Story

Theta was sulky as usual. The "bad" tangent functions had once again tossed him around, roughed him up. Completely crazy. Those guys. I mean how can you send a nice, sweet looking, innocent theta all the way to infinity just because it has taken a 90 degree value ? Wheres the law ? Look at the Sines and Cosines, such nice people, never bothering anybody, just living their lives peacefully. Like sea-horses. Up, down, up then down, then again up. Always staying the 1 and -1 range. Such nice guys. I love them. So does theta.

Tan, on the other hand, is evil, for sure. But then how come he can do what he want ? After all he is just one silly little function. How come he can send people across from negative infinity to positive infinity ? That too in a matter of what, 180 degrees ! Unbelievable, thought our dear friend Theta. So as they say, "Don't complain about the darkness, light a lamp". Theta set out on his journey to find why and how is this possible. With two nice guys around, how come a mean guy can be so mean and get away with it ? So he went, to God.

God was his usual self, smiling in a silly sort of way He smiles. Theta protested, "when you made trigonometry, you sent three guys to call the shots, two of them nice and one evil, how come the evil guy does what he want, and the nice guys don't do anything".

God, sympathetically said : "Son, "Sine Theta"/"Cosine Theta" = "Tan Theta" When Good people are divided, The Evil guy triumphs".

A "planned" trek.

Getting up at 3..that was a shocker. Guys were late as usual. Started from Bangalore at around 5 AM. Not bad, I thought. Cries of "Jai Mata Di" filled the air. However, an incident was about to happen. An accident, well within the boudaries of Bangalore. Guy unhurt, bike hurt. Had to empty the tank of the bike coz it was leaking, and we have all seen the movies, haven't we ? A few solutions were proposed and implemented, brute force action winning in the end. This resolved, the trip was back on track.

AD taught me the word "floater" and his role in a moving group, also he decided to fill up this role. We were constantly on the look-out for the "two-capped" bike (:p). Speed thrills. Forget the second part of this sentence which traffic guys stick up your minds everyday. It really does. Some racing action happened as was expected. Was awesome.

Reached the spot at around 8 in the morning, and started the trek. Now I have been in plenty of trekking trips before, some involving even high peaks like "Har-kee-Doon" and "Nagtibba". But this one was differemt. As in, there was no "goat-path" which one could carefully follow in the hope of reaching the summit. There were just rocks and grass. Initial enthu got us fairly upto the middle of the hill but thats when things began to look difficult. The "fitter" guys were off finding ways, climbing rocks, and were soon no longer in sight. With two members of the fairer sex in the group, speed was not particularly fast of the latter chunk .

Reached a spot where it was impossible for the "heavy-weights" to continue the journey up. For the ladies it was easier. They, being lighter, could be pulled up relatively easily. Not so for others. Arguments followed. Some people wanted to climb down, others up. Yours truely, with all his prior experience of trekking (:p) was in the up gang, realising how difficult and risky it would be to climb down bare rocks with no rope etc. However there was no option, the way up was no where to be found, we all were sitting on a big rock for a long time, stuck in deadlock. Then it happened.

Godsend (Or have I been watching too much of that Heroes !) Two guys. Self-proclaimed professionals of this way of climbing up (with no path) appeared from like no-where. They gave the group hope. That was all that was needed. Soon we were on our way. Up. However some guys decided to climb down, and some others volunteered to help them do this (Thanks Sameer). The upward bound party started on the most difficult part of the journey with hope. And we finished it. Top of the summit !

Happiness ! Sitting on the cliff, looking down at the rocks which we just climbed. They looked so pretty, so neat, so bare. But we had been there. We knew what they were really like and what did it take to move a complete group safely across a bunch of these giant monsters. Mountains, they are so beautiful. Especially from far. Wind on the cliff was great, clicked a bunch of pictures. The buttermilk that we were promised (that proved to be a driving force for many a soul) was nowhere to be found. But the important thing was there. Water. And then came the extras. Hot tea. Warm Beer.[:p] Two of us decided to share one. Learnt an important lesson. When sharing a beer with another super-thirsty person, take the first sip. People say mountains teach us a lot of stuff. True, true.

Then came the buk-session, sitting on a cliff, now that was a newbie ! Location was new, topics old. Many more pics later we decided to climb down. This was easy. Found the much awaited "butter-milk" enroute. Blessed souls. 10 Rs for pure elixxir. Took pics with the vendors as well.

Reaching down, we looked up at the beauty we just conquered, the hill. It looked so majestic, so high, so awe-inspiring and knowing we had been there right on top and looked down at this road below, on which we now stand, was good. Chatted our way back to the parking lot. Learnt a few details about events in Manipal. Further strengthened my belief of a father's bias towards his daughter (poor sons !).

The way back was a quickie. Stopped enroute for a meal at the local dhaba. Food and soft-drinks after a whole day of tiresome trekking cum rock climbing. Heavenly. AD had to attend 2 parties (this is when another one scheduled was cancelled), so our bike was off. Reached Bangalore in a jiffy. Took an auto from MG road to office. Saurabh was kind enough to drop me home from office, was in no mood of a 2 km walk after the tiring day.

Had loads of fun. Great trip. Thanks guys.

Will put up some pics in the next post.

Of cams and fake smiles

Theta is totally grumpy otherwise.

He is like a Cosine. Just too pissed that people get to hear about the Sine first and then remember Cosine relative to the Sine. And any wave like structure they see, they call it the "Sine wave like". Balls, should be the "Cosine wave like".

Whatever.

But when Cosine is actually up for looks, up for display, he is all teeth. I mean, whats that..!

Chandeliers

I always hated chandeliers, they give me the creeps. One of those rare things that do.

I mean why design such an elaborate and fragile "bulb" when it is bound to fall and kill someone. Almost always at the wrong time, you know like when theirs a birthday party or a family reunion.

At least thats what they show in their movies and tell in their stories.

So much so that they have convinced me to take a beautiful, artistic electric lamp for a killing machine. How they affect our minds, these movies and stories and blogs and everything.

Spams

These spammers sure have become quite innovative, what with super cool spam filters employed by Google, Yahoo etc. There hasn't been any spam mail in my gmail inbox since ages. But all this changed today. A teeny tiny spam mail managed to fool the formidable gmail spam filters which usually work quite well and very rarely spell out false positives. The GMail team at google sure has some talented people but then I guess, these spammers too sometimes think out of the box.

So how did this celebrity spam mail, if you like, manage to outwit the carefully coded filter ? Ah it was simple, the actual "spam stuff" wherein the senders usually advertise viagra and stuff was shown using an image and the body of the mail was quite harmless as if written by a teenager to his buddy. Not trying to sell anything, not having any "keywords" etc. However the meat was in the image which clearly listed out prices of various aphrodisiacs and also had the name of website selling this stuff. All the information conveyed and the police (the spam filter) was caught napping.

Some creative rogue eh..!

Here's to the crazy ones..

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things. They push the human race forward.
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Mail to batch, from EPFL, Nearing the coming football tourney

It is a matter of deep concern that in our 4 year history at IIIT, we guys have come close to winning plenty of tourneys but have never actually won any single sporting cup. As must be known to all by now, The Football tourney of this semester has been announced. I know many of us are not at college right now, some of us are abroad, while others are in various cities of India doing their respective internships. However, we still have a sizeable presence in college and some of the key players of old times are still at the place where all the action is going to be.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a batch, long suppressed, finds utterance. This moment is here, now. We might be famous amongst our juniors as people who did the max. "bakar" in campus but this is our chance to show them, We can play Ball too. I call upon all concerned in campus to give it your max. Sleep,Movies, Comp Games, Chatting etc would go on forever but the Inter Semester football tourney is now, only once and then it'll never return, atleast for us. When we will be fighing together against a common adversary for a common goal. We take pride in the unity and spirit of our B2K3, what good is this spirit if we cannot muster enough courage to fight together when the odds are stacked up against us.

All this may seem to be bantering of a fool who sits on his desk and asks others to sweat it out, but trust me, Never in history of our batch Was So Much Owed By So Many To So Few. I myself would love to come and play with you, but that is impossible, however I don't think that, that really matters. You guys, in campus, are there and now. Forget your small number, forget your past skills. The moment is in your hand. The moment to embed your names in the annals of glory of B2K3. Grasp it. Practice and Practice hard. No adversary is strong enough to beat B2K3 if you have practiced enough, as a team.

Let other batches know, that B2K3 will not go down without a fight. We shall fight on the 25 yard line, we shall fight in the mid field, we shall fight in the flanks and in the centre, we shall fight in the goalpost; we shall never surrender. Make them jump through hoops to earn every single point against B2K3 and let them wonder how when a batch, reduced to just quarter of its actual size can still fight on, like a Giant. Let them marvel at our spirit and let them look at our batch with admiration. Only then, the true glory would be ours.

Batchmates in college, I have nothing to offer you now but blood, toil, tears and sweat.Practice and Practice hard..

Only then will eternal glory be yours.

All the best..The Best wishes of our entire batch are with you always..
-
Vikram

P.S : Parts of this mail are borrowed from famous sources but these were the best words I could find to convey my feelings right now.

Holi Party

Holi has surely never been a big deal. I mean sure it is one of the very well known festivals but somehow its Winter friend, Diwali beat it always in terms of the attention I (and most people I know) decide to bestow upon it.

However when you are abroad the love of "anything Indian" naturally is very high. The Holi festival and the way we celebrate it, has certainly not much parallel in the rest of the world. Also when you are abroad, the enthusiasm to do your "Indian thing" is all the much more. Thus was formed our fellowship of "Holi Celebrations" here at Lausanne. The fellowship consisted of :

and also Trivedi. Just that I couldn't find any pic with all of us in it. Also as all he did was sit around (:p) so no much qualms on excluding him..!

The first job of this fellowship was to orgainse holi celebrations and then a dinner or snacks maybe. But it looked like Sauron had his messengers far and wide. We visisted a variety of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi shops but could not find our beloved holi colours, or gulaal to make it clearer to my Indian audiences. After this initial debacle the fellowship was quite disheartened and the "enthu" had abated more or less. However a series of events led to yours truly letting his spanish flatmate know about Holi and her highness confused my "enlightening session about Indian festivals" into some kind of an invitation to some kind of a holi dinner party. Whats more she was gracious enough to rattle of the exact details of hers "conjured-up" party to everyone in the neighbouhood. More importantly she did mention about this to Rishi's flatmate and he in turn asked Rishi about it. Now, Rishi being a member of the holy holi fellowship was well aware that after the initial losses, the fellowship was just doing what it did best (yes sit on its bottoms) and there was no party. Now, this was heading towards disaster..!

Like in the famous LOTR, seeing the need of the hour, the fellowship swung right back into action. The rest as they say is history. Also as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll allow some JPGs to do the talking now. You can find the pics here :

http://picasaweb.google.com/suchit.agarwal/HoliDinnerAtVikrams
Please note that, all this was cooked by the holy holi fellowship from scratch.

Work Like..

Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

First Week in Switzerland

Bonjour..

So its been my first week here. And this week has seen a plenty of firsts of my life.

1.Firsts in the Restroom.
2.Firsts in the kitchen. (I haven't cooked previously, if grabbing the stirrer whenever my mum wasn't looking doesn't count).
3.Firsts of staying with people from completely different lands.
4.Firsts of staying in a "co-ed" student house.
5.Firsts of learning Spanish, French, Romanian and hearing a little of Italian.
6.Firsts of teaching Hindi to others.
7.Firsts of running through an "awe-inspiring" Swiss meadow. (At a "Not so great" personal risk).
8.First of sitting in a "double-decker" train (In which the TT(a woman..!) comes and says Merci (Thank you) when you show her the ticket..!)
9.First of cooking awesome "Rajma-Rice" which in enough for an entire day for two people (Lucky Rishi Kapoor).
10. First of eating Spanish "Taratia" and "Ham+Cheese" and 4 different kinds of Pasta.
11. First of people thanking me with delight when I offer them my "Parathas".
12. First of Discussing Boxing and Karate with my professor.

There are loads more, but I guess I'll save them for some later date. Switzerland till now has been a very new experience. The beauty and order of this place is surprising but I am sure you already knew that.

Merci..
Vikram

Is Saddam really dead ?

All right so a week back or so Saddam Hussein was "put to death" . Justice, as Bush said, had been delivered. Even phone-cam videos of his hanging and mortal corpse were circulated on the Internet. Everyone seems to be quite convinced that once feared by many and admired by some dictator is gone.

Well if you ask me, not quite. There are many unconvincing details about this whole Saddam getting arrested and then finally executed thing. Here goes :

1. Arrest.

Now we all know Saddam was this proud fella who had pledged the invaders would never find him, alive that is. He was a person who had ruled over a nation for around three decades and had fought long conflicts with strong adversaries(Iran and the USA). Does he seem like a man who would be found in a hole, helpless ? The special circumstances and landscape around his arrest seem to be customized to convey a definite message : The once feared man had finally been defeated and trapped like a coward.The footage of him being inspected by a dentist after his "arrest" also conveyed a similar meaning : The lion had been tamed. The arrest is too specially tailored to suit west's interests to be true.

2.Will the real Saddam please stand up ?

Its a well known fact that Saddam Hussein employed many "decoys". As in, due to security concerns many of his speeches were delivered by people who were made to look and sound exactly like him. It is very much possible that the person arrested and executed could be a decoy. One didn't hear about any DNA tests being performed on the convict. And in any case did the US Army have any samples of DNA of "the real" Saddam ?

3. The Trial.

Saddam Hussein was reportedly very vocal during his trial. Once again, any of his so called decoys could have been there and sounded exactly like him.

4.Footage of execution and the corpse.

There has been an angry reaction all over the world about Phone camera videos which have been shot illegally. The US government has registered its protest with the interim Iraqi government which his initiated an inquiry. Now doesn't all this seem a little too convenient ? Having seen the clippings of Saddam being hung(without a mask, mind you) and then of his dead body, the entire world would be convinced of his death. After all we all believe our own eyes don't we ? Well it is quite improbable that phone-cameras would be allowed inside the execution room when in most of the high-security zones it is forbidden to bring them along. Also one wonders what would trigger the lazy guards to shoot this event and post it on the internet the same evening. Some net-savvy guards we have in Iraq.

All this surely hints at some foul play which is underway in this entire episode. However truth is like running water, it finds its way.