:-)

Told my dad I drink. He asked me to be in control and be safe :-)
This is brilliant, I say!

Babba's status message

May the M dv/dt be with you

It does

It feels good to be back.

Pics

This Pulitzer prize (2006) winning photograph shows two students of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras in one of the classes. The expression of helplessness on one student's face and the yawn on the other's shocked the entire world and humanity.

This is another Pulitzer Prize winning photograph that shows one student of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras collapse to a natural state of sleep in his classroom. The expression on the student's face and his desire to hug something (the back rest) portraying his inner suppressed desires, shocked the world.

Hmm

If there's one thing IIT teaches you, which nothing else does, probably - It's stretching your mind - stretching the capacity of your mind to get fucked. You get fucked - You try to recuperate - You get fucked again. You get no time. Things hit you hard. You learn to smile, and come out.

Now doing

Tensor Calculus :-)

Long time

The Sensex is driving people out of their senses. Bhutto's People's Party clearly doesn't appeal to all the people. Lewis Hamilton needs tons of luck in his life. What's right without a left, they say. Couldn't be truer in today's world. Ditch all that. Let's get to some inputs from my side to the world.

1. Never take short to and fro walks on a street.

I did this a couple of days ago when I dropped my sister at the Dentist's place. I was waiting outside, and for lack of a better thing to do, I decided to take short walks - back and forth, and did so for a while, till I realized someone was giving me company. I looked beside, and there it was, a nice dog. It seemed like it (he/she) had discovered this new dimension in life - Back and forth walking. I stopped, waited for a minute. I started walking, and it started too. I stopped, and yes, it did, too. And then it looked up at me. (I love it when I'm so tall, the angle of inclination at which these small things look at me gives me a kick, like I'm something they look up to, really. Like I was three feet away approximately, which makes it, um, arctan(2). Pretty decent). I decided there was only one way I was going to get rid of it without scaring it. I stopped, took steps sideways (perpendicular to my original direction). It was confused, and it walked away. I felt proud.

2. IQs of RJs

I was on a nice drive, and I made a mistake. I turned the radio on, and I had to hear RJs stuttering away - with words losing their identity, and only sentences having theirs. As in, usually, an alphabet is the tiniest bit you can break down anything to, but for RJs, it's a sentence. It is, gentlemen, a fucking sentence! No, you may not have the right to listen to, or discern words that make them up. Only sentences. And, right from branding 'Kadhal' (love) as success or failure as if it were a race, to high degree illogical statements like Kadhal illamai Vazhkaye Illai ('Without love, there is no life'. I thought it was the other way around), the RJs just prove the Logarithmic IQ law of the universe. The Logarithmic IQ law (Courtesy PBK) states that there are two sets of people in this world.

Set 1: IQ1 = 100 to 160+, IQ1 = Integer
Set 2: IQ2 = log (IQ1)

These RJs are part of Set 2, with logarithmic IQs.

3. Never eat your favourite sweet and drive a car.

Never, ever, do this. It's dangerous. Like this time, when I had a small box of Kaju Burfis to keep me busy while driving. The thought process, went something like this (in a span of 10 seconds)

This Kaju burfi is brilliant - Oh, where's the brake - How can something be so good - Where the hell is the brake - Wow, wow, wow - Ah, there is the brake - Fuck, this is awesome, haven't tasted stuff like this before - Oh, there's something ahead - This is just melting in my mouth. Wow - Oh, that something is coming closer - I should buy more of these - Ok, why is the car ahead coming closer - This rocks - Ok, I need to do something, it's coming too close - Oh, shit, no, I'm going towards it - Wow, I love this again - I think I should brake - Kaju Burfi man, fuck. Pack brake - Oh no, it's a meter away - Oh, apply the brakes - Yumm, Yumm - Shit, I'm gonna bang into it - Brak...Yumm. BRAKE...

4. A Certain Professor

I heard from a MTech student here, that a certain well known senile professor of the design department in Mechanical Engineering here living his last days (Clue: Invert dasarpaviS) gives problems in exams of the following nature.

Original Problem (In a book) - ' Tom and Harry carry out a stress analysis on a beam of the following shape...... They find the critical tangential stresses to be 10 and 20 MPa. They further go on..... Dick joins them and finds out that they've missed out on the normal components of the forces. He corrects them.....'

Problem in the Exam: ' Senthil and Palaninathan carry out a stress analysis on a beam of the following shape...... They find the critical tangential stresses to be 10 and 20 MPa. They further go on..... Panneerselvam joins them and finds out that they've missed out on the normal components of the forces. He corrects them.....'

Creativity, they call it.

5. Advertising

There are so many schools today that teach advertising, the art of advertising, and the different forms of advertising. Advertisers today are moving on to subtlety, capturing emotions, spreading a strong message, developing a brand as a relation, etc. But, my dear friends, there are many who choose to think otherwise, and advertise in the most kuntriest fashion.

Well, I define Kuntryness in advertising to be this:

Kuntryness - Directly Proportional to -> T1/T2

(Or) Kuntryness Ratio = k T1/T2

Where k = Proportionality Constant
T2 = Total duration of the advertisement
T1 = Time duration when the brand name is read out

For instance, an average Ad, say a Ford Ad, would be of a minute's duration, with Ford coming for 3-4 seconds towards the end. The Kuntriness Ratio for a Ford Ad = 1/15 (Take k=1)

Consider the following Ad, which I heard on the radio the other day (It was in Tamil, I'm trying to translate it into English here)

'Saravana Stores. Saravana Stores for your mom. Saravana Stores for your dad. Saravana Stores. Saravana Stores for your brothers and sisters. Saravana Stores. Saravana Stores for Deepavali. Saravana Stores for Sarees. Saravana Stores for Jewelery. Saravana Stores. Saravana Stores for everything. Come visit. Saravana Stores. Pondy Bazaar, T Nagar. Saravana Stores. Yes, you heard it right, Saravana Stores. '

Kuntryness Ratio would be nearly 1. Fucking one! I mean, what the Sarafuckingvana is this? I swear, if at all I have enough money sometime in the future, I'm going to do a leveraged buyout of Saravana Stores and close it down.

6. Cosmozone

An Ad on Mount Road for a brand of Clothing, Cosmozone, caught my attention, even when I was driving.



Getting to the point, are we?

Fuck

Fuck everything in life man. Fuck it. Fuck fuck fuck it.

Fuck it.

Bisi

I've been busy for the last few days, or at least would like to claim so - for the larger good of mankind. As proof, you could consider the dreams I've been having. Lately, I don't seem to be seeing people, things, nothing. I seem to be reading only sentences.

Like I frequently read 'However, the candidate is expected to demonstrate his/her competence in all the three sections'. Then I fucking start breaking open the seal in my dream, only to find nothing. Then someone laughs at me, and I can't see who. But it sounds familiar. Ditch.

I also usually see 'Sorry, we will not be able to participate owing to lack of funds'. (Ironic, as that may sound. I mean, what the hell - Owing to lack of funds?)

Cha, bad.

Hmm

Now, there seems to be a small problem (?) I have.

I realize that there has almost never been a moment in my life when I've sat back and thought 'I've achieved something' and have felt really happy about it.

What is this supposed to mean? Is this good? Is this bad?

Hmm, whatever.

Um

7th, it is.

@all: Ditch it. Arbit post.

8RF

My good friend and Cockas had tagged me quite some time back, and I conveniently chose to ignore it - flatly telling the world that I was too busy. I usually don't like lying, so here I am, responding to the tag.

Here are the rules:

1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

8RF about me:

1. I have given my parents enough reasons to believe (forcibly, perhaps) that I'm one screwed up kid they have. It all started with U.K.G, when I proposed to a girl in school. I was expecting a better reaction to a 'I love you' than the girl walking straight home and telling my mom about it. If I seriously meet his girl now (That I don't remember her much makes it rather impossible), I would like to clarify to her that I didn't really mean it then and she should stop taking things seriously in life.


2. I was a naughty kid at School. I've got sent out of class more number of times than I can remember, I'd been suspended in 9th Std for laughing at a teacher's torn Saree (at an objectionable spot) and many more such memorable incidents. Some teachers also used to have a problem with me using their full names directly in the articles I used to write in the 'writing' section of the English paper. It was embarrassing to them, apparently. For instance, I remember I wrote a short story in an English exam where I based the story on a kidnapping incident with our PT teacher as the kidnapper. I really loved writing the story, but didn't really like the scolding that followed.


3. I've had great problems with my braces, when I had them. I've broken my incisors during volleyball, I've had my lips stuck between the braces once, etc etc so much so that my dentist told me openly that I was one of the 'strangest' and 'most difficult' patients he had had. I'm morbidly afraid of braces now.


4. I consider logic to be one of the main guiding principles of my life. Everything has to be logical to me, has to 'make sense'. Otherwise I get really pissed and sometimes can't stand it. Though I've had people arguing with me suggesting that things are not entirely logical in the world. I somehow find that tough to comprehend. I wouldn't want to be a logician or anything, but I'd largely want to use logic in my professional career - whatever may be the situation. I think it's one of the best things in this world, right now.


5. I am called 'Database' by some people. The reason for this follows. I grew up wanting to be in IIT, largely because of my dad and his constant glorification of the place and imbibing this feeling into me that I should be here or nowhere else. Harmoniously, I too developed that passion for IIT, and specifically JEE. I religiously used to follow all the JEE toppers' names - those that used to come in papers etc. I just used to relate to JEE so much in life, that it was pretty laughable. One of the most memorable incidents regarding this has been the following:

Incident : Ragging in my freshie year - At Gurunath - Torso, Mahanama etc

Torso, to me: So tell me, have you heard of AT? (AT is Arvind Thiagarajan, IITM batch of 2005 - JEE 2001 topper)

Me: Of course

Torso: What of course? How do you know him?

Me: He was AIR 1 in 2001

Torso: Oh, so you're some big stud eh? All JEE 1 and all you know. Bastard. Tell me, who was AIR 1 in 99?

Me: Abhinav Kumar. He's now at Harvard

Torso: !!. 97?

Me: Arvind Sararf

Torso: Wtf! 95?

Me: Subash Ajit Khot

Torso: Floored

Don't blame me. I'm really passionate about a few things


6. One thing I just cannot do in life is to be Average. I always have this urge in me to be the best in whatever I do, and I feel miserable if I'm not. Of late, I've understood that this urge in me is not entirely practical - So I've begun to accept compromises - However, I would still want to be the best.


7. I always look for humor in life - Day to day incidents - People. To me, a person is lifeless is he/she is not funny. And I've increasingly started to dislike people who do not appreciate humor and like those who do. To me, that's something that can keep you going anytime.


8. I'm a big big Pink Floyd fan. To give you an example, I really plan to have Floyd playing in the background during my wedding reception (when_ever I get married, that is)

I don't tag anyone.

Hmm

Life's been nice to me of late; Intern was nice, college's about to start in a week's time. It feels really good to be back home. One of the things I sorely sorely missed during my intern, was the spam folder in my Gmail Account. There they were, hundreds of them ranging from 'Nobody likes it if you fake it' - to - 'Become really big' - to - 'How grown are you' - it is just too trippy to read all these and keep deleting them.

Also I've discovered that GRE is one of the most pointless exams I'll be giving - Makes no sense at all to just mug words like we used to mug big big answers in School.

And I'm really contemplating whether to close this blog.

Hi!

Hi guys, girls, Makam and others

I've not been able to post anything of late. Blogger's blocked at my intern place. Apparently, one can always choose to blog away company secrets to the world if he/she wants.

Will post soon! Till then, take care and have fun!

Hmm

Scene: Me studying something seriously

My sis to me: Are you concentrating and studying?

Me: Of course

She: Ya, so you're not.

Ironic isn't it, that you can never say I'm concentrating while you're actually concentrating, unless of course, the only thing you're concentrating on are the words I'm concentrating. Even then, Blah.

Crack!

I've been wanting to post this for a long time. This post is dedicated to Aunty

A few days back, last month perhaps, it was a hot afternoon on one not so particularly enjoyable day. Now, what usually happens on a hot afternoon? A class of course! So it was. Maiya jabbering his usual set of disjointed words which were begging to be connected. I was expectedly seated in the last bench, appreciating many fine things like Maiya's good fortune that made him a prof at IITM etc etc. Sania and Aunty were sitting beside me on either side.

Maiya went on talking. I was half asleep. Maiya then wrote some shite on the board. Who cared.
The board was a good seven meters away. Suddenly Aunty sorta wakes me up, points to the board and asks me 'Macha, what does that look like to you?'.

I turn to the board and ask him 'What're you talking about?'

He replies 'That formula written there'.

I then looked up to find a formula which was written on the board

Well, it actually looked slightly different. It was Maiya's handwriting of course that made the difference. The actual one looked similar to this (Thanks to Caesar for making this in Photoshop :D)

Now, I looked at it and burst laughing. It was an absolute crack! Brilliant! Seven meters away a professor wanting to profess some serious stuff writes a formula involving an exponential function, hoping to get a response like Oh-my-God-Where-the-fuck-did-e power rt-come-in-refrigeration. Instead, you have good engineers, with hawk eyes that can spot beauty seven meters away!

This was one of the best cracks I had ever seen.

For those who still haven't got the beauty of the pic, shame on you. Eat a rat and take a closer look.

Skd

Apart from the numerous atrocities we've had to undergo in Mech through many preposterous acts by the aged people of IITM, there are a few gems too. Sample this: Skd, who said this in one of the classes:

'I have no reason to believe in God. But when I realize that one of the most efficient heat exchangers ever made in the past or the present is our throat, I have a strong reason to believe in God'.

Yes, it is indeed true. If you were living in a cold place with a room temperature of -10 deg, the air at that temperature could kill you. In microseconds, before the air reaches your lungs, the upper respiratory system acts as a regenerative heat exchanger (similar to fluidized bed) and brings the temperature to the body temperature. Brilliance.

Dear

To:

Madarmugam

CC: Madarprasad, MadarRao
BCC: Solar

Sirs

Sub: Reminding you of your senility

I would like to introduce myself as your killer to be. Take care.

Sincerely

CB

Wallpaper

My new wallpaper - 10 MW Solar power plant in California. Beauty ain't it?
Imagine sitting on the receiver and looking around!

Ooh

Oh yes, it's been quite a while since there has been any Verbodynamics on this page. Indeed. You should really understand, it's not my fault. Circumstances have caused the same. India was out of the World cup, and for a few days my hands objected to type out any word which had the letters I, N, D, I, A, W, O, R, L, D, C, U, P, H, A, R, B, H, A, J, H, A, N, Y, U, V, R, A, J, S, E, H, W, A, G, etc etc. Don't call me an idiot. I tried my best, till my hand spoke to me one night in my not so sweet dream, telling me that if I dared to write against it's wish, it would write my Power Plant Engineering End semester exam in Hindi. Now, why would I want to take such a risk. So, I let a few days pass by, till it was all fine, when something else happened: Supreme court stay order. Now, after this news came out, I had to spend a few days understanding the Indian judiciary, and to what extent the Supreme court judges can misuse their power (for instance, their personal vengeance against men with blue turbans and revealing Kurtas, etc) , because of which, again, I could never blog. I almost understood it perfectly, and was all ready to venture out to blog when I realized that I needed something else to blog, something essential, which wasn't with me. Come on, smartie. Of course, I'm talking about time. (Haa haa, I made you bulb). It took a few days, when I finally got what was necessary - the time to blog. I started blogger and was about to start posting, when a bad habit of mine played spoilsport : Often, I suddenly get the urge to read news. So, I opened a new Tab, and clicked on IBN. And lo, what I found there was a nice front page article and video of Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty. Now, I again spent some time on analyzing that video, if it was morphed, or if it was really Gere kissing her, or someone like Himesh wearing a wax figure of Gere, etc. That took a couple of days, and I again lost time to write. Then my hand came to the rescue again. Yesterday night it again spoke to me in my dream, and told me that if I didn't blog today, it would write my Power plant engineering exam today. So, I just had to blog.

Brilliant people

I have been fortunate enough to encounter and interact with brilliant minds with the passage of time. I just thought I'd pen them down. In no particular order, these are the four best minds I've met :

1. Nema

Good friend and classmate at BASE during JEE times. Nema was the guy who was at a completely different level altogether, which we just had to accept. There was no point, absolutely NO point in trying to reach him. We just had to give up and awe at him. I still remember the Physics tests where most of us would score 40-50 on 100 and be elated, and there he would come, with a score of 85, beating the second highest by 35-40 marks flat. He was an absolute God in Physics; his understanding would be completely different; he could learn physics on his own. One of his beauties after which we were left amazed, I remember, was a SHM problem from a FIITJEE test, which none of us got as it was conceptually confusing. Here was our man, explaining to me a macroscopic SHM problem with springs from a microscopic level, atoms colliding - energy transfer in different axis - Motion - SHM. And it turned out to be right! Mother of God! None of us were surprised when the man put AIR 10.

2. Shreevatsa

Another good friend of mine, who also reads my blogs and comments regularly. I don't have much to say about him except for the fact that I decided long back never to solve problems with him; it would humiliate me, make me feel like I should go back to first standard. There was one speciality in him - The problems we all (mere mortals) could solve, he would take almost the same time, and sometimes slightly more. The problems we used to brand as impossible to solve, or just let it go, he would always solve it in less than a couple of minutes. Such are his brains, such is Vatsa, and I'm proud of him.

3. Prahalad Rao a.k.a PR

My Organic Chemistry prof at BASE, for JEE. Well, it seemed to us that God himself had sent him to earth to teach people Organic Chemistry. I mean, how, how how how could a man be SO strong in a subject? Amongst a million miracles PR pulled off in front of us, this was one, just ONE:

There was a problem in Seyhan Ege : Complete the reaction. And two of the reactants were given. I don't remember the reactants, but they were huge with many functional groups that could all react amongst themselves; Siva and I broke our heads so badly for an entire day and couldn't solve it. The answer was given at the end of the book, and the answer was: No reaction. We wondered and wondered, how the hell could there be no reaction when there were SO many functional groups, acidic and basic sites? We decided to make the final move : Go to PR. However, we decided NOT to take the book to him, and copied the problem down on a sheet. Next day, we went. And this is what happened.

Me: Sir, I have a problem. I'm not able to find the products of the reaction (Showed him)

PR: Hmm. (Thinks for 5-6 seconds. Has a look)

PR: This is a bit tricky. But I would say there is no reaction.

Me and Siva: (Wtf Wtf Wtf! How the Fuck)

Me: How sir?

PR: Well, this compound will have pKa of around 6, the other one around pKa 13, so they wont react.


4. Ananthasuresh

I have only two words for him: Raw Genius. Well, I was here at IIT, and I didn't (fortunately or unfortunately) meet many people who I could awe at, like Nema or Vatsa, or PR. That was true till last summer. Till I reached IISc, and met Suresh. It was time again for me to realize how the world is gifted with brilliant people. The difficulty with research (from my limited knowledge) is this: When you encounter a conceptual hurdle, you usually HAVE to solve it yourself, simply because such a conceptual problem at an intermediate stage of research cannot be solved by anyone else unless they are researching on exactly the same topic. In other words, unless someone's working on EXACTLY the same stuff as you, it becomes very difficult for him/her to help you overcome a hurdle, again, simply because he/she would not know what the intricacies are, and the real reason you're stuck. Now, typically this is what would happen: I would work on a problem for 1-2 days, putting full fight. I would reach a certain stage, where I would be stuck. Stuck conceptually. I would try my best to move forward, but it wouldn't happen. I would then meet him to discuss. I would keep talking, explaining what I had done, and there he was - Understanding every little detail. Think of it, he could understand at the speed at which I spoke. At the end of it, he would just smile, and tell me where exactly I went wrong, and how I should proceed from then on. I can't even explain to you the feeling I got during these times. Either it's my inability to express, or it's beyond expressible. The feeling was so great, that to the shock of a few of my friends, I started telling them 'Man, I want to do a PhD here'. Of course it was momentary bliss, but bliss it was.

I'm just hoping I keep meeting people like these throughout life. It gives me a kick. It makes me happy. It humbles me. It makes me think. Think of how I can reach somewhere close to them.

Multi dimensional scaling

I appreciate certain things; adore some. One of these is Bell Labs. The things they do in there, amazing. People work on Robotics and end up writing papers in Psychology. Such was the case a couple of decades back, when a publication (and a small book) came out of Bell Labs, which read 'Multi Dimensional Scaling'. Brilliance, I tell you.

The aim of MDS is simple: Get uncertainty closer to certainty. And when I talk about uncertainty, it's not the quantum world or probability in that sense. It's uncertainty in decisions; when you do not have enough parameters to evaluate, you try reaching a decision based on what you know, however limited it may be. A simpler way to put it would be: Identifying the similarities and the dissimilarities. The best part about this is the fact that people in Bell Labs introduced it in the field of Psychology and explained it's applications. It went on to be a part of Marketing, Data mining, Cognitive Sciences, Psychometrics, Operations Research, what not. A seminar was presented on this by one of the research students when I was there in the IISc Lab.

Take a simple example: I give you three cities, and the distances between any two of them (in pairs). These distances have been measured by an incorrect distance meter. Your job is to find out the actual distance between cities. In case of three cities, you just draw the triangle and get done with it! Now I increase the number of cities to four, and give you distances in pairs. Note that when we add a city, we add three more distances. Which means that for pin pointing the fourth city, three circles have to meet at a point. Which may not, and in most cases, will not be the case. Adding one more city making it five needs four circles to meet at a point, which is even more improbable. This goes on, where for a n city situation, n-1 circles need to meet at a point, for every city. Of course, we know that the distance meter is incorrect, otherwise all distances would be perfect. Hence, we optimize with a so called stress function, which is similar to standard deviation, to obtain pairs of distances, which agree to a reasonable extent with the incorrect meter, overall. We thus obtain how similar the distance meter is, to the actual distance between two cities.

The application of this in Psychology for instance, or psychometric tests is remarkable. Consider an example, where you write a psychometric test. There is no right/wrong in such tests, we know. However, after your responses are registered, an algorithm similar to MDS would be run, with your answers mapped to 'distances' in a certain way, to see how your answers vary from one another. It's like saying: Even if the distance meter is incorrect, MDS gives all distances with errors in distances of different pairs being similar. This however, is true only when the distance meter is uniformly incorrect. Similarly, it doesn't matter whether you're a baby or a terrorist. If you lie in certain questions, in which case you're not being uniformly a terrorist or a baby, the clash in responses gives a high relative error amongst all questions. In which case you get screwed. So never lie.

And Bell Labs rocks.

Update: Regarding the previous post, if you happened to think I was serious, and hence asked me to get a life, or cursed me, please please please, I was joking.

Perfectly competitive markets

I'm taking a basic Economics course as part of Humanities credits this semester. We were discussing monopoly and perfectly competitive markets. The prof was writing down the conditions when we classify a market as perfectly competitive, when it struck me that prostitution is a nearly perfect example of a perfectly competitive market. I told this to Spanky too, who was sitting beside me. There is free entry for everyone to enter the market, there are infinite buyers and sellers, each seller might have a unique selling point, and one buyer or seller cannot influence the price.

CAT vs JEE

It's ridiculous how people even compare CAT to JEE.
JEE's infinitely tougher. You can get up one fine day, brush your teeth, crap and go write CAT and still make it to the IIMs. JEE? Nice try.

Prison break

Rocks!

Woi

We are taught many times over that productivity plays an important part in development. Well, we acknowledged that when we learnt it, but if you really want to appreciate it or understand why what when how etc, a good opportunity for you is to conduct a case study on the comments section in many news items in leading television channels. On going through, one really gets an answer to the mysterious question: How jobless can one get? If you think sitting on Mount road eating paan all day is the answer, you're way off.

For instance, take a typical random sample for the experiment, a news item in a leading television channel's website; an interview with Robin Uthappa on the upcoming world cup. First up, you have one chap who says that being in the Indian team is an unfair deal for Laxman, and that Kaif should not be dropped because he is the second wall of India. Another guy chooses a cryptic way of replying, saying 'I don't think not taking Sehwag is not wrong'. Should tell him, I don't think not using too many negatives does not make a sentence not easily understandable. Next, another guy says 'I'll promise India will be in Semi finals, and 95 percent chance that they're in finals'. I don't get it at all: Why does he want to promise? As if this isn't enough, he goes on 'If India is in the finals, I promise you India is going to win'. I promise you, I had a tough time controlling myself when I read this. Another guy makes a pertinent observation 'Robin Uthappa is inexperienced. So what he says in the interview doesn't matter'. Well, your comment also doesn't matter boss, does it? One more guy asks us to 'mark his words that India will win the cup'. Yes sir, marked them. Finally, a comment reads 'Robin and Ganguly make a wonderful pair. May god bless this couple'. Indeed, we hope. He adds 'May all gods get together and bless all the players with their hands on players. May gods bless Sehwag too'.

You get the picture.

Rotfl

Wimpy's new post which made me Rotfl!

Forecast

My forecast for the week, rightly taken from The Week reads:

Look out for favours from the government. This might boost your income. You will have a pleasant journey and a happy married life. Your public relations skills will stand you in good stead. Your social and financial graph will soar. A good relationship with officers will lead to a mutually beneficial enterprise. You will gain respect from your subordinates. Invest wisely.

What the fuck.

I should've written a forecast to the guy who wrote this:

Look out for insults and life threats from the general public and bloggers. This might boost your morale, although it will strongly decrease your life expectancy. You will have a pleasant death, and a happy dead life. Your public relations skills will bring you back alive as you will negotiate successfully with Yama. Your oxygen supply vs time graph will soar. A healthy relationship with the opposite sex will lead to a healthy baby. Invest in sanitary ware.

Simplicity

I tend to wonder what the purpose of complicating an issue is, when a simple solution exists.
For example, take the Butterfly effect (movie). They've tried so sincerely to explain the concept and its significance only to confuse people. Now take a typical Tamil movie (Aayitha Ezhuthu for instance) when a mini riot starts off in a scene. You have n distinct people in a room (A1,A2...An say, and by distinct, we mean they do not have anything in common, like they're not part of a group or something). A certain guy (A1 say) while talking to another guy (A2 say) hits him. This results in a random person Ai performing a scan around him to find the nearest guy (Aj say) and Ai and Aj start to fight (Note, Ai and Aj are distinct elements who do not know each other before). A definite set of solutions of ordered pairs (i,j) exists that constitutes the entire set of n people (n should be preferably even). However, please note that there need not be ordered pairs only, for if Aj is the closest to Ai, it does not imply that Ai is the closest to Aj. There might be an Ak who is closest to Aj, hence all the three Ai,Aj and Ak will fight. Thus, there can be triplets (i,j,k) , quadruplets(i,j,k,l), or in the limiting case, the whole set of n people (This might happen when all the n are in a line and the successive distances are like in an AP or something). So, what's happening is nothing but the Butterfly effect. In fact, it's so simple: Get all the people of the world together and make one guy hit someone. The whole world is in a world war. And as I type this, I realize that this scene could also be used to explain convection (bulk behavior), but ah, I'm lazy to draw the exact analogy.
Be simple.

An engagement

It was a cold winter night. Robin got down from his car, and held the door open for three more people who followed his act. They were all in suits, making passersby wonder what four people were doing in suits at that time of the day. Robin looked a little angry on the outside. But only he knew how happy he was today. God doesn't give a day like this to many people, he thought. He was right. He signalled to his colleagues to carry on, while he waited there. He lit a cigarette and took a drag. It was divine, on this cold night. He saw a long limo coming in. It halted, and a beautiful young girl got down. She looked intelligent. She was also in a suit.
'Ivy, what took you so long. Don't you ever be on time?', groaned Robin.
'When have you ever stopped shouting at me', came the reply.

They were at the headquarters of General Motors, Worldwide. He was leading a team of strategy consultants, which was hired by GM; its Board of Directors to be precise. He belonged to, what people called 'The firm'. He was the senior most in the team, with the junior most being Ivy, who was just recruited from Harvard Junior College last year, as a Business analyst.

He had a reputation to live up to. He had a reputation to live up to today even otherwise. Robin and Ivy walked steadily, till they entered the main office building. They walked through the posh main reception into the main hallway. He forgot where he had to go. He signalled to Ivy
'Give me your phone'.
'What happened to yours?', asked Ivy.
'Never mind, give me yours', he said.
She reluctantly handed over her phone to him, and he made a call.
An old, baritone voice was on the other end. It was that of the CEO of GM, Mr Quazito.
'Yes. Tell me. Where are you?', came the voice.
'This is Robin here. I'm near the reception. Which floor and room was it? It just slipped my mind'
'22nd floor, M121', came the reply, sharply.
'Alright'. Man, he doesn't have to be so blunt, Robin thought.

Both of them went into the elevator, and were headed for the 22nd floor. They got out, and went into Room number M121. It was like a conference hall, a small but well equipped hall. There was light music playing in the background. Eight people were sitting around a table. Three of them from Robin's team, and five from GM, their client. At the centre sat the CEO, Mr Quazito, with a sheepish grin on his face. Next to him was a beautiful lady, charming to say less. She seemed to radiate exuberance. Her name was Jenny.

People had heard stories about Quazito. He was a strict strict man. A guy who had tolerated no nonsense. A guy who needed facts, not fiction. He was difficult to handle, Robin had been told. One had to be extremely polite to him, at the same time convey the hard facts. That was always the difficult part of a consultant's role. But Robin never seemed to give a damn. Four weeks back, he was almost the only one who accepted this engagement, while many others in his position were weary. The three others in his team were nervous.

'Alright, let me do the introduction part', Robin raised his voice.
'We're five of us tonight, who'll be working with GM for a few months to come; myself Robin; Richie, Joseph, Zarr, and Ivy', he said, pointing to the others.
The charming lady, Jenny, spoke out next.
'Hello everybody. Firstly, I would like to mention that we're all eager and happy to be working with you guys on this. We hope to have a good time, and let this period be an example to GM for many years to come. In a lighter vein, we also want to see how you guys think. Four of us tonight, our CEO, Mr Quazito, Mr Haze, Mr Stoeker, and myself, Jenny. So, we can start.'

The meeting had formally begun. It was initially the CEO, Mr Quazito who spoke.
'Right. It's 8 now. Lets get this all wound up by 10. Firstly lets address the problem we have at hand. Actually, multiple problems. Well, since you seem a bunch of smart guys, let me tell me you the problem immediately. We're losing millions of dollars on budgets in Research and Development we've been conducting, rejection rate per million on many parts which we're developing newly is going up, almost doubling every month, and sales figures are dropping in many countries as a whole, and the manufacturers from where we source many parts are increasing their rates, there has been a 10 percent reduction in our workforce last quarter, and union strikes twice every month, which is crippling the entire process. All these data are illustrated in these sheets.' He passed on the sheets to Robin.

There was silence. Jenny seemed to give a smile, as if to say 'Yeah, you smarties. Think you're smart? Handle this then'. Ivy seemed to look up to Robin, as if she were clueless. The main four in the team took some time to appreciate the problem. Robin repeated the problem, as if he wanted to memorize it. He was thinking. He went through the sheets Mr Quazito handed over to him.

'Alright', was the only word which came out of Robin.

'So it seems we have quite a few problems at hand. Why don't we split them first, and see which of them are interdependent'. He went to the board nearby, drawing six big bubbles with the six problems to be tackled. Then he drew arrows between the bubbles which were related. The only bubble which had arrows to all the bubbles was the problem 'Sales reduction'. 'So, we handle all the independent problems separately, and the main problem gets solved.'

This seemed such an obvious statement, but somehow, the drawing on the board had simplified the process. Everyone was thinking clear now. Robin had done the initial tiny bit to get people started off.

'Now, firstly, we need to address the main problem - R&D'. 'How many people does the main R&D centre have?', asked Robin.
Jenny went though a couple of sheets she had, and came out with the number. 'What's the amount of money that was spent on R&D last year?', was the next question, which was answered immediately. A couple of questions followed, all answered by Jenny, who seemed to have all the facts ready. She handed over a summary of the R&D work that was going on for the past few months.

Robin was shocked to see the summary. Clearly, the CEO, with his board of directors, wasn't thinking twice about allotting money for research. Most of it was unnecesary. The output obtained was much lesser than per capita money spent.

'Who decides the money spent on R&D, Mr Quazito?', asked Robin.
'Well, it's only us. But we encourage research and cutting edge work going on. So whenever anyone in our R&D department asks us for funds, we never say no. It's a culture we encourage, and we don't mind doing so', came the reply, sharply again.
'Well, it's foolish to continue this way', said Robin.

The others were stunned. This was never the way anyone spoke to a CEO. Was Robin nuts? Well, whatever, the statement was delivered, and that was all that mattered. It was out, well into Mr Quazito's ears for years to come. Robin explained what was going wrong in the R&D department, and said 'We need to start with the analysis of R&D department tomorrow, to see what's doing the job and what's not'.

'Jenny, I need a detailed report, of all the research that goes on, with the people in R&D who're heading it'. He seemed to order her already! A discomfort crept into the members of Robin's team, which Robin seemed to notice. 'Relax guys', was all he said.

'Next, let's analyse the problem of workforce reduction.'
'Mr Quazito, what do you think is the reason for this?'
'Well, frankly, no idea', came the reply. It's after all for you guys to find out.
'You haven't had the time to speak to people, or conduct a survey amongst people for the past few months?', asked Robin.
'No'.
Again, this was just too blunt a question one could pose to a CEO of General Motors.
Robin instructed something to Ivy, and she took down notes. They had to get some sort of a feedback form ready, but this was tricky. Robin wanted to get the workers' exact state of mind. He had to sit and prepare the questions himself.

Next, they had a brainstorming session, with each person throwing in ideas to attack the problem in different ways. Robin was continuously scribbling in a notepad. This went on for a while.

'Right, I think its time we wind up now', said Mr Quazito.
'Yup. We'll meet again on Monday morning. Happy weekend all of you', said Robin.
They walked out one after the other. Four of them stayed back in the room: Robin, Ivy, Quazito and Jenny.

Robin walked towards Jenny, and leaned his head forward, close to her face. He whispered to her 'This dress turns me on. Why don't you have it on while we're in bed tonight?', and he gave her a kiss.

'Ivy, take dad home. I'll come home a little later. We're going for dinner', said Robin.

'Yes, my son. But be careful. It's pretty late', came the baritone voice.

'Oh, don't worry dad. I'll take care'.

Inspiration

I always feel there's a higher level to a situation when two people hit off well. There comes a strong bonding between them. It's not friendship. It's not love. Probably a mixture of both. Just a connection between the two.

How often do you come across a person in life who has this sort of a connection with you. A person who can inspire you. A person who can teach you. A person who can make you think. A person who can make you effortlessly awe at him. A person who can make you work 24 hours a day. A person who comes in your dreams. A person who makes you feel that you've known him for a long long time. A person who tells you how to use each second of a minute. A person whose life you would want to mimic. A person you crack jokes with. A person whose sense of humor releases those minute stress pockets in your body stored for a long time. A person with impeccable language. A person who tells you how to distinguish a mathematician's english from a physicist's. A person who teaches you to write scripts for child plays. A person you wish would be by your side for your entire life. A person, you can only pray to be.

Ah, Suresh, what a Godsend.