Silver Reflects

I have moved!

2006-04-29T22:15:00.000+05:30

This blog has moved to a new home at http://rajatupadhyaya.net/blog. Please update your bookmarks & the links which were pointing here.

First Anniversary

2006-04-01T12:18:00.000+05:30

It has been a year since I started this blog with this post. The most memorable thing about that first post was the first comment that was registered - by Mr.Barger himself in response to the "Did you know?" section in that post. "How did he know about your blog?", you may ask. Presumably he had used one of those tracker thingies which send out alerts whenever there is some new content on the web about the topics you specify. Anyway, thanks Mr.Barger - for the comment (that made my day) and for the erstwhile neologism.

Thanks to all of you who still try to follow my posts despite my erratic posting patterns. Muchas gracias!

P.S. I have certain things planned for the blog. Let us see how things turn out. (And for the Doubting Thomases out there, I am not joking. ;-)

Premier Afternoon

2006-03-30T23:28:00.000+05:30

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Premier Bookshop to redeem the coupons we had won at two of KQA's open quizzes (in particular, the open quiz on February 5^th by Avinash Thirumalai & Siby Kuriakose of the Thought Gang & the one conducted by Dibyendu Das & Vinay Das on March 26^th). We had been instructed to redeem them before April 15^th. I didn't understand the reason for this until I read Suresh Menon's article in the Sunday Herald supplement of the Deccan Herald dated March 26^th :-

“Soon the bookshop itself will no longer be there: Premier is on the verge of closing down.”

Needless to say, I couldn't believe my eyes. Premier? Closing down? What's happening? At the bookshop I talked to the proprietor, Mr.Shanbhag about this - it seems the lease for the place has expired & now the owner is reluctant to renew it. Mr.Shanbhag has been asked to vacate the place by around April end. So he is currently searching for another place where he can set up shop again. It was heartening to see some customers offering to help him out in searching for suitable places. I wished him the best in his quest & returned with these :-

The Search by John Battelle (in a previous post, I had talked about toying with the idea of buying this - well, I bought it :-)
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Browser War, Reloaded

2006-03-29T16:15:00.000+05:30

In the last week of January, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. This works only with Windows XP SP2. I had read about the amount of freshly copied features from better browsers (read Firefox & Opera) which would be available in IE7. Curious to see how the new & improved(?) IE would look, I downloaded & installed the browser.

Check out this screenshot of my desktop with IE7 showing the Google search page :-

Quick! Can you find the Stop button? Time up. Now can you find the Refresh button? Time up. Well, could you find them? Immediately? No? Look hard at the top right area of the image. Found them?

Typically one would be accustomed to having all the navigation buttons together at the top left. To achieve differentiation, Microsoft seems to have gone in for unintuitive interfaces. I want to stop some page from loading & I suddenly find that my Stop button is missing from its usual place. By the time I spot what I think is the Stop button & click on it, the page would have already loaded. Moreover I feel that both the Refresh & Stop buttons are not very responsive - they hardly seem to get depressed. And what is the reason for this wholesale shuffling of buttons? MS says they want to foil the attempts made by some sites to trick users into clicking on imitation toolbars at the top of the page. Huh? Whatever.

Tabbed browsing, anti-phishing tool(s), RSS feed detection are a few of the new features in IE7. But most Web developers want IE to support standards first - an area where IE has differentiated itself very well from its competitors ;-).

The release doesn't make any difference to me anyway. I have been using Firefox for a few years now & before that I had been using Opera (Before Opera? IE 5.x, of course. But those were the times when I was just getting my feet wet online. That's excusable, I guess :-).

Interesting fact about the browser wars :- Microsoft is beginning to face stiff competition from Firefox, which actually rose out of the Mozilla codebase which in turn was contributed by Netscape Corporation when they were being blown out of the browser business by Microsoft in mid 90s. So, will Firefox become IE's nemesis and avenge its ancestor? We can only wait & watch.

A Bookworm's Diet

2006-02-26T20:53:00.000+05:30

An update on the books I have read since my last update :-

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Good read)
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (Typical King)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Peter Pan by J M Barrie (Wonderful writing - most of the incidents seem metaphorical, providing different interpretations for children & adults)
The Lord Of The Rings by J R R Tolkien (Tolkien IS God :-)
Under the Radar - How Red Hat Changed the Software Business & Took Microsoft by Surprise - by Robert Young (CEO of Red Hat) & Wendy Goldman Rohm (Incoherent flow, bad editing & at times, the writing stinks too. The best part of the book was the section in the Appendix on 'Understanding the IPO Process')
State of Fear by Michael Crichton (Pretty good. Enormous amounts of data dished out at times. Hurried ending)
The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien (second reading)
The Complete Adventures of Feluda - Volume 1 by Satyajit Ray (Translated by Gopa Majumdar) (Positively brilliant. More in another post)

Currently reading :-

The Complete Adventures of Feluda - Volume 2 by Satyajit Ray (Translated by Gopa Majumdar)

A villain remembered

2006-01-25T22:58:00.000+05:30

The year was 1996. It had been around 2 months since I had entered high school, when I received a letter from my 'alma mater' asking me to attend that year's Independence Day celebrations in our locality as I would be receiving an award for being the school topper in the Class VII examinations. I knew there would be some big names at the event as it had been the practice of the organisers to invite prominent personalities from various fields to the function. Naturally I was excited at the prospect of being 'feted' by some big shot :-). However I was a tad disappointed to learn that the award would be given by Vajramuni, one of the most popular villains in the Kannada film industry. The appropriateness of inviting a 'bad guy' to give away an award for 'academic excellence' to impressionable youngsters was lost on me at that time. August 15^th arrived and I went to the venue along with my parents & my kid brother. Now, Vajramuni had a characteristic style of demonstrating villainy - while plotting the downfall of the hero (usually Rajkumar) his eyes would narrow down to slits, his anger would be theatrical to the core, the typical sneer would be present most of the times. It was rather strange to see the same man looking serious in a dignified way and actually smiling kindly. In the end, he presented me with a cup & also garlanded my dad. I still have two photographs of the award ceremony.

This man who had been jailed, beaten & killed innumerable times on the silver screen, expired for the last time on January 5, 2006. I learnt about this the next day when I glanced at the front page of the newspaper before leaving for office. All through my journey to the office, a sense of sadness prevailed. Though I had met the man for a few fleeting moments, his presence that day had impressed upon me the distinction between reel & real life.

May his soul rest in peace.

A Landmark Evening

2006-01-23T22:54:00.000+05:30

Yesterday evening I went along with my brother to Landmark at The Forum Mall, to utilize a gift voucher won by him for being part of the 2^nd Best School Team in last year's Landmark Quiz held in Bangalore on November 1.

Forum was crowded as usual. In Landmark, the hordes seemed all eager to grab their copy of the 'contemporary classic' ON@TCC by Chetan Bhagat (the website claims that he is the author of two contemporary classics; needless to say, a barrel of salt would be handy here. Aadisht has written a nice review of the book). I happened to eavesdrop upon (unintentionally, of course) an exchange between two 'software types' :-

A : (lifting up a copy of Malgudi Days) "Hey, I have heard about this book somewhere before."
B : "That's by R K Narayan. Brother of cartoonist R K Laxman ...".

I didn't catch the rest of the conversation as I hurried away in the opposite direction. However, A's words left me awash with a feeling of incredulity which soon gave way to pity for the poor soul - after all, he didn't know what he was missing. The Chetan Bhagats of the world seem to have driven out the Narayans from the minds of the masses. A lamentable reflection of our commercialized times.

Before I sign off, here's what we bought :-

The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien (I had already read this in 2004)
The Complete Adventures of Feluda - Volume 2 by Satyajit Ray
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk ( was highly recommended by SI, The Hindu & Deccan Herald )
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Redemption, at last!

2006-01-21T21:00:00.000+05:30

On December 4^th 2005, we (SI, TD & myself) conducted the Ganesh Nayak Memorial Open Quiz under the aegis of the KQA. For our efforts, we received book coupons from the Premier Book Shop. After more than a month of procrastinating, I finally set out today to redeem the coupon for what it was worth. I left for the place at around 12 P.M and managed to catch a bus at around 12.30 P.M. Route No. 201 being the circuitous route that it is, took more than an hour to reach Residency Road. A ten minute walk from there & I found myself facing the book shop. Alas! The doors were locked & a sign dangling from the door plainly reminded me that the shop closes for lunch at 1.30 P.M and wouldn't open till 3 P.M. Resignedly I loafed around M G Road, went to Higginbothams, saw John Batelle's The Search there (currently toying with the idea of buying it), ..., well, never mind.

Anyway, I came back to the shop at 2.45, & thankfully Mr.Shanbhag had opened the shop early. So dashed in & after much searching, many enquiries and some quick mental arithmetic, I settled for Volume 1 of The Complete Adventures of Feluda by Satyajit Ray & Sir Thomas More's Utopia.

Bombay Post

2005-12-09T20:00:00.000+05:30

Last Wednesday, after attending the afternoon's talks at FOSS.IN, I went to this restaurant on Airport Road called Bombay Post for dinner with my team.

The place has an old-worldly charm about it. Much effort seems to have been expended to recreate the mystique of Bombay of yore. Almost all the walls had charcoal sketches of Bollywood stars of yesteryear. The walls near the table at which we were seated were graced by sketches of some of the best bad men of Bollywood over the years - Danny Denzongpa (I strongly suspect the sketch was of Danny's role as Bakhtavar Seth in Hum), the suave K N Singh, Prem Chopra and Pran. The soft lighting and the golden oldies playing in the background serve to heighten the feeling of being part of another era. All these nostalgic elements, coupled with some good food made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Bombay Post is located at Carlton Towers on Airport Road.

FOSS.IN

2005-12-07T20:58:00.000+05:30

FOSS.IN (India's largest Free & Open Source Software event) was held last week at the Bangalore Palace over a period of four days (Nov 29 - Dec 2). This conference, formerly known as Linux Bangalore, has expanded its scope this time to include other FOSS topics in addition to Linux.

On the first day I reached the venue at 8.30 A.M. But the registration process which was supposed to have started at 8 A.M. got delayed & I ended up waiting in the queue till 9.15 A.M. to get my entry pass & delegate kit. As a result of this delay, all talks were delayed by nearly an hour. The inauguration finally happened at 10 A.M. followed by Alan Cox's general talk on participating in open source projects. I followed this up by attending a bunch of tech talks - investigation of Kernel Mode Linux, performance measurement of Linux 2.6.10 kernel (last 10 minutes) and an egregiously bad talk on the pitfalls of Loadable Kernel Modules (the grating accents of the two 'professionals' who delivered this and the set of unprofessionally done slides which they used made the whole discourse all the more repulsive). But Andrew Cowie's talk on equivalence, which I attended next, made up for the insipid morning. Andrew is an amazing speaker - eloquent, brimming with energy, almost hopping with excitement on the stage. Following this I attended a talk on Sun's Project GlassFish & another one on the Apache Software Foundation's Geronimo project. But the highlight of the day was our drive back from the venue which lasted all of 2 hours as we managed to take every wrong turn we could have taken along the way. Despite my repeated assurances to Chandan that we were headed up the wrong 'alley', he chose to ignore my advice resulting in temporal losses for both of us.

On the second day, I attended the post lunch set of talks - Interaction of GPL & non-GPL code in Linux kernel - a very informative one and shared subtree concept & implementation in the Linux kernel. After this I proceeded to roam around the various stalls set up by numerous open source companies. Sun profited the most from this event as their OpenSolaris demos at their stall went down very well with the delegates.

The third day began with a talk by Andrew Cowie aimed at "motivating participation in FOSS from people who may not have yet found a way to do so". The best part was when he strongly derided the dogmatic stance adopted by Richard M Stallman regarding the usage of the word 'free' by citing one instance where RMS left a bad impression on the attendees at some conference when he started yelling at a translator who translated 'free' to imply 'at no cost' rather than 'without restrictions'. To substantiate his point further, Andrew also commented on the usage of the term GNU/Linux instead of just Linux to describe what RMS calls 'the GNU operating system which uses the Linux kernel'. These observations drew a huge round of applause from the audience. But the rest of the talks which I attended left much to be desired for. I returned back to work after lunch.

On the whole, the broadened scope of the event benefitted some sections, notable among them being Sun. But I feel this expansion has somehow diluted the event. According to the organisers of the event, "...it was a glorious success. 2733 delegates, 140+ speakers, 180+ talks, workshops, tutorials and BoFs. It was fantastic." Yeah, but that is just the statistical analysis & statistics can lie. Quality isn't assured by numbers. Honestly, very few speakers were convincing enough in their arguments. But my opinion in this matter may have been clouded by my attendance at only a few talks. Moreover even the ones I attended were mostly technical in nature - so I might be partly wrong here. Based on my experiences as a delegate at Linux Bangalore 2003 and FOSS.IN 2005, I can confidently dole out this piece of advice - as is the case with open source development, self reliance is the best policy when attending such conferences; always try to get an introduction to a topic rather than trying to get in depth information about it (you can always Google for the details anyway :-).

Epiphany in an omnibus

2005-10-29T19:48:00.000+05:30

I am sitting in the bus on my way back home. Radio City 91 FM is belting out Hindi & Kannada numbers at full blast. This cacophony coupled with the rhythmic jolting of the bus (courtesy the numerous crests & troughs which punctuate the arterial roads in Bangalore) leaves me in a hypnagogic state. That's when an ad break comes up on the radio. An announcement is made as part of the What's up Bangalore? section - "Rotary Club of Bangalore Indiranagar is conducting a general quiz on September 19. This quiz is open only to college students. Blah blah...". I am suddenly wide awake. I remember being placed third in this quiz 5 years ago (Mithun, Hemant and Chinmay would probably remember this). Arun Hiregange & Ochintya Sharma had been the quizmasters then. This time it would be Arul Mani.

"Ah! Excellent! Another college quiz. Must inform the gang soon." My hand goes automatically to my pocket to retrieve my mobile. That is when reality plays spoilsport. In one epiphanous moment, reality hammers in its blunt point into my psyche. For the first time, I truly understand that the stamp of finality has been indelibly embossed on those golden pages of my life. But more than that, I accept, albeit resignedly, the fact that those pages have been actually turned over irrevocably. An ineffable sense of loss pervades my soul as I meander through the remainder of the day.

A Bookworm's Diet

2005-10-12T22:25:00.000+05:30

Here's a chronological listing of the books I have read since The Last Burden.

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown (Atrocious. Period.)
The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber (Brilliant)
Nerds 2.0.1 by Stephen Segaller (as the book's tagline says, A Brief History of the Internet)
Just for Fun by Linus Torvalds & David Diamond
(Autobiographical)
Free Software, Free Society by Richard M Stallman (Profound)
Rebel Code by Glyn Moody (Linux and the Open Source revolution)
The Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen, Linus Torvalds (prologue) and Manuel Castells (epilogue)
The Invisible Man by H G Wells (Chilling and depressing)

On the shelf, waiting to be consumed, are the following:-

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Godel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Dubliners by James Joyce
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Peter Pan by J M Barrie
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Lord Of The Rings by J R R Tolkien
Hindu Mythology by W J Wilkins

Wild Weekend

2005-09-25T00:07:00.000+05:30

Last weekend (17^th & 18^th) I went on a company sponsored trip to this place called Masinagudi at a distance of around 250 km from Bangalore. The journey in a hired bus started with a bang with TD's aural nemesis, the evergreen "Dhoom Machale" being belted out, with the frayed tape producing distorted voices for added effect. (TD has oft repeated that the tape is standard issue on all tourist vehicles - I find myself completely agreeing with that). Even the beginning of the return journey was marked by the same song, albeit in a visual form.

Masinagudi is located at the foot of the Nilgiris in Tamilnadu. In Masinagudi, we were supposed to stay at the Monarch Safari Lodge which is a part of Mithun Chakraborty's Monarch group of hotels. According to their website - "The jungle teems with many other wild species - gaur, sambhar, gaint(sic) Indian squirrels, mouse deer, wild dogs and much more. The variety of birds flitting in and out of our trees make birdwatchers drool!". As we approached the place we had our first promised encounter with the wild - an elephant herd crossing the road. That was enough to get us excited about what the jungle had in store for us that evening. We reached the lodge by around 3 p.m., late by a couple of hours. After having lunched & refreshed ourselves we set out on the safari in a jeep. We were lucky enough to spot many wild animals like spotted deer, deer with antlers, baby deer and so on. The guide also showed us some birds which were apparently peahen. After having travelled 30 odd kms into the forest, we gave up or rather the guides gave up & we had to turn back.

The next morning we set out on a trek up into the hills. The guide took us along what was supposed to be an elephant trail. On a muddy stretch, he pointed out to us a footprint, which he claimed was that of a leopard. (A single footprint in a very muddy area? - the cynic that I am, I sure have doubts.) But the trail was surely one frequented by elephants - half chewed bamboo stalks, fresh elephant dung and trumpeting, all indicated that we were very close to elephant territory. After having walked for around one & a half hours, we reached one of the higher spots of the hills. From here we had a clear view of the countryside for quite a distance. Though many of us wanted to continue the trek, we had to abandon the idea as the time available was insufficient.

Being accustomed to staring at the monitor for the better part of the day, the verdant landscape was a refreshing & rejuvenating treat for our tired eyes. The whole experience of being out in the open, far from the confines of our cubicles, walking through hilly terrain - hopping over brooks, dodging thorny bushes & creepers was a welcome change from the mechanical activities we do at office. Definitely, a weekend to remember.

Busy-ness Proposal

2005-08-15T20:30:00.000+05:30

VapourWare Unlimited
World-class fuzzy solutions

Are you being troubled by pesky 'contacts' who inundate you with inane instant messages when you are rather busy? Do you find yourself unequal to the task of communicating effectively & impressively with your peers & superiors? Presenting BusyBuddy Instant Messaging Enhancements - a suite of cross-platform plugins which is guaranteed to be the panacea to all your IM complaints. BusyBuddy is the perfect supplement to boost the quality of your Instant Messenger so that your life online remains hassle-free.

The technology

BusyBuddy is a kind of middle layer between your messenger & you. It works with all the popular messaging clients across all platforms. BusyBuddy has at its core a fuzzy logic driven engine which intercepts your keyboard & mouse events and keeps track of the pressure & frequency accompanying these. Then using the MoodMeter(patent pending) technology, it generates a 7x7 matrix consisting of various parameters like current weather conditions, current status of the target & various other random & probabilisitic values reduced to their fuzzy equivalents. The inverse of the same is generated to accurately gauge your current mood based on which an appropriate response is sent. The responses are chosen from a humongous database of seemingly witty repartees with the most appropriate one being chosen by a set of complex algorithms. All this so that you can sit back & relax - let BusyBuddy manage your messages while you utilise the time thus freed to make a quick visit to dreamland, ogle at attractive colleagues or even for actually doing some work.

The company

VapourWare Unlimited is a start-up based in the New Lake Village area, right in the heart of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. We specialise in development of fuzzy & intangible software solutions for corporates. Our products are specially geared towards helping our clients achieve total employee satisfaction so as to enable greater increase in productivity which ultimately leads to more profits. Our motto is "Always keep your fingers crossed & hope for the best".

Product Features

Security
All message transfers are encrypted by default using the popular & unbreakable Digital Fortress encryption algorithm which makes use of mutation strings to produce indecipherable gibberish for any eavesdroppers.

Status Messages
You may have noticed that when you haven't shown any online messaging activity for some time your messenger begins to show the time for which you have been idle along with a prominent status message. This may be interpreted to mean a serious lack of communication skills which may have a deleterious effect on your career. Hence BusyBuddy makes sure you are never idle in the chat landscape by frequently updating your status with random & sometimes witty messages like High (3rd Floor ;-), Too busy to respond etc. You can also choose the theme for your session from a variety of status message themes.

Auto-reply
This is by far the most important function of BusyBuddy. Auto-reply enables you to free up valuable time for other important tasks by taking up the onus of replying to all your messages, irritating or otherwise. The best part here is that all such transactions are transparent to you, the end-user. You also have the option of actually being entertained by the same automated conversations by using the easy-to-use wizard to set it all up.

Here are two actual conversation samples obtained during usability testing for BusyBuddy's auto-reply feature:-

Boss : Is the sub-optimal strategies evaluation report ready?
BusyBuddy : I am waiting for more input from the control group for graphical depiction of the thought processes behind the sub-optimal strategy decisions in incorporated entities. Will take some time.
Boss : Oh, all right. Carry on. Keep up the good work.

Friend : I have a bad feeling about today's match. You know the gut feelings I generally have, right?
BusyBuddy : Are you by any chance talking about your gas problem?

FAQ

Q : Why the name BusyBuddy?
A : The name is partly a reflection of its origins in the constant appearance of busy status messages. The other inspiration is the word 'busybody' which refers to anyone who meddles in other people's business which is precisely what our suite does - intercept messages meant for our users & perform the desired actions.

Q : Being so feature rich, why don't you make it a full fledged messaging client?
A : We want to leverage existing infrastructure to derive optimum benefit both for customer & end user. Hence we decided to build a suite of plugins rather than a messaging client.

Q : I want to purchase BusyBuddy. Where do I go?
A : Thank you for your interest. BusyBuddy is currently in beta testing. We still have a few minor glitches (one of them being response routing mismatch which basically means that messages intended for your sweetheart maybe sent to your boss & vice versa) to sort out before we can release it for public consumption. Be patient till then. If you would like to receive regular updates about BusyBuddy's status, leave your email ID with us along with any positive feedback you might have.

Q : I don't believe you OR I hate you for unspecified reasons.
A : We always respect & value feedback from our target audience. If you have any reason to be dissatisfied with our claims or software, please leave your comments along with your email ID. We will get back at you by forwarding all the unsolicited messages we receive to your inbox.

This post is my protest against the constant indifference to my repeated attempts at online conversation with some of my contacts, the cause for which is supposed to be their various degrees of 'busy-ness'. After being constantly snubbed, I decided to profit from my frustration by converting it into a 'business opportunity with a social cause', so as to alleviate the sufferings of kindred souls facing a similar predicament.

The son of the soil is back!

2005-08-05T20:48:00.000+05:30

It has been nearly a month & a half since I posted anything. This long gap has ensued due to a plethora of factors, the most prominent among them being my laziness & my tendency to procrastinate. Anyway, better late than never.

For what follows below, you will need to install Kannada fonts for your computer (that is, if they are not already installed). The same can be downloaded from the Baraha (which is an excellent freeware for document creation in Indian languages) website which can be reached by clicking here.

Sample this :-

"ಎಯ್, ಏನು ಹೇಳ್ತೀಯಾ?

ಎಯ್, ಏನು ಹೇಳಲಿ ನಾ?
ಕೇಳು,
ಹೇಳು,
ಬರ್ತೀಯಾ ಖಂಡಾಲಾಗೆ?
ಏನು, ಮಾಡಲಿ,
ಬಂದು ಖಂಡಾಲಾಗೆ?
ಅಯ್ಯೊ, ಅಲಿಯೋಣ, ಸುತ್ತೋಣ, ಕುಣಿಯೋಣ, ಹಾಡೋಣ,
ಮಜಾ ಮಾಡೋಣ ಏನಂತೀಯಾ?"

Well, that was the literal (almost) translation of the popular Aati Kya Khandala song from the Hindi movie Ghulam into Kannada. This movie starring Aamir Khan & Rani Mukherjee was directed by Vikram Bhatt & was based on the English classic On the waterfront by Elia Kazan. This song was sung by Aamir Khan himself along with Alka Yagnik. Anu Malik was the music director & the lyrics for this particular song were composed by Nitin Raikwar. Aamir himself was asked to lend his voice for the song because the song is basically a lyrical conversation between a tapori (from Mumbai, where else?) & his 'posh' girlfriend and the director felt that a natural approach would be best. The rest is history.

For the benefit of those who cannot read or understand Kannada, an English translation follows :-

"Hey, what do you say?
Hey, what do I say?
Listen,
Tell,
Coming to Khandala?
What, will I do,
after reaching Khandala?
We will roam 'n' wander 'n' dance 'n' sing;
generally have fun, what else?"

I have refrained from reproducing the actual Hindi song here, for the simple reason that if you have never heard the song, you won't know, literally & figuratively, what I am talking about.

Thespian Thoughts

2005-06-27T19:00:00.001+05:30

Last Thursday I saw this play titled A Heap of Broken Images at the Ranga Shankara in J P Nagar, Bangalore. This play written by Girish Karnad & directed by the playwright himself along with K M Chaitanya is the English version of a Kannada play called Odakalu Bimba by Karnad. This is supposed to be the first play Karnad has directed in 30 years. Essentially a 60-minute monologue, this play had Arundhati Raja essaying the lead role of Manjula Nayak.

Manjula Nayak is a Kannada writer who publishes a book in English, titled The river has no memories, which goes on to become a bestseller. She is married to Pramod Rao, a software professional (at the theatre, the stud & the stallion seemed to find this amusing & tried to prod the namesake who bore it all with uncharacteristic stoicism). Her sister Malini Nayak is a cripple - the lower part of her body, below her waist is paralysed. The play is set in a TV studio where Manjula is about to speak about her book & its Kannada screen adaptation. This is supposed to be followed by the telecast of the movie itself on Shree TV. During the course of her speech, she defends her choice of English as the medium of expression. She attributes the furious debate over her 'loyalty' to her mother tongue to jealous peers who are envious of the success of her book & the concomitant fame & monetary rewards. She also reveals that the inspiration for the book was her late sister.

After her speech Manjula prepares to leave & this is when the play enters the actual 'dramatic' phase with the appearance of her conscience as an image of herself on a TV screen by her side (as if her thought processes & the appurtenant brain waves had found a resonant channel of expression in Shree TV's frequency). From this point onwards, the fabric of this seemingly innocuous plot reveals a multi-coloured skein which is unravelled in layers or rather levels - as if one were being led down a staircase, down to the bottom of the affair, to the denouement, stopping at each landing for probing taunts by Manjula's conscientious 'onscreen' avatar and introspection & palpable denials on Manjula's part which end up transforming into resigned confessions.

The sets were minimal and Manjula actually notices this at the beginning & assumes that it is so because of the flavour of our times being technology-enabled miniaturization. The use of subtle lighting to focus on Manjula as she moves around trying to shield herself from the barbed comments shot by her conscience deserves a mention here - throughout the play it appears as if an understated spotlight is always directed at Manjula. The absent characters are brought alive during the course of Manjula's soliloquy. The tough task of synchronising with the video played on the TV was effortlessly handled by the veteran Arundhati Raja.

Ranga Shankara was built as a tribute to the late Shankar Nag (who died in 1990 at the age of 35 in an accident), as a realisation of his dream of having a theatre space with affordable rates for both staging & viewing purposes. The driving force behind the construction is Shankar Nag's wife Arundhati Nag. Apart from the auditorium, there is also a bookshop, an art gallery & a cafeteria on the premises of Ranga Shankara. Shankar Nag acted in several popular Kannada movies essaying a variety of roles, notable among them being those of SP Sangliana & an autorickshaw driver, Auto Raja. He is best remembered for his remarkable TV series Malgudi Days based on the book by the same name by R K Narayan. The TV series, supposed to be the first Hindi serial made in South India, was an incredibly faithful adaptation of the incidents in the book. The series had a host of Kannada film, television & theatre personalities playing various roles - G V Iyer, Ananth Nag, Master Manjunath (as Swami), Shankar Nag himself. Even the locations (Agumbe was one, I presume) reflected the quintessential rusticity of Malgudi.

In the end, a brilliant play & a superb auditorium made for an evening (and money) well-spent.

Déjà vu

2005-06-22T23:39:00.000+05:30

The Karnataka Quiz Association celebrated its 22^nd Anniversary last Sunday (June 19) with its annual quiz festival called ASKQANCE at Guru Nanak Bhavan, Bangalore. As part of the fest, a general, open quiz - Sesame! The Open Quiz was conducted by Arul Mani. Out of the 44 questions in the written prelims, we (Mukund, Ganesh, Prithwi & myself) got 33 right which turned out to be the second highest score (the first being 36). In the finals however, we ended up in the 4^th place, missing out on the 3^rd by a mere 10 points. The Quiz Foundation of India team with Samanth, Swami & two others won the quiz by a huge margin, scoring 226 points, with the nearest team having scored 101. For having reached the finals, we got book coupons from Premier Bookshop worth Rs.250 each. In addition to that, we also bagged the Best College Team prize - coupons entitling us to books worth Rs.150 each. Good ROI considering that we managed to avoid paying the entry fee altogether by registering as an outstation team, which we technically were since we were representing our college.

For last year's edition of the quiz, Ganesh had not been there. So we went with some other fellow called Rohit. We came second in the prelims & were 4^th in the finals with Anustup Datta's team being seated next to us (as usual). Talk about déjà vu!

Yesterday I went to Premier which is situated on Museum Road to redeem the prize coupons. After an hour of browsing through their collection, I settled on Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and Peter Pan by J M Barrie.

The problem with Premier is that most of the books there are arranged in stacks with almost no space between adjacent stacks. This makes the task of browsing through the books quite difficult & irritating at times (for me, at least). This seemingly precarious arrangement also means that you have to be very careful while pulling out a book - a hasty withdrawal might cause considerable embarrassment (pun unintended), not to mention the inconvenience. Decidedly, the place is great if you are hunting for a particular title - delegate the job to the efficient attendants & they will lay their hands on the exact stack which hides your quarry, provided it is available. The outermost stacks generally contain the newer books & bestsellers while the interior stacks contain older books, classics & the rarely bought ones. But sadly, searching the same isn't exactly easy & this, I feel, translates to lost business for the proprietor (Mr.T S Shanbhag). Nevertheless, the bookshop seems quite popular, especially among the old-timers.

The Last Burden

2005-06-16T18:52:00.000+05:30

The Cover of The Last Burden

I finished reading The Last Burden by Upamanyu Chatterjee. With this, I have read all of Chatterjee's novels :-).

Upamanyu Chatterjee

Upamanyu Chatterjee was born in 1959 at Patna, Bihar. After studying English literature at Delhi University, he joined the Indian Administrative Services(IAS) in 1983. His first novel was English, August - a wickedly delightful account of the experiences of Agastya Sen, August to his friends - a city slicker, an IAS officer posted to the very rural Madna. The book was nothing short of a masterpiece. Ummm. He followed this up with 2 novels - The Last Burden (1993) and The Mammaries of the Welfare State (2000), a sequel to his first one and a very good one at that.

“...it might well be used for an hors d'oeuvre, a phrase which its customers will not fathom unless pronounced as 'whores dee overs', like Punjabi streetwalkers at cricket.”

The book is a brilliant depiction of life in an Indian middle-class family at the end of the 20^th century. The central character here is Jamun, a bachelor, the son of Urmila & Shyamanand. His elder brother is Burfi who is married to a Christian, Joyce. Burfi has two children Pista & Doom aged 10 & 4 respectively. Kasturi, Jamun's girlfriend who is now married to a certain Agastya (who is nowhere as colourful as the "English, August" one) and pregnant too, Satyavan Hegiste, a Marathi fellow and Kuki - Jamun's friends, Kasibai - Jamun's maid and her son Vaman, Shyamanand's niece Chhana, Urmila's cardiologist Haldia are a few of the other characters in the book. The story begins with Jamun being intimated of his mother's illness. He returns home and sees that both his parents are fading away. So he decides to stay on till one of them expires. What transpires during the rest of his stay and the manner in which he bears his 'last burden' is for you to find out.

“But we're all feeble, he assents to himself, and heedless, glutted with vanity, and languish only after trumpery; and in a flash there remains no time to articulate one's love to those whom one owes love.”

The usual hallmarks of Chatterjee's writing are all there - large doses of humour, heavy usage of obscure words especially those used in literary & formal situations, creative sentence construction, characters with various hues of grey, the kinky situations, even the minutiae associated with India and its people. Moreover a strong undercurrent of depression can be observed in the book's flow, though this is offset to a large extent by the wryness of Chatterjee's humour.

“...all the commonplaces that describe death are so befitting, aren't they? That a light, or a spark, or a glow within, that was most naked at the eyes, is now stubbed out. That what survives is a shell, an untenanted house, the desiccated flesh of the fruit from which the sap's been siphoned off...”

The first chapter is titled "August", but here the allusion is to the month, not to the protagonist of "English, August". Compared to "English, August", this book is quite sombre and commercially too, was not as successful, the reason for the same being attributed to the seriousness of the book. The numerous squabbles in the family, the abjectness of some of the characters, their decadence, Jamun's recollections and various other situations all serve to heighten the book's poignancy.

All in all, a recommended read, at least for Chatterjee's fans.

Sartorial Musings

2005-06-10T22:17:00.000+05:30

After much coaxing & cajoling by my mother, I finally decided to clean up my wardrobe. During the process, I unearthed several woven treasures (more or less forgotten) collected during my stay at NITK. Quiz Club members of NITK will remember the club gown which we obtained last year. Well, this is not actually a gown (for me, it is one, definitely) - this is a T-shirt with a collar. Now, that seems to remind me of something. Hmmmm. Ah! Got it. Statements adhering to the format - "This is not [something]...this is [qualified 'something', which is actually 'something' itself but described more accurately!]" - are actually idiomatic expressions popular among the members of this clique called EBGF, short for Eighth Block Ground Floor. Membership is strictly on the basis of the location of one's room - the lucky ones being obviously the residents of the ground floor of the 8^th hostel block. It all started with their T-shirt whose front read "This is not a shirt...", with the back saying "...this is a T-shirt" along with a Microsoft Word Clip Art cartoon of some character getting a brainwave - the one with the bulb lighting up. I suppose the originator chanced upon the idea in a moment of epiphany - "Omigod! This is not a shirt - this, this, this is a T-shirt!!! Of course, why didn't I think of this before? Eureka! Eureka!". One Lifetime Achievement Award here, please. Now where was I? Yeah, the Quiz Club T-shirt - too big, way too big (must be something like XXXXXXL).

I also found the Incident 2002 T-shirt - this one has become unwearable after just 2 to 3 washes - it looks as if it has been used in a 4-way tug of war between unequally matched parties. Now don't take that as a testimony of my washing skills which I have honed to a nicety over the years. The front is pretty decent with a nice photo of the college. But the fundae at the back reduce its wearability drastically. I wonder why they put the 'KRECian philosophy' & the rest of the stuff on a T-shirt which was also supposed to be sold to people from other colleges. The 2003 & 2005 Incident T-shirts are pretty decent, except for their black colour which makes them quite unfit for the hot-n-humid Mangalore weather. I think the Incident 2004 shirt was the worst of the lot. I am grateful to the erstwhile comps CR (Swaroop Joshi) who managed to get refunds of the T-shirt money for the whole class.

Thankfully, I never bought any of the Crrescendo(sic) T-shirts whose designs have been nothing short of atrocious - glaring yellow on dark blue (or was it black?), this year's comical one with the PG biker almost racing the Final Year one and the other years' bikers lagging behind the PG fellow (who are they kidding?) - all this in various gross shades of colours available in the visible spectrum.

The ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) T-shirt I got in the International Collegiate Programming Contest at Kanpur was supposed to be of size XL. On wearing it, I found out that it accentuates my biceps very well - need I say more?

For some time, I did toy with the idea of getting rid of some of these garments. But I have this marked disinclination towards disposal of objects having some sentimental value. So, in spite of my carping, they get to stay, as memorabilia, in a corner of my wardrobe at the very bottom of the pile - my emotional baggage in a state of perpetual desuetude.

The Second R

2005-06-02T22:28:00.000+05:30

All these years, my attempts at writing have been pretty sporadic. Except for the biannual essay writing during the exams (my favourite topic in any language being environmental pollution), I rarely used to write anything just for the sake of it.

I remember my first writing attempt, at the age of 9 or thereabouts. The details of the story I had written are pretty hazy now, but it was about a man who buys some food & a milk shake ( of all potable liquids, he had to buy a milk shake?! ) for lunch, but decides to give it away to a beggar in the end. Quite touching and quixotic, I must say.

The second time was when the class had been asked to write anything, anything at all to fill a page. I wrote this piece about a boy who is feeling pretty bored and lonely in his holidays & his busy parents can't take time off from work to be with him. It ended happily though, with the parents deciding to take the protagonist on a trip to Montana. Montana's spectacular scenery was not the reason why it was chosen (by me, of course) as the destination. White Water Terror, one of Nancy's adventures (from her case files, actually) was set in Montana. Nancy who? Nancy Drew, who else? (How many adventure-seeking girls called Nancy did you know at the age of 12?) Those were the times when I used to lap up all the Drew books I could lay my hands on. At last count I had read around 60 of them and the last one I read was "The Wedding Day Mystery", which I read, believe it or not, 3 years ago. It lasted for an hour and left me wondering how I could have been crazy about those books (My roommate mistook the book to be one of the must-reads I had been raving about & eagerly read through it. Needless to say, he was left with serious doubts about my literary tastes). Well, my composition was pretty decent & the teacher appreciated it. The following year we were asked to do a similar exercise & I submitted the same thing. This time the teacher (a different one, though) ridiculed me saying that I had been asked to write a story, not narrate an incident ( Yes, ma'am. What was I supposed to do? Retell the moral stories about the crow & the pitcher or the hare & the tortoise (reminds me of "Godel, Escher and Bach" which I am currently reading - more about this some other time), like I was some 13-year old Aesop? (that is, if Aesop was as precocious as that) ).

Last year I made my third attempt. On a hot Surathkal afternoon, our portly(?) Engineering Economics lecturer (who has the potent blessings of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep) was droning on in our stuffy classroom. Mass hypnosis was already in progress. I suppose it was Venu who was checking out one of Barron's word lists ( which incidentally had words beginning with 'M' ). In a valiant attempt to avoid being lured into the realm of Morpheus ( the Greek god of dreams and the son of Hypnos ), I used all the words (15 of them) present in the exercise associated with the list to write a small piece which is more or less reproduced below :-

"The adventurer struggled against the miasma rising from the swamp. The death of his companion had been a mischance - an encounter with the ectoplasmic misanthropes of the marshes & the resulting melee - it must have been painful, very painful. But this was no time for mawkish feelings over his dead fellow adventurer. He rowed ahead faster and as he did so, strains of mellifluous music fell upon his ears. Mesmerised by the notes emanating from the trees ahead, he rowed harder. What he did not know was that the music was an auditory mirage created by the evil imps of the swamp. These militants mentored in the dark arts by the Satan himself, were by no means mediocre & were reputed to be extremely meticulous when it came to flaying their opponents. Earlier the adventurer had branded them 'the menial minions of the Devil'. This was no misdemeanour & he would pay dearly for it."

Quite good, considering that my eyelids were in the process of turning leaden.

And that, was a constituent of my extended fourth attempt.

P.S. Hope to keep this going on for as long as I can. Amen.

Moments of repulsion

2005-05-30T15:07:00.000+05:30

I came back yesterday morning. I suppose I was the last Bangalorean to leave NITK. I had a tough time getting a seat on a Bangalore bound bus. Out of the 150 odd buses run by private operators & another 50 or so buses run by KSRTC, not a single one seemed to have seats for Saturday night. Even the Sunday afternoon & night buses had been booked to capacity. The reason for this was supposed to be the summer vacations coming to an end. Wonderful! This was all I needed! Thankfully, some extra buses were added and so, here I am.

I felt pretty bad leaving the place which had been my "home away from home" (Mr.Hosadurga's quote, for which I have this to say - yeah, right) the past 4 years. I could almost hear strains of the song Pal by KK playing inside my head.

Hum rahe ya na rahe kal
Kal yaad aayenge yeh pal
Pal yeh hain pyar ke pal
Chal aa mere sang chal
Chal soche kya, choti si
Hain zindagi
Kal mil jaye, toh hogi
Khush naseebi

How can I forget those high-fives & hugs with which we used to greet each other! What about playing blindman's buff in the lawns, preparing at least a week in advance for the sessionals, strumming guitars, singing in the classrooms (sniff)... Excuse me, while I wipe away these tears (sniff) - my keyboard (sniff) is getting wet (sniff)...

Crash!!!

ROTFL

Before you begin to think that I have slipped into nostalgia-induced hysteria or something similar, let me assure you, apart from a sore throat, I am feeling quite good & would have felt better if there had not been this 'professionally managed' monumental disaster called "Pal - The Last of the KRECians" or whatever it is called ( A rafflesia by any other name would smell as bad ). This 407 MB, 40 minute video is supposed to be a reminder of our golden days at NITK. This abomination was directed by some local 'professional photographers' whose claim to fame(?) is some Kannada serial. Having watched quite a few of these serials, I can tell you that the hallmarks of an average Kannada serial are these:- no trace of a plot, overacting, facial contortions intended to induce laughter ( You end up suspecting that the actors are suffering from constipation & about the 'inducing laughter' part - well, you can't laugh when you are retching, can you? ) and a host of other aspects about which the less said the better.

Coming to the plot of the video... Wait! What plot?

Other deplorable elements of the video include glaring spelling mistakes ('thankfull', 'remmber'(?)), the "Mangalyam" track from "Saathiya" being played in the background while a student is praying in the temple ( kuchch bhi, haan? )... I can't even recollect all of them & viewing the video once again just for completing this post isn't exactly a prospect I relish - so judge for yourself the obnoxiousness of the said production while I sign off, fuming.

My last lab ( hopefully :-)

2005-05-03T15:49:00.000+05:30

I just finished the last lab of my undergraduate engineering education ( I am an optimist ;-). Well, there is no feeling of exhilaration here, just relief, plain relief. There is also a hint of tired resignation considering that I got partial output yesterday. Moreover I seem to encounter a strict enforcement of Murphy's Law during lab exams - any topic which I neglect to check out is bound to come in the exams :-(. Not that it matters much. In 4 years, I seem to have become desensitized to all such setbacks. I accept everything with a smile, self-deprecating humour & lots of rants.

122 pages in under 2 hours

2005-04-05T16:30:00.000+05:30

I finished Bhuvan Shome - an Akademi Award winning book by Bonophul (nom de plume of Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay), translated from Bengali by Lila Ray. Bonophul's other famous works include Mrigaya, Jangam and Sri Madhusudan.

Railway officer Bhuvan Shome is an old & lonely widower. He is a strict disciplinarian and uncompromising in his principles & values. He expects similar dedication & integrity from others. He goes on a duck-hunting trip near the Ganges. Here he is dogged by bad luck - his cart is attacked by a water buffalo, his boat goes adrift & develops a leak, the birds are driven away by hunters on motorboats, his first shot at the birds ends up nowhere. Whew!! He meets a village girl who helps him out. His high standards give way under her simplicity.

Bhuvan's family comprises of an array of depressing characters with a mother obsessed with perfect propriety, adamant sisters and good-for-nothing brothers-in-law along with their thieving brats (fourteen of them), and above all, an ill-tempered wife. Bhuvan's frustrations are compounded by the unhelpful attitude of the women in the house to his hobbies - painting and later on cooking, both of which are brought to an early end. At this point he takes to hunting. His hunting partners at various times include a conceited Bhutnath, a vulgar Dwijen, Chhattu Sen who claims all credit for any kill and Kartik Mukherjee who turns out to be the perfect scarecrow, for they never manage to kill anything with him around. These parts are written in a tart manner which brings about some relief from the almost constant thread of depressing darkness running throughout the book. I suppose the translation reduces the effect of the book somewhat, but nevertheless it portrays the turbulent post-independence times quite well.

This book was made into a Hindi movie by the same name by noted Bengali director Mrinal Sen in 1969 - I haven't seen the movie though. The role of Bhuvan Shome is played by Utpal Dutt & if you ask me, he is just the man for it. If you have seen the laugh riot, Golmaal, you will know what I am talking about (He essays a similar role there - a man with discipline,integrity & all that and, believe it or not, a strong bias against men without a moustache). Suhasini Mulay plays the part of the village girl who is called Gouri in the movie.

The weekend is here!!!

2005-04-02T23:57:00.000+05:30

I was finally able to see the movie Before Sunrise today, thanks to Tejaswi (and his friend from Bangalore). The film is as good if not better than its sequel - Before Sunset (I seem to have this knack of getting to the sequels (of books or movies) before their prequels). Anyway, I had read the script quite some time back. But surprisingly this took away nothing from the actual experience of watching the movie.

Made in 1995 or thereabouts, the movie is about the chance...

Wait! Before you begin thinking that I am going to spoil the whole thing for you by giving away the story, right till the ending and all that, let me tell you one thing - the ending is but a small part of the whole movie, literally (considering a ratio of around 10 minutes to 100 minutes) and figuratively. The movie is more about the journey rather than the destination. So, read on.

...meeting of two people, Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American and Celine (Julie Delpy), a French girl on a train from Budapest. Jesse is headed for Vienna from where he has to catch a flight the next morning back to America. Celine is going back to her home in Paris. They get talking & soon Jesse persuades Celine to get down with him at Vienna so that they can continue their conversation. Jesse with his spontaneity, cynical observations & rebellious nature and the emotional Celine, a firm believer in the God-is-in-the-details philosophy form an unlikely pair, as they roam through the streets of Vienna the whole day, talking all the while about subjects like life, love, relationships, God and so on. Their conversations form the central theme of the movie. Incidents like the impromptu poem composition, the palm reading session, even the atheist joke in the church serve to bring out the various shades of the characters' personalities. The movie ends with the two parting with a promise to meet in Vienna in 6 months time, followed by the camera showing the places visited by them, but with the difference that they seem subdued & much less lively without the loquacious pair.

Ethan Hawke's portrayal of the very American Jesse is superb. The pretty Julie Delpy, with her dulcet voice & an accent to match is a perfect fit for Celine's role. The chemistry between the two is to be seen to be believed. By the way, the story is supposed to be partly based on the director, Richard Linklater's chance meeting with an unknown woman in Philadelphia.

Origin of a blog

2005-04-01T10:37:00.001+05:30

"Cool!I should try this..." - my first reaction to blogging

"Nay, not now - too busy..."

"Well, let me see, maybe some other time..." - some of my excuses over the past three years for not trying it out

"Ummm, maybe I should now..." - a few days ago

And the cause for this sudden transformation?

An attack of lexical diarrhoea coupled with a masochistic tendency to invite Repetitive Strain Injury (as if I don't do enough keyboard tapping for that)?
Nothing so serious.

Falling in love?
Please! Then I should be writing poetry and it will be the end of the world before I do that (I mean the 'writing poetry' part ;-)

Then what?

Nothing outlandish or romantic involved here. Actually it was my friend Mithun (I suppose he is presently in Nagpur). Now, don't run away with the idea that he coaxed me to get started. I recently found him on Orkut, or rather he found me, considering that his online avatar is called Motte Boss, which I naturally assumed to be one of those friendly spammers who graciously send me unsolicited mails with attachments containing viruses potent enough to make my computer give up its ghost many times over. He had included a link to his blog on Blogger in his profile. I checked out his blog where he had elaborated at length the origins of his virtual identity which involved metaphorical comparisons of the scores on his marks sheet to 'motte' which is Kannada (a South Indian language) for egg. (Get more of these from the horse's mouth at http://whatisdamottekoncept.blogspot.com ).

After doing so, being the inveterate surfer that I am, I checked out Blogger's main page which talked about creating your own blog in 3 easy steps and so on. Ordinarily I would have appreciated the aesthetic interface of the site and its usefulness to its users and moved on. But the final year spirit caught up with me and before I knew it I had become one of the multitudes who either have or maintain a blog. The wonders of technology! (or should I say the magic of final year? Quite a few of my friends seem to be bewitched, but that's a different matter altogether)

Did you know?

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997.
The shorter version, "blog", was coined by Peter Merholz in 1999.
As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the terms weblog, weblogging and weblogger in their dictionary.
There are over 7.8 million blogs in existence today with more being added every 5 seconds or so.

Disclaimer
All the content here is correct and true to the best of my knowledge (unless this is my alter ego, in which case I stand absolved of any moral responsibility for the content here).

P.S. And no, the disclaimer isn't an April 1st wisecrack, if you can call it that.