Looking Inwards

Latest pics with my brand new camera.

First pic is the minaret of an ancient mosque in Sriranagapatnam.

Second is pic that I title splendid desolation.

Third is me in the moment

Everything Explained in three lines.

I have this urge to seek simple explainations for everything. Like a string theory joining all forces , a line that would be forever green. But its a little hard to find that one deep line.

So my room-mate and me have this habit of using 3 lines to explain everything in life. These are the lines that I originally used but now many people who have heard me use the same. To those who wander here, I warn you- The lines that follow are seductive. Turn away now or you may inadvertently muttering these lines at meetings, moments of desolation and who knows where.

When that happens see a shrink but please come back and let me know. So without further ado,I share my wisdom.

(a) Har dil mein armaan hote to hai, bas koi samjhe zara- from the song Tinka-tinka.(Each and every heart has desires within. May the right person understand them)- This is the explaination for the paradox of love and so many other things. This equates the hot gal, the plain jane and the outright scary gal. This is also true for guys. We all have big desires-opposite sex, fame and so many other small and big things. This line explains that the desires will forever exist. Its naturalfor who can tell the heart to stop dreaming of people we will never even come close to.

(b) Humko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin, Dil ko kush rakne ke liye Ghaalib yeh khyaal achcha hai-.A line of poetry from the famous Urdu poet Ghaalib translated as I know the truth about paradise (its a fable and all is a lie) but I will still beleive in it because its a great idea to keep my heart glad. I mostly state only the second line "Dil ko kush rakne ke liye Ghaalib yeh khyaal achcha hai" as an musing when I simply shift my stance. Its the line that I am reminded of when I give failure the label of destiny or fate. Its a line about all the times that we change the timelines of our dreams or even modify the vision itself.

(c) Kisi ko duniya mein mukammal jahaan naheen milta, Kaheen zameen nahin milti, to kahin aasmaan nahin milta. (Another poetry line sayin no one in on this earth finds a perfect world or a state. Somewhere there is not enough land while at other places there is a dearth of sky)- This line explains why the simplest of satisfaction is so hard and elusive to get. We are never satisfied. I ,for one never sleep satisfied at night despite being blessed with so many things. And the tragedy is I do not know what will satisfy me. And there is valid fear that nothing may satisfy me ever.

There are other seconday theories also but their validity is quite limited. Someof them are-
(a) The only reward of hard work is the oppurtunity to do more
(b) Agar zigar mein ho himmat to duniya se bagawat kar lo, Warna jahaan maa-baap kahen wahin shaadi kar lo

So now u go forward and find explaination for the things in life using the above lines. Enjoy the inne perspective about things that these lines bestow.

Cooking for two, alas three

I take Mysore as the golden period in my life where I must do everything I have ever desired in life because I am unlikely to get the oppurtunity to be in such a small and crappy city again. The city sleeps at nine-thirty. Mysore is small and I spent a miniscule amount of time commuting. This gives me time for a lot of other things. Also I am likely to be on bench for a long long time right now. This may be depressing for many but I adore the idea. I get time for myself and there is no overtime pressure.

So among the things that I always wanted to do was to learn to cook. Now I could always cook a bit but that was very scarce.

Out here in Mysore in the south part of India, the taste of food is rather unsatisfactory. Initially when I was being trained, I could adjust as I thought it was temporal but later when I got posted here I knew it could not continue. So what do three engineers do in front of an intractable problem about taste?

They start to cook dinner.

So while breakfast and lunch during the weekdays is at the work place we mostly cook the dinner. Tragically its still limited to vegetarian fare. But we can cook the entire Indian meal- daal,subzi, chaawal and roti. Along with stuff like raita, desserts like sevain,halwa etc also frequent.

How much have I progressed. I am not very good with the subzi but I can cook the dal and chaawal independently along with some types of vegetables. I am also the weekend breakfast specialist which ranges from dalia, upma to chanae as well as varieties of halwa.

But the most difficult skill I havemastered is rotis. Ladies and gentlemen, kneading the dough or aata is one simple looking skill which is hard as a nut to master. Getting that right consistency is tough and adding water is an art. So many times I ended up with a wet slurry that had to be then added to an equal amount of dry atta. I would be bad mouthing rotis trying to remove all the atta from my hand while my patient flatmate would be improving my disaster. Poor dharam, he really had a lot of patience. He was the only guy who had prior cooking skills worth mentioning.

Now of course I tend to get the consistency of the dough right and my chapattis are large, thin and round. This is a thing which many girls cannot boast of. And I say so because so many girls I know go like "Wow, your chappatis are round.(envy there)". Ladies, the rotis take effort.

And this is an appreciation for all the ladies who cook for thei families. Kudos to you all. Its a hard task. And from my mom to so many women around also work. I would want praise every-day if I was to cook.

A measure of my progress came when some days back we prepared wonderful chole bhatoore, a punjabi dish. It was superb. I said to myself we have crossed a level.

Anyway I have to go now. There is dinner to be cooked. Planning for matar-paneer , daal and rotis. Maybe rice also

PJ- packet series

An empty mind is a devils workshop. So these days I have been musing about packets with a bias to http packets. Used these jokes to win a geeky contest.

Here are some packet PJs.

Q). What did one packet say tothe other?

Ans-Life is short


Q).What did one virtual circuit or the VOIP packet say to the other?

Ans. Follow me.


Q). What did one packet say to the other while entering the undersea fibre optic cable.

Ans. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Q). What did the other packet reply?

Ans.) Idiot,analyze the dispersion. Its a laser


Q). What did the packet ask the router?

Ans. Are you a higher being


Q.) What did the two UDP packets whisper about the http packet?

Ans. He is so fat

Darkness at the fringes

So today was a dark dark day.

Things kept adding on till finally I felt like running away from it all.

And now as I sit in my flat I feel the storm in my emotions.Its like sailing through a sea where each wave is larger than the last and finally at the back of the mind comes a thought as to when it ends.

The day paradoxically begins on a pleasant note. There was nothing odd. But it became one of those days where things kept going a bit wrong. Late to work, even late to swipe in, the struts code seeming so alien. And it all added to a dark dark mood.

Then the moment I got home ended up in a war of the words with our house-owner. I dont shirk away from conflicts but that just wasn't the time.

So I wonder how do we know we are in the right place,the right job. Its a tough thought but we must have a job that we forever enjoy.

And the day you just feel like running away from it all, what do you do?I used flexible timings choice to return in six hours instead of 9.25 hours but what if it was not there.