Being Saif Ali

My celebrities look-alikes

2006-11-22T17:58:00.000-08:00

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

2006-07-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

and has been re-established here .

Desert Studies Center

2006-06-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

Please redirect...

2006-03-19T20:21:00.000-08:00

This blog has moved to ... http://www.saifali.wordpress.com/

Which OS are you ?

2006-02-23T16:49:00.000-08:00

I took another dumb quiz .... and the results were so devastating I was almost in tears. But I wont hide'em for anyone (there was an option to take the quiz again if you didnt like the result ... but how flaky is that ... )
Which OS are You? ah well. sigh

Unfinished Business

2006-02-20T19:01:00.000-08:00

Rescue Mission

2006-02-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

In a desperate attempt to rescue my blog, I have resorted to changing the template altogether which means I lose my blogroll and links sidebar .. ah well. And in the spirit of rehaul I thought a new picture might be in order but it turns out you cant upload a picture directly from the local host to the profile. You have to first upload to the web using Picasa or something and then supply the URL. ..sigh. Well....here it is.

On top of our game

2006-02-08T00:41:00.000-08:00

For want of better engagement, I might attempt to trace the development of the diversification of physical activity in human beings. We start out with very little physical leverage and in the first year of our lives remain for the most part supine being able only to kick our legs and flail our arms about which are the two actions which are used to signal everything from hunger to deep philosophical angst. This gives way to disoriented and uncoordinated movement with legs and then to short spurts of coordinated movement (the quintessential baby video where the baby breaks into a wobbling run to end up in a heap at the end of the room). A higher social consciousness (kindergarten, birthday parties when we actually knows its our birthday) there is a marked rise (inevitably) in the consumption of sugar. And when this consumption passes a certain threshold (on say a particularly wild party) the major form of physical activity is meaningless commotion. Running around while screaming and in throes of chocolate-induced hysteria, rolling on the grass while pulling out wads of it (I promise that I once saw a little boy at a party wolf down all of seven Ferrero Rochers, lift the pet-cat by its tail and slingshot it at the little girl). Its the next phase which brings in the element of competition. Gali cricket/football/tennis lessons (depending). This is the time the parents say to each other “he/she has become too aggressive. We should consider a ping-pong table.” This is the longest and most tortuous phase of the pursuit of physical feats in the life of a person. Some of us just dont got it. So our parents come and watch us the sporting contests in school…as a group of athletic figures sprint past them followed by their progeny who jogs by waving at them. By and by, the element of competition rises and rises and reaches a kind of crescendo around the time of senior year. I know that that is the most serious Ive ever got in sporting events. and…then it ebbs again. Now, the sporting encounters are leisurely and imbued with a mature sense of “games should be for fun, not for winning or losing,” which is a good way of saying “lets face it, neither of us can survive the whole set, so lets play best of three and allow underarm serves.” So here I am (or we are for my peers and contemporaries). The other day, a group of us graduate students decided to start playing tennis (exclusivel grads, because them undergrads will beat the crap out of us). For one it took me some time to beat off a bout of giggles as I saw four spectacled gents assuming their positions for a game of doubles. I have only recently got glasses so I thought I could probably do without them. Then I saw a furry blob hit a smaller yellow and furry blob at me. So my last attempt to look like a serious-ish athlete was in vain and I went back and put on my glasses. The moment I had put them on, all sporting spirit left my body. I was overwhelmed by a sense of “this is only for fun, its not for winning or losing.” Dang it. I had officially stepped into sporting adulthood. Our tennis is still at the delicate nascent stage where all the games are won by breaking serves. So when we actually start winnning on our own serve, we might actually hope to at least create an illusion that its real tennis that we’re playing. But this is turning out to be a depressing account of our sporting adventure. So I will add that I feel much better after having started once again. And I will keep your guys posted on the progress. Statistics to watch out for …. number of double-faults per game (per game yes, not per set), number of people serving underarm .. etc etc

Moving On

2006-02-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

I have decided to graduate to Wordpress which apparently is supposed to be way more in these days in blogsphere. Plus this annoying blank space was getting on my (our?) nerves. So ... surfs up! .... move along to http://saifali.wordpress.com/ for the latest posts. However, I will not be brutal and abandon this blog cold turkey. It will contiue to run and all posts will go up on both sites ... so if you dont mind scrolling down each time, feel free to read here. Though I do believe my Wordpress blog should be some fresh air.

"Hold it Mister, the potatoes are mine." : An entry on the crisis of communal living.

2006-01-30T19:06:00.000-08:00

Pivotal in the life of a grad student in the USA are roommates. And here I dont mean to mislead people, because roommate-roommate relationships in an undergrad-hostel/dorm situation are completely different from the ones that develop when you're living in an apartment shared by graduate-students. In an undergrad hostel...you're younger, which is not really the most important thing ... and you're less wise .... which is. You are willing to risk just about everything you have (which is usually very little) to cover for your roommate who is generally also your best friend. Also, most of the time is spent on how to get the lecturer to cry in class tommorow. This is not what happens in graduate-student inhabited spaces. There is for starters ... much more at stake so everyone has to (to use one of the most annoying platitudes) ..."get serious". There is no mess (mess, as in eating place ... there is plenty of the other kind) so everyone has to cook, do laundry (Im referring here to grad-student situations in the USA), study, work and lead what maybe called at least in some far-fetched way - a life. There is no time for wholesome activities like, talking about utter nonsense till 2 am, finishing Quake 4 in 1.5 days and so on. Central to the roommate-roommate interaction is the issue of cooking. That is what (as I have realized recently) glues together the people sharing the house in some way. So ... to employ brutal reductionism .... your roommate is the guy you're living with so that you get to pay less rent and cook only two days in a week. If you're wondering what caused me to objectively analyse this, I will tell you so now dear grasshopper. For some reason, the "cooking-turn-system" has been abolished in our house, so everyone is repsonsible for their own sustenance. You;d think that that would not really ramify in a big way, but I have found to the contrary. It has dawned on me that the cooking turn is what kept a lof of stuff in order until now. For example, groceries. If one guy cooks and everyone eats (or has the option of eating) then its ok if the cost of the ingredients is shared but not if people are only cooking for themselves. Then we must look at everyone's preferences, someone eats only potato, someone doesnt touch them, someone is watching their weight so will not consume sugar ... I can already see several fractions (if not derivatives) in the equation for the household finances. But hey...we're engineers ... thats what we're good at, complicating things miserable and then trying to make sense of them. The solution (a pragmatist would say) is, everyone buys whatever they want, no common account for the house. Good.... thats good.... and we have already half-implemented this approach ... which is why there are at least 3 identical bags of coriander in the fridge (aah, so there's something we all eat). Then we could further correct our approach and say....we share the expenses for a lowest common denominator list of items and other things we buy separately .... the problem currently being investigated is exactly this list. What are the things we all eat (coriander, we know now). The situation is however complicated still .... and I will not elaborate so take my word for it. So these days, after we're done researching hardware-accelerated texture mapping, combinatorial optimizations, solid-state device dynamics and routing protocol for mobile-adhoc networks in school ... .we come back in the evening and gape open-mouthed at each other and scratch our heads wondering what to do about the cooking. I've been reading for a class texts by visionary philosophers which talk about how humanity is being transformed into a collective intelligence and how we are no longer individuals but a singular distributed consciousness and how thats a good thing because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and what not .... clearly these philosopher dudes are round the bend. If anyone has not noticed the irony I have so desperately tried to imbue the text with .... I request that you do so now (and itd be nice too if you could take your hand off your chin and chuckle in a disinterested way). Now ... I must find a place where I can sleep tonight ... because I know that tonight my roommates have a great reason to unify .... to beat the crap out of that Saif.

Rain Clutter

2006-01-21T12:45:00.000-08:00

All of us have in our houses objects of mysterious persistence. Things which year after year continue to lie unused, unclaimed and unquestioned on shelves, in cupboards and drawers, under beds. Antiquated to the extent that it is no longer clear why they were there in the first place and it is definitely unknown who exactly they belong to or who put them there. Particular objects may vary from a household to the other but the phenomenon is definitely universal. My house .... for example, proudly academic ... books ... dusty, moth eaten pages of obscurity ... tapes (both VHS and audio), assorted sporting goods including a tennis ball split in half, TT pads with the rubber padding torn off, cricket bat with a shaky handle. These are the more normal categories of clutter. Among the more interesting ... half empty bottles of dubious looking fluids, old medicine, what looks like ordinary water filled in small plastic bottles, bits of metal from old key chains, keys and locks which so do not match, hammers, weird door-knobby looking things and rusty nails fill up the insides of drawers, never used boxxes of candles, greeting cards from completely strange people ... then there are things in the category of ... bits of stuff .... I have no other way of saying it ... bits of stuff ... thats what it is .... a long forgotten piece of what I think is a neem stick meant to be used as a toothbrush. that ... is the general state of clutter in my household. Since I'd been living away for a year when I visited home this time, I regarded my home more from the perspective of a concerned occupant than an indifferent dweller. and decided to do away with the junk once and for all. So I started doing the rounds of the house with a trash bag in my hand and started sweeping things off the shelves into it. But it wasnt as easy as I thought. Regardless of the fact that the useless-junk I was throwing away was exactly that - useless-junk, people in my house had become attached to it. It had become part of them. So as I heaved shelves and shelves of half-empty perfume and cream bottles, my mother tailed me all over saying ... "not that, I will give it to the housemaid" (note that over the 10 and some years that that bottle has been lying there, many maids have been hired and fired but that bottle didnt make it in to the hands of a single one of them). Ultimately, I was barred from chucking all the bottles I had collected in the bag ... so it was agreed that I leave it in one corned until my mom decides what to do with them (one alternative was that she take them to the "craft with waste material class" that she teaches ... a good idea youd think, but heaven knows when it will happen). I then made my way to the tapes and book section. Now....it is an absolute mystery to me how some of the items in this section came to be in my house. And what is worse is that Im positive that they were brought in by me. At the cost of my reputation, I will reveal some of the titles that had enjoyed there stay on my shelf. I was extra hasty first of all in removing and crushing to bits a VHS titled "Funniest Moments of the WWF" lest anyone start asking questions. And it beats me ... totally....why I would ever have been interested in a treatise on the "The Fodder Situation in the Savannah". Then there were books which I had obviously put up under the category off "never to be read but put up because makes good impression when guests go through bookshelf" .... "Ideas in Science" by obscure Russian author, "Discourse on Method" by Rene Descarte, "Sidelights on Relativity" by Einstein .... as if. So I brought down a pile of books and tapes and stood over the trash can and started tossing each one in after a brief examination. this went on for a while when I noticed that they were not making that satisfying clattering sound when they fell into the trash can. I turned around to see my dad standing behind me and catching them clean off the air before they could fall in and stacking them on the other side. His thoughts were that he could take them to the office where the empty covers could be used. So, I gave up more or less but it was all not in vain. At least I got to destroy some of the evidence of the trash I used to watch/read/listen to before anyone could say...''hey you pseudo-academic twit...you were a junkie".

The Good, the Bad and the Funny

2005-11-21T08:03:00.000-08:00

Meticulous Ji has recently acquired a small wooden aeroplane. The other day he cat-footed out of the house (he likes to step outside sometimes to air himself out) with (apparently) the intention to fly the plane. A little while later he returned with an ear-to-ear grin clutching a small digital camera in his hand. "Someone dropped their camera in the parking lot," he declared. Obviously, it was set to be an exciting day in the otherwise ordinary lives of us ordinary souls. Adhering strictly to the civil code of conduct that one must stick to in these situations, the first thing we did was opened it up and looked at all the pictures. They werent exciting enough ... so of course we had to find other ways of making things a little more froody ... all the possibilities were debated. 1. We put up a notice and wait patiently for the owner to claim it. 2. We keep it. 3. We put up a notice and if someone claims it we hand them our old camera which they will refuse anyway and that way we have our cake and eat it too. ... and so on. Finally, Meticulous Ji brought out a sheet of paper and started writing .... and in a bold move put down his own email address as the contact. Having done this he again walked out of the house (twice in one day!) clutching a roll of tape and the notice. That ... seemingly ... was the end of that ... but that couldnt be it! ... this was an exciting thing we thought. more must be made of it. my other roommate whom we shall call "myotherroommate" for the sake of this discussion devised the most evil scheme. So .... like I said before .... I love Google. why I love Google is because they let us create as many email addresses we want and gorge all the disk space we want on there server until we are fat and happy. so ... having noticed that the pictures on the camera were of an Asian gentleman myotherroommate and I conjured up a Gmail address ... chiyuan007@gmail .com. Two days later, Meticulous Ji received an email from Mr Chi Yuan (007) in authentic and precisely incorrect English making a claim for the camera. Of course, Meticulous Ji feeling inflated with a sense of humanity bought the whole thing and sent back a soppy reply to the effect of "...it is my esteemed previlege to have come across your camera in the parking lot and it gives me immense pleasure ... yada yada yada" ... exellent. This was actually getting totally floopy. A moment later, the email I myself had typed up putting to work all my mimicry skills was forwarded to my real address by Meticulous Ji .... ofcourse with a sense of proving to me that all his good intentions had not been in vain ... indeed. So ... it went .... every evening myotherroommate would enquire as to the status of the communication with Chi Yuan as Meticulous Ji made his coffee while I would double up with stomach wrenching laughter behind the door. things went along fine until myotherroommate and I were trapped in a crisis-of-morality or a dharmasankat because now the question was how to break it to Meticulous Ji that who he thinks is Mr Chi Yuan 007 is actually the two guys he happens to share a house with. This was made easy by the arrival of yet another claim for the camera .... Meticulous Ji informed me one lazy afternoon that another guy had asked for the camera. I panicked ... for a bit before I composed my self. " So ... what did you say?" I said in my most pretending-to-be-calm voice. "I didnt reply". MeticulousJi said without looking at me. ("Phew!!, That was close") Obviously it was unwise to carry it further so I broke it to him that Mr Chi Yuan with whom he has been incessantly corresponding with for the past week is actually myself. Though he smiled and made light of it I could tell he knew that he had been comprehensively had. Myotherroommate was upset that I ate of the fruit of our efforts all by myself but he still asks MeticulousJi after the health of Mr Chi Yuan ... much to his consternation and our double-upping laughter. But it must be said that the real owner of the camera was full of gratitude and admiration and it truly was a touching moment as he held his camera in his hand once again. Everyone was happy I suppose ... the owner for getting his camera back, us for the weeklong entertainment, Meticulous Ji for a good deed done and stored in the bank of the Almighty ready for withdrawal. But I know for a fact that the next time MeticulousJi is overcome by a desire to be noble, he wont share it with us.

Nights on Terrace Road

2005-11-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

Terrace Road is a beautifully out-of-the-way community that has been conquered by desi grad students and there fellow immigrants (though the means of immigration maybe different) from Mexico. It is my home. The nights here are especially beautiful ... visually at least ... the sky is painted a dark blue with streaks of orange and purple and we get the most wonderful stars. One can see in the distance the dim lights from the university dorms. But, the aural aesthetics ... are an altogether different matter. let me explain ... I have described on previous occasions the colossal state of ruin of my sleeping routine (or non-routine) so its established that Im not exactly a sound sleeper ... now ... its good that Im talking about sounds, because they are the subject of the current discussion. It seems sounds of every pitch, frequency, wavelength, volume, timbre and quality that can be possibly generated by natural or man-made contrivance make themselves heard between the hours of sunset and sunrise on and around Terrace Road. I shall list them one by one but that is by no means to say that they occur in isolation. Its a composition ... an orchestra ... which starts playing the moment it is what reasonable people call "bedtime" and rises to a crescendo at around 4:00 am. Exposition: The Oriental Lady Downstairs ... hmm ... (that abbreviates to OLD ... except that she's young ... it doesnt make sense, so I guess I'll stick to it then). Well .. the OLD (I'll have much more to say about her in later posts) ... but for now I will say that she has an affinity for talking in a loud nasal voice on the cell phone... at night....outside on the patio. So that we can hear everything ... and not that we want to ... and she'a obviously very pleased about something because she will intermittently burst out into a bout of laughter ... and it is THE most infuriating sound that a homo-sapien can produce ... its like an infants wail with the treble multiplied by a 1000. Then ... our neighbors being the kind for whom a good night out means 10 gallons of beer will come back to their houses to pass out. But they shant do so before they've made their happiness very apparent to us by shouts and yelps of glee and a full bladder. They made so much noise one day that in an unusual display of rage, Meticulous Ji got up in the middle of the night and banged the window shut so that the whole room shook ... you have to agree anything that could elicit that behavious from Meticulous Ji had to be annoying. Development: Vehicles ... of all size and sound. Some odd hour of the night, a rather large truck-ish thing will come and park itself outside ... and here;s what beats me .... for the time that it is standing there ... the ignition will be on ! ... its like .... save gas good fellow !! and save yourself the wrath of Saif Ali. Cars, of course, ... which approach and recede from our house like ocean waves giving a sort of background score. A nice variation here ... and bear with me as I detail it for you. There is a magical moment while sleeping when one goes through the door from this universe into the world of dreams ... that elusive moment which noone knows or remember when we 'doze off' and finally say good night to the world around us. This moment is especially cherished by me because I happen to be not a very good sleeper. I lie awake in bed for hours and think about random stuff before I can sleep. So ... after Ive pondered everything from the energy crisis to "what to wear tommorow so that the pretty girl at the fashion store will notice me", sleep finally presents itself to my tired eyes ... and just at correct moment .... 4 Harleys will decide to ride by in the most careless fashion as if its 3 in the afternoon. Now ... those of you who've only heard a Harley on television cant appreciate the ... loudness ... of the sound. It is heart-wrenching ... your very soul gives a lurch. every nerve in your body decides to jump in a completely different direction ... I suggest for those of you who sleep like slabs of lead to use it as an alarm ... after this most rude assault ... Im once again fully awake ... wide-eyed and shaken. That is the worst sound of the night ... but the damage is done. Now ... all it takes is small and continuosly repetetive sounds to complete the composition ... we have a new and fancy apartment complex down the road and they are proud "to protect there residents" .. by means of a huge automatic iron gate. Perhaps the most inefficient and power intensive device ... and since the apartment complex is fancy it caters to fancy people. Who leave and come at wee hours of the morning ... and therefore we are treated to the sound of the gate opening and closing ... and for no better description I shall attempt to tell it like it is ..... "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnscreeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeechhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaacc ccclllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnng" this happens 5-6 times at perfectly spaced out intervals. There is a lot of construction and repair (and by God we need it) going on around here. As morning approaches ... the workers start arriving (coz there ole' man always saiid ... "the early bird gets the worm") ... random sounds of tools will now enter the symphony ... hammers, cranes, whirring instruments of evil. and of course the early bird does get the worm, and so think about a hundred of 'em in the palm tree right outside. A palm tree (I know you're thinking) is a very minimalist creation of nature but I swear this is true ... somehow what sounds like the bird equivalent of War of the Worlds happens in the one outisde our house every morning. In addition to this ... there is what I like to call the "Door Percussion Ensemble" ... which is a rhythmic beat created by the entries and exits of my roommates through various doors in the house (and of course Im also a perpetrator of this). I can tell exactly how people are moving inside the house just by following the bangs of the doors. These ... then are the sounds of the night on Terrace Road and like I said ... its an orchestra which begins precisely when we get ready for bed and continues mercilessly until it is morning and I have tossed and turned a million times and thought about how many ways there would be to slowly torture and kill the operator of the lawn mower downstairs.

The problem then is .... err

2005-11-12T16:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for prompt replies to the previous poll. I think we all understand the situation better now. -------------------- Now ... the thing about .... err .... ok .... so .... ummm ..... inarticulation ... right. So here's the thing about inarticulation ... there's probably no such word. But here's the thing about it anyway ..... Ive noticed that very very very learned and smart people suffer from it. I attended a film appreciation workshop where we had a super talented film scholar lecture on super-abstract themes like "paradigmatic choices in film" as opposed to "grammatical choices in film" .... except that .... he couldnt say two words straight. At one point a friend of mine tried taking notes in one of the sessions ... so I peaked over his shoulder at his notes .... and upon reading those notes, I had to beat down such a forceful bout of laughter that I choked on my own breath and made a horrible sound and everyone turned around to look and give me bad stares. Recently, I attended a talk by an ultra-well-known scholar in an undisclosed field .... and he had the same problem! .... he couldnt string together 5 words without scratching his head, rubbing his forehead, pausing a million times, chuckling manically and making incomprehensible sounds .... so a typical sentence was ... "so .... so ... I just wanna .... ok .... Im glad, Im glad ... Im glad that .... right .... (rub rub) ... so manifolds of the affine variety .... yes ... did you ... did you've a question ? " YES I DID have a question ... whatthehellutalkinabout?!?!? I dont know what it is ... because they are CLEARLY ... very very smart and keen commentators in there own field when it comes to writing but ... put them on a podium and its bye-bye to making sense. One would at the outset think that they have no clarity of thought and ideas bubble in a never-ending chaos in their heads. This is plausible ... but not probable. The reason is probably this .... there mids work faster then they can speak and they are SOOO incredibly clear in what they are thinking that any combination of words that they come up with the communicate there thoughts is simply not good enough. The problem then is of infinite precision. The volume or rather the resolution and quality of there ideas is so great that when it is compressed for the sake of transmission through spoken words it is rendered useless and is lost in the translation. Its like viewing a high - resolution image on a cheap monitor ... it appears blocky and granular. The state-of-the-art is very different in say ... business ... or politics maybe. Where the public speakers dish out platitude after platitude in an array of beautifully woven words strung together by silken grammar. Not to say that there arent exellent speakers in academics ... dont wanna be burnt alive for heresy. Its just more and more I come across these speakers who would rather puzzle the audience then educate them. Its hard to explain... Note to the readers: there was absolutely no point behind bringing all this up.

The Voice(s) of Reason

2005-11-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like a good living room brawl to get you going. I remember family get-togethers at my house ... where inevitably the elders would decide to excercise there lungs and have a hearty shouting session to digest all the mutton curry. It could be about anything ... that didnt matter. politics was a popular one ... and generally made for the most vocal-chord-intensive sessions, I can still remember snippets .... "aap mujhe yeh batayiye (pause for effect) ki aap logon ne pachaas saal mein kya kar liya" ... ("pray tell me ... what did you guys accomplish in 50 years") my uncle would say to my other uncle while flaying his hands all over and helping himself to the cashew nuts. Then there's be these times where everyone would be yelling ... a kind of circle would form and people would yell and point fingers and raise voices at the person sitting across .... and then they'd switch. At those times my mother would come and try to announce dinner .... and here was the fantastic part .... and I never could figure out how they did this ... but people would get up from there seat, put together a sumptuous plate-full from the table, grab a drink and ask for the salt and maybe a napkin and settle back down into there seat .... without ONCE letting the tempo of the yelling ("discussion" they might say) fall ..... itd be like one person gets up .... they keep yelling while everyone looks up at them and yell back intermittently .... then they go to the table and they are followed by someone who simply has to make there point that very moment so they chase them to the table and resume the yelling .... then maybe one person would say as they ladled the dal into there plate ... "haan haan theek hai lekin pichle das saal mein kitne log mare ? ... saif zara namak uthana" (yeah yeah yeah but how many people have died in the last ten years ? .... saif, can you pass the salt) . These sessions were really really the entertaining bit for the rest of us who didnt partake, ... except that it was serious fighting ... I swear ... at times we'd take away all the cutlery (esp the knives) out of the reach of the "circle of war" .... the reason I bring this up is because we managed to recreate the magic today all on our own (which says to me that we're getting along in years after all) .... it all started with the accusation that people who opted for Sanskrit in 9th grade "did it for the marks". not a subject half worthy of debate as say ... the fiscal policy ... but close enough to our hearts nonetheless. I dont wanna bore you with the details though it got pretty ugly and by the end everyone was nice and hyper .... so everyone made a quick retirement to there corners of the house ... but not before pacing up and down pointlessly to work off the rage ..... good fun in the end I say .... we should do this again ... what say gentlemen ? BUT ..... I wish to make the first attempt to solicit participation on this blog .... here's the motion .... BlogPoll "People who took Sanskrit in the 9th grade did it for the marks" what we want from you is .... "Yay" or "Nay" ... and all the dirt you can sling at the other camp ... lets get downright dirty and personal (but people of the world, no weapons of mass destruction). So get your votes in (use the comments facility and remember ... this is all in good spirit :-) .... yeah right) Let the Games Begin.

Academic Pursuit

2005-11-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

The best thing (Ive realized) about conferences is what happes after they're over. I happened to be at a wine and cheese party post a conference here at the university. as a graduate student, you're the bottom of the pile (after luminaries, intellectuals, professors, chairs, deans, heads, executive directors, post doctoral candidates and sometimes even undergrads if they happen to be pretty). The distinct advantage is anonimity ... if noone can see you then noone can count how many times you attacked the strawberries and cream. So... I was there. and commenting to my fellow graduate student how good the cheesecake was. We sort of hung around and watched as the who's who of the particualr academic field entered and made a beeline for the bar. Interesting snippets of conversation streamed across to me from the tables of academic exellence (my friend and I had occupied a conveniently placed buffet table right near the balcony which was out of the way and in the way just the right amount) .... "what I dont understand is why they cant make up there own names instead of using the Greek alphabet..." complained a youngish looking man in a delf-blue sweater who had perhaps just attended a harrowing talk and had to face a deluge of equations and symbols ... and now he would get over it all if only the line to the bar would shorten. On the other side, a central European lady tried to explain with aggressive gesticulation to a Asian gentleman how ... "you hold the tangent-space ... and twist it, ... you twist it ..." I got the feeling he didnt understand because he blinked and said ... "so how long you will be here?" All in all ... it was most enlightening ... as all exclusive academic gatherings must be.

READ NOW FOR FREE AND MAKE MONEY !! THE TWO NOT BEING RELATED!!

2005-10-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hello and Welcome. This is by popular demand. This post I wanna talk about blog-spam. Its the one thing I hate more than junk forwards. This hatred is brought on by the fact that I was taken for a complete fool the first time I got blogspam. I wrote a post that I thought was simply terrific...a total sizzler and within like 17 seconds of writing it I got a notification that a comment had been posted and I thought .. oh yeah, this entry is gonna bring 'em in .. its gonna go like like hotcakes ... people are lappin it up ... this one is da biggie ... my ego underwent supreme inflation ... and rapid deflation when I opened up to see what the comment said .... now before I tell you what it said ... I wanna say something about spam in general .... its not so irritating that its unsolicited, its not so irritating that it can potentially screw your computer ... no .... you wanna know the irritating bit ... Ill tell you the irritating bit ... heres the irritating bit .... its the language ... the way it tries to most unsuccesfully raise your blood pressure and get you all excited about "You could have $200!!!" .... or ... "You could have a house for less than $5!!! " ... or better still "Enlarge it!!" not only these attempts at giving you cardiac arrest but I love the way there are always these innuendos ... this implicit assumption that they're talking to a brainless bat ... "Find out how you can buy and sell anything!" .... really? (youd be inclined to say) , even the dead beaver thats clogging my drain pipe? then there are times when it seems like they're talking to some financial genius .... consider this .... "Get interest-free tax-credit on 13 percent APR for up to 37 days plus extra days if you buy in Honduras on a house-ghost- resurrection reduced rate mortgage while keeping your average annual monthly pro-rated payment less than the amount you can make by stealing people's change. Act NOW!! This could be your last chance to make up to $1.71" .... what? ... I have trouble adding up my grocery bill. I know you're dying to say something to the effect of ... "Exellent blog post! I loved it ! ..... (and now that Ive fed into your ridiculously heightened sense of self-worth you pompous twit), go and look at this completely useless website and I promise you'll make good money. Its that easy! (because a half-wit like you couldnt handle it if it wasnt) Make money now! (because I know you need to)"

Birth and Bath

2005-10-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

Its Meticulous Jis birthday. He went out and bought gulab jamun for all of us. and later tonight we are being taken out to dinner. Id like to take this oppurtunity to describe what Id been wanting to for a while now. Im not a messy guy...as in I have basic personal hygeine and even manage to wear that soaped and scented smell that you would know if you rode the elevator in the morning with management executives. but I have no initiative to undertake mammoth cleaning tasks ... like cleaning out the garage or vaccuming the house. but Meticulous Ji does ... good for me. I came home one day to find Meticulous Ji scrubbing the bathroom tiles ... huffing and puffing and panting. I offered to help of course with the guilt of one who never undertakes mammoth cleaning tasks ... now ... all this while we have had this greenish-black deposit on our bathtub and I get into it everyday and think "oh this is filthy" ... then I sing a song and take a shower. so it was good that Meticulous Ji had started this .... after a few feeble scrubs I realised that this was no way to finish the task .... so I pumped it up a bit ... I took off my shirt and climbed into the bathtub and doused the sponge in half a litre of Dawn and started scrubbing as if I was looking for treasure. needless to say ... the results were dramatic and this egged me on ... and I was bathed in froth but it was a great feeling. So Meticulous Ji suggested that instead of washing the bathtub I might as well just take a shower and wash myself and it at the same time. This Ithought was a bold suggestion. so I took it. I like to scandalise MEticulous Ji once in a while ... so I pulledthe curtain and flung my shorts over the curtain bar. suddenly ... I heard the clap of chappal against feet and the turn of a handle and the loud bang of the door ... Meticulous Ji had left the bathroom in supernatural haste. Now he will deny all of this categorically ... and of course not all of it is completely true but I thought since its his birthday ... a little bit of falsehood wont bother him so much. Meticulous Ji - welcome to the 24th year.

The other biggie

2005-10-14T18:56:00.000-07:00

Two posts earlier I had spoken about two big events but I got to describing only one ... well heres the other one. my friend is getting married. this is big. and at the same time sad ... because I wont be there for the wedding. and at the same time happy ... because she's getting married. and at the same time totally and completely nuts ... because she's getting married. this sums up the general mood ... emotional. Im beginning to think ... this is probably what 'emotional' means. emotions are running around all over me like cats chasing butterflies .... I cant tell one from the other. its all marked by a general rise in confusion and blood pressure and then more confusion ... oh yeah ... and excitement. like you;ve just seen a UFO ... but its coming down to crash right on your head. only in this week has the enormity of the fact that I will miss the wedding hit me. its probably the most important thing to ever happen in my group of friends ever since another friend flunked out of 11th grade. Im good at missing this kind of stuff. Im the guy who arrives when its all over and says ... "so wheres the action at?" .... anyhow ... Rachel Greene might say its the end of an era. Right now I see flashed in my head of this era ... including ... Karuna and I in Geography class Karuna's house ... and the fridge ... and three boys practically inside it going through all the phoren cheese and chocolate Karuna doing the gidda Karuna scoring .5/25 on the first math test in 10th grade (thats half on twenty five in case...) Karuna in the cinema hall ... not getting the joke while the people roar with laughter ... "what happened? ... what'd he say?" Soni stationed in a cane chair smoking a cigarette and toying with his phone while Karuna attends to him at regular intervals of 43 mins ...now its not as terminal as I make it sound ... Im sure the moments will continue to be created and stored in my dysfunctional memory. in advance ... happy wedding and happy married life to KS .... wish I could be there. Im sure you will look as stunning on your wedding as you are right now imagining yourself to.

What you dont see wont hurt you

2005-10-10T17:12:00.001-07:00

There are two kinds of people in the world ... those who solve problems, those who know a good solution when they see one and those who dont see the problem. This revelation was made to me in multiple spheres of my life simultaneously. Research ... I swear upon the dear lord that this is true ... you can build a careeer in research and academics without coming up with a single solution in your life. but thats not the interesting bit ... you wanna know the interesting bit ... this is the interesting bit .... yes ... this is definitely the interesting bit ... errr .... I dont know how to say it ... ah forget it. ..... I know you are infuriated ... good ..... coz right now ... so am I. But seriously ... oblivion. Its the most deadly virtue. How I envy people who's lives are bubbles of oblivion. For them ... life is a good. no problemo. things are delightfully dull, sweetly static. days come and days go. same ole same ole ... ' would I trade my life - stricken with uncertainty - for theirs. most certainly not.

What the world needs

2005-10-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

Washing machines that accept dimes and nickels ... at least ... if not pennies

Worry and Wisdom

2005-10-08T18:44:00.000-07:00

I have been out of BlogTown for a while now and I was delighted to find out that somebody noticed. Several entries have been swivelling around in my head for a while now and its sad that I have ignored them like yesterday's unsipped tea. These entries may materialize in some form ... but there are two big events placed around the notch on the time axis labelled "Now" ... so I bring them up ... My mother got her PhD. Now...thats not the kind of thing mothers do. They worry about what you had for lunch, they worry about your weight loss and you girlfriends (or the lack of them) ... my mother does all of that plus she goes out and gets PhDs which is why she's totally cool. She's a real go-getter type mom. Id like to share an excerpt from an email which Amma sent me recently ... "Did they send you the tickets make sure you get up for sehri, what are you doing for iftar, is it hot, how the roza went? I always have too many questions... I feel better about you as you now have work, “work is a great friend” , it never betrays you, and always makes you feel good about yourself except that some times it is too much around you, but it is better than you are left alone. I know you have made friends with work, a friend who will inshallah take you ahead, but it is no good when it is the only friend. " This entry is for Amma. Thanks for being absolutely hip, for telling it like it is, for always being there and for making sure I didnt make chomping sounds when I ate my food. Congratulations on your PhD. ... to Dr Sarwat Ali. Here's to many more achivements in the years to come.

Fine by Me!

2005-09-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

There is a particular unpleasant sensation which is associated with being booked by a cop that is unlike any other. like a cold water tap has been opened inside your gut and the water is slowly travelling downwards. I had the previlige of this experience the other day when I was ticketed for the stupidest possible traffic offense (the fact that I was on a bicycle should be some indication). This cop - he pointed his finger at me and beckoned me to him as if he's going to put me down on the ground and ride his Harley over my head. then he asked for my id and began scribbling stuff on a form. Till now...and this is classic ... I hadnt realized I was being booked, I though it was some routine check. while this happened ... another cyclist came up behind us riding merrily and the cop did the same thing to him. I started to suspect now that something was up. I still didnt speak, I thought Id rather not find out what was happening even though it was gonna be made very apparent to me just in about 17 seconds while he finished filling up the form. so ... whatever ... the whole thing happened and it turned out that I was to pay $118 dollars ... the small trickle from the tap became a gush and the cold burnt me so my face became a little red. he saw this and given my complete failure to speak words he said "but if you take a bike safety class they only make you pay $30" .... "class class CLASS ... I take class .. class"... I half said. then there was some more messing around papers and I was off. now ... I wasnt upset so to speak but the incident gnawed at my brain. I pictured myself as a king and the cop a supplicant who came to me for forgiveness at which point I sentenced him to the guillotine. I was a big business tycoon and he came to me becuase his son wanted a job in the company ... these daydreams haunted me ... I dont know why .. I didnt hate the cop ... but I did. he could have easily forgiven me ... he could have but he didnt ... and there was SQUAT I COULD DO ABOUT IT. then there is the question of money ... the $50 dollars ( it was $50 when I read the pamphlet he had thrust in to my hand, not $30) . how many ways there were to think about those $50 .... its a week's rent (yeah ... low income housing), just less than one days pay, 8 trips to the movies, 16 trips to the coffee shop, a little more than Im willing to pay .... I thought about all these ways. then I thought (as u are now) that Im stupid. then I reasoned ... "well for the first week I didnt really do any work as a TA so got a weeks worth of pay for not doing much so this is just payback" ... that didnt serve to ease my discomfort .... and neither did thousand other such fallcies that you dont wanna know about. nowadays.. Ive taken to reading scholarly books .. so every night I read "Debating P.C. : The Controversy over Political Correctness on College Campuses " ... but that night I didnt feel so scholarly .... so I picked up this omnibus edition of the Hitchikers Guide that my roommate had and Id been avoiding it because Ive read them 3 times each and Life, the Universe ... 5 times but I was vulnerable enough to succumb to the urge. Often I have found solace in books at times of distress and this time they didnt fail me either ... the first paragraph I read laid all my anxiety to rest ... and like totally ... I didnt even think about the fine after that to the exten that I havent thought about paying it till now. anyway... I finish with the paragraph by Adams (he kicks ass) ... "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were argely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the hole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

Feline Connections

2005-08-23T22:48:00.000-07:00

currently reading Under the Net by Iris Murdoch ... magnificent and entertaining. Jake is super ... pennilessness and a general lack of direction and a misty notion of where - who one is ... which are such common symptoms among grad students ... one cant help but love Jake ... Im lapping it up. so each housing society in Tempe has to offer a small swimming pool .. umm ... small ... which I think is there for no other purpose but to apparently compensate for all the other all-round wretchedness of the apartments. but I use it ... now and then. on one occassion I happened to be in the pool at night and was luxuriously doing the backstroke while I mentally calculated the number of strokes it taked before you thud your head against the other side ... 5 is about accurate. anywya...after knocking myself silly about 3 times in this fashion ... I devised a method to get around it ... after a couple of strokes, I just let myself drift and then turned my head at an odd angle to look back at the approaching edge of the pool ... which worked sort of. at the third lap I turned my head around again in that fashion and staring right into my eyes were two glistening silver-gray eyes ... feline eyes. for a while I was just locked with my neck bent at that unnatural angle and we just stared into each others eyes ... I stopped swimming ofcourse, dont know why the impulse was to make no sound at all (I wasnt scared..no) I just drifted slowly and soundlessly to the other side. the spell lasted I cant tell how long. I dont like cats. I am not repulsed but when I see a cat I have no particular desire that it stay in my sight ... sometimes I feel, subliminally, that its better off elsewhere, away from me. anyhow, this cat ... it wouldnt leave. I now abandoned the backstroke and just sort of paddled to other side keeping at all times an eye on this creature ... a creature .. I think thats what I must have seemed to him/her (couldnt tell). the cat probably thought of me as some weird aquatic mammal coz I swear thats what the look in its eyes told me ... it certainly didnt think I was human, because by the look, I know it thought ... "now what have we here? and is it going to eat me?"...and maybe "whatever you are, learn to swim" ... it moved a little with every stroke I made ... as I drifted to one side of the pool, it went a little to the other .. and then back ... and forth ... all the time not losing eye contact. finally ... at an oppurtune moment , it made a sudden movement and found itself next to the metal fence and most gracefully bent its body throught the space between the metal bars and was out of sight. somehow, I didnt feel too happy when it left. not that I wanted it to stay but I dont know, ... today, saw it again from the balcony. again it was snoozing right next to the pool. its a puffy white cat ... unlike many other Ive seen. its friendly and sort of in awe of me. I like this cat. ... right... I could've sworn there was a connection between the first and second paragraphs. even so, it has eluded me.

Monty Python

2005-08-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

French GuardI'm French! Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king-a?! What Monty Python Character are you? brought to you by

Alphabet Coup

2005-08-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

There is ... just outside campus, a rather large pile of mud which had been adorned some 10 years back with a giant concrete "A" ... now its called with endearing naivete - the "A-Mountain". and since 10 years is ancient history here so now it has a path and a trail leading to what they call the "top" and it has explanatory plaques on they way where they explain the wildlife and plant-life on the A mountain. which essentially consists of birds and cactii. every year, new students at ASU get together and climb all over it and paint this A in different color - white for Fall, yellow for summer and so on ... so this time it was white. and despite all this condescension I found myself trekking (walking, hardly a trek though the heels that the female members were sporting couldnt have helped) up the mountain to daub it with a smidgen of white paint. Americans have this amazing spirit for the make-belief which always bewilders me. In India one got the feeling, the pervasive attitude is of skepticism (read "common-sense" by the likes of me) and I am no exception. As I climbed up with scores of youngsters, I couldnt help but think "this is not a mountain...it is a largish rock. and I am walking up it in the 40+ heat to smear my hands with paint ... I have to be the stupidest guy .. well one of the stupidest because there are all these brilliant people around me who are doing exactly the same thing". no really... it felt supremely asinine trudging up that mound. but people around me felt nothing of the sort ... they were jubilant, screaming ... not sharing my negativity ... cant deny it sort of neutralized things. when we got to the "A" we realised we had no paint (and I was beginning to think it couldnt get any stupider) ... see I thought they'd hand out the paint at the top ... except they werent .. you had to get it from the bottom. well..."we'll just go there and wave or sumthin" ... a bloke ahead of me was heard saying. anyway .. I borrowed some paint from a woman with a white nose who had obviously enjoyed herself. and I did the painting thing and jogged back down. glad I went ... the excercise was good. the A mountain when I first saw it when I got here a few weeks back was yellow .... now its a stark white and an area of about 2 square inch on that massive A is my work ... the insignificance of it all is killing me. glad I went ... seriously.

Scenes from the railway

2005-08-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

The words "Indian Railways" bring to my mind images of dirty, grimey hustle bustle of people and luggage. assorted aromas of bodily fluids, rotting food, cargo and God knows what else. But on closer introspection, these are associated with only the station. not the journey itself. Once the train leaves the station and all the passengers wiggle into there snug corners, a general sense of calm descends over the travelling party. Now if I think to myself "Indian Railways" I think of the beautiful journeys, fields, friendly auntie-jis in the compartment and all the other stereotyped co-passengers, kids running along with the train, sitting at the door and letting the wind blow in your face and the hypnotising effect of watching the tracks as they curve and coil like serpents... its an awe-inspiring experience, spiritual almost. Travelling in that basic, rough and austere style always brought out a sense of adventure. I associate a thousand images with all my train travels and recently this picture was sent to me ... and you'd have to be very close to my heart to know that I will be moved by the image. Its a magnificent picture ... by that I dont mean exposure and framing and composition ... instead, the essence of what it conveys, the story it tells. my compliments to whoever captured this.

August the 15th

2005-08-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

Its midnight and I just made a tryst with the refrigerator. my mother just told me over Yahoo messenger she's going to the campus grounds for the unfurling of the flag. This would have been the day we thanked God for no school and sat at home and watched TV. The day would begin at 10 in the morning and immediately followed by a general scrimmage for the newspaper and the remote. the channel would be switched to DD and everyone would watch the Prime Minister's address to the nation and not hear a word firstly because the audio would be just fantastic and secondly because it'd be too damn long. tommorow...the desis at ASU get together and unfurl the flag and sing in more-sincere-than-thou voices the national anthem. I cant attend because I have an orientation to attend... the waking up late in the morning, the customary viewing of the morning live telecast from the Red Fort, the singing in the school choir ... I will miss it terribly. Independence Day will pass as any other.

What fictional character would I be?

2005-08-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

R. Daneel Olivaw. The telepathic robot created by Isaac Asimov who invents the Zeroth Law of Robotics to save the Universe, creates a planetary being called Gaia, assumed the false role of the First Minister to the Emperor of the Galaxy and then lives on Earth's moon (because the Earth has gone radioactive) and controls the Galactic Empire telepathically. I think I'd like that. what characted would you be?

Introducing Meticulous Ji

2005-08-13T02:36:00.000-07:00

It has been suggested that it will be fun if this blog had characters (soon there'll be plots and scripts and maybe even sets who knows). so here goes ... meet Meticulous Ji (MJ) (I've had to change his real nickname because there the 'M' stands for something very rude and this is a family blog ... "yeah right" i hear you say). but this name fits like Schumi in his Ferrari ... because he is meticulous. on one of those listless evening where everyone just sits around I sat opposite and observed him, slightly hypnotised, as he arranged the clippings of his toenails according to size on a copy of the local ASU newspaper and then after filing his nails for what seemed like an hour he folded the newspaper lining up the edges so they seemed to be one as if he was some Zen origami master. so the meticulousness ... Meticulous Ji is my roommate besides being other things ... classmate, friend, partner in bitching out the system, co-skeptic and so forth .... and no Im not going to have kittens with him in case you're wondering. Meticulous Ji likes his space most of all, he doesnt like to be harried or man-handled and I flout both rules recklessly. I hope the regulars are pleased to meet Meticulous Ji ... you better be because he is about to feature more often here. so say hello.

Freudian Tea Sipping

2005-08-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

it turns out tea tastes exactly the same with or without milk. we think it tastes different because we can see its different colors with and without milk. just sipped tea from an opaque mug with a lid so I couldnt see the color ... couldnt tell the difference. Im thinking this is quite a neat discovery and you're thinking ... this is the most pointless entry ever.

Surya Namaskar

2005-08-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

The state of dilapidation and ruin of my sleeping cycle is second only to that of historical monuments in India. Had an awkward conversation with a colleague who I know only politely as she talked to me over dinner about ways to induce sleep at the right time. Reason number 284 not to attend inter-lab potlucks. After weeks of waking up to lunch I pulled off a miracle equal in standing to India beating Australia. Woke up at 5:00 am ! (read didnt sleep after 3). After having woken up, and this is embarassing ... I had no clue what to do ... esp 'coz I dont own a small brass goblet and the Ganga doesnt flow in Phoenix. the most appropriate thing I could think of was pulling out a book on Yoga that had been lovingly packed in my suitcase along with the other "things I would like to have but not use while abroad". After practicing Prayanama for a total of 157 seconds I assumed my favorite asana - the shavasana (the supine deadbody pose) and didnt come out of it until I was woken up by Scott Anderson on the radio. It was the "Early Morning Rock Show" ... how about that, Id slept twice in one night (slept ... sigh) and it was still early morning. It is now 9 am and I am now beginning to feel like normal people do at 11:00 pm. Caffeine.

Grand Canyon - Another Take

2005-08-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

On the Edge Originally uploaded by twentyfives.

A fellow flickerite did a set on the Grand Canyon. Gripping images, take the time to stop by.

Googlism

2005-08-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

Google - they never fail to amaze and amuse me. I have a corporate crush on this enterprise. The latest in there offerings of toys and trinkets for the Geek - Googlisms. I'll let you try it ... without getting into how it works but for fun they call it - What Google thinks of you your friends or anything! ... definitely cute. Googlism for Saif. My favorites: saif is playing it safe saif is `krishna' and we do the same dance on our engagement saif is free and available now saif is good for oregon saif is one of the noble saif is decent too saif is wasted saif is the world's safest feeder pillar range saif is the only fusegear that can be assumed to meet regulation 14 under all circumstances saif is the guy who figures how to make life easier for you folks out there saif is #1

It Raineth Down Upon Us

2005-08-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

Being from India, the term "monsoon" invokes familiar and bittersweet sentiments in me. The monsoons are a big deal in India ... we were taught most sincerely (by an oh-I-couldnt-care-less-about-what-I-teach geography teacher) in middle school that the monsoon rains are some of the heaviest around the continent and come up to 400 cm in certain parts of India and that the monsoon is a very important phenomenon for the Indian economy. The agricultural community awaits it with bated breath and its coming is celebrated in diverse and colorful style all around the country. coming to the point, I know the monsoon ... it visits home every year like the uncle from abroad. My birthday (in mid July) is usually the first day of the rains ... I hated that ... my parties were always damped by the damned rains. The rains are heavy and last long ... sometimes days. But, none of this ... not the apathetic geography teacher, not the spoilt parties, not the months of seeing the rains ... could have have prepared me for what I saw yesterday. Arizona...is supposed to be a desert but you wouldnt know it from the rains that hailed upon it from the violent skies last night. Every bit was singular ... the lightning ... not just a general illumination of the skies ... but bolts ... sharp, long and twisted bolts were thrown upon as if some divine hand had actually drawn them agaisnt the black sky ... sometimes reaching so low that they seemed to touch the ground. The thunder shook the house and my very soul ... and the rain ... it was not in any particular direction ... because of the fierce wind it was all over the place ... it rained left to right, north to south ... at one point it seemed to rain upside down. It was torrential, violent. The lamposts looked like they had high power showers attached to them ... and it was noisy ... we had to scream to be heard. We opened the door and stood outside to see this spectacle. Just like in India, here also the monsoon was met by a unique celebration. The people came out and hurled themselves in to the swimming pool ... heat opressed and jubilant people. I myself couldnt help but feel flippant and joyous. Thought of the geography lessons, the rain songs we sang in the music choir in school ... but today its as if last night was dream. There is not sign of the rain ... not even a puddle ... the sun blazes down yet again and Tempe looks again a desert. Maybe tonight ... it will happen again. This time Im gonna get a picture of it.

By Demand

2005-07-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

On popular demand I crawled the net for links to old Doordarshan lore. Here's what I found ... ranked by degree of relevance and interest ... Baje Sargam Har Taraf Se (thanks to Chakra) Listen at: http://www.rtpdesis.com/baje_sargam.mp3 Doordarshan on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doordarshan An entry on Chitrahaar added by yours truly (all of you are invited to please develop this further - but do so only after you read the Wikipedia tutorial on how to add information) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitrahaar Sir Richard Burton's translation of Vikram Aur Betaal at Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/vikrv10.txt ...to be continued - Watch this Space.

Run for it!

2005-07-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

I live in a nation afflicted by the fitness epidemic. Yes ... I know its an oxymoron ... but it exists ... for everyone to see. I think it was Rumi ... the legendary Persian Sufi poet who said in one of his poems ... "the only way out, is in". So we have joined the bandwagon. Out of all kinds of exercise jogging/running is the one I like least ... in fact I hate it. The problem is ... not that I get tired too easily but that it takes too much patience. If you have to do a respectable run you have to get some good mileage and for that you have to go slow ... which bores the hell out of me ... and if you run fast, your run is over before you know it ... which is embarassing. So, today I tagged along with my friend to go for a run ... and same thing happened ... ran too fast and got tired after doing one lousy mile. And there were these people who ... I dont know how they were doing it ... it looked like they were running except that you could go faster just walking. they just kept going .. and going ... and going ... plodding along ... i mean if you're gonna run like that, might as well walk ... if you saw them, it was as if they were running but an invisible rope was pulling them backwards ... I couldnt watch it after a while. Of course, there were some who just ran along gracefully and did it for long .. but thats a different league. 90% were these frictional runners. So I came back and checked for advice on the Internet ... here's what a certain Ms Margie has to say for beginners ... "Running is a great sport and the best suggest is to go SLOW." Drat. So Im back to square one ... I suppose I'll just have to go ahead and be one of those graceful runners who dont have a care in the world, they pass the world by. They dont do all the ugly toiling and panting ... but the problem is I start doing this way tooo soon. I dunno ... I hope my running days wont be over before they've begun.

"Gaao Beta Gaao" (Sing my dear! Sing!)

2005-07-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

Being graduate students (read paupers) we dont have a TV in our apartment sowe get by another way ... after dinner we sprawl in the tiny living room and just talk about stuff we used to watch back home. So a conversation ensued ... about the good ole days of Doordarshan (I realized I was old enough to have good ole days). Now, at some point or the other we have all criticized, lamented and downgraded our national television for being outdated, obsolete and all these other new age adjectives. It therefore will be a surprise to you all that all of us unanimously had the most fond memories of Doordarshan. The talk began when my friend brought up the national integration song that they used to play (oh so too too many times) ... Mile Sur Mera Tumhara ... and we all agreed it was superb .. then we amused ourselves by humming and singing broken lines from it and surprised oursleves by how much of it we remembered. Began with Pandit Bhim Sen Joshi's majestic voice, then went onto a rural scene in Punjab, then a fisherman, then Malika Sarabai (who can forget her) appeared somewhere, Shabana Aazmi ... the beautiful crescendo. A friend added that MIT has done there own version of Mile Sur ... From this the topic turned to even older times ...of Vikram aur Betaal, to these oh-so-beautifully-primitve cartoons for children. Like the one where a boy is asking his elder sister all these cute questions about things ... remember ... "ek chidiya anek chidiya" ... somehting ... ek ek ek ka kar ke taare bane anek" ... "jugat lagaani hogi!!".. "..chatur chidiya, sayaani chidiya". Then more singing happened ... big fat graduate students singing (only in pieces) this ancient song for children. Afterwards...we talked of Mullah Nasruddin, Mungeri Lal ke Hasin Sapne ... much much more. We couldnt get enough. Ofcourse, being very smart engineers, we had to find out how to acquire these gems of the past on new formats (mpeg, avi ... whatever). And we proved that we were indeed very resourceful ... and in your service ... found these resources ... Mile Sur Mera Tumhara ... listen at http://www.dhool.com/sotd2/636.html Ek chidiya Anek Chidiya ... watch at http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~shetty/Personal.htm Also, it seems we arent the only ones who howl old Doordarshan songs and ads ... it seems to be quite a popular pastime.

New!

2005-07-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Put up a new and improved image blog at flickr.com. It can be reached at http://flickr.com/photos/saiftasveer of course, my original image blog still remains - http://saifimages.blogspot.com cheers! saif

Ladies and Gentleman - The Grand Canyon

2005-07-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

"No paint, no film can fully communicate the beauty and grandeur of the Grand Canyon."

The Trip

2005-07-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

The regulars must know that I spent my birthday marvelling at the beauty of the Grand Canyon. Here are some details of the trip. We started out from Tempe in a rented Altima with a great AC (an essential element for any trip) and a greater music system (the second most essential). I got to play navigator (now, from the Desert Prince you'd think this is nothing short of a driver's nightmare) but I promise I was a great navigator. For the first time I read highway maps and wondered at how things work like clockwork here. My co-traveller had printed out an entire thesis on "things to do at Grand Canyon". We were fully loaded. First stop was this small town called Sedona which is known for its red rock formations. As always, these rock formations were a disappointment ... you just sort of get out of the car and stare at 'em and within a minute of staring you are feeling too hot and wanna get back in the car. So we did the staring and got back in the car .. Now what? ... thats it for Sedona or what ... we'd decided to spend the whole day here. So we decided to just explore (read pass time and pretend we're doing something). But our explorations were not devoid of discovery. We found this nice small creek that ran through the town and we went down and got our feet wet. Nicer than this was this one really charming small crafts village we found. It was built old style and was very pretty. They featured a nice Mexican restraunt where we had lunch (oversized portions, nobody finished there food, though it was good). We then stayed the night at this motel called "Best Value Inn". The owner was almost certainly called Mr Patel or Mr Shah even though I didnt ask him but he was definitely from a western province in India. So at the best value inn we spent the night on psychedelic purple and blue bedsheets. It was actually pretty good for the price - best value. Next stop - Flagstaff. We drove by this town and went straight for the Grand Canyon. Now, you see mountains and you see oceans. But the Grand Canyon is a singular natural formation ... I havent seen anything like it before. At first you just of sort of gape at it because (as my friend remarked) it seems unreal, like you are looking at another planet's surface in a movie or something. It grabs yout soul and holds it in a deadlock. you have to shake yourself a bit to breka free. The Grand Canyon has two rims. The South Rim and the North Rim. We were only at the South Rim. This was one of the places we looked for research and stuff. Check it out for some interesting facts or if you are planning a trip. Thanks to good planning we could actually cover a lot more area. We pretty much went around the whole South Rim even though we only walked for two miles. Rest was either by bus or by car. But a lifetime could be spent at the Grand Canyon and you still wouldnt discover everything there is to know ... its that big .. thats another thing ... whats the deal with the size .... it HUGE ... its bigger than anything you've seen. And the Colorado river which has cut through the rocks for ages to give rise to this magnificent structure looks like a small stream from above and you wonder how that small puny stream could cut through all this rock. This was just saying Hello to the Grand Canyon. All of us pledged we will come back for a more intimate encounter. We will climb down into the heart of it and get to know it better. All of you out there ... this destination is highly recommended. Look here for pictures of this trip.

The Platonic Verses

2005-07-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

We went to school for years were a different breed of peers. The girl and boy thing kept us amused But we truly were a little confused. And though the attraction was always checked At some point, we have surely necked. But as time went past That weird phase didnt last Its still not brotherly love, you mind Rather an affection of the extended kind But here, a dear friend deserves mention 'Coz he succumbed to the sexual tension. --Saif Ali Dedicated to SM,KB,KS,PM and Shibu

Surprise!

2005-07-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I remember reading those stories abour children who wanted toys and amusing things for there birthdays but fate presents them a larger gift ... learning the frivolousness of materialistic things ... (somehow I was never convinced by those, I always thought, the spray gun would have been way cooler than learning some dumb moral lesson). This year however, I must confess I lived out one of those corny stories ... and thought they were maybe not so corny. Being far away from home and everyone that I love, I expected my birthday to pass without even a whimper. I was not sad about this ... and realized fully that Id grown up and didnt need to be given cake and icecream to make me happy but I couldnt help feeling ever so slightly heavy hearted at the prospect of spending the whole day without being fussed over and pampered as I would have been at home. but here's the thing... My good friend from India arrived just three days before my birthday, his brother arrived just the day before my birthday(with a car!). The clock struck twelve ... and both me and my friend were a little surprised by the lull of the telephone. He said..."its twelve man, why arent ou getting any calls". I smiled ... and mumbled something. I was up reading till about 2:30 (telling myself I wasnt waiting for anyone to call). At 3:00 am a good friend from Cincinnati miscalculated the EST - PST time difference and called me ... thank God for her bad math! We spoke for an hour. After that I couldnt sleep, the phone rung like there was no tommorow. It was an electromagnetic storm... that poor cordless was stress tested to the max. Phone calls poured in from different parts of the globe. One after the other and didnt cease till it was daylight (8:30 am). I didnt sleep the whole night but I was the happiest sleep deprived person alive. I had spoken to everyone close and dear to me. I got out of bed not feeling the lack of sleep in the least. I opened my inbox and it was choc-a-bloc with emails ... people who hadnt got in touch with me for ages had written .. it was beautiful. I would have been the happiest person had this been it ... but there was more. A plan had been made to go out to the Grand Canyon in Flagstaff ... and that was totally awesome. So not only did I learn the all important lesson of life... I spent my birthday taking a beautiful road trip with friends ... to the "Grand" Canyon. I think there's a resonance there. Now I think thats what those stories would have been like. The little guy deserved to learn a good lesson for his birthday but it would have been nice if he'd got the spray gun also ... just like I did!

Nizam's take on the sunglasses incident

2005-07-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

Stumped by the way she dresses Are these my sunglasses that glow through her tresses ? She walks in beauty,endless hues Should I ask her,should I not Boy,am I caught in indecisive blues ? got back the glasses that I lost but dunno at what cost. walked a path that seemed right Just as you said Mr. Frost! -Nizam (check out his blog)

Copyright Couplets

2005-07-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

The wise ole Copyright Man professes

It is his, that which he posesses

"Legislative Action!", he presses

Not for a minute he cesses

IPR issues, he addresses

Plagerizers redresses

With the mighty Copyright Man I never messes

Cite every word. God Blesses.

--Saif Ali

zCopywrite 2005. No rights deserved.

Non-Confrontational Me

2005-07-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

I hate confrontations, at least in inter-personal situations (not in sport for eg) ... which is why often Im conveniently placed at the losing end by a domineering roommate/co-worker/stranger. Given this aversion, what happened to me the other day (all of you will agree) was nothing short of a nightmare ... I have moved to a new university and have to now run around offices just as I did six months back (When I had moved from my ex-ex univ to my ex-univ). So I was at one of these offices when I happened to take off my sunglasses and place them on the desk so I could fill out some stupid form when a distraction in the form of a girl wearing the tiniest mini-skirt ever manufactured walked in to the office. Momentarily, my mind was taken off not only the glasses but also off the form (later I had to fill in another one because, as my mind was brought to a halt by the distraction I just described, I filled in "July 19, 1981" for "Mailing Address"). So having filled the form for the second time and still recovering for this visual assault that was made on my delicate senses I left the office but the sunglasses didnt leave with me. They remained on the desk as a souvenir of my phenomenal absent-mindedness. I walked out, got a coke from the vending machine and just as sipped it and was beginning to enjoy the drink and thinking how great it felt on that scorching day, also was most satisfied at my efficiency with the paper work when my senses were trampled upon for a second time at the sudden realization of how bright the sun was. The feeling of relaxation and satisfaction immediately was replaced by panic (these glasses were a present from a dear friend and vrey expensive). I ran back in and asked the receptionist who of course had no idea (and that applies in general, not only with respect to the sunglasses). On my way to the office I had got lost (read previous post) and asked directions from another office. So I went to that office to check, the receptionist ... had no idea. As I cycled back and forth pointlessly, there was a third assault upon my senses...again the miniskirt. Except that this time, the black miniskirt had been complemented by a black pair of sunglasses. Now, it would be really dramatic if these were actually mine (this is exactly the words that ran through my head at the time) and life is not that dramatic. At this time, my non-confrontational self was taking over and looking for excuses not to go up to her... "theres no way to know if they are mine" ... "what the hell, let it be, I;ll get some more" ... "she probably needs them more than I do" ... but as I thought these stupid thoughts ... she walked right past me ... and I thought that this would be what my friends would tease me about ... "man, she walked right under your nose wearing YOUR sunglasses and you just stood there..HAHAHA" ... no ... that wasnt acceptable so I out did myself ... I went right up to her and said "excuse me ma'am" ... "can I see your glasses" ... in retrospect, that was perhaps the stupidest things anyone ever said to anyone .... anyway ... and an even stupider event occured... she had an umrella and she had realized by now that I was the owner of the glasses so she lowered the umbrella right in my face and kept walking but she had a friend with her who stopped. ... I didt mean to embarass her in front of her friend so I pretended that she has accidentally picked up my glasses instead of hers ... but I felt weird nonetheless. I would describe the rest of the conversation but I'll stop here ... the rest is history. I have the glasses back and I now love them that much more. but i cant help feeling bad for that girl. i mean it.

The Desert Prince

2005-07-02T16:18:00.000-07:00

Im one of those people who have an intuition rather than a sense of direction. which is why going from point A to point B, there is no gaurantee that I will get there by the most obvious route. This is all a round about way of saying Im hopeless at finding my way around but I insist on adding that I generally dont mind getting lost especially if Im in a new place. This theme is siginificant because in the last 11 months I have been in four different cities spanning both hemispheres (thats a whole another blog). After this circuitous journey I have arrived at a small town called Tempe located in Arizona. Getting lost in Tempe is not the same as getting lost elsewhere because firstly, it takes a special kind of stupidity (the kind I happen to possess) to get lost, simply because of the ridiculous size of this "town". There are farmhouses in Delhi bigger than this. The second reason is that if you are lost enough you may never see home again ... this is the Arizona Desert. They have to make there thermometers longer for this place in case they run out. to ge to the point, I recently accomplished this feat ... I got lost in Tempe (or out of Tempe as we will see). A short account of my heroic journey away from and back home follows ... So my department is located in "downtown" (yeah right) Tempe. To get from there to my apartment is a task that a chronic amnesiac suffering from dyslexia can accomplish without breaking a sweat ... but I insist on accomplishing greater things. I set out from my department having a general intuition about where to go for my house ... and promptly take the wrong turn. After cycling (oh yeah ... I was on a bike thank god otherwise it was over for this blog) 5 minutes I end up on some main road which I thought was the correct one because all main roads here are dusty and flanked by featureless box hut type buildings which say things like "Nuevo Cooling Palms Motel" and you cant tell one main road from another (or I cant) ... and another thing..they all have cars going really fast in both directions. anyway... So Im cycling down this road and after about 15 minutes I start to wonder (it takes about 10 minutes total to get to my apartment). I have no option but to keep cycling because there is no where to turn and going back is not gonna help. So I go a little further but now the landscape is more unrecognizable. The road is wider, right up ahead is some kind of highway with cars going even faster and the little hut buildings have disappeared to be replaced by large storage godown silose kind of strucutres. There is a little panic at the pit of my gut but nothing a strong man like me cant handle. With great deliberation ... I turn back ... and make a mental note that Im lost and therefore likely to be out for a while and if I see a store or gas station up ahead I will buy a drink because I can now distinctly feel the heat (some 110 F ). The heat ... its a simple four letter word but I cannot express in these Arial font words how intense and blazing it is in Arizona. It knocks the living sense out of you. So... in this heat ... I cycle in the direction from which I just came and knowing that this is no help I take the first turn into some area that looks "residential like" so at least I will have the illusion being somewhere "close to home". So far ... Im lost ... but this is where people who are close to being normal ... STOP AND ASK SOMEONE ... but not me ... I start taking turns at random ... every intersection I come to I take the "most likely" turn. After about twenty minutes of this Im utterly and completely lost and miraculously at some completely different, unknown main road. Now, Im in the kind of place about which I cant even say "I think I've been here before". Im panicking ... so I cycle faster and faster, the sun beating down on me and the hot, burning wind blowing into my face. There is a bus stop and I (now Im in complete automatic mode) stop and ask them. "Me no no Aungle" ... he doesnt speak English....damn him. I ask the other woman ... she's like "you wanna to go to Tempe or you wanna go to Mesa" ... there is a sinking feeling in my stomach. You see ... Mesa is a whole another town ... which meant I was now lost "at another level". The woman says "coz when you cross over from dis road yer in Mesa" ... there is silence. After idiotically gaping both ways down the road...I summon up the strength to say (with the smallest voice I've ever spoken with) "uhmm....so how far do you think Tempe is?" .... "bout 3 or 4 miles Id think". I think to myself..."Im dead". Im in a completely unknow place somewhere in Arizona miles away from home with just a cycle. Now, not having the apetite for any more experimenting I asked her for detailed directions much to her annoyance and start cycling once again. Now Im cycling no longer with the mad panic, my movements are more deliberate and planned. My temples are throbbing though, as the blood rushes to the head, Im panting, the heat is worse than ever... but I keep going and I keep going ... the strength was slowly leaving my legs and I was nearing dehydration and the heat of course would not relent. I stopped and rested and cycled again and again rested...after about an hour (or seemed like an hour) finally I got back to the university (exactly where Id started out from) ... got home by asking directions at every turn. Got home, threw on the AC, spent some two hours in the shower ... I just let the water run ... came out and wore the min possible clothing decency would allow and collapsed on the couch ... face red and head spinning. As the AC kicked in and I cooled down a bit I kind of thought of myself as Charleton Heston in the Ten Commandments ... as he lay totally spent and passed out near the well in the oasis. I dont need to mention that I now know the way to and from my lab as if I'd designed this town myself. But I have learnt it the hard way. But I do feel wiser now I must admit. The title of this blog btw... is inspired by a song that one of the local rock bands in Delhi sing ... but that song is called "Desert Princess" and needless to say has completely different implications.

Going Illegal

2005-06-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

Democracy, freedom, demonstration, human rights. This blog wud have been (is now) illegal in China. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4088702.stm Grateful to be Indian.

The Lust for War and Destruction

2005-06-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

One of the courses I did this quarter required me to invoke the cunning beast inside of me. For the final project, we had to develop a program that essentially did just two things...declared war on other people's programs and/or hacked into there accounts and stole there resources. This project was appropriately titled "I-WARS". To give you an idea of just how appropriate that title is here are some excerpts from the instructions given to develop the project: "Rules are as follows: You are free to cheat, steal, rob, smash, cream, and destroy any opponent." "Planting a successful virus on an opponent is encouraged and will be rewarded with a higher grade." "If you have lost your cookie you ask for a new one (and password, even). But I will take my time to allow the thief to make out big with your identity. If you need a cookie more than five times you will be sacked from the tournament. After the tournament you will be tied upside down to a lamp post and all participants will be allowed to throw water balloons at you until you drown. " now without getting into the details....it was gory. At first I was like, I will play the tournament in a nice and playful spirit. Except once it begen, it turned into the darkest, most ferocious battles. There was malice, destruction .... people generally hanging around at the lab started becoming curious, they would come and stare into the screen to make head or tail of what was going on, at one point I think there were photo sessions. anyway....we were torn apart ... after a day of leading the standings. needless to say it was the most savage fun I've had in a while. But not again for a while. I've learnt that war is like a pizza eating binge....you cant stop once you;re at it but you dont wanna do it again for a while. In this respect I was talking a close friend of mine who is an economics major and is generally seen as very mature and able. As I spoke to her on the phone, she excitedly told me about this game they played in school (these are super smart eco undergrads mind you) where you had to stalk people and shoot them (with water guns). The game was called "Assasins" and was vastly popular. I wont go into the details, she says you can Google it. Do it.

Old time hero

2005-06-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

High school is that phase in a person's life when the highets priority is to stand-out, be different and go to any lengths to achieve this end. So as a teenager, besides dreaming about Salma Hayek and secretly watching reruns of The Bold and The Beautiful, I also did things to affect an element of maturity and depth of character. One of these things was reading popular science books. Thee favorite author was Dr. Richard Feynman. A genius physicist who also happend to be funny and charming ... I wanted to be exactly like him. He wrote this book called "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman" ... which I took great pleasure in telling my MTV loving friends I'd read. I bring this up because I just came across a quote by him...about economics. I dont know what it is about economists and economics that brings out the humorous beasts in authors, scientists and mathematicians ... (though I could begin to see it when I visited a friend who works at the IMF in Washington - no offence meant to her personally I might add - just in case in an improbable event she finds the time to read this blog) ... without further ado ... here;s the quote and some others just to support my conjecture. There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988) If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? Kelvin Throop III hmm...I think I just lost some readers in the commercial sector ... please fellas and ladies ... in all sincerity ... please come back.

Award Winner for "The most spectacular waste of time"

2005-05-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

How many times have you started eating potato chips and not stopped. You KNOW they are bad you know they are trash..but you cant stop. I just did the Internet equivalent of that...I was directed to this blogsite which should have been called "The Stupidests Tests on Earth Blog" ... and I spent good time from my life taking those tests (save the wisecracks). These tests are like those chips....you'll see what I mean. One test claims to tell you your ... "sexy Brazilian name" once you enter your real one...apparently the closest sexy Brazilian name to mine is "Faria Santos" (I smell a random numbe generator) .... anyway....another test is the "How sinful are you test" ... these are mys results... Your Deadly Sins Pride: 60% Envy: 20% Sloth: 20% Gluttony: 0% Greed: 0% Lust: 0% Wrath: 0% Chance You'll Go to Hell: 14% You will become famous - and subsequently killed by a stalker. I esp like the last bit. Btw, if u are wondering, I also took the "Your Linguistic Profile Test" and the (and this one was the clincher) "What rejected Crayon are you? " test. Resolution: Never again.

[B@1d225a7

2005-05-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

Title is the SHA-1 hash of "Saif Ali" ! Correction - it is 'a' SHA-1 hash of "Saif Ali" (coz they're different each time see).

Food, Shelter and Special Effects

2005-05-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

This is regarding a conversation I had with a colleague. I am to join a Computer Graphics research group very soon and I was showing her some of the research I might be engaging in. It involves the realistic rendering (drawing 3D images on a 2D screen) of trees. I also showed her some nice mpegs of sequences generated using the new algorithms for rendering trees when she posed a fundamental question - why would anyone want to do that ? Write a master's thesis on drawing trees. The answer to the question which I gave at that time was along the lines of "well....ummm....see err......you know ..... hmmm .... (Im a twit)". I then got a grip and said "I guess the answer is that it applies to motion pictures and special effects". The quick and sharp rejoinder came in an instant ... "But thats just for entertainment, what are the real applications"...she went slightly dreamy eyed and said ... "So much human intelligence wasted on something thats just meant for fun and entertainment" ... at which point she realised that it was rude to suggest that all the grey cells I will use in the next two years of my life may as well be flushed down the toilet ... she added "well, not wasted...err". I dont blame her for asking though. Consider the two biggest industries that use computer graphics - the film and the gaming industries - highly lucrative and rich industries. Millions of dollars are spent to create mindblowing special effects and really neat games. What for ? ... fun ? entertainment?. Why would anyone in there right mind spend so much money and time just for "f and e" ? Surely, the hundreds of thousands of people who are researching and developing computer graphics techniques and spending/earning hundreds and thousands and millions of dollars are not half wits. No - actually most of them are super-smart. Why then do they spend so much time and money on something that has no 'real' application? I think im getting very close to making a point (so hold the phone). It turns out that fun and entertainment are not to be pushed off the balcony so easily. After food and shelter (and iPods) - these are the very things that people work hard to earn money for. If I've saved enough money and I have everything I need to survive then the next thing Im gonna do is to use that money to have fun. To do something that would take me away from the monotony of everyday life (I know you just had an unpleasant visceral reaction to the platitude). All this only to say that dont knock "fun" and "entertainment" .... just like you need advanced computer graphics tools for training surgeons and pilots you also need those really cool graphics in Star Wars and Half Life. Some (lots of) people do like 'em (a lot). So even though you may seem like a deflated windbag when you say that you are doing "serious research" on how to draw trees - its not as stupid as it sounds.

Looking Forward to Hogwash

2005-05-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

Now I've taken a deep breath because I need to remain calm in the face of what just happened ... and not to say much lets just say that its begins with an "F" (dont get any ideas, this is a family blog). So as calmly as I can ...I shall write this entry ... I'd made an entry about inane forwards popping up in my inbox for utterly ridiculous reasons ... one of them being that the date today is ... 05/05/05, yippeee !! ... my friend the investment banker had shot this down with appropriate condescension (spelling - pls comment if incorrect?) ... but it turns out that the forward sending community shall not desist. They are always coming up with freshly concocted rubbish. This time the forward declares ... "the date and time tommorow will be 2005 2005 2005 !! .... HURRRAYYY" ... I can almost see the look on my friends face as she conjures up the most disdaneful and acerbic(oh god, my spelling is having a field day) tirade. and I wish to hear it. and you know why ... COZ IM SICK OF @#$$#ing FORWARDS. Please .... please .... any of you out there who send out these time-busting-missiles...THINK....before you hit the forward button, nobody wants to know (and these are real-life examples out of my inbox) ... whether today is "World Liking Day" .... how much Bill Gates will pay me every time I forward this to anyone .... the twenty best quotes on marriage... the ten best quotes on divorce.... how they score on the best personality test in the world ... I could go on. Chad Riden - a man after my own heart has a definition of forwards - "an inconsiderate, bandwidth-wasting annoyance" ... thank you Chad. I will end by taking another deep breath ... and saying that I mean no offense to any of my dear friends who send forwards...because some of them are actually welcome ... maybe some message about a good cause or something that is remotely interesting ... all I ask is .. THINK before you hit the button.

The Comfort Zone

2005-05-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have had to make many decisions relating to career and academics. And its very annoying that I've been falling prey to the urge to always be gaurded from any possible mishap. To live a zero-risk life, to take no chance, to not face the little challenges that will come by. This is very unfortunate and Im stumped for finding a reason why this is happening. Without getting into boring details (I dont want this to be "the sleeping pill blog") let me just say that Im putting to work all my knowledge of algorithms and computer science to come up with a sequence of actions which will ensure foolproof security for me and leave nothing to chance. Have any of you ever done that (I can hear you guys saying "I have no idea what you're talking about") .... let me elaborate...with a hypothetical situation ... say you're in a situation where you have the chance to realise a lifelong dream or do something really inspirational ... but this involves certain risks... but you're in a position in your life where you're doing alright, not GREAT but alright... where there's no real need to take the risk .... what do you do ? Do you take the plunge knowing fully well that you might in one clean swoop lose everything you've amassed through systematic hard work ... or do you remain on the bank with an air of simulated and affected satisfaction clinging to what you have. I know this second alternative is not heroic or romantic in the least but let me tell you, the state of comfortable subsistence has phenomenal ability to persist and it takes an abnormally large surge of courage (for the lack of a better word) to get out of it. The desire to be secure is the creation of the devil himself ... and Im head first into battle with it right now. Any suggestions for possible war strategy ?

Strategically Smashed

2005-05-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

The woes of being an internation student are so many that decency and disk space doesnt allow me to enlist them. Today I had a conversation with my roommate which went something like this. Me: "So, Im planning to transfer to another school" He: "When are you planning to leave ? " Me: "I dont know, sometime mid June ?" He: "Have to you spoken to Graduate Housing and to Internation Students Office ? " Me: (gulp) "No" He: "Because when you transfer, your work permit is blocked from that time, and if you want to transfer you have to terminate your lease and if you wanna terminate your lease you must transfer." Me: (panic stricken) "mhbfdf" He: "Have you applied for your working SSN and your Tax ID because if you havent then you need to fill and IS-433 for that and if you plan to work at the ice cream parlour you must fill out an aggreement for non-meltiferation and anti-violation act " Me: "humm humm..what are those" He: "becuase if you want to leave before your lease terminates they must release your records from here and catch them there and if they drop the catch you will be asked to pay rent for the next three years in lumpsum" ...and so on. now, I request you to believe this at your own risk ... but really, the complexity of the tiniest process is much more than I described here ... I mean one could get a PhD in strategic planning just by figuring out all the rules and policies for international students. But its surprising, when you get here, you listen open mouthed to seniors talking about it as if its second nature but then after a while you get used to it too. So, Im just waiting for the time the new students get here....I know its sadistic but I cant wait to blast someone in one clean swoop with all the rules and regulations and see them whimper in disbelief and amazement.

The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything

2005-05-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

... is 42. For those of you who didnt know. for further insight into this nonsense...read. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....you wont regret it.

Six Degrees of Separation

2005-05-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

Recently, a colleague of mine remarked that he liked a certain Bollywood actress. Owing to the fact that she is disliked by any semi-sensible movie-goer worth there salt, his remark was met by disapproving noises and hooting. Of course I had to partake in the general pulling of his leg so I said that everyone that I know and everyone that they know dont (doesnt?) like her. So, any person who is within two hops from me will definitely agree that she is downright mediocre...and she has a terrible attitude to boot. At the university, I am into studies regarding the Internet and the worldwide web and it was interesting that I was reading of all things, my textbook which said that contrary to popular belief, the web is NOT a random collection of pages connected randomly by hyperlinks. Related to this is the "idle-surfer problem". But that is not what I want to bring up. Further reading led me to the "small world problem" of Stanley Milgram - a sociologist at Yale University. He conducted an experiment where he asked randomly chosen people to send a package to a person in Massachusetts. The sender knew the person's name, occupation and general location. The sender was to send the package to one of his/her friends who they thought is most likely to know the target personally and the friend would do the same. It turned out that each package reached the sender by going through an average of 5-7 hops ! ... whereas one would expect many more. This result was published in Psychology Today and has led to the popular phrase "six degreed of separation". Though Milgrams finding was more or less discounted, it is a romantic notion that any two people in the world are connected by no more than six intermediaries....so the next time you tell your friend what a #$*!# your boss/professor/colleague is, think again....five more hops and God knows where it might reach.

Every day is a new day

2005-05-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

The date today is...05/05/05 .... and therefore it is the day of many forwards in my inbox. Usually I adopt a brutal attitude towards forwards but I made the mistake of opening this one. Whats more, I sent it out to my friends. It said something to the effect of "we will see this date only once in our lifetime, hurray" ... a friend of mine who is an investment banker and therefore very quick to tell the difference between truly important numbers from the merely hyped ones was quick to point out that we've all lived through 04/04/04 and 03/03/03 ... which I must confess was quite deflating. So it aint that special after all. However, its a damn good reason to celebrate if you dont got one. also, notice that the American dd/mm/yyyy and the Indian mm/dd/yyyy formats will actually agree on this date....wow!....lets break out the champagne (spelling?) My friend also added that every day comes once in a lifetime, which is quite a thought.....I think I could conjure my own email with that, and add to it a Flash animation of a blossoming rose - then I cud place it in the forwarding loop.

Experiments in survival

2005-05-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

Until a couple of days ago I was living under a serious constraint, which has been recently lifted. Well phew!....alls well that ends well. Now Im free to go about as I please. The initial surge of happiness and relief has given way to a sense of reflection on the events of the recent past. Though the last four months have been taxing and draining, they did (at least in flashes) bring out the survivor in me. It has become plain (plane?) that those left to fend for themselves in the face of challenges definitely harbor the advantage when compared to those who live in a cocoon of security and protection. Im not implying that I have endured horrible oppression and wretchedness, people go through far worse...far far worse...but the situation I was in definitely served as a small experiment...a trial run which helped to bring home to me (with great impact)certain facts of life. For a period of time which seems ridiculously short in hindsight, my freedom was taken away from me. I was boxed up and had to consider and contemplate every single step I took. For this reason, I had to think hard and find other ways to do things that others took for granted. I had to get by on minimal resources and still be on top of my game. As crazy as it may sound, if I could turn back time, I would choose to go through this again. Now, I have got a small glimpse into the minds of those who live in severe hardship throughout there lives. I would never know this state of mind if things hadnt been messed up. I think there should be times in everyones life when things dont come easy, when one has to fight for every little thing...because belive it or not, those are the times of maximum progress and growth.

Getting a handle on it.

2005-05-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

My professor uses these really nice euphemisms and analogies for things. One of them is "to get a handle on the problem" .... the image I get on my mind is a mother wrestling a writhing child to change his clothes, or to feed him some yucky medicine or give him a bath. But, it turns out "getting a handle" on the problem is really what you need. The way to combat (the appropriate word) a problem is literally to pin it down by force in the beginning and examine it from all sides....and then once you've subjected to a medical examination of sorts then, coo lovingly into its ears so it hands you the solution. Most people are stuck on this first step...they argue endlessly with this metaphorical problem and and try to pursuade it to settle down while its kicking and struggling and being extremely difficult. What you really need, says the good professor is to use brute force inthe beginning and then ease up slowly. The tragedy is that I happen to be one of these people...I have this difficult research problem on my hands and till now I had spent too much time playing Mr Nice Guy. No more....today I resorted to the first rash and brutal measure....I printed out all the literature I could find on it. and now for the brute force....Im gonna read it! Some cautious fellows might say, its too much investment, its uneconomical....but this is war my friends....there's no such thing as "too many tanks".

Bobbing three feet above the ground

2005-05-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

Since I made a dark and despairing entry about being suffocated in the Sea of Anticipation, it is only democratic that I now do one full of zest. This sudden interest in democracy and all things good has been brought about entirely by the arrival of the much awaited email. Remember, the one I wrote about earlier...the one my life depended on. It arrived today!! Let me first say that this conclusively confirms my hypothesis about not expecting things. If there are any of you out there longingly waiting for something to happen, I have only one thing to say...DONT. I was pretty much havnig a miserable day and all that was on my mind was how much work I had. Also, I have a phone interview to do today so I stepped into the lab today purely with the intent of doing some research so I dont stumble and mumble like a dimwit. As an aside, I happened to open my inbox..and this time I wasnt even thinking while I openend it...my mind was elsewhere...and WHOA!!...there it was just sitting there. This kind of reminds me of Douglas Adams who has devised a technique to fly....the point is to fall and be distracted at the crucial moment before hitting the ground and ..... miss it...yes, miss th ground and you will find yourself bobbing two or three feet above the ground. What I experienced today with the email...HAS to be the CLOSEST anyone had ever come to experiencing what Adams susgests...I mean th CLOSEST...it was complete, with the sensation of bobbing a little above the ground. I then did loops in the air and .. well now Im back on my feet but they're still tingling. Though I have an interview to prepare for, my boundless happiness could not keep me from the blog which I have come to love now...at this point...there are very few things I dont love.

One Heller of a guy

2005-04-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

How many of you have not read Joseph Heller's Catch-22 ? ... now arent you ashamed ? This is a guy after my own heart. Listen to some of his quotations I found on the Internet ... "When I grow up I want to be a little boy." Im sort of already there because most people think Im a minor (and Im 23). "He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it." Ahhh!...this is an absolute beauty...please refer to the entry titled "Neat and Scruffy". "I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy." this is with apologies to some of my friends in the financial sector. and this was the clincher... "I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long." brilliant!....you MUST read his book.

Simply named

2005-04-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

Ita always been a convenience that my name so short ... that way, people who are hopeless at pronouncing "foreign" names never have a problem...(though some of the more highly accomplished half-wits still manage to have a problem or two saying my name...which when you come to think of it - is shocking....its four letters for Webster's sake!). Anyway...my parents were obviously thinking ahead .. not only coz they envisioned there son in far away lands with tongue-tied people but also that he will be attending school and maybe university....the point Im trying to make is that they obviously realised the advantages of a name starting with a letter down the alphabetical order... so it turned out that I was always roll no 32 or some such in a class of 40 ... so yippee...I never had to go in first for something unpleasant like recitations, viva, medical exams etc. which was a huge blessing....you would always find some Aastha or someone with an equally disadvantaged name shivering with fear outside labs on exam days and things. By the time they got to S the examiners were too full of samosas and devoid of new questions that they didnt stand a chance against me. Cool fact learnt about my name today....stands for Spatial Archive and Interchange Format. A friend of mine recently got engaged...Now, I need to go and start thinking of names for the - to be children...how about Zelda if tis a girl and Zeus if its a boy....or maybe to be safe ... Zyxphz either way.

The Sea of Anticipation

2005-04-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more distinctly perturbing than waiting for important emails, especially if one's life depends on it - like a college admission or a reply from your professor. You slide into the computer seat, log in, open up your browser, bring up the homepage and key in your username and password - all this happens without you really noticing, its accompanied by a slight increase in pulse rate but nothing more. More excruciating than all these is the final - most evil two or three seconds before your inbox appears on the screen. Exellent, there are many mails, you scan the list for the all important one ... hell ... its not there. There is a horrible sinking feeling for a moment but it ebbs almost immediately to lead to a sense of reconciliation. Ah well...maybe tommorow. You then read the other emails as a kind of consolation and its good consolation let me tell you, coz these are from your girlfriend, family, friends ... and they take you away from your worries and hassles and for a while you actually smile and the tension eases. The reason I bring this up is because I have had the pleasure of going through this routine every single day (sometimes more than once a day) for the past few months. After a while, you never really think the email will be there but you still check your inbox compulsively for no good reason. It'd be unfair to say that one is ALWAYS disappointed because I have seen emails bearing happy news when I least expected. I think the trick is not to expect it. So even though, sometimes one does hit refreshing waters, but on the whole, there is no doubt about it...the Sea of Anticipation is definitely foul.

The Best Buzzer Shot EVER !

2005-04-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

(Picture courtesy: www.nba.com) John Paxson sinks the three point jumper with 3.9 seconds to go to win game 6 against the Phoenix Suns to give the Bulls there third straight win in NBA playoff finals. I can never forget this shot. I cant get enough of this stuff, yesterday they did an exclusive feature on the Chicago Bulls 3-peat (thats repeat + 1) and I sat glued to the television for 1 hour like a child...to this day I remember Paxson jumping up and down after making the historic shot.

Saif and the Chicago Bulls

2005-04-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

I am one of the lucky few who were basketball fans in the 90's, because that was the decade of Michael Jordan. Unfortunately only those who know there NBA can appreciate his genius, I cannot impress upon you how thrilling it was to watch him and the magic that he could create, even when you were seeing him on TV. You might say, legends come and legends go, but unfortunately there is not a single player today that compares. I am definitely previliged to have watched LIVE, all those Chicago Bulls games which are a part of NBA folklore today. I was there folks when history was being made! Well, after doing all these beautiful things, in later years, the Chicago Bulls took a nosedive after Jordan left the team. They went from being a superstar outfit to a hardly noticed team struggling to make the playoffs. I spent the last half an hour browsing the Internet on this subject and have come to know that the days of Jordan - Pippen and the rest of the gang are called the "dynasty days". The reason I brought this up was that, today as I turned on the TV while going about household chores, I caught the last 3 minutes of the playoff game between the Bulls and the Wizards. I bearly recognised the players but it turned out that the Bulls won the game and it was there first playoff win since the dynasty days. hmmm..now isnt that interesting. Doesnt it look like some destiny is involved in the fact that there first win had to come the year I (Saif) came back to the USA... No ? Well I like to think so. And for this reason, I will now follow the playoff with as much zest as I used to in Michael's day. The Bulls need me in this hour.

The Mother Tongue

2005-04-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

Recently, a close friend of mine pointed out that my blog contains no Hindi (the language they speak where I come from). This was an interesting observation and I must confess, Iwas a little taken aback by the fact that it had never struck me to write anything in Hindi. On contemplation, it turns out that things dont happen here in Hindi (where I live currently). What?...I know it doesnt make sense...but there's no better way to describe it. Things happen in English out here, and that includes thought. I know its a serious cognitive question whether languages are associated with thought but from this little thought experiment of mine I can bet they are, I just dont have a 500 page thesis to prove it. Further substantiation exists...the other day, Siva (my roommate) pointed out that he strongly believes that people who know a pair of languages that are read in opposite directions (is there a word for that ?) .. like, Urdu is read from right-left and English the other way. Similarly, Hebrew is ...you get it. well, he claimed people who know a pair of these languages tend to be more prolific in there articulations and thoughts, well hurray for me! Anyway..I know you're saying "why should we believe your roommate" ... fair enough, he's only a really smart PhD scholar. But it does raise an important question, is our thought process bound by the language we speak ? The very next day after Siva made his statement, I attended a talk where the speaker mentioned a language called LogLan. It was developed to find an answer to this very question. Check it out for yourself (ofcourse, only if you care about this stuff) ... http://www.loglan.org/what-is-loglan.html. I know half the readers of this blog are never coming back unless, on some occasion they cant find there sleeping pills...my apologies, for the lecture style entry...please, visit again.

The Meccah of Geeks

2005-04-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

Last quarter (winter 2005), I practically lived in this magnificent part of our library that they call, with refreshing originality the "Quiet Study Room" (as opposed to the "Screaming your head off Study Room"). This was just as well because stepping out would involve covering yourself up in a polar bear. It did wonders for my grade. This quarter the story was quite different. I went for a nice holiday during the Spring break and came back to great weather feelin pretty groovy. All was well, until I realised my studying efficiency had plummeted embarassingly. and this was because I had stopped visiting this meccah of assignments and submissions - the quiet study room. This quarter the "schedule Goddess" has smiled upon me and I have no classes on Tue and Thurs. So on Mondays and Wednessdays...I would think to myself before sleeping at night..."Saif - tommorow you're gonna take apart that Algorithms homework" .... in bed I would imagine myself sitting on my desk and tearing apart one problem after the other....tommorw I would wake up at 11:00 in the morning (refer to earlier entry) and get out of bed by 12:00...do absolutely nothing by 1:30 and have lunch by 3:00. at that time, as far as Im concerned the day is over...it was shameful really. Days passed like and some days I would actually sit at the desk and make an attempt to read but no, the doors would not open...the assignment problems were like a mess of tangled up strings that I would just pull and tug and it would only get worse. I was way distant from what I was reading, my mind filled with unnecesary thoughts or nothing at all. I couldnt hear the book talking to me, it spoke but I could not hear, it was like yelling across to someone in a noisy bazaar. Today in pursuit of inner peace and wisdom, I made the pilgrimage. Yes, I went to the quiet study room (quiet or queit ? ) and spent some four hours .... and oh it was loverly....it was like I was dancing, everything made sense, I was reading and the words streamed into my head like sweet music and with graceful ease I undid that messy knot of problems and revealed the beauty within. The assignment is history. There is something about the silence in that room which really cleanses your mind of all things foul and tunes the antenna in your head to the words you see in the book/paper before you. The message behind all this symbolism is folks....never study at home....home equals no work, home equals TV and food and empty heads and the curse of lethargy. Quiet Study Room equals nirvana and eternal bliss.

Disclaimer

2005-04-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

I have become very concerned after the previous entry so heres the disclaimer for my blog. The opinions expressed in this blog are entirely the personal opinions of its author (Saif Ali). Everything here is the copyright of Saif Ali, unless stated otherwise. This is strictly an apolitical blog and not meant to malign any person or organization (or machine for that matter). This Disclaimer will grow on a regular basis depending purely on the whims of the author. @All rights reserved. 2005. Saif Ali TM, and some more blah blah about legal stuff and privacy policy. R Copyright.

Confessions of a free blogger

2005-04-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

The other day, a friend of mine casually observed that she wouldnt feel comfortable putting up a blog because there's too much personal information floating around in public space. Bah!...I said....no such thing, there are millions of blogs, nobody has the time to look at them all. It turns out that I had completely underestimated the capacity of people to make investments of the most spectacular stupidity. Apparently, companies today are spending millions of dollars to monitor there employees blogs. Consider the case with a certain airline who fired an employee for....and Iwish I was making this up .... putting up "objectionable" pictures of herself while in uniform, on her blog. (oh crap, now I cant put up those pictures of me in a cat-suit unless I wanna be exiled to the tundra region) Of course, you dont believe me....but then again, why would you, this is just a blog .... wait a minute....did I say "its just a blog"...now thats food for thought. refer to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3955913.stm for the authentic info. Also refer to http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/technology/18blog.html?th&emc=th (only if you are member with NYT). So there you have it, apparently you cant say that your boss is an asshole on your blog...well there go my entire blogging plans for my working life. On a more serious note, and without trying to gain political leverage, I think this issue strikes a chord with all the bloggers out there. So, maybe my friend had a point. I ought ot listen to her more often. I told her all this ideal stuff about how blogs are a wonderful medium for free expression...boy do I feel stupid.....if there was an award for naivete, I'd be Miss World right now. When I started this blog, I thought that hardly anyone would read it and it was supposed to be just for myself...but I guess thats not a problem now. There are people who are spending good money to read this stuff...keep it going fellas.

Einstein's Plan

2005-04-14T16:02:00.000-07:00

Einstein had this to say about plans - "It is intelligent to have a plan, but neurotic to fall in love with it". I for one am having great problems living up to the words of the genius. One must forver be open to new and unexplored territory...the field of infinite potential - as one fantastic book has it. Being aware of Einstein's words of wisdom and having read the fantastic book, I still cannot fall out of love with my plan. It has gripped me by the waist and now Im stuck. Im in the unenviable of position of the guy who could see the road winding kilometers up the mountain and he had perfectly planned how he will look down into the valley when he reaches the top...but you see he was too busy looking and cooing at the summit that he missed his step and fell into the ditch right ahead. So..here I am .. in the ditch. Now I need to get out. The question is how. Well....it would do well to stand up first and maybe ask for help...HELP...yes thats it. Help. Anyone out there know how to get a daydreamer out of a pit ??? ... well...someone's gotta come along sometime. See...please attempt the simple things first before going for Mount Everest. And never..NEVER start picturing yourself at the top ... only know that you have to get there. well maybe you can imagine it for a couple of minutes...but at your own risk...Im not gonna pull you out of any ditch/manhole that you land up in. And for God's sake...dont think about how long it will take to get there....enjoy the journey. its ALL in the journey. I've already come out and am back up on my feet. Great...now .. look straight ahead and plan .. but not too far ahead.

The Infinitely Out-of-Phase Sleeping Cycle Problem (IOPSC)

2005-04-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

I have classes beginning 9 on Mon-Wed-Fridays so I have tue-thurs free. This has thrown my sleeping cycle out-of-whack (thats right, blame the schedule). I wake up early for class on Monday so I have to sleep in the afternoon and if I sleep in the afternoon, I cannot sleep in the night, which means I wake up late on tuesday. when I wake up late on tuesday I cant again sleep early in the night but I wake up early on wednesday for class and then sleep in the afternoon...and so on...get it. the pattern repeats on wed-thurs and then on the weekend. a disgustingly disciplined colleague of mine suggested I dont sleep in the afternoon - no can do mister - next proposal please. ... well he said - set an alarm an wake up early on tuesday - ( i feel a pang of irritation) as if I'd be consulting him if I could depend on alarm clocks...you see...he doesnt realise the problem is grave...and seeks an elegant solution ...and i gaurantee its not NP-complete... so if any of you think of something ... let me know. I promise not to be cranky....just dont suggest disciplinary type solutions .. and esp not in the morning.

Distance Symptoms

2005-04-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

Being far away from home in a new land is truly a life altering experience. The simple fact that NOONE is observing what you do really allows you to be who you truly are. And at times you realise you really dont know too much about yourself. I guess its called "self-discovery" ... but I wont use fancy words...you see, there's noone I need to impress. It induces a sense of calm that is almost deadly. Besides that, another effect this distance has is the relentless urge to reach out to what you've left behind....in my case...this is manifested in the form of an increased interest in urdu poetry, hindustani classical music and thousand other small ripples which taken together form a huge wave which repeatedly transports you back home (ok I borrowed that analogy from JFK). So today, I heard ghazals by Mirza Ghalib, bengali songs by Manna De...and now if you excuse me, I must go back home, slip into my kurta pyjama and eat some daal chaawal. Khudahafiz.

2005-04-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

Weird Man (Pearl Jam poster) - I never liked too much text without a nice picture to breathe a little. Here's a neat little something I did myself with spray paint to tide you over to the next blog.

Playing for the Pigeons

2005-04-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

At home, my father - Abba, kept white pigeons in the balcony and they were a beautiful distraction for the whole family but they were a very unfit species and the population dwindled from 5 to 0 within a year or so, much to the dismay (and tears) of my sister, Nida. Then we got more pigeons and let them mate with the wild ones to improve their survival capabilites. Anywaym, the point being, I've been around pigeons. So I was glad to notice when I landed up at UC, that Siva (my roommate) kept bird food in the house and there were scores of pigeons who would lunch in our balcony. Its summertime, so I took my guitar (actually it belongs to the previous occupant of the room) and sat out in the balcony and was strumming away when three of my feathered friends swooped in one by one. I didnt really notice and kept toying with the guitar...when I was reminded of my father's professor...thats it...my father's professor from his college days. A most accomplished zoologist, who lives alone in the University of Delhi. He once wsa telling us about his interaction with the crows on his "chhat" (thats the hindi word for terrace) .... apparently he'd had elaborate moral and ethical debate with these crows on wide ranging topics. and he believed with great conviction that one particular crow had actually shaken his head much like a schoolteacher as if to say...NO!...His eccentricity (though he was revered by my father) was a matter of much laughter in our house, but hey!! here I was playing my guitar and here were these three pigeons.....apparently come to listen to my guitar playing!!!....so maybe he had something there....I continued to play now closely observing them...all they did was cock their heads from side to side (not to the music see) ... so I decided the decisive thing would be to just stop playing and see if they went away, well I stopped....nope....still there...after a while they just sort of flew away.....so I dunno....I guess it was just lunchtime....it was an interesting experiment and I did learn how the common balcony/terrace birds become objects of great interest when one is living alone.

Research and Pulse Rates

2005-04-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

There is a unique, undescribable sensation that one feels when one comes across some research happening in another part of the globe which is along the lines of what one has been thinking. Its like a volcano, ideas explode in your head...this is it man, Im gonna publish like there's no tommorow, your mind reels as you try to get a grip on the possibilities, this lasts for about 15 miutes, then your pragmatic self takes over...Saif, get a grip man, this is good, its very good but you have to go about it systematically, lets see now....make the to do list....as one embarks on this task, one sees that the to do list entails the learning of two new languages, reading n papers, emailing n people...and n others ... sort of an exponential growth of tasks .... the characterzing sensation at this point is one which would be felt by a bloke who thought he'd seen the back of Cindy Crawford in the marketplace and sprinted to her to find that the case was otherwise...you pant from all the sprinting. the reason I have delved into this elaborate description is that I just had such an encounter (not Cindy Crawford you realise)...I mean with the research idea....the big question is whether I can contain myself and see it through to its logical conclusion ... which is ofcourse the all important ingredient for any labrat here....a publication. Watch this space.

2005-04-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

The real ERC. ... I thot I should put this up so that the architects ofthe building can still have careers after my drawing.

2005-04-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

"ERC" by Saif Ali. (Wax Crayon on A4)

Siva, Crayolas and the need to get to lab

2005-04-02T19:58:00.000-08:00

Siva, is my most interesting and funny roommate. Though you wouldnt wanna make light (slight ?) of him, he's a PhD student in chemistry and has profound views on wide ranging issues. To break the monotony of atoms and molecules, he indulges in the small joys of life. For example, he does yoga, walks and sometimes he draws and paints on A4 sheets. Today, when I went home from lab to eat lunch I found a pack of crayola crayons lying on his desk. and I was gripped by the desire to dirty some of them A4s. unfortunately, I was on my way out when I discovered these precious wax gems, and I already had my bag slung on my shoulder. with the stupidity of one whos mind has been numbed by haste and desire, I gripped my bag between my legs and began to draw the first thing I could see, which was my buildging outside the window...the Engineering Research Center. I'd drawn half the roof when I suddenly considered the position I was in, I was standing half bent over the table with the chair between me and it and I had a bag gripped between my legs. so, I decided to relax, I put the bag down but I still wasnt sane enough to sit down. so I completed the rest of the drawing standing up and intermittently glancing at my watch. anyway ... look above to see ... that is what I came up with. (I will provide a real photograph for those of you purists who think a drawing should actually look like the subject, you see my style is more free...and you're not allowed to sit... and preferably, you should be running very very late).

Neat and Scruffy

2005-03-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

In a sea of technical engineering terms, today I came across two that were very welcome. "Neat" and "scruffy". the neat approach is to build a theory, air tight, that specifies precisely how a system ought to work. the thing is, you cant build a system with that, which is why you need a scruffy approach which just builds a working system albeit with gaps and faults ... but it works. this is fairly interesting fork. not to to with systems, otherwise, does one see what is or what should be. in fact I was thinking along this vein only yesterday ... recently I have given myself up to doing exactly what I want ... to know what you "want" involves the difficult task to digging up the innermost depths of yourself and see what lies there, remove yourself from what "should" be and what is expected. to read a book.... do you read it because you ought to, the world expects that I, who is such and such should have read this book by now or this book is widely regarded as being interesting and therefore ... the very act of reading that book with a studied air or with too much intent degrades its value as I see it. it is no longer an act of inspiration, but of desperation.

The more you see, the less you know

2005-03-30T19:19:00.000-08:00

Which is better ? ... a blissfully unaware state of being or a been-there-done that kind of existence. living in a cocoon, you have the world before you but you cant see it and the other way you cant see anything you havent seen before. this issue, of what is trivial and what is grand is resolved by some people very easily...i however... am still specualting. which will it be? ... I doubt there is a middle road.

untitled

2005-03-30T03:26:00.000-08:00

test

-- Saif Ali MS Student 2930 Scioto Street #801 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati Ohio - 45219 Phone: 513-556-7451

2005-03-29T19:20:00.000-08:00

At Ohio River Bridge

Coming home to Cincinnati

2005-03-29T18:40:00.000-08:00

Recently, a very close associate of mine told me that you can never be home unless you leave. This was brought ... umm ... home ... to me when I returned to Cincinnati after spending a week in Washington, DC. The city is a suburb in comparison, but as the bus took me through the winding streets and tiny ordinary looking shops, I felt I had touched base. The smalness, the quite, non-glamorous spaces were quite endearing and I got the sense that the only place you can like even though its nothing great is home.