Dreams unlimited

What are the activities that we do daily in our "common" day to day life ? The standard answer : Eat , Work , Sleep , yata yata , blah blah , etc etc. We dont realize that we spend almost one third of our life dreaming. The total science behind dreaming is not yet known, but my take on it is that the brain during our sleep time gets bored with less work ( see ... ironic isnt it ? It doesnt want to work when we are awake :p )

So it invents a parallel universe which mimics the real world. We are the variables ( though the variables are less in number ... ) and all the environmental constraints like gravity, etc are mimicked almost accurately ... Did this motivate Adi Shankaracharya to write his thesis on the real hidden meaning of life according to Hinduism ? And yes ... his thesis did ultimately inspire the makers of my all time Fav. movie "The Matrix".

I dream. I dream a lot. I actually can work part time as a guinea pig for those who are doing research on Brain mapping and Dream.I still remember the heavy traffic of dreams I had during the siestas I had in my intermediate days ( in Gowtham, S.R.Nagar Room 201 ).Maybe the work load or the tension during the IIT prep days got my brain going.

Of late, I have realized that the type of dreams I have is called "Type 2 False Awakening". Like the one I had in Room no. 2321, when Kiran and Bhakta were sleeping in my room (exams time of course). Or the Aishwarya Rai poster dream that I had. Scary dreams not worth revealing. I usually don't do anything worthwhile the next day.

But the reason why I am writing this post is because I have started to dream in the class also. No not day dreaming. I dozed off and then I dreamt that I was in the same class attending the same lecture but everything else was peculiar. I then dozed off in my dream to wake up to the real class :). Serious ... I am not kidding. And neither am I imagining this.I felt guilty for the next 3 days actually.As if this is all because I am forcing the brain to do something it doesn't want to.

What the was the most useful dream I had ??

It was when I had misplaced my wallet. I searched and searched for it, eventually gave up and went to sleep in a bad mood. Guess what I then dreamt where my wallet was. Awesome isn't it ?

Stress reliever

September maasam !! :p

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Dautya - 2nd edition
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September, as Wikipedia informs me, is not a special month. No country got its independence in this month. No big events took place except for the infamous 911 which changed everyone’s world. But as they say life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. And we had our mouths full this month. At the point of our life (as a grad student) where all the interest in sports we love becomes the last priority, we had to stop whatever we were doing, create time out of thin air and spend it on refreshing certain websites that report on Indian sport.

Indian sports? You must be thinking I am talking ONLY about what happened in T20 World Cup. No. September fortunately has been great for all the major sport events that India participates in. The month started off with much optimism in the air. We had just won the Nehru cup in soccer where we had beaten a much higher ranked Syria in a high-voltage final in New Delhi. The whole nation was shouted “Chak De India” when we easily won the Asia Cup where we overwhelmed Korea in finals. South Korea actually is the World Cup runners up. So lifting Asia Cup was no small matter.



Then out of nowhere Indian cricket, as if sensing that it was lagging behind in performing at world events, lifted the inaugural Twenty 20 World Cup! Damn it, the Indian crickets choose the worst moment. Mid-term exams almost spilled water on the fun. But knowing desis mentality, I am sure no one missed anything. Worst of all were those who were participating in Parichay. But now that we have won it who is complaining?

As a grad student, I thought I have seen enough thrills and frills in my life. But I was wrong as each and every T20 match passed a high frequency sine wave through everyone’s hearts. I have already started to cherish a few moments that will probably bring a smile on my lips forever. The fear that a “Chak De” type situation had come up for Pakistan during the Bowl-out against us. The time when I was sitting in my Lab in COT and refreshing cricinfo.com and watching in disbelief when Yuvraj was hitting those historical 6 Sixes. Priceless. And to go back home and find that this video was the day’s most popular video in Youtube? Priceless. And when Rohit Sharma flung himself to run-out Boucher in the crucial match against RSA. Priceless. And how about Sreesanth’s reaction when he took the wicket of Hayden? Priceless. Priceless. Priceless.





But the best moment that I cherish probably was when Mishab-ul-haq skied the ball in the last over just after he had hit Joginder for a six. That was the perfect moment when God for fun could have slowed the time for everyone. Wait ... I think he actually did that. What followed that cant be described in words. Chak De had suddenly become Chak Diya ! We had won the World Cup !! All the effort we put in by watching those matches finally paid off.
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Thanks cricinfo for the wonderful ball-by-ball coverage and these gr8 pics.

The BEST song ever.

What can bring words out of you all the way from the inner most depths of your emotion ? Is it your thoughts about your lover ? Or are you super-religious and cant stop thinking about the benevolence of the almighty GOD ?

For me its both. Depends on my mood.

So I find Sufi music every central to my very existence on this planet. It sooths me, gets me in the mood. Gets me going. This particular Sufi song has certainly changed the outlook of my life.

Well ... you cant blame me. The song is perfect if ever there was any. The mystical beats of Rahman with the hypnotic lyrics of Gulzar.A cheerful SRK dancing on the train lip-syncing to the energetic voice of Sukhwinder Singh. Immortal!!! Thats what this song is. Cant ask for more !!

jinke sar ho ishq ki chhaanh
paon ke niiche jannat hogi

For he, who is shielded by the umbrella called love, has heaven under his feet !!

So :

paon jannat chale chal chhaiyyan !!!

(So he who ) walks in the shadow ( of love ) ( and ) stroll in heaven !!

gulposh kabhi itarae kahin
mahake to nazar aajaye kahin

Sometimes when she shows-off like a flower and then hides, it is her fragrance that ( makes me ) locate her.

And then how can I miss these B.E.A.U.tiful line :

tawiz banake pahanun use
aayat ki tarah mil jaaye kahin

And then the sacred hymns :

mera nagama vahin mera kalama vahin
mera nagama nagama mera kalama kalama

( Enough of my sick translations ... its just spoiling the song )



P.S : Why didn't I start my blog with this post ????

Idiocratic America

When I came to US, of all the things that I was eagerly looking forward to, the most anticipated one was the doing a course under an American professor with many American students.This is my 3rd Sem now and of the 11 courses that I have taken up, only 2 were taught by American profs and hardly 10% of the students were from America.

Then when I became a TA in COT, then for the first time, I came in direct contact with American undergrad students. The "customer care" effect was clear among them. They would not hesitate to ask anything and everthing even before they try to analyze it. ( whereas we Indians would always be the last ones to ask "doubts" ). After a few classes of "How did you figure that out?" "ooh! thats tricky !!" and "Thats it? Is it really so simple?" , I realized that most of them were smart but unfortunately dumb.

Then I found out that most of the smart Americans who were not dumb, went into Law or Management field. Science and Engineering is not a popular option here.Thats why so many I20s are being issued to International students.

Then I saw this film "Idiocracy". Its a dark comedy film on what is going to happen in the future.The argument made in the film is simple : the human race is getting dumber with each passing generation. Well ... it actually is talking about the % of "intelligent" people in US.

Here is the intro of the film.



I know what you are thinking : Thats a dark prediction of the future that might never happen.

yeah ? Then have a look at this :



Ok ... lets spare the poor teen ... but lets turn our attention towards the President of United States of America.



Now lets look at a TV survey. ( ok ok ... they just included the clippings they wanted only to prove their point ... )



Believe me, I worked for 6 days in a Motel.I know that chances that these might really happen in US are bright. And maybe what Asimov predicted is going to happen in the far far future after all !! Science is going to be re-introduced by an extremely small group as a religion. Because when u ain't never fear it, u aren't ever gonna respect it.

To end this blog entry, let me quote Chris Rock here -

"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy,the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, pakistan is accusing the U.S. of not helping against war on terror, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named Bush, Dick, and Colon."

Hyd Blasts and the Terrorists psyche

A Terrorist attack is nothing new. But how the system responds to it gives an assurance to the people of the city because you never know when the terrorists will strike again. What happened at Hyd will surely give goosebumps to Hyd'badis whenever they go out with their family during the weekend to see a movie or to have fun in a park or even when they go out to eat in a restaurant.

The infrastructure of the city , touted to be the next big Indian city of the future, completely failed. At Gokul chat, no ambulance arrived. Heck! There was no police to take care of the proceedings. ( How well the police constables are trained to handle such situations is yet another question. ) All the injured were taken to the hospital in autos and buses ! It may indicate the dynamism of the Hyd'badi public as a whole but thats not the way things should be. The lack of policemen saw the media person make merry. As usual blood , dead bodies and soon crying family members will be on TV . Courtesy : The media today.

Within 24 hours, the government has come up with an Islamic Terrorist organization. Whats in the name? They are all the same. And even I , thousands of miles away from Hyd'bad, know that it is SIMI which is behind it.Why ? Simple. Gokul Chat.

The bomb at this eatery only indicates that the terrorist who planned it is from Hyderabad. Not only that, the scary part is that this indicates that he is not only young, but probably educated. Because, this is located at Koti, a heaven for book lovers.A place where you can find any book in the world for 1/4th its original price.

In fact, I have many fond memories of that place. I remember buying all the 5 books of Harry Potter books and gifting them to my sister on her B'Day. And those countless times I went to buy novels. And every time I went there , I did eat at the Gokul chat.

And that this terrorist could convince their bosses that this was a good target.( even though it wasn't have high profile place and even the "number of kills" would be less ) This means that either the young terrorists are very smart or that their bosses themselves are Hyd'badis !! Scary , isn't it ? Their psyche is just getting more and more complex.

What is the solution to all this?Nothing comes to my mind. Oh God, Why wasn't I born in a era when conflicts could be resolved through wars.

GISO pick-ups !

Here is one more cut-paste from Dautya.Its a funny anecdote on the whole GISO pick-up work.

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Come fall and students enter UH in thousands.Nothing changed in that statistic even this year.But this time students from India decieded to enter UH in hunderds.160 to be exact.Not impressed? Considering the fact that last year the total of 75 itself was a record high and that GISO provides free pick up from the airport and also free accomodation to almost anyone who has the common sense of filling out a simple pick-up request form on GISO's website.Or dont consider my consideration.Go and meet Vijay Jaina and Anup.Poor guys who probably have stared more into the Excel sheets ,containing the pick-up list, than the developers of MS Office ever did.( How Vijay Jaina and Anup got sucked into this is not entirely known.But before they were assigned the job, the president was seen roaming around looking for members who have experience working on MS Excel, for a simple task. )

Jokes apart, the whole pick-up event has literally drained all the energy out of everyone who have been involved right from the Excel sheet managers to the pick-up men ( couldnt find a better word ) and to those who accomodated the newbies in their apartments.Everyone did their bit by pushing themselves to their limits.At one point of time, many member's apartments were "filled" with atleast 3 temps.But strangely, not all wanted to let go of the temps.Because that would only mean new temps would just barge in.GISO was grateful to its alumni, for the alumni played its part in picking up the newcomers from the airport.The same cant be said about the present members who participated in the pick-ups. Because rumours were rife that some of them were actually praticing driving on the freeway by making the newcomers bakras.

But one thing did not change.Even this year the pick-ups were full of drama, action and emotion.Right from the pick-up man who was afraid that more parts of his brand new 2nd hand car would "fall down" during the pickups to the scene in one of the apartments went all the temps went to bath by pulling the curtain out of the bath-tub ( which almost flooded the restroom ).But the worst of all was that of the loudly announced and celebrated "Last pick up of Fall 2007" which proved to be a dud as that student didnt actually belong to our school but to UH,CLear Lake.A small lapse by the Excel sheet managers left the pick-up man stranded in the airport for more than 3 hours.He apparently ran from pillar to post at the airport trying to unearth the elusive Mr.Lastpickup.

So what would be the situation next year? I think it would have been a simpler task this year itself if Mr.President would have listened to loud noises from some quater of the GISO members. Rent a bus, make everyone come on the same date to Houston.Install a tent out side the International arrivals where the Excel sheet guys would be sitting and confirming the arrival of everyone.Surely this would have made the pick-ups a picture event.And this article would have made it to The Houston Chronicle instead of only Dautya.Is the next would-be president noting this point ?


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Dautya - Message from the Editor

Things are moving fast.I am working as a journalist in Indoamerican-news and now I am also the Editor of the DAUTYA, the newsletter of GISO,UH.The questions that has been nagging me is whether or not I should cut-paste the articles that I am writing for them.

I have given it a long thought and have decided to include articles that can be included in my blog ie all concert reviews, interviews, etc have to be excluded.

So here is my first cut-paste. It is the message from the editor for the first ever edition of Dautya.It is highly unfortunate that all the articles of the newsletter were written in a few hours time.But it was well received and of course things are going to be lot better from the next edition onwards.

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Why does GISO need a newsletter?Its because GISO as an organization has successfully planted itself as an umbrella for all Indian students in UH.Because now a platform was needed where an Indian Graduate student could share his American experience with everyone.Because its is high time every GISO member stays in sync with the activities that are taking place under GISO.

Due to these compelling reasons, the newly elected GISO committee ,under the leadership of Srinath Iyer, has decide to throw the hat into the ring and come up with "Dautya" in such short notice.And no better day to launch it than India's 60th Independence day. A day which instills a profound feeling of love towards India because we, here in US, miss it more than anyone else even though Houston and especially UH has become our home away from home.

"Dautya" is going to be a monthly edition so that we grad students will be able to squeeze out some time and come up with some interesting articles for our readers.As an editor, I am going to cajole all members of GISO to contribute and I am not ruling out harassment to get the job done.

THe newsletter would include articles which are of importance to all Graduate students in UH.From general GISO news to interesting articles like "Ancient Indian Mathematicians" and to more usable fashion and cooking tips, Dautya would soon surely gain acceptance from GISO members and would actually help in making GISO more active and responsible.The first ever copy of Dautya is a paper print-out but further editions would be in a much friendlier pdf format.

So guys, buckle up and watch out for this space!

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In-dependence day

Happy Birthday to my beloved India.

A 60 year old India is surprisingly far more active and vibrant than the 50 year old one. What happened in these 10 years that has changed completely the perception of India in the whole world ? What happened in these 10 years that has changed the way we look at our own country?

India is selling itself as a brand to the world.It is selling the idea of India to Indians.That I feel is the difference.

Consider the situation in 1997.India was on a new journey.Economic policies had shifted drastically only 5 years ago and not all political parties had grasped it.Now after 10 years, we even have the Left parties which have paved the way for Industrialization in West Bengal !

In these 10 years, we have seen an unprecedented change in the way the government works.India has lot its shyness to hold parties in 5 Star hotels to attract foreign investors. India is far more ready to accept new technology to reduce corruption and red-tapism. India is far more eager to see Indians prosper rather than the earlier concept of seeing India as a community prosper.India is ready to make new friends ie America. India is ready to believe in the youth and the youth believes in India.

Lets see where we are after 10 more years !!

Pics that changed the world

I generally spend 3-4 hours on net trying to read up historical events of the world ( not from any one countries point of view ). I do it because I always wanted to become a historian and of course because I am ample free time.I found over the years that whenever I recollect those events , all I remember is the emotion that I had felt while reading/watching that event but along with that emotion comes a picture. I dont know why my mind is tuned like that but to me personally, a picture conveys a lot more than a thousand words but surprisingly even more than a video.

So here are a few of those pics that always haunt me.

1) Tiananmen Square 1989

Why are you here? You have caused nothing but misery.

I remember when I first came to know about this event , I thought it was just another student protest. Philippines, Malaysia and even India ( Mandal commission ( 91 ? ) and the anti-reservation protests from last year ) have had many student protests which made me undermine this. I also thought this was given hype because China is a communist country. But when I saw Dr. Lee crying while watching a documentary on it, I realized I was wrong.

Who was he ? He is probably dead, one among the thousands butchered brutally in the open by their own government. Makes me ponder on the same question again and again : Why do all communist countries maintain a veil of secrecy ?You try to hide something when you know that it is wrong.If freedom of speech and freedom of press allowed in communist countries then that system would beat demo(n)cracy hands down.

2) Anne Frank.

Though this picture doesnt represent the event in discussion but for me and the millions of others who have read her diary it represents much more than the holocaust.I still remember raising my hand in the class when my English teacher offered to give this diary for a read to anyone interested in the class. Though I admit I raised it because I wanted to be in her good books, I am glad I did it and went on to read Anne Frank's diary.And after a number of books, documentaries and films ( the best being Schindler's list by Spielberg ), this is what comes to my mind ( Yes ! It even beats the Auschwitz's Death gate. )

P.S. : Hitler without the holocaust would have been my number uno hero.

3) The Kiss

The joy, the relief and everything else in this beautiful photo taken on VJ day. Clearly my favorite.

But the small nagging question still remains : Does this kiss avenge the death of the millions lost in the war ?

4) !!

No words . Its time for action after seeing this photo, I have decided to donate money and make my friends follow me.Deadline : August 29th ( my birthday ).And I seriously want this pic to change the world ( if it is not already ). FYI, the photographer Kevin Carter committed suicide after receiving an award for the photo.

These are my top 4.

My Blog title

Wait.
Give me a chance to explain my blog title.

Of course it is a Sanskrit word. And of course I wanted my title to be an oxymoron.
So I choose this word Gadgadadhvani, which means "inarticulate expression of joy or grief".

Let me start my blog by invoking God with these verses :

ॐ ! May my speech be based on (i.e. accord with) the mind;
May my mind be based on speech.
O Self-effulgent One, reveal Thyself to me.
May you both (speech and mind) be the carriers of the Veda to me.
May not all that I have heard depart from me.
I shall join together (i.e. obliterate the difference of) day
And night through this study.
I shall utter what is verbally true;
I shall utter what is mentally true.
May that (Brahman) protect me;
May That protect the speaker (i.e. the teacher), may That protect me;
May that protect the speaker – may That protect the speaker.
ॐ ! Peace ! Peace ! Peace !