People change.

A lot of times we hear about people who don’t show respect to their parents, or are ashamed to show them to the people because they are not highly educated, or they don’t do a very good job, or they are a little “rural” in the lifestyle.

Another thing is people ignore or insult their friends, when they get a great job or something, or get into a superior university. I mean, people tend to change because of their superior state than their parents, relatives and friends.

When we hear such stories, we tell ourselves and people around us that look, how bad people are. We are not like that. We won’t change ever. But that thought remains only till they get into a real situation. Then, they also behave the same.

I exactly know how the transition happens. In the beginning, when there is nothing superior in them, they’d be all good-good friendly-friendly. When they get a good job or admission in some good university (for instance), they start thinking about THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO NOT CHANGE. They try and talk normally to people. From the inside, they have an implicit confidence and humility due to their position, but this is actually not true. They are being humble just because they are trying really hard not to boast about their superior state. This also means that they don’t even tell people that they got an admission somewhere, etc.

Ok, fine, lets take the example of admission in a good university now.

So, slowly, the news spreads. People come and ask them about it. Some of the selfless, really true friends go on telling more and more people, just because they are genuinely happy (and such friends are really really really hard to find). The jealous ones publicize the issue in trying to count the weak points in the person, and why he doesn’t deserve to get that admission. Actually, indirectly, and unknowingly, they are adding to his fame (the best example could be Microsoft. The more the people curse that company, the more popular and widespread it gets). He comes to know about the extent of his fame. Some people whom he didn’t ever seen in life come and congratulate him. Some people think about getting him as a son-in-law, and what not.

With all this fame and publicity and such great honour, he is overjoyed. This is the state where the transition from I WILL NOT CHANGE to I AM SO AND SO (so and so as in such a high profile person) occurs. True friends and false ones add to this cause too. True friends boast about his friend so much that he develops an unneeded pride. False ones boast about him so that they can get favors from him.

With all this illusion of the ACTUALLY-NOT-SO-BIG success, he becomes one of those, the ones mentioned at the beginning. I don’t know if there is a solution to this problem. Its not his fault. Its all because he gets carried in the glorious success he achieved and others celebrated. It’d take a real pure person, who has a heart made of gems (not the chocolate :P) to not change in such a situation. I don’t know any person like that.

Busy again!

Life is back on track now. The same busyness, tensions, projects, submissions, burning the mid night oil. Though it doesn’t look to be too great. Someone might ask, what the hell? You like to be busy? You don’t want freeness and fun in life. Well, its something like I have kind of become like a sanyasi or something.

Most of the time when people would find great fun in some outing, or dance, or dinner, or some movie, or some useless talk, I tend to get irritated. I mean, most of the time whats enough to keep me alive is, some light music. Along with that, I’d like at max ONE person to sit and talk with. A person who hasn’t come to me because I am great at studies, or because I am great programmer or anything. A person who hasn’t come because he wanted to borrow some money. A person who hasn’t come because he didn’t find anything else to do. A person who has just come to talk to me. He/she has no expectations, no favors to demand, no favors to do to me. Seldom do I find such people.

Anyways, this busyness keeps any irritation arising from these outer interferences at a low level. When I am busy doing work, I tend to ignore the surrounding. I tend to NOT think deeply. I tend to be less emotional, and more practical/technical. When I am busy, I feel as if I am one of those focussed ones, who are always aware of their future and present.

I am really not one of those. I tend to give an image as if my every action is very well thought out or something, but its really not so. To confess, I hadn’t really planned anything about doing a software engineering course so far away from home. I saw the computer for the first time in my life in 1995. Since then I have been quite inclined towards the subject. I have always wanted to make an OS of my own, much much before I even knew about what an OS does. That time, my teachers told me that its impossible to make your own OS. But now I realize that its not impossible, though its not that straight forward either. Anyways, cut the OS crap, I was saying that NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN PLANNED IN MY LIFE. So, its never like I am the most aware of future, or I plan anything.

Tomorrow is the PR project presentation, and hopefully we’ll do some part of it by tonight. There is just one class tomorrow, so that’d be a great relief. Anyways, this semester I’ve taken up Software Engineering, Computer Vision, Robotics, Making of the modern mind, Data Compression and BTP. That will make it 24 credits, along with PT, Mag and Data Structures TAship.

Wish me luck for PR.

Back to college.

Finally, I am back after a 10-day-long holiday. Its not that 10 days is too much or anything, but thats quite a big chunk for me. After my hindi paper on 14th, I quickly came back to my room, and packed, and went off to Secunderabad. I had to catch a bus from there, which would take me to Indore.

I had my lunch there, and then was waiting for the bus at the travel agency office. There, I met Mr. K P Vaish. He was my copassenger, and was travelling with his wife and younger daughter. They had to visit some marriage in Indore. There were a few hiccups in the beginning, but soon we were in the bus, and it was rolling fast towards my destination. It stopped at some places for rest and food. I hung along with Uncle Vaish, who sponsered all my eating expenses too. There was another shy kind of guy with us. His name was A… actually I am not able to recollect the name, but it began with A.

The bus got punctured in the night, at about 8. I don’t know what procedure did they use to repair it, but it took them 3 hours to complete it. Then, somehow I fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning at around 7 AM, my bus was standing somewhere, and people eating. I thought it has stopped for breakfast, but alas! it had got punctured again!! When we entered Madhya Pradesh, it got overheated, and stopped. The driver switched off the AC, to prevent overheating. After this really hectic, annoying and long journey of about 25 hours, we reached Indore.

First day at home was all good good. I had a nice hair cut etc.

Okay fine, I think I can’t write about what happened back home, I just don’t feel like. I am back to college now. I came here yesterday, with AP express which was about 2 hours late as usual. The new semester has just begun. Lets hope for the best.

By the way, just to mention, Tanu gave me a nice little gift. Its some sort of locket, its a glass tube basically. It has a liquid in it, and two rice grains inside the liquid. The rice grains have something nice written on them. Really good present. Thanks Tanu.

Tired!

Oh, its been a hectic day today. The pattern recognition paper in the morning, and then, planning the schedule for the lab test with Dr. Jawahar, and finally, checking the answer scripts, 200 of them. In the initial stages, it was confusing and inconsistant, I mean the grading. Then, as I crossed 50, it started getting easy, mechanical and consistant. And as usual, I was linient (don’t know spelling), impartial and dedicated, hehe.

Anyways, before this, the PR preparation was a lesson in life worth remembering. With one day holiday in between, I became too complacent about it, as expected. So much so that I read the “OLD PORTIONS” of PR at 6 AM in the morning, just 3 hours before the exam. Anyways, as usual, the paper went on smoothly, with a few hiccups due to partial loss in short term memory (Short term memories ;)).

Next exam is on Monday, 14 November 2005. Its on Hindi Literature. I haven’t begun studying yet, and its 13th November 2005 already! Pretty alarming, isn’t it? Anyways, what I am more worried about is my journey towards Indore. The bus leaves Hyderabad at 4:40 PM on 14.11.2005, and I have no seat in that bus yet. They say, collect your ticket on the spot. This way there is a lot of risk involved. Lets see what happens. I will try to get the ticket by tomorrow.

I read an article on “average age when Indians lose virginity”. Apparently, its been calculated to be 19.8 years. It does look quite low, for our so called traditional culture and rich heritage and all, but who cares. Amazingly, I am turning 19.8 on 18.11.2005. Well, doesn’t mean I am going to do anything or something, but just a thought. By the way, if we know average, what would we call above average? Would it be 19.7 or 19.9? Someone argued that it should be 19.7, as when you cross 19.8, you become “late” in doing “that particular thing”. Another argument could be, people “lose virginity at an average of 19.8″, so doing 19.9 would mean, losing something “late”, or rather, being better than 19.8. There is no end to this argument though, but one thing is sure, I am neither losing it at 19.7, nor at 19.9.

I called up Riya today, oops, not again! Well, actually, I was not going to call. She called me when I was away. So, I actually went to give her a missed call from the STD. But stupid girl, picked it up. Anyways, her exams and all are going on nicely too. And apparently, my calling her has caused problems to some people. What I want to say is, she’s just connected with phone calls, while others have “options”.

Today, Tanu is kind of behaving ajeeb. She had an accident, and kind of broke some bumper or something of her car, and has been upset for a lot of time, as she says. Anyways, one new thing is this Google Talk. She’s kind of mad about the whole thing, though she has some project crap, so is not talking much, or maybe its the fear of her dad.

Anyways, wish me luck for Hindi, and luck to get the ticket. Bye!

New Sensation

You stick out your tongue, and slowly bring it closer. Gently touch it to your tongue, and then press it harder. Wow, what a feeling it is. No no, I am not talking about some dope or anything. Its a 9 Volt Dry Battery. Its something of the size of a matchbox, with two electrodes at the top. It doesn’t have much current in it, but its enough to give you a tickling sensation on the wet tongue. It really feels great.

Anyways, coming back to senses, today I got up at 6 AM in the morning as usual. Went for the usual exercise, no one else woke up though. I went to Physical Education Center, and checked if I had cleared the PT thing. The PC was something like P1 with Windows 98, gosh! It booted in something like 15 minutes. I got the PT credits! I was so excited and happy. I mean, its been three years now, though I am thinking to take it up next year too.

Exams are coming, 7th is first paper, POPL. What I am worried more is about Compilers and Pattern Recognition. I am supposed to take a class just now, would leave in a minute. Hopefully will be done with compilers before dinner. Lets hope for the best.

And again, I am mentioning that I am mentioning Riya, Tanu, Arun, and whoever is angry for not getting mentioned. Wish me luck!

What kind of people are they?

Just a few days back there was a breaking news on almost all news channels over the world. It was when quake hit northern Pakistan and some parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Initially, when I came across this news, (actually one of the Pakistani net friends told me), I thought its just some small quake. Even the websites mentioned that a building or two had collapsed in Islamabad.

Slowly, it turned out that it was a huge tragedy. A huge portion of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir was destroyed, devastated, and the after shocks still continued to frighten quake striken people. Fortunately, there was not much damage in Jammu and Kashmir, or Delhi, etc.

Then came the repair-work, to restore life in affected areas. Pakistan was obviously not self sufficient in handling this. The international community came out with a lot of aid, including India (as a responsible neighbour). Its not been long, they are still in the :rescue phase: … reconstruct is far far away.

Anyways, I just wanted to highlight the great tragedy that happened, but the main thing is not the quake. I want to talk about the Serial Blasts in Delhi. Just days after the quake, they do serial blasts in Delhi. THEY = Pakistanis … (yeah, there is some militant group taking responsibility of it). I mean, what kind of people are they? They have been struck with the greatest tragedy ever. Their own leader says its a huge task. And what do they do? Kill people in India. Why? I don’t know if its linked with change of head in J&K or something else. They attacked their neighbour who is helping them in the hour of need, the PM of which is asking its people to help people of Kashmir, in India and Pakistan.

It really requires a really inhuman heart to do such an act. What should India do then? I don’t think its time to forgive and forget. Even Times Of India(Hyderabad) 31.10.2005 mentions that. The headline is Enough is enough, and its true. Enough is enough. Its time India shows its anger. Actually I am now mentioning the thoughts expressed there. It says, anger should be not thoughtless. It should be one which is in our interest. Why should we compromise our citizens’ security just to be nice and friendly to our neighbour.

My personal view is, if they are so heartless that they attack you when they in the most miserable state, then, we should stop helping them. I would possibly think of praying for another quake to hit Pak. Anyways, this view is controversial even to me. I mean, its just some fanatic people doing this thing. It is in no way connected to the common people of Pakistan or PoK. That ways, on human grounds, I feel that its a great tragedy, and should never ever happen again. Alternatively, we can at least force Pakistan to let Indian army clear up the militant camps operating in Pakistan. I guess I am talking a little non-sense, too much into emotions and all. I guess its just my anger on what happened in Delhi.

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Okay, now another thought process.

People are generally asked questions like, what if there is a situation that if you give your life, 1000 people will be saved. And the next one is, would your answer change if its 100000.

If we really look at the most practical so called rational answer, it would be NO, for both. Why is that? If you want to justify it in the shortest possible way, it’d be, “Jaan hai, to jahan hai.”. It means, if you have life, then only you have the world. Without life, there is nothing (for you).

Well, this is certainly a really really selfish thought, one could say. But then, who remembers any dead person, however great he/she was. Einstein, Newton, Gandhi, Nehru, Churchill, or for that matter Hitler, all have been forgotten, swapped out of memory. Generally people don’t begin their day by remembering anyone of them. When I am in any class, they say, this formula, this algorithm was made by so and so. Even the professor doesn’t SPELL his/her name correctly, and says, forget about the name, concentrate on the invention/discovery. We seldom thank any of the scientists, artists, poets, writers.

This just explains that its just alive when we are alive. Life over, game over, free the memory. This one life, my own life, and the life of some 1000 or 100000, whats more important? Not more than 10 out of these 1000 or 100000 will thank you each day of their life, or for that matter each month. Whats the use of saving them then?

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Regarding my life, its going smoothly. I am wasting time like anything, not studying, seeing movies, going out, missing classes. Its really enjoyable and alarming too. I want myself to secure a nice SGPA. Its also because I want to reply to people who said, 6 courses, 1 project and a quarter TAship is too too heavy to survive. I want to show them that I did it. Lets hope I come back to senses and begin some study.

I am thinking to go home on 15th. If work doesn’t stop me, I’ll be going. By the way, Tanu was angry that I didn’t mention her in my last post, hehe. There is nothing to write now, so just mentioning that I am mentioning her, hehe. Pray for me. Exams are coming.