I Dont Know

Reality Bits

2011-12-02T06:34:00.002-05:00

Its been a while I have recorded or actually played seriously. But over the last few weeks there has been a spike and of the consequences of that spike is this recording. Please feel free to leave suggestions/criticisms because I would love to improve my recording and playing standards.

2nd April 2011 - The Second Odyssey.

2011-04-02T19:29:00.000-04:00

I told you that I would be back if India won the last game ... WELL HERE I AM.. NOT JUST BECAUSE THE DEFEATED PAKISTAN.. BUT BECAUSE TODAY... THEY ARE THE WORLD CHAMPIONS OF CRICKET AFTER DEFEATING SRI LANKA.....

Many a times I have seen a match where our bowlers could not contain the batting side and they outplayed us defiantly eventhough we had gained the advantage early on....

Today I couldnt really understand the game.. for this Indian Team was doing the same thing to the Lankans... and it was feeling good. I was not sure if it was a true feeling of confidence or jubiliation or really a dream ... I still feel it. It seems its not really true but I have fed this dream for so many days and months and years that I would be destroyed if the bubble burst.. and I ended up waking up on my bed .... waiting again for the India SL match to start...

So I pinch myself...

And it hurts.. But I smile.. for I have done this before....over and over again.. to convince myself that its really true.. and that India has really won the World Cup Cricket Tournament... and that I witnessed it live with a bunch of other Cornell grad/undergrads... ... I really really cannot grasp the impact ...

Well, to be practical.. it doesnt matter so much for us does it.. People staying so far away from the actual action. I mean if our happiness quotient is 40x we would like to show its 160x because thats what we want ... and yet at the back of our mind we still have to do 2312414 other odd jobs for lab / home etc.. and its so different from home where even if you are 40x happy ... you will become 1600x happy just because of the sounds and sights around you. I am pretty sure.. there are still parties going on in India .. on the roads and streets. People making a whole lot of noise with bottles, utensils, Blow Horns, Car Honks etc etc.. dancing half drunk on the streets and I miss being so far away from it.

Nonetheless, I did decide to not work today in lab and probably even tomorrow. I will take a couple of days to recover. My head is still heavy, which is mostly because I havent slept last night and my throat's parched and silent.. due to all the shouting and cheering. Yet I dont want to go to sleep for some reason. I still go back to the same old news articles which wont change cause its really late in India but just in case I have missed the odd interview of the sight screen attendant... you never know !!

In my last post I had spoken about how cricket as a game affects us as a community and how I have justified the Indian teams's performance according to my life line... ( a rather ingenious pastime most Indians enjoy... of associating and entangling their own life with the ups and downs of the Indian Cricket Team) and thats the first thing that hit me. Unlike the last World Cup final in 2003, I was not watching this from home. I was in a small college based town in upstate NY where there will still enough fans to organise a communal screening of the game on a big screen and enough noise to attract "whiteS" from around the corner..... Some of my fellow spectators were still learning the rules of cricket such as "what is an over?" while others as usual were busy dissecting every delivery of Harbhajan Singh and how he really needed to check his line and length in order to contain the batsmen... It was truly a very mixed audience which was even exciting. Cricket was breakinc boundaries.. Indian cricket was breaking barriers of a different kind. Suddenly we now have two seperate generations of Indians talking about their experiences about the Indian team winning the world cup..

And I am part of one of them....

(More to come later...)

What it means to me to be up at 3 am on a week night..

2011-03-30T03:09:00.000-04:00

Its only a few more hours and then the Indian Cricket Team plays one of their biggest matches

in their and our whole life. Its not as if we havent met Pakistan before. Of course we have. Its

not as if after this match PCB and BCCI will stop sending teams to tournamanets. But me and

my friends are part of that generation that did not understand cricket in 87, was only

fascinated by colours and Jonty Rhodes in 92.. and cried desperately in Kolkata in 96. We have

then cursed Agarkar along with poor Zimbabwe in 1999. Some of us even believed that we had

the cup ..................... even after the first inningsin the final..... in 2003... and we were quickly

kicked back to reality by Ponting's men..and then by Greg Chappel in 2007.

So when people like Gavaskar and Shrikanth and others talks about 83 in front of us.. we nod

our heads and open our mouths in pride. We try to look back at youtube videos of that fated

final, Kapil's tremendous catch. Roger Binny's extreme performance. I even had a

memorabilia of 1983 world cup that describes all the matches with lots of pictures which I

used to bring out everytime India played their knock out matches in a world cup.. I dont know

who in my family bought it.... its tough to spot the hidden fans.... the same way.. LOOOOT of

people dont know how much i and we Indians as a country and us... as a generation .... love

this game.. Really... the Tony Craigs and the Nasser Hussains, The Boycotts and the

Benauds... there is so much you do not know.

Coming back to the game in hand... sure I have watched some amazing India Pak matches.

And trust me, if someone told me it has never been this big... then what was the T-20 Final my

dear a few years back ? Have you forgotten the U-21 World Cup?? But then why is this so much

special (... at least for me and if I can understand the feelings of a handful 20 other friends from

my generation) ???

Its not going to be the same as it was earlier.. I would still wake up at 4. But thats not because

the match is in Brisbane or Perth. Ironically the match is at Mohali.. not to far from the JCR

where I WOULD go to watch the matches played at Brisbane and Perth..... and of course its not

going to be the same. I wont wake up a sleeping guard to open the common room for me.The

one room in the entire college that has the television and therefore the one room that would

suddenly accumulate at least 50 individuals..in the span of 5 minutes from different parts of

the college.. all sleepy eyed... straight out of bed.. some planning to go back to bed after the

day's play.. only to watch India win their first series victory against Austrailia.. Instead I would

be watching the game on my laptop. There is the possibility of going to watch it with a

thousand other undergraduates... both from India and Pakistan at the Mech Eng student

lounge here at Cornell. Ill probably pass that.. till the final. If India does make it to the finall.. ill

be there.

And yet.. this is not my story. As I said, this is the story of at least 30 (and DEFINITELY MANY

MANY MORE...)different people.. watching the game at different parts of the USA... waking up

at 2,3,4 am.. only to watch the boys in blue do what they are always expected to do.... smash a

thousand runs and then get the opposition out in exactly 10 balls. thats it. job done. we can

work now. for otherwise everything's a standstill. And it cant be the other way. Even if its

faster. Even if we can get them out in 10 balls we dont want to do that first.. For then we cant

watch our Gods bat.... and thats the fun in it after all ?

Sure we have some good bowlers.. but really ... we were always known for the short little

geniuses mainly from Bombay or Delhi... or sometimes the healthy allrounders from Haryana..

and once in a while a classy southpaw from the east..but thats about it..

Nevermind the geeky Bangalorean who left a software job to actually take all ten wickets in

the same match..it was against Pakistan wasnt it? Nevermind the near crazy Sikh who when

playing against the same goes berserk in every way.....

And yet... its not their story too. This is the story of my 300 other friends who I know are

watching the game in the same time zone..back home.. IN INDIA....updating their facebook

status as I do.with select exletives.. after every wrong decision by the Indian captain or the

umpire or the exceptionally (un)fortunate player from the opposition who dared to stop the

march towards victory.. virtually anyone who dare conspire against this juggernaut .. that we

know ... Indian Cricket fanaticism.

And just then do we realise that its a story of one of those little geniuses from Mumbai.. who

may not play another world cup.. and although known as THE BEST player that ever played the

game for the last few decades... would try his best to use this last chance ...

Its also a story of a coach who found a team in tatters.... and made some really hard decisions

to keep players out who on hindsight did not belong in this team. Personally however it is not

a story of the captain.. at least not this tournament unless he does something special for the

remaining two games..

So... here we are.. back again 4 years after a shameful exit in the group stages being knocked

out by Bangladesh .. trying to claim the spot that we have been eyeing for sometime and a spot

that we did deserve at least at the beginning of the tournament (before Pakistand and Srilanka

dazzled us) and its going to be big.

Personally I hope this game is as close as the India-Austrailia game.. but witha similar result. I

dont think by beating Pakistan we will gain political superiority or the right to diss their

cricket tournaments or any other leverage except for the one that we play for. A place in the

final.

The performance of the Indian team in ICC ODI World Cup has been very similar to the

stereotypical lives of people from my generation....Quite similar to the notion of getting away

watching a late night movie we were all to happy to reach the semifinal in 1996.. and suddenly

out of nowhere before we understood we were out of the game.. and with only tears to show

we realised we had missed the climax.. and had to go back to studying. We were too happy

destroying Sri-Lanka that we did not know how to beat Zimbabwe in 1999 .. something I would

compare to my own situation of solving complicated algebra equations with ease and yet

losing important points in my tenth boards for a minor addition mistake...Reaching

adolescence... we reached the final with the efforts of a leader as temperamental as

ourselves... only to be taught a hard lesson by life. And since then it has only been downhill

until after college we realised to walk on our feet.. to be adults.. and here we are knocking at

the doors of another world cup final.....

Pakistan other than being our arch enemy can also be compared to a middle class' arch

enemy - expectations.. and it is this battle that those 11 men in blue will be up against

tomorrow.. and lets hope they win...
For if they do.... it will be a day to remember. Not for me but for my entire

generation.....except.. there will be still one more game to play...

Ill be back then....

Are you looking for Bengali Band Reviews ?

2011-01-22T10:58:00.000-05:00

For quite sometime now I have been thinking of shifting my bengali band review blogs to a new address and I think today I had the initiative to do that. So from now on the Bengali Band reviews would be in a new address.

www.banglarockreview.blogspot.com

They will be reviewed there .

My music posts will still be here because they are an inherent part of this blog which is originally about myself and my opinions.

Bengali Rock Reviews are also my opinions but somehow those are posts that I want a lot of people to read other than my regular readership and I am not sure if I want them to know all the other things about myself! :)

Take care folks. And hope you have a great weekend.

Quick Post Nos - 23534612326

2011-01-20T12:58:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to share a link that a friend and a band-brother of mine posted on facebook. He shared his blog link with me too and I think its a beautiful effort. Please do visit his blog ...

http://samsearblog.blogspot.com/

and the post

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20028655-47.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheAudiophiliac

I completely agree to the post and I have been trying to do the same in my blog. Only slowly.. ! :)

All the best Sahil.

And by the way Sahil is an exceptional musician with good idea about beats (tabla), rythm (guitars) and tune (keyboards!). So if he says that a song is worth listening to I would probably do it than most other recommendations.

Bengali Band Review VI - Prithibi - Second Album (Chapter 2) TEASER

2011-01-19T04:05:00.000-05:00

I just found out that Prithibi has released their second album in 2010 called Chapter 2. Their first and self titled album that I reviewed earlier was released in 2007. I am not reviewing it right away. But my first hearing of the album has the following comments -

Better recording. Better composition. Completely different musical allegiance.

I also learned that the one song that i did not like the most in their first album, was their single most greatest hit - O AMAR!!!!! So there you are. I wish my blog was read by more people who echoed my sentiments. At this point I feel completely depressed about the fact that O Amar is their single most hit song..!!! Comments guys ??

Quite expectedly therefore Prithibi's lyrics is more romance oriented. Quite "emo" actually.
And in a way reminds me of Fossils or Rupam.

More later....... see you all.

Bengali Band Review V - Prithibi - Part 2

2011-01-19T02:32:00.000-05:00

This is the actual review of the band. I wrote it shortly after my last post but I wanted to write an intro to it because I know the review is far less detailed and quite harsh. Prithibi - if fortunately or unfortunately, any of you are reading this blog and do not agree with me or my views .... curse my blog, curse me and move on. If you do think there is some sort of creative criticism that you can use from this, please do so.

Truly speaking, while I would only give them 3 stars out of 10 ( a new method to have a comparative feel to these reviews) , both their guitarists are exceptional. Their background vocals are brilliant and their vocalist does often reach the right keys and tones to remind you of shades of Axel Rose or Dickinson. Their keyboards need to tighten up, their bassist needs more confidence, their lyricist needs more books to read and their drummer has a long way to go. LONG LONG WAY. Here is the complete review. If you can read Bengali , this is the link for their lyrics (http://www.prithibimusic.com/lyrics.htm) and you can find the songs in youtube if you type the names along with Prithibi.

First Song - Asukh (Disease) - The song starts with a good piano intro leading to the guitar arpeggio . The vocals are actually good when it starts and the background harmony is also pretty good. The song has a good atmospheric feeling but somehow the scale change in the vocals midway of the stranza sounds a little dischordant. And just when i was thinking it would be okay to call it to be well inspired by 80's rock they introduce sonic boom probably by means of a synth and that really does not fit in. The song ends low key and I dont think I will remember the song.

Barudh (Gun powder) - Good intro. Has a tinge of Iron Maiden in the beginning, but the slow piano interlude removes that. The lyrics are okay but not the best. A minute into the song, I am disappointed that a song aptly named barudh can have such meek vocals. The background vocals once again are really good. The chorus of the song reminds me of both Guns and Roses and White Lion, so full marks to Prithibi for getting the 80s hard rock influence. If only they could get it consistently right, for once again they use a wierd synthesiser sound which kind of makes the song less serious. This maynot be a creative limitation but also lack of good sound effects. Lets hope it is that. The song has another stranza which is only different from the first in its ending guitar lead which I have to agree is very good. But nonetheless, this 7 minute song could easily, EASILY have been a 3.5 minute song.

Biplob Dirghajibi Hok (Long Live Revolution) - Finally some solid beats starting the song. Sounds straight out of an GnR album. The song has good lyrics. Probably one of the best in the album. The lyrics are simple but not crass. By now the lead guitarist has impressed me a lot and if this band has gained any popularity it is for the guitarist(s). The bassist is yet to make a mark. This one song has a good piano interlude but till now the keyboardist has rather disappointed me and well the vocalist really needs to hear more of hard rock to really know what throwing your voice really is.

Brishti (Rain) - Bad intro. But the song picks up with the guitar groove - standard NWOBHM groove and they ruin it with an abrupt ending, but I guess thats their creativity. The overall feel of the song once again is pretty much the same. I am sorry if this sounds repetitive, but thats what this album feels like . A repeated attempt to introduce bengali band music lovers to NWOBHM music with soft vocals, some excellent lyrics, some half hearted serious writing and an over all khichudi of attempts. Brishti as a song does not remind me of rainfall in any way as does Riders in the Storm (Doors) or for that matter even Rainmaker (Iron Maiden). The song starts of powerful but falls flat on its face by the end. I am not surprised.

Kritodas (Slave) -lyrically referring only to the concept of slavery in medieval ages, this song fails to connect with me in the slightest manner. The music especially the guitaring is spot on. Who is this guy ? i am not sure which one of the two, Bubun or Samarpan plays the leads in these songs, but great work guys. But the song, if I may is rather insensitive. It tells a slave about the problems of his life. That too in a rather insensitive manner. The song boasts of in your face lyrics probably surprising some few Bengali Middle class youths who havent read enough fiction, literature or even sci-fi or comics all of which handle the issue of slavery in a rather delicate manner.

Manabi (Daughter of a Man) - Prithibi band members - whoever your lyricist is , he is definitely trying to hard to make a difference to the society and its a good concept but it wont help unless your lyrics makes some sort of coherent meaning. Of all the songs this song does have some sort of direction in terms of lyrics and yet it falls short. It refers to the city, probably Kolkata, as a girl and pleads it to revive itself. No extra comments about the rest of the song.

Nisshidho Parowana (Forbidden Notice) - My favorite song of the album if I HAVE to choose one. Good music. Decent lyrics. Good overall feel. Hear it guys.

O amar - (Oh Mine or She is Mine) (!!!!!!!) - this one is straight out of a MILES album. i can pause the song right now, and without remember the few times I have heard this song before I can say, the song has weak vocals, repetitive lines, background distorted guitar chords, one solid good guitar lead, a hap hazard keyboard interlude, rather simple drumming and together a boring song. This is bengali rock at its romantic worst. Why do these guys write these songs? and sing them and then make us listen to them. Listen to this song to know what NOT to do if you have a good guitarist in your band and you claim to be inspired by Ugly Kid Joe. This song should really be named Oh My God. Its a 8 minute long torture and could have saved these guys a lot of money for not recording this one. Only one thing comes to my mind in their defense. Maybe their record label asked them to put in one romantic , soft song and they had to make this one in a hurry. Other than that, I accuse Prithibi of completely annihilating 8 minutes of my life into a nothingness that I cant ever get back. Multiply that to the few times I have heard this album only to write this review and it might even be a sizeable amount of time to asphyxiate me to death. Any lawyer friends interested to fight a case ??

Pagol (Madman) - Intro that a guitarist would not be proud of. These guys have expressed their love for Cactus and Fossils. But come on guys. You cant just mix them up together and make a song out of it. I realise that I have one more song left after this and it gives me a feeling of relief. While I realise that this is the best time to write a few lines about the drummer, the song has reached midway. The lyrics even though walking almost in the borderline of being crass actually makes sense. Although the writing invariably stinks of trying to hard to be cool and abstract it does reach that level where it could be considered as avant-garde and different. A niche this band tried to hard to reach but according to me never really succeeded. The song outro disappoints me but I guess once again I am not surprised.

Satidaha ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice) ) - I really feel bad for the guitarists. The vocalist has constantly let him down with his pitch never reaching the pitch that would do these lyrics or at least the song names justice. The bassist either by choice or by accident has volume turned low in most of the songs. I can hear him but I am not sure if these songs would be very different without a bass guitar. The lyricist (whoever it is) has good intentions of making a social statement. But treating issues such as these which are not relevant anymore only appeals to pseudointels of a certain genre - ineducated antels. And finally the drummer. I am not sure if he understands what sort of a group he is part of, but some one needs to tell him how big a role he plays in the composition of a song and not just playing behind the guitar leads and vocal solos. I dont remember a single double bass roll. I dont think he can give a continuous 2 bar drum roll. Almost all the songs are simple 8/8 with an ocassional crash. Hell, I dont even think he uses a drum kit too often because his gear includes a Roland SPD-11 and a "personalized drum kit". No mention of specific toms, snares or cymbals. I am not sure if he really owns one, because he certainly doesnt play one as one would. Satidaha as a song probably can only be compared to the fire that burns under the already burnt wood with flames that you cannot see. You need a whiff of fresh air to rekindle the flame quite similar to the band and its musical sound in general.

Thats all for now. I really dont have the energy to write another one because this was tiring. I will now listen to some real 80s Rock to convince myself that I dont hate the decade.

Bengali Band Review V - Prithibi - Part 1

2011-01-16T07:14:00.000-05:00

It seems to me that this band has been in the Kolkata Band circuit for quite some time, by which I mean about 5-6 years. Somehow I had not got hold of their album till about 2 yrs back and that too because I heard they were ranked second in a widely acclaimed Rock Band Competition aired on regional television. So, automatically, I was curious and downloaded their albums from esnips along with Eshaan, the band that came first. I will follow up with a review on Eshaan/Ishaan after this but right now its Prithibi! :)

The question however is why I did not review them all this while...

A very simple answer is because in order to review them I had to hear their songs over and over again to be fair and unbiased and provide a good thorough judgement. Actually I take my word back. I am, in no way, judging them. Who the @#%@ am I to judge a professional band that is and will make a lot of money singing their kind of music etc etc. So I would say , all I am doing is trying to create a regular blog on the internet to provide a complete picture of what Bengali Band music is all about and if there would be even 3 people who after reading this blog would go hear a Bengali Band even if they dont understand the lyrics and.... like them, I would consider it a huge success. I would not deny I picture this blog to be something like Chuddy Buddy Ashish's Indian Undergound Podcast. I believe in the revolution that is currently taking place in the Bengali Band scenario in West Bengal and I believe in the success of these and others from Bangladesh. But coming back to the answer, while a review necessarily requires me to go hear the songs at least 5 times, I am really really sad to say Prithibi's first album is NOT one that I would listen to 5 times willingly.

I will explain why. But let it be known I do not have anything against anyone of the band. I dont even know them. Neither do I allow my own musical preferences to cloud my opinions when it comes to these band reviews. Yes of course, till the point of time I get requests from my readers about a certain band to be reviewed by me, I will review these bands in order of complete randomness ocassionally sprinkled with my unbound enthusiasm about a specific album and I would have certain favorite songs in an album, but thats natural isnt it ?

So, I decided, actually yesterday that I will give it a shot and if I cannot really continue writing the review with Prithibi playing on my ears for the entire time I will try at a different time. It didnt happen yesterday, because I thought I could see their influence from their music and so I went and read about them, their website, articles about them and realised I was not too far off. Believe you me, the two words that came to me when I heard 3 of their songs back to back for the first time was White Lion and Glam Rock and lo and behold... they are really honest about their love for the band and the genre. Thats one thing I like about these guys. Their honesty. Or at least their apparent honesty 3 yrs ago when they were just coming in to the scene. So I then went and heard a handful of songs of their other two influences, Lifehouse and Ugly Kid Joe. Yes. I had not heard more than one song each of both of these two bands and so that was a good experience. And now I am back with a much better opinion about Prithibi as a band and their debut self-titled album.

Normally I try to do these reviews in one sitting but I think I have achieved that in only two cases. Once for Prachir and recently for Arbovirus. I guess Prachir happened in one go because I was and am still quite enthusiastic about their first album. Arbovirus was written in the Dubai airport and I had enough time to spend. Today its not going to happen for a completely different reason. I am in Lab right now, its 2 AM. and I am looking at another night out after last night to complete my set of reactions to achieve the natural product that needs to ship out on Monday. And there will be breaks to set up the reaction, take an NMR, column chromatography and other mundane things. So here is my break number 1. For the NMR. Will come back in a while. In the meantime maybe you can check out my other reviews if you are a new reader. If you arent, I trust you to spend your time more wisely! :) One last thing before I leave the keyboard. I am sorry I did promise the next band to be reviewed would be Nemesis but I really want to get these four bands out of the way before I review Nemesis. So the bands I would like to review after Prithibi would be Eshaan/Ishaan ( I really dont know how to spell them in English cause different websites spell it differently), Adhar, Arfigence and Missing Link.

I will be back.

Real Blog 2011 : Part 2

2011-01-09T04:24:00.001-05:00

Hey I am back. Its 1:20 AM now. The David Gilmour car ride and the innoculation of flasks with bacteria in order to prepare food for an upcoming worm culture was a good change. Now to some more Oakenfold. If you havent read the Part 1 already please read that one first and then come back right here.

By this time I have actually downloaded A Lively Mind , the second album of Oakenfold. Mind you, there is one thing that I try to do when I am trying to write pieces on music and artists. That is to respect their copyright and intellectual property. I use Emusic as a way to download music. Its a paid site. And its quite nominal and I think I do my bit to keep musicians from dying from hunger. :) Other sites from where I regularly listen new music are gimmesound.com, soundclick.com, myspace.com and of course Pandora and Last.Fm. The last two are probably one of the best things that has happened to the internet. More than facebook. Maybe not more than Google.

I am not sure if I have explained the concept of Pandora in my blog before. Maybe I have. But I will do it again. What Pandora uses is called the Music Genome Project. They have musicians who are paid to categorize music according to their tonal quality, vocal aesthetics, Guitar sound, Beats, and several other parameters. Part of the reason why they would group Free Bird from Lynrd Skynrd with Cocaine from Clapton and All Along the Watchtower from Hendrix and not from Dylan. They also have a like and dislike button. If you like it they will then try to find more songs like that. At some basic level they also use country, singers, members of the band and also the broad genre as hooks to find similar songs that you may like and the result is not that bad. For example I have a station called Audioslave Station, and you will definitely find Rage Against The Machine tracks along with Soundgarden, and then you will found Tom Morello solo. Then you will find music from collaborative artists like Saul Williams and similar sounding artist like pearl jam, radiohead, everlast, and so on. Of course they repeat songs if you keep listening to the same radio for more than 3-4 hours and sometimes even before that if their loops are too small .e.g. Bollywood music. but still its quite commendable to do something like this. This website does not work in India. But you can read about it and maybe someone of you can even start something like this. Of course this would mean giving copy right money to the actual artists which at this point in India still seem to be a wierd context. One of the best things that still goes on here is that the artist gets some money everytime its played on a radio be it online or fm. But in India its really not that case. Why would then an artist really release his songs other than a cd which is really high priced. Anyways hope that changes. But anyways. Pandora was free when I first came here two and half years back. Today it charges you a small amount of money if you exceed a certain amount of time. Which I think is something like 30 hrs a month or something.

Last .fm is still however free. .. And it somehow finds more obscure songs. I like them both.

Coming back to Paul Oakenfold's second album ... Im half way through the album and its almost self evident why this album was although well received by critics it still did never surpass the success of his first album - Bunkka . The music is definitely surrounded by more beats and lesser on the vocal environment created by most songs in his first album. Till now I have no reason to not listen to the first album at the end of all the songs from this one in order to remind me why Oakenfold is different from those thousand others DJs.

While Amsterdam plays in my ears and I kind of wait for the surprise that I expect from this song or else its just another song, I will take you through the list of artists I have in my Electronic Playlist. We will try to go through them one by one. Together. I am definitely not going to listen to electronic music for continuous 2.8 days in this chair and keep typing to let you know how they are.....

And the surprise does come.. with Atmosphere keyboards and regular circular panning. There are about 8-9 layers in this one with a constant 16 bar loop that keeps revolving in different volume. Now he stretches its too long. Nope. Not really. Breaks it into 8. slows it down. Too much bass. rather repeatative ending is it ?
Cant really figure it out yet. Yup. Explosion with echo and reverb. Its okay. Does leave a small vacuum at the end which meant it did hold a place.

Next one, sounds like a hip hop/scratching one. Something's wrong with my bass level. Let me check.

Nope nothings really wrong. The Way I Feel, feels much better. Got a laid back feel to it.

Anyway going back, lets start alphabetically.

Ignoring one song from A.R.Rehman which has been somehow categorized as Electronic, the first artist is Air. Havent really heard them. Have only one album of them. The Virgin Suicides. Will hear it after we are done with Oakenfold 2. This song is good.

Aphex Twin. Not yet heard.
Asian Dub Foundation : I wont call them electronica/trance. They are electronic all right. But I would keep them under Dub which is quite a different genre on its own and will write about it another day.
Brian Eno. : Have three of his albums. Havent heard any one completely but have heard lot of him and I like him. He was what you could call one of the leading visionaries in Electronica/Dub Music.
Chemical Brothers: GOOD BEATS. Sometimes gets on your nerves. Or at least mine. Only one album, Push The Button.

This song , Praise the Lord. Song starts out really promising. But an interlude sounding very similar to Ready Steady Go, which I thought already got its deserved remembrance two songs earlier in Switch On. The song seems to be sarcastic about Prayer Hot Lines that requests for donations while praying and you really need not have a fully lyric based song to know that. But it does have a groove. Barring that jarring interlude that reminds you of that classic hit from the last album. The song does good.

While I finish that para, the next one has started. Save The Last Trance For Me. Yep. This IS a trance song. Mind you. Electronica is not All Trance. While ALL TRANCE is Electronica. And this song is definitely TRANCE.

After Chemical Brothers its Chromeo. Probably have heard them but cant remember right now.
Daft Punk : Robot music. Good for running , excercise and stuff. Dont remember a song that creates an environment. Definitely Good Beats though.

Faithless : No Ideas.
Goldfrapp : No Ideas.
Grandabob : Weird music. Not sure if I understand it properly yet. Sometimes the time signatures are too erratic for me and I get easily impatient while listening to them. Should hear them while writing here so that can express direct experiences.
Compilation Album - Transitions 4. Need to listen to it as an album once again.
Justice : No Ideas. Damn. I need to hear these bands.
Karsh Kale : Occasionally pure genius. At other ocassions standard Indian DJ trying to blend Indian roots with Western Beats and trying hard to make it sound exotic. Still worth remembering.
Ladytron : From what i remember I liked them but I think a little too disco for me.

Save the Last Trance ended up being a good song. I could rarely hear it outside the cocoon it created in which I kept writing. And one could really understand that you missed the song when it ended. Yet its not yet or at least not right now a song that I would try hard to find the name of.

Not Over, the next one from the album has started 2 minutes back and once again does not really jump out of the album. But its a 9 minute song and I will wait for it because while the music is regular electronica with background vocals, it does seem to be going for variation. Silence high pitch, Complete stop .. let see. Come on. Bring it on .... :)

Anyways.. after Ladytron its LCD Soundsystem. I do have their complete Discography and these guys are good. Once again they are what you would call Dance Electronica. But unlike other ones they dont always fill their compositions with layered beats and lots of bass. Rather they have a good proportion of vocal singing, random instruments and noises and a general slow mellow attitude blended with a punk rock/electronic attitude. I like them.

Littleboots comes next. Havent heard them. Sounds intriguing.
MIA. - Not so much electronic as hip hop and would want to listen more of her although as of now other than some of her more political songs havent really liked her a lot.
Massive Attack - Trip Hop. Definitely Electronica but of a completely different kind. You will not find these guys in just about any dance club. These guys are slow. Melodious at times and completely random and mind!@$$ing at others. Have a distinct Jazz obsession which I like. Maybe I will hear them once not in my complete senses to truly be complete nuts about them, but I do like them a lot.

Not over is finally over. I wont say disappointing because it was a good groove. Didnt really want to skip the song. Neither did it jump out in front of my face and started dancing. The next one however, called Vulnerable sounds good. I should tweak my bass setting a little more . My headphone , the studio monitors cant seem to be able to handle it.

The noise cancelling ones does, at least for this song, a big difference. Half way into the song, the song does captivate some of my senses. Cant really make out the lyrics except some guy trying to plead that he is vulnerable, for someone else, guy or girl one cant say. But nonetheless, the song has sonic booms, Distance Looping or thats what I call the effect that makes a sound feel like as if its coming from a distance, then makes it come closer and then it goes further and then comes back again. Definitely could call it Doppler Effect cause Im sure this is what it would sound like.

While the song leads to the next one called Feed Your Mind, I should go back to the list I was making and I think I stopped at Massive Attack. Two more lines for them. The one song that I love from them is Angel. You should definitely hear it. I think I have it on my play list on the blog. That play list does give a cross section of some of the songs that I could really hear at any point of the day and still feel good about it.

Feed your mind seems to be the last song of the album , at least in my playlist. Complete Dance song, and definitely one of the best ones in this album. If it really is the last one in the actual CD i can see why. Does use Vocal harmony with sound effects. Thats good.

This leads way to Ready Steady Go from his first album. I first heard this song in NFS. Loved it immediately. But never really found out the artist. Later when I heard it in Bourne Identity I was more than thrilled. Amazing song selection for that car chase sequence. Tremendous. Anyways.. I have never stopped loving it since then. Give it a listen. If ever I make a top25 electronica song this would be definitely part of it :)

Southern Sun takes over. Not exactly where Ready Steady Go left but if you can imagine the cliff right after a really high peak you would probably be able to understand the difference between the two songs. Or maybe if you imagine an inclined plane from your high school physics book . Guitar intro. Only 3 layers. compared to at least 7 in Ready Steady Go. A rather husky, melodic female voice with ocassional alternative echo panning where you hear the same sound in alternative ears slowly circling as if transmitting from one ear to the other. The volume decreasing in one ear and increasing in the other. Its a rather common technique. In electronica and dance/ trance. Which is why i said that you need a good headphone to really feel the song. And trust me, if while wearing the headphone if you can feel the song coming not from either of the ears but somewhere in the middle or sometimes even coming front of you, even though the sound can only come from the two sides, thats a successful 3D surround sound and successful DJ. Something Oakenfold achieves so easily in both these two songs that I am kind of really surprised that his second album was rather boring 2D eletronica :( .

Massive Attack is followed by Mice Parade. Have heard them once. Dont remember them except maybe one of their songs does refer to the Pied Piper. Although the album is named All Roads Lead to Salzburg.
Next up is a couple of lonely tracks. Meaning the artists are not well represented in my play list. Surprisingly it shows only one Moby track whereas I know for a fact that I have completey Discography of Moby. Anyways.. Moby is very good. The few times he creates his own stuff and doesnt just put beats on old jazzy slow music he does create some amazing tracks. Once again extreme ways , from Bourne Identity stands out in my memory. How could it not. Its my phone ringtone ! :)

Time of your life , the next track is an example of how you can take a very regular trance song and just by introducing an effect of really spaced noir film music as a layer along with ocassional tabla loops, you can really make a rather repeatative beat pattern really, really interesting. Guys, buy this album. download it. get it somehow. Its called Bunkka. I promise you, if not anything it is going to be one of the best few tracks you can play in a long drive.

Hypnotised, the next track, is another favorite. Cello beginning loop. Rather middle eastern vocal loop. Good bass and really by the time the female vocals ask you "Ever been hypnotized ? " and a rather strong sampler funk loop takes over and my typing speed goes down. You know its so much tougher to explain a good electronica song in words. Especially if there are multi layers each taking the song to a different dimension.

I was talking about Moby. I should hear all his music once again because while I know I really like him, I cant rattle more than two songs of his off the back of my head and that shouldnt really be the case.

Never mind. We move on to Orbital. A band that came out from nowhere in a Last Fm playlist. And I was later introduced to more of their music by an Irish lab mate of mine. These guys come from Engalnd/Ireland I think and he has grown up with their music and I shared his excitement because these are pure techno or what you would call Rave.

I am sure a lot of people would be thinking dark rooms, semi lit with colourful blue and fluorscent white/orange balls providing a rather cool effect on both the floor and the ceiling. You would also be thinking lots of mad dancing. But while I take two seconds off to really assimilate this rather awesome piece that is currently playing , called Zoo York , next song of Oakenfield 1, I would assure you is that you dont need to be high to really like these music pieces. If you really want to enjoy them in a different mood, switch off your room light, Dont get disturbed, maybe silent your phone, and keep writing. Anything. Ideas for your experiments, honest love confessions, hard and rude letters to friends who need to be brought back to the reality of things or even a long droning blog. :) Or stare at a screen of colour ful explosions happening according to the beats.

With 15 seconds left of the song I can definitely say this was one of the best rendering of Requiem for a Dream soundtrack I have ever heard.

Next one, called Nixon's Spirit track initially makes me feel I know where Midival Punditz gets their inspiration from. The lyrics or rather the growling voice of a man talking behind this rather mysterious track that makes you hear what is probably the first phone call that paul got from his record company saying that his demos were amazing and they would be interested. But the worlds about Nixon's spirit are rather funny and yet kinds of make sense in a completely non-sensical way.

Hold your Hand - starts of sounding nothing like an electronica song. But the rather sweet voice of Emiliana Torini makes you believe this is really a jazz.blues song if only you could remove the beats. This is one of those songs that might make you dance slowly with your loved one in a rather empty bar or house for that matter. This is also an example of how even with the rather stereotypical genre of electronica/trance music you can make a song really say what it means and make a romantic song sound romantic and a mysterious trippy song sound exactly that.

Starry Eyed Surprise sounds like 1960s funk rock on roll song. Or Bollywood songs of 1970-1980s picturised on a party where a band is playing and the hero sings with a rather long wired microphone while the guitarist is rather bored. The drummer is having a hard time pretending he is really drumming and the bass player is probably thinking how many of the viewers would know the difference between his instrument and the other guitar . The vocals however is hippy hop and the song is really a dj example of scratching, looping, echo and good mixing. I dont like it too much though.

Get em up - Starts of as definition Hip Hop. And of course it would. Vocals courtesy Ice Cube. Read up on him. Needless to say a big name in good hip hop. What is good Hip Hop ? Some other day along with the answer of what is the kind of music that I try hard to not HATE.... or rather what is bad hip hop?
The song is really just some good rapping with some extreme DJing. Rather repeatative but this song is vocal based. So the background looping is really secondary. However the song definitely reminds me of some popular new hindi bhangra pop dance numbers. It does have a bhangra feel to it I wont deny it. But if delved deeper I am sure I will find a connection to more than one song in the last 10 yrs of Bollywood music that is ripped from this one.

Motion - Quintessential Trance. Sounds as a rather bass heavy song. To give you a good picture of what this song really sounds like, imagine you are driving in a hilly road right before dawn and suddenly you see small peeks of the sunrise and in the distance the sky looks a little reddish, followed by the faint blue and then the darkness surrounding it. The camera pans out and one can only see your headlights in the darkness with this rather interesting colour display in the right hand side of the screen. You lose it when you make the left turn but of course a hilly road goes round and round and once again you will reach the eastern side of the hill and see the beautiful sight once again. This song is exactly that I dont know how he does that. If he consciously loops the sound in that way or if it just comes naturally without him even knowing it. And before you know it, you can almost feel the entire sky being lit up and a rather cool breeze coming in through your windows. And seriously... turn up the volume again. Because it only makes sense to hear it at high when the wave comes back and hits you again . This song is a personal favorite. You can use this one also while running. The song indeed does justice to its name although it does end in a rather uninteresting way if you ask me ! :)

Last song - Harder they Come - Starts of with a very cathedral sound effect and the moment beats enter, you have already figured out that this song could only work with the rustic sound of Nelly Furtado's voice. The song has a quality to hold you at your seat till it ends. i rather not interpret the lyrics. There are some dark lines out there with equally haunting sound effects with the male vocals almost exhaling right above your hair. Suffice to say, The Harder they come, the harder they fall, Maybe I would rather not go there at all...... Reminds me of Enigma you know. Have been searching for their entire discography for a long time now. Do have their albums but at different places and never have had the time to consolidate that. Maybe I will do it sometime in the near future. The song goes back to its original beginning and its a good song.

Now as promised, Air with the first song from their album Virgin Suicides called Playground Love. Quite a refreshing change from Oakenfold. This isnt your more than 180 rpm songs. Starts of with a synthetic and verymuch omni present cello/bass line. Gripping vocals reminding you of 1960s psychedelia bands, with saxophone to really really trip the line, I remember definitely hearing this album. Sorry folks. This is good stuff. Dont know why I forgot about them.

Did you guys know about a word called backrnoym ? I didnt. Apparently AIR stands for Amour, Imagination, Reve which is French for Love, Imagination , Dream. They are a French Duo... Duo!!!!!!

Couldnt be more jazz psychedlic than their third song Bathroom Girl. Atmosphere surround sound comes in. Floyd like guitar chords that sound like little music explosions. I like their use of what sounds like a real drum kit.
Cemetary Party - starts with a definite memory of Floyd and to be more specific Dark Side of The Moon. At this point some of you might be thinking, there goes his Floyd obsession again.. REALLY GUYS.. listen to the dark side of the moon first. and then listen to this album. Really. I am not even joking. There is a reason why these guys are here in my play list and now not only do they justify being their because of electronica, they consolidate their place with their sound reminding me of both floyd and Massive Attack.

Dark Messages sounds straight out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Half way into the album I know these tracks required an elevated sense level achieved by certain practices and while I wont go so far to say the must have been created while under such heightened sense states, they definitely would make more sense at that point of time. But once again, all you really need is a good pair of head phones.
All of their songs are about 2.5 minutes long.. Rather short , although this one, the next one, Dirty Trip is 6 minutes long and is the only one that is longer than 3 minutes. But by now I feel these guys either met Syd Barret in person or were products of invitro fertilisation of his sperm or somehow is just Syd reincarnate. This album is not for the faint hearted.

I can promise you not many of you will like this one and you would have to be trained to listen to Pipers at the Gates of Dawn and albums of Yes and Solo albums of Syd Barret first to really appreciate this but you will like it. Although this particular song, Dirty Trip, is only half way through and while it succeeds as a brilliant psychedelic track I know I am scared of the song and its really really weird sound effects. The bottom of my feet itches and I feel a sense of restlessness. And trust me guys. This is normal for a psychedelic song to make you feel like this. As if you are stuck in a glass room with your head inside a small chamber. It suffocates you, but you are really curious to see the room and the view inside and outside from inside.

I'll pause here. because the song finally ends in a rather incomplete fashion.

And when I hear Highschool Lover, I am convinced these guys started off as a Pink Floyd cover band and at least this abum is a tribute to Dark Side of The Moon.
A quick look at their Wikipedia page and definitely solves the mysteries. I most definitely need to check up on these other composers that they seemed to be influenced by because I am quite sure I will like them. I also need to get their complete discography.

Their next song, Ghost Song, is more than scary with a constant echoing jarring tuning fork sound. These guys surprise me more in every song . For example the next one, is a constant repeating loop of computer sound that you would get from a synthesiser. Not the keyboard instrument, but the music sampling synthesiser. and then it gives away to some really soothing whistling and vocal harmony. Do not listen to this band in high volume. Probably might make them more palatable. This is a band that will grip all hyour senses and you really want to keep a little space for outside noises to come in or else I feel you will either not feel like listening to them or will go crazy. The last song , Empty House, was haunting indeed and their last song , once again to my surprise is rather upbeat and beat based with a complicated string loop, even though the name of the song is Dead Bodies.

My room is dark right now and I have been staring at this screen for more than a couple of hours now and if I look around I may see wierd shadows move around... are they people ? Is this Sixth Sense? Do I feel someone's presence now ? Maybe . Maybe not. Bottom line, Air's only album in my play list rocks more than I could imagine and this is what I was saying. I discovered this band with you guys. So I am not really writing these long boring descriptions of music styles I like not because of you but for me. With that in mind, I hear the sarangi. Next track from some band called Amar. But the Hindusthani Classical Female Vocal and the rather misplaced extra bass kinds of does it for the song.

I will hear this song later but not right now.

Lights on. Nope. No one else in the room. I have two more bands that i want to talk to you while I listen to them.

The first one's name intrigued me. Littleboots. First song , Automatic Lover .... disco beats, ethereal drops, over sweet female vocals, robotic impersonation by the male vocal. and its stereotypical 1980's disco.

Quick look at the wikipedia and I understand this is called Electropop. She is quite famous.. considering that her first album came out in 2009!! Once again influences include Pink Floyd and can you believe it, Britanny Spears !! But wait. This is the second time I get this name .. Jean Michel Jarre. MUST HEAR HIS / HER MUSIC...

Her music also does remind me of Lady Gaga and Robyn. Quite rightly she does seem to be part of a new wave of Female Artists.

Good beats. But this is too techno/dance/pop for me. I will come back to this. If you like Lady Gaga / Robyn you should really listen to this lady. You'll like her. But right now, lets move on Orbital. The last band to be written about today. The album we are listening to is called The Works (1989-2002).

Sounds like compilation of their unpublished work of sorts maybe not their best. The first song is kind of boring. Not much variation. Rightly called the Chime. I will actually skip the song.

Choice sounds like it could be used as an inspiration by Aqua. Good Music. I would hear them . Rather simplistic but these guys were apparently the biggest electronica band in 1990s british electronica scenario and thats saying something. This album only made it to Number 36 in the uk charts compared to 4th or 5th of some other albums. So probably as I said before not their best album.

4minutes 20 seconds with another minute and half to go, I feel there is a lack of structure to both the pieces that i have heard. This album really is a sort of filler album. With a number of re-recordings and sample pieces/ unpublished pieces.
More like an album a band brings out when it really does not have a lot of material but their album will sell since they have made a niche already and by the time the audience and the record company realises the album isnt really brilliant, they would have come up with a really really good single. The record company forgets the album not selling more. They are selling the new song now. The fans are a little disappointed and wait for the next one, while the hard core ones try to find depths in these songs which otherwise doesnt make sense and all the newspapers have written it off. But how can a committed supporter of the music desert them like that.

The sogns are a little long considering the lack of variation in the processing. But this song does seem to creat an atmosphere.

ok. I thing i am losign my patience a little bit on this album. The beats are really good. But somehow I can feel the songonly coming from the two headphones and I can actually different which beats or which layer is on which side. That means the blending did not work properly. So I will play what seems to be their most popular song reaching Number 3 on UK Charts and 109 on the USA BillBoard. But this song isnt as bad as they all start! :

Rather basic intro. Nothing impressive. Lets wait for whatever that this song reached the top of the charts.
Rather interesting video. But didnt really like the song. So maybe I should listen to their entire repertoire first and then comment about them.

So anyways guys.. nice to write so much after a long time. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Hope to see you soon. I am thinking of making these blogs like a 2 times a week thing. So that every Wednesday / Saturday night there would be a new blog written. Is that a good idea.. Of course that will not stop me from having sudden urges to write but I think as a part of bigger scheme of ordering my life a bit better maybe thats a good thing. So lets see if I can write a Wednesday blog. Or maybe even one before that

Take care guys, and till I meet you again, Keep listening to good music and let me know if you like something new or like any of my suggestions.

Real Blog 2011 : Part 1.

2011-01-08T23:27:00.001-05:00

I want to close my eyes and keep typing.
I want this screen to be more colourful. I want the matrix to come true. I want to suddenly realise I am somebody who I am not really . I want to suddenly open a door in my life and enter a room that is white with only me in there and the room lit brightly white. The immediate thought is then to fill with some other people I want to fill my life with, in that room. And suddenly the room is too crowded. The people themselves do not have a problem with each other. yet the room is too small. and so i want to slowly make more rooms . with different colours this time. and everyone in these different rooms are happy.

All you really need is a good pair of headphones. Okay maybe two. of different kinds. What I have is a noise cancelling one, Sennheiser. Not very expensive but it does give a different experience. And what I have is a gift from a friend of mine. A pair of Sony Studio Monitor Around ear headphones.

And then you can really compare and know that one of your two headphones maybe bad but both are not bad. and in that case the song is really that good or that bad.

And all you need is an almost an infinitely long electronica play list. Mine right now goes on for 2.8 days. 579 songs. about 6 gb. And maybe if you have a longer list and if by now my number of posts has gone up to a length that you being an amazingly avid reader is reading my blogs day in day out and having breakfast lunch and dinner while doing so and maybe even taking the laptop aroudn the room and still my blog never ends and u have really long list of electronica.. then hey there.. i was waiting for you. this blog you was waiting for you.. right here. in a corner of this rather unnoticed blog. and hello. for finding me. and hope to meet you in the future. and keep listening. and keep reading.

Coming back from that really exhilarating experience, the artist currently running is Paul Oakenfold. To my surprise actualyl I have only one album of him. Bunkka. Its amazingly awesome and maybe I will give you my experiences with it in a little while or at some other time but I realised my play list really has a bunch and bunches of compilations. And not really a discography of any one artist. Okay. maybe Massive Attack. But that is trip hop. not oakenfold rpm stuff.

Maybe this is what it will be. A guide to electronic music in my playlist. Or maybe the next one. Because I feel that I will be going to lab in a while so maybe I will write it when I come back. But wait. That may not be a good idea to the flow. would it ??

Maybe I just write it till a point where I suddenly feel like stopping and then Ill take care of my lab work and then come back and write the rest.

Let me start with giving an introduction to introduction.

I have been thinking of writing this blog for a long time. I really didnt think it would come out as this one. After all its the first one this year. and I wanted to cover my new year resolutions. a few opinions of some 'thought experiments' and a 'southwest wall'. But also an idea that came up from a conversation with a friend about the essence of music. Let me tell u about the conversation first. ( This is why i said it woudl be an introduction of an introduction) . This friend of mine and I share quite conflicting views over music and bands and artists. I as a listener of really a very wide variety of music dont ever condemn a form of music. I do however sometimes judge a person by their play list.. only if they are regular. I can assure you that I can tell a lot about you from the way ur music is arranged and the way u listen to them or feel about them or talk about them. I can. I wont judge you because you dont know a lot of bands. I wont judge you if you did not hear Indian Classical or Metalcore. I wont judge you for anything. But I will make a mental note of whether u are serious listener of any type. and what that type is. and what that means etc etc. If you are not a serious listener that again does not mean I judge you because u dont listen to enough music , even of the genre you like. It doesnt come to me. The same way it doesnt come to me to condemn an artist and question his musical sense. However my friend does. Once again it is his opinion. And to each his own. And he himself is quite a good singer. Can play some instruments himself and does listen to a lot of music.

Anyways our conversation led from artists we like/dislike and he hates and how music is really the music and it does not really matter about the lyrics and how i kind of dont completely agree with all that. and how i would write a blog about what i really perceive a song or a piece or a mp3 file to be. in its truest sense. AND MAYBE THIS IS THAT BLOG. But nonetheless, this conversation led me to come up with an idea to let you know how I am being more methodical in listening to different forms of music and yet not making it a job and therefore losing its fun. And therefore how I would tell you in each blog from now on ten songs that you should listen along with one another. This is also for those readers who are not attuned to listening to a specific kind of music. What I dream of doing is compiling a list of ten or 15 songs from a specific category or maybe even mixed categories and slowly give you the picture of what that genre is. Because I strongly believe we sometimes make our opinion about specific genres not based on really our listening experience but also the availability of the songs. Of starting of in a wrong note. Its the same way you see a person. There are certain intuitions that you have first up. which later forms an opinion. and sometimes certain information or some conversation about a person as a first glance gives you a preformed opinion and then you fall in the trap of being biased. It is this biasness that I want to attempt in breaking. And maybe I would be successful. This is not about my music. There is no such thing as that. Of Course. !! :) And if you have the patience and then open ness you will understand what I am trying to achieve and maybe even enlighten me about a new band.

The more I write about music in this blog of mine, the more I see myself as branded as the guy who drones about vague music appreciation ALL THE @#%$!^ing TIME..... So maybe this is the time I should stop. . .. I will wait for Paul oakenfold's album to finish, then get up, grab my David Gilmour CD, that my dear brother bought a long time ago (and I am still so excited that he likes him...:) ) and then go to lab, while listening to it in the car. Dont worry and Dont go Away. The real blog has not started yet. ............ !! :)

Time Zones

2010-12-31T15:13:00.001-05:00

Well time zones are always a problem when you are travelling and you reach from point a to point b in a room with a lot of people (who are always waiting outside the bathroom) and where there is a constant choice of 280 movies at your fingertips... and yet when you reach home you are a day early or at the same day even after 12 hrs..

But time zones are really a problem on significant days..such as your birthday..or your parents' birthday or like today... the new year. I mean let us even not go into the fact about how big every body has made the event look like. I mean really.. not spoiling all your fun dawgs but really is it so different the morning today and the morning tomorrow other than the !$#%!#!#% hangover ? I mean is it really a celebration of the completion of a year or just another party night or really a desperate attempt to make the year count by some last minute craziness that would do away all the average life style prints that reeks in every part of our life ? Strong words ? I am sorry. I am not caustic about it. I just get weirded about the fact that everybody keeps asking.. "Vaat aRR EEOOR PLAANS MAAAAN" ?

Anyways in all this what gets more irritating is the time zone difference. I mean its 3 o clock on 31st december right now... and I have already wished my parents and my lady a happy new year... and then its not over yet. My parents cant wish me till another 9 hours and then they wait for another 3 hrs along with me to wish my elder brother and finally at 3 am on january 1st my time and 3 o clock in the afternoon India time the new year really begins for my family.. no wait.. did it began an hour and a half ago when it was new years in india ? I dont know.. as i said.. time zones are always a problem..

Anyways, Happy new year guys.... all of you.. wherever you are... Starting from new zealand to samoa..... take care guys.. and hopefully i will be more regular next year ?? :)

The Art of Missing - Prologue

2010-12-30T14:37:00.001-05:00

This blog or rather the blog to be written originally for the purpose that this blog is supposed to serve was supposed to be written on the first of january in order to significance the beginning of the new year with a topic closest to my heart. But I had to do it earlier because who knows if I am going to be in the same emotional state when starting to write that blog on that day at some time. And I feel more prepared for it right now.

I have always said that blogs cant be written with specific purposes earlier.. The very first statement of this blog however defeats the purpose of not having one. And yet here I am trying my best not to have a purpose in order to serve a purpose.

Which is to dedicate this post to the one person about whom I have never written before but has been there in all my blogs. Directly or Indirectly. Without her knowing or my knowing. This post is for that person where finally all anger, all sadness, all desperation, all frustration and things wrong and black, stops, subsides and melts away....

I used the backspace key for the last 10 seconds to erase the last 30 seconds of typing because I realised it was getting too cheesy... and that... however romantic it may be isnt who I am. And isnt who we are ... right ?

So why is it that today I write this when I had promised this blog almost exactly a year ago. For starters I havent written many blogs this year anyways. I remember I reached home last year around the 29th.or 28th. and after writing a few lines about Asheem who had died on the 31st I had said that I will write a bigger obituary for him and also that I will write a blog on the art of missing. It was too obscure for many to understand but it was about this constant emptiness that one feels when one cant find what he/she is really missing and yet the emptiness wont go away. For its not as if u are not talking.. Its not as if you are not chatting. Its not as if you cant hear the voice... then really are there coefficients or constants with specific values for how much percentage of each senses of perception must we add up in order to fulfill the actual presence of a person around you... or for that matter in your mind ? It was with this idea that i had chosen the title the art of missing because the more i thought about it the more i realised it isnt a science.

it must be.. but it isnt. its an art. and while on some other post i might argue that how art is really a complex scientific phenomenon only too difficult for us to understand and too random and chaotic for a mathematical formula to contain, this post is going to be rigid about how missing someone is an art.. an art that you learn and practice .. quite unknowingly.
and sometimes its beautiful.
and sometimes its ugly.
but never is it methodical.. ...

when you miss someone .. is it really the presence you miss. i mean..lets say you spend 6 hrs everyday with that person. you can spend 6 hrs everyday talking or chatting or hearing each others voice.. if we imagine ourselves in the future where we dont have to sit in front of the laptop to video chat.. and if we really have giant screens showing his/her room(s) and vice versa 24/7 is it a possibility that we wont miss that person ? does smell or sense of touch really make up that much of the formulae.... if i keep taste out the equation for a little while..

i cant imagine it. i dont think it would be the same. it would be artificial in soem ways.. it might be better than talking on the phone or sitting in front of the laptop with the hands free ness. and the comfort level increased... but really is that because we can walk around freely or see him/her all the time.. or is it also because now...not only can we see him/her but also his/her surroundings.

then does it mean that its not just that person's presence is important. its the environment. Is it a two way process where in order to really feel comfortable in the presence or supposed presence of a person one needs to be comfortable with the surroundings of that person.. Does this very vague pseudopsychoanalytical observation ultimately boils down to the reason why we can easily call up our friends when they are not with their parents than when they are ??

nonetheless.. i am not sure, if like most of the other things, i can only talk about this matter and not do anything with it. I mean I am not sure if I really have learned the art of missing. For even if you do, does it mean that you have mastered it when you miss someone a lot or when you dont miss someone at all ?

Can you ever master it ? Can anyone teach you how to master it. Does the ability in the art of missing someone depend on someone else and not just you......

..... which brings us to yet another very important and controversial point.....

does it matter if the person whom you miss so much does not miss you back to the same extent ..
is there a relationship between the two intensities ?

tough questions eh ?

maybe. maybe not. because at the end of the day.. when times run out and the curtains are up, one realises that all the attempts to understand that feeling of missing someone, the attempts to really see the emptiness and the source of it, the attempts to bridge it by trying to get nearer notwithstanding the 13000 km (8000 miles for my friends in the dark world) distance .... has all paid of..... every 86400 secs * X number of days of it !!

so for all those who have similar observations in their own life ... and dont know how to come to terms with it... accept it as a gift.
as a talent.. the same way you accept the gift of playing a musical instrument or being able to paint..

it would make it easy. a lot easy.. for after all missing someone is an art...

and this is for you ...D...

for I miss you .... a lot.

In Transit .......

2010-12-21T16:27:00.000-05:00

THE PIGS PARADOX - Even though the individually each of the food items expire or perish within 3-4 weeks and therefore collectively all of them perish together , PIGS normally carry home made and local made food items enough to last them for half a year. Hoping that they will relish the food for that amount of time. But the only way all the food can be consumed within the 4 weeks of their perishable due date is by having them parallelly and not sequentially. This is not the original plan but that is the only way the total consumption with zero perish is possible. Thus relishing the food that one brings is not a possibility if a large amount of it is brought thinking that it will last longer. On the other hand , if you bring less food there is always the fact that even though you will relish it, it will get over soon ... This is the PIGS Paradox or one of them.. It can also be called the PIGS Food Uncertainty principle. ...

The hoarding of these food items takes place over many days. Every day that is spent on visiting the market a new food item is either procured for direct consumption or for conversion into some other form such as pickle which will then be consumed or be expected to be consumed slowly but surely. More often than not, once in the US, the food is greatly neglected because now there is only so much time to relish the food, do your chores, make your boss happy and still lead a normal life :)

Everything however can be done. And everything can be achieved. Its only a matter of time, practice and the Indian Method of Jugad..!! :) or what "the others" call steadfastness or ghetto!!!

Once the time near the returning flight approaches we are once again faced by the demons of sadness and more phone calls. Frantically everyone from both sides now tries to hold on to the few moments of connectivity, where the same stories of how one's boss did not allow a larger holiday and how one will try for a bigger longer vacation time next year and will then try to squeeze in a trip to the village where a larger power set of relatives have been waiting for more than two years to catch a glimpse of their grandson... or whatever other term you want put instead..

Once inside the airport , even if its in your own city, you try harder to not think about the good times or the bad times spent at home because either way you are not going back home , which is still only a few miles away till next year .. (hopefully) .... you only try to stay in transit... for that is the best way to not feel sad about the good times..... !!

This is not my story. This is the story of an entire generation. A generation that has by passed the brain drain. This is the generation of Brain Train.. .... it is true that we have formed and become part of the diaspora. ... we only celebrate all our religious festivals in weekends so that we dont have to cut classes or work... but it is true that we still bend and touch the feet of everyone whom our parents know as friends or relatives... many times not questioning the necessity of the custom... This is not even our story..because a story is a story when its complete but this is live.. and you reading it is a part of it. So if you are at home reading this on vacation then enjoy every moment of it. If your mom/dad wants you to go to the market which is very dirty and crowded ... or thats what you feel now , even though you were okay with it a few years ago... go with them... because you might later regret.. .. if your dad suggests you to take an additional box of snacks.. take it. because he has been waiting to offer it for a year now ... and if you catch your mom trying to hide a muscle pain so that you can spend your holidays peacefully .. dont let her... because they anyway will not tell you once you are all the way over here.. take her to the doctor because she secretly wants it ...... for those who havent left work yet.. the same goes for you. dont think about work when you are at home. dont ruin it.
for those who havent left home at all...... wait for it.. you will know what i am talking about....in due time.

My boarding call sounds.... The next time I blog will be from Ithaca. Its tough to give you a picture of the time line with these few blogs but nonetheless I have tried.

take care.. and stay in transit.

Hey There..... fellow PIGS..

2010-12-21T14:53:00.000-05:00

It is to fulfill the promise that I had earlier made that I start this post and probably the post will end in a hurry when the boarding call comes around. In the last few hours I have written a review for Arbovirus. Gone around the duty free shops once more. Had a buffet dinner and spent some time at the upstairs Emirates dining area and have successfully carried out other duties that are better left undescribed. Needless to say I am at my last leg of waiting time and am even contemplating a visit to wormbase to resume working on the list of genes I would like to work with. But since I am anyways going to work on that from the moment I land on American soil maybe I defer it for a while. Anyways I have already checked for all the new papers on steroid + c. elegans on pubmed and google scholar and since there are none and not many interesting papers on c. elegans in general either... ill let it be for two more days.

To tell you the truth, the trip back home this time was very good. Gave me all the necessary time off I think I needed. It did not however give me all the time I needed to make the trip a huge success. My last years trip was about 19 day long and this time it was 14. I believe something in between is a really good figure for getting most of it done and yet not being guilty about it. I will not ask for 17 days next year though. I deserve a much bigger vacation considering it was only 2 weeks this year and I know what it is going to be from now till next december.....

But since there will be more ocassions to whine about that later I will keep talking about today and the trip. I believe a little more time would have given me the opportunity to take care of my dental health, mom's x-ray and dad's check up. It would also have been better to really meet everyone who wait for me to come back home.

I can understand that all graduate students work equally hard and deserve equal amounts of vacation. What however most people dont understand is that when we Indian Grad students go home it isnt just vacation that we are going for. Trust me. I will not be able to convincingly say its the same for the Chinese students and other South East Asian countries but I am sure I am talking for the entire group of Indian students studying anywhere in the usa.

When we go back home its an event. An event that not just parents, but relatives , neighbours, friends and foes mark their calendars for. There is planning involved to buy gifts that will be enough for at least 30 people, not including chocolates which is an almost a necessity by itself. If you dont bring chocolates people might even question the very fact that you are studying in the usa.. So you end up choosing and ordering gifts of different genres, sizes, weights, values and significances.

You guys have no idea what we go through at every step of this process called Going to India

The choice of gifts depends on the age.. obviously .. of the person receiving it. But then it also depends on what he has and what he doesnt have... necessity that is. Then it depends on the value. It also depends on where it is made . For e.g. Made in China isnt that lucrative. Even if it costs 20$ something that says Made in France, Germany, USA, Spain even Lithuania suggests something exotic. But China... its our neighbour. The country which produces stuff that we can already get back home. And since everything available in USA with the sole exception of food products are made in china its getting tougher to hunt down those exotic countries. Made in India, Pakistan, Vietnam , Bangladesh and Srilanka are however the most frowned upon. You will not be able to make someone realise that the Levis Jeans that says Made in Sri Lanka is actually made out of imported material that would cost a fortune back in Sri Lanka but is cheaper here in the USA. Its a lost argument and you really wont win it. ever.

Unless........

The brand is Adidas or Nike. Hereagain is a surprise .. while you cannot buy stuff that is made in the subcontinent you will also be at a loss if you buy brands that are not very well known. Indian consumers are only very recently being aware of the international fashion market. More and more Indians are acquiring the amount of money required to buy a YSL perfume and thus YSL becomes a brand known in India. Similarly while Old Navy, Abercrombie, Aeropostale, American Eagle are brands that are very common here at US, back home they are the hep (hip) stores. Since the sports brands have reached global status quite some time back its safe to gift someone a nike / adidas t-shirt. Columbia Sportswear however needs to work on its Indian marketing strategy :)

Apart from this you also need to worry about how you are distributing the gifts. You have to take care that you dont give a seemingly more expensive gift infront of somebody who thinks he/she is more important to you but has got a seemingly less expensive gift. Simply put an adidas t shirt costing 8$ is going to attract more attention than a Bath and Body works 20$ gift pack. Here too where the comparitive products are made in becomes a deciding factor.

Food products are normally not appreciated. Even if its the only industry currently where China does not have a monopoly in the US market and even if some of the items one would really not get in India. Why ? Because they are easily perishable. A pack of Chessmen cookies from Pepperidge Farm is not going to last more than 6 months dear ! A pair of mittens or a muffler/scarf from Old Navy/Aeropostale is going to last for 6 yrs or more in the indian winters.

There is more to it. Especially when you start thinking about kids. Kids have toys. Toys are perishable. but thats ok. cause they are novel. However really really stupid they might be. But one thing though. The variety and the quality of the toys taht are currently available in any departmental stores is mind boggling. Me and my elder brother were literally reminded of our toyless or lets say near-toyless (cause i still have my prizely possessed set of G.I.Joes stashed in a showcase back home) childhood. As if we were buying it for ourselves, we always buy gift toys for our cousins. And we always play the big brother and show them how it needs to be played or operated .. But really what we are doing is satifying our deep rooted hunger for toys :)

Then there are necessary things. Such as torches, lamps, maybe electronic items and this is where we Indians learn diplomacy. These are high value goods. We therefore never buy them for everyone at the same time. Obviously we are not that rich but also it needs to be rotated. At any point of time, there is at least one person who is very happy because he/she got a high value goods..

Then one has to consider the weights of these goods, the total cost so that it doesnt exceed the customs stipulated amount, date of purchase, date of delivery etc etc.

That is just to take them there. The process of Procuring .

Then comes the distribution.

Over time, I have realised that the best way is to give it to your mother. She knows best how to handle the situation of angry/insulted/unsatisfied relatives. For if you are starting your undergraduate course in diplomacy, she is a professor emeritus.

Distribution takes tact and patience. You cant just give it to the person. You have to make the suspense and build it up. The value of the good is not just a function of its price but also the effort and the thought and you have to bring that out. Its like writing a paper. If you just talk about what you did it will end up in Org Lett or Tet. Lett. If you claim this is the Number 42 disguised in Chemistry language , it will end up in JACS. And if you can have one or two of the mice to speak on behalf of you... you might even end up in Nature !

Once the gift distribution process has started, hand in hand is visiting people and talking to them. Our Indian society is deep rooted in micro-networking. It forms the basis of our whole life, superstitions, marriage, divorce, education .. you name it.

I should mention at this point that all this that I say is not with sadness or grievance. Its with a sense of joy and happiness that I make these comments for with everyline that brings you a smile, ye non indians, remember .... it brings tears of joy in our eyes. really.

Visiting people means relatives, friends, neighbours, neigbour's friends, friends' neighbours, neighbour's relatives, relatives' neighbours, neighbours' parents, neighbours' friends' parents, neighbours' friends' parents' neighbours. You get the picture. You will never be able to meet them all. Never. Be it this year. Next year. There is always going to be someone who is going to say... "you dont meet me these days. Dont become an American just because you have gone to America". Its a similar deal with gifts and phone calls. You will always leave someone out. Its necessary.

Then there is your own work you know. Friends whom you really wanted to meet up. Blogs that you really wanted to write. Stuff that you really wanted to do for your parents. Your parents' annual health checkup which they will always ignore but would secretly want you to tell them or take them to. fill up forms in banks. Catch up with all the paper work that you needed to do for the other 50 weeks in the 2 weeks that you went back home. Obviously your time , effort and other people's time and effort permitted. . A simple signature in the bank will take about 1.5 hrs. and there goes your post lunch session. There are details that I will not go into and leave for later but needless to say it is the third priority - you, your parents and your life..

Then amidst all this chaos you will think off your life here in the USA and will realise there are some quintessential items that you must purchase from India or else your life will never be complete....e.g. soap. It isnot enough that most departmental stores in the usa stores almost all the naturally and artificially known scents and herbs in forms of soaps. We are really at a loss if we dont use the ones that we have grown up with. As if the lavender soap marketed as cinthol in india by Unilever corp is very different from the same product marketed in a different name in the USA.. but trust me .. it wont work. IT DOESNT.....

biscuits ...... forget OREO, Pepperidge farm, etc etc.. its the good old Britannia Bourbon, Hide and Seek, Good Day biscuits that makes our life complete. (post colonial obsession...?? maybe ?!!)

savory snacks... these are required for tea ( We are indians no??)

home made cakes ... these are required for coffee (we stay in the USa after all)

Bedsheets ... they are cheaper.

Indian spices .... OMG... THEY ARE FAR FAR CHEAPER BACK HOME...and anyways american food is soooooooooooo bland!!!

food produtcs of all other kinds. ....

At this point we face a paradox... ill call it the PIGS Paradox, PIG being the well known acronym of Poor Indian Grad Students..

Most food items that we carry from india have the same perishablity.. which means they will all stay at the most for 3 weeks. maybe 4. and im talking about the one mom makes or is only found in select shops. The ones that are special. So imagine everything taht you take lasts for 4 weeks. Eventually you have to eat everything within that time.......

ill continue on this later.. surely.
the gate is open and i will go now.. take care..,.. and stop laughing.. this is my country and fellow country men i am talking about.

Its Interesting !

2010-12-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Its interesting that sometimes when you have the most fantastic ideas and topics in your mind that you would like to write about you will never get the time to do so. And every time you would travel in a bus and see someone sitting on a chair at the streetside coffee shop on a sunny winter afternoon, sipping coffee and reading a book and probably even jotting down a few pieces of her mind you would feel so jealous that you would just want to run out of the bus and ask her rather rudel if she really didnt have any work in the world.

And then when the same you would sit in a transit airport terminal , probably one of the busiest ones, right at the center of the duty free mall and stare blankly at your watch and realise that you have at least a third of a day to spare with yourself and these numerous unknown faces that will walk past through out the day, you suddenly realise there are no real special thoughts coming to your mind. Once again you are jealous. This time at those people walking past. This time you are jealous at them having a purpose and you having none. This time you want to go ask them what are they so excited about. Its only a number of shops !!

Maybe you wont. Neither would I. But still, here I am. Sitting at a rather unknown coffee shop - Segafredo zanetti, typing away to glory towards some unknown nothing ness that is supposed to engulf me for the next few hours.

To tell you the truth I am not very excited at the prospects of spending so much time at probably the worlds biggest or at least one of the biggest duty free airport mall. There are a number of reasons for that. The biggest two being that I am on my way back to Cornell from home and that this is my 5th visit to this airport and really by now I know enough to draw you a map of the chocolate store aisle by aisle. I wont though. Not this time. Maybe another time when I am more bored.

Nevertheless, since my coffee is almost over and my brownie is more than finished I would say one last thing before I sign off this post with of course the promise that I am definitely going to come back later.

I am sitting at a rather interesting table. It actually faces an escalator that comes from the lower level to my level right in front of my table. I do not know how many of you feel a little curious when you see a tourist in your own locality - I know I did - but right now to see about a hundred faces every 15 minutes suddenly appear and slowly come upwards, with different expressions, moods, complexions is really a sight very few of you would have experienced or acknowledged and therefore enjoyed.

No. I dont feel special because of that.

Its just interesting.

-- Dubai Airport, December 2010, 6:10 PM

Bengali Band Review IV - Arbovirus

2010-12-16T07:48:00.000-05:00

I pick up the headphones , plug them into my laptop, start itunes and the moment the intro of the first song reaches my ears only one thought comes to my mind. Surprisingly the same one that has come back to me over and over again everytime I have started listening to this album. The fact that I havent heard all of Creed or Alterbridge enough number of times to do justice to them or Arbovirus' originality. I have acquired all of Creed's music very recently and will do that comparative analysis at some later point of time but right now lets focus on the job at hand.

How is Arbovirus' album 64m 53s ?

Arbovirus is a Bengali Rock Band from Bangladesh and has been in the circuit for quite some time I believe. Not only have I heard a full album from them before this I have also been ignorant enough to really not hear any of their music before. So I apologise to the hardcore Arbovirus infected out there for daring to write a review about a band whose evolution I have not monitored. But trust me I have only good things to say about them. So maybe you can be patient for a little longer. Also if anyone here reading this post is closer to any of the bengali bands please let them know that I am trying to make this a more regular affair and if the band members think I do a good job in understanding their music and the message they are trying to send I would be glad to review a new album if they sent it to me or even their myspace links.
Bengali Rock Music has reached its tipping point and the revolution has begun. The faster we come out of our Classic Rock and Folk Rock phase and evolve into a more compact, professional music base (fans included) the better it would be for the industry as well as the future bands.

64m 53s is an unique album. Many times in this post I will come back to this same thing about the professionalism of Bangladeshi bands and since this is my first post about any Bangladeshi Rock Band I guess its the best time to give them the rounds of applause that they deserve for being a far more - tighter , creative, at times 100times harder and much much more open to experiments - musical force and this album just by its sheer name underlines the same.

The first song Shikarokti (Confession) starts of with a guitar solo that reminds you of Mark Tremonti and no one else. Slide guitar style, overdrive guitars with a subdued gain, off key chord progressions and almost when you are going to write them off as another core alternative band having the same gods as most other alternative bangladeshi band, starts the vocals. Honestly I have heard better Bengali Rock vocals than Sufi but together with the rest of the band the way his voice kept the first song as tight as a dead man's fist was really the only thing that kept me listening.

No doubt the musical prowess of the band was unquestionable. What I wanted to hear was some good music. I have told my readers earlier and even now that although the bands or albums I have till date reviewed are all the ones that I really like there have been quite a few that just glue my finger to the next button solely because they just dont have the zing and are either simply cheap and lazy rip offs of Fossils or Warfaze or are wannabees with a lot of spare time and money. Arbovirus are neither.

This is driven more forcefully by their next song Uttaradhikar (Right to Succession). 30 seconds into the song and after a very innocent guitar loop, you hear a faint remembrance of an old Nirvana chord groove ending very abruptly to the original loop and the vocalist taking it from there. Sufi's voice has both maturity and boyish ness. At times in the album it tries more than it can achieve but in this song it once again blends beautifully to the really significant bass line and the constant overdriven rythm guitars and some very powerful drumming till the guitar lead takes over and you really dont realize that its 4 minutes up and they have indeed produced a fine alternative track and left you with wanting more.

Ja Icche Tai (Whatever the mind wants) starts with a very soft acoustic guitar background and only the high hat groove leading to once again a very significant bassline. By now I realise that one of the greatest successes of this band is to not ignore what Bangladeshi Rock Music is really all about - a bunch of really really great bassists. The song boasts of very very touching lyrics. A short song it really makes you happy and sad at the same time. No sharp tones. No head banging and yet its a good really good rock song.

Mukut Chhara Raja ( King without his crown) once again has the bass channel turned up to a notch that says "Dont Ignore Me". Progressive from the start the vocals start off well but some how dont end up well at the first break of the song. Starting again from the second stranza, the voice somehow tries to regain its conviction and does a good job till the really high point of the song comes for the last one minute when the guitar really comes in the fore front. It was probably a deliberate to not give it the lead channel till the last lead even though you could hear the lead through out .To me the song is good to hear but fails to leave a big impression. I blame it on a somewhat half hearted effort to make the song sound really good as a unit and thereby failing to underline at least one individual brilliant peace of musical artistry.

Adhar O Isshor (Darkness and God) the fifth song of the album starts with a reverse loop intro (music recorded earlier and then played reverse and recorded as the intro of the song) leading to a very simple guitar pluck lead with a very short delay along with a really good peace of drumming ultimately leading to a very very fresh and deep set of lyrics done perfect justice by the vocals, with the reverse loop continuing througout the song. The song excels in successive layering. The guitar intro lead goes above the reverse loop. the drum and the delay goes on the lead. the vocals come on top of all that. The bass fits itself somewhere in between (surprisingly not a very significant part of the song ) and all the layers come out at certain points of the song. till at about the 4th minute the guitar intro steals my heart completely along with a really really fine peace of drumming. The song talks about a guy trying all sorts of different things including isolation wanting to see darkness and it is right at this point after the guitar lead that they throw the punchline

" shudhai takey jomat badha andhar dekhtey dao amaye,
ishot heshe, jowab ashey, tobey tomaye isshor hote hobey,
hotey hobey .... isshor"

loosely translated it means "I asked him how can I see concentrated Darkness, with a faint smile he replied, for that you have to be God, you have to be the Lord." It is on the word lord that the background guitar lead comes and joins and finally fades away with the last 10 seconds being just feedback and to me that counts for that shows the attitude of the band and its perfect. This song on my list is far ahead than most of the others and is definitely my best song of the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGEXnOf0sdw

Prithibir Sesh Prantey - Somebody please translate this for me. I cant find a poetic enough translation for this song.
A slow three note guitar intro , reasonably side stick drum layer, Sufi's voice echoing out into a falsetto and before you know it its 2 minutes into the song and my feet is tapping to the rather complex yet not too distant 3/3/2 drumming. I dont know what to call this song because I only pretend to be a music know-all but am not one and therefore do not know the exact classifications of different genres of rock. To me this would fall in the category of just rock. You will hear something similar in Travis or Coldplay or maybe even the modern Oasis albums. Everybody does justice to their parts in the song -the guitar lead, the rather atmospheric background vocals , the nicely intertwined bass line and the song finally ends with an outro of the song being very same as the intro .

Amader Gaan ( Our Song ) - This beautiful song begins with a very very nicely done piano intro. I am convinced that the piano intro and the tune is influenced by a very well known pop song but I cannot remember it. Help me out here guys. The vocals and the lyrics of the song once again are soft as the song requires lamenting about the uncertain future of the band and their music and this song is therefore a request , rather a prayer in waiting. 80s rock personified the song however is the first of the next few rather short (4 minute songs). There is a hint of psychedelia but so little that I really didnt sense it :)

I personally like the short songs in this album and I believe that the band is brilliant in creating an atmosphere that lasts for four minutes and then leads to the next one. I guess that also makes financial sense. In a 60 minute tape you get more songs in and the chances of one of them becoming really popular increases . Rather naive you may say.. but right now we are not talking about the strategies but rather the music.

Omanush ( Inhuman noun) the next song experiments with definitive American Heavy Metal Music and trust me if I say heavy. Maybe not sepultura heavy but definitely Megadeth and Pantera heavy. Their Wikipedia page suggests that they are heavily influenced by pantera and nirvana and this song definitely proves that song. Starting from the opening chant to the really familiar chord pattern to the guitar lead , the song reeks and speaks of every metal song Indian and Bangladeshi metal heads are fond of. This song apparently was the most popular from this album and knowing the history of bangladeshi rock music I am not surprised.

A note once again to my Calcutta Rock music fans. While we were happy with Parashpathor and Cactus and sometime Chandrabindu belting out one track after another about unreciprocated love, lost love, defeated love, folk love and other forms of sad romantic love songs based highly on synthesisers and octopads and rather primitive in their structure, Bangladeshi Rock Music by the same time had not only experimented with the same love blind pop-rock, evolved into British and American Heavy Metal and had even started flirting with Thrash, Death metal and Hardcore. This is one of the reasons why I loved Fossils and still do. They started it all man in Calcutta.

Anyways I will always come back to this over and over again so lets not dilly dally and get to the next song -Chhaya Manush (Man in the Shadow). A song that starts with lyrics like the following will obviously catch my attention just because they are deep or at least pretend to be so.

" Amake Chenar Chesta Koro Na, Amake Chintey Tumi Parbey Na.
Majhe Majhe Ayenar Shamney Dariye, Proshno kori nijekey, tumi key, tumi key "

translation - " Dont try to understand me, You will not be able to,
At times I stand in front of the mirror and ask who are you, who are you "

Before I go into an hour long praise of this song I would just like to say this song is my next favorite song to Adhar O Ishhor. I love the guitar effects of this song, the slow distortion, classic rock sound, rather simple chord structure and drum beat (3/4??), the long guitar solo, the really really brilliant lyrics and i can go on of how much I am obsessed and proud to hear a really good classic rock song coming out of a bengali band's album. This is the kind of song that arbovirus plays really best. The song ends once again with a faded feedback and by know it seems to be a pattern one of them or all of them likes. Or its probably the guitarist who really wants the sound to linger. Thumbs up because it works.

Corporate Anthem - When I first heard this song I was actually did not like it. I still dont like it so much as far as the lyrics are concerned, which obviously, as the name suggests talk about the nuances of the boring yet stressful corporate life. I should admit here that while I love psychedelia and Floyd and Yes and other pseudo intel bands I also love Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and thats whats this song sounds like. Iron Maiden or to further generalise, NWOBHM. So as far as the music is concerned I like it. Its one of those songs that I will gladly hear when I want to concentrate on what I am reading or writing but I wouldnt really notice it when it starts or ends in a bunch of songs sounding similar. But mind you, its a very good powerful song. So dont misunderstand my opinion here. If I have to say anything bad about this song its about the lyrics and probably that Sufi isnt really a heavy metal/hard rock vocalist :)

By now Arbovirus has really convinced me their true message of the album. That of being different. Together their album is like a hand picked collection of the definitive genres of rock music. Its hard to believe at some point that all these songs are done by the same album.

Shekor (Roots) - Grunge ? Alternative ? Cant really put my finger on it once again but the words "pearl" , "jam", "eddie", "vedder" comes to my mind immediately as the guitar lead and the searing vocals take the song to an unexpected crescendo. From the beginning to the end, musically this song stares right into your eye with an attitude that you cant shrug off easily. As I hear the song once again I realise however that this is the penultimate song and if only a little bit Sufi's voice in the initial part of the song is a little repetitive. He does however complete justice to the feel of the song by the second part of the song till the end and according to me this is one song that if you hear as a single it will definitely make you sit up and take notice of Arbovirus.

Shorger Shishura ( Children of Heaven) - Some of you might search for Arbovirus and their songs after reading this and please do so. Many of you who do so will land up in their Wikipedia page. Though written very well I am sad it does not mention anything about this song. To me this song is truly a creation of great creative minds. I will not be able to do justice to the song by this blog. Please listen to it folks and then tell me how you liked it. But to give you a glimpse the song starts with a tv static noise leading onto channel surfing and then settling onto a program that brings the idea that war is essentially the root and personification of all evil. This gives way to sounds of machine gun which leads to the guitar intro. By now I swear I have placed this song on the same pedestal as Civil War by GnR. The haunting lead too reminds you off Slash. Yet the song is slow, melodic focusing on the lyrics, with the music and scale changes doing an excellent job to underline what the song really wants to say. Background vocals are out of the world. Psychedelic and progressive rock influences are evident in the general structure of the song and together with the vocals the song succeeds to create what Arbovirus had probably consciously stayed away from doing - to create an ambience, a story, an atmosphere to put across a message really really well. And so it does. The song stops to a silence at 7:23 only to resume 5 seconds later with a rather innocuous guitar and vocal intro which gives way to a guitar solo that will surely impress you. I really feel guilty trying to explain this song friends because its perfect in what it set out to achieve. If any of you have heard When the Children Cry by White Lion , this song is a 12 minute version of something similar done by Guns and Roses ending with a children's choir accusing the whole manking of being selfish and filling the world with hatred and gunpowder smells. Yes. this song is about politics. It is about middle east and its a goddamn brilliant song.

Arbovirus has achieved a lot in this album according to me. I have been quite late to really understand and analyse the Bangladeshi rock scene. But I am happy that I have been right at the time when Arbo has come to the foreground. I wish I could be a journalist to see these bands evolve but I wish all the best to them and really expect a lot out of them. Someday if ever they break grounds in contemporary Bengali Music and not stop at making one good album and then go into Hindi/Bengali Movie songs I will be happy to remind my friends about this entry and how I said that they should make it really big.

I will end with two lines from their opening song Shikarokti which to me defines their attitude..

".... amar bhoy amakey shahoshi kore
amar paap amakey nishpaap kore....."

In the words of my generation .... jiyo boss!!

Next Band : Nemesis

Once In a Blue Moon

2009-12-31T11:16:00.000-05:00

Today is supposed to be a blue moon day.

Blue moon is a celestial term for the event of an extra full moon that occurs once in three/ 4 years because of all the small amounts of time that we neglect in calculating days of the months corresponding to the lunar cycle. It is now considered to be the term used for a second full moon in one month.

Today is the second full moon and thus a blue moon. It also turns out to be a lunar eclipse today.

In the event of all this and of course extreme boredom of the 31st night I present you with all the drafts of blogs that I had at one point started writing and never finished.

I didnt publish them because I thought they were not complete and I didnt get back to them because I did not feel spontaneous enough to go back to something that I had already written.

These are therefore those recording sessions that have never been heard before! :)

Thus the title.......

Written underneath every article is the date when I had written/started writing it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I thought I should give music a break. Its in no hurry. I have about 16 GBs of new music waiting in my ipod. So ya.. there is time. I would rather write about something that I probably should have written for a while.

My life. :)

Not that its going to be that interesting for any or all of you but I always have believed that each of our lives are interesting enough to make a movie in. And just in case any bored (actually really bored) screenplay writer came across this blog and shared the same excitement of reading blogs and understanding a person would probably like it (assumptions that he would share the excitement and would like it - are even lesser on the probability scales when compared to him/her finding this blog), he would probably make a real movie out of it. It may not be as dramatic, comic and all other "I see-s", but it would be good.

This blog would would only be talking about specific points in not so distant pasts

For example The time when I tried to get a Learner's Permit here in the US.

It all started when

------ 1st March 2008

This post is probably going to be long and different. Different because unlike my other posts which normally try to uphold a certain thought process and its flow with time, while I am typing, this post will actually be haphazard. It will also show different thought processes and their flow with time, except that they wouldnt be while I am typing. They wouldnt be in situ. Because I am in my lab.
And my sample is on the high vacuum and it needs to be attended to after some time!

------ 2nd March 2009

There are some people who know this fact about me. And there are others who dont and I do a very very good job of hiding it from them that I cry in hiding. More often than not there is a song playing in my ears through earphones and most of the times the song is the same, Comfortably Numb. No one but myself asked me this question that how come I have written about all the songs that I like and yet I have not written about Comfortably Numb.

Yes people know that I like Floyd and some of them know why. Others think its cool to hear Floyd and so dont ask anything. I have never heard anyone ask me why do I listen to Floyd. The question probably is redundant. Some think that its not ethical to ask someone else why does someone like something. And there are others who dont care. Yet there are some others who even though have no idea about the concept that one can like something so much that they compare it with their own lives and can either let go both together or none at all, still never deter to comment on the likings of others. This post is thus not about my tears, or Comfortably Numb, but about those who take it for granted that what they say has some meaning even if they have never really gone through the same gamut of emotions that leads to a feeling and serves an emotion as strong as this.

And yet this post might not be about anything at all. Because the emotion that leads me to start this post does not allow to think coherently. So after cursorily mentioning Comfortably Numb I would probably go to the only other song that I have recently placed as high as CN on my favorite song list. And its Tink by this band called Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. Quite a mouthful of a name and yet the song leaves this vaccuum inside of you, a reason that cant be surpassed by anyother for me liking the song.

Over the years there has been a quite a few adjectives associated with me and none of have really stuck to me. I have liked some, hated many and been indifferent to others because they have come from people who have never known me closely or even tried to do so. But this one way of describing me that came to my ears the other day some how hit me so hard that not Tink, not even Comfortably Numb or Coldplay could do anything about it. The comment apparently was made by a senior of mine here in Ithaca, who had no clue who I was, or who I am or who I will be, but rather was so frustrated by her own misfortunes in life that the only observations she based her judgement on was her eyes. And its my eyes she noticed. It is unfortunate that she doesnt read this blog. For if she did she would have a better idea. But then again, I take pride in the fact that over the years I have met people like that and never cared for them and would not care about her or her comment. What I would care about though is the people who are close to me or so called close to me be affected by a random statement such as that. And it is this behaviour of people that have always surprised me.

In college, especially in my final year, I had the misfortune or the rare opportunity to meet a couple of individuals who took it upon them, the sole responsibility to completely destroy or annihilate the character that I had. I was lucky to have a close circle of friends who helped me completely obliterate such attempts but I will not deny that this was not without blood loss.
Today I am not in touch with the bloody stains or the knives or the criminals. But I do see them here and there, get reminded of their existence in Delhi, in Ithaca, in Calcutta and the only habitual response that I have for them, is that I wonder.

------ 26 March 2009

Intermission

2009-12-30T03:28:00.001-05:00

The blogs that I plan to write sometime in the very near future (within 2 days)

1) Journey - (The way back part 1)
2) Obituary for Asheem
3) The art of missing
4) A little more about Indian Rock Music
5) Few things I have learnt about the USA

These are not the titles.
But I wrote this blog to set myself a goal. Individually each of these blogs have already been started and probably half completed in my mind. They need the spontaneity and my fingers to free them. Hopefully will do them justice

Take care folks. I feel I am getting back at it. And I would believe that another blog down the line, I would be back to my original self! :)

So much for a writer's block!

The Promise

2009-12-30T02:06:00.001-05:00

This is for the promise that I couldnt keep but I had in mind for the last few weeks.

For all those who have sometimes in the last half year visited this site and wondered why I was not writing, I can only say "thank you". I know some of you. Others I dont, and some of you might have already deserted this blog they way I had deserted it, even though it was mine. But every instance when I had a little bit of time free I would be wanting to write desperately, starting, and then only resorting to the save draft button because I had to attend to something that needed to be done, right then. Obviously blogging isnt such a necessity that can be justified right?

You cant tell anyone, I need to blog or I will not be able to be myself or etc etc. because more often than not, people will not believe it.

The only reason I am trying to come up with this lame self pitious scribblings is because I wanted you to know that I too miss my blog as do some of you. And it was not out of disrespect that I was not writing. It was only out of inability to manage time. And that is completely my own fault and I do not blame anything for it.

How can I. For those who have been fortunate enough to not be in contact with me by means of telecommunications would not know that I have been equally irregular in listening to voicemails, taking phone calls, keeping promises about phone calls, calling people who really needed to talk, to the point of null. In some sort of sadistic explanation, this might be taking these same people for granted, because they are so close to me. But everytime such a thing has happened I have felt guilty. And yet done nothing about it, because there was no time.

This brings me to a question a friend asked some time back. Her boyfriend is a grad student too at a prestigious institution in the US. Her question was, both are grad students. How come one has the time to go hiking, play bridge, volleyball and you dont have time for your family and friends. My answer other than the acceptance of the fact that I wasnt a great time manager was in five parts.

1) My boss is an Assistant Professor. It is the first academic position you hold after you have completed your research interests and still you are not free. Every assistant prof. needs to show his University that the money they have spent on him/her is worth it after five years. This is called a tenure talk. If he passes this, he gets hired by the University permanently. If he doesnt he has to leave and join another university. Working under assistant professors therefore includes a little more hardwork than otherwise. It has its own share of advantages though. He is very young and therefore also open to ideas from his students. The not so prominent age gap also helps in making the boss-employee.. in this case prof-grad student relationship ... better and less formal.

2) We are not the only one working on the project we are currently pursuing. There is a group in another prestigious Ivy, one in Germany and one in Korea, trying to solve the same puzzle. Some of them are also not very ethical fighters when it comes to publications. Consequently, to quote my boss, "Look at any way you want, our competition never sleeps".

3) I am still not a full time Research Scientist. I still have a job of teaching undergraduate students. This is a rewarding experience when it comes to interacting with young undergraduates who remind you about your own undergraduate life and the excitement of it. It also reminds you about why you lost your points in 'your' University exam, when you grade their exams. But however exhilarating it might be, the entire concept and act of "grading", makes me hate the whole idea of TA-ing. This was not so, last year when I did not have research responsibilities of a high order. But now, every minute or hour I spent on grading a seemingly useless lab report, I feel I am not doing something that would further my research. I am waiting for this next semester to be over because then I will be only spending time on my research.

4) Unlike a lot of people I do not believe in half hearted conversations. This leads to a lot of problems. But I would rather not talk than talk for 10 minutes. Because to me a conversation, especially on phone requires time for ice breaking, then re-covering the old comfort zone, then settling down into it, enjoying it, and then coming to a conclusion. Give 5 minutes to each of them (I would give 10) and you will reach atleast half an hour. Give 10 minutes, its an hour long conversation. Add 10 minutes of being shouted at for not picking up the phone for the zillion times before and thats a normal conversation with my sister , something that has not happened for quite some time, and something i long for, and something for which this blog is dedicated to.

5) Finally, there are only 24 hrs in a day and therefore one can only spend this much amount of time. Its only a matter of simple calculation to figure out where would the time go if one spends time only on certain important things in life.

This probably still doesnt answer why I dont play volleyball or bridge or hike.. Well I dont know how to play these...!! and I do hike. Everyday..... come to Ithaca.. you will know. They dont just use the pun .. "Ithaca is Gorges" for nothing!

I do spend my time on the occasional guitar spot that I have created in my room. Soon with a newer faster desktop that I am intending to buy I would be able to record and mix the way I want to.

I do spend a little time downloading Indian Rock Music and finding new bands on Myspace.

However I dont blog regularly. Not just because I dont find a complete stretch of time to finish it, because I dont like unfinished writings, but because I also dont think nowadays as I used to earlier. Not the way I used to. I still look at people on the road and buses and try to gauge them. I still feel nice about the cold wind hitting my face while I trudge along the vast snow covered region. I still feel kinda sad that I dont hear the hulabaloo of life around me as I used to in Delhi or Kolkata. I still try to imagine myself as the lead guitarist of my band but it isnt complete with the others. But I dont seem to come up with new things to write about. Even if I do I cant seem to remember them. And when I do remember them, I dont write them down in some scrap pieces of paper because I always believe in writing straight from the mind. And thus it goes on. The cycle of forced procrastination, subconscious amnesia and selective self guilt so that the basic priorities in life are taken care of. And after all , one cannot consider one's own selfish interests to be always the biggest priorities in life, especially if others are also associated with it.

I hope this blog did justice to the one person it was promised to, a long long long time ago !!!!

"Out of the blue"

2009-12-25T23:07:00.000-05:00

I am sorry for all those who i have promised and not kept it and my blog has been blank for so long. It would still be blank but today I cant resist myself in posting...because the news has shocked me so much that I cant understand what I should do but write.

I wont write much, but INDIAN OCEAN will never be as blue as earlier. I am talking about the band and I am talking about the shocking news of the death of Asheem Chakravarty, the powerhouse vocalist and tabla (percussionist) of the band.

I cannot express how sad I am.

I will write again with a proper obituary but today is probably not the day!

Take care folks. I still cant believe I wont see them live again!

Bengali Rock Band Review - III - Insomnia

2009-11-29T06:13:00.000-05:00

This has been long due.
I dont really know why I am writing this now, especially when I am completely sleep deprived but I guess thats my style. To get myself to the edge and then try to write, for I have always thought that thats when I write best.

Also a fellow blogger, a close relative of mine and a regular reader of my blog (when i post that is) -- the same person -- mentioned that prachir should not stay too long as my top page of my blog for that much amount of time. So here goes.. another review..

Insomnia as a band has been on the circuit for a long time. I cursorily knew their guitarist as a fellow guitarist during school life. Did NOT know him personally, and at that time I was just plucking strings and couldnt really call myself a guitarist, but by then, Bodhi had carved niche for himself in the Calcutta School Music circuit. I have known about Insomnia's music since then. Well they didnt form the band till they were almost out of school, South Point that is. But nonetheless Insomnia wasnt and isnt a school band. They started playing English Rock by definition and played the tricky stuff, Dylan, Floyd and later went into alternative especially RATM.

So, when I heard they were releasing a Bengali Rock Album, I was actually surprised and to some extent disheartened, because these guys were one of the few after Krosswindz who played good rock music in Calcutta and although good rock music can exist in the Bengali Language I thought these guys were going for the more exciting competition.

But their first album has impressed me a lot. I mean as a regular and avid listener of music of all types I can comment that their album though carved out of sheer frustation that English Music is not commercially viable in Calcutta, comes out as one of the very best in recent Alternative Bengali Music. For readers who are disgusted at this comment, thinking that I consider all Bengali bands to be the best blah blah, should wait for my later posts about the NOT SO GOOD bengali bands and you will realise that there is no dearth of incompetence.

Moving on to their album which is called Proloyer Shomoye (Times of Armageddon).

This album mostly is about Rage, Protest, Death and all the other dark imagery that one could think of as important issues in our times. So its not surprising that bands like Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Payable On Death and sometimes even Blur have had a heavy influence on their music.

So heavy that their title track, Proloyer Shomoye - starts with a guitar solo and a drum riff that immediately reminds you of "Youth of The Nation - P.O.D". The solo and the drum continues in the background through out the song, but the song itself is very very different from the P.O.D song. This very first song gets you head banging by the time it reaches the second stranza. By this time one realises that the lyrics are not straightforward even if they sometimes use very simple language. The lyrics shifts from metaphors to reality a bit too often, but the drums and the guitars take enough care so that you are not disappointed by the end of the song.

The next song, Artonaad (Scream), starts with another very recognizable guitar riff, and continues with it till the time the vocals give the song a different direction than "REVOLVER by RATM". Delay/Echo is probably one of the most favorite effects of this band. I love echo/delay effects, but when you use it to cover up the fact that you have lifted a solo from another band then it isnt really used for a good purpose. Standing out however in this song is the bass. It does give the song a different feel as does the vocals who try to his best to be different from the original and does a good job at it. The lyrics are more straightforward bringing out the small intricate details of life in Calcutta but with at least half a minute to go the song is already too long.

The next song, Shunyo (Zero/Vacuum) has beautiful lyrics. I havent "YET" found a similarity with a song that I have heard before, but the sound is complete. The song is simple in structure with good mood changes and good use of effects at different parts of the song.

But Shunyo does not prepare the listener for the next song. Its not a necessity these days for an album to have all the songs connected. The next song, Niswas (Breath) sounds as if its straight out of an Audioslave album. By now you would have taken the hint that these guys are definitely crazy about Tom Morello and also that they are immensely talented. Otherwise, its not everyday that you would find/hear a band that plays RATM/Audioslave leads with this much ease. This song is a really good song and I fear that the Calcutta audience may not be ready for alternative rock music at these doses. This is a fear I had for Prachir as well but more so for Insomnia because there music is what defines Alternative Bengali Rock and not borderline Metal/Alternative. By now this band has made a mark on my mind as a really really talented musicians.

The next song Hat Dhore (Holding Hands) speaks about the monotony of life and maybe also about Video Gaming. Lyrics are well thought of but the music though really good once again reminds me about some song I have heard of but can't really remember right now. The guitar solo is classic and the song convinces me that this band is not just good but very good. Personally the song stands out from the rest of the album because of its softness and which is the same reason why I dont like it so much .... :) ... but nonetheless I have tried not to be biased. Its a good song and it deserves the praise.

The next song Pothe Ghatey Nekdey Thakey (Wolves Prowl the Roads) is one of my favorite songs of this album. The beginning of the song lets you know its about call-centre professionals and the BPO boom in Calcutta and the rest of India. From their lyrics it seems Insomnia is not particularly happy with the boom and probably express this sentiment with the exceptionally explosive music. I have tried for sometime to pinpoint the influence of this song because it seems to me I have heard it before. But .. till now I havent been successful. I have actually heard all of RATM one by one , then audioslave, then Creed/Alterbridge and SOD just to find the song. And I am happy that I havent found it... yet.. The song is one of the best from the album . The only one negative about this song is the really off key background vocals. The rest is perfect and once again makes me wonder how such an exceptionally produced song and album is going to be accepted in Calcutta which when last I checked was still considering bands like kalapahar as rock bands.

Aakash Chowa (Skyhigh) the next song is one about loneliness and depression, touching another of the common downlows of the modern urban society , which by now I believe is the theme of their album. The starting drum line reminds me of Blur - Song 2. A little bit of search about Insomnia as a band will tell you that they are exceptionally proud of their drummer as being one of the few people in the city to play bounce. If you need to know what that is, listen to the song and imagine how the drum sticks behave if you have to play a rythm like that. Thats a very simplistic explanation of the style but then I am not a drummer. The vocals are really good in this song and so is the arrangement.

If I have not already mentioned it earlier I must say that apart from their brilliance in the music that they play, Insomnia as a band has shown exceptional maturity in the sound production and recording in their very first album. Its true Bodhi has been doing it for some time and its really really paid off.

The next song Adhormer Sar (frankly I am not sure how to translate this .. but it probably is The core of dishonesty or The fertlizer of dishonesty) starts of with the unmistakable riff of Born of a Broken Man by RATM. Talking about human corruptness in general with distinct anti-war tones, this song actually was one of the first songs I had heard from the album. I will not lie to you . After hearing the beginning I went back increased my volume and checked the credits to really believe this was a Bengali Band and not by some weird mechanism RATM singing in Bengali. Adhormer Sar scores points once again in all directions except maybe for originality. But they are once again meticulous in the reproduction of the original, very creative in the improvisations, beautiful in the lyrics and powerful in both vocals and the guitar. The rest of the band although not talked about much by me just fits in very .. very.. well.

Opekkha (The Wait), the last song is a soft soothing song starting with a very simple piano loop. No hard crackling guitars, no growling, no very fancy drumming and to me the most important song for the album if Insomnia is looking for general acceptance. I will try to be as neutral as possible because the song does not really fall on my side of the line for a "Good Song". But the effort and passion behind this song definitely oozes out both from the lyrics as well as the vocals. I could not think of influences for this one and I guess thats okay! :)

All in all, Proloyer Shomoye is an excellent album if one considers the novelty this album has introduced in the Calcutta Rock Music Scene. I am not sure how popular it has been since I have been quite late to review it but the fact that it has stayed on my regular playlist for sometime at a time when I was in a spree for new tunes is without sounding too pompous a definite sign that these guys have got their bengali "rock" absolutely spot on!! :)

The album does get hit on the context of originality and I woudl be eagerly waiting for their next album to see what they are really made of. Insomnia has shown they are the best when it comes to a RATM cover but whether they can scale it one notch up and truly create a new sound of Bengali alternative rock rather than sitting on the shoulder of giants and not even trying to stand is something to wait for..

Well Done Insomnia and please keep it up and dont sell your souls to the commercial strategies of Music World and Planet Ms.. Thats all i really wish for..

Next up : Arbovirus..

Bengali Rock Band Review - II - Prachir

2009-10-18T13:02:00.001-04:00

I have been wanting to do this , ever since I wrote about Cactus' new album. Maybe this time it will be right.

I came across this band , about a day before one of my final exams last semester, trying to find new Indian bands and online radio for the same. I did manage to hear two of their songs and hated them, thinking them to be loose lyrics. The third song from that playlist however caught me and I kept listening to it. Soon the album was in my Itunes and Ipod and the band had almost all their songs from their debut album in my TOP 25 MOST PLAYED list. Later I realised they also made it to the top 6 of the Channel V Launchpad Competition (The only existing reality tv show that seems to make a little bit of sense.. not a lot but still). Its sad that their bassist dumped them in the middle of the show and I wonder if it was a gimmick because they were too good and probably one of the best acts in the country right now. I have asked some of my readers to listen to them but this is the first time I am writing about them. I am talking about Prachir and their self titled debut album.

I originally thought that I would give you guys a clip of every song in the album but then I realised that its just stereotypical and since these guys are anything but that in the current Bengali Rock scenario it was not doing them justice ..

Prachir has a sound that currently very few other Bengali Rock bands possess and the fact that they have reached this sound in their very first album is something to be proud of and also to watch out for. Fossils I remember had an amazing first album and they topped it up with their second album, but as a real Fossils fan I have been disappointed after that. Hopefully Prachir will have their act together for sometime, for they are truly something to hold on to for sometime.

Their first song called Porichoy (deftly termed as Introduction) is a song apparently about drug addiction and it really does have strong lyrics. The words are not exceptionally intricate. I think as a principle Prachir does not try to use high strung words. Their words are simple. This probably gives them that much space to experiment with their fillers. Porichoy is truly a nice introduction although the change of scale in the middle of the song has a little too much of a repetitive lead. The classic second stranza lead is really good. Just by this part of the first song, one would know why I like a band like this.. I mean they give a 40 second (about 8 cycles) guitar solo.... obviously I would like it. The song by now has reached a high pitch with Soumyo's vocals ending the song really well.

The next one is Bharotborsho (India) .The song starts with a heavy lead and would be an instant hit with the metalheads. The lyrics over a period of time will turn out to be once again good and deep lyrics written in very simple language. If these guys really want their lyrics to mean anything, they do so with no nonsense because only then will it reach everyone. I dont love the lead solo of this song too much but just the power of this song takes it through.
By now Prachir has settled into their sound, that boasts of very powerful vocals and an exceptional guitar sound (Bua).

And it is then that their third song Uttorer Bhire (Crowd of Questions). The only thing that I did not like in this songs is the backing vocals. Otherwise this is to me one of their best song. Lyrics are deep and meaningful, the lead vocals is tight and compact, the drumming is spot on and the end solo is brilliant. This is another one for classic hard rock fans and I guarantee this song will not disappoint you.

With three songs with great energy in each of them, I believe they had to have a softer one and this one was Tsunami. The song obviously refers to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It has a very soothing effect with the sound with as little distortion as possible. It has a distinguishable keyboard part and all in all it serves its purpose for a small time to gather ones breath. Because the next song - Shrinkhol (Chains) - is arguably one of the hardest songs I have heard from a Bengali Band. Right from the first crash cymbal to the intro lead that sounds very much like Metallica - I disappear to the filler provided by the keyboard with the guitar in the background to the final guitar lead that plays behind the vocals, this song smells, sounds and feels of the real energy these guys are really all about.

Hotash Prithibi (Disappointed Earth), the next song, takes it from where Shrinkhol left it and for those who love double bass drumming, this one is for you. This song drives the point further that Prachir is not here to make soft music about romance. (I might have to eat my words because they might make something like that later considering thats what sells ....unfortunately). But till then, they are here to make some loud music with absolutely precise targets of heart pounding vocals, relentless drumming and classic hard guitars. This song is when I guess the drummer (Ayan) realised that he had not done enough to stand out and he does.

My excitement about these guys when I first heard their album was more about their sound than the individual songs. After a long time Band Music in Calcutta was experimenting with new sounds that were harder and looked towards an underground future and were not scared to do it. The fact that these guys were now being released in the same mainstream label (Asha Audio) who release Porosh Pathor at one point of time does speak of newer Independent Music Labels required for the band scene there, but it also probably talks about the fact that the audience base for such bands is increasing. Progressive/Alternative Rock/Metal has reached the Bengali Band scene and from what it looks like it should stay for some time.

Swadhinota (Freedom) is another such quintessential progressive metal track. Lyrically strong, this song by now fits the Prachir sound perfectly. Once again these guys use keyboards really well. The guitar solo in this song is one to be proud of for any guitarist and give the song a complete feel.

I love an album where I cannot decide which one is really my favorite, because they all sound so good and this one is definitely one of them with Hotash Prithibi, Shrinkhol and Uttorer Bhire all being so close in being the best song. But in the end (and isnt it sooooooo cliched), but there is only one winner and that is the last song - Shrinkhol acoustic version. This is the song that really made me look back at Prachir with respect when I was going to dump them in the folder of Bands Ive heard and not Bands I like.

The acoustic version of Shrinkhol is probably the most listened song in my ipod and you will know if you hear it. I dont think you need to understand Bengali to like it as I found in my lab. My lab boasts of a great sound system with two huge speakers kept at the highest racks so that sound has a really full sound. It is one of the many things i love about my lab. My fellow lab members are very appreciative about good music and a lot of times if I play my music which mostly now consists of newly found Indian/Bengali/Bangladeshi Music and it is worth it I would get a comment saying "Nice song" . Trust me. I am proud of some of the bands from Calcutta and India. My lab members are not Music Critics but they hear a lot of music as well and varied origin and to like a song without understanding the lyrics means a great deal for the Band and evidently for its fan (Me!) It is a strict NO NO in professional circuits to be a fan of the Band you are reviewing , or so I heard, but I guess Im not a professional ...

This song boasts of beautiful vocals, amazing guitar work, but of all brilliant keyboards (Indranil). Its brilliant to find every individual band member making his mark in different songs.
I have always believed and probably even said it here, that a Band represents an unit and even though once in a while there are individuals of whom you will hear more, because they are good looking or more energetic or reveals too much or some other gimmick , it is ultimately the compact complete sound of everybody together that makes it a good BAND. These guys are just that.

A lot of people think that most music I hear to or ask others to , are sort of an acquired taste and may not be taken with the same enthusiasm as it does for me. I believe it. The first song that I heard of Prachir was a song called Bharotborsho. At that point of time, I felt that the lyrics were too amateur. Trust me, after hearing the album for some time not only I like them, but I think some of their other songs are truly one of the very fresh lyrics I have heard of late.

All in all I consider Prachir to be one of the MOST promising bands to watch out for in the Bengali Band Music Industry.

PS: I havent talked about their bassist not only because there are no stand out bass riffs in their music but also because I dont respect him too much after what he did to the band while Channel V Launch pad was going on. If it was a gimmick its okay i guess. But otherwise.. I support Vishal Dadlani when he raised the finger to the screen and asked the bassist to **** off for dumping his band midway like that.

Next Band to be reviewed - Insomnia.

For those interested in more non music related blogs.. please wait. It will take time for me to come back to my self.. After all I really was out of writing for quiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite some time! :)

Take care folks. Till then, do try to listen to these guys. Myspace and esnips are good places to hear their entire album.

2009-09-28T01:15:00.000-04:00

It has always been the case that I have written something or the other on the night of Mahashtami every year. It did not matter what because in the end it was ultimately filled with the sadness that most of us feel when the big 4 day long festival is over.

Today, it has been two years I have heard a proper dhaak, let alone play one. I think I saw kaash phool last year when I went to Niagara Falls. I have heard Mahalaya over the internet and have even given Pushpanjali last week , as is the custom here to celebrate Durga Puja on weekends, and yet I feel the same tinge. Last few days I have been tremendously busy. No time to do anything but analyse spectra. I had the offer of going and enjoying puja with my brother and sister in law and that did not happen because I had to meet my advisor today and yet the tinge lingers on... so far away......

To those who have enjoyed this year's Puja in Calcutta or atleast in India ... I envy you.

To those like me...... Dont worry friends.Its part of the trade off! :(

I miss CALCUTTA..

Waiting .....

2009-07-10T19:39:00.001-04:00

Hey...

Although it seems that I had posted a few lines not a long time ago (only ten days) it just seems so far away. I mean really. 1st of July was so far away. In between that was the 4th of July weekend when I had my trip to Boston, the Boston fire works and I actually visited the campuses of MIT and Harvard and yet another 7 days has passed since and yet it feels so long a time ago !

4th of July, interestingly is also the day when I become an year old in US. I landed on US soil for the first time that very day. It is therefore quite befitting that on the same 4th of July I would walking on those same grounds where the sparks of US independence were first ignited. I still remember that line in our Class 9 History books, describing the Boston Tea Party, where they say "as the rest of the states heard about what happened in Boston, they knew the first shot of the American War of Independence had been fired"

I did write a few lines as a part of my Movement Series and I will put that up soon.

I wanted to write today because I wanted to remind myself that me and my blog and my readers exist and there is a world other than running HPLC samples, taking NMRs, growing bacteria and worms, synthesising compounds and analysing more NMRs of my undergraduate apprentice or feeling sad that something did not work out in the lab, staying hungry for most part of the day (like today and mind you the day here continues till 9 o clock in the evening!!!) etc etc and the other woe's of a graduate student's life..

And now that my blog and my readers know about this other world that also exist outside the smiles and the joys of life they would probably increase their patience limit a little more and wait for all those lovely stories that are on their way and has only been hit by a roadblock and are waiting for the curfew to be lifted so that they can arrive here on this blog.

Take care folks

Watch this space...

2009-07-01T17:20:00.001-04:00

Its raining outside. In another 2 minutes I have to go check on my TLC* that I just put in my chamber. In another 14 minutes the pellets that I am centrifuging will be done with their 3rd run. And after that there will more tlc-s, and more centrifugation. And then there will be a column to run similar to the one I ran today morning, only of a lesser scale, and then if time permits I will setup the reaction for the next step, which has to be monitored for 7 hrs. Its a Hydrogenation. If I dont monitor it well, it might explode**.

And this is just today, probably a little less busy than yesterday or last thursday or friday. And yet I know there are so many things that I want to write....

Dont worry.. I will.

Just have faith in me, my readers, and Watch This Space....Thank you.!!

Hello and Welcome Back..

2009-06-13T04:12:00.000-04:00

This post is really going to be short.
Its mainly to feel good at the fact that there are people who do notice that I have not been blogging for sometime. It is also to say that I will be coming back soon, probably this weekend itself with a number of blogs that I have actually partially written in my mind since the last three weeks.

One of them would be about my recent spree of listening to bengali bands from both sides of the Padma river, meaning from Bangladesh and West Bengal. It has been a really exciting few weeks since I found this new band Prachir, which basically started me on the quest of more quality Bengali Rock Music, and to tell you the truth, not only have I been satisfied, but I also have been intrigued. Frustrated at times, hearing a lot of bands one by one, album by album not only taught me to appreciate the revolution that is taking place in Bengali Rock Music right now, it also taught me how to differentiate a good band from one that may be another in the bandwagon! But I have found some really good music that I would like to share with my readers. Watch this space..

There should be one about other random English Music that I have recently heard and really liked. Such posts should have a specific name now, considering that they are going to repeat everytime.

Another of them should be about the two weekends excursions that I had been to in the last few weeks of hiatus, one of them to Cornell Plantations and the other for a camping trip to 1000 Islands.

These will be coming soon. Thanks once again for the few who did rekindle my belief that some one was reading this blog.. even if it was some stupid comments..

Ps: For those readers of mine who love listening to and experimenting new music, do listen to the following bands -

Sigur Ros', Cake, Kasabian, Motion and Zoo York by Paul Oakenfold, Talvin Singh, Fakir by Class Apart
Insomnia (Bengali), Prachir (Bengali), Bangla (Bengali)

Flyleaf - replies...

2009-04-19T13:35:00.001-04:00

This post is an impulse.
A positive impulse for those who want it.

If I stare out of the window,
right in front of me, everyday what I see, is a lonely leaf on a tree,
with no other leaves to feel proud

But the sight is not the only thing, that is there to sense,
if you lower your voice and hear the winds,
you will hear the leaf cry out loud...

I will not give up, I will not fly,
For this is where I have lived and would die
Oh wind dont you dare try for you will fail again.
Cause I may be light and I may be frail
and your force may have flown many sails
But the truth that will always prevail
Is I will not give up and die.
For this is where I have lived, I have survived and i have forgived, you
have no bounds or feel what one loses to fly.

The wind howls for then it knows it matters to many where it goes
It acknowledges the lonely fighter and bows and swiftly blows away.
The leaf's still there, as the only one, on the branch of the tree, smiling in the sun
For it knows and learns what it takes to live and survive for many a lonesome day....

Today when the leaf sees me, trying to write the whole story
It calls me out and whispers into my curious pair of ears.
Its easy for people to give up and fly,
Its easy for those who have never tried
To fail and try, and fail again, and not give up , get up and train
To try and try till they realise that you are not one to break into tears
And thats when it will appear to you,
The truth is to try it through,
The final destination's only true when you no fear the road.
knowing that, with a smile I start afresh to walk my mile
and another if I cannot smile till I have unburdened my load.

ps: This is the 50th post. I wished I could write better than this..!! :( I wanted it to be grand and in a way it is if it does what it was intended to do....

Bengali Rock Band Review - I - Cactus (Tuchho)

2009-04-12T13:20:00.000-04:00

I just heard all the song's of Cactus' new album, Tuchho. I am sure those who are in Calcutta would have heard it a long time back and well due to internet I should also hear it around the same time. But somehow eventhough a close friend of mine had told me about it a few weeks back I did not get the time to actually download the songs on to my computer, and hearing from the internet meant a lot of unnecessary hassle, especially just to listen to the songs once. As an afterthought I think downloading the songs was a good idea because after listening to the album about three - four times I have actually started liking the songs a lot. This is a characteristic of few good albums and eventhough there is absolutely no comparison and I would be committing a blasphemy by naming both of these albums in the same page as Tuchho but then I felt the same thing about The Wall and A Brand New Day, when I first heard them. It took me about 4-5 repetitions of the album back to back (for both of them, obviously at different times) to actually realise that I love the albums... so much so that they both remain as one of the all time best albums in my database. However Tuchho I think has already reached its plateau. I wont like it more than this but I do like it quite a bit

Anyways, coming back to the point..I was intrigued by the completely different musical philosophy cactus followed in this album. It was way too different from what they had been creating from their beginning way back in the 90s. They still have two vocalists, but wait for it...
the other vocalist is no more a pop artist desperately trying to be a rocker. The other "one" , apart from siddhartha (Sidhu) is Sayak Chakraborty, ex Lakkhichara , and student of Pt. Ajoy Chakraborti , and therefore with a tremendous Hindusthani Classical Expertise. I did not sense that it was Sayak whose voice stood out in the songs like Masiha as the Classical vocal but I could distinctly realise that there was a change. A big one. This reminded me of a Calcutta Times artice that I read last summer when I was preparing for my trip to US that Cactus had completely disbanded but were coming up with a new group with Sidhu still being there. As it so happens, Cactus has come back with a completely new line up and for those who loved Holud Pakhi, I would only say, wait for it , because this new line up is extremely good.

First of all, their new guitarist, Allan (and I really dont know which other band he is from, although he does remind me of the Magdalene guitarist) is fantastic. I think one of the main reasons why the sound of Cactus has changed from a pop-ish, mushy semi-rock to a much more distinct and clear, straightforward rock genre is because of the inclusion of this new guitarist. He has touches that in contemporary Bengali music can only be seen in Fossils and some of the other Hard Metal Bangladeshi Bands but if I have to pose like a professional critic and actually comment and compare his skills with the axe I would say this guy is going to make Cactus much sharper and way ahead of other bands...Partha (Fossils) should really watch out.

But I guess there are two other things that needs to be mentioned before I go back to Sayak's contribution once again and that is obviously the Bass for one and the keyboards for the other. Baji is still on the drums and doing a great job at it. He always did. For those who have heard Cactus for quite some time would know that although they have never made the drums a quintessential part of their music (earlier) without it Holud Pakhi would not have the side stick sound, Buddho Hesechhey would not have the rythm and Sudhu Tumi Elena would not have the filler riffs.
But by having a new bassist not only has their set become tighter but also more prominent. With their new, harder, more guitar oriented songs a prominent bass is really important and I think this guy does justice to that order.
Buti, their keyboardist, was if I am not wrong a part of Insomnia, a Calcutta based Rock Band, primarly performing in English, and although I dont know whats their scene now, I do know that at some point of time two years back they were regulars at Someplace Else. I know Insomnia because of their guitarist , Bodhi, I think from South Point. He was what you call the Hendrix maniac, in the school rock circuit when we were at high school. I did not know him personally but did hear him a few times . But we are not talking about him.We are talking about Buti who played keyboards for Insomnia then and now for Cactus, and does a great job at it. The keyboards sometimes along with a small tinge of bluesy guitar riffs reminds me , in some songs of Animals from Floyd and one or two tunes from Doors. But that does not harm anything. These are influences and in no way covers or plagiarisms.

That brings me to Sidhu and Sayak.
Cactus has always been a very much vocal based band. Some of you would question me what is a vocal based band. All bands are vocal based. Not really. Yes its true you need good vocals to make the songs a part of memory but what I mean by vocal based band is the difference between say Queen and Floyd. Freddie Mercury was almost all of Queen. Yes they had some good music but it was essentially just him. Whereas Floyd, who remembers who sang which song? The only song Floyd ever got a Grammy for is one without lyrics! (Not that I give Grammies too much importance, but I guess I could spend another para or two to drive the point home as to what I mean by vocal based band but then trying to think about any otherBlogger: I Dont Know - Create Post Bengali Band that was not vocal based brings me only and only to Mohiner Ghoraguli and Crosswindz. Yes in no way am I being disrespectful towards Gautam Chattopadhay or Tuki or Neil or Chandrani. I am just saying that they made their music their ESP and not necessarily their voices.

If Allan is the spark plug to the Internal Combustion Engine of Cactus, or should I say, the New Cactus, then Sayak is definitely more gasoline with high octane content. And Cactus, especially Sidhu and the rest are not a low performance engine. They have been there and survived the savagery of everything, starting from the critiques of "intellectual" who wrote off Bengali Rock Music as a western cultural (mlechho sanskriti) influence and thus wanted to stay away from it - to the entry of thousands and thousands of 4 memebered youth projects who call themselves rock bands and at the end of the day would consider Bryan Adams and Enrique to be good examples of rock music.

Sayaks bold vocals strikes out in most of the songs and Sidhu and himself have shared the mike really well. They have given each other the opportunity to come out and show the rest why Cactus has been their so long. I was never a big fan of Cactus, primarily because even though they had been there for so long they were not doing much about it but I guess they were waiting and now they have found their sun. True to their name they have survived for over 15 years and even though they have only produced 3 albums in that 15 years compared to say the 30000 that other small bands have manufactured in their 15month infancy.. but Tuchho has done justice to the calibre this band promises to prove and also does justice to the dream Cactus (as a band, with or without its band members) started... that of creating contemporary music for the Bengali youth.

I believe they will do well if they hold on. Just in case I did not mention it clearly I do like their album, probably also because they over use echo...and I myself being an echo freak, especially with Floyd in my veins..it definitely appeals a lot more.

Anyways. I will end here. This post was written inside my lab, and I guess I should do something about the testtubes with my sample in them or else some of them would start singing Tuchho Ami... !!!!

PS: For those who want to listen to the songs there is a blogspot website which has all the songs in a downloadable format. Simply search as Cactus Tuchho Blogspot and you will reach your destination. Till next time , Take care.

Bliss

2009-04-11T13:05:00.001-04:00

Those who are regular readers would probably understand what I am doing here.
It was not really a conscious effort before this post. I mean I just had those specific words in mind. But now that it somehow emerges as a beautiful pattern I would not want to destroy it till I have to. It will take a huge impulse to do so but I will wait for it and till then go with the flow. Any suggestions of words are actually encouraged.

With that introduction I was going to start with explaining my title. I was stopped by two things.

1) I had originally thought I wouldnt explain it for that act of not explaining it would probably explain it the best and now that i have spent so many words trying to explain why I wont explain I believe you already have understood the reason. If you have , then you actually havent, but if you havent understood the meaning then just dont think about it and that would be enough.....! :)
I somehow imagine one face, a chubby one with glasses and sparkling eyes , having a fleeting smile across her face because I know she will understand... for not only she shares the same initials but maybe even similar conclusions!

2) I stopped to think highly of myself and my writing...and wondered if there were some people who really just came to my blog to read just the first para of my blog.. because it seems quite involuntarily I start with something so abstract that people are intrigued enough to continue reading.

But with that I would stop here for I just realised that this post would be best ended here in order to give it the due respect and importance it deserves for again quite unknowningly and unwantingly I have written all that the blog really wanted to say and no further explanations are required!

Blackbody Part 2

2009-04-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

I infuriate people in a number of ways. By my silences, by my words, by my ocassional sweetened voice (yes.. for those who dont know it... you will be surprised!!), by my constant randomness... and yet I know those who really understand wouldnt mind.

I am out of analogies. The ear phones plugged into my ears play the extremely sweet orchestral part from the Verve song. I am reminded of the mistake I once made of thinking this song to be by Oasis and not Verve. Once corrected I started listening to the Verve and realised that they are almost equal favorites of mine. The words and the video of this song probably go along very well together where the person keeps walking in a crowded street without really caring who is in front of me. It does not really matter who really keeps coming on his way from the other side. It does not matter if he hits someone or gets hit.. what really matters is that he keeps walking. And I smile to myself. I thought I had ran out of analogies.

There is a light inside my eye. It lights up only at different points when I want to see things that even though in bright light is not clear to a lot of people. The light does not in reality clear darkness but instead probably only tries to show me what are the necessary constituents or complications inside some place where we cannot see. Sometimes the light is too bright to be seen or be looked at and sometimes its just right to look straight at and not be blind.

A pearl is a gemstone, considered to be highly valuable and rare and obviously so would be a pearl necklace..... if it was not an imitation. But if you think deeply about these gemstones, not only would you know why only certain things are considered to be really expensive but also beautiful. I mean I would believe that there are other things that could have been processed equally well so that they looked as beautiful, yet it was some of these specific things that we humans chose to call expensive, beautiful etc. The word to be first understood is rare. The other word is valuable.. but then I dont want to be distracted. I was talking about pearls.

Do you know how pearls are formed ? Like almost all other gems it is made up really simple chemical substances in this case calcium carbonate. The way I remember is that it is deposited over and over inside a shell , like the ones we see on a sea shore. And it is symmetrically deposited over time. The best pearls are the ones that have been inside for a long long long time. You cant make a beautiful pearl in a small amount of time. You cant even open it before it is done. Because if you expect to find a pearl while you have not given enough time for it to grow and develop into something rare and valuable and beautiful, you will be only hurrying and will ultimately not find something good inside. So therefore time is of the essence. Somehow the mollusk which deposits the calcium carbonate does not seem to care of the pearl. It just nurtures it till it has grown to its perfect beauty. No two pearls are really the same. and thus it takes an effor to collect pearls that can be added as beads unless you have someone else polish it and then drill them so that they can be connected.

If you are a pearl you wouldnt therefore want to come out till you are completely done perfected right , let alone be polished and drilled? Does then one understand how difficult it is for an actualy necklace of pearls being produced. Does one really understand how important it is for the person who wear it to know what she actually owns. Does one really know whether there was a friction between all those pearls together. Did one really require a scissor or was the string itself too lose to be able to take the friction? Did one understand that the entire idea behind a necklace is to connect one to another and not one to everyone because then it is not a necklace anymore. And thus if one really wanted to connect one to everyother one one would have to actually split the string?

But then we are probably only talking imitation pearls here.

I talk of pearls as an object because I am reminded of a night, the gist of which would probably not change over the years. Maybe the words would, the tone would but never the gist. Its been a while that I have actually forgave people. Maybe I should. Maybe I will. Maybe I can. But then there is always a probability associated with such sets of information isnt there. Especially if there is a Yes or No question, the probability would at least be half, if not less... depending on which way you see it from .

Since I have been using this phrase, I would probably not change it till I end this series of posts, a series that I want to end here. Maybe sometime later when I want to express a similar state of mind I would use a different title of the post and even fewer people will understand. But I would want to stop after this post because after a point of time most curves will end up aligning with the axes but till that point there is still more to say.

Sometime ago I wrote (mainly because a lot of my other friends wrote similar things but also because the question did intrigue me and I thought if I could really make such a list) a list of 25 things that I like. The list probably ended up being 32 , not just as a tribute to douglas adams but also because thats where I stopped. What made me really happy among all the posts was that made by a very close friend of mine who said that one shouldnt open oneself so much. When I read that comment sent to me over email , an involuntary smile flashed across my face, because I knew what she actually meant.

The point of bringing that memory back up here was to refer to it and clarify whether I really liked doing somethings. I realise I do. I am talking about my characteristic of being subtle yet direct. I have lost friends like that and have only gave myself the explanations that if they couldnt take what I told them about themselves they wouldnt be my friends. Yes. I have mellowed down over the years realising that very few people really want to know what others really think about them. Its been a while that I have actually spoke something out of my heart and not out of my mind, because most people are not worth it and they are definitely not worth getting hurt for. I have not lied but I have not spelt out the caustic truth. I have never really asked questions or expected answers. I have just somehow realised that some people dont really want to be told anything. This is good because I have come to realise that passing judgements is the greatest sin of all. The state of mind you are in right now, will nowhere be near what it was two nights ago when you were being blasted by your parents about a sin that you did not commit or two weeks ago when you were meeting your lover on a quiet night and didnt really care what happened otherwise or two years ago when you felt bad about things and chose ventilation instead of suffocation. These examples are conjured up from air and necessarily does not have a real parallel. Yet, it does probably explain the situation of how your state of mind decides what judgements you take.

It can be contested that judgements are essentially functions of the unchanged characteristics of our mind, ones that we call principles. My answer would be to all those people who really think like that, to wait for an emotional roller coaster. Something that will hit you so so so hard that you will not realise where you started from. Like a wave that will probably take you to a shore miles away from where you started and you would not have an option of starting afresh trying to tell yourself that this is where it all began. Somehow all past would only remain as a fading memory till the next such wave comes crashing along.

However........
if you are one of those who stands far away from waves and the water.. who never wants to wander in uncharted waters.. who has no interest in exploration and does not even plan to do so.. then unfortunately you would not know how it feels to have the wind blow in your face and even though you feel cold how to learn to love it. You would probably not know what it feels to be alone in the cold water and pray that you drown and yet be cursed to be afloat for the rest of your life. You would probably not know a lot of other things that would probably give you a new dimension. I KNOW.. you would say what if I say the same thing. What if I say that the view from up here is brilliant and I do not want to see any more .. then i would say your level of curiousity is not as high... because we have all been there. All of us who are now at sea and collecting pearls.. have been upthere in the mountains thinking ourselves to be higher than the rest and aloof ... we have all come down , attracted by the extreme enthusiasm that we could hear .. coming from those who tasted the excitement of adventure before us. We have seen blood. We have seen pain. But we have yet been attracted.

Whether curiousity is a good thing cannot be explained. Because in this extreme world of analogies somehow the mere adjectives that we use for our daily use seem meek and useless. To define or classify something as good or bad is essentially somehow one of the two common responses we have towards life.

1) to align everything that is our way to be good. and everything that is not our way to be bad.
or
2) to align that everything I want to be but I cant to be good, and everything that i dont ever want to be , to be bad.

Some may see these are broad generalisations. But what I gave you are two extremes and what i feel is that anything other than this are like a systemic percentage curve contributed by these two. If you want to conclude that it is a new entity I would probably only refer you to an advanced physical chemistry text book and ask you to read more about phases... and how the multi component diagrams are drawn. You would probably learn more than me trying to explain...for in any case the moment you would think you dont understand you would probably give up..

In any case, stay whereever you want to stay "O Enlightened one", just dont come up to me and tell me what you think unless you have experienced it yourself because otherwise you and I are in the same situation. If you dont know anything about something and I dont either , how would you be a better guide than me myself? You would say you have other experiences to draw upon. But who told you that those experiences may be completely useless.... ???

I hate being smothered. By questions, feelings, emotions or overburdened expectations. I have never really been able to rest all of the expectations I put on myself that it not only becomes tough but almost a figment of imagination to be really thinking about other things. Yet there are so many justifications to be given or else cycles will never stop. There are yet more details to be extrapolated to clear the smoke and only then will people probably know and yet again a smile runs across my face. Because the pearl somehow knows that it requires no justification. Because the only justification for it being inside is that it has to wait till it becomes pure and perfect and if you wanted to force it out you would essentially ruin it.

With that done I come to another analogy. One that is almost similar to others but also one that is even closer to my heart. And this is about mouths and words that has no bounds. Yes. Over the years, especially the last two years in delhi university , have taught me valuable lessons, one after another which today makes it easier for me to listen to the birds while the traffic passes around me. You would have forgotten about that analogy ... since I started Blackbody 1 with that.. but yes I can focus on something without really getting affected by a lot of stuff. But then again, I have not perfected this ability and there are still points and stimuli that suddenly gets me over the edge. I sometimes tell myself that these are responses to missing home, or being away from the real introspective me. But at others time the curve is no more really near the axes. And at those times I try to stay away so that more words are not spent because at the end of the day it only increases the number of words... I wish everyone understood the importance of talking silences.. ones that eats up all these words so that we dont have to deal with them all the time.
But anyways.. its been a while I have been the glum self that I am. The part of me that only a few have seen and have been bored to death by it. The part that does not ever let go of the Crazy Diamond and clings to Maqsood Mahmood for the rest of his life. What that does is create an alternate reality shield around me which probably makes it unclear for people to realise who I am , which in turn confuses people even more and thus actually infuriates them. But then didnt I start with that criteria.....

Blackbody Part 1

2009-04-10T23:29:00.000-04:00

I have been wanting to write for a really long time.
So long that I have forgotten which and when was the last time I posted for real.

Now this last line somehow triggers something somewhere in my mind, which lets out a small line of thought, rather a question ... "By that sentence then, do I really mean, that I dont consider any post that is less than 50 lines worthy of being called a post?" The answer comes probably from the other end of the mind. The one that knows that the question will be asked and has prepared for this answer even before I knew that this question was even conjured by that part of my mind which i cant control....

"No"
"Because of the few blogs that I have read, one of the blogs that I like the most has one line posts that to me mean a lot more than an entire page of writing"

But then would I ever make one line posts? Maybe someday. Not today definitely. But maybe someday.

With that initial introduction I ask myself, what did I want to write?
My mind answers with silence and I know that that is the best possible answer for in silence lies the beauty of a thousand words, unsaid, unphrased yet felt so immensely that the vocal chord does not bother to misjudge the importance of it by putting words to express it.

Its been a while that I have spent hours tuning and playing my guitar. Its been a while I have let myself stare blankly at the passing traffic trying to concentrate on birds chirping the way I sometimes try to hear the bass riffs in a heavy metal song trying to block out the guitar tones and the drum beats. Its been a while that I have walked only to walk or talked to myself. Its been a while that I have thought about things that other people would think is a waste of time. Its been a while that I have realised that I am taking a break while and during taking a break without feeling guilty about it.

I dont think I deserve to do all or some or any of this until I actually finish the other stuff that I am supposed to do. My job, problem sets, duties, etc etc. and I wait for the day when I can do all of these stuff again. The wait does not bother me. What does is the feeling that even though I know that the I will become myself, during that time, others have changed, thinking that I am not myself anymore. What bothers is that I know this, and know that others dont know that I know this. What bothers is that others dont know.

Its been a while I have felt sad about things that I used to feel happy about. Its been a while that I have let myself be and have not cared of what others think. Its been a while that I have been the rebel that I am and broken away from the codes of predictability. Its been a while that I have been spoken to arbitrary strangers without being led to beleive that I am doing something wrong. Its been a while that I have taken time to build the wall so that they cant enter. Its been a while that I have actually spoken.

I have been right here at the place where I am, not gone anywhere where I dont want to go. Not done anything that I dont want to do and yet at certain points when I stop to catch my breath after running to the department to attend the morning recitation that I cant miss, (not because I want to learn, but because I want to teach) or when I am choked with chalk dust for the same above, or when I am walking to or lab on a rainy day, and see the mist form over downtown from a distance and can feel the moist wind blow into me, or when I take the bus back home really late at night on a friday and notice that I am the only one with a bag and an empty stomach and and yet an almost unsober mind...I dont ponder to ask myself why....I simply stop... and stare.

Over the last few weeks I have heard pieces of information concering and not concerning me and have wanted to reply to a few of them, in the most indirect manner possible and have stopped myself. Partly due to ego, partly because I dont mind being misunderstood. It sometimes works in your favor. Yet when the same pieces of information blasts at you over and over again from sources that you thought had filters you can only stop to rethink whether the sources were really genuine sources or simply reflectors.

This post is not a reply to anything and although the cliched sort of way to end that sentence would be.. that this post is also a reply to a lot of things... I would stop to reconsider whether it is really. For let us think , if I did reply to some questions and opinions put forward. Would that change these opinions or the intent of the questions themselves. Would it be able to make those minds understand what the other side really looks like. Is it worth it at all when one is completely confident in a saturated sort of way that there are intrinsic difference created in our minds , made more prominent by boundaries that we have somehow placed, consciously or unconsciously.

Explanations and justifications of actions are probably the most popular sort of conversations people fall into. Most of such discussions are essentially begun by a simple and so to say innocent question ... why? Both the interrogator and the interviewee really does not recall where the why had sprung out from by the end of the discussion and yet the discussion has been done and conclusions have been reconfirmed, completely neglecting and ignoring any real attempts to change such conclusions, thus completely destroying the essential concept of the interrogation to review facts , and yet reaching a completely superficial satisfaction that the truth has been revealed.

A triangle has three points.
Each of these points actually are connected to two other points. This is an important concept to reitirate because what most people do not understand is that if each of these points considered the arrangement to be such that they could ignore the existence of the third point while interacting with another point, then what would exist is only three lines. and not necessarily a triangle. For a triangle is not made of three lines. But three line segments. Yes... the line segments are part of the lines but that part of the entire line even though being part of a bigger entity has a responsibility to the other point that is not part of the line. For if you wanted to bring the third point too close to the straight line, you would not really achieve to form a triangle that serves any purpose or has a meaning of its own. Yes.. differential calculus would probably allow us to define a straight line containing three points to be a triangle where the height tends to be zero... but its not always that you apply differential calculus to all triangles in life do you ?

A better example would be to draw three straight lines in MSPAINT such that these straight lines are really long lines which some how intersect each other to form a triangle. After you have done that, click the option Fill with Color and try to fill the triangle with some color. What you will see is that the colour remains confined to only the triangle. Undo this. Now try to fill the color outside the triangle. Your entire screen would be coloured but the inside of the triangle will still be empty, white, clean and pure. And thats what really a triangle is. An individual entity to which each of the points, the vertices has equal responsibility to fall in place with the other two lines so that the triangle is complete..

Have we really been paying attention to all such polygons that we have created in our lives. Or have we been coloured by the colour we used to fill the other parts of our life, or somebody else tried to fill the other parts of our life with....

A few really brilliant individuals would understand the exact meaning of this analogy and would question about the existence of the straight line or a point in such a situation.. and its really amazing how this analogy can then lead us to interpret that a straight line segment between two points is not really affected by the colour of the rest of the environment, this being true for a point as well. The line will be differently affected if the line was part or inside a polygon.. a "bounded" region. But otherwise ... its the line between these two points that matter. Its the only reason of their existence as an entity, unlike the case of a polygon, where each different segment matter equally (if its an equilateral)...Remove a side from a rectangle and its open, vulnerable to be adulterated by other colors which probably dont belong there..

Enough for that analogy.......

This post will continue.. maybe not today but definitely by tomorrow and then the day after so that it is complete...

PS: No explanations for any analogies written here would be provided..

Blocked....

2009-04-06T00:44:00.000-04:00

A writer's block is when someone who writes regularly suddenly cannot get over this major hurdle of being able to write two sentences that are coherent. There can be a more formal definition for it, but right now I am too lazy and too distracted to actually go ahead find the definition from Wiki. But I do know that the essence will be the same. And then I would still not be able to find myself suffering from one because I am not someone who writes regularly. I was someone who used to write regularly when I was in high-school and then later in first year in college. None of that has ever found its way to this blog because blogging wasn't that popular those days. Neither was my internet connection to me, in those days. Later in second and third year of college, I became someone who used to write often. Then later in masters, that became someone who wrote ocassionally till very recently when I just became someone who used to write, but now writes now and then. Today people actually are curious...."He writes? Really? When ?"

Its therefore suffice to say that I would not fall under the category of those who write regularly and consequently I would not be suffering from a writer's block. So maybe this inability of being able to put two statements that make sense together should be renamed as just a block.

For those who follow this blog, it would probably be evident not only by the time line but also by the content that its been a while new ideas have actually been given due importance. Meaning that I do find new ideas now and then. But I dont somehow seem to retain them. I hope that this is a passing phase and will soon be over. I shall wait for that day.

Blur

2009-03-19T03:00:00.001-04:00

There is a song called Song 2 by a band called BLUR. The first time I heard this song was in the game FIFA Road To World Cup -1998. It has been elevent years since then. EA Sports has improved their game play, graphics and AI, tremendously and FIFA Soccer Game today is one of the most challenging and obviously addictive sports games in the world. With that their title track has also changed and yet the song has somehow still got stuck. And today when I think of the word blur - no specific song but this can come to my mind..

And almost obviously you will ask why the word blur....

and I presume some of you would even preassume that it must be because of the amazing speed my life goes by, whooshing past the past and present, hurling itself towards this giant ball of light called the future... and my assumption about yours would be that it is wrong.

My temporary fixation about the word blur is with the fact that my mind is trying to rotate as fast as possible in order to dry itself of all the wet useless memories that it was carrying all these days, which only added weight but did nothing else. Its like one of those sedimentation motors that we used to use in qualitative analysis lab that woudl rotate the samples so fast that it was a blur for the samples itself and when we would switch of the machine, the solid would have settled at the bottom leaving the liquids at the top.

And thats how my mind feels. It wants to shed off all those patchy wet memories or at least drive them to the bottom so that at least the supernatant is a clear transparent liquid.

Somebody said too much science for my last post.. I guess its true and eventhough I dont remember the lyrics for Song 2, I do know the single most repetitive chorus of the song ....

WOO HOO!

Blanks

2009-02-21T21:34:00.001-05:00

Im in one of those states of mind where if I try to think too hard something will snap. Something inside my mind will just stop working. Not because it was tired or was working all the time, but probably just because it will resign in lieu of my ignorance. My point being, there is something in my mind that is probably getting very angry, very frustrated and very impatient and would soon give up on me and leave or snap, and the irony is I dont know what it is. I have realised that if I genuinely and seriously start a search team inside my mind to find what it is and fix it, it will realise that I dont know where, how and why it exists and this will infuriate it more and it will give up on me faster. So my strategy now is to pretend that I am not focussing on it, so that it thinks I know that it exists but I am not getting time enough to devote to it, and after some days when it becomes more easily identifiable I will spot it and fix it.

The problem is that its very easy to say this but not really so do it in person. I mean I will have to actually survive this gigantic "it"-ch that I have in my mind. I cant seem to know where and why it is and yet I cant try to clean it, or else it will run around in my mind and cause a chaos. Almost like, you can hear that there is a mouse in your room. But you dont want to get up, because at least the noise is coming from the same part of the room and if you get up and try to find it, it will run away and you wont find it again. For those who have actually had both these experiences, such as having a really really itchy itch at a place that you can only try to reach but never actually manage to do so, which only reach in a cm radius from it, or having a mouse in your room, you would know what I am talking about. Its a suspense that you dont like.
'
The way I was trying to describe this situation earlier by stating it in my "state-us" message of facebook/orkut was "Parag is in a transition state". Later I realised that I probably had moved on a little bit and was a little less confused. So I changed it to "being in a minima, but not being sure whether it was local or global". This however posed an interesting observation which can be a distracting aside. What happened was that after reading this status message quite a few people asked why I was feeling low. But only few asked me whether I was getting ready to make the jump again. The difference in these two questions were essentially the differences between a nerd and a non-nerd. The first one only gave importance to the word minima. The second one was however more to do with the fact that local minima is only a short dip in the curve as compared to the high peaks around it, but definitely not the lowest point and mostly in a reaction coordinate curve, as mentioned by my transition state comment, a global minima would mean I am still in the process and the next jump would be meaning when I would reach my next transition moment!

phew

I do realise that this blog does not and will not make any solid and productive sense. For just the last half millisecond of the time spent on the last sentence I had the feeling of changing the word from blog to post, but I realised that it does not make a difference, cause I would think the blog as a whole does not make any difference either!

My fingers even though it is almost 10 itch for a guitar to play.

Some of the old cobwebs that I thought I had removed, are still upthere. but I guess the spiders were never really killed. and these are actually new cobwebs. I am not getting time to wipe them out ..

Conservation.

2009-02-11T04:27:00.000-05:00

This post is going to be depressing.
I can feel it. Because there is no real reason why I am writing it. If I try to think too long I will definitely be able to fish out a reason that somehow there is an empty feeling that tries to find things to do and when it runs out of mailboxes to check, social networking sites to visit and friends to talk to, it tries to come back here to vent that vacuum. And just as vacuum cant really be vented, the mind also cannot really shed the feeling off. Rather a drift of air barges in, only making the emptiness more impure and more bothering.

I chose the song Regret by Anathema to hear while I finish this. Its been a while I have heard it. Somehow somewhere even in this state of transition and drift-draft something still doesnt feel all right.

I dont think I want to write anymore. There are reasons, like always, to turn around, smile and survive again. There always will be. And which is why you will read this blog, forget about it when you read the next and the first law of thermodynamics will never be proven wrong!

Portmanteau

2009-02-10T14:16:00.000-05:00

Just today one of my very good friends commented about my introduction to my blog that it is a tinge incorrect. His point was that I was using a 'contraction' and so I couldn't (!) really say that it was three words when it was really four.

For those who DON'T understand what contractions are - other than the normal ones you hear about in a medical or nowadays in any arbitrary sitcoms - contractions is the term used by linguistics as the formation of a new word by the use of two or more individual words which in common belief is supposed to create a more flowing sound. But then I tried to read on further because I always thought that the Oxford English Dictionary had incorporated the word Don't in their dictionary (which they have), and that led me to find out more interesting things.

For example, those who DON'T use DON'T, SHOULDN'T really be using "cannot" because that too is what you call a portmanteau or a contraction. The difference between portmanteau and contraction is that portmanteau is only a word formed by blend of two words and not necessarily the meanings. Anyways, anyway is another such combined form of a word.

Soon, after spending about half an hour on the internet with directed searching I learned more words and more definitions such as Syncope, Elision, Synalepha, Inflectional Suffixes etc etc. Not only did I understand that the linguistics used as much if not more terminology that us followers of science do but also they are very rigid about it.

For example it takes a research paper (1) published about 16 years back, to be able to come up with any kind of solid evidence that these words such as can't, don't shouldn't have been incorporated in the formal English Language.

What this paper talks about is a historical basis of how the contraction n't has historically progressed from being only a contraction to a suffix of the inflectional kind. Apparently a word only gets to be incorporated formally in the lexicons only after it has stood the test of time.

It suited me. But still I wanted more proof. And that led me to the American Psychological Association Style Guide, aka the APA style guide. And apparently, not very different from our very close IUPAC (for the mere mortals it means International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry), APA decides how to go about writing names and order of headings, formatting, and organization of comments and references, and the arrangement of tables, figures and footnotes and appendices, as well as other manuscript and documentation features. I realise this style of writing is not confined to only the social sciences but also they way we document our work, in a journal, proposal, homework etc. However the APA does not state rules for informal writing does it?

So that leads me to check whether blog is a formal or informal form of publication? And from what I found other than a few interviews of scientists who blog and other not so relevant information sources, that Blog ISNT a formal way of publication. You can call it a publication because you do hit the publish button in order to release it to the rest of the world. But one cannot use this as references in another formal form of publication. Which somehow removes the burden from us, mere bloggers, to not pay so much attention to the APA style guide. Whats more surprising and probably in a way contradictory is that it is formal to use the phrase "don't" when having a conversation because it not the same when writing the same on paper. Then what about video blogs. If you do not differentiate between what you hear and what you read when it comes to blogging how can you use different rules for them.

This is what the Merriam Webster Dictionary (2) has to say about the word -

"Don't is the earliest attested contraction of does not and until about 1900 was the standard spoken form in the United States (it survived as spoken standard longer in British English)." "It goes on to say that some surveys of attitudes toward usage show it more widely disapproved in 1971 than it had been 40 years earlier. Its chief use in edited prose is in fiction for purposes of characterization. It is sometimes used consciously, like ain't, to gain an informal effect."

So convinced and satisfied that for an informal publication forum such as The Eblogger website, I wasnt misleading my readers from thinking that I wanted to pass a contraction away as a whole word, I will now return to my desk and finish my jobs.

1. Language, Vol. 59, Number 3, Sept. 1983, 510-513
2 . don't. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
Retrieved February 10, 2009, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/don't

Arriving Somewhere but not here .........

2009-02-07T19:43:00.000-05:00

I have a confluence of multiple thoughts in my mind.
One of them originates from this phrase in one of my fellow blogger's profile - "I'm a wanderer with a purpose", the other originates from this song by Porcupine Tree called "Arriving somewhere but not here" a third thought starts from somebody told me the other day - "There are two main kinds of people - one who pursue knowledge and one who pursue money and both of these kinds dont really understand that they will both reach the same hell of unsatisfaction and a feeling of underachievement.

There are other minor thoughts but i cant seem to focus on them enough to bring them upto the surface so that i can identify them. Maybe in the due course of this blog I will be able to fish them out!

Lets first deal with Porcupine Tree. When I wrote about the band in one of my previous blog, one of my old friends pinged me asking me to listen to Lazarus. It was kind of surprising because not only that I had heard all of Porcupine Tree by then after recently acquiring it here from a classmate of mine, but also what really made me want more of Porcupine Tree was a song that had a mellow tune and had a very prominent piano line that was sweet and soft and sad alltogether. It appeared in the Pandora play list on the station named Comfortably Numb. For those who dont know what Pandora is, its an online Radio station. You tell it what kind of band/genre/song you like and it will then search other bands/artists/songs which sound similar to your choice and form a radio station completely based on that. Pandora calls it Music Genome Project. Actually I think I might have referred about this in passing in some other blog of mine, but whatever, it doesnt hurt anyone right! :)

So when I heard this song, I wanted to know what it was called and who was the artist. And the
song WAS Lazarus by Porcupine Tree. At that time, which is around October, 2008. I was maintaining a notebook of all new bands/songs that I happen to listen via Pandora and would like to hear more of. I have made some kind of progress with some of the bands like Porcupine Tree and some other Lounge/Techno Bands. From then on, I started a station called Porcupine Tree and came across more of their songs and finally I have heard all their albums, live and recorded, interviews and radioshows! :) Thanks to the IITB collection! And trust me. They are good! :) they have a surroundsound..that only few band have. Their lyrics do faintly remind me of Floyd and I remember thats how I introduced them last blog I wrote about them. Surprisingly they know about this and so they state in one of their interview that they dont want to be called "like some other band"

Anyways Arriving somewhere has a very haunting feeling too it. Anyone who firsts hear me playing the song immediately ask me (if they dont know me) if I have heard Floyd or otherwise (if they know me) comment that they can understand why I would like the song or the band. Porcupine Tree (PT) does not always sound like Floyd. They are hard at times. And thats quite understandable considering that their lead guitarist's favorite bands are mostly death metal/hardcore metal type bands! :)

How the wanderer with purpose thing effected me was that I am still wandering to find a purpose. So its like a purpose to end a situation of purposeless ness. I dont know if you are able to understand what I am trying to state here but it really is a paradox.

The other statement was the truest thing I have realized about research. I am sure, in the course of the next few years I will realize more things , more than what my readers will be able to handle! :) Every point of success and the un-ending number of failures would make me realize something new and I would be running back home to share it with you and it might be amusing. But really.. it is true that we are all somehow attracted to that same fate of unsatisfaction. Because we dont know where to stop or after what ? It isnt the matter of lack of goals. I remember once me and Subhajit were discussing about people who did not want to achieve anything and I realized we had classified them as unambitious people. What I realize now is that people with ambition of any kind , immediately sign themselves up for a fate of unsatisfaction through out their life. We become slaves of that elusive dream of being happy and satisfied.

And obviously some of you would come up with this cliche-d question.. What is Happiness. And I wont go into that amazingly unnecessary question .

Because Im sure I would do some other time.. :)

Somehow right now I have forgot what was the main thing I was going to address in this blog and since I cannot force myself to write something here because then I would hate it and then just because I hate a line I would probably delete the entire post this post will not be published. And then, the other parts of this post that I liked and wanted to share will also be lost. Because However well you might try , or in this case, I might try to recreate something I created myself before, because I am not working on a flexible circuit and not on hardwires, I will introduce changes in it, minute but yet significant changes. That again might introduce new properties to the entire body of this post which i may hate completely and I would never post it ever again. And thus with it the information contained in it will be always lost.

This chain of thought, although sometimes called nonsense, is also the exact way our minds try to analyse the idea of talking to an old friend with whom we have lost contact due to mutual laziness. And somehow you are always in the dilemma if you should or shouldnot. You spend enough time on it the way I did on the last para and you would reach the conclusion which leads to the friendship ultimately being lost. So take that initiative when you can. Dont wait. Blurt it out.

This post will gets published :)

Cold ?................. Play!

2009-02-03T03:25:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to Suvendu Sen, a friend of mine, for no other reason but the love we both share for Coldplay.

If you readers can, then read this post, while listening to the song White Shadows, by coldplay. I am pretty sure either esnips or youtube would have the song.Better still the entire album that has that song but starting from White Shadows................................

Starting now.

I thought about writing this as I was walking back from school and a friend's place, after spending about two hours on problems of Organic Chemistry. It is and was about -10 degrees celsius and even though I was cold, somehow the cold did nothing to stop me from smiling. Rather it helped. I had a smile on my face, which only a fellow blogger and one of the most important person in my life who shares my initials would understand. It was a childish smirk. A smirk that resulted from suddenly coming into contact with two of my old passions after a long time. Coldplay's album X & Y and Organic Chemistry Problems.

I may sound like a nerd. I may sound too dreamy eyed. I may sound anything but I cannot ignore the smile on my face. It was that of excitement. That of rejuvination. Even at 3 o' clock in the night and it made me feel good.

The song has this feel to it. Right when you can only listen to the atmospheric tone played in the synthesiser after a very fast drum/bass beat. The atmosphere creates a mood and somehow my grin increases.

The song ends only to give away to the next song which is even more closer to me.

I had actually given up listening to this album because I had actually kept my original copy of the album in a place which did no justice to the beauty of it. It was almost as if I had kept it in a dust bin. I didnt listen to it all this while because I was angry that I had wasted such a beautiful album to a place that never cared about it. And suddenly after all these days the songs came back to me. Through my ipod. And suddenly I realised I was foolish to think just because I didnt have the cassette any more the songs meant nothing to me.

Fix You's chord based solo starts ringing in my ears and my optimism rises to another level. I have a lot of stuff to do and yet somehow I know they will fall in place.

This blog is just about that sudden feeling of re-listening and old favorite song after a long long time. This blog is about how I am. This blog is about those numerous fleeting feelings that whizzes past by us and it only matters when suddenly, even accidentally sometimes, we raise our hands and just manage to catch one of them. Only to smile to ourself.

The indole problem is still almost unsolved. The 1,3 hydride shift somehow doesnt make sense even if there IS a nearby carbocation and yet I am somehow satisfied. The bicyclic compound has not even been touched. There is stuff to prepare about recitation tomorrow at 8am and yet Chris Martin's voice asks me "Tell me How does it feel", and answers himself "I feel like they are talking in a language that I dont speak and they are talking it to me"

Take care all of you

For those who understood what it feels to have a childish, sheepish smile on your face just because you found your long lost love, not a person, not a relationship but a book, or a practice or a song, congratulations. we are on the same page
For those who did not, wait for it, and when you do come back and read this post again.

Short Notes

2009-01-21T01:28:00.000-05:00

This is a short post.

I was just so greatly enthusiastic about a certain band and another certain song (by a different band) that I had to write it.

The band is Porcupine Tree. My classification of this band would be Pink Floyd with a more metal tone. But trust me guys. Its actually not doing justice to their full potential if I simply describe them as 'like' some other band. So the above statement is only an explanation of why I like them so much but if you hear them and if you have the patience to hear through their 9-13 minutes of absolutely awesome progressive solos.. you would probably realise how brilliant their music really is.

In Indian Classical music, actually in all indian classical jugalbandis there is a certain period of the rendition in which the instrumentalist keeps increasing his speed up by one notch and the percussionist simply plays cycles of beats.. going up by one each time. Almost everyone would know and notice the increase in the speed but only very avid listeners would be able to catch the beginning of the cycle. These guys have incorporated something similar in their sound.

I would definitely be writing more about them soon. But not in this post. As I said this post is a short one.

The other song that I am currently listening to, over and over again, and yet I cant seem to get enough of it is Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones. Its not like I had not heard the song before. But one specific version of the song made me look back at it in awe. It had like a 2 minute long guitar solo and it was brilliant. I actually was working in the lab when I heard the song. I couldnt remember what it was and after some point of time the guitar sound simply engulfed me. At the end of the song, I put down the flask that I was workign with, went to the other room where the song was played and realised it was this song. Since then I have been hearing this song and trust me guys if you just hear the original version you would want to hear it more and would probably curse Jagger for not lengthening the song, a feeling I still have whenever I hear All Along the Watchtower (The Dylan or the Hendrix version... personally I dont like the other ones. )

Anyways.. with those two thoughts I end here..

Take it easy folks.

Insomnia - among other things ...

2009-01-14T01:24:00.000-05:00

People keep changing their minds.

First I thought I was the lazy one, not updating my blogs, thinking that there was really a good number of people who were reading them regularly and getting impatient at not finding a new post for quite a long time. Now I think its really not the case. Its been a month and I have been posting quite regularly... or so I think and look at them.. they tell me I am posting too quickly that they cannot catch up.... huh ??? what the hell is that supposed to mean ? :)

Anyways.. as the title suggests this post is probably going to be about the bad habit that I really want to get over. Not because I dont like it. Actually I do like staying up late. Just because I cannot motivate myself to go sleep at an earthly time. But also because this habit, this disease is probably going to cost me my life someday. And mind you, this isnt one of those self-pity statements. It really isnt. It is like one of those forecasts that the likes of Julius Caesar made once. It is true. The number of bad situations I have faced because of this really annoying and partly exhilarating ailment is getting bigger day by day and soon it will really be the reason of my extinction ....

Its been a while I have had it. I think it first started during college. Those days of Ringtone 33 and walks on the roads of DU at really late at night, the Gwyer Hall trips. But it really became quite regular during Masters. In the first year it was mostly just movies, tea, exams and by then I was actually living .. and trust me.. this is true.. about 50 feet from gwyer hall canteen (Jubillee that is) but in the second year it started with the GRE preps, then more exams, orkut acquaintances, applications and new "Idea"s. I didnt quite realise it till I went back home for the summer just before I left for the US. I really didnt sleep early. It was not because I wanted to stay awake but more so because some how my body clock wasnt just conditioning. And this I say because some people here attributed this sickness of mine as an extended jet lag. Well it was there from before...!! And if I am staying up by India's time right now, then was I staying up then anticipating and preparing myself for the US time then ? I dont think so !!

And after coming here it really has been persistent. So much so that even at my bro's place in Arizona I was not sleeping early. Well yes, I was tensed and had thousands of things in my mind then and except for the fact that I forced myself into doing nothing those few days I was really tiring myself out by worrying. And yet, I stayed awake.

Well, thats mostly what I had to say about insomnia, my insomnia, for now. Its about -12 degrees Celsius outside. That does NOT come from my desktop screen temperature application provided very thoughtfully by Hewlett-Packard but because I came back from outside. Just to see how cold it really was. Funny thing is you always feel colder in the night than in the day even if its the same or even lower temperature. Trust me the sunlight has nothing to do here.. I think its more like the understanding.. "all these people around me are also in it and are feeling the same cold waves and they are off to work or lunch or wherever they are going and maybe I should do so." In the night, the streets are deserted and you feel ... "ohh.. I am the only one alone in this cold...its really cold. I mean really cold. Brrr.. Okay maybe I should go in now.."and thats it. You feel colder.

I just lost the interest to type more so I will quickly end with this small observation.
This, has happened one too many times for me to not observe it more closely and I think now that I dont have a lot more to say I would fit it in right here.

There are a lot of times, during the day, like when I am working in the lab, or walking through semi-North Pole in a blizzard, or singing to the one songs that i have heard 13252412359450920th time, or maybe just listening to the echo of a statement that was just made by a friend/acquaintance/completestranger/enemy or cooking or... well ... basically almost at all odd (and even even) moments, that I suddenly think of a line that strikes to me as a potential opening statement of a meaningful blog. The line lingers for sometime, shows me how impressive it is in style and in the fact that it can subtly hint towards a big eruption of emotional content, and slowly revolved around me till the point of time I suddenly realise all I really have is just that line. With no content. Because that line, more often than not is a statement of fact. Something that I achieved or didnt or did both in different perspectives. Its perfect for an opening line. Intriguing. Probing the reader (the more inquisitive and thoughtful one to read) and allowing the passerby (the ocassionally interested O-lets-check-out-whats-happening-in-his-life one to read but take home only the first line as the most important line) to have a peek at what the blog might be offering.

The sad part is that only a few are members of the first group. A few others belong to the third group of people who read this blog in order to just say that they have read it. How that comes up is an ocassional scrap saying "hey its really cold out there isnt it" (referring to say a blog that started with - Its about -15 degrees outside) or "you must be having fun" (referring to "I have reached Arizona safely") or "blah blah blah blah" (referring to "bleh bleh bleh bleh"). There still exists an even fourth group who dont read at all. They click the link seeing it right there to be clicked. Get absolutely overawed by the enormous amount of stuff written there, realises that its going to take hours to read through all that text with their extremely slow reading capabilities, further realises its going to take days, probably weeks to understand the wordplay and the puns and then further re-realises its going to take ages and even lifetimes to make sense out of it and finally when they think they have realised enough for a day, they strike upon the final real-realisation that they will never ... read the blog. About 5-seconds is what it takes to reach this pre-concluded conclusion. Another 5 seconds to scroll through the scroll bar to see just in case a name that they know catches their eyesight, and when it doesnt, the mouse runs to the top right, hits the cross button and the flowchart leads them to the earlier group , but only this time they make random comments or questions.. like "hey.. hows it going ?" or "Do you remember about India" or "Have you forgotten us or me or etc.." only to lead to a discussion - (mostly saving my skin on my part because in same cases I really thought some of these people didnt care) which would ultimately lead them to saying "Yes I was reading your blog..." and then a lame statement similar to "You write so much!" or "You write well" or "It seems you are having fun". I am sure some of you who blog mostly about yourself and observations would be feeling the sameway sometimes :)

I shall not really waste a whole paragraph on the first group who really reads because they wouldnt want me to break the flow. They are reading remember. The second group are mostly the majorities. There is however a fifth group of people - the kind who while wandering across through the information highway, drifted, took a wrong turn or was shown the direction towards this way and somehow just came across my blog. Mind you, these people are not random. I have been one of them sometimes and I still do ocassionally keep clicking links just to land up on something interesting and I therefore happen to know how dreadfully tough it is to satisfy such wanderers. Because the top-right redcross sign is only a second away. And they (like me) are not there reading because they have nothing else to do but because they just landed there. The moment they realise that its a desert with no remote possibility of an oasis cropping up right there they will back up, revv their engine and puff goes the tab/window. But give them a couch to sit, a few magazines with words like "Have a seat. The manager/owner/author/realtor/whoeve(o)r will be right here" and soon enough you will have people whom you dont even know browsing ur blog. And thats where the importance of that one first line comes in.

Your first line thus needs to be short. Long enough to make sense but short enough to invariably force them to read the next line. And the next line should be long and interesting.

I smile as I type this because it seems I am giving a crash course on how to write a blog :) whereas more often than not I do not myself follow these so called tips/norms/rules.

Anyways, the sad part however remains the elusive ness of finding a suitable next line. For me that really is a problem. And by now, if you still remember what I wrote a few paras ago, you would know why. For me that next line makes a lot of difference. Its what holds me to the keyboard. If I dont myself like my fluidity how can I expect other people to.* (that asterisk is to remind me that I need clarify something about that statement) So a few paras ago I had said that I would be ending this blog soon since I didnt know what else to write. But somewhere down the line, writing the next para, the words kept forming and I realised the fluidity had just come back. It did take a few lines to reach that "next" line but like a pinball accelerator once I hit it the fingers kept flowing.

*This is to clarify that the earlier statement marked as such does not imply that I write this blog only to please people or that I manufacture this blog to cater to people's likes and dislikes. I am a selfish blogger like most bloggers but however I also do have a certain percentage of concern about tastes and attention spans of the readers. This I have learnt from my own experience of deciding not to read a book because it didnt appeal to me in the first few chapters. Some of those conclusions like the ones relating to some Doctor Who Novels, Some Rushdie novels and some others have not been quite right. But nonetheless most readers to judge whether or not to continue reading by the first few sentences and finally remark about the quality of the blog mostly on how well it was finished. This you will find as a footnote on any English Language Textbook - Make the opening and ending statement of your compositions interesting and fascinating but quite extraordinarily this time it is actually true what the Text book says :)

I had something else to write too other than this dilemma about never finding the elusive next line during the odd (and I repeat.. the even) hours of my day. That was about how I would classify my blog. But I guess that would be another day because this blog already has got longer than I had expected to be and more importantly longer than what the scroll bar would suggest as readable even to the interested but "Dont-have-much-time" reader.

Good night.

Birth Pangs

2009-01-07T07:32:00.000-05:00

I want to make a post but I dont have ample time on it so I will leave you just with a thought.

As fresh one sided violence starts again at the world's most controversial region, the only so called superpower that is now existent indirectly re-emphasizes its weakness towards one side of the picture by deeming these acts which include bombing schools and universities as a "new order" and 'the birth pangs of a new ...............' where the dash is the name of the region. They oppose a cease fire and indirectly do not oppose the violence on probably the grounds that a country has their right to protect themselves and counter terrorism by whichever means they feel is correct.

Really .. if that is so.. let us bring out our satellite photos that we have of the terrorist camps that we know are there nearabout us and convince the world that a counter offensive is necessary. But no... that wont happen. Why? Because as I said, the very idea to carry out something like that requre a conviction, a necessity to justify such an act to others which not only involves politics and diplomacy but in some small sense also involves humanitariasm.

The Tibetan New Year is approaching. So Happy New Year once again. Dont worry. The New Year may not fulfil all your desires of being happy and successful but every new year will more than fulfil your desires of the world not being a better place to live (co-exist) any more.

Maybe Someday....

2009-01-06T00:45:00.000-05:00

"She sits there all alone,
To knit her multicoloured dreams
She stares with her eye filled with tears
Through her small window, to catch a cloud's glimpse.

The tune she hums is in her mind but she lets it wander in the sky
Hold up your ears near your mind, maybe you can hear it if you try
The strokes of her brush makes the clouds fly and you'll understand if you open your eyes

She sits there all alone, her minds keep churning new dreams
And older clouds now conspire to bring it all down as it seems.
Her humming make the clouds pour down , and the drops dont end till she stops her song
My mind is drenched in this downpour, and like a wet crow I can sing along.

She sits there, all alone
She sits there, all alone "

These words arent mine. Well actually they are but really they arent .

Confused ? Well this is my translation of my current favorite Bengali Song. Its by a Bangladeshi Singer called Arnob. If you search for the song - Shey jey boshey achhey (She sits there) you will find it in youtube. If you are in my orkut friendlist and even if you are not , its there in my orkut videos. Listen to it. Although the video version is by a band called Black. I wont judge them. I have heard some other songs of theirs. They are good.

But Arnob..... well.. I heard this song quite by chance. And then I discussed it with a friend of mine here who is also an accomplished Tabla player back in Bangladesh and a friend of Arnob's and he suggested that I hear the other songs. And well... this guy ... is amazing. I mean I dont know who wrote the lyrics and who composed the music for the songs but if Arnob's only contribution was to sing which I dont think it was then even there he is amazing. Really. And well if he has something to do with music and/or lyrics, well then, I would definitely consider him as one of the really good musicians right now that Bengali Contemporary music is seeing.

I wanted to translate the song for the benefit of my readers who dont understand Bengali. And then while translating it I realised it wont sound like a song unless I made it rhyme. So here it was.. Its actually the literal translation of the song. But my words. Well not really my words but you can say that :)

The other song that I like and here again I would try to emphasize how important it is sometimes to take other people's suggestions when it comes to music and books, is Hariye Giyechhi (I am Lost). Suggested by my friend, Syed Mumtaz, better known as Taz, this song gripped my heart the first time I heard it. I didnt understand the significance till today about an hour and a half ago.

I have reached Ithaca, my univer-city, today evening. My entire apartment, which at some points of time last semester was inhabited by almost eight people is now completely empty. Pieces of old memories litter the room in the form of playing cards, usb drives, broken earphones and 80mm and empty chocolate wrappers. One might seem that i am being childish, mourning the loss of a few people whom I knew only for a few months. But then these were the same people with whom I shared my life in a place that was not only more than 12762 km in real distance but much much more if you counted how "far away" you were from home.

Those who remember this blog and its early posts, you would remember them as P2, S1, S2, and S3. But wait. I did not use those names did I?
It does not matter. Pushkar, Shreyans and Samved have left Ithaca. These were the first people I met here. The very first faces that welcome me the moment I stepped on Ithaca. Well maybe a few minutes later :) but whatever ! And they are gone. It didnt strike me the night we revelled at our farewell party, what feels like almost a month back. It did not strike me when I spoke to them as I boarded my flight to Newark enroute to Phoenix. It did not strike me when I chatted with them on gmail while they were packing and today when I look around my room it seems empty. No more sad jokes about anything under the sun. No more jokes about somebody's weight loss techniques, someone's psychic ability to disagree with everything that felt nice to others. I do sound a little sad don't I ? So maybe I will write about them some other time. Because I know all the other stories that I still have to say about the past few months have a lot of cameo and some star appearances by them :)

But coming back to the song by Arnob, Taz's suggestion was important because if you hear these two songs as the first few songs of Arnob you have heard, like it happened for me, you would probably love him as well. And thats why its sometimes important to have someone else suggest music or books because they would probably know which one to start with in order to really like the music. I dont remember if I have said this before and maybe I have but it can be possible that you might start listening to Oasis with Slide Away or Morning Glory and you may not like it, so much so that you would term them as a band you dont like much. But maybe had you listened to Wonderwall first or Dont Look Back in Anger you would have probably loved them more and more curious about their songs. It always happens with authors and artists and you would have experienced it subconsciously. Forgive me if I have repeated this theory of mine. Wont happen again. :)

Coming back to the song , for the third time.. It talks about how he loses himself inititally and then re-realizes that he has only lost certain parts and actually not lost himself totally
Read it yourself... (This time I am just translating it because its a little more serious and I dont want to ruin the song by trying to make a song out of it)

Hariye giyechhi, eito joruri khobor
(I am lost and that is the main news today)
obak dui chokhe, chaya kape bhoye ovimane
(Amazed I see my shadow tremble in fear and respect)

hariye jaoar, niyom nei ekhane
(It is forbidden to lose oneself here)
harabo bole, paa tipe rodey gelei, gota shohor bati jele shotorko
(And the moment I go out in the sun to lose myself, the entire city is alarmed with lights on)

paye paye harabar jaiga khuje mori.
(I die to find a place where I can lose myself)
Kothao nei jhumjhum ondhokar tokkhok daka nishuti te, rupkotha shune shiure othe na gaa
(Because there is not a single place, pitch dark, where the night filled with sounds of the lizard cry, makes you shiver on hearing a folk tale)

shopne amar shorire keu chorai na shiuli ful
No one showers flowers on my body any more in my dreams
alor akash nuye eshe choy na kopal.
The bright sky does not kiss my forehead anymore.

Hariye jaini tobu, etai joruri khobor
(But I havent yet got lost, and thats the main news today)
akankha aar hotashai hariye jawar kono mane nei
(There is no point in losing oneself in desire and despair)
nibir ghore adho alo bisshashe buk'er govire kar jeno dak ashe.
(In my silent room, in a twilight of conviction, someone calls me from within my heart)

Jodi konodin jhore jhore jai ondhokar
(Maybe someday the darkness will fade away)
bhalobasha dhuye dei gota mukh amar
(And love will wash my face away)
duchokhe shopno bhore diye jai keu
(Someone fills my both eyes with dreams)
jodi konodin otut bisshashe,
(Maybe someday, but with conviction)
jodi konodin, jodi konodin
(Maybe someday, maybe someday).

Listen to it. Its a wonderful song.

And thus Arnob claimed my heart in the last two and a half hour. But was it only because I found the room empty. Didnt leaving my brother's house where I spent a wonderful two weeks have anything to do with it? Didnt my frustration and a sense of despair regarding my lab have anything to do with it ? Didnt something else have anything to do with it? Was I really looking for memories or were they already there and I was trying to lose them ?

If you look at an a hemisphere from its round side you dont understand that its incomplete do you ? What about a complete sphere that is hollow from inside ? Do you realize it is so until you touch it ? What about a sphere made of glass placed beside a bubble of the same size ? Do you wait till the other breaks to know which one is which ?

Arnob sings in my ears. I try to seek a corner where I can hide and come out a new person.
Maybe someday. Maybe someday.

PS: 1) Please do not mind the translations. I just wanted to give you a glimpse of the romanticism of the lines and I might have just ruined it but then the ones who didnot understand Bengali would not understand the original anyways and those who do understand the Bengali, why would you read the translation ???? However if any of you can translate this song in a better way, please please send it to me as a comment on the blog. It will help the other readers.
2) P1, S1, S2 - I miss you guys!
3) H1 -- .. ... ... -.-- --- ..- -... ..- -... --- .-. .-. -.--
4) The wet crow is a really cute bird :)
5) Tokkhok - is really the gecko or the monitor lizard.
6) This is the last sentence of this blog.

NEWS FLASH

2009-01-03T09:02:00.000-05:00

I just came back after watching about 20 meteors/ shooting stars .
This is not a joke. This is not sarcasm. This is the truth. Observation time 5:20 AM to 6:15 AM Arizona time. It was awesome. More descriptions later. Too sleepy.

Read about it if you want to. Apparently its some comet breaking up.

Untitled Part 4.1 - Indian Music .. well lets say The Subcontinent Music - 1

2009-01-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

Something inside must have gone kaput or else why am I listening to Bhula Do by Raeth !! :)
Well some or probably most of you would be thinking its the lyrics. I would say I was just checking how much they sucked. Compared to Junoon by Abhijit Sawant, that song with a big time piece over their head surely has gone past its prime .. The bass drum from the electronic drum piece of this amazing song from Sawant's post Indian Idol ( read whatever I sing the public will gobble ) craze actually has pretty unrelated lyrics. But the atmospheric feel with a very rich and powerful use of beats to fill the void leaves the emptiness of the song unnoticed. Coupled with that is an attempt to introduce a rock guitar lick which succeeds to capture the imagination of the listener of being alone on stage, in life, in travel (as the video suggest) and a continous bass guitar reef that holds the song together, and overall the song is good. Probably one of the better ones belted out by the present sissy bunch of poopstars our country's television media is producing in the name of reality television and music entertainment.

A long time ago I had a discussion/debate with one of my old friends about how these reality time shows about bringing a singer upto the limelight is not that great an idea. What I really meant was the idea that the evaluation of their ability was possible by the entire nation needless to say that, that only meant only the tv viewing - cellphone carrying population, did not make much sense. Yes. It was a good idea to get anyone who thought he could sing to come in front of judges and try it out. But it does not seem that great an idea when it is easy to simply amass a crowd following based just on regionality who then send their votes to only fuel their pent up anger or frustration as a community and which has nothing to do really with how good someone sang. Not to mention the real good judges would a lot of times be undermined and would not really care and leave the show because they are really too big for such frivolity. In the end what do we have a set of 5 singers who are equally good and yet their music is evaluated by a group of people who donot really care about the voice as much as they do about how po(e)ppie he is..

I wish they only had the voice with them and not their face or any idea where he/she comes from or what he/she does. That ways not only would gender race region or anything but music would have no effect but we would probably realise that we can actually make a decision based on good vocal quality and not subsidiary qualities.

Anyways. I started this post because I realised it might be a touch unfair to compare these two very different and distinct kinds of music. It is better to simply talk about all my subcontinental preferences first and then talk about others. Because that ways I dont have to face the tough task of comparing individual artist. I would obviously say how much each of them would mean to me but come on Iron Maiden cannot be really judged on the same standards as Fossils, however hard Rupam tries to be Dickinson.

What are my favorite bands who perform in Hindi ?

Since there are so few (that was sarcastic) and since they are so different from each other (that is true) I think an actual distinction is really possible. And in that case my favorite band to perform in Hindi would be Junoon. If there is any other band that gives it any competition it would be Strings but then Strings have a tone or musical style that is more like the U2. While Junoon is like the 1960s classic rock type. It really does not matter that they are both from Pakistan because its been a while I have not considered the origin of music in order to like it.

JUNOON (Obsession) - for me really started somewhere around 1998 about 8 years after it was really started. May it be because of their music not reaching India then or whatever the reason maybe the first album that I heard like most of you was Azadi. And I really believe it was probably one of the best subcontinental rock albums I have ever heard. I agree I havent heard a lot but I am always open to new music . So just in case you think there are albums and artists whom you really like and I have not mentioned them , probably because I dont like them but mostly because I have not heard them, then please please please let me know. I would really not want to be left out of a good piece of music that is available and someone is ready to give an opinion about them :)
Anyways.. I did manage to hear Junoon live. Well it was not so much of Junoon with basically only Salman Ahmed of the main line up performing but I liked it. They were definitely not as good as their recorded version.. a definite consequence of Azmat not being there any more, but they were very and mind you very experimental. A triumph for a band that has been that long. And trust me they do write good music and lyrics, Sufi or No Sufi.

Favorite Songs :

Meri Awaaz Suno (Hear my voice) - An amazing song. Brilliant guitars and really good lyrics. Interpretations are always subject to the individual but I would probably think it can be inferred on so many different levels. Definitely on a political level but more so on a personal level when you think you are always unheard

Khudi (Self) - Starting of with the words of the great poet Muhammad Iqbal, this song has definitely reached a cult level in both Pakistan and India. For those who forget Iqbal was also the same person who wrote Saarein Jahan se Achha. When Salman Ahmed explained the lyrics of the song when he visited Cornell I re-realised what it really meant and how brilliantly inspring a song it was..

Saaein (Lord)- NO. This is not a misspelt Sayonee. Hear this. Better still hear the music video where Junoon performs this song live on youtube and you would know what the power of sufi music is. The song is originally from their album Kashmakash. All these earlier songs actually came to more popularity after the release of Azadi and Parvaaz.. the two most talked about albums.

Now you might be wondering why Dosti, Sayyoonee, or Sajna does not feature in this lost. I have heard these and they are definitely good songs. But I like the top three more.

STRINGS - started of as a college band, this two-member band has produced some really peppy hits. I dont like all of their songs but I like their music. They have copied a few tunes here and there which has in a way put them a little down on my eyes but then they are ultimately the artists who made the one song I consider one of the best rock songs in hindi..

Albums : Frankly I have heard only two albums of Strings. Duur and Dhaani. While Duur was really the comeback album for them and thus was energetic and lively Dhaani was more matured. I love individual track from both of them.

My favorite songs :

Khidki (Window) - The song plays on my earphones right now as I write about it. This is the song that I was talking about earlier. If you search youtube you would find it. Trust me. Give it a shot and please do come back if you hate it.

Jaane Do (Let it go) - THIS IS NOT ROCK. But its slow soothing sound takes you to different place.

Najaney Kyon (Dont know why) - Featured both in the soundtrack of the hindi version of spiderman and also Dhaani, this song is good because of its very dark yet optimistic tune. I have seen the video, but listen to the lyrics and you would know why I love them so much as a band.

Zinda (Alive) - I actually like the remixed version more. The lyrics are amazing.

Beirut - Search Youtube. You will find it. and when you do listen to it please come back and tell me how you liked it.

Mera Bichhra Yaar (The Friend I had Lost) - Well the thing with Strings is that they dont conform to what most other subcontinental bands consider the norm, which is forcefully trying to merge Shastriya Sangeet with Western patterns. They are equally comfortable in making a song like this one and one like Bolo Bolo from the same album. They have found their sound and I hope they keep it.

Im still in the process of liking their latest album. I must say I didnt like all the songs right on the first go but I think I might .... maybe in a different mood. But do check out Hum Hee Hum and the title track. Koi Aane Waala Hain does remind me of Najaney Kyun. Another good song is Jago.

Anyways thats the first part of Subcontinental Music. Please tell me if you would want these entries to change in format, maybe be shorter or more descriptive. Please also tell me what kind of music you are listening to.

Thanks for reading once again.

Untitled Part 3

2009-01-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

The Untitled Series is probably going to continue for sometime now. And its mostly going to be picking up the old memories, de-fragmenting them, restacking them and then finally putting a sticker on them that says these are taken care of. So just in case you are in search of fresh ideas that may be more meaningful to you, please take my advice and dont read this series anymore. Wait for the next individually named entry. It might just be a deceptive ploy, a trick played by me to hide more soliloquies under the name of somethine new, but then you dont have a choice do you. So take the choice that is being offered now...

For those who stayed back ...The Untitled Series is also going to be in a way the medium by which I would answer questions that I had put forward myself earlier about my musical philosophy... simply put.. which bands and which songs I like.

Before I actually go into the depths of that discussion (or should I say, before I try to go into the depths of that discussion, start something, forget it, get completely deviated, write paras and paras of unrelated stuff, in passing mentioning some songs and bands and then suddenly realising the blog is too big and thus end), I should say that this list or opinions are made during January 2009. They do not reflect the opinion of the author at any point of time after the aforementioned date. It is generally presumed that the author (in this case me) does not change his opinions about a certain band or song that he already likes, but it may be possible that he might like a song that he earlier hated, or in his search of newer territories in the musical universe, he might come across something more fascinating than his current favorites and thus might have an effect on his overall opinion.

OK. Enough of trying to give myself importance by talking about myself in the third person. Lets get back to business.

In one of my earlier Untitled posts, I mentioned 5 artists who influenced me the most when it came to forming an opinion about lyrics, music and overall impact. I would not try to put them in any order because I believe ranking is an unfair custom. Say we give percentages to each song or artist that we like , the same way we give or get marks/points in our exams. Someone who gets an 85 maybe as smart as the 86 or 84. Similarly the person who got 86 maybe as smart as 87 or 85 and so on. I dont believe these are distinct lines. More so, when it comes to estimating music. Such scales are mostly a blur. You cannot really tell any from the other and thus I would not rank my favorite artists. I would probably only classify them as the ones that influenced me the most, then those which did only a little, then those that I just like to hear because they are good music or good lyrics, then some which suddenly strike as good but that would mostly be individual songs. I will not comment on how much I like an artist if all I have heard from them is one song. In such a scenario , when I really really like a song by a specific artist, I try to hear more of that artist with an anticipation that I might like him/her/them. If I do then he/she does enter my group of artists that I like. But if I dont, the original song simply remains as one of my best songs but thats it.

To some of you this might feel strange. Here am I trying to portray a picture of how methodical I am when it comes to choosing and listening music, whereas in most of my earlier posts I have tried to glorify the spontaneity of liking or listening music. Let me try to explain my last paragraph. I did not actually try to sound methodical and neither am I in reality. All of this really happens in my mind and maybe some of you may support me on this. It does happen that you suddenly just like a song when you are in a certain mood and you may not like it so much at others. But then this song would always be loved/liked by you when you are in that mood. Similarly you may have heard a song being played on the radio while you are travelling on a bus when you suddenly realised that the girl sitting in front of you is really cute, and from then onwards everytime you hear that song you would be reminded of that girl. It might also happen that you might have really liked a song because it was related to a bunch of good memories, even though the song's lyrical or musical genre is not really the one you normally listen to. Similarly it may have happened that you may have liked this one song by a specific artist but you hate it when you hear the original by some other artist and would only want to hear the cover version that you love. It might happen that you may like a certain song by an artist because you like the artist and you have grown to like that song and not that you liked the song instantly when you heard it. It might be that a song was high up on your liking index because you associated it with someone and now somehow that someone does not exist anymore, you might be feeling a strange kind of confusion whether to like the song anymore or not.

And you would have probably gone through all this. But it would only make sense to you in entirety. You would never consider yourself methodical. You would be spontaneous while taking any or all of these decisions but on a bigger picture what you were really doing was classifying and reclassifying each musical stimulation by how you react to it under different situations and depending on how early you were subjected to the stimulation and whether the first and subsequent experiences were associated with good memories, each of these stimulations would itself form a small database. You would think you are making all these decisions spontaneously. Sure. You dont like the song that is being played on the mp3 player right now. You change it. You dont like the next one. You change it again. This happens for quite some time. So you decide your mp3 player has way too many songs that you dont like and so you sit down one day choose all the songs that you do like .. or have happened to like before and put them all in your player so that everysong that it would ever play are the ones you have been really excited about at some point or the other and still sometimes your finger would reach for the Next or Skip Button. Its a spontaneous action but its not random. Its because your mood is not set with the song. You may not really want to hear Riders on the Storm (The Doors) after Song 2 (Blur) when you are in a happy mood and would rather listen to Smashmouth singing I Get Knocked Down or Red Hot Chilli Peppers singing Snow. But on a day when you are too sad to care all these songs would just make you keep listening a constant something that plays in your ears. You wouldnt mind because you like them both and your fingers like your mind are too numb to care .. So surely you are spontaneous but you are also methodical. So dont think its strange for me to spend such a long time trying to justify why I grade what I like. I dont. I still open up Pandora and write down the names and artists of every new song that I like and try to hear from these artists. I still try to discover new sounds and lyrics and I think I havent heard a lot of good music that is out there. But I do know what I REALLLLLY like and I know what I like more than others :)

Coming back ... :) ...... (phew) ... there are 5 more artists that I would probably keep in an almost similar level as the earlier 5. When I say almost I do mean that not the same level. So while Floyd, Oasis, Coldplay, Lucky Ali and Nachiketa have been the first sounds that I ever realised I loved, The Doors, The Cranberries, Mohiner Ghoraguli, Indian Ocean and Enigma contributed almost equally.

I will continue this further but let me make a statement that I had thought I would make right at the beginning and as usual had forgotten in the flow. I would probably keep a separate list for non-lyrical artists such as Enigma, Karunesh, Mrigya, Prem Joshua and a hundred of others. In which case I would probably like to include Iron Maiden in place of Enigma.

The next post would probably be more about what I really like about these artists and maybe an idea about which songs I like.

Oh .. I also realise that this is my first post for the New Year and I hope all of you have a fantastic New Year... that reminds me .. please remind me if I dont write it on my own, I should write a rhetorical blog on The New Year !!

If its possible maybe some of you can actually share what are your favorite artists or songs in the meantime. Please please please do not be scared by my absolute nerdish comments about music and its likeability. It is one of the few things I would want to keep talking or writing about. So please keep the comments coming.

Untitled Part 2

2008-12-31T22:47:00.001-05:00

I apologize to those who read the last post last night and were wondering when the part 2 is going to follow although I am pretty sure even though my blog has a few followers they are not that punctual and faithful :)

Anyways.. in order to re-simulate the atmosphere that was when I started my last blog day before yesterday night, Fossils 2 plays on my ipod, the song - Tritio Bishwo. However it is not necessarily the urge to write a sequel to the first chapter of the epic that I thought I would write that led me to sit up at an un-earthly hour to write a blog. What did ? Well some memories actually... some old emails, letters and songs .. that suddenly went across my mind, almost like a rapid eye movement sequence..

But before I do that let me complete the references I had started with in the last blog.

I spoke about the comment and the email. So what is left are the two blogs.

The first blog is by someone I probably cannot do justice by trying to describe on this blog and trust me folks.. THAT says a lot. The blog has only a few entries. The style is not very different from mine, which is why I guess we became such good friends almost five years back. But in those five years I have only been amazed by really how very similar we were, in the way we saw things, judged people, understood situations and acted (or in some case reacted or did not act). I remember the first correspondence we shared. It spoke about a window through which sunshine tried to enter but a child was trying to close the window in order to stop it because it felt it would get hurt by the sunshine.

It was meant for me to decipher. At that moment I was amazed as to how by just knowing someone for a month one could reach to conclusion so perfect as that and write it in such a way that would hit the nail right on the head and yet would be almost indecipherable for others. What I went on to realize later was that letter did not only talk about the subject of the letter. It said almost the same thing about the author of the letter. And a few days back when I read the blog I realised, sunshine has entered the room but is still trying to find the child inside who keeps shying away from it, trying to find every corner that can help to hide from it.

Sometime, year before last year, when I had just finished watching Little Miss Sunshine, I had a weird smile on my face that my friends hated. What I was smiling about was how apt was the name, for the author of the blog. A smile still forms across my lips when I think about it and all the other names that could be so apt including Dee Dee. This paragraph is a salute to one of the best support systems I have ever seen and a written acknowledgement that this blog and these words would never really be up on the internet unless you had let the sunlight in that day five years ago. Keep writing. Its way better than me. For those who did not understood this last paragraph, ignore it. If you are interested to read the blog that I mentioned, find it.

The other blog, is written by another lazy blogger like me. Someone whom I do not know in person and actually neither virtually but only know of the existence through a comment made on my blog. The comment had a website alongwith it and following it led me to blog that did smell as if it had not been maintained for sometime. Almost like a Les Paul that had dust on it and was left in the corner of the room for about 5 years....(That was just a comparison. Not an actual data for I forgot see the date of the last post but I think it was this year :) ) But when I read a specific post it made me realise it is really a Les Paul. The tone is sharp only the strings just a little rusty.

This post actually talked about how other people write blogs and how every person is motivated to write. The author actually added hyperlinks of the examples (although I doubt if she read others of the same kind) of the blogs that she was typifying. What made me like it was the fact that it was actually an honest account of why bloggers write blogs. And that one feeling made all this come together. The comment made my friend, the email and the two blogs... it made me ask and answer the question that I used to once ask myself and I am sure a lot of you - who only read but eventhough your mind tells you that you can actually write, have never really gathered the motivation or patience to sit down and write - would also ask yourself or me...

Why write a blog ? or simpler still - What is a blog ?

Unlike most of the other times when I define a word as the way it is supposed to be, I would not even try to define what a blog is. All of you would probably know its origin. For those who dont, check it up. But before I try to define what it is in my words I would reiterate that these are my personal opinions. If you differ with them fair enough.

A blog to me is almost like a diary of sorts. I stopped writing a diary after the final year of MSc. I think. Well actually no. I think I stopped after the summer of the first year of MSc. But quite uncannily that is around the time I started blogging regularly. So for me, even though the posts dont really start with Dear Diary (Yesssss.. I did write like that and yes.. I did that till First Year of Masters.. and no you cant have a peek in it because for most of you it might seem a whole load of pseudophilosophical b.s.), the posts are very similar. Earlier when I used to write the diary it would mostly be written on a level, by keeping a specific person in mind. And probably the length and tone of each diary entry could be compared and classified and from it understood how or what I felt about a certain incident, person or emotion. Now, when I write the blog, it is never directed towars a certain person, incident or emotion. Maybe, and only a few times, around them, but never directed "only" towards them. What that does is give the blog a more complex feel. Because now, when I write I dont imagine a certain person reading it. I imagine a number of people reading it. Now since my mind has a mind of its own, it normally tries to find out what would make a certain person laugh/cry/react after reading a certain line. Earlier that would be okay because it was only one person. But now its an infinite number (or so I make myself think !! :) ) and so my mind's mind gives up, which leaves my mind's mind's mind to give up. This leaves my mind's mind to determine that it should only concentrate on my mind and thus my mind simply concentrates on itself. And thats what comes out as a blog. My mind minding its own business.

I probably can go into how much of an emotional release the blog is and can probably also refer to the incident when one of my readers to which I had referred in one of my old blogs actually called me up to say how grossly incorrect I was in my judgement of his/her personality and how that reference would prove that my blog does hit at some places hard, and I can also continue to keep elongating my sentences till I reach James Joyce's standards after which I would promptly lose my own 'consciousness' in the 'stream' of words that I now type only to stop ... now....but I wont.

Because my ipod has stopped playing any more songs. The last three song it played was among my favorite Bengali Songs Ever. Sashti, Acid and 29shey October, all by Fossils. I remember the time in my final year of undergraduate college, two of my closest friends and myself would sing these songs in my room after lunch. It wasnt really singing. It was three voices, trying to shout as loud as they can, along with the tape that played these in full volume. A fourth song was also in the playlist. Care kori na by Lokkhichara. Anyone who has heard these would probably find no connection in the lyrics or the musical genre of the songs but we did.

And it is these connections that we write about. All of us who do write. Once again my usage of the term we is by no means to be interpreted as a common united voice. What you read is my idea of what other writers would also be thinking and it may be so that they may not think that at all. But I like to think that way :)

There are some bloggers who regularly keep writing on the same topic continuously. I have read a few on the fields of science. Trust me they are good. And most of them are really well qualified to provide that kind of a perspective to modern science. Similar blog exists on humourous aspects of science, history, geography, psychology and neuroscience, popular culture, music and other form of artistic expression, economics and politics, literature and language and basically almost everything under the sun. And then there are some other bloggers, like me who really dont have a field or forte. They write because they want to. They dont write to serve as a travel guide or Emotional Weekly for others. They definitely dont write to give others one liners to brag about. Its like a ventilator to all that requires an expression. To all that cant be always said (and for people like me who can not say most of the things.. everything). This page, not necessarily resembles who they are, but more often than not, it does answer how and why they are.

I stop and publish this post not because I have nothing more to write. But because I think if I continue writing in this blog people who STILL have not lost their interest would now do so. So here goes the last full stop. but wait. Do read the next one ..........!

Untitled Part 1

2008-12-31T01:40:00.000-05:00

Yes. I have reached Arizona safely and in another weeks time I will be leaving this place.
So that probably answers all those lame questions that I put in my last entry.
In between that time and now, I have done a few important things.

Realised that I am not really that far from insanity, heard some really good songs, re-realised the absolute truths over and over again till I went back to the first realisation, learnt how to cook (and this time its proper food which three human beings actually dared to eat and just in case you are curious they are all still alive and healthy), spoke to some old friends with whom I had not spoken for a while (well by speaking I mean on gchat!), finished watching HIMYM episodes till the present and am waiting for the next one, started watching The Big Bang Theory, worked on my upcoming synthesis (a little bit), explored the small nick nacks of my camera, and came up with infinite new blog entries in my mind.

I do not know, at the end of this blog whether all these would be properly addressed but even if they are not, what I really aim to acheive through this blog is the spontaneity that I felt I was not living upto in the last few blogs.

There are a number of things that goes on in my mind just as my fingers spend a split second to reach the next key that my mind tells them to touch upon. There are a few nanoseconds between which the letter appears on the screen, my mind rechecks whether it is correct, asks the same or a different finger to type the same or different letter and voila a whole word is printed on the screen, only to find a second later that by then my mind has rejected it and therefore a new finger is now commanded to press the backspace button, and while I write all this, the letter appears blurry in front of me, as if I am in some kind of trance. I feel my fingers moving fast but not as fast as normally when I type fast because not only am I not in the correct posture of typing but also my mind is still getting adjusted to the choice it has in front of it, to be sad or to be carefree or to be immensely confused between these two grey areas.

And some how , suddenly my mind cannot understand the choice it has to make. It cannot believe that it can actually chose to be not sad, because a part of it somewhere re-decides to let loose the realisation that if it is not sad, it may not be able to produce a striking work of literature. A small indifferent part of it laughs , silently to mock and cynically rejoice at its indecisiveness, leaving me and my fingers with a lot of time to understand whats really happening only to give up and pause in front of the screen.

Pausing is something that I have never considered a virtue when it comes to writing. So I turn up the volume of my mp3 player. I wanted to write ipod but I did not want to sound that I am showing off, because although I spent almost 30 seconds to decide whether I would keep the last line on my final publication (which by the way is an eternity for someone who normally does not wait to repunctuate his statements till he finishes satisfying his fingers' urge to almost break the keyboard), I realised I really didnt care whether it was an ipod or another mp3 player. The volume is still not high enough. I can hear the refridgerator being opened and closed around me.

The song that plays on my ears is Dekho Manoshi by a Bengali Band called Fossils. This band is actually from India, from the same part of the country that I come from and shares its name with another band I think either from the USA or Austrailia. I have heard I think one song of the other Fossils but I dont remember the genre. But I do remember that I like this Fossils better. And its not just because Im biased towards the language. Because I think Fossils although would be part of my best Indian Band list, it would probably only reach the top 30 List of my All time favorite artists. One or two songs of theirs would probably be part of a top 50 list of my best songs.

And that my friend is what I had in mind when I had thought about making this post since yesterday night. But between last night and now I read an email and was reminded of a comment, both made about my blog by people whose opinions I consider important and also read a couple of blogs, one by a person very close to me and another whom I do not know, and frankly all these somehow affected me in an individually small but cumulatively big way.

Lets start with the comments.

After my last blog one of my friends commented that something was missing from it. And I agreed whole heartedly. I do not know whether I would be able to find that missing ingredient myself by the time I reach the end of this blog, but I myself did feel a certain tinge of incompleteness when I finished the last one.

As my fingers started this paragraph, a very soothing opening arpeggio of Bishakto Manush flies across my ears and my hands reach the volume circle and pumps it upto the maximum level. The bass drum and the cymbal are probably just behind my head and I realise I am not really in a trance and yet I would rather want to keep writing about the song. This my friends is definitely one of the best songs of Fossils I have ever heard and I beleive very few Bengali Bands would be able to come up with these lyrics.

You know the funny thing about lyrics and for that matter any form of literature may it be poetry or prose, or even a non-consequential blog such as the one you are reading write now, is the differences of interpretations. I mean someone who knows me really well would probably find a pattern in my blog entries, while on the other hand those who really read for the so-called literary treat would probably only analyse the depth of the tone and voice of a specific entry. And this was what the second comment - the email -all about. Written by a friend who shares an uncanny similarity of choices when it comes to experiences and their interpretation .... just a minute....Yes. I hate the song Nishkromon. Dont know why. Maybe its just the mood. But it may also be just the difference in note of the two songs. While Millenium sets in my ears, I return to what I was saying.. this email actually talked about how I have become a tinge more positive in my blog. The email actually understood very specific hints that I had in some of my previous blogs, only for people who would understand and somehow it felt nice. Not because I felt good about being positive but that the hints were understood correctly. Thanks.

What this made me remind was a feeling I had when I was about 15 years old and probably had just been introduced to Pink Floyd or maybe I was 14 then. Anyways, whenever I used to listen to my most prized possession of all, the first album of Floyd that I had ever bought, The Wall, I would always get lost in this dream of how just like me, in another time-space domain, another 15 year old would also be lying on his bed, hearing the same chord progressions and lyrics, would also start thinking, randomly, how music can change the world. How if we all learnt to see the deeper meaning of every word said by that album we could reach a solution. To almost everything. I would keep my eyes closed to imagine that other boy. I would try to imagine him as different as I could. I just realised that feminists might not accept my dream and call it sexist but I did only imagine a boy and that does not say anything about my orientation ... but coming back to more serious notes.. I never could find him. Somewhere down the line Oasis joined Pink Floyd and then Cold Play. Lucky Ali had been there even before Floyd and together with Nachiketa, they were really the five pillars on which my musical philosophy was built on. Other supporting pillars later appeared including Kishore, RDBurman, The Doors, Gautam Chattopadhyay and a lot of others but these were definitely the first pillars. And together they used to shout at the mirror to find that elusive face that I would be searching. The face who would keep staring at the lyrics page downloaded from the internet for the song Comfortably Numb and would ultimately one day make that song a part of himself, so much so that every happy and sad incident. EVERY INCIDENT THAT EVER MADE ANY SIGNIFICANCE IN HIS LIFE ..would be associated with that song.

That boy probably grew up or didn't. Dont really know what happened to him, because if I have to judge from what everyone say, he changed a lot. And if he changed really, he wouldnt be the same would he. And then we cannot really say he grew up can we? I mean can the axis for time, be the same for physical, emotional, and mental growth ? can it?

I will come back. after dinner.

This is probably just the beginning of an epic ... :) I hope you havent read the other ones before this one :)

2008-12-22T03:05:00.000-05:00

Movement 3-a

2008-12-18T00:21:00.000-05:00

There is no better way to say this. And although I thought I would build up the tension and make my readers wait for it.. and then really wait for it and then wait for it some more till they reach a point where they cant take the suspense any more and can either stop reading my post or simply scroll down to see what is it that I am talking about.. but then I realised that the information that I am planning to give out, is such an "in-your-face" piece of information that I now feel even the last few lines were absolutely unnecessary! :)

Anyways. Its about 12:46 AM and I am at the Terminal B of the Newark Airport at New Jersey. Im actually outside the food court cause inside there is no charge point.. and so i cant keep my laptop running for a long time.

But anyways.. I am here because my flight from Ithaca to Newark go delayed by an hour. Which meant that my subsequent flight from here to Phoenix which was only 50 minutes later had already flown away while I was still waiting to reach Newark. Now , I knew that because I already had a ticket for the next flight to Phoenix from this place. Which is at 6:40 Am in the morning.

The airport attendant at Ithaca, for the airline company I was travelling probably realised from my sad, dejectet, frustrated and lost expression on my face that she should show some concern and so she upgraded my ticket to a first class. She whispered, maybe this would help you to get into the Club that they have in Newark.

It didnt

You see, apparently all American, or lets say US airline companies have this rule, (which I figure must be part of their fine print), that in case of a delay due to weather they do not compensate their passengers for any accomodation. They will reschedule your connecting flights but will not provide you a place to stay.. I dont kind of understand the rule though. I mean from a customer's perspective that rule sucks! Cause you may get a ticket but then you also have to run around for accomodation. Which is awful!! Anyway.. i did runaround too. Trying to show off my first class status to every "My Airline" personnel possible. I ran into a very helpful Indian lady who was convinced that My Airline was supposed to provide me with accomodation, and so called her husband who also worked at the same Airline. They suggested me to talk to the ticket and check in people. Which I did and they referred to the aforementioned rule.

I went back to the helpful Indian lady. This time she suggested me to go and talk to the First Class Customer Service. I did. They also referred to the aforementioned rule.

I went back to the helpful Indian lady again. This time she asked me to talk to the personnel who was incharge of the lounge. Apparently there is no lounge for Domestic passengers. Only international flight passengers or if I am a member of some Club ..... and obviously they too referred to the aforementioned rule.

This time I go back to the Indian lady again and it is only now she realises that I am a domestic passenger and not someone travelling straight from India and somehow a little bit of her pity vanishes...and she says well ya. if you are travelling within US you cannot go into the lounge!!

So much for the first class upgrade. So then I finally go back to the checking in personnel and then they give me the picture that since my flight leaves tomorrow they cannot check me in because I have a check in luggage with me. Which means I have to stay outside in the airport and not inside the My Airline Lounge. He however suggests me to go to Terminal B, which is where I am right now.

The way I do this is by taking the AirTrain. I kind of metro within the airport. I went up one level . Got on it. It went around all the way to the terminal B from P1 where I was and its quite a distance.. and then I reached the food court which is where I am now. Its been a while now. I have changed my position thrice. Ate at two different places... roamed around for a little and then finally have found a table near the charging points and am thus now typing this blog.

While I have been typing this, a lady came by and gave me a yellow card, a little bigger than the business cards that we have. Its yellow and on top it has Merry Christmas written below the picture of a Santa.

This is what the rest of the card say ..

HELLO !

I Am A Deaf Person

I am selling this....

Deaf Education System Card

...to make my living and to support my family

Would you kindly buy one ?
Pay any price you wish. Thank you! (Over)

On the other side of the card is a set of symbols . The hand symbols.

It says American Manual Alphabet for the Deaf

So this lady, comes up to my table puts the card and leaves. She does the same to the girl who is sitting in another table not far from mine. I am quite confused what to do. But then she comes back and this other girl gives her a dollar and I have to give a dollar now cause otherwise I would look like this crazy indian guy with no heart. So I too gave a dollar. Did find it weird though

Anyways.. there is a constant movement of people down this place. Not only because the Mcdonalds is the only place probably which is open 24 hrs but also because there are other people like me waiting for other planes. And its funny all of us, everyone here, except for the ones who work here, are in transit!

It does feel as if I am trying to be philosophical but actually its quite funny and deep.

Anyways... the girl who is sitting beside me also seems to be waiting for some flight till at least 4. How i know that ? Well its been a while I have been sitting here. The first time I had to ask her to let me use the charger plug because it was behind the place where she was sitting. Then, after sometime I realised I should answer the Nature's call that I have been ignoring, while she is here, cause once she leaves, I would not have anyone to leave my baggage in custody with.

This is how the conversation went........

Me: Hi. Excuse me. How long are you going to be here ?

Smile.. For quite a while . Till about 4 o clock.

Me: Ok. Good. Can you watch my stuff while I come back in a moment.

Sure.. Only if you can do the same after you come back.

Me : Sure. No problem..

(OVER)

So there.. random person.. but we are sitting here all by ourselves.. waiting for individual planes. Its not a big deal.. a lot of people do it and only few jerks like me probably make a big deal out of it. Well actually bigger jerks make movie out of such events !

Anyways her laptop cover says Property of Seton Hall University so I assume she is from there. I havent asked the name yet.. and dont think I will. I am happy with myself right now! :)

Anyways.. I guess I will stop right now and maybe end this post later after I reach Arizona..

What happens next......

Does Parag finally reach Arizona...?
Does he meet some other interesting people ?
Is he Safe and fine ?
Where is he now ?

To know the answers to these questions dont forget to come back to this place sooooon....

Till then Good bye and Good night!

Soliloquy

2008-12-13T05:20:00.000-05:00

Its 5:24 am when I start typing. I woke up about an hour and 15 minutes ago. Why I remember this is because my windows update installer keep reminding that I "HAVE" to restart my computer and I had postponed it by that much time and it popped up again just now. I slept last night at around 10:30 PM. Thats strange considering the fact that by now I have convinced all my other friends who think they are insomniacs that I am a better one at that (although I dont think I have really met a real one) but its not so strange if one considers the fact that prior to this I have slept for a total of 5 -6 hours in the last 3 days.

Anyways my mind seem to be more at peace now. Well not so much... cause tomorrow I have my last evaluation of sorts and thus ends my first semester. But I think I am more at peace. For people who generally read more meaning into my words than what I actually fill them with, the past few weeks went well and thats one reason why I am happy with myself. That somehow one of the most important dates in my life just passed without causing any real disturbance. And probably it was because I was too involved in finishing my academics.

You know, I always used to believe in the idea of poetic justice. If a person A gets hurt somepoint in life by B, then it may not be true that the reverse will always happen, but there will be a situation that A will probably hurt C. And C might hurt B sometime later. and thus everyone has a win and loss. and everything is equalised. I never realised its true for other things as well.

For example, since the beginning of college I never really felt satisfied with the amount of time I put into academics. Not that I scored really low, but I always thought I could do better. That feeling that I can do better hasnt really gone away, but today I feel good with the amount of time I can give to my academics. Yes. Its true. I would be better off if I had taken one less course. But what the hell.. its over now.. almost.. But then whats this got to do with this poetic justice.... well... I one of the reasons why I didnt really put a lot of time on my academics in college, at least in undergrad was mostly myself prioritising everything else over acads. Somehow even though I loved chemistry a lot and read it when i felt like I despised the examination system, some of the teachers and some of the course content and one way to protest against it was to not pay as much respect to it as other people did. So extracurriculars, phone calls and everything else in this world became more important.

Today my friends are completely pissed off at me. Because I dont get time to call them, to listen to them, to spend the same amount of time that I earlier could and yet inside my mind, in some corner I am happy (only a little) that I probably did want to have a life that romanticised academics.

Anyways.. before I start sounding like a nerd.. I will change the topic. But one last thing. In the last few months I realised if I try I can still get my head onto studying something. I havent lost that ability yet. Also I realised its possible to stay awake for continuosly three days on the trot.
I now know why the weekends are so important for a Grad Student. I also know how important it is to have all your friends go through Grad School, so that they can understand why you cant return their calls. I now know the meaning of a snowfall. There is a 7 inch layer of snow outside my house right now. I now know what TA-ing really is and how difficult or easy it really is to teach something. I have learnt a new and different kind of friendship now - the academic friendship. I have started learning the art of how to respect and yet not grovel. But of all the things that I have learnt here, the most important thing that I think I have learnt is that the only way you can only come out of a lose-lose situation is to know that you are going to win! Does it sound crazy...? Then it sounds just right

Anyways... the blogs that I had promised earlier will come. Soon. That last stretch of four days of holidays got ultimately used up by working in the lab, researching for which laptop/camera/ipod to buy during the Thanksgiving Sale. I did make up my mind finally after a 30 hr long marathon of worldwide research, about 14 messages, 9 phone calls, and infinite abuses from my flabbergasted roommates to ultimately to come to a decision of buying A HP Pavilion, a Sony DSC-H5 and a 80GB Classic iPOD.

Yes.... I am now a proud owner of all these and soon you will see a lot more photographs in my blog.

I dont know, if some of you remember the quote I started my last blog with. Well I will detail on that more later, but there is one more quote. This one too is my own. Its something I came up with about 3 months back and I havent forgotten it since and although its nothing great I originally thought of writing a song starting or chorusing with that line but somehow never got the time.
Now that I have build up the required (or even more) hype for the line , here is the let down (cause most things that are hyped about arent as good!! ) -

" When you hear an old song,
a smile fleets across your face,
that even your own mind cannot hide;
You arent sad any more, you aren't happy too,
but you know for sure, when the music stops, your tears would have dried"

Well Its not one line really. but whatever.. Anyways.. forget the context, forget the whole phrase. Just concentrate on the first two lines. Isnt that true? Think about it.. and let me know..

Its 6 AM. and maybe I shall sleep for a little while once again..

Sorry... But better late than never!!

2008-11-27T02:16:00.000-05:00

The number of things that we want to do at any point of time in life is inversely proportional to the amount of time that is there to do those things.*

I have been thinking about writing a number of blogs for a long time but its been a while that I have slept properly and have had time to actually be with myself in order to really write anything that come straight from the heart and is not in any way contaminated by the thought of finishing it as quickly as possible. I can type fast but I cant write when I am in a hurry. I type the fastest when I am thinking a lot and I dont think a lot when I have 5 exams to prepare for and 200 sheets to correct!! and that mostly has been the case the last few months.... well the exams have not been there everyday.. but something or the other have always been there. And lazy as I am I did not want to blog with that sense of pressure.

But one thing that has always motivated me to come back and write is the comments of my readers some of whom I dont think I have even met and that gives me an immense sense of satisfaction. That there are people who want me to write and have been waiting for another blog. So my apologies to all those people.

I have a break for four days , which is basically the Thanksgiving break and I hope to write a few blogs that have been formed, destroyed, formed, modified , destroyed and formed again in my mind for quite some time now. It will take time to fish them out carefully from the nooks and corners of my mind, where they hide hoping to elude me. But they will come out eventually.

A few things that I would like to write upon in the upcoming few days are the following. This is essentially a checklist so that I remember what I want to write upon.

My favorite music (Genre, Artist/Band, Song)
My favorite movies
My favorite books.
Ithaca, Cornell, Snow and all the other small things!
First Semester at Cornell
Update of what happened since my last blog. A few snippets.
Insomnia

Thats basically it.

I had gone outside my house a minute ago. Its about -1 Degree Celsius which is not that bad considering I have seen -10 already and am waiting for -20. But what was surprising was that I only had a pair of slippers on (and other clothes also.. for the really imaginative people!!) and I didnt really feel cold. It gave me the sense of being acclimatised to this place.

Its about 2 in the morning. I do have a lot of stuff to do but they are well dispersed and I think I Can manage them.. and yet I am awake. I dont want to venture into the question of why.. because it will not give me a correct answer.

However there is one thing that I did want to talk about before i signed off and it was about Bombay..or Mumbai for the die hard Marathi fans..

I dont want to sound like a politician by saying I deeply sympathize for those families who have been victims of this inhuman and barbaric acts of terrorism that have not only reconfirmed our nations belief in unity. I would rather say two words to those who are behind these attacks and those words are not printable.

I wonder if my blog will be ever read by people who are behind these 'associations' or 'organizations' who carried out these 'operations' but the following is my piece of mind to them and to the youths whose face have been showed on television, being behind the acts and also to those who are raring to go for more such acts of cowardice.

Who are you?
I mean really . A better question would have been what are you because I am sure you would not know who you are. But then I dont even think you know what you are. You are probably an orphan considering the fact that you dont know what it means to have a family and therefore to be away from them. You would say you do and which is basically the reason behind all this. But really ? Is that your understanding of the world. In terms of - I cant be with my family so lets kill all the other families that I see..... If that is so then in that case not only are you terribly confused and in an urgent need of psychological counselling but you are also living in an environment which obviously never explained to you what the word love means. You have absolutely no clue that there exists a world where people are more patient and more calm. Definitely more reasonable than you are and obviously more intelligent.

Which brings me to my first assumption that you are probably an orphan or someone who was never allowed to stay with his mother. For it is mother's love that I believe is the biggest and the best example of unconditional love and forbearing that probably instills in all of us (NOT YOU) the confidence in controlled agression and restraint.

Still, I dont understand what and who you are. The news channel say you look like a college student. I disagree. I disagree to the fact that you have gone through any sort of educational procedure what so ever. Counselling and preaching you must have received. But education ? No.

I do not know what language you speak. I speak hindi, english and bengali. But since my mode of communication is english on this website and if you are reading this you would probably understand the language.. I would use english to describe what education is since you have no clue what it is.

Educatus is probably the latin root for education. It means to bring up or to rear. Yes. Reared you have been. Like sheep. And so your brains has been as non evolutive and dull as a sheep's would probably be. By the way we are humans. We were probably born human and then something happened.. and that something according to you is 'education' which from your point of view is right because you were brought up that way.. but unfortunately you met all these other two legged species when you learnt the language and the other forms/modes of communication you were 'taught' and realised you do not fit in. You suddenly realised all these other 'animals' were more smarter than you are and whatever you learnt was all wrong. Probably you were filled with an unrestrainable anger and your 'educators' realised this. They however were also humans at one point of time. With a brain better evolved but still not quite and they tapped this amount of anger and filled it with more information as part of your education. You 'learnt' more of the same stuff which made you even more angry for those people whom you thought were more educated were not only more successful but also more happy. You cannot possibly accept that can you. For in your education happiness is a sin. But then everything is a sin isnt it for you. The fact that you are alive is a sin for you and so you decide you want to do. But that is not enough. Other people are alive and its a sin too right? Especially if they have a family and they are innocent and they are better off than you are .So they need to die too right? My question to you is do you realise the falacy of this argument. Do you see that by killing yourself and all these other people you dont achieve anything. But you wont understand that would you? Because you are saturated with all the 'education' that you have got. Your little sheep brain cant take it any more. So one fine day , answering to the call of your Master you take a boat, a few guns and explosives and land up on a city which is too big for you and your little hole that you stayed in for all these years. The lights blind you and the highrises mock at your misery. The smiles on all those ahappy people are not something you want them to have isnt it? And so you open fire. But no. That is not enough. You then hide in some corner of a room and shoot at unsuspecting people. You and your masters thing thats something to be proud of when really what you have done is proved yourself to be a coward, a lunatic, a heartless selfish machine who has only one goal in life and that of failure and he succeeded in it. But no. you are supposed to meet glories later after you die isnt it? I wonder if you do. Tell me please when you do cause I would like to know how that is more satisfying than the feeling of sitting with your family together on a dinner table and having food that you honestly acquired not by stealing or gunning down someone else but by working hard for it. But how would you know ? Your food has been hatred and drink has been blood for all these years. How would you know what honesty is in any form?

If I ask you what are you again you would probably reply the name of your religion. Do you really think I CARE? The people you killed or maybe are planning to .. do you discriminate what religion they are of ? Then why so much pride about being part of a classification that you dont even know who made ? And if you do discriminate on the basis of their passport identification what religion they are of, do you know why the people from the other religion deserve to die ?

Wikipedia , something that you probably use sometimes says the ultimate origin for the word religion is ligare- which means to reconnect. Alas. You who have no memories to reconnect to , except for words and speeches of other such bigger sheeps in your herd.. can no longer reconnect to anything. And yet you are so proud about religion?

If its not religion you would say its nationality. What nation are you from ? Do you even know ? Or is that confusing as well ? What is the nationality of the god that you follow? What about water ? Does it also have a nationality. Air? What about the bullets? The blood that you spilled ? You are hell bent on hating specific nations to the extent that uou have forgotten that nations are just boundaries on maps and it is really not nations that your are against. You are against a thought or probably an idea that you think is wrong.. and you foolishly extrapolate that a nation is equal to an idea. And if you do , do you realise how strong that nation is then, if it really represents one idea...??

But talking about ideas? What ideas or ideals or idealogies do you hate anyways. Considering the fact that you randomly shoot at people I dont think you like a lot of ideals anyways so lets ask which ones do you like ? Randomly killing people ? Showing no proof of intelligence whatsoever by blindly followin a group of individuals or an individual and digesting whatever crap they tell you or feed you ? What IS really your ideal ? Do you have one at all.. ? How can you. Till now I get the idea that you have no intelligence, no recollective memories of faith, love and family. You have no mind of your own and only information, no 'education' no identity. HOW THEN CAN YOU HAVE AN IDEAL ?

Well obviously you dont have one. Its someone else's ideals or opinions that you base your actions on. Which is probably another cowardish act cause then no one can blame you right? And yet you hope to be seen as a hero....a hero to have succeeded in pulling off the most cowardice act possible and thus a hero. That does say a lot about the people who think you will be an hero... doesnt it ?

I wanted to ask you your opinions about God. But considering the fact that 'you' as an individual do not exist and its only a collective bottomless pit of dark matter that I would be talking to I wonder if you can hear me down there ? Do you even know who or what you believe in ? You obviously dont believe in humanity..and if you dont then are you saying that whatver god you follow doesnt believe in humans either? And if he/she doesnt then how is he/she a god. Cause I thought the concept of god was started by humans. Unless you are really a sheep volunteering the cause for sheeps , who have been continually slaughtered for human pleasure and it is now your turn to fight back. If that is really so and you accept that you are a sheep and sheeps have a different god altogether..who doesnt care about humans.. then I would want to know if the 'Leader-sheep' has an idead about what you would do after there are no more humans left ? Would you then start killing birds also. Have you thought about the possibility of grazing unendingly on all grasslands ever possible and thus continually eroding the soil till the entire world becomes a desert and then all of you die in lack of food and water.. ?

But I am sorry. How can you think so far ahead. You are sheep after all ?

I wanted to ask you about after life also but then you are dead already from inside. Which is probably a motivation why you want to equate mental death with physical death as fast as possible. I wonder ... if your headsheep is really so worried and concerned about your 'salvation' and freedom why doesnt he slaughter himself first along with the rest of you together on their own like a mass sacrifice so that no further gene pool is derived from your "pureblood". At least you would do justice to the next generation of two legged animals that have now now contact with the real outside world in your presence... But justice is skewed for you isnt it? Not only is it not blind but it also have no balances anymore. She has a gun and a remote control in her two hands and looks for any two legged being that has a working mind....

I despise you. Your little hole that you come from. Your organizations and associations that pretend to spread holiness among the rest. I despise your ideas though you have none. Your ideals, the only one of killing everyone else. I despise your morals which are non existent. Your sense of helplessness which forces you to do act this way. I despise your intent .. if any. I despise your existence in the same world as mine. And yet I dont despise you enough to take up a gun and shoot you. For I have seen what it feels like to be with real people. And although you are just a machine, a nobrained android i dont want to give justification to your hatred by resorting to the same methods as yours. I leave it to those who have chosen a profession of defending their ideals and opinions by defending innocent people.

How are you different from the army ?
An army is successful when it fails.. i.e there is peace all around. Your Success is your failure.
An army has a goal, a sense of purpose, a reason to exist. Your success is your justification for your reasonlessness of non existence.. I laugh at you.. and I cry for those who were victims of your stupidity. For they did not even have the satisfaction of being part of a reasonable show of aggression.

If one of you, to whom this is meant to be written for are reading this and realise I have suddenly lost the freedom to exist any more I would consider all my arguments to be correct.

FOR MY OTHER MORE REASONABLE READERS...I WANT COMMENTS. I WANT OUTCRIES.. I WANT THOSE SENSELESS $%@$^%$&$%& INDIVIDUALS TO READ YOUR COMMENTS AND SUPPORTS AND REALISE THAT I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS THIS WAY.. I KNOW BOMBAY AND THE REST OF INDIA WILL FIGHT BACK. WE ARE TOO STRONG TO BE SCARED BY THESE COWARDS. WE HAVE SEEN A LOT IN THE HISTORY OF OUR EXISTENCE. AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WE ARE A COUNTRY FILLED WITH INDIVIDUALS WHO CAN THINK LOGICALLY. SO HAVE COURAGE MY FRIENDS. THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL.....AND WE WILL MOVE ON.

I would also like to salute to the 5 officers of Maharashtra/Bombay Police who were martyred in the encounters. I do remember hearing about some of them prior to this incident. But I sincerely hope their souls rest in peace. I would also request any one from any media house , who if by any chance are reading this to stop bothering their families.. with questions like Howe are you feeling about your brother's death or etc... Lets not hope someday a tv correspondent is asked the same question by another about his/her own brother's death...Let that day not be the lesson of how bad it feels.

Take Care.. I will be back with the blogs that I promised I will write.

*My first line was a line I had been thinking about for quite some time now and I did not get the time to detail more on that. I will definitely do so on one of my later blogs. But it remains as a food of thought for all of you....

Flowers from grass - I wonder which one.

2008-09-07T14:27:00.000-04:00

Im angry. On a lot of people, on a lot of things and I dont know how to express it all.
I left home to study after high school. Its been almost 5 and a half years since then and today in order to learn more about my country and state's news I have to access the internet because I am in a different continent altogether. And the first thing that I find out when I read the updates over the last few days news is about the shameful way in which the last effort to rejuvinate industry in West Bengal is being demolished and destroyed. And by whom ? By a bengali herself???

I will be lying if I say Im not political. And so will you if you are from India. Politics is somehow in our blood. May it be conspiring about the neighbour next door who cooks great food but doesnt share her recipes, or may it be choosing a cricket team for the evening matches but keeping only friends on one side so that the boy that I dont like is the odd one out and therefore has to sit for the first match and watch. We politicise education, we politicise love, we politicise emotions, we politicise relationships, we politicise sports, we politicise industry, we politicise religion, we politicise food (!) and eventually we politicise life. It doesnt matter if we have a flag with one colour or three or no colours. It doesnt matter if we are kids, housewives, officers at big companies or grandfathers. It doesnt matter if its during the morning adda under the local "bot gachh" or its the cycle stand or in front of "gonoshokti" or its millions of miles away at a Subway Restaurant at new york.

And in all this politics we forget what its supposed to mean. We forget the idea of common good. We forget the idea of reason and we become emotional about that one thing which glorifies non emotion and practicality.

I am not an economist. I am not an agro analyst. I am not a Communist. I am not a social worker. What am I? I am one of those who are very far away from the commotion and points fingers at others. I dont think I really care about the farmers of Singur because I have never met them and wont either and I have been informationally overloaded with counter views about the land they tilled being or being not fertile. I dont think I really care about the Car that comes
out of the factory at Singur because its small and if I ever buy it it would only be to celebrate India's indigenousness. I am not working for the Tata and none of my immediate relatives work for them. So I am one whose comments can and will be completely ignored. Because I am a member of a small minority of people probably all over the world whose only common maybe that of unbiasedness and a third person attitude. I looked at the scenario from the eyes of a student who has grown up in Calcutta and then left for Delhi and currently residing in the United States. So for some I'm supposed to be the escapist. The one who doesnt care but still comments. But Im happy with that because at least you think I dont care. What good is it to care and then not do anything about it ? What good is that sympathetic tone of voice when all it does is increase the pain? What good is a comment which is made out of emotion and doesnt help matters in all practicality.

Today when I hear the news that the private establishment is thinking on the lines of coming out from West Bengal because of the problems a certain political party is posing for them a lot of different analyses come to my mind. Some of them are modified versions of informations dug up or rumoured by the media. Others are original thought. But all of them are my opinions and I will stand by them. Alongwith it comes a strong sense of hatred for all those educated individuals, those intellectuals, who at one point had started supporting these "social activists", glorifying their cause to be the single most revolutionary act since the Naxalbari Andolan.

But since I dont have enough knowledge on history I will refrain from substantiating my conclusion about the absolute stupidity and imbecility that reflects from such comparisons.
I would rather vent my opinions.

When I was trying to decipher the reason why a sane individual or group of individuals would try to do something that would not only jeopardise the cause of one's own state (so much so that it might paralise the industrial future of the state completely) but also their own future, I realised my assumption that these people were sane could be brought under scrutiny.

Assuming that they were sane , then why? Well my opinion would be that these people are paid off by a competitor. If that is correct do we realise how untrue and misguiding these individuals and groups were. Do we now have the authority to ask them why money (however big it might be) is so important when its not even coming from someone from our state but another businessman who has no care or concern about the progress of the state. And if one is being funded by him does it not mean that one is taking his side and therefore equally not concerned about the state. And if that is true what good does it do to have a name that suggests of grassroot cooperation and yet does a mockery of trust at the top order. Is this not the characteristic of a worm who feeds on the grass and attains all its nutrition from it and once it realises that the grass is going to do hops on to another one and sustains. What happens to the grassroot then if its not strong? What happens to all those others who thought it was? What happens to those paid youths waving the tricolour in roads in calcutta protesting against the government whose very industrial future is now blurred and they probably dont even know they are waving against their own future?

Lets assume this is not true either and no money was involved. In such a case let it be a completely altruistic mission our lady affection has been conducting. In such a case why would the very people for whom this help is directed is revolting against the very struggle that apparently relights their cause? One might say they are being paid .. well ok.. paid to suicide?

Are you serious?
Actually who is serious here?

This entire deal looks like a joke except for some of us who are supposedly the future of the state in concern and who has no say in it. Those who do and our of our age or comparable are either too deep into the political jungle to put forward an unbiased opinion or are stuck in an indecision between make believe morality and cut throat unmerciful practicality. I dont know the history of the rise of Chinese communism and the bloodshed behind it. I have only heard stories about it and how the chinese politburo were unmerciful. What I do know is the present and the impending future. Studying at a place that boasts of its academic brilliance and re-reminding myseld that its the USA every morning, even though 80% of my fellow passengers in the bus or colleagues in the library or students in my classroom makes me feel that Im in Beijing or Seoul, makes me think, even if they went wrong somewhere ... they must have gone right somewhere else. And it must have come at a price. A price that was democratic in a way that it helped the majority.

But we? We are confused of our majority because the majority is confused in what they believe in. The future welfare of the state or the pseudo-welfare of the individual. What is our majority? Educated individuals? Or Immoral backbone less intellectuals? Are we shameful of our agrarian economy or are we too shy to boast about it? Are we still confused about our roots or are we just hypocrites to acknowledge that sometimes its right to be unmerciful. Who are we really?

I have a more or less fair idea about those who read my blog and unless my blog has been really popularised outside this circle not too many people making decisions for the grass roots are going to read this. But just in case they did, I have one question for them and a few comments. Innocent suggestions.

Do any one of you care of any one but yourself? Do any one of you have any idea what the next generation is thinking about you or going to do about this state. Even if its not for the youth at least realise that you have become a joke to everyone in the country and the best that you have done is to have brought the state to a newer depth of industrial mismanagement. And if you still happen to have the brain cells to feel anything, feel sad. For yourself. Because not only have you proved yourself to be the biggest Don Quixote of our time, you have not done anything good for anyone at all and even if you did provide humour at one time today we arent laughing. So why not just leave??

Anyways . Those were my opinions. And well if they are not altruistic, not insane and not driven my money, maybe they are they just driven by grass....That makes sense doesnt it?

The opinions mentioned in this blog are purely mine and under complete senses. I make these comments with the same responsibility as some of your political newspaper do. The only difference is that your reader base is a flock of sheep and my readers are self respecting individuals who can make decisions for themselves.

Back Logs Part 3 - More Adventures.

2008-08-20T01:13:00.000-04:00

OK.
I apologise and I agree that I can now be given the title of the laziest blogger in town. With that introduction let me take you for a trip into my life starting from three weeks ago.

I believe I kept you waiting last time , while I went for my chinese dinner and Bourne Marathon series.... well that was over long time back but the Apollo Chinese Restaurant aka Peace Restaurant is still one of the most popular (read cheap) restaurant in town ...and we frequent it almost at least two times in 3 days.

The week that followed the presentation week was majorly chilled out. We had to basically attend some lectures and labs and get a feel of what it was like being a TA. And so I reached about half an hour late for the lecture that I was to attend on Monday morning. I enter the department and right in front of the door is our TATP supervisor, almost as if waiting for me. I make an innocent face and just when I am going to cook the wackiest excuse ever, he enquires didnt you have a class to attend....

( silence)

umm ya...but i think I am late (You think??? you know u are)

Oh well.. good for you because the lecture was cancelled... ( woooooow!! THERE IS A GOD!)

So with such an amazing beginning I start my week.
I did attend the next such lecture. This time in time because it was after about two hours the same day and realise that the kinetic theory of gases are one of the many things that I have completely erased out of my random access memory.. thankfully we were just observers then.

The next day we have a lab to attend. Happily I reach the assigned room, this time before time, and the lab starts with about 14 students. There were four of us, first years as observers and we huddled in one corner of the lab, trying to see how the teaching assistant who was actually assigned that lab and a third year senior of our department, went about handling the students. Other than a minor disaster of breaking one of the wooden cabinets and some glass apparatus inside it by one of us (not me) the first half an hour of the lab was eventless. During this time I skillfully managed to avoid the TA's eyes for a reason that I would soon elaborate. Everything was working according to plan. The students were diligently going about their experiments , we were yawning, the TA was observing us observing her when suddenly another crash. This time the same disaster except that it was the TA who managed it this time. Trying to be the helpful guy I went and helped her pick the pieces of glasses and other stuff when she suddenly discovers what I was hoping she would not. After about 2 minutes of reconsidering she comes up to me and tells me , well I really shouldnt be allowing you to be in the lab with that footwear.

Well , the deal is, that you can wear shorts in the lab, but you cant wear opentoed footwear. And then and still now, the only footwear that I have is my beloved Woodlands sandals. I clarified that I had no shoes but she made it clear in a very nice way that it was the rule and she would be in a fix if someone found out. Well.. ... off I went, back home, borrowed a pair of shoes from my roomies and came back. Hoping to be acknowledged that I was being diligent I re enter the lab with a big smile after about 40minutes and the only emotion that flashes across the TA's and my other classmates' faces is disbelief.

The TA doesnt say anything, but my friends are like - "You came back ? If I were you I would have just left". So much for diligency !

Nothing more happened except that I stayed on till the end since there was one guy was really adamant at taking all the time there was to finish his experiment. It was fun, except for the small part when the students came to us and started asking us questions about the experiment. All of us had almost no idea about the experiment and we conjured up most plausible answers.

Anyways, the ended peacefully and it was a nice experience.

Wednesday, July 23rd. Possibly one of the most memorable days this summer!!

In our TATP, we have this program called Team Building Exercises. Its sponsored by Cornell Outdoor education. We are supposed to choose between High Element and Low Element. The difference between the two being that in the former you would be dealing with stuff at 25 feet or more above the ground and in the latter, below. I chose High Element..

After about an half an hour wait for the van, we reached a place about 20 minutes drive from campus. It was rather chilly that morning with occasional drizzles so we had to put on a poncho. We were given instructions on how to wear a harness. For those who need explanation, please check wikipedia. After the obvious initial lousiness I managed to wear it properly and we were then asked to sign a safety declaration form which stated that I was above 18 and I knew what I was doing. :D

I am adding the description of the place and the events as mentioned in the COE website. I will try explaining the individual exercises separately.

"Cornell Outdoor Education is widely known for having some of the best outdoor education facilities in the country. Our primary facility is the Hoffman Challenge Course, a comprehensive high and low ropes course situated on scenic Mt. Pleasant, just 5 miles from the Cornell campus.
The Hoffman Challenge Course, featuring over 50 low and high element challenges, is one of the largest collegiate ropes courses in the country. The high elements are challenges situated 20-40 feet above the ground, and navigated individually or in pairs while participants are secured by a belay system. The centerpiece of the facility is a 64-foot high replica of Cornell's McGraw Tower, complete with "tree fort" platform, rappelling stations, a 400-foot double Zipline, and a 40-foot Giant Swing. Other high elements include high Balance Beams, Pamper Poles, a Flying Squirrel, and many others."

Our first exercise was the Flying Squirrel. One individual is tied to a rope which comes over a pulley and the rest of the group is tied to the other end. The objective of the group named the Dogs is to run from Point A to Point B and in that tug, the squirrel gets pulled up in the air. The objective of the dogs , is then to slowly move back, with an underline on the word slowly so that the squirrel has a soft touch down.

The next exercise was the Zip line. You basically are again tied to a rope that extends to upto 400 feet and you fly across a zip line. you can either be superman, where both ur shoulders and waist is buckled or you can be free.

Another exercise was to get up on a wooden pole about 25 feet high and position yourself on a platform that is not more than 6inches by 6 inches. If and once when you do that, you are supposed to jump and grab a pair of bandanas that are hanging in front of you a little high above you about 6 feet away. I missed it and was one of the very few who did miss it. But trust me its quite an ordeal to get up on that rickety poll cause it wobbles under your feet. I still feel disheartened that I missed the challenge of getting the bandanas but I guess getting up on that poll was big enough for me. Im sure my other more successful colleagues would disagree.

If all these exercises would get about a 6, a 8 and a 7.5 in the difficulty/enjoyment level of 10 there was one exercise that our instructor said would get about a 12. I would give it a 15. And that the Giant swing. I have had my share of fairs and rides on the giant wheel, the russian wheel etc. This is way different and way too enjoyable. You position urself at the edge of the platform of the tower. You are buckled from the front and slowly you have to inch yourself away and let yourself fall of from the edge. The result is an almost free fall experience for about 2-3 seconds and then the rope becomes rigid and you swing like a pendulum. The only difference being that the amplitude of this pendulum is way to big and the speed is quite high. It takes about 10 oscillations to come to a complete stop and that too with the help of an instructor who pats your feet while you are slowing down to further reduce your speed. Cutting the long story short.. its an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The last two seconds before you let yourself go, are the hardest. There are friends encouraging you to do it. But there is an immense confusion that your mind seem to handle. To be or not to be. Trust me guys. Its GOOD. The first second after I managed to inch myself off from the platform was shock. The rest was heavenly. With the sound of wind whoosing past your ear, and all other sounds being blocked out, and with this sudden realisation that you are still alive it feels quite amazing.

The course is inside the woods and its a really nice place to be. While I write this I wish there was a video camera so that we could have recorded the entire trip.. its worth it. Im pretty sure my description is not even one hundredth as interesting and exciting as it really was. And if any of my cornell friends reading this has a video or more pictures of the trip I would really appreciate if you forwarded them to me or if you could describe your experiences here.

For those who have experienced bungee jumping I dont think this is comparable to that adrenaline rush and I myself would love to experience that one day. but for now, this remains to be one of the most interesting team building exercises that I have done.

We returned back to campus about 4 and half hours later. The only food that we all had that day was M&M's and water and I think that was enough.

The next day , we were scheduled to attend what is known as CPR and First Aid training.
Once again, you should check what CPR means. Its best to say that we did practice giving CPR enough times to a demo humanoid artificial model. We now know how to give primary assistance in an emergency situation and we are certified by the Red Cross.

The following day was the last day of our TATP and it was marked by a pizza party and suddenly we were free. We still had one last class to attend for ITAD which had more idioms and a group photograph and suddenly we were free !! Free for at least the next few days!!

There was some kind of a sale at Downtown Ithaca and I bought a couple of cds for a dollar each but the silver lining was our dinner that night at a restaurant called New Delhi Diamonds.

Finally professionally cooked indian food. I would not detail on what we ate, suffice to say that it was simply superb (and a touch expensive). Trust me guys , I was conveyed the following message by my roomies about the restaurant when we went there, and I would do the same and I think Crisita would support me on this (cause I think she really underestimated Indian spices!).

The MANGO LASSI there is AWESOME!!

The next sunday we went to the Buttermilk Falls, one of the many falls in and around the campus. The trail at the buttermilk falls is a long trail and very beautiful. But I would like to go there again and this time would like to make a video out of it. Only that would be a good enough description. Mean while I am adding a picture of the falls courtesy wikipedia.

Thats all for now guys. Will be updating very soon about other experiences and bringing you uptodate with the current state. Please bear with me. In the mean time please do keep those comments coming.

WHY ARE YOU OBSESSED WITH THE FINE PRINT ? STOP READING IT... ITS NOT GOOD FOR THE EYES!
ALL PHOTOS USED HERE UNLESS MENTIONED OTHERWISE ARE COURTESY CRISITA CARMEN ATIENZA AND TOM McCARRICK.
FOR MORE PICTURES PLEASE VISIT THE FOLLOWING LINK : http://www.orkut.com/Album.aspx?uid=5206463913621370029&aid=1218936989 AND LOG IN WITH YOUR GMAIL ID

BACKLOGS Part 2 - The Adventures.

2008-07-30T17:28:00.000-04:00

The last time I had told you guys about Ithaca I remember I had mentioned that I had presentations and a festival to attend and etc.

Well first the presentations..

As a part of our training program , the international students went through a special 1 hr International Teaching Assistant Development Program. Our instructor works really hard to teach us idioms and other stuff like idioms and more idioms and some general pronunciation mistakes, intonations (and idioms). Somewhere in between we had to give presentations. Short . 8-10 minutes( i took 15 i think) and well basically your objective was to teach your own classmates.

Pretty tough and very different from all previous presentations I have ever given. Firstly there your main objective was to completely confound the audience and after striking their chord once to let them know that you were talking about something they should know about, if you could end on a note where no one really knew what you said but were too shy, embarassed or overawed to say anything, then you would win the competition. My imagination was always one of the best, and I won the competition once..!!! Here it was different. The audience.. was supposed to actually understand me this time.. and if they didnt I had to make them ask questions! This was new territory. And till one night before my presentation (as always) I had no clue what I would be presenting on.

After contemplating on topics like Ayurveda, Chocolates, Neurotransmitters, Stoichiometric Laws, Reaction Mechanisms and Even Basic Molecular Biology I decided to stick on the one subject that till now has not let me down. The one and only subject I demanded respect back in the old times in DU.... OSPEC!! For you.. who does not know Organic Chemistry, yes you, the little teeny weeny insignificant one I am talking to.... OSPEC - means Organic Spectroscopy.

After a late night encounter with Organic Chemistry by Clayden, Greaves Warren and Wothers and Spectroscopy by Pavia, Lampman, Kriz my presentation was ready, written like a script of a movie, as taught by our Microteaching Instructors. It had every possible teaching theory mentioned..Cold Calling, Humour, Blackboard and PPt together, Audience Interaction, Action, Drama, Romance (only with the subject), Fantasy (by using the imaginary compass) and well guess what.. it was a hit!! It was.. although I personally believe some of my classmates did a much better job than I did but then everyone liked mine and I happy about it! :) The instructor actually said my students would love me and that I was born to be a teacher.. well.. exactly the words I wanted to hear! :) considering that teaching has always been a kind of a dream profession!

Anyways.. later that week, there was another presentation to be made. This time in front of the our Microteaching Experts. Now mind you these guys were the real thing. They were the ones who reserached on teaching theory. They studied statistics to find out what made a good teacher and believe you me I was being videotaped while I was making my presentation. We all were.
And after presentations were over we were showed these videos and asked to judge ourselves. it was quite funny to see that funny lanky fellow with a dumb grin always on his face and realise its me... and then not finding anything good about my own presentation. However other people liked it. So maybe there is an inherent misconceptions we have about ourselves. I know. I know. some of u wise asses out there are shouting "the problem is with you, not us". I rest my case.

Anyways. that went well too . So did a debate on surrogate mothers. Those who have seen me debating would know how it might have turned out. And well I was the one with the laptop and therefore with all the information and still our judge thought we werent good enough because apparently we werent convincing enough. But then I didnt mind. I liked the debate and it was fun. In between, one of us, the one who was the moderator, actually got very angry on the fact that we are only discussing surrogacy with respect to Male Homosexual Couples.

"I mean why are we discussing them all the time". You should have seen his face. Anyways that was quite funny. But it was a good week.

And it ended quite well. Friday afternoon we had a lecture on Sexual Harrassment. About how all people who sit or stand on the other side of the teachers table in a classroom are not potential dates in any way! :) It was informative. But at the end of the whole lecture the only take home message that I got was... when in trouble call him .. him being the guy who was giving the presentation. Because we were not trained to handle such problems. Im sure we arent !! :)

Later, our group, that being the international group, decided that we shall go for a movie. As it happened that my roomies also wanted to go for a movie and somehow they were really excited about it releasing that day...and I had no clue what they were talking about even after they told me the name of the movie. But when they explained to me that the Dark Knight was Batman I realised I somehow had missed the hype before its release. And so 9 of us watched the movie together..

The movie was awesome.. really. I mean I do have it in my mind to dedicate one whole post to all the good movies that I have seen and I have seen quite a few. But I believe it will be an absolute insult to the movie and to the amazing acting done by all three lead male characters.
What really built up the mood however for me to really appreciate the movie was the trailers of some other movies before that. And trust me I felt like watching all of them.

there were two more graphic novel movies coming up. along with Mummy III and Terminator IV. and they had amazing trailers!
Dark knight .. well. it has the speed of a good Hollywood hit, but it surpasses the average style by miles. It has the continued flair of Batman Begins and more importantly it has a villain whose realistic portrayal by Heath Ledger makes the movie wat it is.. a must watch.

Before the movie some of my friends ate at a chinese place.. we saw the movie at the mall. so this chinese place was part of the food court there. After the movie , the same chinese place was selling everything they had for 4 dollars!! trust me. it was a bargain.. !!! with our stomachs now full when we finally left the mall it was about 10:20 and the second to last bus to the univ was due in 10 minutes. And it is then that I realised, people push to get in the bus in the USA too!!!

I come from Calcutta, one of the busiest and densely popluated parts of India. My roommates and friends from class come from Bombay and know quite literally what being "packed like sardines" means!! For us it was a piece of cake. We didnt push. We just stood there. We knew the drill. Being in a crowded bus is like jaywalking for us. It is when we have to enter an empty bus and meet a smiling bus driver everyday and stick to the pavements that we feel out of place! I dont mind the rules ! I rather like them. I am just saying what we are used to ..

Saturday ...was picnic time. And we went to Stewart Park .
I will upload more photos later . Because I havent got a digital camera yet. And my friends havent uploaded them yet...guys.. if you are reading this please upload the photos and send them to me.. please ?

Its a beautiful place , is Stewart Park. This time we actually managed to catch the Farmers Market in time and bought stuff. Mainly food. Food is the safest thing to buy. You spend some money on food. You eat it . Its gone. You are not reminded of the amount of money you spent on it for the rest of your life or the life of watever you bought!! When you buy some other thing..it remains as a scar....a talking one that too.. one that whispers to you all the time.. "Hee hee..You bought me for x dollars . That means x * 43 Rupees. Am I worth that much? Good night....boooooooo"

Anyways.. the picnic was quite nice. Ming kept taking pictures. Me as usual was interested to know more about the different cultures and was talking to Michael, who was from Germany about how different lives are there? Etc Etc. And we had a lot of food with us. So much that we couldnt finish it on our own. And we were 8 of us!! Imagine.

But it was a nice trip. And a nice place. The best part of it however were the swings. Yep. All of us took turns to sit on the swings that were there in the park and believe me it was fun. It was like getting back to that phase of ur life where money and complications and misunderstandings didnt exist. It was like a sudden booster dose of positive energy that u felt like flying..Trust me.. If you have not felt happy for a while go ride a swing. And come back and tell me how it felt

We got back to the bus stop quite early for the next bus to the university and i went back to my usual haunt, the lounge where my roomies hang out !

That was last to last week .

For those who might remember and therefore wonder what about Grass Roots - WELL ... nOthing.. just that the 4 day pass was 95$ and the Sunday Pass was 30$ and none of my friends were interested to spend that much. Fair enough. Bottomline - I told myself I am here for five years. There is definitely one year I will be going for the Grass Roots..

One thing That I did miss in between was probably one of the greatest things that has happened since 1500, Getting the Cornell Acceptance, 15th March, 14th May, 3oth June, 3rd July.. oh alright.. its not right up there. but its somewhere there..in the "great things of my life"
and it is. hold ur breath...

my first check!! yes ... i did get my first stipend. and well ..unfortunately the photograph seems to be deleted..me standing with it!! grinning like a watever!! but ya... that was a big thing .. i also got my ssn. Which means now I am part of the system. the matrix...

thats it for this blog. will write the next one soon...

(ALL PHOTOGRAPHS USED IN THIS BLOG ARE COURTESY RIA SIRCAR AND HER CAMERA. I THANK HER FOR ALLOWING ME TO USE THEM)

PS : Since we both follow south park and simpsons I know you are still reading.. so my cousin brother.. the reason why I didnt say anything about the presentation was because I wanted to write it in my blog so that you could enjoy it more..Can you please take your curse back now ?!!!

BACK LOGS Part 1 - The Disclaimer

2008-07-27T19:29:00.000-04:00

I just had a Snickers Bar.. it costs 95 cents. and it does what a chocolate costing almost 40 rs should do.. makes you feel you ate something.

The reason why I started with the snickers bar is because it reminded me of my habit of multiplying every $ sign by 40 (although i think its currently 43) .. and being reminded of something makes me go through a series of such "being reminded of some other things"...
and thats what made me realise I need to not only update my readers with what has happened in the last two weeks but also clear my backlogs.. the ones that are stored in the memory cells. The expressions and words which were saved during some moments of anger and depression, or joy and happiness at an earlier ancient and un remembered time and which although then were believed to be brought out at a future date, has not yet been really expressed either electronically , vocally, or in the paper form. To really "cut the crap" backlogs is the term I am using for stuff that I thought I will write earlier but did not really have the time or enthusiasm (read..BEING LAZY AS A WHATEVER) to do so.

This one however is going to be one about arbit things. Nothing to do with experiences as such but with people and stuff that I wanted to explain.

Ironically it had to be today that I would be writing about backlogs. For was it not around these fateful dates last year that some words were said , some promises were broken and others made and broken at the same time!!! I feel sorry for the user and the used. For the letter and the letters. For the tear and the tears. But I dont feel sorry for myself. What has happened in this one year or maybe the last few months before coming back to Calcutta (NO I SHALL NOT CHANGE TO THE NEW IDIOTIC NAMED CHOSEN BY THE COMMIES.. FOR EVEN IF I DONT PAINT MY FACE WITH THE UNION JACK..I STILL THINK SOME NAMES WERE MORE GRACIOUS.. AND THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO POINT WASTING A LOT OF MONEY TRYING TO CHANGE THEM ..ESPECIALLY WHEN IT CAUSES A GREAT DEAL OF PROBLEM OTHERWISE..)
For the only one who (if reading this) actually understands what I am talking about...I have two words for you.. and they are not printable. For not only you had no sensitivity about anyone else you were dumb enough to have no sensitivity for yourself.. but then..

"People are strange when youre a stranger
Faces look ugly when youre alone" -- Jim Morisson

So remain in your glass house and know your idioms well.. for you may be with the best.. but the worst is definitely on its way. ..

OKay.. now for the rest of you mere mortals... This blog read as a disclaimer. So let me remind you I write this blog for myself. I take your opinions and suggestions (normally quite well and peacefully) but if you were in the misconception that it is only about my experiences in a far off land then stop here and read my previous entries. They will let you know that you have more to learn about me. So in case you read something that you do not understand... do not worry. It was probably meant for you to not understand it. So dont fret. Read it as an expression of truth, read it as if you are suddenly in front of a vent which throws random words at you. words with which you can make a face, but you cannot recognize it. For you may not have seen the face ever. Words that MIGHT remind you of an experience you went through but was at a tremendous loss of words to express them and maybe now silently thanking me that you can now see your silent expressions in front of you , only in someone else's words. Words that might just flow in front of you as a dirty stream of unwanted information and you should make the wise decision of not dipping your feet in it. Words that you might feel have the power to shake you, but you missed it because you are not in the way of the storm. Words that might just be blank.. if you think they are.. so lets keep it there. Blank words. Blank stare.. The paragraphs finished my dear.

The other day some of my friends started asking me why I have such a weird name ? Well they didnt mean my actual name which had already gone through the common jokes of pan masalas, sarees, butters and ghee.. (Nowadays I introduce myself as Pan .......it helps. You see for the americans its just a random collection of words to be pronounced the way the person in context wants it to be pronounced. But for us Indians, its an Indian name.. we want to pronounce it correctly.. and therefore. we never get it right.. or rather make all the possible mistakes by trying our individual pronunciation tricks on it. But then we all know how Pan ....... is pronounced in the television advertisements.. So that helps! )

Psychocancer ..... didnt mean anything when I thought of the name at first. It was simply a name. Like Tom. And just like Tom is the shortened form of Thomas the same way Psychocancer was the shortened form of Psychologically interested Cancerian. But nooooo... people need things to make fun of ... but not interested to use their minds.. if they have them that is.. ("mind" you.. i meant mind. and not intellect for I am sure you have intellect or else you would not be reading this)

So here goes.. for all those who really want all names to have meanings.. (I wonder what they will do when confronted by a society that has names with no meanings ....)

Psyche - That which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason ALSO The immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life(1)

Cancer - Any malignant growth or tumour caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division; it may spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system or the blood stream(1)

So ... I am that cancer.. that abnormal and uncontrolled cell division of the mind, of the immaterial part of the person , the actuating cause of an individual life. I am the uncontrollable force that divides your mind and forces you to think ...cause most of you dont. You wait for others to think for you and then feed their thoughts onto you so that you can vaguely analyse them, see them as problems with or without solutions and therefore forget or remember (and be scared about) them. I am that psycho (a person afflicted with psychosis; psychosis - Any severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost or highly distorted) who has no fixed frame of reference .. who does not want to believe something as real just because 51% of the population considers it so and therefor it has to be believed.. If today I say I believe in Matrix and Fight Club as reality that has not hit us yet you will probably laugh at me and then start wondering what if it is true. I am that unreal force that you know exists in your mind but you want to not believe in it because then others will scorn you.

Does that satisfy you... O Lords of Truths. O Those Who Have No Idea What Is Right Or Wrong ? O Those Whose Time Flies Not Because They Waste Them But Because They Have No Idea What Time Is ?

And if this still does not satisfy you, read "Its Okay". You SHOULD understand.. and even then if you dont.. you probably dont exist..rather you shouldnt !

What else ?

Ah yes..

There were some more things I had to say that would be only understood by only a select group of people, some of whom maybe even unaware of the existence of this blog. And I wish they read it. And I wish they read them all.. for gone are those days when I would be sitting in my room crying about why and how I lost a chance to understand someone. For I know I have understood more than I was allowed to and that did not help for understanding is a process that does not happen one way. And especially when that one way understanding is labelled as unwanted ... you get hurt more. So here goes.

Be aware of your insecurities. Be aware of what you missed. Be aware of what was to be for you will never be for you ever again. And be aware that it was your fault. Mistakes are innocent. They can happen once, twice.. maybe twenty times. But they cant happen always. And when they do, they comprise of what is known as a fault. So here you are suddenly awake and probably just aware that you have a fault. What now ? Who do you hide from ? Who do you try to make happy ? How does it matter if you make everyone around you happy when you yourself are not happy? How does it help if you blind fold yourself and jump from a cliff and then shout and say you had no choice ? How does it help to selectively remove your decision making powers and then say it was somebody else's decision and therefore not your fault? How long are you going to run from the truth of not being true to yourself and therefore others? It is not last July I am talking about? It is this April to June I am talking about that made the last July worse..but then lets just all pray everyone is happy. Because I am happy. And trust me... "Happy"ness is with me ! Amen.

Final Disclaimer :

As I said this blog is like a cloud formation. You will understand parts of it if you saw it from the first go. And someone else might interpret things completely different from the same. And at times you will only understand some things only when others show you to them. And that other wont be me. I do not stand responsible for any or all interpretations that you make. For an interpretation is personal. And like all sane minded good Samaritans I do not influence or try to change anyone else's personal belongings. I also do not answer questions on any statements made here. I quietly hear any scorn or piece of humour thrown on me or this blog ..and if it exceeds the weekly sense of humour limit I have been pre allotted for that week it comes out on the next blog. But I do not answer questions.. !! So happy interpretations. One tip.. If you dont understand it dont try to. And if you understand part of it then try your best to remove that part of your understanding because partial understanding is worse. And if you understand all of it dont come to me, grinning and say "I understood all of it" because it wont be appreciated. If you did understood all of my psychotic ramblings be quiet. Or you might be confused as one of me... psychotic... carcinogenic.. and therefore ... not quite in his senses!!

The last Back Log - yes .. coming to what most of you were waiting for.. the latest news at the Hottest Ivy In America.. that comes as part 2.

And that will come in another 2 hrs..after Bourne Supremacy CD 2 and packed dinner from a Chinese joint names Apollo something. Whats in it? In the next blog ?! :D

(1) The word meanings have been taken from WordWeb Software. Its an amazing software and I have it on my laptop. You guys should have it too. WordWeb doesnt pay me for this advertisement but then maybe this advertisement would avoid any lawsuits they might have wanted to file against me for using their meanings ! So please get the Wordweb software... especially for those who are interested in meanings.. and maybe in that context you should read up on Arthur Schopenhauer!

Movement 3 - The Trip To Ithaca Farmer's Market

2008-07-13T19:35:00.000-04:00

If you are reading this blog without reading the blog right below that has the title "Fresh Blogs ..... "
then please read it because this is a continuation blog. So please go and read that one...
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go down means not down this one.. go to the next blog.. its called "fresh blogs ....."
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ok welcome back..
yeah... so after cooking yesterday i simply went to sleep. I did try to watch the Marx Brothers DVD that I had brought from Olin Library the other day.. and well it turned out to be pretty boring.. I had expected more from them .. but ya.. Groucho is quite funny... in his dialogue.. and serious way to deliver them.. but I guys he is better off in small stints. In a full fledged movie I guess one needs to put in a lot of fillers in order to position the individual brilliances at ideal distances so that the viewer is not over burdened with them and these fillers are exceptionally boring.. like song dance sequences and etc. you know. and its in black in white..

anyways.. mom and dad had called and I told them what i told you guys in the last blog.. about my groceries and the concert.. also.. about the department and what its like.. well ya.. people do look up to you if u are doing phd here.. i dont know why.. but they do.. apparently getting thru phd is really tough.... :-) did i sound arrogant.. i didnt mean to be cause according to me all these people here. around me. walking beside me. sitting right opposite me. sitting in a acubicle beside me. everyone who travels with me in the bus and has a small blue card that says cornell id... they are all exceptionally brilliant.. so...i dont really know why just the phd (any subject) people are reverred. And actually maybe its not so. and someone is joking with me :) and maybe phd people are really hated here!! although one of MEngg friends told me that this place has a reputation of being the most strictly graded schools among the ivy-s!! why .. oh why.. do I always have to be in a place that gives you the lowest grades! :)

anyways. thats not what we are talking about here are we ?
so after that.. I slept off and woke up today morning. at around 8, then 9 then 10 and finally at 10:15 thought it was enough.. and got up from my couch. We, as in the group that had gone for the japanese trip...- the indians and chrisita - had decided that we will go to this place called Ithaca Farmer's Market where the farmers around here actually bring in their produce and sell them.

So anyways I called up Jimmy and then after a few round of phone calls it was decided that we will meet at a place called Ithaca Commons. Well thats another hang out place in here. Collegtown and Commons are two main places where people hang out. so i walked to commons. with a laptop in my bag a map in one hand and an umbrella in another. it was raining very heavily today morning. and so the umbrella. it was a nice walk. with the mp3 player playing ironmaiden the walk with the ithaca cemetary beside you was quite an experience. it was broad daylight but there are a lot of trees there and it was cloudy and no one was really on the streets with the rains and all and it was a nice walk.. really felt nice.. you know , the way I am. Trying to walk always.. and this was downhill by the way.. which helped because if the entire distance was uphill it would have vaporised my romanticism right away , even with all that humidity !

Well I just checked at google maps. Its about a little more than a mile. if you type in Lake street to Ithaca Commons you will see it. anyways.. it was really nice. and one thing.... the maps here are brilliant. I mean...i have the TCAT Bus Route Master Map always in my hand. We have been given one during our program. and otherwise also.. you can get one on any bus you get up. And the maps are brilliantly accurate.. this whole place is so organized. the street names are marked at every crossing. and well if you miss that then there is a problem. because the houses just have numbers on them. Which I think is a bad thing, since I come from a complicated address system which works because everyplace has the total address on the post box. and just in case due to some strong storm or snow fall u just dont know which street is which or the arrows change directions then there will be a real bad problem. but i guess.. thats a negative scenario. just now it works.. and i guess that the mentality.. (when in rome , be like romans..) so as I was saying I kept walking and reached at 12:57.. 3 minutes before the schedule rendezvous.. I was the first one to arrive !!! YESS!!!

Anyways.. that was because three of my friends lived around that area.. and so I had to call them once I reached. but anyways.. I was on time. That should mum my critics for some time ! :-)

Then.. as slowly people started coming.. we had the next question in mind.. now what? Jimmy knew that the bus number 16 took us to the market. and a 16 had just left at 1 o clock. but the idea was to have lunch and then leave for the market. So we went to this Pizza place which we had discovered day before and had lunch there. This time I do remember the name. Its actually a speciality here. Its called Buffalo Chicken. Purists might raise their eyebrows and for their information it doesnt have Buffalo in it. The kind of chicken is called buffalo chicken. and its really nice.. after lunch.. we went back to the bus stop and waited for the next bus which according to Jimmy was supposed to be an hour later and therefore at 2. We waited till 2:10 and realised that something was wrong because if a bus is supposed to come at 1:39 , it will not come at 1:38 or at 1:40.it will come at 1:39 or else you are reading the wrong bus route map.. so we went up to the driver of another bus and asked him about the elusive number 16 and he said it runs every 2 ours! " and well ... we had nothing to do for an hour..

I came up with an idea of checking out the guitar shop that was there in the commons... and convinced everyone else to come because anyways we were doing nothing sitting at the bus stop and it wasnt raining. and as we came out of the stop it did start raining.. with minor protests ignored i suffered all rain (drizzle) and etc to reach at the shop.. and as i entered a healthy american smiled and welcomed me. I was explaining to him that I wanted to look around.. and he understood the crucks of it..(me no money. please senor.. me want to play guitar!!) and said no problem dudes. just pick up any and play....

Trust me ... there was about a thousand guitars in that room and im not lying or exaggerating. in that room that would be not much bigger than the outer sitting room of my house in Calcutta for those who know that. For those who dont, it would be not bigger than the sitting space inside Gwyer Hall Canteen. on the walls. hanging from the ceiling. kept on the floors. all kinds. les pauls, telecasters, gretschs, axe, bass guitars, 5 string bass, fretless basses, stratocasters, jumbo guitars, steel strings, fender nylon strings, sg-s, banjos, mandolins, art guitars , guitar clocks, even the fancy guitar thats there on the Best of Dire Straits album ... it was all there. and processors, and amplifiers... i dont know if i can express it but i guess if there was a heaven it would be something like this for me .... i didnt know how one hour passed. truly speaking ria and jimmy and chrisita and swapna had to literally pull me out of the place. I played for about an hour and still i dont think it was to my heart's content. the les paul costs 265$ and i think i have my eyes on that. Although it doesnt coem with a case which would cost another 30 and the most basic amps cost about 70$ and the wire... ..so i think i should have to save about a 500$ to buy a les paul. and thats quite cheap. cause i think this is austin les paul. and not a gibson les paul. a gibson les paul can cost and will cost more. the actual guitar that i really liked but it was too high on the wall and i couldnt reach it.. and rightly so i guess because the price tag read 1990. and thats about a months salary for me. and ria was right. you should buy that after 5 years and maybe I would.. but I think 500$ is okay if i wait for about three months.. :) i dont know im not sure.. as of now.. money's flowing faster than those arithmetic sums you get in primary school of taps filling the tank and two others emptying it !!

anyways.. it was mesmerizing to say the list and well I did get a few fans.. jimmy asked me to teach him once he got a guitar. i guess a few pulling and fast finger picking styles for show off always does the trick.. not everybody needs to know i really dont play the guitar that well ! :-)

but anyways.. it was really awesome. i mean.. i am still letting out positive contented sighs when im thinking about the shop... thanks to that guy also. causei think i played about 10-11 guitars there. and a black fender classical guitar and the les paul really sounded good. the fender classical costs about 745.. but i want to buy an electric so its out of the question..

talking about guitars i remember seeing a packed electric guitar the other day.. at target mall. thats another huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge place out here. well maybe not so huge for all of you who keep going to south city everyday or those who have been staying in the US. but for me who has just come down from india and for those others who eagerly wait to read my blog.. im telling you its huuge. i dont mind if i am a little overawed tt the enormity of things. Its the real feeling after alll .. but let me come back to the guitar. it came with an amplifier and wiring.. and costed about 125$..i was quite impressed at that and today after going to this place which has really a classical feeling to it and im sure the guy who was at the counter is the son of the owner or something like that.. because the shop really looked old and i realised 125$ as compared to a lespaul at 265 meant it was basically a supermarket product. and wouldnt really sound too good.. especially if i dont have enough money to experiment!! :)

so that 125 $ is now out of the question !! im now looking for a good guitar. something that I can really cherish ...

anyways.. i didnt get pics from the guitar place but next time i go there i will definitely do so..
after coming out of there we took the bus at 3:05. we asked the driver as to where to get down if we had to go to the farmers market and when the last bus would return from there and he said he him self would be coming back at 5:15 and we thanked him and got up.
we reached there at around 3:25 and well we had to walk a bit. and this part was really exciting since it was raining reallllllly heavily. and it was quite a lot of fun you know.. really. well the rains here are not like the ones with a lot of fan fare and noise but its decent. and so we kept walking through the rain and reached a point where we could see a mall and the rain was getting to bother us now. So we went inside the mall... !! well not exactly we took pictures before that!! i dont have them with me since i dont have a digital camera yet.. and so i dont think i will be able to post pictures that are taken by me.. on my own camera.. the last picture about teriyaki was taken by me but rias phone camera.. came out really well right

anyways inside the mall we just looked around... you know there was this pack. which read chocolate chip and it had a cookie on it on the label. something like the Hide and Seek Milano..and when I felt the packet it seemed really small. as in it seemed as if all the biscuits had broken and were in small pieces and then I realised that actually it was just the chocolate chips and not the cookie themselves ! :-p

anyways. .. i bought 4 cups of chocolate pudding...ready to eat and a chocolate chip cookie biscuit.. total cost 2.79$ .. and i think chrisita bought chocolate pudding and vanilla pudding and ria bought biscuits and something else..

once we came out it was only drizzling and we reached the market. well everybody was packing so there was nothing really to see. but the farmers market is situated at one of the branches of the cayuga lake.. which by the way is one of the Finger lakes.. according to wiki,

"Cayuga Lake (pronounced either "kā-'yü-gə" or "kī-'yü-gə") is the longest of western New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and volume. It is just under 40 miles (64 km) long. Its average width is 1.7 miles (2.7 km), and it is 3.5 miles (5.6 km) wide at its widest point near Aurora. It is approximately 435 ft (133 m) deep at its deepest point. (Courtesy and Copyright Wikipedia) "

anyways.. we didnt really get to see much of the real big lake.this was just a part of it covered by land on three sides like a branch and it helped and served like a harbor..

but ya. the place is beautiful and it was then that the rain seemed to be at the right place at the right time.. dropping on the lake and splashing the water. and ducks floating around... i asked chrisita to take a picture of one of the ducks that was floating and cutting the water in such a way that it created a perfect V , itself being at the bottom of the V.

The photographs that you see along with this post are all courtesy Ria Sircar...they are all taken by her from her phone camera.. There are other pics as well but I am waiting for them to be uploaded by chrisita jimmy and swapna..

none of these photographs really need a label so i wont mention them. but ya. the place is really nice.. its got benches to sit and a place where boat point where boats come to get tourists for a boat ride.. we missed it because like the farmers market that also was only till 3. but we enjoyed quite a bit..

after spending some time there we headed back to the place where the bus had dropped us and i was still about half an hour or so for the bus to come so we went in another convenience store run by a mexican or an asian i couldnt seem to figure out.. he was almost closing.. but we had coffee anyways. he had actually shut down his coffee machine so the coffee that came out when he restarted it for us was cold and he had to microwave it! :)

but all in all it was fun.. while waiting for the bus we saw a little girl peeking at us from her second floor window... and as we waved she pulled the curtain together ... then again we could see the curtain slowly unfold and we waved again sensing that she was watching us.. and again the curtain closed and this game went on for a while :-) ..... well trust yours truly to come up with these little diversions!! :) im quite proud about them actually. but anyways.. she changed windows and by then all my other friends were also very amused at the game.. but then i guess both her and us lost interest. we saw the bus approaching and a quick glance at my watch told me it was 5:15! i guess from next time i wont look at the watch !!

i got down at college town..
i wanted my effort of carrying my laptop around for the entire day count and so... i headed for the engg dept which remains open till late night and from where i can access the internet .. the red rover wireless connection to be exact.. and while i was coming i had to cross this small little foot bridge under which flows the Cascadilla Creek and with the rains it was really flowing fast.. and that one glance...with the small drizzle on my hair and the map in my hands and the creek flowing really rapidly just under the foot bridge I was walking... and doors playing riders on the storm in my ears... that one moment actually made me decide to create the fresh blog. really..
that one glance and then a small movement of my head looking around the trees that were wet made me smell the wetness of the air.. i didnt think about home. i didnt think about any other rainy day. i didnt think of anyother feeling nice moment. some how, some where inside i just felt free and nice.. and fresh... and thats wat these two blogs were all about..

right now i have a lot of things in my mind. I have to give a presentation on tuesday for which i have not decided a topic. im feeling a little hungry because i have been typing for about 3 hrs now ,, dear readers..and its about 9 o clock. im also thinking about the first check that i am supposed to get next week.. and hundreds of other things.. but i know when u read this and if at all, when i read this i will feel good and thats what makes all those thoughts go away.. and that I think is the beauty of this place.

Everyone says 1st yr phd grad school is really hell.. and probably thats why its reverred ... not for respect but maybe for sympathy.. but what everyone keeps telling us is that the place will keep you going.. which trust me is true...
just to let you know... once again.. keep those comments coming.. and opinions about how and what details you want me to add and subtract.. any changes in the look of the blog.. anything what soever... please refrain from swearing and if you are using nicknames that is not your name please do let me know who you are... unless you are the sad "rain god doctor" !! :-) sorry couldnt help it but to take his trip ! :)

anyways... next week. or rather next weekend.. is the annual GrassRoots Festival. Please check it up on the internet..(read google) ... and then I will give you my account of it! :)

So thats it for now..
take care all of you.. and until next time.. be good!! :-)

(ALL PHOTOGRAPHS USED IN THIS BLOG ARE COURTESY RIA SIRCAR AND HER CAMERA. I THANK HER FOR ALLOWING ME TO USE THEM)

Fresh Blogs or so I started with......

2008-07-13T18:09:00.000-04:00

Some of my readers had earlier expressed their interest of reading a fresh blog, meaning that I would blog just after a special experience. Well I cannot guarantee you about all my blogs being that. Because most of the weekdays I will be busy and the real good experiences would probably come in the weekends.. so I cannot guarantee about that, but yes, this one is definitely going to be one like that..

Yesterday Evening, after blogging the last one I had gone to the Barnes Hall, one of the many auditoriums here for a SPICMACAY concert where some of the Indians, part of the Cornell India Association, showcased their talents. So there was music , dance and paintings to be admired. Music ranged from Atif Islam to Sonu Nigam to Kishore, Dances ranged from Varnam, Bharatnatyam, Bengali Folk to Bhangra Hip Hop and Contemporary Indian Free Style , as well as fusing two dance forms.

There was also samosas for 1$ each.... so obviously you dont expect me to have them, even just to taste how American Samosas tasted!!!

Anyways... the guy who sang Atif Islam had a really similar voice.. but he also played the guitar... and thats where my eyes got stuck.. it was a black Gibson Semi Acoustic Jumbo Nylon Strings!! And it sounded awesome. Although the guy was a little off beat at times. Probably because the feed back was not loud at all times. So the artists themselves were not being able to listen to themselves.. which by the way is an extremely important thing if you are performing on a stage with drums or any other percussion ...in a group. Trust me I know. I have suffered.

Anyways. I went up to him and spoke to him.. he is a 4th yr undergrad here in ECE and was interested to form a band. I borrowed the guitar for a while and was playing within myself when he comes to me and says "you said you were a beginner. But your guitar doesnt sound like it " I was like no. I am not a beginner. I have been playing for a while and thus i think has started my music ventures at Cornell!!! (Round of Applause!.. Parag bows to everyone and raises his hands to stop.. he has more to say!)

Yes.. as I was saying.. there was also this senior from my dept. Well actually a second year grad student... in Chemistry.... but we are still in the Indian myth that anyone who is professionally at a higher year is a "senior" ... anyways.. he goes by the name Taz.. he's an exceptional Tabla player. Exceptional. really. I have seen a few tabla players myself and this guy is good.
So I spoke to him about playing together. He was enthu but I dont know how its going to work out because Chem grads are normally very pressurized.

Anyways the dances were all very nice.. really well organised. there was another singer, classical based. quite good I would say. But I guess the best part of the show was the Table Jugalbandi by Taz and Angad. Taz took the lead and one reason why I think he was really good was because in a lot of the vocal songs when the "loaye" or "speed" was slowing down he managed it really nicely....

After the session we went to this eating joint which is really popular here.. called Collegetown Bagels.. aka CTB ... I didnt want to eat so I just got a drink. Its called Naked!! well obviously referring to the fruit.. and guess what flavour it was ? Anyone who has read Shonku.. as in professor Shonku would come across the name "AAMOLA" which is basically a mixture of AAM and KOMOLA , i.e. mango and orange.. well this one was exactly that.. Mango - Orange Flavor. It tastes awesome by the way..

Anyways.. we took the late night bus and reached home.... obviously it involved some walk cause there isnt any bus during the night..(or well during the day!! the only one that really goes in front of my home runs i think in 2 hrs interval and runs only 4 times a day.. so thats it! )

Once back home... we had to cook.. tats actually why i didnt want to eat outside..

By the way I had missed something really big. Probably because I was just focussed into saying about how my week went professionally and once I was done with that I was too tired to report anything else.. but... I had gone for groceries yesterday morning!! Yes Friends!! I did !!

Anyways.. the place where we went to was called Wegmons. Its one of the biggest in and around Cornell.. and trust me.. from an Indian who has just arrived in the US.. its HUGE!!!! really huge!!
anyways.. one thing i thought i should explain is how one buys fruit here.. well you just choose wat ever u want to buy of one thing.. say green apples. you want two right ? so you pick two and remember the number code written below them.. go to the aisle . and there will be this electronic weight machines.. before that u put the apples in a bag. and u put them on the machine.. the machine weighs them and asks u to punch the code. once u do that.. say 4404 it calculates the rate of the stuff and prints out a barcode. wich u have to put on the packet or the fruits and then when u go for billing they just read the barcode and that has the amount u have to pay... quite cool isnt it ?
obviously u have to do it separately for separate fruits since their codes are different
they have so many different types of fruits here!! i bought peaches.. havent ate them yet!

so what did we buy ?? :-) you know.. its quite strange how much you want to buy when u see everything that you ever wanted to buy is right in front of and dont really cost a lot if u divide it by 4 since there were 4 of us.. although 3 of us came that day.. !! our total bill was 108$ ..which becomes 27$ per head. which is not too bad! :)

we bought two packs of chicken fingers. stuff that u just put inside the microwave. two more of some other chicken and tuna stuff that are like those stuff that u put between two buns to make a sandwich.... similar stuff in vegetable

we bought three individual cups of icecreams.. they are cheap like hell here!! i mean dont think cups are like the ones that we get in india. they are about 4-5 times the size of them and they cost less than a dollar. and then together we bought brick. chocolate chip obviously. which again would be about 1.5 times the ones we get there. i dont remember the volume or the exact prices. or else i could have quoted them here. but anyways. that was nice. we also got shahi panner 5 packs. ready to cook. and milk and bournvita and maggi. and sugar.. and juice.. and chips. and chocolates. and ...wat else.. bread. 3 kinds. and..s2 wanted a post it.. and ya.. i think thats about it.

the other stuff is their at home. so taht was about it.

after that. we sat at their in house pizzeria and had pizzas for lunch.
i forget wat kind. because im having pizzas a lot of times and its really not possible to remember the names but if some of you and i know exactly who it would be!! i will let you know..

after that we took the bus back home with two big packets each and that was it! pretty cool experience ... well.. anyways.. coming back to the night.. s1 and I , cooked shahi paneer. pretty simple actually just put it in the microwave.. and then we heated up some kind of american rotis.. pitas basically.. and we also made omlettes. and there it was dinner!! home made!! :-)

well that was about ysterday.. and now I think I will make another post about what i really started of with wanting to write.. THE TRIP TO FARMERS MARKET...

So for that I guess you have to read the next blog which quite infuriatingly will be above this.. so go up....!!!

And by the way.. some people have a problem with the new look. well .. I personally dont mind this background.. but if all of you guys have a problem then I will revert back to the old one. so please let me know and keep those comments coming in....

Go up... its not over yet!!

TO BE TAUGHT HOW TO TEACH.

2008-07-12T14:11:00.000-04:00

Hello Everybody.. your friendly neighbourhood chatterbox is here

well this blog will basically be about the last week. and how it started and how yours truly is slowly becoming to understand why brain drain really happens

well the next time i walk on an indian road i will have serious problems. thats for sure. cause the cars stop for you here. as in if u are standing on the side of the road and looking to cross they will just stop and let u go. well ya. there are signs at the main crossings where u basically wait for the walk sign to appear but everywhere else..its the new york state law that cars must yield to people who are walking. yipeee!! i remember in delhi. when u would be wanting to cross and the motorists would be really having there sadistic pleasure to torture you by not stopping, there would be a time when the red light would suddenly be on and rajeev and me would be dancing while crossing the road. you know . doing the jig. and making faces at the cars that stopped at the zebra. that was fun.
here when i first experienced cars stopping for you all i could say to the driver was "sorry"and later realised it was my right to walk on the road and expect them to stop !! well ...!!!

i missed the bus that takes me to baker laboratory (which is by the way one of the blocks for the chemistry department and primarily my livng quarters for the next five years) on tuesday. on monday S2 showed me where to take the bus fro. but on tuesday i was standing about five feet away from tat place. the bus stops. and leaves without stopping where i stood. and thats lesson 2.. ALWAYS STAND AT THE PLACE WHERE THE BUS STANDS! :) the walk from my present stay to baker lab is about 15 minutes. but about 1.2 km and the entire thing is steep uphill.

wednesday also i missed the bus. this time i was tied to the stop. i think i even made a mark on the grass!! :) no. just kidding. but anyways. this time the bus comes. stops. and then leaves. and the driver shows me the finger. not the middle one. the thumb. i didnt understand wat i meant. so cursing my luck i walk all the way again and realise what the driver was saying was there is a bus right behind which is less full and i should take that! well.....!!!

the program that i am attending is called teaching assistant training program. as the name suggests it trains us to be teaching assistants. which is quite nice. considering that they keep giving us food and drinks all the time. i mean really. cool aids, oreos, chips, crackers, sometimes chocolates and tropicana or some other juice.. is just kept there on the tables!! well .. it might not be a big deal for some of you. it is for me!! so u just go there. take one and sit and they give you safety trainings or play games or tell you about cornell and ithaca

well.. safety trainings are what we guys must be going through cause most of our stuff i.e. the chemicals are pretty hazardous. and especially us indians who have a tendency to pour almost everything starting from benzene to picric acid down the drain learn facts like this : the university pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to manage wastes such as 10M solution of hydrochloric acid. well that figure also include hazardous wastes but i focussed on the acid because for us.. well its just acid. so u put it down the drain. for the ignorant reading this blog. benzene as a liquid and otherwise is carcinogenic and picric acid is an explosive material. these guys out here are so safety cautious, if i tell them that i have mouth pippetted bromine or iodine and some of my friends have done that for benzene they would probably fall on the floor and pass out. well anyways coming back to the trainings we have had waste management trainings, fire safety trainings where a part of it was to extinguish a inflammable liquid fire with the help of a Carbon Dioxide fire extinguisher. well its cool.. i had never done that before and now i have. gives you that confidence of "been there. done that" . we also have had compressed gas safety trainings and the likes. well the trainings basically consist of a long speech (powerpoint presentation) which is usually very informative (if we are awake ) and also obvious. i mean it shows some guy deliberately dropping a flask or putting is head inside a fume hood and stuff. but then it also contains some really good stuff that we guys from unsafe labs dont really follow. for e.g. if a environmental protection agency (epa!!!! yes.. i can see the smile on those faces who have seen simpsons..the movie.i smiled too when i saw it ...well ya. they are really one of the agencies to monitor us) inspector comes to your lab and finds an open bottle..... just a bottle that u forgot to put the cap on...and thatsit.. some thousand dollars fine.

after the presentation its normally a movie. which has cheesy music .. like saxophones and stuff.. kind of like those in the movies that you dont want other people to know that you see them!!
and they normally have a story line (again...!!) with very bad actors with bad delivery. but some of that is quite funny. i mean..its not supposed to be. how can u call something funny if it shows some guy getting hit on the head by a heavy metal object. well.....it is.. cause he deliberately puts his head inside a box and doesnt bother to hold the top of the box. and so it falls and hits him on the head!

so thats about the safety programs.

then there are games that we play. mostly these are partof something called diversity trainings. where we are taught to be tolerant of other cultures. i will describe some of the games.
in the first one, half of us where given small coloured sticker dots.. basically yellow.. to be put on ourselves. we stayed inside the room and were given instructions like

1. do not look straight in the eye of someone u are talking to
2. keep at least one arm distance when u are talking to someone.
3. do not smile at someone whom you do notknow
4. do not touch someone while talking to them and do not allow the same.

the other half and green stickers on them and they went out of the room and when they came back they were boisterous. trying to start up a conversation and coming near us trying to talk to us. well .. their instruction was apparently to do the opposite of our instructions. and then after 5 minutes.. we were asked to say wat we felt.

wat this was supposed to teach ( and it did..) was that there can be people who are exactly opposite to what u think is normal behaviour and thats just part of their culture. and not something to hate or dislike just because u dont share the same views.

then we had this other game where everyone chose a card .. like playing cards and the number, 1 k q j 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 designed at what level of hierarchy they were.. but the fun part was that u couldnt see ur own card. u would just hold it on ur fore head so that everyone else could see it. but not urself. and then u were supposed to treat the other people as they should be treated. so for e.g. one of us had an A. and everybody said Hello Sir, and some even bowed to him and said your highness and stuff. while people who had 2 or 3 on their card were basicaly the lowly janitor level staff..and they would be asked to clean up spots and get the drinks and etc. my number was 8. so i was supposd to be what i am. a grad student. although it took me quite some time to realise that. and that was the game . at the end of 7-8 minutes our instructor asked us to form a line and fit ourselves in on where we thought we were supposed to be.. and it turned out that people fit themselves in quite perfectly. all the 2s and 3s at one side. and the ks, qs, and js and the a on one side basically the face cards.. on one side. when asked they responded that they got to know about their position quite early in the game while the middle people never really understood properly except that they were somewhere in the middle. and so wat we learnt was that people behave differently to others if they are at dfferent levels of hierarchy . but if u dont know what position that person is you behave normally. or u tend to.

then there was another game where all of us stood in a circle and each of us were supposed to say our name and something we liked that started with the same first initial. so it was something like this. and im trying to remember all my class mate's name by this way..

dave likes dumpster diving
mike likes marine biology
huang likes honey
jess (he is a professor but he is the tatp advisor. at least one of them) likes jersey
ling likes ligands
laura likes licorice
swapna likes sugar
jeff likes jelly
angela likes apples
sean likes sulfur
sonia likes silver
jimmy likes jeff
mark likes malt beverages
michael likes microphones
hao likes hiking
saba likes something that starts with an s.
ming likes monsters
martha likes maps
megan likes something that starts m
erica likes elephants
minh likes molestation stories
will likes weezers
ray likes to rock out
ria likes roses
alice liked apricots
chrisita likes cash.

and i think im missing out some names!! well ya.. i think i missed outone name. and well i liked something as well. lets see how many of u can guess

anyways.. these were some of the games. quite useful actually and it helped know each other well at least by names!

then there were other stuff. like campus tours. then presentations about the bus services and other travel options and how u can get a car and use it. and how much for parking and what kind of bicycles you would want to use. and what are the electronic resources in the library and how many libraries and stuff. and then library tours. then there were toursof the nmr and the protein facility. and there was this presentation called ITHACA 101 which i personally liked a LOOOT. It was given by one of the members of the staff who is director of all electronic equipment etc. Lars. his presentation basically aimed at wat and where.. so he told us about where to get groceries. and where to buy bikes. where to gets liquor. and where to party. what are the coffee shops. and how much they generally csost. where can we get cheap or even free furnitures. the farmers market. the rock shows. the bus fares and routes. everything.. alsmot everything. it was awesome.
there was also a presentation about history of cornell. which was quite informative as well. i will not go into the details of it cause its like u can get it u are really interested to know. but ya . it was definitely very informative.

we keep getting handouts. folders pens pads. you know. the normal stuff. and tats great too except tat it makes my bag heavier. everyday. we have got hand outs about how the american culture is and etc.

some of us, basically the international students are supposed to enter a program called international teaching assistant development program. thats quite fun too. we are taught english intonations. and more about the american culture and we are even given hand outs about the slangs used at cornell. :) tats quite interesting as well . i dont have the sheet with me right now. but there is one word that apparently describes the weather here during winters of no sun, snowy, very low temperatures and misty winters which is called "ithacating".

tats basically the course.. lunch happens somewhere in the university. and mostly at the campus eating places. which are good. and one thing that i have tried out and liked is something called quescadilla. .its not too different from our mutton dosa. except that the crust is harder. and the filling can be vegetable or chicken or beef or mutton. watever u order. burgers pizzas sandwiches and coffee are well mostly the routine stuff.

the bus service here and i think i ahve mentioned it is brilliant!! i mean really.one thing though. we indians normally dont wish the driver when we get on our buses in india. here they do. and we do as well. and say have a nice day when we get down. the college id card has a magnetic swipe thing which allows u to go for free any where anytime. otherwise its a dollar and fifty cents to ride the bus any time.

the place.. well ... its beautiful. and huge. quite obviously. i havent yet quite explored the entire region.. but i think i will do that by midaugust cause thats when classes start and as Lars emphasises all the time (a little too much for my comfort!) once classes start we guys are going to live at Bakers!!

well that was most of the week. I did open a bank account and it took 15 minutes and the guy Joe was literally flying on the keyboard and talking at the same time. and he was cordial and all that. Quite a shock from the banking atmosphere you see in India.

I also got a phone. finally. its a prepaid phone. and it took me about 20 minutes to get the phone get a connection and start using it. Now thats to remind myself that it took me 2.5 hours to get just a connection in calcutta this summer. well the number is obviously not for circulation and also i get charged for getting sms-es. so ..please dont msg .. those of u who have the number. the best calling time if u are calling me up is between 6:30 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon , indian time. if u dont have the number u can call my house and get it. which would mean u have to know my house number and that i guess acts as a filter. otherwise also. please give me some time to acclimatise and i will give u a call. u see... i havent got my first check yet! :-)

finally about my first birthday overseas.. well ... it was good. and strange. u start getting wished about 12 hrs before u realise the calendar really shows ur birthday. and it feels strange.. and im sure it might feel strange to those wishing me from india. because it did to me when i wished my brother last time. I was in India then. and i didnt realise he still had about 12 hrs to go to realise its his bday yet.. ! some of my friends insist im an indian and should follow the indian time.. well. its easy to say... when u are staying in india. and its basically just the age old concept of "frame of reference!"

anywyas.. none of my friends here knew baout it. even my roommates. but subh had msged me. and swapna some how heard me reading the msg. or saying thank u. and she spread it tothe indian group .. well .. so everyone wished me.. and they asked for treats as usual!! and well i didnt really have money. so.. i told them to wait.. although i dont really know how much i can spend.. i did earn a chocolate earlier that day cause i had answered some question correctly.:) hee hee. so tat was shared.. and well later on we did go out and have dinner. at the end of our program we went to a library to have coffee. this library also has a dvd collection which u can borrow. and if u are a student at cornell u can get 400 items ( which can include books, journals, maps, movies, cassettes video and audio, and anyhting else thats there in the libraries) for borrowing. 400. i mean tats huge. i just got two for the first time.. but imagine. 400!!! u do have a 3 day returning limit but u can renew online.. and after that we went to this place called the big red barn. its like a great hang out place for the grads.. and every friday they have something called TGIF - Tell Grads Its Friday.. where they serve beer for 1$ , soft drinks and chips and snacks for free and u can hang out there. so we went there and there were my restof the classmates waiting for me.. and they sang for me and stuff :) that was really sweet. and i thank my indian classmates for spreading the word around and everyone else for the song.. it does feel a little better if some people sing the song for you :) even if u turn 24!!! im still a studnet after all!! :)

anyways.. we excused ourselves after some time and we went to downtown ithaca to hangout. i bought a book for myself as a birthday present. Enzyme Structure and Function. Dont really know if I will read it a lot but then it was for a dollar and any music that I wanted to buy was like 6$.

By the way.. I saw LPs being sold. I dont know where to play them but if anyone has a player that plays LPs well I have got some great albums here that I can buy for cheap. I mean Atom Heart Mother for $1. It looks great!!

after walking for a while and enjoying the slow drizzle we chose a Japanese restaurant for our dinner place. Chrisita who is from the Philippines suggested it and we went and ordered mainly what she said would be good. I will try to upload one of the dishes that we had.. its called Chicken Teriyaki. The description is the following

You have two big flat pieces of chicken.
on top is brocolli and beans and carrots (all baked) . this is served with rice.. (shown on top if u are seeing the photograph)
costs about 13$.

so after that I came back to the evening hang out place I think I mentioned. Its the lounge (read common rooms ) of one of the engg. depts. and it has 6 of those reclining chairs what we normally call as Joey Chairs!!
The day ended with Ice Cream...!!! and well that was my first birthday celebrated overseas.....

Did miss the late night session at my house and mom's cakes. but then... cant help it can I?

Thats the end of this blog. It may have been long and detailed but thats what you guys are looking for right. If there is something that you might want me to add or subtract please feel free to comment. It will be nice. Also I dont know if I will be posting weekly , or biweekly or fortnightly or monthly or randomly. So if there are options given to you that you will be notified when I add a new post please add ur email address to it. Because I dont know how to do that.

My posts might suggest that I have completely adjusted but thats not true.. I am going at the normal place and its only been a week.. so I have time. What it also means that even if I may not mention it on the blogs I do miss all of you at home and friends and everyone else. So dont even dare to think otherwise..
Thats all for now folks.

Enjoy your weekends.