't interest me much, but what I found more interesting was that I could actually find out my STAR WARS name. They claim that your STAR WARS name is based on your first name, last name, your birthplace and your mother's maiden name(yeah, that's right!!!!) and my name turned out to be Des-Ni Nanav. Sounds cool, isn't it? It does sound like some Obi-Wan Kenobi types. I am happy :-) From now on thou shalt call me nothing else but Des-Ni Nanav.

Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram...

Yesterday's Ram Navami would have gone without any celebrations, but Thanks to Archna ma'am it didn't happen that way.

Yesterday being Ram Navami, we didn't go ahead with Bhagwad Gita, Chaper 14 instead we heard Vibhishana Gita (Lanka Kand, Ram Charit Manas, interested people can download it from here. (after Doha 79, Page 15 )). This is the scene where finally Ravana comes to battlefield. Seeing his Mayavi Chariot and his powerful aura, Vibhishana gets anxious and out of love and with respect he asks Shri Rama, "Oh Lord! you don't have chariot, nor you've armour, nothing to wear in feet. How will you fight against mighty Ravana?". Shri Rama replies, "The Chariot by which you can win, is not this one.". Then he starts describing what true Vijay Ratha would be made of.

Words were simple yet elegant. I may not have felt it so great if I would've read it, but it was whole environment that madam created over there that made me realise the importance of those words, so if you don't find it so interesting I recommend you to read it again. There was no deep philosophy, just simple words, but if you contemplate on each you would realize how enlightening they are. For me, it came to me when I needed it most. Yes, I needed too much of it. After the class, I was in the state of pure joy. So free, so jovial... could sense the beauty of Ram Charit Manas. I only pray to God that please provide me energy to remain in this state.

Siyavar Ramchandra ki jai...
Pavansut Hanuman ki jai...
Sab santan ki jai...


PS:- If anyone can find out English Translation of these dohas please let me know so that I can put them here.

Aamchi Mumbai

"Ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahan...
Zara hat ke, zara bach ke, yeh hai bambai meri jaan..."
- C.I.D. (1956)


Very true. Mumbai is a altogether a different cultrue in its own. I had been to Mumbai many-a-times before I went for a week from March 28th, 2005 to April 4th, 2005. But this time it was different and subconciously "studied" Mumbai.

Mumbai wakes up very early. If you start moving on at let's say 7-00 in the morning, you won't feel it's early in the morning, because you soon realize that you're not rare that you started moving so early. I feel there is no such thing as night for Mumbai, except may be 2-3 hours around 0400-0600. Lifeline of Mumbai is its local train. Mumbai is stretched in a belt, so unlike Delhi or other metro city it's better to have end-to-end transport rather than circular route buses. 60 km route from Churchgate-to-Virar is covered by hundreds of local trains. You can't imagine Mumbai without these trains. It's said that one who is not used to trains shouldn't catch trains in morning going towards Churchgate and shouldn't catch trains in evening coming from Churchgate. Crowd is huge!!! if you want to get down or get in you just need to stand in between and people around will do rest of your job :-) It's worth having an experience.

Mumbai has his own rhythm, which is very fast. When you're walking among people, you realise that you're not moving at your normal pace, instead you're just one among them. Once you step outside bombay you feel that everything is so slow. Speed flows in vein of Bombay. Mumbai is city of dreams. Whosoever came to bombay, had a dream, had thought of an accomplishment. Characters moving around you're worth observing. While you move along, you can feel a different atmosphere altogether while moving any part of bombay. What else could I say? Just "feel it to believe it..."

Holi ke din...

It was Saturday. March 26th, 2005. 11-50 A.M. Nishit Desai was sitting in front of computer doing nothing but absolute timepass. He was somehow very enthusiastic about Holi (Dhuleti) this year, but it seemed no one else was. Except his neighbour came in the morning and painted some gulal on his face, holi otherwise had been dull for him. Peeps out of window, some holi enthusiasts are out-of-control by now. Playing holi with mudd and everything that comes in their way. A big sigh!!!! "I wish I could play like that. Hmm...!!! Should do something", he thinks. Logs in to messenger, pings some people around...

madhavpandya : no reply , must be sleeping after a big nightout...

rupmehta1 (a.k.a rupeshkaka) : "got some work to do...", yaa people busy in publishing papers...

vipin_deep : no reply, seemed enthu the other day, no whereabouts today... damn it...

India-Pakistan test going on, but he seems out of it. Sitting ready in "holi-wear", but no one is interested. "Oh! It's 12-55 and mess was supposed to serve lunch till 1-15 only and I am yet to take bath. I should rush now..!!!" Moves to wake up Madhav after getting ready, in case he is still sleeping. Room is open, no signs of Madhav, where is he??? ... and there he is... face painted with gamut of colors, barely identifiable... and soon, he sees a bunch of people following him, and they too see him. Eyes go wide. Ek aur... muhahaha... without any color on face... muhahaha... They rush to him. They won't listen, nor he wanted them to. And in few seconds he was just one of them. And "gheraiyas" continued their quest for more-and-more victims. Some of their willingly "sacrificed" themselves. Others viz Somu, RahulBan had to be pulled out of their hideouts. Junta won't listen till anyone is not colored.

This was not enough... More was yet to come. "Let's move to A-block lawn and play some real holi.", suggests Nishit and crowd starts moving. We are here, now what? hmmm.. pipe must be located and there it is. Muhahaha.. now starts real Holi. water splashing all around... and mudd was all around. "Let's play Kabbadi", someone says and everyone is into it.

Under the captaincy of Rohan Shetty and Gopalraj, teams started playing. People coming in, coming out, getting caught, catching opponents. Points?? Winner?? one word... WHO CARES??!!! They were there for enjoyment and that's what they were doing. Enjoyment continued till all of them were not out of their minds (albeit, Madhav Pandya ran away for some obscure reasons ;-) )... people were going crazy.

Who says you need 'bhang' or liquor to have 'nasha' :-)

Joy of small things...

It's been long time since I've written anything on this blog. Many a times I had many things to write but didn't spare time to write today I am topofying a beautiful poem which is very near to my heart... It's about joy of small things in life. How doing small things in life can make your life full with joy and happiness... do give it a read...

PS:- Thanks to Anshu for such a wonderful poem...
PS/2:- Thanks to poetess Anshu for such a wonderful poem...

kabhi yun karein, ki kuchh na karein,
bina manzil ki khwahish ke, kuchh door chalein,

kuchh yaadon ki teh kholein, pehen ke dekhein,
ya ek puraani album dekhein..aur hasein,
waqt ke beetne ka andaaz lagaaye bina

koi jhootha vaada ya koi meethi shararat karein,
ya bina baat kisi apne se shikwa, shikayat karein

sawal ka jawaab ek sawaal se dein,
ya kisi baat par besaakhta hans dein,
aansoo nikal aane tak.

chupke se kisi ki aankhein dhank dein,
aur na kholein, pehchaan paane tak.

ya kisi ko chhed dein, bura maan jaane tak,
fir manaayein us ko, aankh bhar aane tak

Kabhi yun karein, chaai ka pyaala haath me lein,
baatein karein... aur kuchh na kahein

ek khat ferozi lifafe me bhejein, aur kuchh na likhein,
ya ek fone karein...aur kuchh na kahein

bina izzazat kisi ke khwaabon me chehalkadmi karein,uske kamre se bahar aa kar.
ya neendein chura lein kisi ki aankhon se,apni aankhon me kajal laga kar.

koi kissa adhoora chhod dein, aur shuru ek fasana karein,
ek paimaana jaan ke tod dein, aur rukh-e-maikhaana karein

gunguni dhoop se uth kar nam os pe chalein,
mehfil se rukhsat lein, bas apne hi saath rahein

aaine me dekh ke muskuraayein,
baalon ko kholein, fir se sanwaare

dining table par ungliyon se jugalbandi karein,
aur ek ghazal likhein, sofe ke cushion par

Palang par ek nayee chaadar bichhayein,
aur kursi ko khidki ke paas lagayein

thehri hui boondon ko daal jhatak kar girayein,
aur zameen se harsingaar ke phool chunein

kuchh kaam mitayein, rozana ki masrufiyat se,
aur kuchh lafz likhein ret par... hamesha ke liye

kabhi yun karein, ki aankhein moond lein,
aur khwaabon ko bhi aane na dein palkon me,
kuchh haqeeqat dekhein... sote hue

Taakte rahein balcony se sadak ko, jab tak nazar bandhi rahe,
aur na dekhein us pehchaane ko, jisne haath hilaya ho hamaari jaanib

halki bauchhar me ghar se nikalein, aur bheegte rahein,
aur tez baarish me ek ped ke neeche rukein,
yeh soch kar ki bacha lega woh paani se...

jheel me pair daalein aur suraj ko doobta dekhein,
ek diya paani me bahayein, aur roshni ko tairta dekhein
koi kankar paani par fenke, jaltarang sunein
ya gumsum se mandir me ghanta bajayein, uski goonj dil me sunein,

kabhi yun karein ki samet kar gham saara ek nazm likhein,
jiska koi tuk na ho,
ya saari khushiyon ka ek afsaana banayein, aur bayan na karein,

kisi se behas karein aur karte hi chale jaayein,
aur yakayak kahein ki achha wohi sahi hai
aur hansein uski pareshaani par... shararat se

geele baalon ko jhatak dein achanak, boondon ki manzil se bekhabar,
fir ghabraane ki surat banayein, agar kisi par chheente padein to,
man hi man muskuraayein

apne nam baalon me ungliyan firayein, ek lat ka chhalla banayein,
aur khol dein
kalai me pada kangan ghumayein, aur salwatein hatayien saaree se,
ek kai dafa padhi hui kitaab padhte hue

kabhi yun karein ki lawn me rakhe jhoole par baithen, sunehri dhoop me,
sir par dupatta dhak kar, ped se jhaankte hue sooraj ko dekhein,
ungliyon ki ot se

kabhi yun karein ki, kuchh puraane khat, barson baad nikaalein aur padhein
peele kagaz aur feeki roshnaai me mauzood lafzon ki tapish mehsoos karein
woh jaani pehchaani mehek dhoondhe, jo hawa na sahi, saanson me ab bhi hai

==

My dear friend, Puneet Sarda too had to say something after what Anshu said... so here it is...

kabhi yun karein, ki waqt se pehle pahuche
aur intezaar ka mazza le, mehboob ke aane tak

guitar uthaye , kuch taar ched te
koi dhun banakar, kuch shabd jod te
ek geet banjaye

akele baithe kissi kamre mein, koi awaaz na ho
chup chap sune apni saason ko, aur mehsus karein
zindagi ko

bageche mein jaaye, bacho ke saath baithe
bacho se baatein kare, bacho ke khel khele
khud mein chupe baache ko phir se bahar laaye

kitchen mein jakar kabhi apna manpasand khana banaye
aur kissi ko apne paas bitha kar, pyar se apne haathon se
khilaye

godh mein apni leta kar, kissi ko chein ki neend sulaye
khel te rahe uske baalo ke saath jab tak woh ulajh na jaaye
aur phir unhe suljhaye

kabhi yun karein, ki saare kaam chod kar
apne kitab ko shelf se ek dilchasp kitab uthaye
padhe kuch panne uske, aur uske khayalon mein kho jaaye
...subah ho jaane tak