Koffee with the Lark and the Owl

[On the sets of Koffee with Karan. The 2nd season was over and the set was empty. It had become a shelter for birds. And three such birds that lived there were The Dove[D](host), The Lark[L](guest) and The Owl[O](guest).]

D : “Well my first guest for tonight needs no introduction. Controversy leads to popularity and that’s how he gained his popularity. He is sincere and hard working. He is none other than ‘The Lark[L]’.”

D : “Welcome to the show. This is the first time you are coming to this show. So how does it feel being here?”

L : “I sleep at 10:00 PM so it’s better we come straight to the point of discussion”.

D : “I cannot begin this discussion without your counterpart, so without wasting any time let me call on my next guest for tonight – ‘The AaaOoooooowl[O]’.”

O : “Asalam-valle-kum. I watch your show regularly. It happens to be my favorite lunch time show.”

D : “Valle-kum-salam. 8:30 PM and lunch? You are talking about IST right? At what time do you have your dinner then?”

O : “Midnight”

D : “And I guess that would be Maggi Noodles every night! Nestle had taken a great decision by introducing Maggi Noddles in India. I don’t have the 2008 figures, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is in the 50,000 tons range.”

L : “I always believe in having food right on time. It helps me in maintaining good health.”

O : “You think I’m not healthy. Dude, I eat Maggi Six (in one) Pack.”

L : “Aah! cut the crap.”

D : “It is said that the Owls are usually unhygienic. How far is this true?”

L : [Looking at the owl] “Before you answer the question I have an interesting graph that compares the cleanliness of an owl and a lark.”

O : “ looks like you have come prepared for this discussion. Well, we owls have a strong concern towards the environment. If you rename the Y-axis with ‘Amt. of water used’, the graph justifies our environmental concerns .”

D : “In conversation with the Lark and the Owl. We will be back right after this short break.”

[Advertisement: Orbit White chewing gum– “Akhir manushya bhi ek samajik pakshi hai”]

D : “Welcome back to the final segment of the show, which happens to be my favorite – The rapid fire round. We will begin with the Lark. Brace yourself.”

D : “If you were allowed to carry only one thing along with you to the moon what would that be?”

L : “An Alarm clock.”

O : “thu !”

D : “Your favorite quote”

L : “Every owl was a lark once upon a time.”

D : “Your college attendance percentage.”

L : “More than 90%.”

D : “Hmm interesting answers. Brace yourself Owl.”

D : “If you were allowed to carry only one thing along with you to the moon what would that be?”

O : “Coffee machine.”

D : “Your favorite quote”

O : “Larks are afraid of the dark.”

D : “Your college attendance percentage.”

O : “Ask him, he is the one who attends regularly. Kitna hai bey mera?”

D : “I’m an unbiased jury and I decide which one you gets to win the hamper. And guess who is the winner ? It’s a Tie. And the reason behind it is simple. We (the doves) are the symbol of peace and that is what we wish for. Though we all belong to the same class (of birds) why is that we don’t find peace amongst ourselves ? Is it just because that we look different and our habits are different ? If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.”

And then miracle happened and they all lived happily forever …

[ Footnote - This post has got nothing to do with the recent mail about Larks vs Owls. The only reason I had used these birds as main leads was because of their recent popularity. The essence of the post is to spread the message of Peace. Building peace is the only way in which we can sort differences. Forgive me if I have hurt anyone's sentiments. Happy Bloggers' Day to one and all and Blog on IIIT-H ]

Peace.

An Analogy

Warning: This post could have adverse effects on your end sem exams. So read at your own risk.

[Analogy]

Exam – battle

Examination hall – a battle field

Subjects – battle terrain

Library – cantonment

Hostel – training camps

UG [1-4] – battalions

Invigilator – declares the start/end of war

Notice board – posting letter

Pen – knife

Student – a brave soldier

Questions – Guns, Bombs, Tear gas, Swords, Armor, Technology

Phodu looga – a soldier with a shield

Books – tools to sharpen the knife and shine the armor

Declared dead – a student who cannot handle the pressure and walks out of the examination hall

Declared injured – a student who keeps looking at others during an exam

DC++ – relief camps

Grades – Verdict

[The routine story]

The preparation for the battle begins a week/[month] before for a normal/[phodu] student [background score 'Kandhon se milte hain kandhe ..']. Most of the normal students prefer Hostels but phodus have special attraction toward the Library.

On the exam date student walks toward the examination hall with his head high [background score ‘Yeh desh hai veer jawanoo ka …’]. He looks at the notice board and watch at the same time, totally confused state, rushes towards the examination hall. 15 minutes after the commencement of the exam – Questions flying all over the hall. A normal student keeps running everywhere [background score 'Yeh daud hai, yeh daud hai ..'], trying to find a place to hide. 30 minutes later the no. of normal students getting injured keeps growing exponentially. 15 minutes later half the class is injured. Few injured cry out in pain [scratch head], and finally die. Other injured people mourn in silence for 2 minutes looking at the dead. Finally the invigilator flags the end of exam. Dead people go to the relief camps where they are healed automatically, and are later joined by the injured [background score 'Ganpat chal daru la ..'].

[The end]

“The performance of an exam can be estimated by looking at the pen cap” – author

 

New year resolutions

A New Year’s Resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a project or a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous. The name comes from the fact that these commitments normally go into effect on New Year’s Day and remain until the set goal has been achieved, although many resolutions go unachieved and are often broken fairly shortly after they are set. [Wikipedia]

My list goes this way :

• I will wake up early in the morning before 6 : 30 AM and try to finish my PT credits by the end of this semester. (GOD if you are listening to me, please do something about this. Either amplify my alarm sound every morning or ring my phone with the regular Airtel pre-recorded messages during the morning hours)

• I will apply for driving license and try to pass the driving license test sincerely without bribing the examiner. Also, will drive my vehicle not exceeding the economic speed limit. (Dad, this one is exclusively for you)

• I will learn to cook food and try not to be dependent on Maggi/Fruits during the days when my Mom is not at home. (Mom, this one is exclusively for you)

• I will regularly shave my beard and stop scratching it whenever I’m thinking. (This is for all those people who have a problem with unshaved beards)

• I will go to the gym regularly, probably after PT. I plan to do atleast 5 pull ups non stop, by next year. (Was also listed in last New year’s resolution list)

• I promise to use smiley’s frequently during chat conversation, now that I’m familiar with more than five smiley’s. (This is because of a recent complaint I received from a friend of mine during a chat. I replied back saying, my dialogs would automatically create ‘the’ required smile on the face but its not noticed unless you place a mirror in-front of you while chatting with me)

• I promise to watch all the films nominated for Oscars this year (This is something that I can assure will be strictly followed)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I tag my blogroll

Numb

I become so Numb, that I will blog this post.

Its freezing cold out here in my room. The temperature is falling exponentially with respect to time after the sun set. Every muscle movement that I make is followed by a rusty sound. I’m trying to keep myself warm by eating a lot of biscuits. Biscuits like Krackjack, Monaco and Maska-Chaska generate a better supply of heat compared to Good day, Bourbon and Magic. Didn’t bother to try Parle ‘G’ as its meant for Geeks.

Preventive Measures:

Wrapped myself in woolen clothing before going to bed. Had to undergo a process similar to that of mummification in order to protect myself from freezing [Mummification : It’s a process in which you wrap yourself completely with the blanket leaving no holes for the air to enter inside. Only the face portion is exposed to air so that you stay alive till the next morning ]. Hoping that I would wake up alive the next morning I went to sleep. And finally the next morning arrived. I was glad that I was still alive and the mummies didn’t mummify me. Bad news was that I had a leaking nose and a rusted vocal chord. The songs I sung sounded more melodious than ever before. I was also applicable for the double dhamaka package “With cold + soar throat you get head ache + fever absolutely free”.

Business Plan:

[The story behind]

There was this advertisement of ‘Brook Bond tea’ on TV which made me think of this plan. For those who haven’t seen the advertisement, it goes something like this.

There is an old lady and a young man at some freezing place with ice covered mountains in the background. Though the young man had enough protective woolen covering he was shivering a lot. The old lady then gets up from her chair and offers her coat to the young man. Then the young man asks her why she wasn’t feeling the cold and the old lady replies that she drinks ‘Brook Bond tea’ .

[The plan]

The moral of the advertisement was if you drink ‘Brook Bond tea’, you don’t feel cold. The plan is to provide a hot cup of Tea/Coffee/Milk at door service. The student has to register in the portal which drink he prefers every morning. There is also an option for news paper + drink service. Its a highly profitable business plan and I’m sure some day the person who had started his carrier with this business plan would set up an MNC.

[The motivation behind]

Spread the awareness of Global Warming, though this post is not related to it. Countries like India are rapidly increasing their share; but each Indian citizen on average still emits a fraction of what each American and European does.

Related links :

Effects of Global Warming , How to Prevent Global Warming.

PS2: This post was not meant to give publicity to brands like Britannia, Parle and Brook Bond.

PS1: Eat healthy, think better.

Language as a Barrier and a Bridge

Linguistic and Cultural diversity is an inescapable fact of modern society. And Language plays a dominant role in the process of adaptation to given environment.

In case of a language barrier, very little communication occurs unless one or both parties learn a new language, which does require investment of time and effort. Hardly any ( useful ) information exchanged between the two communities, which does slow down the development rate. The series of above events are highly correlated to each other and it can be widely seen in any part of the globe. Chinese/Mandarin happens to be the most widely spoken language across the globe ( 873 Million ) , English being the in third spot ( 322 Million ) . So, one might think let Chinese be the language adopted by all the nations as a secondary language and then we try to bridge the gap. But at the same time there could be another person who might think, in case Chinese was adopted globally, this would lead to China being the supreme power in the world ( which is highly not acceptable solution for any developing nation ). Also the script should be easily adaptable. Hence this proposal was dropped.

“World speaks music”. It is said that music is one form of language that does not require any investment of time. Strictly speaking language of music did bind the forces of the nations of the world BUT only upto a certain extent. Why? If I did want to exchange my thoughts with some one for whom my language was an alien, do you think it I would be able to express those thoughts through music? And if I did succeed in doing so, the amount of ( useful ) Information that the receiver has received would less that 25 % of what was transmitted. And what I am looking for is a perfect means of communication. Its true that we do have world music concerts, but the impact made by these concerts is negligible. Overall this form of language could be used as a beginning process to overcome any language barrier.

What I strongly believe in is there is a Universal language understood by everybody, but already forgotten. It is a language that everyone on earth is capable of understanding in their heart. It is the language of ‘love‘. It requires no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through the endless time. Once you master this language you can feel the vibrations of peace everywhere. It is a form of language that needs no words to express. But one thought would remain as a black spot in my mind “Will the world adapt this language which has no words no origin, but can make a huge impact?”

PS1 : Phew! Finally a decent post

This time I dont speak

A Picture is worth a thousand words …

Hence Proved!

PS: Special thanks to my school friend (C3) in whose album I found this picture.

Being Weirdo!

My brain is acting pretty strange these days. One reason for this strange behavior could be the battle between the white matter and the grey matter [Racial discrimination ] . Many neurons were killed and several injured . From the time I had come to IIIT my limited memory space had already reduced to half , but since the battle the percentage of the usage of my brain has deteriorated further and resulted in going to blank states during the course of exams . [As most of the neurons got killed hardly there was any important matter stored and that could be recollected for exams] . Some of the neurons were even miss placed and as a result the sequential order of the memory blocks was interrupted . Here a consequence of misplacement:-

[A Question from Microprocessor based System design]

Q) Write an algorithm for converting a BCD number to binary.

Ans: First store the number in a temporary array. Move the number into one of the registers . I tried so hard and got so far but In the end it does even matter . Divide the number by 2 until it becomes zero and push the reminders into a stack . Yeh Ganpat Chal daru la ! In the Mumbai all over India we are the bhai. We are the bhaai ! Pop the elements out until the stack becomes empty and print the output using required interrupts .

This state of mind even changed my research area of interest . I was initially working on ‘Leakage currents in VLSI’ but off late my mind is hooked up in imagining strange things . One such strange thing is a Transmogrifier Gun . This Gun uses the technology of telepathy . It automatically reads the brain waves [usually its in the form of EM waves [Ref: IEEE Biological Sciences]] you emit and turns the object into whatever you want .

And during these times any weird thing I saw excited the state of my mind . One such incident happened while I was watching Kyle XY [Another weirdo] . He could break a glass of water by just concentrating at it for certain time. Inspired from the above incident my mind also wanted to do something like that and I did succeed in doing it . After 30 long minutes of rigorous staring at the laptop screen it did go into hibernation stage . Luckily all those neurons which had stored weird incidents of Heroes died in the war , else the consequences would be even more worst .

PS: I thought I would write a sensible post, but due to the above state of my mind it got transformed into this or might be due to the Transmogrifier Gun .

With love

[Some unseen letters recently discovered]

Dear Sunita Williams,

Hey whats up? How you doing? First of all do you people get any special kind of gel that can be applied to the hair? Anyways you got the wackiest hair style of the entire crew. We call it the Center-Shock style .The take-off was pretty smooth I guess, by the way I got a serious doubt in my mind …. Does your aircraft have an Air hostess? And does she do all the mimicking stuff before and after take-off ? Out here in India, the pilots aren’t confident enough, the Air hostess keeps talking things to do when the plane is about to crash .

I saw you on TV when you ran the Boston Marathon . You did really turn on the spirits of young people making them aware of the importance of physical fitness . Hey Can you do me a favor? Just send a e-mail to pec[at]students.iiit.ac.in saying that “The miles I run during my training hours here in the International Space Station gets accounted into Prateek ( 200530013 ) physical training credits” . [ I kinda need one more credit to get my degree as the rule book says ] . And also can you take some pictures of Hot Alien chicks and mail me . I realized that I am gonna stay ‘Single’ in this planet, so thought of some outer space adventure after my graduation (2009 hopefully!). Oh! ya forgot to tell, Aishwarya is playing the role of Sunita Suresh in Heroes. She has been signed in for 8 episodes and its mostly in the month of October when she will be aired. I will try to send you the DVDs of Season 1. [I mentioned about this cos you both have the first name in common].

We all miss you down here on Planet E and hope to see you soon . You will always remain in the hearts of millions of people down here [even the Aliens up there] for ever. There are zillions of people praying for your safe return.

Adiossa

Love you,
Prateek G V

I’m sending this mail to the following address. [Do they have to send another aircraft to carry this mail to you?] Hope it reaches you .

To,
Sunita Williams,
International Space Station,
Atlantis block.

[She holds three records for female space travelers: longest spaceflight (195 days), number of space walks (four), and total time spent on spacewalks (29 hours and 17 minutes). On April 16, 2007, she ran the first marathon by an astronaut in orbit. Williams finished the Boston Marathon in four hours and 24 minutes .]

PS: I know I sound completely immature but thats how I write. Felt like writing a letter to someone and here it is. I was thinking about the letters which I had written during my school days, the only problem my teacher found in them was that the To and From address would be missing every time . I hardly receive any mails [in my postbox], but whenever I do [which happens at the rate at which Halley's commet is sighted] , it feels great.

Heavy Weights

This happened last summer. I was at home and Jobless. I always had a dream of working out in a Gym [never thought about the consequences though] and this was the perfect time. So, I began gathering stuff like the tracks, shoes [basic Gym avatar]. It turned out to be costlier than getting into the Gym. Well anyways things kept moving and finally the day had arrived.

My first day to The Gym.

First thing I noticed was a poster of a half naked man on the entrance door. I wondered if I would be the next person replacing the current poster with some girls around me . The motivation set was pretty high [It was so high that I thought I would be on the advertising pamphlets of this place having couple of my pictures captioned "Before" and "After", with "Before" getting more focus on my extra large tummy and "After" on the tummy getting converted to 6-pack] . Then I met my trainer. That guy was quite heavy [But completely out figured. He had an egg shaped face and broad shoulders ending up into thin chicken legs]. It began with the warm up exercises. Any exercise starting with ‘P’ [Pull ups, Push ups] seemed impossible. The laws of gravity acted too heavily upon me [Looked as if my Dad didn't pay that months gravity tax bills]. Then came the exercises with the equipments. First it was with the dumb-bells. It was easy working with it but my grip wasn’t that tight because of the sweat generated in the hands. Consequence – One of the dumb-bells went flying and feel on the floor making a huge sound. [Imagination running at that moment: I was in a land of T-Rexs/Tyrannasaurus and any slightest sound that I would make would result in the last breathe that I would take ]. My trainer felt I was not comfortable with dumb-bells and shifted me to some other equipment that had to do work with shoulders. The exercise looked pretty simple. I just had to get the two handles of that equipment close to each other using my shoulders and then let them go. I got into position and tried hard for once. It didn’t work. Tried again. No use! It looked as if I was trying to join similar sides of a bar magnet. I kept trying but the two handles never touched each other. In order to cover up, I got up from the seat and started looking at the screws[as if something went wrong with the equipment]. The easy exercises included the Treadmill and Cycling.

The Day after [Wish it had not come ]

I couldn’t move my arms an inch. It pained like hell the next morning. But as I said earlier the motivation set was on high standards, so didn’t give up that easily. As usual it began with warm up exercises. This time exercises starting with ‘P’ became even more worse [Pulls ups: Hang your body on a rod with your arms acting as hook] [Push ups: Laying your body absolutely flat on the floor]. The count for the sit ups went into Geometric progression series.

This continued for couple more days and finally ‘I Lost ‘ . I was completely on bed rest/arrest for almost a week .My dreams of becoming a ‘WWE superstar’ had shattered. But as they say ‘Life moves on’ …..

This post is inspired from the movie Heavy Weights . IMDB rating 5.7, but who cares about the rating.

PS1: You are reading PS1.