Time Capsule

(...What would it be like to meet the future you? What would you expect?)

My experience:

Exactly five years ago to this day, I wrote a post on this blog. I happened to read it purely by chance today (credits: some FB feed that had reminded me of  another one of my earlier posts Off the Cuff).

What has changed?

• I’ve grown older. I’ve no idea what makes me say that simply by reading the old post. Back then, I sounded less… mature?
• I’ve become less apologetic about procrastination.
• Watsapp has replaced the good old SMS. In fact, these days, I have actually developed a repulsion towards forwarded messages.
• Mom doesn’t breathe down my neck any more.

What hasn’t changed?

• My style of writing.
• My tendency to make lists.
• I'm still giving end-sems in April. (It's been FIVE years now. MAN I’m old. I kind of feel like my heroine Cecilia from Piled Higher and Deeper)
• People still don’t comment on my blog. This means YOU.

Some things change, some don’t.

That was an interesting exercise.

So... What should I expect another five years hence? Who knows? I’m going to sit back and let me surprise me!

Feel Aa Gayi Yaar! - My learnings from creating music

Jamming, (amateur) composing, music arrangement and band management… The past few months of my life have probably been the most music-packed ever.

I got involved in various musical activities: my home-band at IITB - The Falling Bass, Hostel 10’s immensely talented all-girl bands Udaan and Ten on Ten, the Surbahaar team, Thane's Sanskriti Academy’s annual programme Aarohan and numerous jams with enthusiastic musical friends.

Making music has become such an important part of life that I can’t remember a single day in the last six months when I haven’t sat down with some musical instrument and played something, alone or with someone else. As a result, I have gained new comfort levels with not just the guitar, but also the bass guitar, keys, congas, drums and even (just a little bit) the flute.

Growing musically is one thing. Apart from just that, I've changed as a person, built beautiful new friendships, enhanced old friendships and learnt a lot about people. Most of all, I've learnt about myself.

In general, here are some thoughts and learnings:

• Two’s company, three’s a crowd, four’s the way to go! (Somehow four is an optimal number of people to jam at the same time in terms of enjoyment and creative license. I've also done ten to thirty musicians at once. More often than not, it ends up as not music but cacophony. My personal favourite is two though… just another musician and I. It’s the easiest way to build a friendship that you will never forget).
• It's impossible to completely understand a musical instrument. Every time you think you've got it nailed, it reveals a new exciting capability to voice your music. Physics at work!
• Awesome equipment is different from awesome music.
• Drummers get bored and ignored all the while. Poor souls.
• Bassists are the most understated members of a band.
• Bass solos sound great!
• Most musicians need to learn to keep time; in their songs and in their punctuality.
• It’s important to learn to be a performer, not just a musician.
• Practise alone as often as you can. It’s the fastest way to improve upon yourself.
• Open your mind while you jam. You’ll learn lots about people.
• Preach music. Really, it should be made a religion.
• Don’t forget your teacher/mentor/guru! No matter how much you believe you might have accomplished musically, your teacher will always show you how much further you still have to go.
• The three F’s of creating music – Fun, Friendship and Feel. Drop any one of the three, and the whole point of creating music is lost.

My musical (and non-musical) readers... Any more thoughts and observations?

A hasty train of thoughts…

Haste makes waste, they say. I wonder, if maybe, it’s just an excuse to be slow.

Surely, could it not be…

Like increasing the cost price and then offering a 30 % discount.

Like lowering the speed limit to 10 kmph and then punishing those who ride in second gear.

Like relative grading in academics.

You can’t afford to speed recklessly. That doesn’t mean one can’t question the speed limit.

There’s a world of difference between a long flat highway and a tortuous hill road, between a bicycle and a car on those roads, between a teenager and a baby-boomer riding a bike or a car on those roads. There must be several possible definitions of Haste.

Indeed, how does one define Waste?

Also, does all Haste cause Waste, or does all Waste come from Haste?

How then, can Haste, generally, make Waste?

The Wake-up Call

The story of every morning...

Is it time to wake up already?

Was that the alarm ringing?

Or am I dreaming that it is ringing?

Maybe... Should I put it into snooze mode yet again?

How many more seconds of sleep can I steal?

How much more can I put off the inevitable day?

So many thoughts, so little consciousness, even lesser time till the next snooze alarm.

The alarm to write is ringing.

Is it too late?

Thank goodness for blogs.

(This post is loosely based on a nagging itch to write that I developed recently. Hopefully this blog won't be all that silent any more...)

Think Again...

Colloquial English. We take our words for granted. Seldom do we realise how little value our words really add to what we wish to say or how funny (and sometimes senseless) we sound while saying them. My sixth grade teacher would chide me for speaking sentences like "I am -going to go- home now". It is a lesson I will never forget!

It's time to realise that the English language has a million words, just waiting to be used in the right context...

What's the good word?

“They were openly flaunting the rules”

The person who said this was clearly showing off and flouting his vocabulary.

“That’s pretty extreme punishment”

The word "pretty" means "to some degree or extent" (Merriam-Webster said so). Yet we end up using “pretty” with superlatives : “pretty awesome” or “pretty extreme”?

Inception

This word is liberally used nowadays to describe nested loops (like a dream within a dream). The word inception means “the beginning”. The appropriate word for the phenomenon is “recursion”.

“Sit besides me”

Beside = next to. Besides = Also. As in “I don’t want to sit beside you. Besides, you’re so fat that there’s no place...”

“That’s so gay!”

How can my new pink cellphone be “so gay”? There are lots of more helpful adjectives available to criticise my phone!

And then there was my friend who attended her friend’s sphincter party right before her wedding. She meant spinster of course. (I know she will kill me for putting this up here).

Meaningless fillers:

Basically these are like, obviously, so absolutely out of place, you know.

We use them too often. Use them only when you mean them!

Redundant Rants:

“…at 12 midnight”

Oh good that you mentioned... I thought you meant 3 midnight...

“Let me summarise in brief”

Please don’t.

“In my personal opinion…”

Who else’s opinion is yours man?

“Free gift”

Oh yeah? Then what’s a paid gift?

“So what are your future plans?”

I don’t know about those but I can tell you my past plans.

“… with the end result that…”

Do results come at the beginning too?

Plural Problems:

She’s a VJTI Alumni

While it is true that Indians refer to elders in plural out of respect, this really does sound wrong. "She is a VJTI alumnus" or “She are a VJTI alumni” might be better here.

“I just need one more data to finish my thesis”

Data is the plural for datum. You need one more datum for it. Yes, I’m a grammar nazi.

Inventing new words:

“Nothanks”

Next time you say it, make an effort to mean the “thanks” part or don’t say it at all.

“Wassup”

The ceiling. That's what is 'up'.

The wrong unit of measurement…

“I'm on a 500 calorie diet"

The calorie is actually a very miniscule unit of energy. Energy from food is measured in kilocalories (yes, even celery sticks). So these people are on a 500 kilocalorie (kcal) diet.

Now imagine if someone told them that they are actually eating a thousand times more than they think they are.

“Zero degree Kelvin”

Please say just "kelvin" (lower case k when written in full and abbreviated as upper case K) and not "degree Kelvin". That’s not me and my OCD… That’s the way the scientists who defined the SI system decided it should be.

Over-loaded abbreviations:

AC Current

What's the full form of AC? Alternating Current, right? Then what is "AC current"? Worse still - what exactly is "AC voltage"? :O

Similar ones: ATM Machine, PIN Number

Superlative trouble:

“One of the best places to eat…”

The best can only be one. If there are many best ones, none of them are REALLY the best. (By the way, I’d vote for the dining car aboard the Deccan Queen for top position).

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And finally, best of all…

“It was –literally- raining cats and dogs!”

Literally? How many did you catch?

Holy commandments for the computer analyst

This post is for the geeks out there. It is something I came across in a delightful book on computational methods (refer citation at bottom of post). I thought that it deserves to be shared with the geeky numerical-analyst community.

(For non-analysts who want to read the post and join the fun anyway, here's the context: The authors are trying to explain that numerical results from computer simulations should not be considered valid and correct unless and until they are carefully thought out beforehand AND matched with rough sums AND validated experimentally).

Presenting…

Confrontations

Citation to the source: (a brilliant book incidentally)

Numerical Methods in Engineering and Applied Sciences – Numbers are fun 

by - B. M. Irons and N. G. Shrive.

Available on Amazon. Click here

Reflections

…Liquid Poetry…

I pass by Powai Lake twice every day.  About two kilometres worth journey of thinking with the eyes. The lake is a lovely metaphor.

On ordinary mornings, the lake looks like an ordinary lake, proclaiming its ordinariness to the ordinary world passing by it. It says, “Just like any other lake, I’m deep, I’m watery, I support life within and without myself, I’m sensitive to the wind and break into little waves when excited.”

Some other mornings, the lake is a polished mirror, truthfully reflecting everything, big and small, red, white and green, that stands by it. On other mornings, it only provides a vague reflection.
Sometimes aluminium grey, sometimes burnished steel, sometimes bronze...

On cool evenings, the lake makes trysts with little winged cherubs and their bows-and-arrows, who come seeking to nestle in its dark blanket.

On cloudy-rainy August mornings, the lake takes on the look of hard smooth steel. But look closely! The smoothness is only because of a uniform tumult on the surface. The liquid fury of the rain has forced the ordinary lake to turn into the extraordinary. The lake is merely shaped by stormy circumstances.

Once the rains recede in September, the clouds still linger, threatening to relapse any moment into lashing rain. The lake lies tense, silently and alertly reflecting the sky above - a stationary sea of grey concrete, so determinedly strong and solid that you could drive a car over it.

Eventually, the clouds tire of waiting to disturb the concrete lake and they retreat, but the lake still appears hardened and rough outside. It appears still and lonely, making the observer feel like Neil Armstrong might have before his one small step.

…Dreaming...

Interpreting the surface of the lake is subject to the whims of the dreamer. One wonders what it is hiding in its depths?

Is it ultimate peace lying in there? Still and silent as the anonymous grave of a soldier who gave up his life, but lost the war?

Or is it bubbling with energy - a world alive with colourful fins and powerful froth-less currents?

A watery civilisation?

Is it a grotto of great grotesque fish and fearsome fanged snakes slithering in slimy green-blue darkness?

Or is it a blissful musical underwater place for rhythmic meditation?

The poetic mind imagines and glorifies… Until the summer arrives and the harsh sun reveals the bed of the lake.

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All I can see in the heart of the lake is an ugly wasteland. Barren, diseased, empty and dying inside. The lake. The very being that made me poetic.

…Wake up. Wake up.