kadambarid

A lifetime of changes...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:37:37 GMT

I realized on Oct 13th, 2009 that one's life can change in a matter of minutes, possibly seconds. It did for me. Two weeks later, I'm still surprised, but there has been an upward spiral of the time dimension with minutes of change, hours of change, days of change... collapsing into a lifetime of change.

I completed 3 months at IITB on Oct 16th, 2009. Three months of working with Prof.Prabhu Ramachandran. He is a dream mentor - I don't think I'll ever get a mentor like him. Ever. His students love him, those who work with him respect him and everybody who knows him adores him. I loved working with him, working with his handpicked team ... It was a dream run for me. We worked, played, laughed, discussed, argued, learnt, taught... He has his hands full with teaching, his PhD students, research, administrative work, MayaVi work, coding/development, the FOSSEE project, (almost every weekend's taken up) conducting workshops, delivering talks and a whole bunch of random stuff, despite which he would sneak a few minutes to play BZ Flag with the team, take us out for icecream and what not. He was never too busy for me.

I had told him even before I joined that I'll probably be around for a year at the most and I might be taking up my admit at UIC. The only thing he said was that the project needs me and even though he'll respect whatever decision I make, he'll tempt me into staying on. So here I was, almost 3 months later at odds with myself. The last few years of my life have revolved around me getting to gradschool, doing research. I had it chalked to the T. I had my admits. Then IITB happened and due to this and a few other issues I deferred one of the admits to Spring. I had/have funding in the form of an RA, so that was not a cause for concern. And now, my I20 is ready, documents are in place, and I need to schedule a Visa interview, almost set to leave in December. The question was, will I ever get another mentor like PR? I really didn't think I would. I would be throwing away quite literally the happiest times of life in pursuit of my dream. I suppose that's the way it is - no pain, no gain. He had scheduled a meeting with me to channelize my thoughts, to put various issues in perspective for me and to actually help me focus on research. That went rather well and at the end of I considered him not just a mentor, but a confidante and a friend, someone who truly cared for me and went all out to ensure that I follow my dream and do so efficiently.

So I told him. About my confusion and second thoughts on going to gradschool now. He got in touch with a few of his friends, and after much reasoning convinced me that I could go for Fall 2010. I told him only one thing - "I joined for the project, but if I'm staying on, it's because of you." He is one helluva mentor and teacher and I'd be foolish to discard "this" right now. As everyone seemed to be pointing out, the three months here have been the happiest in my life.

Then things changed. He started pacing. I assumed he was mulling over some problem and just sat down to work, fresh from a discussion with him, brimming with optimism and truly inspired. After long dragging minutes of restless pacing, he came into the cabin I was sitting in. He said he hasn't been sleeping well. I knew it - he was looking haggard, with dark circles, unlike his cheery, playful, carefree self. He said he hasn't been eating well. That was obvious too; he had lost a lot of weight over the past few weeks. He said, he can't stop thinking of me, that he has strong feelings for me. This from a staunch bachelor for whom romance, relationships and weddings were never on the cards. My mind was reeling. We sat down to reason it out. I raised an array of questions, still feeling rather dazed but sounding like the Spanish Inquisition none-the-less. He patiently answered all of them. By the time we parted that night, I had just said that I'd rather have him as my mentor and friend and nothing more. But I hadn't given him a blatant no or yes to his proposal.

That was just for context. Things started moving even faster after that. After a lot more talking, I agreed. He swept me off my feet, rushed me home during the Diwali holidays, met my parents, introduced me to his family, charmed everyone's socks off (especially all the grandmoms:) and basically led to a whirlwind romance and a fast but blissful courtship. Marriage was never on the cards for me. I am 22 years old - an atheist, who abhors rituals, symbolism, religion, marriages as an institution and a whole bunch of other things. But here is someone I want to live my life with. Ideologically we are extremes, poles apart, at some level - he's spiritual and religious. I am neither and actually used to hold anyone who was these things with contempt. Even before all this happened, him and my mom were the two people who I admired and had respect for despite their fixations to religiousness. That week was a daze - I actually had no sleep for three days in a row and maybe a coupla hours a day for a few days after that, and there were days when not one morsel could be swallowed. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Things are settling down now. We are really comfortable with and around each other. We have a lot of common interests but have inherently different personalities. I think that makes for a heady mix :)

So, I am in love. It's a heady feeling. Confusing, and frustrating at times but fun and happy at others. I still will be leaving for gradschool in the end of Dec or first week of Jan. Chicago it is. It will probably be a horrible few months, away so soon but every cloud has a silver lining - he will be traveling to the US a lot and we can grab a few weeks together every few months.

Thanks to kai_dranzer and nivedita_n for being so amazing over the past weeks. I am also grateful to Asokan Pichai, both families and everyone else for standing by us and lending counsel.

This is him:

This is us:

PS - Excuse the cheesy userpic :D

The Ajanta Caves

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:37:06 GMT

A few weeks ago I joined a bunch of friends and drove down to Aurangabad. With that as base, we visited the Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad caves, Bibi-ka-Maqbara, the Daulatabad Fort and a few other neat places around Aurangabad. It was a wonderful visit and I got to use my (then) new digital camera (I now have an SLR, courtesy a friend, to play with :), but was too swamped after that to put the pictures up.

I'll break the trip up and make posts based on the places visited. This one will have photos from/of the Ajanta caves.
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First glimpse of the caves. The entry to the region of the caves is so erm, unassuming (for want of a better adjective) that it's almost like stumbling on them!

This is the river Waghur, a mountain stream weaving its way through the ravine. It was supposedly the water source for the Buddhist monks based there.

Yours truly.

One of the most famous identifiers of the caves - the painting of Padmapani

Wall mural in Cave 1.

Multi-storey caves.

The Buddha meditating, multi-storey cave

Decorative arches.

A Buddhist monk, praying.

He graciously agreed to pose, serene smile in place :)

View from midway

Bunks, for the monks

View from the other side.

Little piece of glass embedded in cement along the cracks in the caves. It is an indication that the crack is widening when the glass breaks.

A wall mural narrating a story. The white elephant is supposedly the Buddha, who taught the queen (who had sent huntsmen for ivory from the elephant) a lesson.

I love the way the translucence of the cloth around the Buddha is depicted.

A minor doubt on Gmail labels...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:49:55 GMT

I have a whole bunch of labels and filters in Gmail, and I frequently use multiple labels for individual email, tagged as is necessary and also to act as easy reference for me. For instance, suppose I have an email from (?:))/ on "The Simpsons", I would have used my "Groening", "Cartoons" and "Humor" labels for this. This leads to a problem when am referencing or searching for this particular mail. I am able to search under one label, say "Cartoon" which will list all 500-odd (say) emails with the same label but it would make finding the exact mail a big pain. Also, it would be far more efficient if there were some way I could select (say) a combination of labels and find the mails under them. I am pretty sure this would be a far smaller list - especially if the number of labels involved were more than two. As far as I am concerned, list size is inversely proportional to number of labels, for the latter being greater than 1.

I could type the following in the search box:
label:Cartoons label:Humor
... but there ought to be a more direct way of doing it rather than this; doing this on an email client like mutt might be understandable, but having to do this on Gmail is rather irritating!

I might be missing some feature of Gmail that helps do this and I am ignoring any results Google might throw up with respect to this. I could email Google about this as well. But I would like to know if any of you have encountered this, have torn your hair (I'd really like to know, if this happened:) or have any solution...

I also have a few gripes on "contacts" in Gmail but that will be another post.

Google Wave, Vacations and random Musings...

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:10:28 GMT

I am on vacation now. A short one, but a vacation that is keeping me mighty amused. kai_dranzer was highly amused by all the hand-waving I was doing off late and sent me this surprisingly accurate summary of erm, my life :

On the plus side, everyone is supremely conscious of the fact that I'm out-of-town, and am still being pinged ever-so-often. :)

Another friend of mine has the following as his status message :
"Google wave accounts are on sale on ebay. Current running rate is 157.5 USD! #wtf (http://identi.ca/tag/wtf)"

Ooh, I am potentially rich by $150. But then I'd hardly consider auctioning myself - even though I've done zilch as a Google Wave developer! More amusement. Reminds one of the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon Cooper auctions his Sword of Azaroth on ebay (the video).

Kind of under-the-weather for a coupla days now - but then, laughter seems to be living upto its name :)

Meetup in Bangalore

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:46:04 GMT

I will be in Bangalore from the evening of September 25th till the evening of September 28th, for PyCon India 2009. If anyone is interested in a meetup, or if we can organize an lj meet during that time, it would be great... Do let me know by leaving a comment/emailing me.

The Raigarh Trek and the Fort

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:27:20 GMT

We left Bombay at 12 midnight by bus and reached the base of the fort around 0600 hrs. After a quick breakfast of poha and chai, we started climbing. Raigarh is said to be one of the capitals of Chatrapati Shivaji's empire and is considered one of his important forts, among the many forts he built strewn across Maharashtra. There are about 1500 steps, but a lot more walking/hiking is also involved. There are no steps for checking out the various areas of the fort though and there is plenty of treacherous trekking in slippery areas that is done, especially during the monsoon.

The climb up:

Inside the fort:

(The Temple of Shirkai Devi)

(The royal flag)

(Statue of Chatrapati Shivaji, one of the most revered kings of/in Maharashtra)

(Gateway to the royal Durbar, with the throne of Shivaji. What is said near the throne can be heard in the courtyard outside the gateway and vice-versa! The gateway is called the Nagarkhana Darwaza)

(The living quarters)

(All of Shivaji's forts are built on the principle of "accessibility for friends, inaccessible to foes". This one was no exception and it was claimed to be impossible to climb up in anyway except the prescribed one. As rumor has it, all this changed one night. Everyday the main gates to the fort closed at 1800 hrs to be opened only at 0600 hrs the next morning. A milk-delivery woman named Heera (this point is named after her) was locked inside the fort. She had a suckling baby in a village downhill and pleaded with guards to let her out much in futility. Finally she navigated her way around, reached this point and climbed all the way down, back to her baby. As the story goes, when the king found out that a woman managed to get out of the fort that was claimed inescapable, he honored her and named the route/point after her and went on to mount canons here and setup a watch tower.)

(I think this is the Ganga Sagar lake. Not very sure. But as legend has it, Shivaji's pattabhishekam was done using waters from here, which in turn contained waters from the rivers Ganga, Sindhu, and Narmada, among others.)

(This is the Bazaar Peeth or the market area. There are stalls on either side, and shopping can be done both on foot or on horse-back, with the construction done accordingly.)

(This is how an individual stall looks (now in ruins though). There are 3 partitioned areas - the first is the shop front, then is the storage area and lastly the living quarters of the shopkeeper.)

(This is how an advertisement of yore looks. As story has it, the name of a shopkeeper was Nagappa. In order to have an identity for the store and to advertise his goods, he engraved the symbol of the nag here, among other things.)

(Moi, standing in what is called Takmak Tok. This is where punishments were carried out - prisoners and offenders were rolled off this point. As legend goes, this was unused as far as punishments were concerned during Shivaji's rule!)

(The Jagdishwar Temple)

(The Samadhi (tomb) of Chatrapati Shivaji)

(The samadhi of Shivaji's faithful dog. If I remember right, it's name was Maghya. It is rumored that the dog died immedidiately after the death of Shivaji)

(A Shiv Sena flag. One thing I find irritating is the religious extremism of a majority of Maharashtrians! It's unbelievable, to say the least.)

(Tanks from the Barah Taki or 12 tanks area)

(A small temple near the barracks)

(The "Dhongri" group I went with)

(The Shirkai temple, again)

(The Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) has cable cars ferrying people to the fort and back, and also have a resort of sorts on the fort)

(Some of us on the way up - my maternal uncle (mom's cousin) who cheerfully took me along is on the left, the one with the blue backpack)

---

Couldn't take a single pic when coming downhill. It was pouring and we had a tough but amazing time trekking down in the rain. Streams and waterfalls erupted seemingly everywhere from the rains - I slipped and fell and nearly got washed down with a waterfall once! :)

The Fauna of Raigarh

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:09:26 GMT

Some cobwebs :

Some slimeys :

A shoal of fish :

Some creatures great and small :

The Flora of Raigarh

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:28:47 GMT

Just back after a two-days and two-nights trek in Raigarh, and more specifically, the Raigad Fort. I went with a Mumbai-based hiking outfit called "Dhongri" (meaning "hill", "hilly" etc.), accompanying a maternal uncle of mine who has been hiking/trekking with this group for almost a decade now.

Also, I got myself a digital (point-and-shoot - wish it were a DSLR :( maybe a year from now... ) camera. Finally. Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ7. I had initially planned on LZ10 but the store was out of stock, and this was offered at more than 2k less, and offered me 6x zoom (higher than the LZ10 and moreover, one really cannot hope for anything more than 4x costing under 10k). I got the entire works with a 2GB SD, batteries and a pretty good charger for Rs.6300 which IMO is a steal! I got to play around with it over the trek, although the batteries were a pain - I got the camera about 3 hours before leaving on the trip, and had no time for charging. Thankfully, I was able to charge them after the hiking upto the fort.

Now for some pics. Posting in themed installments.

(~~Not putting them under a cut.~~ Also, excuse the erm, horizontal tree - realized this only after uploading, and am too lazy to correct this.)

The flora of Raigad Fort:

Feeling like characters from books and reel life

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:46:30 GMT

A month ago, I felt like Lord Voldemort. The resemblance is uncanny especially if your luggage is in 7 different places.

Now I feel like Victor Frankenstein - having unleashed a (blogging) monster to the universe at large. My mom has made 3 posts under 1 hour. Pretty good for a beginner. But I'm guessing this is to be her weekly quota - but made over weekends alone.

And, like a few characters out of Robin Cook novels, House M.D. and Scrubs - was down with a viral infection AND a bacterial infection, whole of last week. Now enroute recovery (and happy about that, since the doc had threatened me with surgery unless am almost fine by tomorrow - now this play with tenses in the same sentence is darn interesting:) But what is worrisome is that my sister was also unwell for the past few days and today the doc apparently said that it would be better to have her tested for Swine Flu, since she's showing symptoms (including purplish fingernails!) She'll be tested tomorrow. We're more than a 1000 km apart, and she's also away from home... Poor her.

This has stimulated my already hyper-OCD about washing hands and feet, not quite unlike Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, and oh yes, Monica Geller from F.R.I.E.N.D.S..

Bombay's humidity is a killer. I've been perspiring like Dudley Dursley in the Tropics, and George Costanza climbing stairs!

Now only thing left is to grow a head, have the largest ego in the universe, and become Zaphod Beeblebrox. Now that would rank high on the Infinite Improbability Drive. The best medicine for this would be to ask...Jeeves?

Random pic

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:47:35 GMT

View from my erstwhile room at IITB's Main Guesthouse (Jal Vihar) - it's the Powai Lake beyond the fence. And this was actually taken from the window using my LAPTOP! :)

(For more pics, you can check my facebook page out)

Mom's blog :)

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:38:39 GMT

This is an excerpt from a mail I got from my mother today:

"I am using the net after a long time and I got to see a lot of missed mails. Anyhow, the internet and me don't gel together. I am using it now for putting up recipes for you and your friends, and all those going abroad hoping to cook with the help of the internet, and to satisfy demands for recipes from a whole bunch of people! Try them and if in doubt please call. As for the Kozhukattai, if it does not turnout the way you want you can always use the dough for amminikozhukattai. It is a bit complicated for a beginner. Good luck with the kozhukattais. Will put them up as and when possible in that blog which you created for me for posterity. Most of the time I cook with eye levels and reducing it to grams and cups is causing some confusion. Any how I will perfect it before you start your cooking..."

So here's another RBFM (Recipe Blog from Mom:) - Prabha's Kitchen. Welcome to it. My mom's a wonderful cook and there are numerous yummy memories of being with her in the kitchen. Anyways, as of now, she has put up erm, algorithms for instant Rasam powder, Onion Thokku, and a whole range of kozhukattais. Will be trying out the kizhukattais this weekend. There probably won't be any pictures to help, atleast for a while, due to various reasons. If any of you require any recipe in particular, let me know and I'll pass it on.

Music - Oxygen, the band

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:56:41 GMT

I was searching for something regarding the instrumental fusion band Oxygen and stumbled on this musicindiaonline page. And was surprised to find this phrase - "Karnataka, an Indian music NGO". nivedita_n - if you can and would like to, do try asking them to correct it to the obvious "Carnatica". Unless I'm missing something here...

[Announcement] Python Workshop at IITB

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:11:56 GMT

Topic: Programming with Python
Date: 25, 26th July 2009 (weekend)
Time: 1400 hrs to 1800 hrs
Venue: CDEEP Hall A1/A2, IITB
Instructors: Asokan P and Prabhu Ramachandran

Intended audience:
Engineering students who would like to use python for their basic computing and plotting needs.

Prerequisites:
Participants should be comfortable computer users and be familiar with programming constructs such as loops, conditionals.
Familiarity with programming editors-- scite, notepad++, vi, emacs- will be a plus.
Familiarity with using the commandline will be another plus.

Objectives:
At the end of the program the participants will have a good understanding of the python language, and selected libraries.
They will be able to write good modular procedural code and use objects.
They will get a overview of the other major topics, features and libraries and be able to learn these on their own if required.

Coverage:
* Motivation, background and design philosophy.
* Basic data types: int, float and string
* Core data structures: lists, tuples and dictionaries
* Functions
* Tool chain
* Overview of the standard library
* Basic 2D and 3D plotting
* Using NumPy arrays

Methodology:
Completely hands on, exploratory mode with minimal lectures introducing essential concepts and techniques.
Typically we will have short 10-15 minute lectures, followed by series of graduated problems. The participants will solve them exploring the documentation to do so and the solutions will be discussed.

If you have one or more laptops, do bring it/them along. For those without laptops, we can make a minimum number of these available on a first-come-first-served basis. Do let me know if you are bringing your own laptop along or if you require one, and I can try arranging something. We are trying to arrange for charging points for the laptops.

As far as installations go, you would require the following:

-- For Debian/ Ubuntu and the like:
(a) IPython
(b) Python doc
(c) the Python Profiler
(d) Scipy/Numpy
(e) Matplotlib
(f) Mayavi2 (optional)

-- For Windows XP (x86), Windows Vista (x86), Mac OS X 10.4+ (x86), RedHat 3 (x86, amd64), RedHat 4 (x86, amd64), RedHat 5 (x86, amd64), and Solaris 10 (x86, amd64) :
(a) get the EPD (http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php) bundle and you'll have everything you need! This is available for free for those in academia and others can utilize the free 30 day trial version for now.
( For participants from IITB, you can download EPD from this url - http://10.101.11.69/~kunalp/python/epd_py25-4.3.0-win32-x86.msi)

We are planning to have an "Install Day" on 25th July, 2009 (Saturday) from 10:00 am to 11:00 am and those who require installation of the above mentioned can have this done. I will confirm the venue for this. In any case, come to the Department of Aerospace Engineering and one of us will direct you.

This is not available through Edusat. For those interested in the webcast, I shall mail the details soon if you let me know.

Also, please mail me your personal details comprising of the following, if you have not already done so:
(a) Name
(b) Department/Institution/Affliliation
(c) Contact information (optional)
(d) You will be here in person or are a remote participant
(e) Bringing laptop/s (and number, if more than one) or require one

There is no fee for this workshop.

IITB, FOSS and other four-letter-acronyms :)

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:02:26 GMT

So yeah, I'm at IITB working on this under Prof.Prabhu Ramachandran of the Aerospace Engineering Department here. I'll be here for a few months atleast and if things go well might be leaving for Amreeka for grad study.

I have two admits currently - from UIC and NYU Poly, both for MS. I have full funding (an RA with full fee waiver) from UIC, while I have a "Dean's Research Scholarship" from NYU Poly which is just a fancy name for a fee waiver. At NYU Poly, I was told I can grab some assistantship on reaching there. I accepted the obvious - the one with full funding (just to state the obvious :) But then I got accepted into IITB and was/am real excited with the project. So as of now, I have deferred my UIC admit, will wait for the formalities there to be completed, and meanwhile spend some time working at IITB.

It's raining cats and dogs here and after a day or two, one just does what everyone else here does - prepare to simplify life, aka not venturing out without an umbrella. I've come to Bombay after 14 years - that's 2/3rds my life! Hardly had any time to explore but have managed to cover the Powai Market, visit a Gurudwara (another first in life:), hang around Hiranandani (an area in Bombay), check out all the eating options on campus, make friends, sample erm, local cuisine... and am now in Pune.Not bad, considering that I have been here for less than a week! Too busy to do any sightseeing at Pune but have visited relatives who are sufficiently far apart to help me get to know the place, and had a 10 minute stopover at Lonavala enroute Pune from Bombay and got nearly a kilogram of Chikki for my CAM (Chikki Addicted Mom:)

Have sampled some typical Maharashtrian fare: home cooked Bakri (a flat bread made usually of Jowar/Bajra), Lasung (Garlic) chutney, Misal Pav, Pav Bhaji, the quintessential Bombay sandwiches, Lapsi, Batata wada, Sabudhana Kichdi, Poha upma, Sabudhana wada... and throw in a visit to Monginis (incidentally, the same outlet at the Galleria Mall at Hiranandani as the picture in the wiki)

There are a bunch of workshops happening and we (the team) have plunged into work. So far, so good :)
If any of you are in Bombay/Pune, leave a comment or mail me, if possible.

Cycle Jackie Chan...

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:23:53 GMT

It's a thriller coz he is dangerous for me and I beat it when he's around, bad guy that he is else there'll be blood on the dance floor which is unfotunately not dirty Diana's. Who is it that spilled the blood then? Heal the world even though all I wanna say is that they don't really care about us.Things are now just black and white...

* Although his name rhymes with the title, I've somehow found an uncanny association between Michael Jackson and Bruce Lee. His death just reaffirms it!
* He might be most famous for his music and gyrations but what really impressed me is his patent on Antigravity shoes! Seems so reverently Kramer-ish!
* Some trivia - his autobiography was apparently code named "Neil Armstrong", for obvious moonwalking reasons.
* Some references close home - (a) there was a music store near my house (in Madras) that was called "Moon Walk" that had a really catchy and interesting decor... They unfortunately closed it down a few years ago but their "Man on the Moon" work, visible at all times over the front shutter (there has to be a name for this!,) is still vividly memorable. (b) Surya's gyrations to the song "Yethi Yethi..." from the film "Vaaranam Aayiram", a tribute to MJ from Gautham Menon (c) Reality tv show on Prabhu Deva, who used to famously rip of MJ, and was his initial claim to fame before he stopped imitating and started displaying his actual genius in performances/choreography... I saw an episode of this because I underwent exactly ONE dance lesson (in Lambada) from one of the contestants!
* The first songs I heard by MJ and my favorites as a kid (under 10-er) were "Heal the World" and "All I Wanna Say is That", more for the lyrics than the music. Obviously.
* I, initially, heard more of MJ only because of Macaulay Culkin, who I think was a reincarnation of Winnie-the-Pooh for his "cuteness factor" alone, and the frequent mentions of "Neverland".
* Personally, I don't think someone with all the quirks mentioned above and who thought of himself as "Peter Pan" can molest anyone!

Even Parallel Lines Meet at Infinity...

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:47:19 GMT

(Pardon the meter, and this terrible excuse for a poem. A literary disgrace, it might be, but 'tis necessary for me!)

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say
Many a time that might be true,
But sometimes, miles and miles away
Is simply just not right, I rue.

Happy, I should be, with life working out,
But why is being alone tearing me apart?
Why this hurt, this pain? I shout.
Handling all this with a smile is an art!

So used to staying in constant touch,
So used to sharing every smile, every tear.
Forced separation tears me too much,
I'm muddled,confused, and nothing's clear.

It should not be so painful or difficult.
Why is handling my emotions so hard?
The feelings are mutual and shared, but
Circumstance is making me the sad bard!

It has only been few months or less,
But what about the months to go?
When will these lines meet, not digress?
Such agony, such terrible woe!

A lament on communication, the lack of it?
When mobiles phones and internets abound?
Hoping is something I can do, and I can long wait,
But will this satellite start going around?

Narrowmindedness is to me a thorn,
Please break the dogmas and the rituals,
Stop the Old Indian/s with the horn!
Let me/us be. Banish the rules!

I know this separation ain't for long,
You can't stand it either, I know!
Missing you a lot, and hence this song
Just verse, wordifying my sorrow...

What's a joke if not shared?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:27:19 GMT

From xkcd (link), of course :)

Movies over the last 2 months

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:37:30 GMT

(i) X-Men Origins: Wolverine
(ii) X-Men
(iii) X2
(iv) X-Men: The Last Stand
(v) Gulaal (Hindi)
(vi) Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye (Hindi)
(vii) Pasanga (Tamil)
(viii) Delhi 6 (Hindi)
(ix) Abhiyum Naanum (Tamil)
(x) Marley and Me
(xi) Golmaal (Hindi)
(xii) Poo (Tamil)
(xiii) V for Vendetta

Yeah, saw (i) first, of the X-Men franchise and got floored. Saw all the others on the trot after it. Fantasy's one of favorite genres, and I enjoyed the X-Men series immensely despite many discrepancies in the films. And incidentally the print I had of (i) (that was circulated in college by someone who'd got it in erm, torrents; pun intended) was not the final release copy but something still in post-production and I happily lapped up the behind-the-scenes effect :) Thanks to kai_dranzer for convincing me into watching (i) with him and getting me hooked to it :)
I watched only (vii) in a theatre, with family, on dad's recommendation and it was a laugh riot.
(xi) and (xii) were played on the buses I was traveling in, on separate journeys.
My picks were (i)-(iv), (vii), (ix), (x) and (xiii); at least these were the films I enjoyed watching.
In the pipeline - an analysis of X-Men and something I felt it had inspired. Watch this space :)

PS - In case you noticed (I'm sure you will now), the userpic has nothing whatsoever to do with the contents of the post. Had a nice userpic that I wanted to flaunt :)

Photo chronicle of trip to New Delhi and nearby areas (1)

Sun, 24 May 2009 17:20:56 GMT

I recently returned from a trip to New Delhi. Was shortlisted for the PhD program at IIIT Delhi, cleared the screening but failed to get through the interview. Oh well... It was my first visit to Delhi and I made the most of my time there. Visited Agra and Mathura, got on a tour of Delhi, went through almost the entire market circuit of Delhi (with the exception of only the Lajpat Nagar and Paharganj Markets), sampled Delhi's lipsmacking streetfood, did tons of shopping, met friends and had loads of fun, the interview debacle not withstanding.
Went on short visits to the NSIT, IITD and JNU campuses. Markets I shopped at include Sarojini Nagar, Chandni Chowk, Pallika Bazaar and Pallika Parking, Faridabad, Dilli Haat, Ashirvad Chowk, Janpath, Connaught Place, Karol Bagh... not to forget the shopping in Mathura and Agra. Agra petas, Sohan halwa from the two hundred year old Ghantewalas sweet shop in Chandni Chowk, chaat from Aggarwal's, scrumptious parathas from Chandni Chowk's famed Ghali Parawthe Wali, gol guppas on the street, sweating out for a sight of the Taj Mahal... I've done it all. I even got caught in a sandstorm and almost got thrown off the cycle-rickshaw I was traveling in during this, and got a glimpse of Delhi's famed sudden fogs. Went by Sleeper class train from Madras to Delhi and the heat was a killer! NEVER travel to Delhi by Sleeper class during summer. Or go prepared with LOTS of water, and moisten face and limbs constantly with a wet towel. Return was supposed to be by AC but much confusion over my tickets getting confirmed ended with me flying back. I boarded a flight after 14 years! :)
I toured Agra and Mathura through Rao Travels' one day trip covering the Agra Fort, shopping at the UP Cottage Emporium, stops for food, the Taj Mahal, Sikandra and the Mathura temple-masjid complex. It typically leaves Delhi at 6 am and is supposed to drop us back in Delhi by 10 pm. Actually, we left Delhi at 0700hrs or so and returned around 0100 hrs the next morning!

Now for the photos from Agra and Mathura (rest in installments):

Me, at the Agra Fort

Inside the fort

The Taj Mahal as seen from the Agra Fort

Some erm wildlife, for a change

Multitasking - post office inside the Taj Mahal complex

Gateway to the Taj

And, ta da...

Taj and me

The Yamuna river, from atop

The Mathura Refineries

The EC Roadtrip

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:15:28 GMT

kai_dranzer and I went on an impromptu roadtrip all the way to Mahabalipuram and back, via the East Coast Road (ECR) and it was such amazing fun!
Photos and what we did:
We left home around 0730 hrs, filled petrol tank for about INR 150 (and the entire trip used fuel worth less than a third of the amount filled!:) and head straight out along ECR.

Me...

Nice sunshine-y panorama, with a boatman basking

Fishermen at Mutthukadu

"Hamare paas Baaaa hai" in Kovalam

Bustling mornings at Kovalam

The Thiruvidandhai Temple tank

Calf and kids go to Thiruvidandhai school

Roadrunners

The Tiger Cave a few kms before Mahabalipuram

Rock climbing, me

At the Pancha Rathas

At Arjuna's Penance

Wonderful breakfast at Moonraker's in Mahabalipuram

The Shore Temple

The Madras Crocodile Bank, on the way back from Mahabalipuram - pit with more than 300 muggers

Two Gharials, 3 turtles and more

Me at the Bazaar at DakshinChitra

The thinnai at Chettinadu House in DakshinChitra

Vinay at Chettinadu House

Kili Josiyam at DakshinChitra

A weaver at work, DakshinChitra

Kadambari with a Kadamba tree :)

A pretty wall-hanging of a pretty lambadi (gypsy)

Eye-popping colors at Andhra House, DakshinChitra

Grub on the way back, wrapping up the day - at Pitstop on ECR

The Pink Elephant

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:43:38 GMT

An albino elephant has been documented by BBC's Mike Holding in the Okavango delta in Botswana. (The story)The pink elephant looks like a pig with a trunk and actually looks might cute.

I have been to Kruger (mentioned in the article, where 3 earlier albinos were sighted/documented) and a number of other national parks while living in Botswana. We did go near Okavango once (having lived real close, in Gabarone, the capital of Botswana) but didn't venture in as we were a huge gang and the entry fee was monstrous back then (I don't know if they are following a similar system now or how much they are charging). I hope to visit Botswana once more (um, as part of my things-to-do-before-I-die list :) and vow to save enough for a visit to the delta.

We (parents, sister and I) have been to all other game reserves/national parks in the area though. And most interesting are the following in no order (deserving separate posts with pictures):
(i) the Trans-Kalahari walk that dad went on, for a portion of which I joined him
(ii) the ride to Seal Island, off Cape Town
(iii) the many dolphin shows, some of which offered more activities
(iv) being chased by an elephant in one of the national parks ( possibly Kruger, oughta clarify with mom)
(v) the monster elephant skull-whatever-setup hung inside a hall in one of the national parks (~~Kruger again, I think~~ Addoo Elephant Park, apparently)
(vi) exploring Swaziland
(vii) the Table mountain and sunset at the Cape of Good Hope
...

I should probably put up some of amazing photos dad took - there are actually sackloads of them!
We could sit on/ride ostriches, eat the gigantic omelettes made from ostrich eggs, watch various creatures saunter across the highway, stop and collect porcupine quills and feathers of dozens of birds, every instance is beautiful and deserves a photo... No wonder dad jumped at the offer to work there - he was smitten by The Gods Must Be Crazy :)

Theoretical Computer Science Colloquium

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:15:55 GMT

After a big gap (almost 2 months), a few talks have been scheduled as part of the TCS colloquium this week at IMSc.
Details of today's talk:
Title: An (18/11)n Upper Bound for the Pancake Problem
By: I Hal Sudborough
Abstract: The problem of sorting with the minimum number of prefix reversals, known as the Pancake Problem, has applications in the pancake network in parallel processing. Improving the upper bound for the pancake problem has been a subject of some interest. Gates and Papadimitriou proved that all permutations of length n can be sorted using at most 5(n+1)/3 prefix reversal operations. We improve the upper bound for the pancake problem to (18/11)n + O(1). The current lower bound is (15/14)n. The exact number of prefix reversals needed to sort unsigned and signed permutations of length n < 18 has also been determined.
--
Sudborough's from UT Dallas.
This will also put up on the IMSc calendar on the website.

Random things I did over the weekend...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:10:17 GMT

Saw the following movies:
(i) Luck by Chance
(ii) Delhi 6 (not fully yet)
(iii) A Wednesday
(iv) Dhoom 2
(v) Siva Mansula Sakthi
(vi) Gods Must Be Crazy (I never tire of watching this, and the series :)

From the list, (iii) was my favorite. Amazing movie. One that Kamal Hassan's apparently remaking in Tamil. I can look forward to that. (i) and (v) were pretty enjoyable - former reminding one of Fashion and latter a laugh riot.
Movies I want to watch - Naan Kadavul, Kanchivaram, Dev D, and Milk

Went to Bella Ciao for dinner last night, with my aunt, uncle, cousin and kai_dranzer- my second time in the 4 months, and had a wonderful time. ( Their menu)
What we had:
(i) Bruschette al pomodoro
homemade toasted bread topped with fresh tomato, parsley, garlic and olive oil
(ii) Crostini
homemade toasted bread with garlic and olive oil (Bruschette all`aglio + mozzarella)
(iii) Minestrone
soup with mixed vegetables and legumes
(iv) Crema di patate e asparagi
potato crème soup with asparagus
(v) Greek salad
juicy tomatoes, olives, cucumber, capers and chopped onions with feta cheese
(vi) Penne arrabbiata
spicy garlic tomato sauce
(vii) Ravioli mushroom
stuffed with mushroom and ricotta cheese, with mushroom sauce
(viii) Petti di pollo al limone
slices of chicken breast cooked in butter lemon sauce (served with mashed potatoes)
(ix) Torta al cioccolato
moist chocolate cake
(x) Chocolate mousse
dessert mousse made with chocolate
(xi) Cream caramel

My favorites were the ravioli, the salad (insalate), the Torta al cioccolato and the moussse. The choc cake reminded me of Tangerine's famous Death by Chocolate and scrumptious.
I had tried the pizza last time, and though it was good, I would have enjoyed more if they hadn't drizzled it with olive oil. So much for authenticity :)

A few days earlier, my parents, sister, kai_dranzer and I opted for Pizza Hut's Meal for 6 plan. Turned out to be pretty good - especially since we swapped the Cokes in the plan for soups (tomato, mushroom and chicken), We also swapped 2 of the 3 garlic breads offered for amazing tortillas (I prefer them to even the pizzas here:), with a Garlic Bread Exotica for the remaining and 3 different pizzas, which we ended up doggy-bagging.
In all, last week was mighty satisfying on both the work and personal fronts.

What I learnt today...

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:35:47 GMT

(i) We're currently doing Proof Theory in the Logic class, and I think Gentzen's amazing. We went through the standard Propositional logic--> First Order Logic/Predicate Calculus --> Hilbert's Axioms --> Sequent Calculus route, with a good measure of satisfiability and completeness thrown in. Lots of focus on the deduction theorem, compactness theorem and now, the cut elimination theorem. My favorite is of course the last one. Only two classes so far on sequent calculus and I already have a new interest!

(ii) I was among a fraction of students who took Cryptography in college as an elective. The majority opting for something like 'Software Documentation' which taught them to draft emails! While I did help a few students in another department with random number generation and stuff, I didn't learn much. I had William Stallings' book to learn from! The rest of the students in my batch took it after plenty of nudging and convincing from me - the college management refuses to offer an elective for fewer than a fixed number of students. And to top all this we had NO lessons and even took the semester university exams with a little self study and no outside help. No surprises there - most courses under Anna University suffer this same unfair fate.
So when I muttered Cryptography as a research interest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For instance, one of the easiest to learn from an exam point of view was PGP. But not one soul in college actually has tried a key gen - including ALL the staff! And I now feel stupid for it! The good news is I'm getting mine signed now and will have it uploaded onto the server asap. The bad news is that I know for sure that even if I had been able to do this earlier, I wouldn't have scored higher in the exam. Just an instance of how engineering colleges under Anna University function :)
The best part was all the pointers Kapil gave. How I rue that no crytpo talks/courses are happening here. Logic seems to be the flavor of the season, unfortunately for me.

(iii) Apart from the stream-cipher-MAC-single-primitive thingy, I also need to read up on the following:
-- Quadratic Sieves
-- Number Fields and Class Numbers
-- Quantum crypto
I still have zilch exposure to elliptic curves.
Oh, and arvindn's work in de-anonymization is extremely interesting - especially since it's more like popular science. :)

(iv) S P Suresh has introduced me to S.V.Vijayaraghavachari (aka SVV) and even sent me a few articles of his. They were a laugh riot, reminding one of Wodehouse - more um, Indianized version maybe. He's partially the reason for my elevated spirits :)

Hmmm...That's a day well spent.

Current academic stuff

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:04:08 GMT

For those of you who don't know it yet - I am currently a visiting student at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences - Chennai, working in Cryptography. And am wham in the middle of my time here. I am currently working on the problem of converting RCR ciphers into dedicated MACs and/or trying to convert the ciphers in a way that makes them usable as MACs (i.e. a stream cipher and an MAC in a single primitive).

*I know that a lot of people who read this blog might find that going tangentially overhead. This post came about as a result of my needing to put something up here that's technical. Call it an academic update of sorts.*

Apart from this I have also been taking courses, as a student:

(i) Logic - Prof.Ramanujam at IMSc with some classes handled by Prof.Suresh from CMI

(ii) Programming in Haskell - Prof.Kapil Hari Paranjape at IMSc ( The Haskell course page)

(iii) Programming Language Concepts - Prof.Madhavan Mukund at the Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) ( the PLC course page)

(iv) Theory of Computation - Prof.Narayan Kumar at CMI

(v) Algorithms - Prof.Subrahmanyam at CMI

(i) and (ii) are graduate level courses with (ii) being essentially for math students! (iii), (iv) and (v) are to help me brush up my fundamentals, but are graduate level courses as well.

Am bouncing back from a low in health, spirits, and plenty of self-doubt on my research capabilities, now learning all sorts of new things. This has lead to an enjoyment and late appreciation in what I am doing. The lessons are great, and my research work has started gaining momentum. From a sullen, grouchy presence in class and on campus, am returning to the proactive-participating-enjoying person of yore. This was one of the worst depressions for me, lasting a couple of months. And at the end of it, I have realized that I have learnt the most life-lessons during this period, and could have been more productive if I had realized a lot of this earlier. A few essential qualities in research, surprisingly do not involve intelligence or being a genius; more important are persistence, focus, and a love for the field. The last one ensures enjoyment and tenaciousness. And most important of all is balancing the various activities one is a part of, and one's interests, and prioritizing.
Now, these are a few lessons well learnt. Especially to one who is just getting her hands wet in research. They seem mighty obvious now, but my realization was slow, painful and all the more profound.
But yippeee, am now a happy person :)