Saturday, March 31, 2007

Exocytosed thoughts

The organizational level of your hard disk is a direct indicator of the level of confusion in your mind.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Shutterbug Update

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When: 29/30th March 2006
Where: Aloha Changi, Singapore
Why: Was there for a lab retreat
What: Views from the beach / boardwalks
How: Sony DSC-T9 , Windows Picture Manager for change in Colour/Hue/Saturation



Note: I havent been able to think of suitable titles for these images... Do comment of you come up with something. :) Will be grateful.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Thought for yesterday - 2

The more you shirk, the more you shrink.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Cricket 101 it is...

Thankfully, I did not watch India being slaughtered by Murali. Hats off the Lankan team.

Its kind of hard to imagine Bermuda beating Bangladesh at this point, but then unpredictability is what cricket is all about. I sincerely feel Bangladesh deserve to go to the Super 8's. And after their forgettable performance yesterday, India deserve to get back home to the nets and practice. Or maybe not. Maybe they need to get back home and take their minds off the game for a few months. Wait till the ghosts that will haunt them disappear. They probably should stop appearing in commercials for a while, for it will only fuel the burning bellies of the Indian cricket fan and may cause broken television sets. As for the billions of dollars lost by commercial sponsors, don't you know that putting all your eggs in one basket is dangerous?

Hard luck boys. You tried, but failed. But tomorrow is a new day , and brings new hope!
And oh, boys, don't worry about effigies being burnt, but worry if your family will be safe. Because this country is such. Anything can happen. Get some extra security. Maybe the government will extend the NSG Commando force provided to them for the world cup. Keep your windows closed. Venture out incognito only. Better yet, take off to Switzerland.

More importantly, this is not the end of the road.. Well maybe for some, but the game will go on. Chalta hai. 2011 is not too far off.

For God's sakes, its just a game!!

I couldn't bear to watch anymore. We were going down. Digging our own grave. Getting ready to pack our bags. And still why do I hope? Well, because I'm an Indian of course!

What am I writing about something that is happening thousands of miles away at 3AM? Well what else could it be? The cricket match between India and Sri Lanka .... That I am not a cricket fanatic who has Sachin's statistics or the Indian cricket team's history on my fingertips could seem a little out of the ordinary. But like every other Indian I would want the Indians to win the World cup... It seems a distant dream as of now, and with every passing wicket, a dream fading into thin air...

Cricket has been hyped by the media to crazy heights. That a national news channel makes the match its headline news seems really nuts.... to me at least. All it does it put more pressure on the players. Being disappointed when your team loses is one thing. Expressing it in words is okay... But burning effigies and attacking homes is quite another thing. Whats with the people of this country? Dont we have better jobs to do? I think its a vicious circle and the media has a big part to play in it . ( Some may say I'm just attacking the media for the heck of it. But staying outside India, the media is your only connection to what's happening at home and you tend to become more of a news junkie that you were. I check the websites of CNN-IBN, Times Now, NDTV and The Hindu at least thrice a day! ) But the fact is that these channels turn their limelight on whatever they can grab for the moment. That's the only way they can keep their viewers and their ratings. So it conveniently becomes a way to become famous on national television to sell kidneys to attend the world cup. This in turn galvanizes the channels into another frenzy of coverage... And the circle is never broken.

I think whats really needed at this point is to realise that cricket is just a game. Its meant to be enjoyed . Not politicised, commercialised, raped on national television for its failures. Its definitely not worth losing lives over.

Anand Vasu of cricinfo points out here that what the team needs to understand that its not about what others think of them , but what they do on the field that matters. And that for while, they should think of it as just a game between bat and ball and do what they do best and do it for the country and more importantly, enjoy doing it. The players seem to be appearing on TV more on commercials than on the field. To me it seems that they have stopped loving their game . That they have begun seeing it as a stressful job to just play in the team. With a billion expectations resting on their shoulders, its not hard to imagine why.

I cant bear to watch the match. Even on cricinfo it seems painful...

But me being an optimist , I believe in taking away the best from any situation...

Situation 1 : India Wins : Well and good.. we progress, holding on to the thin threads of hope that we have and maybe even make it to the semis ( Lets go one step at a time fellas. Semis first and then maybe, just maybe the finals..)

Situation 2: India Loses ( ouch!! even typing that out sounds bad! ):

The Nation : The media goes beserk again. India's loss becomes front page news, ousting our most favourite pastime of politics. Speculations run amok. People lose faith in the team ( for a while. And then another victory against Bermuda and were back to hoping that we will win the next ten world cups in the current form )

The 'boys' : Pack the bags. Head back home. Let the losses to sink in. Get back to their homes and families and take some time off live the non-cricketing lives. And then do what every army does. Rebuild. Cricket 101. Back to the basics. Most of what went wrong is in the mind. They should get back to the basics and begin to enjoy what they do. Complacency can be a cruel teacher.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

All it takes....

Dear Diary,

Sometimes, all it takes for a drastic change in a life is a single event, a single conversation, a single positive result in an experiment that has been failing for months, a single brilliant idea .....

Why am I saying this? Well, I am waiting for that single event. It may not mean much for anybody else. But to me , it means moving away from a long period of low motivation levels and seeing some positivity... Maybe its within me and I only have to see it. Maybe it is already happening...

Well, tomorrow is a new day and brings new hope! :)

Monday, March 19, 2007

Waiting....

Waiting for freedom... 1947


Still waiting for freedom... 2007

These pictures were taken sometime in February 2007 in Singapore when I was waiting for the bus to return home

Camera: Sony DSC T9

Note on the Camera: Doesn't usually take a great shot, and I had to make several tries before I got these two. I feel something needs to be improved in this picture. But still, its the only one I have now, and so I love it for all its flaws . :)






Saturday, March 17, 2007

Thought for yesterday

The more gadgets you use,
the more disconnected you feel without them.

Friday, March 16, 2007

A poem I wrote...

I wrote this poem when I was kind of in a depressed state.. well im out of it now and actually thought it was worth putting up.. as i always say, extremes of emotion bring out your creativity better than anything else!!


Frozen


Frozen in time I remain, Confined in nothingness
Getting slowly consumed by the vaccum of deceit,
Into a void, which has a cloak of
Truth and Purity on the outside and
Decadence and Self-indulgence on the inside.
The choices to a different world
Lay in front of me, and yet I cannot choose
For your first love is always hard to let go,
It pains me to speak of her thus,
But she once promised to emancipate me
from this world of chicanery,
Alas, I realised
her world is made of people too.


Written on 15th March

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The things I want to do

Ive created a kind of a wishlist for the things I want to do right at this moment. Here it goes.

  • Play strategy games for hours on end
  • Go running until i fall over
  • Stand at the tip of a cliff and shout until my voice goes hoarse
  • Take a decision
  • Go back to college and sit in class one more time
  • Go back home and hug my mom
  • Get a hug from my dad
  • Eat loads of french fries and waffles and yet not grow fat
  • Take a long drive on a lonely road
  • Go to a lonely tea shop on a mountain and enjoi a garam chai
  • Drive a ferrari on the autobahn
  • Learn to play the guitar like santana in one minute