Thursday, October 24, 2013

The sound of water says what I think


I cannot recollect the last I was generating meaning from water excitation. It has been a long break from travel. Yes, it has been about 3 weeks now, which is quite long.

Though it's been only 5 days that I got back from the hills, I'd count it out, since the stay was so short and the purpose was so small. While in Gethia, I did nothing but the same stuff that I'd be doing in an urban setup, either side of the morning/evening runs/hikes, and the occasional target practice with the slingshot, or a short photo-walk around the orchards, or light ropework, or short incoherent conversations with me sr. The phablet was my best phriend. For an exception, count the Rubik's Cube, which I can now solve with mastered ease (I've left intuition behind and learned set algorithms).

What I want are bigger travels. Bigger in operational radius, bigger in context, bigger in terms of agents involved, and possibly of longer duration. Large lakes, not small mud ponds.
In the meantime, I continue to wallow in the small. Went out for a run this morning, finally - the focus is on 'morning'.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

platypus awesomeness

Platypuses are awesome, because

  1. it is an incredulous evolutionary abnormality, that was considered a hoax when first reported.  it was thought that somebody had sewn a duck's beak onto the body of a beaver-like animal.
  2. the plural of platypus is platypodes (not platypii)
  3. they are monotremes i.e. lays eggs instead of giving birth. monotremes ~ monos + trema which means single holed, which refers to its cloaca (and cloacal reproduction).
  4. a group of playtypodes is called a puggle
  5. the most famous species of platypus known is the duck-billed platypus. strangely, it is the only species of platypus known as well.
  6. they are also one of the few venomous mammals. the male has an 'ankle spur' on his feet (much like cowboy spur) that is connected to crural glands which produce venom, that works by triggering oedema, that could kill smaller mammals (like dogs) and incapacitate humans.
    some other venomous animals are the European mole, the Eurasian water shrew, and the hedgehog (which exhibits a behavior called self anointing where it smears its spines with poison from a frog's glands, thought it is debatable whether it is for defense or sexual arousal in partners).
  7. their tails work as fat reserves. that is an amazing adaptation. (more amazing, i can imagine, would be if they could mix it with caudal autotomy, which is what lizards do when under threat, making it like a sacrificial gesture to the predator god).
  8. it hunts inside the water, with eyes, nose and ears completely blocked. what it has done to overcome this handicap is unbelievable. it has developed electrolocation. its beak can be imagined as a flat radar scanner, that is lined with rows of electroreceptors. it detects tiny muscle contractions in its prey, providing all its input data in this form, continuously scanning the water for more calculation (feed me data!) through characteristic side-to-side motion of the head.
  9. being a mammal, it feeds its newborn milk. but this milk comes not from teats, but through skin pores that give out milk. this milk collects in grooves on its abdomen, where it's lapped up by the newborn. that is a new solution to a regular mammalian problem.
  10. mammals, ordinarily, have 2 chromosomes. platypus has 10 chromosomes.
  11. no gene has been identified with gender determination in the the platypus.
  12. the platypus features in an indigenous Australian story, where the major animal groups, the land animals, water animals and birds, all competed for the platypus to join their respective groups, but the platypus ultimately decided to not join any of them, feeling that he did not need to be part of a group to be special. story of my life!

(Old) job interview

Well played, day. You gave me some of everything. Play, sleep, buggy heat, pricky chill, a flawless victory, an opponentless (sense of) defeat, a ray of hope, a pout, a drag, new music, new equations, ideas and musings (presently grouped under 'idlings'). Annoyed at the end of the day seeing the inflation in my priority list, which is really just a graph of spikes (that's how i work).

At the end of the day my favorite career could be of a mathematician's - generating mathematical beauty in fusion with visual, aural (and sensory) beauty, or a cosmonaut - working onboard the ISS (in LEO).

Got a call from my potential employers, SE. It was Rajesh calling. From all the loose talk, I suppose he's one of the HR guys. He sounded yuppie, and had the imaginative capacity of an Alpaca. Do they teach them to be that way, or is that something they pick up from all the revulsive romcoms they sit and watch in those free hours in the office? 

He tried taking me on the issues of 
1. Taking a (long) break: he would've been mighty impressed when he opened me with something uncomfortable. Humour me for a minute here - so an individual cannot have the balls to take a break in this present employment environment? what are we, third world? my daily routine is: you eat, you digest, you do fertile things, then eat (and repeat). eat, eat, eat, gives you a heart attack and loose bowels. Extend that metaphor to a life track. But what'd yuppies care about.
There's a big reason why these few months are hard to explain. Because I think I found a lot. I'm not kidding. These are naked realizations, that the sooner they come the better, and unfortunately for some, never. Wanna read my two-volume thesis and the hundred-few blog entries to get a perspective?

2. A 18-month work cycle
Rajesh observed that I had quit both Accenture and Fagbok around the 18-month employment mark. He pulled me on the pattern. I forget his exact words. Well, for one, you cannot derive a pattern from a lone 2 statistics. I told him how I've been eager to get in and whatever for the next 5 minutes. I could've countered his analytical breakthrough by the simple fact that having me leave in 6 months would disrupt that pattern altogether. "make as you wish from that."
There's another word for such kind: rawgabbit. Don't engage until you can stop making assumptions and know the real truth (for real).

3. Highest ideals: 
"I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that," he quipped. Not funny.
"I would say you aren't being imaginative". Not as imaginative as an Alpaca, surely.
I don't get what is the problem with a vision of future that is in proximity to technology, and complex/evolving work structures, and life goals? All i said was that: I wanted to be a strong developer.

He's way in ignorance of what smart people (and few like me) are doing to the world. "I wanted to be a pilot".. well, I wanted to top Valeri Polyakov or Anatoli Soloyev, but there are some things you see realistically, as a projection from where you are and ideally can be.
I should've told him I wanted to be a 'fractillusionist' and 'bring science to the front of performance arts'. Maybe both his laughter and cry would've been a rending experience at that thought; brain explosions and burgundy walls.

To kill the silence i proposed if I could tell him about my college life, which he interpreted as 'could i humour you if you're bored'. I then narrated how I'd been chasing a lotta technology in small ways, and how the Pakistan thing came to work wonders. I don't know how leaps and bounds that helped, but his voice then picked a tinge of fascination.

Later he gave me a hypothetical scenario to work on. My immediate response to that was discussed for the next five minutes, to again arrive at the doors of the same response. By the end of this, he had to hang up, probably getting chewed up by the active effects of a yuppie lifestyle.  I worked up a document showing the best case scenarios to prove my point and mailed him.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Wisdom to job, or not

It is really happening. Wisdom appearing over the horizon. It's a bad thing, but like all bad things that i've tried (and successfully quit after sampling with experience and comparison with thought), I'll be into this as well.

In wisdom, I'm looking forward to working in Bangalore. In wisdom, I know that i can keep OTL happy with that, even though i aspire do a lot more. I just hope Bangalore doesn't stick. YOLO. I'm only gonna be badly misleading a corporation with temporal expectations this once. wisdom of the wrong kind, I know.
Madhu - the HR head - was the voice at the other end today. Yesterday it was Rajesh and the last week it was Akilaa. Madhu has the most affable personality of the people I've spoken to. They were pretty eager to speak with me. Might even want me there by the 23rd. I have short time frames to look forward to.. it is indecent the way things are turning out.

I've been asked to list two references, one - if possible - from Accenture. I didn't hesitate in an affirmative. Pulling back Accenture strings means A. choosing which part of the hierarchy to call B. Tracing them down. brings up cruddy memories. How things were once!
How things are now!

I have been sane enough to keep a list of the people who I'd worked with. These become my 'references'. The first is easy: D. The next is a three-way split among those who supervised me in Accenture. I was reminded how I'd stored their names under their nicks (back in the day) - mama, chacha, and tau, going from immediate supervisor to the manager. (those innocuous insidious talks in the cafeteria under these nicks, only the ones into the cabal knew what we were talking about.)

--
1600: thinking to bail out! bail out! it's still too early find yourself fried enough to take up a claustrophobic office job, 9 to faiiive. i hope D comes up with a miracle bad recommendation.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

speak up

I find the world a better place now. People are into better stuff. It reflects well on the sidebar of my blog.
Earlier, that column would mostly have a fad-post I did on the SS (schutzstaffel) blades, and something hot and sultry. Now, SS has been displaced by my own weapon. And the sultry stuff has been pushed down by a recollection of a curious ghostly encounter 3 years back.

Love that the new posts are there, too [1,2,3,4]. I don't know who or why reads them, but I just like to see statistical computation making a blog a living organism. I'll be mad if the life comes artificially, from the link networks and seo asshats. Speak up?

Enervate. Childhood.

It is an ideal coincidence. That for the first time i felt like having Horlicks, as is, in the powder form. Both baby brother and me would love that way of ending our kitchen's stock of Horlicks/Complan/Bournvita/Milo in the growing up days. (that, and a powder called GRD, ooh that sweet sand). It not only brings back childhood memories of a small D5 University apartment (flat), with that mesh on the kitchen door, that we'd push through and walk out of with the same ingredients as I do as of this present moment. 

It also brings back something more important: focus.
I am living out of childhood for a while. I could say my childhood continued into my early twenties. That strife, the will to be (without knowing what it was about), the unordinary moments that combined to tune me to a happiness I call my own.

It was the worst Caturday evening, yes, even worse than the usual ones. Among unimportant things in life, I saw the movie Gravity. It was an overwhelming experience. Not the movie, but the ticket price, of 1400 INR. It was the highest affordable cinema experience possible, and I had it today.Why settle for any less, right? Turns out it  actually robs of the moviewatching experience - the gentle slopes ensure that the furniture rudely peripheries the vision cone,and  the the speakers sound soft. It feels too airplane-y (though I'd have better things than watch movies on an airplane). But let me assure you, this enervating experience had no part to play in the forementioned recession into childhood.

Horlicks and Hashish from childhood

It is an ideal coincidence, that for the first time I felt like having Horliks, as is, in the powder form. Both baby bro and me would love that way of ending our kitchen's supplies of Horlicks/Complan/Bournvita/Milo that way in the growing up days. (that, and GRD, ooh that sweet sand). It not only brings back childhood memories of a small d5 apartment  (flat) with those mesh on the kitchen door that we'd push through and walk out of with the same ingredients as I do as of this day, it also brings back something more important: focus.

I am (still) living out a childhood - the longest running illness I think I have developed. I could say my childhood continued into my early twenties. That strife, the will to be (without knowing what it was about), the unordinary moments that combined to tune me to a happiness I call my own and a pursue an entity (whose sketch lines are still in pencil).
[the preceding thought took me back to a lot of things. but i should 'expand' on them later.] that same now seems to come back. i'm fucking laughing again.

And another important addition:
Goodbye, hashish. you're in shiv's custody now. i'm not gonna ask for you for a long while, so start forgetting me. you have been a firecracker in my life - my initiation into so many circles, my crescendo on so many days, and my curling ray of sunlight. we've known each other for a good while now. remember the first time we met*? here's a secret: i'd vomited, since i felt so clumsy around you. since, i learnt to be better around you. you don't make me vomit anymore. we have come close. you know all my secrets, as if you've been running in my system.

it's said that you'll make me feel light, but i look forward to having a lighter head.

* in V's apartment in airoli

PS: the last proclamation didn't consummate, and yours truly was back on the hashwagon in a short while.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

A regular day

Day started early. Spoke with girlfriend for 5 five minutes, at 0630 in the morning. She was up, busy in orientation training for Berry, the new Shep in our house. After those clumsy five minutes, I was pulled back into the bed, like in reverse motion, and put in the same kind of sleep, as back then.

I finally got up by ... don't even remember. It was irregardless on this day. Both Adi and Yogi had spent the night over, and in the early hours of today I was busy vindicating myself of all incrimination - of being a bad-brother and a bad-host. TT is the only memory from that morning, a horrible first game followed with reasonable performance in the others. The way I could spend hours into playing the game, I could shuffle some priority stacks to bring 'indoor court' to the top.

Once the awesome people left, the day's belly was like a drought-stricken cow: Scrunched. I was just busy with the _big book_. I'm into sorts of warming up the engine. Gotta keep it in focus. Of all that I've wound through to get here, I have to make it through all the way. No gates should stand closed in front of me.
What that emotion translated to was hours drifting into and out of sleep trying to become smart again. It is as if the brain knowledge registers are full. I need to flush out some knowledge. I need to flush out all the thoughts and the effectual residue.

Talk about flushing out... the TODO list that I accidentally ended up making, is interesting. Presently it evokes something close to regrets, since it's only growing. Average life of an item is presently ~4 days, into its 5th day of existence. It only shows how much of a doofus I am. The expanding list won't stop, regardless of the fun nostalgia, and failures it brings (if they end up being that). I'm gonna add a t-rex suit into that list.

The fag end of the day was horrible. I returned home enervated. It wasn't the 10k either way I did to reach Yogi's - that was actually the best part of it. It wasn't the movie that we'd gone out for, Gravity (which btw is gripping but slightly flat).

It was that we found ourselves having to pay 1500 bucks for the experience of a movie. Wow. Karma biting back?, or just playing out of probability of converging four such friends to watch a movie, that two don't even find curiosity in the ticket price while the other two don't find curious things funny anymore. It ended up real nice. I'm thinking about myself so much so serious and such funny things happen. hah.
Some genius saum is. he has an eerily clumsy way about him, which berates his profile, and makes me believe he'll do some crazy genius shit but find a lotta things dysfunctional around him. Well, same goes for myself.

I was sure i wasn't attending Sahil's engagement tomorrow. but now i'm slowly recovering, and have confirmed plans for it. Good thing that Sahil's engagement in the evening - or I'd have to defer the tatkal ticket booking to Shiv, for a journey that would get me to Kathgodam to reunite with my parents after two and half months. Only if I could share everything in that space; how things make and break; how happiness and farsight are higher than career at the moment.

One thing doing alright is the amount of tired i usually get at the end of the day. It has been a consistent 5 days. Table tennis, tennis, cycling, jump rope, and running sneakers have been employed this far. Tomorrow morning baby bro and  I will be seen exploring at QRP. The 'no play' days of recent past have been boosted, not only my understanding of life (and love), but also my girth. It is not very efficient to live large.

What it allows me, however, is to redistribute what I've put on, put some muscle on upper body, keep my sherpas (legs) strong, and more blood going. I'm not doing this with a short frame in mind. Thinking of months right now. In those months I could work out paisa and kill the GATE.
Then ready for some awesome long leaps.

Announcing a pre-job Retirement

The sabotage plan is ON

A long 'Skype' with D. If i was starting to get uncertain about the things in process, his pitch completely pulled me to the side of supreme positivity - so much that i'm ready to linger longer sans cash in my pockets. \

On phone with Bangalore, I could see the kind of stability these traditional jobs demand, and the kind of flat endless work that'll come. I'm ready for neither.
There you go. Something that until yesterday (or at least two days back) seemed right, is now what I will be running from. I'm the runaway bride when it comes to jobs. This one i'm actually leaving at the altar, and I'm gonna be proud of it.

These are the kind of disruptive talks that i love, and the no-bullshit wisdom people should dole out. It rends me to see that despite shouting everybody to see me in my image, they project me as them and then try to spoil whatever I have going (which i agree, is little, but it is still distinct with still no cushion hoardings sticking).

Deepak's wisdom goes that for somebody who's made an effort at cleavage should hold longer. In the future, money over these 6 months won't matter much. That's similar to what Shantanu had said, although his premise was that "being a guy he'll (me) take care of myself".
I'll choose a life without regrets. When bonds break, as I plan to do, there's plenty of energy released; that'll set my solar sails in motion. Retirement, I'm back! [fingers crossed]

I'm doing this in a slant way, since announcing a direct pursuit of my mad goals and crazy ideal would be tantamount to patricide/matricide/fratricide. Everybody in my family is pretty nervous about my situation, and the only thing changing their faces to ca. 1990 is my prospects of being gainfully employed by the end of this month. When that doesn't happen, it shouldn't in any way trace back to moi, or i'll be the monkey with the beat-up red face.

Personally, i'm moved by my positivism over the past coupla' days. I have some nasty incriminating/contradictory stuff in my diaries that I could probably compare and laugh at later. If bangalore doesn't work out, i can confidently feel i'll be efficient at knowledge gain over these next months. Though i could even claim it would be regardless of where i'll be, Delhi is where I'll be most comfortable. What's more, i even plan to get a few whiteboards and start hitting the boards more serious than ever.

Along that would come adventure, would/could come a constant occupation, and even that cheesy thing called happiness. I have no high professional expectations, though (which is why i see myself in this situation in the first place). That aptitude against professional environments isn't gonna change anyways, at least until i see myself holding a knowledge subset that'll allow me to dictate my own terms.

For sabotage, we have decided to affect the last process of recruiting, which is employer recommendation. I already can't trace Amrish (suspect he's left Accenture). And in consultation, D - who also poses as a recommender this time - will be forwarding me their communication, where I'll be safely expressing my doubts I have with myself, in Deepak's voice. I've already forwarded my last payslips at Fagbok, which they'll soon find out, is dated to Sept/Oct 2012, contradicting with my statement of being 'employed' till 2013. Let's wish things a good start.

A Man with a Plan

I'm seeing it - the pattern of a restless mind emerge. A fixation on the belief that life isn't a narrowing cone of options and dreams, but restlessness also include, since this life has been often proven wrong. Understanding life is not simple. Maybe a plan..

I'm gonna start with algorithms. then onto analysis. then datastructures. that's the way i'll begin with preparing for GATE. yesterday i calculated, nothing much but that i'll have three months after this one; 3m20d to bring the knowledge back and reclaim the life track i've so cheery about. choosing bangalore is a step in that direction... i believe i could be putting my head into preparation much better in a new environment, around new people - novelty as a stimulation is a good replacement for coffee anyways.

I've shared my focused-head plan to girlfriend - about how I am being lazy about Bangalore, since i will experience this city only once before settling out elsewhere. I could choose bangalore for my post-retirement option if the city impresses me enough. But I've also assured her to be in Mumbai by next year, in about 8 months. I should've checked my words - made it between 6 to 18 months. I can imagine being speared when it comes to knifing the umbilical yet again. that reminds me that I haven't seen myself in a perspective of a quest to live outside any embryos; tag: must-revisit.

Have assured girlfriend that i'll be in Bombay soon. Not that i don't wanna be. The insignificant details of the day are making it impossible to make confirmed plans/commitments. Once things are set in stone, I would be able to foresee how lavish I want to keep my (Bang) exit and what expectations i should give to OTL.

Unfinished thoughts: i'll hate myself if i don't leave her ...

Monday, October 07, 2013

Defining features of love


Love is asymmetric.
Love is levorotatory.
Love is Maxwellian.
Love is axiomatic.
Love is tautological.
Love is covalent.
Love is esteric.
Love is anaerobic.
Love is endergonic.
Love is tangential.
Love is homotopic.
Love is opaque.
Love is commutative.
Love is NP-hard.
Love is scalar.
Love is paracompact.


Can't believe I'm blogging this after this

How I can't kill myself




बंदूक चलायी, तो गोली नहीं थी
नाव डुबाई, तो पानी नहीं
करंट लिया, तो बिजली नहीं
चाक़ू चलाया, तो धार नहीं
कुल्हाड़ी चलायी, तो मार नहीं

छलांग लगाई, तो जाली आ गयी
गाली दी, तो दोस्ती निकल गयी
Monoxide किया, तो गाडी बंद पड़ गयी
रस्सी लगाई, तो थोड़ी लम्बी पड़ गयी
ज़हर खाया, तो expiry निकली
Overdose किया, तो नकली निकली

लगता है कोई खफ़ा है हमसे|

This incident led to a deeper sympathy with those who fail even at failing.
"I want to kill myself"
"Please stand by [hangs up]"


Here are Top 10 common methods of suicide. Mine covers them all!
You see where I'm going? ... software bugs creeping into runtime code is the most horrible thing to imagine.

Meeting an eccentric drunk



अपनों ने मुझे ठुकराया
गैरों में क्या दम था
मेरी कश्ती थी वहां डूबी
जहां पानी कम था


Curious characters you meet when backpacking. On longer journeys, you don't tolerate them. On smaller journeys, you enjoy the temporary transport into someone else's eccentric world of eccentric tendencies. The shorter the ride, the more volatility you're up for. This one came across on the last day of my stay in Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand), volunteering for relief work after the floods.

He joined us on our way back to Gyansu, from Bhatwari . His company by the roadside seemed eager to see him away. I picked up a whiff of suspicion right then. In entered this frail, shabby guy, flush at his cheeks, wearing a set of clothes savvier than the average people around, but also dirtier. He got in talking into his cellphone.

Twenty seconds into his conversation on his phone, and the phone startled us by ringing. "There's something funny about this guy," I commented. I said that out loud. English works well for cryptic communication in this region. He then cut from his imaginary conversation, to the real one. Same gibberish, about life and all.

Upon inquiry, none of our fellow back-seater passengers happened to know him. "पिये होगा," वो बोले| They were amused at his demeanor and talk, much like us. We were giggling under our breaths. I was reminded of that weirdo from Lodhi Garden in a vest with a spray-can that I met on one of my photowalks.

"Since that Bill Murray movie ('What About Bob'), I really don't find it scary to be around such strange people," I remarked, in cryptic English. It had been only a week that I saw that movie, so I could imagine a desi Bill Murray of sorts, walking into a human circle trying to avoid all eye contact (as that would make him sick). What if he passed out whenever he looked into a stranger's eyes? The way we had to sit cramped in the taxi, half my being mingled with his. So if he upped his crazy in a violent way in the next moment (who knew), I'd be the first victim. But despite that realization, of all the people around, I was intent on reading this guy, and his antics. "Theater material" is what came in my head. And my smirk didn't hide that these city-dwellers weren't pushed into intimidation or anxiety by things like this.

This guy was worth my expectations. His conversation was twitterific... When he said out that 'Shayari', it was an epic moment in the day. That is when I asked R to turn on the voice recording. All aural 'happenings' of this ride now a memory.

"गरीब के घर में सोने के लिए एक कम्बल मिलेगा, और एक रजाई मिलेगी, और क्या!"

A while into the journey, and he finished his conversation (finally!) to take a look around. We exchanged glances, then his maw opened wide in glee, dirty tobacco-painted red-brown teeth baring, and an anticipation came over his face. He introduced himself to me, shaking hands. He told me about his village (Pilang), that was on the opposite hill "नदी के उस पार". Earlier, our teams has distribute relief in Pilang, so I well knew the geography of his home. He would have to cross a bridge and walk for another 20 minutes (at least). When Pilang came, he got off. His wallet was empty, and he didn't pay for the ride, much to the vexation of the taxi driver.

Parting words:
Him: "अब क्या करें अभी..." [what to do...]
Me: "घर पहुंच जाना" [get home]

Sunday, October 06, 2013

One Mace to Rule Them All


This is what I call a good defense tool. It is a modified mace, the way I felt it should've evolved.
Deep grooves at the apex, a spiked neck, padded handle, brushed aluminium body.
Keep it in the boot of your car, and strike deep fear before you strike deep chaos, when the need comes.
Ideal for intrepids.
The color scheme I've worked out makes it resemble a penis, which I've gotta amend.