This one is for Subash

Like many others I watched the new Hindi movie Rang De Basanti with our friends in Jersey. This is not meant to be a review of the film. You can read Gujju's blog about it. It was the poetry of Ramprasad Bismil in the movie very powerfully delivered by the Atul Kulkarni that moved Subash and he could not stop talking about it. I remember having been moved after hearing the Rafi - Manna Dey version of the song from the movie Shaheed (one of the first movies made on the struggle of Bhagat Singh, Azad). So I googled and here is the poetry from Ramprasad Bismil. You can listen to the Rafi-Manna Dey version at Musicindiaonline.com.

Sarfaroshi ki tamana ab hamare dil main hai

sarfaroshi ki tamana ab hamare dil main hai
dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil main hai

karta nahi kyon dusara kuch bat-chit
dekhata hun main jise vo chup teri mahfil main hai

ai shahid-e-mulk-o-millat main tere upar nisar
ab teri himat ka charcha gair ki mahfil main hai

vaqt ane de bata denge tujhe ai asman
ham abhi se kya batayen kya hamare dil main hai

khinch kar lai hain sab ko qatl hone ki ummid
ashiqon ka aj jamghat kucha-e-qatil main hai

Obsolete technology

Wow! I got a mail from an old undergrad friend of mine. He wanted to know if I had a soft copy of my transcripts from the undergrad days and the first year syllabus. Now for those thinking how can I keep a soft copy of transcripts and what business this friend of mine had with my transcripts, let me just tell you that we made our own transcript format in our undergrad. No..no... we did not fake our grades, just put them in a nice little format to be presentable. Now getting these transcripts sealed, verifed and stamped by the registrar was such a process (it is a whole another story) that I shudder even when I think whether I might apply again if I had to go through that.

Anyway that got me thinking. Sure, I should have a soft copy of the transcripts. I was very particular about keeping records in case I would need them later. And then it hit me, it would be on a floppy disk. Now my bigger challenge was not finding the floppy disk with the transcripts itself or hoping that the floppy is corrupt (remember that thing happening to your most important data) but finding a machine with a floppy drive that would enable me to get the data off it. Isn't it amazing how much we have changed in this amount of time. Thankfully, it is one of those smoller floppy disks and not the ever so bendy, big-ass floppy disks that had to be handled with forceps. So I still have hopes of being able to help my friend out.

Have things changed so much that you stop thinking about floppy disks and how dependent we were on them back then to move data around. Nowadays, i hardly even use CDs to write data out. I just use my internet webpage space or yahoo briefcase or sometimes even mail it to myself. And then I got a laptop. So I can move around with the data. Add the disks to the collection of magnetic tapes and puch cards in the museum of obsolete technology I say and let's forget the past.

Blogging efficiency

Has anyone noticed the dates of my blogs and the progression? Being the mathematical guy that I am, here goes the analysis for my first 5 blogs.


I don't think even I can keep up with this pace. Anyways credit goes to the Anarkist and his taunt that has started this ball rolling. Henjoy!

Clothespins and Popsickle sticks

Yesterday while blogging, surfing, solving crosswords and yeah working at Starbux, a group of undergrad students (one of whom I had taught a course last semester) stopped by and asked if they could talk to the couple of us sitting at the big table and using our laptops. They were engineering students who had as a part of some design project come up with a product that laptop users could use to hold on to a paper while typing away. A sort of hands free paper holder next to the laptop screen.

They had designed it and then built it out of 2 regular clothespins, 2 popsickle sticks and 3 screws. Seemingly the project did not end there. They were asked to go out and try selling their product. Being entrepreneural that they were, they decided to target the coffee shops since they knew, they would find laptop users there. So they made me their sales pitch... One of them played the Penn State blue card (they had painted the whole contraption blue).

While I had no use of the device, I decided to play along asking them to demonstrate how the product would be used. The salesguy tried to attach it to my laptop but the other pin which was supposed to hold the sheet kept slipping and it did not even have the load of the paper. He sheepishly said that they had tested their product and that it had worked successfully on the prototype.

Being an engineering student myself, i asked them a couple of questions about the design principle, the load they had designed and given a chance how they would improve the design to overcome the obvious flaw that was apparent as they tried to make it work on my computer. Having gotten ideas from them I suggested a couple of my own fixes to the design that were practical and easy to implement. I remembered the time when I had designed my first drill jig at L&T using all the design principles I had learnt in theory at school. When I had shown the design to a tool manufacturer (of 20 years experience), he had simply smiled, appreciated my knowledge and then suggested modifications to the design so that the design would actually be able to be manufactured and used. I had learnt a lot from that experience and had never been told of any modifications to my future designs since then. I doubt if I will ever use the paper holder but I decided to reward this group of students for their thinking and purchased the contraption for $2. I think it was a bold attempt on their part and it was a small price to pay for being able to pay forward the practical knowledge I acquired as an engineer for free.

Change of guard... Change of attitude

Cricket, the times they are a changing. Subtly but yet over the ages of cricket a lot of changes have occured. The rules, the versions but those are not the point of this blog. It is about the change in attitude and consequently the bragging rights of the best team in the sport that I wanted to spend my two cents worth of observations.

I believe over my so short and sweet life span on this planet, there have been two eras of cricket. The West-Indian kingdom and the Australian ascendancy. Since I was a very young lad, I remembered the dominance of West Indies over the game. Buoyed by a ferocious bowling line-up and talented hitters, they were an intimidating opposition every other team looked to beat. The attitude of the carribean cricketers was as cool as their calypso music. Pure talent, the "game is fun" attitude help them dictate their dominance over the game. I was able to witness this during our games against the carribean teams in WMCB. Chillax, drink a beer, go and hit some amazing shots, have a fun weekend.

Then came the slow and steady encroachment into that dominance by the lads down under led by Alan Border and manager Bobby Simpson. They brought a whole new attitude to the game of cricket - Professionalism. With this new sensed attitude they set about taking the game away from the leaders and finally were able to emerge as the new supremos. This attitude continued under the Steve Waugh era and other teams started to embody the proffessional aspect in their games as well. The South Africans led by their tech savvy manager Bob Woolmer came as close to the Oz but could not overcome the last hurdle of overtaking them. They probably lacked that little bit of passion to tip them over.

Sensing the gap closing up on them, there was a change in guard again and with Ponting at the helm, there was a whole new attitude shift. "Professionalism with a don't give a damn attitude since we are going to win". With players like Symonds, Lee, Clarke the juggernaut kept rolling and edging themselves once again away from the teams trying to catch up with them.

With new players emerging in the cricketing arena carrying some of this new born attitude, India (Sehwag, Yuvraj, Kaif, Pathan, Dhoni) , Pakistan (Shoaib, Akhmal, Younis) and England (Flintoff, Pietersen) seem to be the teams in the forefront to become the new center of cricketing supremacy in the world. Would it need a little more than this attitude to overcome the Aussies or will we see another shift before the powers shift elsewhere?

A habit born out of sheer coincidence

US, Interstate 70 W, Exit 42, Myersville MD. An obscure exit just like any other exit on any Interstate in any part of the US of A. During my stint as yet another yuppie working in the Northern Virginian tech industry, whenever I drove back from D.C to State College, PA to visit my old buddies at Penn State, I would stop at this exit for gas. It happened just as a matter of fact since I wished to avoid the traffic on the beltway and I-270 on a Friday evening, I would stop at the first exit after Fredrick and as it happened, it turned out to be this little exit.

With a couple of gas stations situated just a stone throw's away from the exit ramp it made for a quick off and on exit allowing me to spend as much time possible before the last calls at Sports and 210 with my friends. With a McD's and BK it also gave me the option to make up for the occassionally lost lunch in my quest to finish work early to get away for the weekend.

And then when the routes were reversed when I started my PhD and would go visiting my old buddies from DC, it happened that the exit would be ideal to make a trip from State College to DC and back to Myersville starting with a full tank of gas. Also it provided for a cheaper gas alternative to the ones being pumped in the DC area. And thus was born my own personal habit to visit this exit similar to few other ones (such as eating Chicken fried rice at Miukee at 1:00 AM).

And then it spread...like a virus. With the Penn State cricket club team also catching on to my habit by stopping at this gas exit on our way back from yet another triumphant match, we would regroup and wait for the slower drivers (read that as Samsi/Charan). It was no longer a quick off and on, it was a liesurely gas filling followed by pulling someone's leg (invariably Nishant's) for a good 15 minutes before the party would head out. A few days back after New years, Subash text messaged me saying he was filling gas at Myersville (ofcourse he was not driving). I was not even there. I laughed my ass off.

And so I can rest peacefully considering myself a trendsetter. And the town of Myersville can thank me for bringing a good amount of bussiness their way and putting the town of Myersville, MD on the map. (wait a minute... it was always there, just like the Mississippi was before Desota got there)

Literature review - Roots

I just finished reading "Roots" by Alex Haley a couple of days back and I meant to write what I felt about the book. For all those who haven't read the book it is a story of an African family through 7 generations starting with the life of Kunta Kinte in Africa and journeys through his life, how he is enslaved and how he manages to pass a little bit of heritage down the generations just to let the author (Alex Haley) a 7th generation descendant to research about his life back in Africa. It was a great read and if you haven't yet read it, please don't let the 700 odd pages deter you from doing so.

Through the book I liked the way the author was able to focus on the life of this family tree of Kintes through the different generations and at different places while letting the American history develop in the background. The war of independence, the civil war, emancipation of slaves, etc. Being a foreigner, I have not studied American History in detail but this book provided me with a brief perspective of it along the read. Another great feature of the book was the speech used by the African americans. While it did slow down my usual reading speed as I had to link each word to what it would mean if written correctly, it made me feel as if I was talking in that dialect. It carries right down until the generation that began education.

The best thing though that I loved about the book were the final few pages as the author describes how he traces back his family roots based on a few tidbits of knowledge about Kunta Kinte passed through generations. Particularly interesting is tracing the dialect based on a few words used to describe certain objects. Being a doctoral student myself I found the research and the description of this research by the author very enlightning and felt that the book would have been incomplete without this description and could be considered a pure work of fiction.

Why do sportswriters love good soundbytes?

I had not intended my blogs to be only about sports but since I spend a lot of my free time watching and reading about sports, I can't help but have thoughts on this subject. And so once again I had to write about the recent NFL coaching changes occuring all over the league. In the day and age of free agency and salary caps, teams are impatient to get results soon. New coaches do not have the freedom to build a team according to their policy and guidelines. There are constant chops and changes and it was not so apparent as it is at the end of this past season when as many as 7 coaches were fired and 1 resigned (tearfully I may add).

Of the 1 resigned coach, he had made sure that when he left his team was probably in the best shape possible except for minor improvements needed on the defensive front. It is truly unselfish of Dick Vermeil to call it a day when he felt he could not add to the teams success. And so it was announced that his successor would be coach Herm Edwards of the NY J-E-T-S... Jets..Jets..Jets. What was so great about this coach and his record that the Chiefs had to let go of a 4th round draft pick to hire him. He has had an average record since being the Jets coach and while his fans may point out that he has had to cope with injury problems during his tenure, he has done nothing but dissapoint Jets fans with a disappointing season every year. The reason he is popular is because of the delicious sound bytes he provides in NFL primetime or Sportscenter making him a known face. "You play to win the game". That's all he will be good for. Now we can rest back and watch him grind this Chiefs team down in the ground. With great talent like Larry Johnson wasted. The Chiefs should just have appointed Offensive co-ordinator to the Head coaching position and awarded him for his hard work of keeping the Chiefs offence a focal point for the past few years. They would thus have kept that draft pick and maybe traded Priest Holmes for a few more picks to bolster the defence and take the next step towards supremacy.