Sleep!

This vacation I have slept a lot and just before sleeping I thought about the 'types' of sleep I love:

1. Sleeping after a heavy meal : Didn't get to practice this for a whole semester but doing this for the most part of my trip in Atlanta.Home cooked food cooked and served by someone else for a change :) and the sleep it induces is so heavenly that I get a hangover after I wake up.

2.Sleeping after a heavy workout:I remember when I went for trekking around Pune during my summer internship.We used to go trekking during the day and I used to play soccer after we returned from our trek and we used to sleep 12 hours straight for a few days.We were lucky that our guide didn't notice us missing from our work.

3.Sleeping in class after lunch: Most of us (I think) feel the boring lectures are equivalent to lullabies.I used to sleep so much in classes that some of my friends used to call me 'crash god'.During my school days one of my chemistry teachers used to chide me by saying 'supply that guy with pillows', 'wake the guy up who is try to brush his teeth'(due to my posture with my mouth open), etc.

I came across a very interesting link which categorizes different ways of sleeping in class.Here is the link to it.It is on a website maintained by Purdue students which says it is a survival guide in computers, academics and campus life. A very interesting read indeed, do check it out.

Life in Antartica

This is one of my favourite photo journals from BBC's In pictures section.

They have an annual marathon in Antarctica.It must be surely fun!

Do check out the photos of the year as well in the In pictures section.

Life in Antartica doesn't look so bad in the pictures.

Glad to be in a trash can!

The trash can at O'Hare International airport, Chicago proclaims "We're glad you are here".











didn't get it?

"We're glad you are here(trash can)"

What I do during exam time

I sleep for around 30 mins 5-6 times a day....just doze off when I have some heavy reading which I do right before the exams...

perfect proposal!

Enjoy!

Uncomfortable silences

I watched 3 movies in the past week .Out of the three movies, Black Hawk down, Seven years in Tibet and Pulp Fiction, the movie which I loved the most was pulp fiction.Now it is one of my favourite movies.I loved a dialogue in particular,
which goes like :


Mia: Don't you hate that?
Vincent: What?
Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
Vincent: I don't know. That's a good question.
Mia: That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.




I feel that a mark of a close friend is when he gets to know what you are trying to convey in 'comfortable silence' which is conveyed by this quote :

Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say.

Pulp Fiction is a must watch movie and I don't why I didn't watch it for such a long time.

Black hawk down is a really long movie with not much of a story.Loved the quote at the start of the movie :

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

Plato

Seven years in Tibet has a really nice story with good performances by Brad Pitt and the kid acting as Dalai Lama.The main theme of the movie is how a person from a western civilization, where(according to the movie) being at the top is the most important thing, confronts Budhism, where controlling one's ego is the most important thing, and undergoes a change in the outlook towards his life.

This is the life of Raghuram

Motivation : rhyme of Solomon Grundy

Bored after weekdays
played his heart out on friday
slept through saturday
woke up on sunday
realized had an exam on monday
realization didn't sink in the whole day
caffeine kept him awake for two days
but there is one more exam on wednesday
thus, he surrenders to caffeine everyday
This is the life of Raghuram

:)

The scariest thing

I watched the movie unbreakable today and directed by Manoj Night Shyamalan.

I realised it was a great movie in the end only as it always happens with MN's movie.I got to listen to this dialogue from the movie :

Elijah Price: You know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world.

I don't know yet my place in the world. I am scared!

B Schools

An article which matches my opinion on B-schools (Thats why i am posting it)

After all,

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

Nothing Gandhian about it

Check out this article on latest hit movie Lage raho Munnabhai.

Weekend!

Finally the favourite days of the week has arrived. After slogging out on homeworks for 3 days now I know how it feels like to be free :) .I had to submit three assignments, one on thu and two on fri. The time given was a week.I being an eternal procrastinator looked at the problems and thought they are pretty easy.This is how I finished my assignments :

Wed night

No enthu to start the assignment will wake up early and do it

Thu morn
woke up at 6...finished assignments at 0925...the problem was i had to catch the 0930 bus....missed bfast didnt take bath and was running helter skelter collecting my stuff and ran to the bus stop just in time to catch the bus...

Thu eve

worked for 5 hours continously and finished both assignments almost except one problem in each of them.slept at 230am and woke up at 0830 with class beginning at 0900....missed the bus for sure this time...I just brushed my teeth and ran like hell to the university and also thinking abt the leftover problem....reached just five mins before the class to realise that the class was cancelled...felt happy as well as sad...sad as i had put so much fight to reac the class on time for submission of assignments and happy as i have got a lot more time to solve the problem....I finished the other assignment due on fri just 10 mins before the class started...

From now on I will do everything on time!

Being an eternal procrastinator doesnt stop me from being an eternal optimist ;)

5

Once in IIT I remember when I looked at myself in the mirror, which happens once in a blue moon, that I had a few stitches between my eyebrow and eyes symmetrically positioned. Btw, I was reading about symmetry operations in my physics class and was checking out the symmetry in my face.

here goes the five :

1

I dont remember this incident though.It happened when i was less than 2 yrs old. Until then I had been thinking I had only one set of stitches between my eye and eyebrow. I had held amma's pallu and tripped over and fell on sharp protrusion.

2
This is the one i clearly remember. We were playing cricket nearby our house. I was only 4 yrs old so wasnt allowed bat or bowl. I was expected to only field. I am a sort of guy who wants to be invovled always so started going closer and closer to the batsman.I went so close that the guy swinged his bat with full force and it hit my face right above my eyes.Blood started oozing from the wound. I still remember the way the water turned red when tried to clean the wound before it was gonna be stitched. I also remember my brother getting a verbal thrashing for not looking after me while the play was going on.

3
I used to think I was a big hero in my childhood days courtesy chiru movies. I tried to jump from the top of slide and landed directly on my face, right near the mouth part which rendered me to eat only liquid food for the next few weeks.

4
This happened in IIT when I was hit by a cricket ball right next to my nose and it swelled like hell.Again had to follow a liquid diet for a few weeks as it hurt my gums pretty badly.

5
this again due to cricket ball bowled at 135 kph right in the middle of Saaranf our cult fest. It was thankfully just a cut and no swelling occured as it missed my teeth once again by just a whisker.I was wearing a bandage through out the Saarang though.

Culture shock!

I was given the course description of one of courses where it was mentioned :

1. Exams. There will be three examinations. They will be closed book, no cheat sheet, no formula list. Calculators are allowed. They will be cumulative but will emphasize most recent material. The schedule is shown below:

Exam 1 (50 minutes): 10/09/06

Exam 2 (50 minutes): 11/13/06

Exam 3 (100 minutes): 12/16/06 (10:30-12:30, SAT)

Then I thought "what an exam on 10 september!" it is already 7th



...then realised it was 10 october not 10 september.....here it was my first "culture shock"

A great Photo journal

Check out the photo journal on a bolivian jain on BBC....It is like a city inside a closed compound and doesnt have any Policemen...

here's the link....

Guess who is this person....

Me in my complete winter wear!

Mysore Sandal Soap...

One of my favourite columnists in The Hindu, V. Gangadhar, has writtem about the soap I still use in his column slice of life

do check it out.

Satisfaction!

After spending 2 days at another country I was very frustrated that I wasnt able to even have a single meal to my satisfaction.

my first day started off with a Pizza slice at 1130 then a veg burger at 1800 n then ready to eat chole at 1130 in the night with bread.I could have eaten everything at one go.

Second day I had an oat meal in the morning and an oat meal in the afty.Actually, I had gone to McDonalds in the afty for lunch where me n my friend took 5 mins to explain to the guy at the counter that we wanted a veg burger.He told us there were no veg burgers @ McDs.I got so frustrated I decided to cook something myself.My roomie took me for shopping at 5 and we returned at 2030 with a LOT of groceries.

To add salt to the wound I ended up with common cold, which I hate like hell.

Finally made aloo curry and ate it with curd rice.

Then realised what satisfaction really is! :)

Rain!

Incessant rains had lashed Hyderabad for the past 48 hours. The whole city almost came to standstill.

This reminded me about my summer internship at Pune (Summer 2005), where it used to rain 4-5 days continously in the last 3-4 weeks of my stay. This also bought back memories of my trek in a flooded are nearby lonavala, madavli is the name of the nearby station.

3 of my batchmates decided on the trek. I had just recovered from mumps and was raring to get out of my room as I was bed ridden for a week.The 4 guys were myself, Nikhil, Jk and Raavan.
Myself and Nikhil were working at TIFR, Raavan at Pimpri (outskirts of Pune, industrial area) and Jk at Pune University.We always had to plan our social get togethers on thursday, which was the industrial holiday (sunday wasnt a holiday for Raavan).We planned to catch the morning 5 'o clock train from Pune to Mumbhai. Jk came to our place to crash in the night as he used to live far far away from Pune and Raavan was supposed meet us at 0445 at the nearby station.

On the day of trek I woke up at 0530 and realised we were late. Then I woke up Nikhil and Jk and we hurriedly got ready as Raavan was furious on the mobile at us as he reached the station at 0445.We finally reached the station at 0630 and were welcomed by Raavan's very friendly demeanour. We caught the 7'o clock train finally.When the train stopped at madavli I was shocked. It was raining like cats and dogs and also almost horizontally due to the strong breeze.I was contemplating whether to get down when Nikhil pushed me onto the platform. We all got down and enquired where the Visapur twin forts were.Raavan hadnt even got a raincoat or an umbrella so got drenched top to botom in five minutes. Others were not ar behind, eventhough we were covered from top to bottom by wind cheater and waterproof tracksuits we also got drenched from top to bottom in a few mins.

We didnt have anything till now. The only eatable available was Vada pav. Each one of us had 4 vada pavs and chai and started off on our trek.We had to cross the Mumbhai Pune expressway to get to the twin forts of Visapur. We reached a village and asked a boy to take us to the top. He told us he had to go school but told he will come with us as far as he can.We climbed some 200 feet and saw the view then we realized the magnitude of floods affecting the whole area.The whole area was looking like a huge lake just behind the Railway station.We climbed with the boy for about 500 feet. He was barefoot and was climbing the rocks at a fast pace. We had to tell him to slow down as we werent able to keep up pace wit him. He then showed us the way further up.The problem was we couldnt see the forts as the clouds were pretty low and we still didnt get a view of the fort.We carried on following the instructions of the boy and we ended up near a 10 feet wide rivulet gushing down the mountain. We were thinking whether to cross it or not.Me n Jk were against crossing it as we thought it was too dangerous.Raavan crossed it and came back but now we were unsure whether it was the right way to the top.Finally we all agreed to go back and find some one who would guide us to the top.

More about my experience in my next post..

An idea can change ur life...

The opening of the movie V for Vendetta starts off with

Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman): Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,/ The Gunpowder Treason and Plot... / I know of no reason/ Why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot... But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in his 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I've witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I've seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them... but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it... ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love... And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man... A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.

One of my favourtie movies for the dialogues and screenplay.

After 4 years when I entered my college it was convocation day.In the same auditorium where me and my batchmates sat together to listen to the welcome address by the director of my institute we heard him giving the report of one more year gone by at our institute.The guest of honour was one whom I admire very much, which is Dr.Ratan Tata.

In hid address to us he gave us this idea:
"Think BIG and act boldly"

He added that we are setting ourselves very small targets and should try to set our aims higher.
China is building the largest dam, airport etc. and we are adding one terminal to the Delhi airport that too by 2010 wonly.

Hopefully this idea will change someone's life.

Childhood heroes.......

During our childhood days I was so credulous that I used to believe the hero was strong enough to beat up 100 goons single handedly.

One of my first movies was Gang leader (Lead role played by Chiru :) n me about 6-7 years old ). I think this was my first movie. Can't forget the song in the disco where chiru and his gang sing the song 'gang leader' which goes somewhat like this :

G......A.....N......G.....
Gang Gang
Bajaoo Bang Bang
and the disco lights focus on Chiru
GANG LEADER!

My reaction was.......... wow! this guy rocks!

In the final scene Chiru saves his family by flexing his muscles and then there u have my first childhood hero.

There is one more movie where he is a poor guy from a village without any job and falls in love with the heroine. The father of the heroine challenges him to bring 10 lakh rupees in a month and Chiru's answer :
with a fiery look in his eyes
"This is a Challenge"

Still one of my favourite scenes.

Then there was the casanova by the name Anil Kapoor.I used supposedly prostrate before the TV whenever he makes the entry in a movie. The song which I can't forget goes like this :

"sapnon ka sajan,
mera naam hai lakhan"







Although I have grown 'up' I still have utmost respect for Chiru in Gang Leader but will surely laugh if I watched a similar movie like gang leader now.

PS: I was having a conversation with my friend and he presented a very interesting point,
Israel is creating such a fuss because one of their colonels had been abducted, whereas in India 150 have died and over 700 injured and we do nothing but repeat the same statements all over again 'Pakistan should stop harboring terrorists' .

Moral of the story (as my friend usually puts it) : India is a land of pacifists.

Trek Diaries 2..

chk out the previous entry on my trek before carrying on.

Our group was christened as 'Bajrang Dal' (the reason being pretty obvious). The only one out of the 31 groups which led to a state of depression in our tent.

Trip to Kullu
After lunch we freshened ourselves up and headed to Kullu. It is about 8 km from our camp.There was nothing much in Kullu to look around. We just shopped for a few things for the trek and returned to our base camp.


Cheapos didn't buy the caps! The owner of the shop was very amiable.He only gave the guys the caps carefully choosing so that each one wears a different design one.










On the way we got off from the bus, as we had lot of time in our hands so we visited the baes river.















We found a lot of stones having a flat surface then we started throwing stones so that they bounce off the water as many times as possible.



But Robstoy had plans for weightlifting :D



















Now to the most memorable event of the day!























We have camp fire every night during our trek. It is organized by each group every night. The group which landed a day earlier had the responsibility for our first night at the base camp. They came to our camp for singers/stand up comedians etc. I teasingly asked robstoy whether he was interested to sing and he agreed. On top of that we had an air guitar specialist rishi with him.I knew it was going to end in disaster so I closed my eyes when they performed. The song Robstoy sung was 'Sweet child of mine' with rishi as the air guitarist. It was a disaster Robstoy singing and Rishi giving out sound of a guitar. He finished the song quickly to the relief of our camp mates.

I came to know later that he finished the song quickly because he had forgot the lyrics of the song but he was happy that he had got an audience for his singing performance.

Great spirit.Hail Robstoy!

Trek Diaries 1..

The beginning
Just packed an air bag for the trek.Packing for a trek is pretty simple where u needn't take bath for a week :) . Then a 24 hr train trip to Delhi which I slept throughout. One of my school friends, Nisha Mohan, came to receive us at the station.She was our guide for the day. We roamed around the markets and malls of Noida.

The next day we met up with other guys of the group n were off to the Babeli base camp which took approximately 18 hours (Due to the Mountainous terrain).

You can't eat a lot on the way due to the meandering path which causes a vommiting sensation.










On the way we had a bad experience of eating at a Dhabha.The guys gave us salad and curd with what we had ordered originally. Then they added around 160 bucks for the salad and curd with the bill. We ended up having a heated exchange with the dhabha guys as the food also wasnt great at all.






The next day morning on the way to base camp, pit stop for b/fast :










Tomorrow the chicks will be all over us



We reached the camp around noon starved to death.We arrived just during the lunch time and went directly to thulp food.The food was great throughout the trek. i don't know why do we get bad food only in our hostels :( . I am learning cooking and found that its not tough at all to cook a decent meal.
















The anti climax after reaching the camp :












Finally they ended up all over eachother! :D


More in a few days time....captions courtesy Robstoy!

lets be on the safer side

I am back from one of the treks organized by youth hostel assoc. of India (YHAI).

In one of the camps I met one of the pioneers of the trekking expedition organised by YHAI. He is a professor of Botany, did mountaineering course in 1964.He is presently Vice president of YHAI.

We were talking about the general attitude around the world about the love for travel n adventure. He mentioned "we Indians always want to be on the safe side. We would never like to take risks. We have very bright brains but we still need to develop fearlessness towards taking risks.Many of them don'tcometo our trek eventhough evrything is taken care of and you just need to trek because of the fear who will go to the himalayas." He mentioned how he met many foreign students who go broke while travelling. Don't where they are heading next day and also on the shoe string budget they travel.

This is where I had been....on the background is the lake being formed from the snow at 13000 feet...

Height of irrationality

Check out the interview of our great Union minister (HRD) regarding reservations. It shows the level of IQ our great parliamentarians have. It is pretty evident that he didnt even care to look at the figures what the reporter is quoting. The minister has only one reply 'Reservations are necessary for development of backward sections of societies' for each and every question.

Afterall, democracy is the best of the worst forms of government we can think of. Everywhere the politicians have learnt to beat the system actually more than that eat up whole of the system and show no responsiblity towards the good of the nation. The only concern of the politicians these days being power. How to not lose it.....they can stoop to any level to achieve this...even sponsor riots, underground gangs and what all...

God save the world!

Sickly , Starved and Wild!

I am at home finally.....slow internet speed is killing me....Amma after looking at me said 'enna da Raghu ivlo sickly ya terriyara apparom idhe enna kaad mardhi mudi!IIT la saapad poda maatala' (u look so sickly and wild!don't they feed you at IIT)

will blog frequently again when i get access to broadband which is expected after I come back from my trek(jun 12)..

Look Gay....

The billboard reads :
" LOOK GAY IN GAYMAN TAILORED SUITS"

Nice advertising indeed!

My favourite dialogue...

Maximus: [after swiftly dispatching another gladiator] Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?
Crowd: Spaniard, Spaniard, Spaniard...

photo credit: Sudhir

Born to be wild!

abt my experience the day of my Btech thesis submission.....

It all started when I had listened to the song

BORN TO BE WILD

From the 1968 release "Steppenwolf"

it was the day before I had to submit my Btech thesis.....I had a lot of editing to do and I had a splitting headache.Then I went to my friends room and asked whether he was game for Mango milk shake at Coronet (Adyar) at 1230 AM. So off we went to Coronet. Then I asked him shall we go to ECR right now as the lyrics of the song go:

Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Born to be wild
Born to be wild

off we went on ECR @ 70kph on a bike withot headlights and poor brakes for 25 km till the toll both. It was an awesome experience with the wind wind blowing through your hair as the lyrics of 'hotel california goes' :

On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair

we hardly came across any vehicles and the the only lighting available was the moonlight.My headache vanished but my butt was paining due to the long drive :) .

Then I cam e back to my room and crashed off totally oblivious of my thesis woke up in the morning to realize I had a lot to edit before the submission.Finally, finished it at 6 in the evening and gave it for binding. A HUGE relief when I submitted it today morning as it signifies the end of 'The end' of my Btech as typified by the song 'The end' :

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end

The end of our hostel days which was like sponsored(by parent of course!) holiday (full of freedom to do anything any time). Like this song 'Freebird' :

Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.

These years were surely 'the best days of my life' :) and I surely was BORN TO BE WILD!

Fruit shop on greams road

Here is a place where you get unadulterated juice but at a little tard expensive rates though, so generally we go to this place whenever we go on treats.

So here are my favourites:
Jughead special
california quencher (watermelon juice)
freedom
Orange punch

This is a picture taken on my job treat which was 2 months back....but I can recognize each drink by looking at the pic right now...

So here goes....
will start with the yellow thing on the left and go in the clockwise direction...
1. mango milkshake
2.jughead special
3.jughead special
4.Sheik's shake (dates based milk shake)
5.Strawberry milk shake
6.Lemon mint cooler
7.Strawberry milk shake
8.Freedom(sweet lime+ice cream)
Grape juice at the center....

One of the places I'll miss .....

Ice cream bash@ My hostel

photo blog once again.........

This is an event where the warde of the hostel gives away mementos to the outgoing students. During this event I realised that I will be leaving my hostel in a month.

Hostel life changes your personality so drastically. It is again the effect of environment I guess. The sudden freedom you have of doing anything anytime without anyone asking you to comply with any of the rules. The start is the most painful and enjoyable part of it where you try to find your feet as well get an experience of this new found freedom and exposure to so many things at one time. For e.g. the first Saarang (IITM culfest) will be the most cherished for every guy inmy college even the friends you make during the first year with whom you tried to settle in this new way of life.


Here are few pics of the ice cream bash :
Me gettin momento from our warden
















WE did eat a LOT of ice cream
















Playing with dry Ice.....Look at my expression..it was too cold to hold!































After all only change is permanent! :D

New rubber form discovered!

This new discovery was unknown to the mankind for all these years. We thank the Caterers (RR) for providing us with constant samples throughout the week. We were also oblivious to this new form of rubber until we conducted the stretching test and the chewing test.

Here are the samples:






























The source of inspiration are junta who were finding it tough to break the rubber with both hands which was supposedly sold by the secret trade name 'naan'. The author has already filed for a patent.

We conducted the stretch test first. The results showed the material had very high degree of plasticity. We applied the test on Livestrong band which yielded much earlier the 'naan'. We strongly recommend this material for Livestrong foundation and also to Bridgestone tyre company (I am a Schumacher fan you know).

Now we move on the chewing test. The author had to test it on himself(which was painful indeed).The pic on the right is when the author started chewing the 'naan'.















After the author chewed the 'naan' 25 times...















After the author chewed the 'naan' 50 times...















Finally, the author was able to make the 'naan' edible by the chew test after 75 times chewing again and again.

So what do IITians resort to when they are made to eat 'naan'. They take extras from the mess or go to Gurunath to quench their hunger.Here is one specimen who was forced to survive on Milk Bikis as dinner.

















I would like to make a sincere appeal to all the IITM junta to popularise this new form of rubber(The author is ready to share the royalties).

Acknowledgement: We thank the RR caterers for providing us with such great source of rubber.

On god's own turf

This is a photo blog about one of my experiences at IIT madras.




It was a wondeful experience to play in an international hockey stadium.











The feeling was overwhelming when we entered the stadium. Imagining that international players fight it out in the same arena where we were going to play.It was being watered initially.We couldn't stop ourselves and went on to the field and started practising and in the process were soaking wet as well.








@IIT Madras we have this nice idea of having farewell match between the outgoing students and the future squad of the rspective sports.Thus, for hockey Dr.Radhakrishnan Hockey stadium was chosen as the venue for the match.




The hockey team squad.










I didn't have a good day on the field though :( .

































M for Mandak :D .

We had fun for almost 2 hours at the end of which everyone was tired physically.




It will be one of my memorable experiences at IIT Madras.

Life@IITM

Great blog by one of my seniors....

Do chk it out by clicking here

I prefer Left to Right

I can never ever imagine development 'trickling' down to the poor byt he policies followed by a government which is inclined towards the right.

Here is an article which shows the hypocrisy of the right policies. People enjoying meals at high quality restaurants near the largest slum in Asia.

Here a nice piece I read today on the Hindu editorial which conforms to my views:

Where Left differs from the Right

Where the Left does part ways with the Right is on the issue of public policies in general and on social policies in particular.

On the first, the key notion has been that, much as in today's world it is the private sector that drives the economic engine, the government plays a key role in devising tools to leverage the statutory powers of the state with the material resources and managerial capabilities of business. The provision of public infrastructure, a fundamental need in a huge continent such as Latin America, is a classic example.

The notion that the free market by itself will provide the highways, bridges, tunnels and airports that are needed is just as mistaken as the one that hopes against hope that the public sector will come up with the enormous resources to pay for them, willy-nilly. Public-private partnerships are, of course, the answer here, something which India is actively pursuing, as we have seen recently with the adjudication of the bids to upgrade the Delhi and Mumbai airports but the same goes for other areas. Chile managed to generate $6 billion in private investment (mostly foreign) in public infrastructure from 1995 to 2003, and its highways and airports are today ranked among the best in the region.

On social inequalities the Right's standard approach has been "trickle down," that is, to allow economic growth per se to take care of the disadvantaged, on the theory that "a rising tide lifts all boats." And while there is little doubt that without growth there won't be much to distribute, the evidence shows than unless carefully calibrated social policies are also put in place, poverty and huge inequalities will persist. Once again the case of Chile, where poverty was almost halved, from 39 per cent of the population in 1990 to 18 per cent in a decade, is a good example of how the imaginative public policies implemented by a responsible Left have made much headway.

Yes, the Left has won quite a few elections, a majority of Latin Americans are now ruled by Left-led governments, and by leaders who are more representative of their peoples. But, far from being determined to turn the clock backwards towards the failed, statist economic policies of yesteryear, these leaders, by and large, are keen on applying new, imaginative solutions tailored to their country's specific needs, rather than the "one-size-fits-all" approach that has wrought such havoc in the region in the recent past.

Jorge Heine

(Jorge Heine is the Ambassador of Chile to India.)

You can read the complete Editorial by clicking here.

Its not about the Bike...

The book is the biography of Lance Armstrong. A must read book indeed.I will try to capture the essence of the book in a paragraph.

Initially it starts off with Lance's childhood years.It was painful indeed for him as his father left his mother after his birth. He never met his biological father! Throughout his childhood his mother had to put lot of fight to make ends meet. Then he showed great enthusiasm for triathlon at around his teen years and starting winning a lot of tournaments. This supplemented the earnings of his mother as well. He became well known among cyclists in US and won some major tournaments then came the shocking news that he had cancer and he had very little chance of survival. The part after cancer life has astounded as he had to build his reputation back as a world class cyclist again which is very tough indeed. The 2 years he spent before winning tour de france was very painful indeed. The struggle he had gone through is mind blowing.I would like to qoute a paragraph from the poem 'If' by rudyard Kipling which is describes the previous lines previous lines perfectly:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";




I bought a livestrong band to remind me just about this.Whenever, I am in a place where I know that i am gonna get psyched I'll wear this. Today I tried it out during my presentation and it was the best presentation I had ever given.





I want to read the biography of Sachin Tendulkar(obviously whenever he finishes writing one).It would be a good read if he mentions how he takes the expectations of the whole nation whenever he goes out to bat.

Feel free to comment!

Comments Please...

For the past 1 month I wasn't at all blogging . One of the reasons being just plain lazy of course but a few comments here and there will be of great help to me to blog even more.

Waiting for your comments :).

Smile!

But stories like this one brings the smile back on my face

shocked!

What else can you go through when you read this story

Plied Higher and Deeper

Let me start of with the good news. My journal paper got its first citation yesterday night!

Was just plain lazy to blog or do anything else in the past week. My BTech project review is round the corner and I am yet get any concrete results. I have perfected the art of grinding by grinding a lot of samples for my BTech Project.

I was hooked to this comic strip known as PhD . Finished the comic strip in 2 days. Do check it out (especially those who are planning to apply abroad).

Had a heavy dose of subject-object relationship through Lila by Robert M Pirsig.

Started reading the biography of Lance Armstrong.

I support ban on crying.....read on

check out one of the letters to the editor in today's Hindu

Ban crying

If scenes of smoking should be banned from being screened on television and in movies because of their ill effects on health, television soaps in various regional channels should also be banned because of their dangerous effects on emotional health. If my mother does not want me to see my favourite actor smoking or drinking alcohol because I may start smoking or drinking, I do not want my mother to watch screen mothers crying all the time because she may become emotionally weak and start crying for everything. Just as parents are concerned about the content and quality of serials and movies their teenagers watch, we the teenagers are also concerned about the content of the serials they watch.

R.L. Narayan,
Bangalore

Oh my god! I have been tagged....

First of all I hate to be tagged....anyway as Sreejith has tagged me, I hope so this is the last time I get 'tagged'....

Five things I can't live without
1. O2
2. H20
3. Food
4. Shelter
5. Thoughts

Five movies I'd see as many times
1. Sound of Music
2. Pushpak
3. Snatch
4. amelie
5. life is beautiful

Five places I'd love to go any day
1. 349, Mandak IIT Madras
2.RRC grounds, Sec'Bad
3. Chemplast, IIT Madras
4.2/4, Rail Nilayam Colony, Sec'Bad (My home!)
5. Western Ghats

Five places I'd love to visit
1. Himalayas
2. Egypt
3. Venice
4. Andaman & Nicobar Islands
5. Rio

Five websites I visit day in and day out.
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport
2. http://www.google.co.in
3. http://www.orkut.com
4. http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/
5. http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?PL=M

Five things I love doing at work.
I haven't started working yet....

Five books I've loved.
1. Cathcher in the Rye
2. Three men in a boat
3. Leave it to Psmith
4. Mahatma's autobiography
5. The bourne identity

Five English songs I'd listen to anyday.
1. Return to Innocence - Enigma
2. High Hopes- Pink Floyd
3. Cloud number nine- Bryan Adams
4. Simon and Garfunkel, I love every song equally...
5. Dream on- Aerosmith....The list is endless I named 5 at random..

Five famous personalities I respect.
1. Gandhiji
2. Micheal owen
3.Ronaldinho
4.Lance Armstrong
5.Steve Waugh


Five fictitious character I like
1. The main character in Catcher in the Rye
2. Aragon
3. Abel from Kane & Abel
4. Psmith
5. Bourne

I have been very honest with my 5 post.
please don't tag me.
I'm going to tag ...
Arpan
nightwatchmen

to spread the disease of being tagged :D

I wish I could...

Thats me in the pic playing a straight drive in the summer at Hyd. I have been yearning to play a test match from the time I started playing cricket. I feel the one day format, I play of 25 overs per inning, is too short for someone. I have been yearning to play the longer version of the game. It is so interesting (for me of course! :)), as your patience , dedication and talent is tested. My brother has commented why Test matches are better. "Why else do you think I place test cricket higher. The better team always wins I repeat always. Over 5 days if a team loses then it deserved to.

Look at the SA they lost the test match within 3 days. On the other hand the "strong" Indian batting line up is a misnomer. On form other than Dravid no one else would cause any of the bowlers sleepless nights."

This wish will go unfulfilled I suppose :(.....

Sport!

There are always a certain mystic surrounding every sport, you can be a hero someday or a zero on some other day.

The shining example of Herschelle Gibbs, he was the guy who dropped the catch of Steve Waugh during the super six match against Australia in the '99 World Cup. I think he had his vengeance when he scored 175 against the same side recently(every1 knows abt this match). Ironically, he was dropped by Nathan Bracken.

One more quality of sport that I love is there is no value for reputation. i don't know why the reporters start saying before every match that this team is gonna win. Could anyone have predicted SA, termed as chokers, would have succesfully chased 434 in 50 overs. We have the best example before us even today, the famed batting line up of India will thrash the England bowlers on the Mumbhai wicket. Finally, England are on top of Day 2 of test match even though they are missing 5 of their first team players. Mind you England was on top in the past two test matches for the most part of the tests.

Unpredictability in result and the performance of both, the individual and the team, is what I love as well as hate about sport, as luck plays a very important role as well. Who knows if Gibbs had caught the catch 'properly' Australia mightn't have won the '99 World Cup.

The Greatest Restaurant on earth

The name is Shiok and is based in Bangalore.....after my futile attempts at searching for its webpage by typing siok and soik, I finally got hold of it through amit varma's blog .

I had gone to Bangalore or sorry Bengaluroo around Feb 8 to hang out with my brother. The service , ambience and the quality of food is awesome. I never tasted better food than this. If u give me a choice between Aishwarya Rai and Shiok I would go for Shiok without any doubt in my mind.

you can chk the webpage of the hotel at Shiok

The guy who started the restaurant is also a blogger and you can chk out his blog by clicking here

Contempt

Contempt: lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike; "he was held in contempt"; "the despite in which outsiders were held is legendary"

In my height of cynicism I wrote this poem:

Contempt

Contempt for myself,
Contempt for thyself.

Contempt for society,
which doesn't believe in honesty.

Contempt for friendship,
which I think is equalent to an industrial partnership.

Contempt for education,
which leads to nothing but prespiration.

Contempt for religion,
which leads to seperation.

Contempt for conventions,
which always undergo terminations.

Contempt for everything,
As contempt is the only thing.

One of my fav posts on India Uncut

India Uncut is one of the blogs i read frequently and now it has reached top 10 in blogger.com list of most visited blogs....

This post(It has links to other blogs) is awesome do chk out... by clicking here

NFS : Most Wanted

These are the pics taken when the great exponents of NFS, trained by me, were playing. The two guys are Venky and Kalia.