Enigmatic Contradictions

Peeda: A response to our apathy

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:50:00 +0000

The idea of this poem has been with me for a while, but what really triggered it was the re-reading of the following lines

Vichaar lo ki martya ho na mrityu se daro kabhi,

Maro parantu yon maro ki yaad jo kare sabhi,

Hui na yun so mrityu toh vritha mare vritha jiye,

Mara nahi wahi ki jo jiya na aap ke liye,

Yahi pashu pravritti hai ki aap aap hi chare ,

Wahi Manushya hai jo Manushya ke liye mare.

- Manushyata, Maithalisharan Gupt

This poem is a response to our apathy, not as men/women, educated/uneducated; patriotic or otherwise, but just as human beings, who I am not sure, how much longer we will remain. I wish I could have written it in English for a wider audience, however I was thinking in Hindi here, so wrote it in Hindi. I have not used the devnagiri script, as I feel writing it in English will make it easier for us to read.

Peeda

Sardi ki ek kohri raat ko, sadak pe biche adhmare shareeron ke caaravan main

Maine ek tithurte huey baccche ki sisakti saason ko dekha hai

Yun toh saara aasman uska hai, aur woh dharti ki god main soya hai

Lekin kabhi uske andar dare sahmey huey khali kal ko dekha hai ?

Kya kabhi uski peeda to dekha hai ?

Tapti dopahar main paththar todte, apne talvon ko jhulsaate huey

Maine mazdoor ke mastak par shikan ki rekhaaon ko dekha hai

Yun toh wah apni taqdeer khud hi likh raha hai, apne sapne swayam hi sanjo raha hai

Par kabhi usse apna hak maangte huey kisi ke saamne nat mastak hote huey dekha hai?

Kya kabhi uski peeda ko dekha hai?

Kone main dubak kar baithi hui, apne chehre ko ek udaseenta ki parat se dhakti hui

Maine ek ladki ko poori tarah se khoya dekha hai

Aayi thi woh apna aashiyana banane, apne guno se apna aangan mehakane

Par kabhi uske gaal par ankit ungliyon ke nishaanon ko, use pratadit hote huey dekha hai ?

Kya kabhi uski peeda ko dekha hai ?

Ek chote se kasbe main, apne androoni jwalamukhion ko shaant karte huey,

Maine ek yatharth se haare huey yuvak ko dekha hai

Kahan toh woh is desh ki umeed hai, kahan toh woh pragati ki reedh hai

Lekin kya kabhi usse apne andar ke raavan ka dahan karte huey dekha hai ?

Kya kabhi uski peeda ko dekha hai ?

Ek andhere kamre main, ek ”apavitra ladki ko”, apne ghaavon par malham lagate huey

Maine ek astitva khatam hote huey dekha hai

Gussa toh tumhe bhi shayad aaya hoga, do chaar apshabd toh tumne bhi kahe honge

Lekin kya kabhi bhibhitsa ras se sarabor uski aankhon main gusse ko ufante dekha hai ?

Kya kabhi uski peeda ko dekha hai ?

Ek paglai hui, margdarshan kho chuki, bhatkayi gayi, baurai hui bheed ko aakrosh main

Maine ek masoom ki hatya karte huey dekha hai

Gussa toh tumhe bhi shayad aaya hoga, do chaar apshabd toh tumne bhi kahe honge

Lekin manushya ke vidhvans ke us khaufnaak chehre ko us masoom ki maa ki kahrati aankhon main dekha hai ?

Kya kabhi uski peeda ko dekha hai ?

Lekin

Kaun hoon main, jisne itna kuch dekha hai ?

Vichlit na ho, main koi bhi nahi hoon

Main toh bas wahin hoon jo bas har baar lagatar rekha ke us taraf hai jahan se sab door dikhata hai

Yun toh khud ko itna pragatisheel kehte ho

Do baar in atyachaar ke baare main sochkar apni marmikata ki kahaniyan kaste ho

Lekin jab sacchai cheerti hui indriyon ko jhakjhorte huey saamne aati hai

Toh tumne apne aap ko sheeshay main aankhen moondte huey dekha hai

Toh tumne apne aap ko muh ferate huey dekha hai

Toh tumne apne aap ko rann chodte huey dekha hai

Toh tumne apne aap ko yudh ki guhar se kaanpte huey dekha hai

Toh tumne apne aap ko apne hi mann main haarte huey dekha hai

Jab jeevan main kal sankat aayega, jab apne armanon ko kuchalta hua dekhoge,

Jab aisa lagega ki tumhara astitva hi nakar diya gaya hai

Tab

Bhool kar bhi ek baar mat kehana

Kya kabhi meri peeda ko dekha hai

The Colombian Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:11:00 +0000

The travel bug has bit again, albeit in a more quasi academic way this time: Colombia & Ecuador. So while it has been a while that I have returned to the city of dreams, the memories of a continent conveniently forgotten by us, are fresh in my mind. The "lesser" America, however, is a place which will make you feel that you are a part of a different world. Everything from people in the streets wishing you Buneos Diaz (Good morning) to underground salt cathedrals to bonding with a Pakistani restaurant owner in the tourist district of Quito, Ecuador, just for the most diverse experiences it has to offer, South America, without doubt has proved to be my best trip ever. However, sweet as these experiences might be, the trip has also changed the way I look at people, cultures and most importantly nations.

For a country often famous for the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fernando Botero and Shakira, there exists another narrative. A narrative which has often been relegated to the shadows, or which often presented in a manner to obscure even the semblance of truth. So while one may know Colombia for its infamous drug trade or famous coffee, there are far important things happening in the fabric of the nation, which is there for everyone to see. For a country ravaged by war for over 40 years, where 5 companies control 92% of the assets, it may seem the story of every Latin american country. Unfortunately, the script is pretty much the same, just the names change. So while we wonder what has gone wrong with a nation which produced greats like Marquez, I would quote Marquez himself. In this short and powerful piece addressed to America, he sums up what has gone wrong for this beautiful continent. So while the west may dismiss the art of Fernando Botero as frivolous and pathetic, it is only making an intensely powerful statement, about the unwavering resolve & the absolute truth of the voice of the people and its own guilt ridden conscience . The above rambling could go on and on, but I leave you with this pic, my pick of the trip.

I clicked this one, just as I was stepping out of Museo Botero (the museum which houses the works of Fernando Botero). I had just had a discussion with one of the museum employees, a student of anthropology, which made me realize what a contrived world we live in. The photo to me is a grim reminder of how the history of nations is often not defined by the decisions it takes, but more often by the decisions it does not take. Why, do we, younger and smaller nations, willingly let someone else take our destiny in their hands. The girl walking past the sign, to me, are the people like us, who allow this to happen. For as this graffiti correctly points out, the people of the country do not wish their country to become yet another imperialistic conquest, a nation whose existence depends completely on another, whose legitimacy has been questioned time and again, whose image in the eyes of the world ranges from a homeland for Jews to a rouge nation. However, whatever be the image, this has not been actively constructed by its people, on whose sweat and blood the country survives. And that to me is the biggest tragedy. A nation, whose voices and screams have been muffled out of existence, for whom only an anonymous display of their ideology is possible, a demand which screams out to be met, a journey which was cancelled before it began, a dream nipped in the bud, a blow stuck down deep into the roots, a conquest of mind space and a victory of insanity. Its an "illegal" social activity which questions the legitimacy of the fabric which we live in and in turn redefine the same. It is that voice which is free from the bondage of journalism, of conforming to the norm. One look at the streets of Colombia, and there is Graffiti all around, every square inch of public space has been used as a canvas, for larger canvasses are never available to them. Only in the streets one can find the true spirit of Colombia, for the people there are still alive, unlike us ( & yes I mean Indians) who comfortably live our cushy lives, without giving too much of a thought to where are we heading as a society and as a nation. We are not very different from them, have similar kinds of issues in our own backyard, but yet I have more hope for the Colombian nation than my own, because they are a nation of living people, who still have the pride, courage and self respect to raise their heads and say what they feel, for them I have hope that they may usher in a better future. The stereotype of Colombia as a violent country is rooted in reality. However, changing the stereotype is not about changing the image, its about changing the reality, so that a more beautiful and equitable image evolves.

Art, Nation and Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:31:00 +0000

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far, far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.

- Picasso in an interview with Simone Tery, March 24, 1945

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” Art is a form of personal expression, which goes beyond having a purpose, for no artist is a success or a failure, as he creates to speak the only way he can: by creating more art. However, sometimes art takes such a form that it has the ability to encompass the complexities of life and the travails of humanity, where the brush strokes are made, keeping in mind the conscience of a nation. When nations go through turbulent times, it’s often art that brings out the spirit and the struggle of the people. It is then used simultaneously as a weapon and as a support system, to inflict and heal wounds at the same time. There is an undying quality about art which allows it to be timeless, and for the discerning reader, it offers a multitude of reflections. It’s a harbinger of learning’s for the future, and memories of the past are evoked.

The past and the future together create the present, for it is impossible for the present to exist without the cognizance of the past or a vision for the future. It is only natural that nations rely on their past and history to define and identify themselves. It gives them the legitimacy to carry on with their ideas and present it to the future generations to come. However, how does a nation confront its past when it has been a victim of the mistakes of its own people? Is it prudent to forget such a past, glossing over it and covering up the mistakes done by its people? Or should the nation be constantly reminded of the wrong road once taken, to ensure that the same path is never trodden again. This is where precisely art comes in, as it does not allow people to forget, the follies of God’s greatest creation.

When nations are under conflict, along with war and the loss of their identity, many things have been confiscated from the people: not only their homes and their possessions but also their memory. It’s an invisible loss which one fails to see in the state of misery and obvious losses. However, it is a loss which is far more important, for it exists in the realm of the mind, a territory often considered difficult to access. Moreover, war by its nature is made to be a human condition which encourages amnesia, which leads us to a situation where we erase one memory and construct a new one – we are forever in a state of enforced amnesia and enforced remembrance.

But most importantly, the arts intend to explore the critical questions: What is history and what is memory, what is personal and what is collective memory? Collective memory arises out of the consciousness of the personal memory of people. However, collective memory can be erased and rewritten, constructed and reconstructed, confiscated and confiscated and deemed politically correct or incorrect. The constant struggle for the territory of collective memory is the reason behind the political and power struggle. So while the world mourns the losses the nation incurred, one must not forget that the misfortune of others is free and does not hurt. We may sympathize and pity, but it will be forever hard for us to comprehend the actual truth, to truly understand and comprehend the losses of the people. Collective memory is one such loss, which being multifaceted and complex could be grasped only by the people who have been victims. It could be safely said that while the nation intends to construct a new collective memory, through its art, a reconfestication of the lost collective memory is warranted.

Singapur - Ek Desi ki Yatra - I

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:53:00 +0000

With a bit of free time at hand,I have generously decided to unleash the tyranny of my spam mails onto the World Wide Web. It is to be noted that these mails have graced the inboxes of a few (many ?) kindred souls in the recent past. Buoyed by the success of these mails (Don’t ask for statistics, believe me!), I hereby wish to write here, with a few modifications.

Greetings from Camp Singapore (Couldn't Resist this!)

After a brilliant Hindi film climax like situation, I arrived in Singapore. The only difference was that I was trying to decide as to who was the villain. Me and my commonsense were trying to vie for being the Mugambo of this well crafted, unceremoniously shot movie titled “Singapur – Ek Desi ki Yatra”. I shall shed light on my innocence (read: Ignorance) on some red moon day. As for the film, you should lower your expectations considerably, because it has all the offerings of a nonsense flick, unless nonsense makes sense to you. Whatever be the case (and since you have already read so much), I shall take you through the movie, starting with the “Entry”

*Music in background, foreground etc*

With his head held high, he steps into the Changi International Airport (It was preceded by a few hours of frantic calling, cursing and wtf moments as he did not have a Visa to enter Singapore, 6 hrs prior to the scheduled departure). But since he is the Hero, he always manages things at the last moment, overcoming the evil designs of the villain (That would be me again). He smartly boards the SMRT, and gets off at the station near the university.

But his evil adversary, who would be my commonsense again, won the battle. He boarded the wrong bus and ended up in another part of the campus. Not bad you would say, if you omit the fact that he had to drag over 30kgs of luggage for the odd kilometer at midnight. Anyways, reached and crashed onto my bed.

*Suddenly remembers he is a business student, and he is making a movie & gets haunting images of Choti making Dhai kilo ka haath dance . Decides that like a true powerpoint bhakt, he shall now write in bullet points only !

Had our orientation and met almost all the exchange students on Campus, about 170 of them. I won’t bore you with the list of countries, but met people from Iran, Bangladesh, Norway, Sweden, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Denmark, Philippines, Netherlands, UK, US, Canada and a few Desis too!

Later in the evening, we went out with an American and Phillipino to 7107 Flavours, a restaurant dedicated to Philipino cuisine. Rowena ordered all the food and it was brilliant,

Geeky stuff: 7107 is the number of islands that make up the Philippines. Hence the name

As Chacha would like it, a few key learnings or Constructs from my first days here

1. It’s very easy to talk to people if you know about their History, Culture and Music. Though I am hopelessly challenged with the latter, I do a decent job at the former. Its good fun to ask a Swede why there is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics and he wouldn't know. You tell him and he will remember you for sure

2. Having varied experiences helps a lot. I am a Mechanical Engineer, with IT work Experience, Studying Communications management, majoring in marketing and thanks to mathew have some knowledge of social sciences. Breaking the ice becomes much easier.

3. Indian currency - Koi Izzat nahi hai .. Such a weak currency :(

4. Whenever abroad, make travel plans with Firangs. These people have traveled so much that they can work out plans with shoestring budgets.

As I wrapped up my first days in Singapore, I had a feeling that I am in for a good time. And did I? Well, keep watching this space for the same.

Wanderings of a Bookaholic

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:28:00 +0000

A long wait like this has to be broken on an instinct. The blog has been lying dormant ever since I returned, so I thought the best way to get things rolling would be to talk about something which has been on my mind ever since I picked up Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse. Having read him earlier, I had an inkling of what I could expect, knowing his inclination towards eastern mysticism, but the book delivered much more than I expected. Fiction does not catch my imaginations as much as non fiction does, but once in a while I come across an author who completely blows me away.

And in the recent past, I have managed to find three such masters, about one of whom fera says has an effect of making the reader go back to the themes, all the time, it’s like being in the eye of the tornado. The greatest quality about these people, is not their ability to hold your interest, which is a difficult job in itself, but its their ability to make you realize, with each passing moment, that these men have far surpassed their craft, are beyond setting benchmarks for others to achieve, gone beyond scratching the surface and revealing the undercurrents, those swirling mystical designs, intriguing and captivating and sometimes thoroughly confusing. What they have managed to achieve is transporting the reader into a universe, not created by them, but created by the reader himself. I have hardly seen my imagination firing all cylinders until I stumbled upon them.

The experience so reminds me of rivulets, the tiny off shoots of rivers, who branch away from the main river only to rejoin in the end. During their existence, they have a semi fluous identity, one governed by the obstacles it finds in its path, and yet governed by the mother river, because its course has also been decided by the mother. As one delves into the writings of these men, you feel like a rivulet. They completely overpower your senses and make you float in an ephemeral world, but the joy this ephemeral submission to their thoughts is long enough to keep your head spinning in and out of consciousness. Your identity in those fleeting moments is not identified by who you are but with the way the author decides to play with your mind. You end up playing a mind game in which you don’t have an identity of your own, just like the rivulet, is made up of this contradicting duality, one fighting to deny the truth, the other meekly acquiescing to the very obvious.

But beyond all this, the one single thing which puts them into a different league altogether is their ability to jolt you out of your lives, the times when you thought the whole world would pause and ponder over the words of these masters, and try to assimilate an infinitesimally small bit of it into your own self. But what is even more fascinating is that all three of them do it in starkly different ways, each so brilliant in their own way. It does make me think of a question asked millions of times in the past, what is the right way to reach God? But again isn’t God another way which asks you to look within, something which stimulates your thoughts, makes you think about things which normally don’t merit a second look or conveniently forget. So if three of god’s own creations themselves manage to do so in entirely different ways, I already have my answer for the right path to reach Him. The right path is always the one you choose.

This post was supposed to be a review of the above mentioned book, and yet again, they have managed to play mind games with me, and I end up writing something which I never intended to.

The Vietnam Experience : A few questions

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:23:00 +0000

This post comes a bit late, yet is very much relevant for the world we live in today. I have been traveling a bit around South East Asia lately, and War tourism was something I always wanted to do. The best start would obviously be Cambodia and Vietnam. So off I went into these two beautiful countries to explore an area which holds immense interest for me.

Why wars has been a topic of interest in the recent past, more so because of the increasingly conflict ridden world we reside in. The finest thinkers of the day have expressed themselves on the topic, with often diametrically opposite viewpoints. Samuel Huntington, in The Clash of civilizations states that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post cold war era. Amartya Sen, in his book Identity and Violence: The illusion of destiny argues that the root cause of all the violence is when people see each other with singular affiliations (Hindu or Muslim, in the Indian context) rather than having multiple affiliations. Yet another viewpoint is the one put forward by Paul Berman, in his book Terror and Liberalism says that distinct cultural boundaries do not exist in the world anymore.

But more recently, in the past 50 years, we have seen wars being fought for primarily ideological reasons. The Vietnam war was fought so that America could contain the spread of communism across the world. In their race for world domination, they have left behind a legacy which no American wants to inherit. My first stop in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) was the War Remnants Museum. I always felt the war was unjust, but the visit to the museum was all it took for me to realize that this was much worse than I thought. The next two hours I spent there made me realize what a contradiction our lives are. We fight wars to achieve peace. But is the peace we attempt to achieve, the promise of the a better and safer tomorrow, worth the human cost we pay. And I have not even begun to question the methods we adopt. Is it an inherent trait within the human race, that we can thrive only on conflict ? The hunger for power and recognition is something which has led to the doom of man, for countless centuries we have been fighting wars under some pretext or the other. These wars are fought on the pretext of national pride. Is patriotism an albatross around our neck ? I guess I have been asking far too many questions, as always. Even if nations can justify a military offensive by harping about national security, what cant they justify is the means to the end.

Looking at the pictures of the victims is something which should always make one think. What is it about power and patriotism that make an average citizen into a war supporting moron is the moot question. The pictures in the museum are a testimony of a race gone wrong, a tale of how the most intelligent species on the planet has managed to find a way to annihilate itself, how we have developed mechanisms within our society to ensure that we do not progress as a species, how we have managed to achieve what evolution, disease and hunger were trying hard to do over the past years. The destructive mentality of man and his selfishness to the core ensures that for his immediate gain, he will conveniently overlook the mayhem he creates in the process. The concept of the dignity of human life seems like something which only academicians have the time to think over. When one man decides that another one is not in his definition of mankind anymore, he forgoes all his inhibitions, turns a deaf ear to his conscience and executes a mindless act he shall repent when the adrenaline rush is long gone by. When a country decides that in order to prevail, it is wise to adopt a burn all, kill all, destroy all we must understand that we have come to a point that our so called intelligence has deserted us. When a human life becomes a mere statistic, and is treated as number devoid of all human and emotional association, when one country thinks that it she is superior than the other, and the citizens of the latter are lesser mortals, when a nation feels the need to educate, liberate or civilize another one, when one culture is seen superior to another, when the value of each life is not at par, we must understand that we are surely spiraling towards a society we never wanted. Neither we dreamed of it, we did not plan to work towards it, no one really desired it but our actions have finally bequeathed it to us. Our actions cannot be justified under any pretext as this is something that has to go beyond all cultivated intelligence. On the ground, it boils down to instinct. When spontaneity takes its course and instinct rules our actions, we must realize that we are no better off than animals. That is according to me the final downfall of our culture, civilization and our supposed intelligence.

If you were wondering what made me write such a post, you can check out the pics here. I would like to warn you that they may be a bit depressing, as a friend of mine found out. http://picasaweb.google.com/utsavmamoria/IndependencePalaceReunification#

A Day, A film and Reflections

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:07:00 +0000

Expectations are funny things. The more you have them, someone, somewhere is secretly working so that they are never realized. You accept this fact and accommodate it into your daily workings It is indeed interesting as to how we seamlessly accommodate unwritten rules into our lives, which would have seemed absurd and out of place otherwise. Is this a resignation to fate or an acceptance of reality, practicality at its best ? Whichever way we see it, there is no escaping it. One lowers his expectations sometimes, and just accepts the way things are thrown at him. But then once in a while, comes a moment that completely throws you off balance, leaves you stunned and it takes some time for the feeling to sink in. I am probably reeling under such a situation now.

On a Friday afternoon, after a guest lecture on the gaming industry, I dropped in one of the innumerable lecture theaters here to watch the screening of an Israeli movie, Seeds of Summer directed by Hen Lasker. As you might know, Israel is the only country in the world which has a compulsory military service for women. One is expected to serve a military in some way, not necessarily as combat soldiers. At the young age of 18, girls are drafted and undergo rigorous training. The movie is about the girls who voluntarily underwent combat training over a period of 66 days. Shot by Hen Lasker, who herself underwent this training a few years ago, and returned to capture the lives of these girls on film.

The next 63 minutes were a feast for the senses. The movie looks at the lives of the girls in two ways, one is the metamorphosis of 18 year old girls into fierce combat soldiers, who until a few days ago would have been happy handling a hair drier, today handle guns with ease. But more interestingly, it explores the personal lives of the girls, and how in a closed environment, feelings of infatuation and love develop between them. In an environment set by masculine codes, the way female intimacy is developed is a pleasure to watch. The director, who fell in love with her commander while in training, in a conversational manner, chronicles the lives of these girls, their complex interpersonal relationships, their joys and sorrows, their acceptance to change happening within themselves and the maturity they possess at such a young age. I wouldn't review the movie for you, as I don't consider myself qualified to do so. I was extremely thrilled to watch the movie. But I realised the best was yet to come.

As the screening ended, no one was moved. Not because they were so taken in by the film, more because they knew more was in store. A young woman walked up to the center and introduced herself. My jaw dropped. Hen Lasker herself! She thanked us for attending the screening and opened the floor to questions. Following are my recollections, and I am not quoting this verbatim.

She was asked about how it is to be in the training. She replied that it was indeed interesting as to how its a common point/base for all Israelis to talk about. How it is almost impossiblt to prepare onself mentally for this kind of training. Then a professor asked her this

" In the context of the movie, there is an unknown enemy that lurks in the background. How do young people deal with the concept of the enemy and how does this training effect them as individuals ?"

The fact that there is an enemy has altered our lives forever. Our children today are more mature than children elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, this isn't something we chose. They have lost a part of their childhood, to war and to reality. They have been born in a world where conflict is the norm. A day doesn't go by that the thought that we are in a perpetual state of war doesn't cross our minds. In Israel, war is a reality, something we confront everyday. The way the war has scarred us is something I will never be able to put into words.

She broke down.

Her colleague took over. She talked about how people after the draft, save money to travel, to see the world, to restore a sense of sanity within themselves. Military service is not something which comes naturally to everyone. They choose to try out different drugs, just to forget what they have seen, returning after a few years to become normal citizens. War to them is more than television news. Its a way of life, which they had to choose. I am not trying to take sides in the conflict, but trying to tell things as they are. After the talk, I went and spoke to her. I had a million questions running in my head, but none seemed appropriate for something which was so sensitive to her. I decided not to probe any further, as I felt it would have been just heartless to do that. I wonder if peace is a concept people in Israel understand or probably they understand it better than all of us.

I ask again. Is this a resignation to fate or an acceptance of reality, practicality at its best ?

Somehow the question seems irrelevant.

The Indonesian Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:23:00 +0000

The travel bug has bitten me. First Stop: Palau Bintan and Batam, Indonesia. I realize that I haven't written a travelogue ever, so wondering what to write here. The space belongs to me, so I shall rant on.

As I write, It has been just over 24 hours since I returned to Singapore. The experience has been unique, enriching and memorable. I will just leave you with 4 photos, my pick from the trip which I feel would sum up my experience.

I took this one in Palau Bintan at the resort we stayed at. The photo reminds me of everything Indonesian, the beautiful tiny islands which make up the country, amazing weather, the hardworking and honest people, the constant struggle between tradition and modernity, the want to leave behind the past and move into the future. A nation stranded on the shore, weighed down by its history, buckling under the pressure of its own expectations. Watching from the sidelines as the world rushes past them, waiting for things to happen, waiting for change, living in hope and dying in despair. A dot in the sky, a speck in the ocean.A boat that's forever docked, waiting for the oceans to calm down, held by flimsy support, tattered by the forces of nature. A future always under construction, a dream that never really took off, the design that never left the drawing board.

An average Indonesian, travels by ferry daily, and is more worried about a million other things we can ever think of. Except what is on his shirt. I don't know if I should laugh or cry, or whether its ironical or sarcastic, maybe just my lens is a bit too coloured. It reads

"When Absolutely, Positively has to be destroyed overnight, US MARINES"

He is probably to oblivious to what the shirt says. Probably he needs a lesson in History. To tell him what the world has done to Indonesia. Or worse what Indonesia could not learn. The oppressed became the oppressor. They collaborated. What they did to East Timor or the 100,000 people who died will not be forgotten. The scars run deep. Time heals everything, but memories don't fade away easily.Can Indonesia ever forgive the Japanese or the world? Can East Timor ever forgive Indonesia? Will we ever learn from our follies and learn to forgive and forget? We all need to.

Photo Courtesy : Rowena Sace

A little girl at the Tangung Uban terminal. Cute that she is, she wanted to take photos with us and we happily obliged. After the photos, when we were about to leave, she asked us for money. I wondered, that here she is, trying to make a living, when she could have been enjoying her childhood. I didn't feel cheated or annoyed or angry, just felt sad. That's the future of Indonesia working when she should be not. Circumstances force us to make choices which are often wrong, and only correct in the best interest of the times. But time is fickle and shows its back as it walks away. It is just a silent collaborator, watching as we go about our business, smirking at our choices, giggling at our indecisiveness. So what, as humans should we do, to deal with circumstances and choices we make and the ones we should have made. A lifetime goes away in regrets not the things we did, but things we did not do, the risks we did not take. But for her, what choices does she really have?

Photo Courtesy : Rowena Sace

At a restaurant in Bintan. This trio of teenagers just burst onto the scene and started to sing and dance. Though I couldn't understand a word, I loved it. The moment they finished, we applauded and one could see them beaming with pride. It wasn't money that they played for. They just played for the pure joy of music. It was the appreciation and recognition they were looking for. Much like their motherland. Trying to stand apart from the crowd, trying not to drown in the shouting and noise, trying to tell the world that they need to be taken seriously. A race which needs to be heard. It gives me immense hope that the world can be a better place, when people try to be happy despite their circumstances.

Indonesia to me, inspite of its circumstances, is an Enigmatic Contradiction.

Six Random Things

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:26:00 +0000

I have been tagged by my fellow MICAn, fellow Chennuy, fellow Accenture-ian, fellow PaGaL, fellow short-film-about-future-of-humanity maker Deepak Gopalakrishnan to write six random things about myself on my blog. Apparently this is some long-running game, which just goes to prove that there are enough number of jobless people to keep blogdom going! Representing a section of this disadvantaged population, I shall do the same.

Anyway, here are the rules:

1. I shall write 6 random things, and 'tag' six people to continue this
2. They shall proceed to write six random things, and 'tag' six random people
3. They shall intimate me when done

Six Random Things about me

1. The latest food obsession is Honey dipped dates.

2. As a kid, I always wondered why doesn't the water from the oceans fall down into space, if the earth is round. (I still wonder, you expect me to believe all that Gravity mumbo jumbo!)

3. I don't like putting a bedsheet on my bed.

4. I secretly pray that god punishes people who say that reading is a hobby for them and all they have read is "Sidney Sheldon"

5. I absolutely love washing clothes if there is a washing machine around. I actually get a kick out of it.

6. Sushmita Sen is the sexiest, smartest , sanest ..... Indian woman ever

And the axe falls on

Aditi
Dream Catcher
Pragnya
Bhaskar
Amlan
Satyakam

P.S: This is my shortest post ever !

Anatomy of a B school Class

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Though I can endlessly talk about how is life at MICA ( I do promise to dedicate a post to that, now that I have actually pulled myself to writing a post), beyond the hallowed portals of any good school and the rosy picture all aspirants create in their heads, lies a harsh reality which mere mortals like me have to confront on a daily basis. A picture which has all the emotions of a bollywood potboiler power packed in a matter of 90 minutes. Its the apparently exciting portrait of a regular class, which is supposed to be an event where work experience is leveraged in class participation, insights are obtained in moments of truth and collective learning is a way of life. Fortunately, at MICA most of the classes are somewhere near to what I just described. Fortunately( which gives me an opportunity to break my blog coma), some are not. I would thus like to bring to you some startling findings in light of my recent experiences and complex analysis of my study. ( I am getting better at pffaf!)

Lets switch from my gyaan to our lovely bodies. The human body has a few organs like the appendix. These apparently serve no purpose. But they still have the ability to cause immense pain and suffering. A boring class is just like the appendix. The purpose of its existence is yet to be fathomed by innocent and naive students like us. Maybe its a part of some larger order of things , maybe it is a part of the grand design. As of now, it just gives me an opportunity to wonder as to why we are trying to relive Auswitch.

The Boring Class can be broken down into its respective organs, namely

1. The Brain: Considered the most vital organ for meaningful existence, the faculty assumes the position of the brain, who has suffered from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, selective amnesia etc, and yet considers himself indispensable for the ideological upliftment of half confused half dazed bunch of pseudo intellectual morons, who are wondering where did Herbert Spencer go wrong with Survival of the fittest theory?

2. The Heart: The Subject. Which we are subjected to and later subjugated to. Its just a humongous cute kid who just ends up being caught in the wrong body. It tries pumping sense into the brain, knowing very well that its all it can do. But then , the heart has reasons reason knows nothing of.

3. The Rest of the Body: Obviously, the aforesaid morons. I wont go into vivid descriptions about these mutated earthlings. But each of us can assume specific parts, as I shall deliberate later

Brace yourself, the giant monster of this body is up. 9:00 am

The brain decides that it his noble duty to ensure that the body parts function effectively. So it starts off its discourse. Now, as they say, do baatein ho sakti hain.

Baat 1

Its a monologue. The supreme being has decided that today is an extremely important topic and discussions may lead us to a bottomless pit of uninformed opinions and half baked concepts. The faculty exercises , what I call the " Learned mans burden" and goes on to enlighten our tottered souls with pearls of his wisdom. Meanwhile, the heart is about to go into cardiac arrest. The body parts have lost all sense of what is happening around them, and thus they speak ( equivalent to passing notes in class)

I feel like a soldier who is in the line of fire, the first regiment to face the enemy attack, to face the first bullets.

This man is the personification of the word ennui. His voice lulls me into a sense of absurdity and non sensibility and I write statements like these

My chief organ - the brain is reorganising itself if he goes on another 5 minutes talking about organisational restructuring

How would you like to die !

He is going to break the record for the longest pauses between sentences.

The last nail in the coffin! All I wanted was diagrammatic gas

This is a dark, dark world we live in. We have all been caught for thought crime and this is our punishment.

And then, when it becomes too much to bear

The Lord compels me to call upon the pro literate to punish the sinner, the wicked man, the child of Satan, because of whom, the hour of doom is upon us. Arise, awake and stop not until the death of our minds is bereaved

With all this and everything else, the poor student suffers from the Buttered CAT paradox. Most of you will not click on an embedded link, let me provide an explanation.

The Buttered Cat paradox is combination of two adages:

Cat always land on their feet.
Buttered toast always falls on the buttered side down

The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height.

As the cat falls towards the ground, it will slow down and start to rotate, eventually reaching a steady state of hovering a short distance from the ground while rotating at high speed as both the buttered side of the toast and the cat’s feet attempt to land on the ground.

The Poor Student Paradox ( by yours truly)

You will feel sleepy in a horrendously boring class
The faculty will only catch you sleeping amongst all others

The poor student is forever stuck between falling asleep, thus saving him from the agony of seeing his IQ getting sucked up slowly and being awake so that he has the most important commodity in a b school: Attendance. He thus goes into an infinite loop of battling his own thoughts.

Somewhere in between the class ends. Amen

If you still remembered that there is a Baat 2, hope that I post again.

Between the lines

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:59:00 +0000

A post long overdue

Ramblings of a colorful hue

The moods ranging from Red, White and Blue

The flavor of a perfect brew

The start of something new

August 2003 – April 2007:

The best years of my Life. Found a wonderful group of friends and a superb bunch of seniors. Whatever I am today, I owe it to these guys. I felt that I couldn’t have better Mentors and Companions in the formative years of my life. I realized the advantages of studying in a NIT.

Somewhere in my 3rd year, I started my preps for CAT. I took up CAT because I realized technical stuff is not my cup of tea. So took the default CAT route. Meanwhile discovered PG .Browsed a lot but hardly posted. During my 3rd year got an opportunity to work with The Times of India. I worked as a freelancer for almost a year. That’s where I developed an inclination towards Media. But as the one year passed, I realized that though I was good at writing, content creation was not what exactly I was looking for. I felt I needed to go beyond the content part and more into the business, planning and execution side of it. But I had a zilch idea of how to go about it. One day, my mentor at IMS talked about going for niche institutes like TISS, IRMA and MICA. I went and checked PG and found threads dedicated to MICA. I was able to see some enthusiastic aspirants talking about trying hard to get in. I developed contacts with Chuck_gopal and he told me a lot about MICA those days, taking the pains of answering my stupid queries, though he himself was an aspirant. Slowly, I started getting inclined towards MICA. As time flew past my fascination only grew.

Nov 2006:

Took CAT, did ok and ended up with a 95.xx. All hopes of getting into a regular MBA were dashed. I still had MICA in my hand. I started my preps for MICA GE/PI and did what a usual aspirant does. By then, I had already been converted into a MICA fanatic. I was pretty confident of making it to MICA as I felt I had done my bit (or so I thought). And how wrong I was! Had a decent MICAT and GE (Group Exercise). But the PI was just okayish and they didn’t really ask me anything. When the results came out, I was shocked. I didn’t make it. Following is my blog entry post result.

http://utsavmamoria.blogspot.com/2007/03/boulevard-of-broken-dreams.html

I consoled myself saying that I still have a good job at hand. Graduated and joined Accenture at Chennai in June 2007.

The Chennai Phase:

The time I spent in Chennai was superb courtesy puys. I was lucky again to find a wonderful peer group in them. I got back to serious preps in August and took the Sim Cats. This time around I was much clearer in my head. I was taking CAT with the sole intention of getting into MICA. I was doing decently in my mocks. I wrote CAT 2007 and felt I did ok .But when I came back and checked my answers; I was in for a shock. I fared pathetically in Verbal and DI. All my hopes of getting into MICA came crashing down. I went ahead and filled my MICA form. I was damn pissed with myself and wrote the following mail to chuck

I have checked my scores.
And after checking them, I don’t think that MICA would be interested in giving me an interview call.
I have screwed up royally in DI and Verbal keys are ambiguous as usual. So it seems that my dream of getting into MICA will have to wait.
I was reading Shantaram the other day and i came across a line there.
"Luck is what happens when fate gets tired of waiting "

Sincerely hoping that IIM's feel that I deserve a better Verbal score
and MICA feels I deserve to get in.
But all that will have to wait, because things don’t seem to be
happening well this time around.
Still going ahead and filling the MICA form. Will require your inputs on that.

I didn’t prepare a thing after this. But I still had faint hopes in my heart. So religiously worked on my MICA form.

CAT results were out. I was in for another shock. A pleasant one at that. My Verbal % ile rocketed to 97.xx thus pushing my overall %ile to 94.xx. I felt redeemed. I jumped into MICA preps and was consumed by a passion like none other. I did extensive preparations for my GE/PI, even to the extent of devouring a text on Media prescribed by MICA for Term I. I researched heavily on MICA and worked on each word of my MICA form. I just wasn’t ready to take any chances.

13th March 2008.

The Big day

Here goes my PI Experience

The 3 Panelist were
R1-----> Richa Agarwal
R2------> Rita Kothari
H ------> Hemant Trivedi
PWB ---> Yours truly the Prodigious Willing Bakra

Moi Enters and greetings exchanged.

H- Utsav, you are from Anand, so tell me which river flows near Anand.
PWD - Mahi River

H- No, there is another river which flows tell me about it.
PWD - No Idea

H - its ...Took a name which i had never heard in my life
[Checked with people in Anand.. no one has heard of it either ]

R1 takes over

R1- You career Path is Mechanical Engg----> Software------> MICA ? Where are you heading

PWB- Gave a very honest answer. Took Engg because that was the best option available to me after 12th.Told her about taking an IT job because could not make it to MICA last year.

H takes over again

H - You have studied in Surat (NIT Surat). Were you there when the floods came last year? Why did the floods come?

PWB - Told about administrative apathy. Releasing cusecs of water blah blah. About water being not released after it crossed the danger mark.

H- I think every housewife has an earthen pot at her home. She knows when to close/open the tap of her earthen pot. What were the 'engineers" doing. That’s just basic commonsense. What use is their engineering then? Anyone could have done that job

PWB - Sir, One needs commonsense to open close the Dam gate, but one requires expertise to determine what the Danger level is. That’s where engineering comes in

H - Utsav, Tell me something about the different types of gates in a Dam
PWB- Sir

H repeats the question

PWB- Told him about that being a part of civil engineering, Me a Mechanical Engineer

H grilled me more on all that

R 2 takes over

R 2 - You worked for the response feature in TOI. What was your work all about?
PWB - Had a nice discussion with her on that.

R 2 - Why don’t you like self help books? (Form based dislikes)
PWB - Talked about books being written from a very personal perspective. Most authors US based. Themes not identifiable with Indians yada yada.

R 2 - Your mom is a PhD?
PWB - Yes Maam

R 2 - Which subject and what was her thesis topic?
PWB - Hindi - Ram kavya parampara main prakriti chitran

R 1, R 2, H - Can you please explain that ?
PWB - Explained them the thesis topic.

R 2 - What about your dad, Is he also a Ph D?
PWB - Yes Ma'am

R 2 - So who do you relate to more, your mom or dad?
PWB - Told Mom. Dad passed away when I was 10.

R 1 , R 2, H - Oh
R 2 - What books do you read ?
PWB - Talked about fiction, non fiction , authors etc

R 2 seemed satisfied

R 1 takes over again

R 1 - I think you are a waste of National Resources
PWB - Maam I didn’t get you

R 1 You have wasted an engineering seat in a good college . It could have gone to a deserving student.
PWB - talked about learning, and the development of thought process yada yada

R 1 - You don’t deserve to be a software engineer in an organization like Accenture
PWB - Talked about company must have invested in me only if they saw potential, told that can give any other software engineer a run for his money

R 1 - What do you do in your free time.?
PWB - Talked about thinking and observing things around me. Talked about Why Tiger woods is our Brand Ambassador, Branding of Accenture etc (The only MICA relevant thing I felt )

R 1 - Thank you Utsav, You can leave now

Somewhere in the middle, talked about my work and security of a career. Forgot some part.

Nothing on Media Management, on MICA, Favorite Ads, Hated ads, expectations from MICA

Came out. I lost appetite. Met some other MICAns I knew.

After the horrible interview, I felt like killing myself. I think my reaction to the interview had two different but yet similar (I Know sounds confusing) aspects to it.

The Knee jerk reaction: The moment I came out of the interview, I felt I blew it. The feeling was so overpowering at that very moment, so intensely it manifested itself, that it took me by surprise. I felt that a strange void had developed in me or rather enveloped me, in those 20 minutes. A void which was so devoid of any hope or even a faint streak of faith which was like an empty dried up well in a parched land. The well had always been providing for its people, quenching their thirsts, on which the life of the people depended. The fate and condition of the well was directly linked to those of the people. One fine day, they discover that the well is dry. It’s now just a deep ditch, in which the future of the people totters, dirtying itself in the messy muddy water that has been left for it. The future is not perennially damaged, as the mud can be washed off. But the appearance it dons presently is enough to give one an outlook of a bleak future, a terrifying end and a start of truckload of problems staring at me point blank.

The second reaction: The one of a more logical and rational analysis of the situation. Unfortunately that didn’t happen either, at least not completely. All the preparation I had done, all the hours of hard work put in , all the little sacrifices I made, All the hours of brainstorming that went in, came rushing back to me. The only thought which came to my head: So much for just these shitty 20 minutes. The mistake I made was a very simple one: I expected way too much. I expected the perfect interview. I fell into the trap, of hoping that things will go the way I imagined, the way I planned. I set the bar so high for myself, I set an unrealistic expectation, which in the heart of my hearts, knew will not happen. My escapist tendencies got the better of me and I refused to see things as they were. I was not ready to accept, that yet again, luck had played out its neat little game. Luck is a mistress from the far away lands. You hear great stories of its beauty, its glory, its power to sway fortunes, conquer kingdoms, annihilate people, humble the haughty and you see all this as an innocent bystander. You are secure at the back of the mind, that you are shielded from its fickle actions. You accept that hard work can get you anywhere, irrespective of whether the lady favors you. Then, one fine day, when you are at the precipice of your destiny, she swoops in from nowhere, blindfolds you and spins you around. It then expects you to reach your target, minus the focus, minus the determination, minus the direction and most importantly the faith. You, who were sitting on a gold mine a little while ago, are now more like an average Californian during the Gold Rush, who just came in with equipments, having as much idea about mining as you have of figuring out why you are still reading this rambling of mine.

21st March:

Exactly 1 year after last years reject, got a message from Chuck saying that the results are out. He asked me to check my mail. There I found a mail from the Admissions which said

To: UTSAV
Form #: 5656

Dear UTSAV

Congratulations! You have been selected for the PGPCM 2008-2010.

My mind went blank. I just stared into the screen like an Idiot. I was now a MICAn.

A few Learning’s:

1.Don‘t take CAT too seriously. It’s just an exam. There is life beyond CAT and the IIM's.

2. Never buckle under pressure. I learnt this from my mom, who single handedly brought up my elder sister and me without anyone’s support. I feel my task was much much easier than hers.

3. Accept failure. Understand why you failed. Move on.

4. You are probably 20/25/30. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t kill yourself for failing in life. We all fail. It all boils down to how hard we take on ourselves.

5. Keep focus, especially if you are aiming for a niche institute. You will have your moments of self doubt, the lure of going for a regular MBA, Fat salaries. Be prepared to take the risk of taking up a niche course. Battle your insecurities. All this because you are still ahead of most people. You already know what you want to do.

Someone asked me: Now what? You have achieved what you wanted. So what’s next?

Dreams are not just to be achieved. They are to be lived once they turn into reality. It’s the culmination of all the effort you put in. The thrill of wanting something and then getting it is unparalleled. In these 22 revolutions the earth has made, I have realized, failure is not fatal, and Success is not final. They are not final points in our lives, they are just milestones, indicating that the road is yet to traveled and unraveled. What ultimately counts is what you gain from the chasm of time between these milestones, between success and failure.

P.S Oops!! For the uninitiated : MICA

He Amen : Mastur of the Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:28:00 +0000

Someone asked me the other day “What does one do to stay motivated?” Unfortunately, the person in question was blissfully unaware of my current state of affairs at work. So there was hardly anything I could tell her. I was killing time at office, reading random stuff from the net. I chanced upon an article which was linked to religious extremism. The author had tried to explain that religion does play an important part in pushing people to extremism. I was thinking about what religion actually is? And as things were brewing up in my head, I saw the status message of Earth Shattering Researcher. The conversation starts with the “Earth Shattering Researcher’s” status message ( I dont recall it right now )

And since yours truly was absolutely jobless, his mind began to wander and he decided to make these lines into a poem with nice rhyming lines. What eventually turned out was something which was crazy,unpalatable and outrageous. Here Goes

me: I am the crappiest live sage

But I shall never age

and so true is the adage

Life is nothing but a maze

Earth Shattering Researcher: You on something?

me: Which shall never cease to amaze

Yaa I am jobless

Earth Shattering Researcher: No...you took the blue pill

you should have taken the red one

me: No pills for us

Lol

Earth Shattering Researcher: Those are the new craze

me: Never may die down the craze

me: Ahh similar thoughts

Earth Shattering Researcher: your illusions they'll raze

lift you outta the daze

me: and we are mere characters of the plays

Earth Shattering Researcher: and won’t let u be like cattle that graze

me: whose destiny is decided by the days

Fuck

Cattle ..lol

Earth Shattering Researcher:

So during work, why laze?

me: NO work ...so full time laze ...

this organization never ceases to amaze

Earth Shattering Researcher: yah

gotcha!

me: Yup sire bows applauds

Earth Shattering Researcher: See - thats Operation Random Brainfuck

me: Shit .. I thought I was bugged!! No wonder I keep seeing weird people following me all around, monitoring my moves, hacking into my IM conversations, I am sure they are being paid by the government to kill my genius and exploit me for their evil designs.

Santa Maria!! The whole fuckin machinery is into this

Earth Shattering Researcher: What you saw was an inkling of our power!

me: CONSPIRACY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Earth Shattering Researcher: Soon we will have the whole world make silly rhymes and shock them by not rhyming!

Then we can organize the shag-contest in peace

me: Oh Lord your disciples seek you

Earth Shattering Researcher:

They tarry too far from the path

Tell them to seek the pink dildo under the blue neon light

me: For there comes Earth Shattering researcher to wreck linguistic havoc

Earth Shattering Researcher: There will they find enlightenment

me: With his satanic gatherings ..he intends to dethrone you

But thou shall not falter my lord

Earth Shattering Researcher: My blessings are always with you...and for a price, my sperm too

me: Thou shall conspire against you

Earth Shattering Researcher: Go! Vanquish the evil anti-libertarians!

with the power of miserable rhymes!

me: For shagging is a religion beyond any, it surpasses and overpowers the differences of caste, creed, religion and race. It connects people on such a emotional and personal level

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah.. and universal in its outlook!

me: Its the way to salvation ..Encompassing one and all

Earth Shattering Researcher: With a far more important message than any other!

me: The message that doesn’t need any disciples or scriptures to stay alive

we need is built within us

The hormones..Those little angels

Earth Shattering Researcher: A message that wrenches the listeners heart and his penis...and makes them cry out in blessed salvation ... "i have to d"rop my load!!!

blessed is the horny for he shall inherit his father's unused condoms

me: He shall be the harbringer of a great legacy

Earth Shattering Researcher: thus spake the book of playboy

me: and thus the world saw the magic of the HAND

Earth Shattering Researcher:

thus was the yoke of the evil wenches cast off! and the horny slaves became free men!

me: The world went white .. With spluttering all around

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah...the people who came later called it the great stud's flood

me: And it was forever etched in the memory of the believer and the kaafir alike

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah!

me: What havoc could thy lord himself bring upon .the masses

Earth Shattering Researcher: We celebrate that day each year as "Shag day"

and a great contest was instituted on that day in memory of the great and terrible events wrought on that day

me: And for a true believer ..Every day is a shag day . For there is no time of the day to worship thy lord

Earth Shattering Researcher: so that future generations may always remember the power of shag but there are sects that claim it must be done 5 times a day

and some who do it once a week on sunday

me: Sects who claim are the strictest and most devout follower of the lord .. 5 times a day is Ideal

Earth Shattering Researcher: yeah

me: But alas!! So dark the Con of man

Earth Shattering Researcher:

so dark the cum of man u mean...

me: Yes thy Believer ..Thank you for getting me back on the path

For our faith for the lord is unwavering.. Our belief rock solid

Earth Shattering Researcher: look no further for thy salvation, its inside thy very own pants!

me: With our dicks head high .. We shall shag away to glory

And the world shall bathe in the shining light of thy Achievements..for we shall be spoken about in folklore

Earth Shattering Researcher: "They were the ones whom the Lord exalted among all other men by teaching the Power of Shag"

me: "They were the ones deemed worthy enough by the Lord to disSEMENeate his teachings"

Earth Shattering Researcher:

oi mamu i gtg now

prof's just come in

cya later

me: This is on my blog now

Sure thing :D

Earth Shattering Researcher: fuck no!

thats blashphemy innit!

at least change the names

me: Hey man i am pretty serious about putting this up

Ahh I shall take my creative liberties

Earth Shattering Researcher: cmon man...u gotta protect ur sources after all

me: Wokay .. One frustu softie engg ..to another bored MS student :P

Earth Shattering Researcher: :D

research assistant

me: ok fine

RA would do

Earth Shattering Researcher: or MS student will be better

me: So much for the Research :P

Earth Shattering Researcher: obscures it better

me: okies sire ..Signing off

The point of the conversation was nothing.But come to think of it,shagging is as much as a religion as any.Like Eastern school of thought, It asks you to look for salvation within, and tells you that you can find all the answers within yourself.It asks you to introspect and battle your own vices.Like the western school of thought, it asks you to let the devil out, and seek solace from a external messiah.All religions have the backdrop of the victory of good over evil, carefully woven into a story when the believer triumphs inspite of all odds.Any religion for that matter is simply a set of beliefs. Whether it’s followed/implemented is a different matter altogether. I know what I am taking is a very simplistic view of religion. But that’s what essentially religion means to most people today. We manipulate it for our convenience, seek it in times of frustration and need, forget it completely in times of glee and use it to as a means to a million ends. People who claim to be religious are either pseudo-religious or are totally unaware what religion stands for. Though I am the follower of “A world philosophy” by default, most people would like to embrace it as it’s convenient. It doesn’t ask you to adhere to a strict routine (If it does, I am blissfully ignorant) , doesn’t spell out the duties of a follower, gives you millions of gods to choose from , allows you an occasional birthday- exam-result-anniversary visit to the temple and you can still claim that you follow a religion. Most of us don’t care though, which is at least right, for we don’t try to perpetuate it. This post probably goes out to those people who believe in the “interpretation” of their religion.You simply use the line of reasoning I used to misuse it. For others, what the heck!! Do I need to make sense all the time.

P.S Title of post suggested by a friend :D

Tagging Tales

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:37:00 +0000

"You are tagged" . After endless chats and some Gyaan sessions from fellow Bloggers, I have finally understood what Tagging means. I also understand that I have to tag someone now. The last few weeks have been very strange for me. Almost a result a week and So-near- Yet- so-far-performances, I have realised that Indian B school Entrances are insanely competitive, mind numbingly unpredictable and absurdly unintelligible. Not a loser's rant though, having seen some amazingly wonderful people (Courtesy PG) bite the dust this year, it makes me wonder whether two B school Entrance seasons have made me any wiser. The fact remains that the art and science of convincing every B school, that I am the candidate to pick, has made me a tad wiser. But as Gabriel Garcia says "It is that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good", hoping that it helps me when I need it the most. Wisdom plays a beautiful game with you , with its sworn enemy being Ambition.Wisdom will behave like a well trained army, cunning in its strategies, thorough in its moves and perfect in execution. On the other hand, Ambition is a slave of guerrilla tactics, always in the hiding, unorganised, amateur and passionate, but more often than not catches wisdom off-guard. The battle is an endless one, with Wisdom ruled by practicality and Ambition driven by dreams. In this battle of epic proportions, no clear winner ever emerges. When elephants fight, its the grass that suffers. All our minds are simply battlegrounds and what we are today we owe it to these mighty elephants. Our Character and personality is shaped by the wounds inflicted in these battles.Wounds that should never heal and are never meant to heal.Wounds, no matter how painful and deep they are, have their right to be. Things will always be clear in hindsight, the future is always hazy because of the vagaries and the randomness of these elephants. What is required is to let them have their way, not because I believe in Destiny but because it works like a feedback mechanism. You are a reflection of your Wisdom and Ambition and vice versa.No one holds an edge, no one is smarter, they simply coexist.On this note, cutting short my wanderings, shall complete my tag from Pragnya now. We all have moved on but the memories of yesteryear's linger like the flavour of a well brewed Cuppa.

Ten Things I miss in Life Now( The prime numbered ones being missed most)

1. SVNIT ( The People, the Campus, The LAN, The Rickety Hostels!! )

2. Gujju's and Gujjuland, No seriously !

3. Unending Bakar sessions with G 8 and the T group .

4. Postponing my Next bath

5. Ghar ka Khana :)

6. The pure joy of being carefree, whiling away time in the Canteen

7. Reading Books at unearthly hours and end up bunking classes in the morning.

8. Gassing in Vivas in front of God Level Proffs

9. Anandalaya

10. Lack of Good Company at CCD, missing this tagger- My sincere Coffemate.

Ten Things I want to achieve in a Decade or so (The prime numbered ones being most aspired for)

1. A trip to Israel

2. Reading the most amazing books ever written and having my own library

3. Getting into MICA, and then going on to study at the best places in the World.

4. To be more respected than to be rich

5. Work with the BBC

6. Become an Active Alumnus

7. Coax mom into publishing her writings

8. Getting Engaged ( Trust me, that's Gonna be Tough :P )

9. Become an Addicted PaGaL

10. Own a chain of Bookstores to revive the Dying Art

P.S 1 is neither prime nor composite.

And Thou shall tag

Dream Catcher

Rani (Waiting for you to start)

Satyakam

Superstitions!! For the lack of a better topic

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:03:00 +0000

Ok I have been tagged and as Pragnya tried to explain me the whole concept ( Hats off to her..Phew patience lady) , all I could understand was the fact that people want me to update my blog. I am still trying to understand what the whole Idea is.Would have been great if I could use some PaGaLGuY emoticons here. People, Kindly enlighten.Anyways, here is a post from the past on superstitions. Promise to post something new soon.

What is common to the great Black Plague of Europe in the 14^th Century, Francis Bacon and his Sylva Sylvarum (FYI it is a name of his book), Tetra phobia and Triskaidekaphobia and Sigmund Freud? Voltaire once remarked “It is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.” The phenomenon has withstood the test of time and has been passed on from one generation to the other. It has been intricately woven into the fabric of our lives and most of us seldom think about it. But science and logic have always been locking horns with it and the battle between them has been an endless one.

Many intellectuals have also fallen into the tempting trap of superstitions. During the time of the Black Plague, Pope Gregory I the Great passed a law requiring people to say "God bless you" when somebody sneezed; this was said to prevent the spread of the disease and to cure whoever already had it. Francis Bacon (in his Sylva Sylvarum, X, 998) mentions that "it is constantly received and avouched that the anointing of the weapon that maketh the wound will heal the wound itself" This superstition was still in practice in eastern England in the 20th century: At Norwich, in July 1902 a woman named Matilda Henry accidentally ran a nail into her foot. Without examining the wound, or even removing her stocking, she asked her daughter to grease the nail, thinking that if this were done no harm would come of the injury. Within few days she died of lockjaw. The integer 13 for no faults of its’, bears the brunt of many superstitions. The fear of the number thirteen (13) is so pervasive that it even has its own term: triskaidekaphobia. The belief that thirteen brings bad luck has been an extremely pervasive belief throughout many societies, and is strong enough that many major hotels and high rises traditionally either build only twelve floors, or, if they want to go higher, skip labeling the 13th floor entirely! Many people refuse to stay on the 13^th floor, or in room 13. People stay home from work, for fear of something bad happening. Most airports don't have a thirteenth gate. And in Topeka, Kansas, where the zip code starts with 666, they skip from 66612 to 66614. The tradition of touching wood traces back to an ancient pagan belief. Spirits resided in trees, particularly Oaks, and that by knocking on or touching the wood, you were paying a small tribute to them by remembering or acknowledging them, and could call on them for protection against ill-fortune. Breaking a mirror or walking under a ladder would bring seven years of bad luck, left palm itching indicates monetary gain, the list is endless. Every culture has its own set of superstitions and beliefs, and superstitions are a reflection of our insecurities and inadequacies.

But if we delve deeper and look into the reasons as to why the human race is so much in love with superstitions, the results seem to be a tad surprising. Let me give you a sneak peek into this amazing world of superstitions. Superstitions could stem from various reasons and factors which include Gender, age, thinking styles and point of views, and most importantly parental and peer pressure. Mostly, our development from an innocent infant to a mature adult is largely influenced by people and the environment that surrounds us. “Conventional wisdom”, albeit questionable, is the single biggest reason as to why people are superstitious. We are bought up to accept some things at face value, especially if coming from an adult or a family member. They have been immortalized in folklore and. Another possible reason for our belief is a desire to control our lives and to cover up shortcomings. If you believe that you got rejected in an interview because a black cat crossed your path, you essentially have an escapist attitude and consoling yourself. Most superstitious people would argue that they have actually seen their superstitions come true. But that to me seems a classic case of ‘seeing only what you want to see’. The cat may have crossed your path a million times, and then nothing untoward happened. But the one time something went wrong, rejecting all past experiences, one would confirm their superstition based on this single and probably random event.

But if we see carefully, there seems to be a subtle undercurrent or connecting factor to all of the above explanations. Essentially, looming fear is the cause of superstitions. Consider the scenario, when people used to think that thunder and lightning indicate that god is unhappy. It is the fear of the unexplained, incomprehensible and the unseen that is the cause of superstitions. Once people understood that lightning is due to the attraction of highly charged particles in the atmosphere, the belief died a slow but certain death. When we fail to conduct scientific enquiry, we tend to believe any wild goose theory that is thrown at us. It is our pessimistic and dim outlook towards things in life that makes us cling to such beliefs, as they provide us with answers, no matter how improbable, and soothe our nerves. To calm our fears of failure, rejection and essentially the unexplained, the mind sees these explanations as plausible.

As long as one has silly ones like crossing the fingers for good luck, superstitions make life interesting. But I wonder if Matilda Henry would beg to differ. But will superstitions find a place in this fast developing and scientific world, the one where intense questioning of anything and everything is the norm? The question I believed is best answered by Robert Means Lawrence in his book The Magic of the Horse-Shoe “The world moves and civilization progresses, but the old superstitions remain the same. The rusty horse-shoe found on the road is still prized as a lucky token, and will doubtless continue to be so prized; for human nature does not change, and Superstition is a part of human nature.”

Shantaram: Writings and Beyond

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:56:00 +0000

Just finished reading Shantaram. In case you know me or have stumbled upon my blog from somewhere on the net, I’ll let you know that I love reading, to the point of being crazy about it. But very few books have so brilliantly, subtly and mysteriously intrigued me to the point that I am writing this at 3 am in the night. I don’t want to review the book or tell you about its plot, which you can anyways find here. What I felt like writing about are the beautiful quotes in the book. Reading them I felt as if he has packed his life's experiences, his pain, his love, his musings and most importantly his learning’s in so few words. The insight shown in these quotes is not something one can pick up so easily; it probably requires one to go through a lot of things which we don’t like or through events which unexpectedly define the course of our life. We all ultimately want to think that we are the river, cutting across different terrains and making its own way, its own path and probably its own destination. But we ultimately end up being nothing more than a cascade, natural yet governed , important yet short lived, beautiful yet perishable, the contrast only too natural to see; yet never so visible to us, though its dancing stark naked, shouting at the top of its voice trying to be as conspicuous as possible. The most obvious things in the world are the ones most often missed. We fail to see things in retrospect, forgetting the value of experience, or again, perhaps not wanting to look back, for what we see in our past, are failures and sorrows. This brings me to a point where I feel I need to share with you some lines from this masterpiece of a book.

Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny precious wisdom they give to us, even those dreaded and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be.

Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn

Come to think of it, whatever we achieve and whatever we don’t are actually equally important to us. The victory is a kind of hope that good things happen, not by a twist of fate, but by conscious effort. The defeats are things which we ought to learn from, the wise, harsh teacher. Hope and wisdom are like unidentical twins; the pedigree being the same, yet a mutated gene is all that makes them different. Wisdom brings about hope, and hope allows us to stay foolish, and its this foolishness that keeps us going. Under the surface, if one scratches a little, one can find the connection too evident to see.

Sorrow is something I believe that everyman should face. We only count our blessings when all is lost, and it’s only possible for the cruelest of emotions to force man to think about his blessings. Only in the most depressing times, when one lays low and feels a churning in his stomach so strong that the feeling of being even something evades you totally, we just thank our stars for having people who love us, around us. We are essentially a thankless species. Period.

If fate doesn't make you laugh, you just don't get the joke

Fate’s way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed.

Fate always gives you two choices, the one you should take, and the one you do.

Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood exactly what he’d meant. He’d been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I’d always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as constant as the circuit of stars. But I suddenly realized that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter now good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love

I don’t want to spoil these words by giving you any interpretations. Just think about major turning points in your life and you will get the brutal and honest meanings of these lines. I just feel that accept some things as they are and try to change your fate. We sometimes adopt a to defeatist attitude towards life. Some things are not meant to be. Some things are meant to be only if we have the courage and the conviction to pursue them. The only difference between the two is the effort one puts in.

Personality and person identity are in some ways like co-ordinates on the street map drawn by intersecting relationships. We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them.

Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.

This is how important people are in our lives. There is not one word in these lines that I will not give my right arm for. I truly believe that I exist because of the people around me.

And for people who take life too seriously

The real trick in life is to want nothing, and succeed in getting it.

Truth is a bully we all pretend to like

The fully mature man or woman has about two seconds left to live.

If you make your heart into a weapon, you always end up using it on yourself.

And to understand what Mumbai or in general India is, the best of them all

I’m a Jew, French, criminal and gay; Bombay is the only city in the world that allows me to be all four at once - Dider Levy (A character in the book)

To top it all

The facts of life are very simple. In the beginning we feared everything - animals, the weather, the trees, the night sky - everything except each other. Now we fear each other and almost nothing else. No one knows why anyone does anything. no one tells the truth. No one is happy. No one is safe. In the face of all that is so wrong with the world, the very worst thing you could do is survive. And yet you must survive. It is the dilemma that makes us believe and cling to the lie that we have a soul, and that there is a god who cares about its fate.

Sivaji Experiences!!

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:38:00 +0000

Yes !!!!

I watched Sivaji.

Yes!!!

It was in Tamil.

Yes!!!

It had no subtitles.

Did I enjoy it ?

Well read on.

Now Albert Einstein once very rightly said

"Two things in the world are infinite- The Universe and Human Stupidity, and I am not sure about the Former."

I mean how dare I prove this great man wrong!!

One thing that these software companies are very good at doing is recruiting unsuspecting poor engineering kids and put them through a 2 month ill organised and executed training .As i was battling this very phenomenon, some very good Illad friends of mine ( No sarcasm intended) thought of getting away and bunking.Being the sport that I always am and given my awesome records at Mech Dept @ NIT Surat, I jumped at the idea. They planned to watch Sivaji.It got me thinking.The day I landed in Chennai, I have been seeing the Sivaji mania all around me.Every news channel worth its salt has been going Gung ho about this celebrated man, people paying a thousand bucks for just a show, Sivaji caller tunes, life size posters all around chennai, processions to celebrate the release,Images of people dancing on the streets as well as in the theatre,people coming from China and japan just to watch the first show of the movie, US cinemas running to full houses and people going really really Crazy.
I realised that I need to watch this movie just to see what is the whole mania all about, and not wanting to be the cat ( no not the CAT, you pathetic IIM chasing morons...ahem ahem which includes me too) who dies out of curiosity, i decided to jump into the bandwagon.So our ever resourceful Karthic sir booked the tickets online and my rendezvous with the superstar of the masses was set.

The setting: Abirami Theatre,Purashaiwakkam

The Guys: Ansar(My partner in all my foodie indulgences), Shankar(who always takes notes in class), Venkat(SVNITian, that's an introduction in itself :P) and Karthic sir(The know all do all guy)

The prodigious willing Bakra: Yours Truly

The time:3 30pm show (forgot the date actually)

Due to a horrendous mix up we missed the initial 10 minutes of the movie.Before I start with the movie, I had messaged some friends that I was going for it,here are some of the replies I got, reproducing them as they were

A friend currently posted in Hyderabad said

saale koi kaam dhanda nahi hai kya?

Another SVNITian and victim of the same training process said

Great...Just let me know what you understood in the movie.Great guts i must say :)

A eternally pissed off female JAVA resource at Accenture Chennai, who was left out of the party

I dont care utsav...I DON'T

My younger cousin

U are a deserving Candidate for the Red and White bravery Awards!
U better develop a taste for such films pata nahi kab tak dekhni pade

A very good coll senior and close friend

Gud job bro! I am proud of you

Another SVNITian

I am not at all surprised da.typically you. Audience must have been surprised to see a Phorener among them

Our G8 stud said

Abey u gne completely mad.shit yaar.
Horrendous act.U in some shock.Oh god

A very good SVNItian said

lolz hee hee
I am proud of you .u've done the unthinkable.U re a full blown Anna now
Simbly start lookin for yann moti aunty.

Other than "oh what is this firangi doing here" to " some over enthusiastic movie buff/research student" to "what the fuck!!!!" looks by the junta around,my transition to the theatre was ok.

Finally the Movie

The movie stars Rajni as a NRI who returns to his home state to set up schools, universities and industries etc to help his home state develop.But he faces lots of opposition from a local Don who also runs colleges n other such stuff. So he first tries to do things the right way, and does not get anywhere, so he eventually pays up.But the baddie ensures that his project derails and rajni aka sivaji goes bankrupt. He decides to fight back the baddie and the corrupt system of the country and eventually wins.

Ok this may sound as a very boring and done to death script, had it not been for the following

1. Rajni also comes looking for a bride who is traditional and very much rooted to Indian values.He finds her in a temple and then goes on to woo her.The extent he goes to woo her is simply pathetic.He tries to show of his poweress and has some action sequences thrown in. The movie unfortunately reinforces a huge stereotype about Indian's obsession for fair skin.He eventually gets her

2. How this traditional homely coy girl suddenly turns into a sizzling hot cleavage showing babe in every song and back is beyond me, even keeping the standards of our Industries imagination in mind. Moreover the girl is shown pretty naive to believe anything and everything.

3.The heroes sidekick is Vivek, who is simply a superb actor and has awesome comic timing.His talents lay underutilised.If you can make a non Tamil knowing guy laugh, i consider him a good comedian

4.Technically, the movie is pretty superior. The stunts look very real and well executed.Also the songs are picturised pretty well.Cinematography rocks too.

5.Finally the Rajni touch. The man himself.He adds charm to the movie.He sports 7 hairstyles(maybe more, lost count after a while), wears some outrageous clothes, does unimaginable stunts, imagining them is an achievement in itself, self confessed Bachelor of Social Service(BOSS), his typical way of eating chewing gum, flipping coins, saying COOL n number of times, displaying agility which could put any Kung Fu master to shame and make god himself wonder whether Rajni is his creation and innumerable things i may have missed.I was laughing my ass off during all these scenes and people seemed in awe and were transfixed.Well as HSBC guys say, Different people, Different perspectives.

The reason of this short review is that there is nothing much in the movie to talk about.Its a typical masala movie.
But why does the movie work

Because the masses love it.They see him battling the problems they face daily and succeeds.Too simplistic an explanation?? I cant sem to figure anything else out.And as a friend says" You have to be brought up on this kind of cinema to appreciate it."Well with all due respect, this is my last rajni movie.

It was an experience that is going to stay with me for long.Hehe for different reasons altogether though!!

Nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 18:41:00 +0000

This is a first part of the post. I have decided that for the comfort of the reader, it better be divided into several parts.

Something which has been never completely understood by man, which is probably never meant to be understood, an elusive search to understand nothing leads us to a maze of endless questions and gets one caught in the ever expanding and entangled web of understanding the meaning of nothing. Nothing in its various guises has never failed to capture the imagination of man. Philosophers have struggled to grasp it, while mystics dreamed they could imagine it, scientists strove to create it, astronomers searched in vain to locate it, logicians could never fathom it, and mathematicians succeeded. Writers and jesters were more than happy to create much ado about nothing. From the zeros of the mathematician to the vacuum of the scientists, to the void of the philosophers, to the erudite wanderings of Shakespeare, over centuries and with passage of time, nothing has seen kings come and go, civilizations vanquished, resurrected just to be vanquished again, to be reduced to nothing. Man may have evolved from a primordial state to a highly developed one, but he still struggles to answer the question that surpasses all human intelligence and has been bothering people from all walks of life, albeit intermittently, but nonetheless it is an inseparable part of life. God's greatest creation has clearly failed to understand this void. It holds a special place amongst the elite, the educated academicians, a subject of never ending speculation and discussion for them; with each of them well aware that we are miles away from understanding what this innocuous looking word really means. The point about nothing is that we do not need to use it in the operations of daily life. No one goes out to buy nothing. It is in a way the most civilized of all the cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of cultivated modes of thought. And I being Homo sapien have also failed to understand it, which shall be clearly reflected in my writings. Here, I will try to bring out a few facets of Nothing and Zero as seen by us.

Mathematics

Simply put, in mathematics nothing can be equated to zero. Probably and by far the most important number in our world of mathematics, its origin has been attributed to Indians.In fact, G B Halstead once remarked

“The importance of the creation of the zero mark can never be exaggerated. This giving to airy nothing, not merely a local habitation and a name, a picture, a symbol, but helpful power, is the characteristic of the Hindu race from whence it sprang. It is like coining the Nirvana into dynamos. No single mathematical creation has been more potent for the general on-go of intelligence and power."

The oldest known text to use zero is the Jain text from India entitled the Lokavibhaaga, dated 458 AD. It was first introduced to the world centuries later by Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. The very name Algebra has been derived from his famous book Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah. 'Algorithm' or 'algorizm' is named after him. Zero is such a profound and powerful idea which appears to be so simple that we appear to ignore its true merit. Zero has single handedly shown mathematics the way to connect to reality and be a part of the real world. Be it geometry, where understanding the concept of point as having dimension as zero, or the concept of almost impossible in probability, or something as basic as the Mobius function in number theory and combinatorics, which applies to all numbers except zero to being the First Perrin number to simply being anything that is not seen and cannot be quantified, Zero has lent mathematics more credibility and acceptance amongst the people and has established its hold over human thought. But what does zero mean to a mathematician? It probably means his success to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, his ability to find mathematical tools to solve the Navier Stokes Equation, his understanding of the empty set or the infinite applications of zero in his works- all of which amounts to nothing. Our poor understanding of the connection between mathematics, reality and nothing, probably compelled one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Dr Albert Einstein, to say "what we are sure about in reality is not reflected in mathematics and what we're sure about in mathematics is not reflected in reality". In fact, in hieroglyphics, zero means the "courageous one".

Zeno's Paradoxes

I will not get into explaining the paradoxes. Just read them and enjoy.

Achilles and the tortoise

"You can never catch up."

“	In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead	”
—Aristotle

In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, we imagine the Greek hero Achilles in a footrace with the plodding reptile. Because he is such a fast runner, Achilles graciously allows the tortoise a head start of a hundred feet. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run a hundred feet, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point; during this time, the tortoise has "run" a (much shorter) distance, say one foot. It will then take Achilles some further period of time to run that distance, in which said period the tortoise will advance farther; and then another period of time to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, Zeno says, swift Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. Thus, while common sense and common experience would hold that one runner can catch another, according to the above argument, he cannot; this is the paradox.

The Dichotomy paradox

"You cannot even start."

“	That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.	”
—Aristotle

Suppose Homer wants to catch a stationary bus. Before he can get there, he must get halfway there. Before he can get halfway there, he must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, he must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on.

This description requires one to complete an infinite number of tasks, which Zeno maintains is an impossibility.

This sequence also presents a second problem in that it contains no first distance to run, for any possible first distance could be divided in half, and hence would not be first after all. Hence, the trip cannot even begin. The paradoxical conclusion then would be that travel over any finite distance can neither be completed nor begun, and so all motion must be an illusion, which in simpler words is nothing

Probably with calculus coming into play, the paradoxes seem to be resolved but they only address the geometry of the situation, and not its dynamics. It has been argued that the core of Zeno's paradoxes is the idea that one cannot finish the act of sequentially going through an infinite sequence, and while calculus shows that the sum of an infinite number of terms can be finite, calculus does not explain how one is able to finish going through an infinite number of points, if one has to go through these points one by one. Zeno's paradox points out that in order for Achilles to catch up with the Tortoise, Achilles must first perform an infinite number of acts, which seems to be impossible in and of itself, independent of how much time such an act would require.

It raises an even more intriguing question- Are time and space infinitely divisible?

Enough of Bheja-Fry for you guys, though gyaan freaks like this blogger, can also look into Paradox of place and paradox of the grain millet.

Vaccum

Historically, there has been much dispute over whether such a thing as a vacuum can exist. Ancient Greek philosophers did not like to admit the existence of a vacuum, asking themselves "how can 'nothing' be something? "Plato found the idea of a vacuum inconceivable. He believed that all physical things were instantiations of an abstract Platonic ideal, and he could not conceive of an "ideal" form of a vacuum. Similarly, Aristotle considered the creation of a vacuum impossible — nothing could not be something. Later Greek philosophers thought that a vacuum could exist outside the cosmos, but not within it. Christians believed that the idea of vacuum is immoral or even heretical; the absence of anything implied the absence of God, and since God was the ultimate power, it would be against god to create nothing. A common notion in earlier times was that Nature abhorred a vacuum and a true vacuum doesn’t exist. Even the finest thinkers of the century like Plato, were convinced that a vacuum cannot be created. But the inquisitive young minds of those times thought otherwise and the famous Magdeberg’s Spheres, Michelson Morely and Torricelli experiments (Kindly strain your memory and recall your school days) proved beyond a doubt that there exsists a vacuum and ether is fictional. Even Newton was later convinced that for his theory of interplanetary motions to hold true, a vacuum needs to exist. Yet even today, our concepts and fundamentals of the VAccum are still very shaky.

This rounds off the first part. The second part should be coming soon once the battle with UNIX and PL/SQL is over.

This is a first part of the post. I have decided that for the comfort of the reader, it better be divided into several parts.

The Prisoner's Dilemma Demystified

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:49:00 +0000

We all have at some point in life faced major dilemmas. The ones which can make your life interesting to say the least, when you would suddenly start to understand that Heisenberg with his uncertainty principles was not such a big fool after all or why was the word vacillating added into the English language. But what concerns us on a day to day basis and seems largely inexplicable is not something that cannot be quantized and is very much tangible. It seems that those geeky scientists who seem to be so preoccupied with their great unsolved problems, weird hypothesis, earth shattering researches and ground breaking procedures also seem to look into the dark labyrinth of the human mind and fish out something so funny, interesting and yet life changing that will leave us surprised. It makes us realize that we are living in a vicious circle. First simplify the complex things and then use science to complexify( couldn't think of a word actually !!!) them. Well the purpose of my post is to allow one to have a peek into the classical prisoner’s dilemma problem and yet demystify it and see its applications in day to day life. For the uninitiated, here is the problem.

The Prisoner's dilemma was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND ( the same place John Nash worked for some time) in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the "Prisoner's Dilemma" name

The classical prisoner's dilemma (PD) is as follows:

Two suspects, A and B, are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both stay silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a two-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. However, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. So this dilemma poses the question: How should the prisoners act?

The dilemma can be summarized thus:

	Prisoner B Stays Silent	Prisoner B Betrays
Prisoner A Stays Silent	Both serve six months	Prisoner A serves ten years Prisoner B goes free
Prisoner A Betrays	Prisoner A goes free Prisoner B serves ten years	Both serve two years

The dilemma arises when one assumes that both prisoners only care about minimizing their own jail terms. Each prisoner has two options: to cooperate with his accomplice and stay quiet, or to defect from their implied pact and betray his accomplice in return for a lighter sentence. The outcome of each choice depends on the choice of the accomplice, but each prisoner must choose without knowing what his accomplice has chosen to do.

Applications of Prisoner’s Dilemma in real life

Warning: These ideas move from the very serious to the downright crappy!! , so choose your order of reading, at your own risk

The Jews

If you look at the time line of Jews as a community, ever wondered why they had faced prosecution at the hands of various communities without putting up a fight and actually submitted themselves as slaves. The answer may lie in our analysis of the prisoner’s dilemma

Throughout history, the Jews have lived under the shadow of an immense future, believing in the promise of them being the chosen people, of their belief of a second coming. They lived as scattered communities in areas that were hostile to them or around people who initially saw them as a nuisance. Any sort of action, which was either “non cooperative” or even mildly unfriendly was dealt with severely. So they actually had a better chance surviving without putting up a fight or in PD terms cooperating and not defecting

This strategy worked well for two thousand years until they met the Nazis who seemed to have a mania to purge the world of Jews and carried out their systematic extermination for years to come. The hatred they had faced before had been less deeply rooted, or more inconsistent, or less violent.

That’s why today we see a more violent Israel than they had been in the past as Jewish people. The instinctive action would have been cooperation with the Nazis, which would have resulted in their extinction as race.

The Arms Race

The PD scenario is often used to illustrate the problem of two states engaged in an arms race. Both will reason that they have two options, either to increase military expenditure or to make an agreement to reduce weapons. Neither state can be certain that the other one will keep to such an agreement; therefore, they both incline towards military expansion. The paradox is that both states are acting "rationally", but producing an apparently "irrational" result.

Tour De France

Consider two cyclists halfway in a race, with a large group at great distance behind them. The two cyclists often work together (mutual cooperation) by sharing the tough load of the front position, where there is no shelter from the wind. If neither of the cyclists makes an effort to stay ahead, the group will soon catch up. An often-seen scenario is one cyclist doing the hard work alone (cooperating), keeping the two ahead of the group. In the end, this will likely lead to a victory for the second cyclist (defecting) who has an easy ride in the first cyclist's slipstream.

Advertising

Consider two companies A and B. If both Firm A and Firm B chose to advertise during a given period the advertising cancels out, sales remain constant, and expenses increase due to the cost of advertising. Both firms would benefit from a reduction in advertising. However, should Firm B choose not to advertise, Firm A could benefit greatly by advertising. Nevertheless, the optimal amount of advertising by one firm depends on how much advertising the other undertakes. As the best strategy is dependent of what the other firm chooses there is no dominant strategy and this is not a prisoner's dilemma. The outcome is though similar in that both firms would be better off were they to advertise less than in the equilibrium.

Relationships

From my (in)experience about love, the PD is very much applicable. We all have our dirty secrets, the skeletons waiting to tumble out of the closet. What would happen if two people in love want to share some secrets about their past they wouldn’t normally do

The dilemma can be summarized thus: *

	Girl remains silent	Girl shares
Boy remains silent	And they live happily ever after	She will go along thinking all her life that all men are some breed of sexual perverts, with sex on their minds all the time ( err…hmm .ooh ) looking only for relationships as a way to show off his machismo and would be very apprehensive next time she commits.
Boy shares	His life is screwed, he will probably go mad for some time, in special cases turn to spirituality, start some sort of secret society which in extreme cases can lead to mass paranoia or run a helpline for relationship advice or look for another girl	If sensibility prevails, they stay together, with lots of guilt off their shoulders.

* Please see end of page. In case you don’t have the patience to read through or have already closed this window, the above observations are purely speculatory in nature

Engineering Vivas

I can already see a smile on your face. This reminds me of the countless vivas I have given to my really fundoo and esteemed Profs and to the moronic; linguistically challenged maniacally mugging machines called Ad- hocs. Here is a not so unfamiliar encounter of a fundoo ( albeit depressed in the end ) Prof and 3 engineers.

If you have been a true engineer, which I need’nt explain, but eventually will, knows nothing about his field of engineering, is always on the brink of getting into the short attendance list, occasionally making it there too, never did a journal on his own, believes that glass was made solely for the purpose of a glass trace and to taste other earthly liquid delights and serves no known scientific or industrial purpose, studied for the exam on the last night, or even better in the morning, doesn’t know where most of his laboratories are located, ends up sitting in the canteen all day ogling at god’s best creation, his fair draft of human beings after creating, man. He is the enlightened one who sincerely believes that the Vivas are places to learn, show off his spontaneous idea guzzling abilities, undo the work all those poor scientists have done by giving out of the world explanations to the most basic of questions. The very fact the you are reading this shows that you have loads of time to kill .Enough, I am already sympathising for the poor Profs. Back to prisoners dilemma and cut to Viva scene

Moi : Good morning Sir

P: good morning all, have a seat

P: it seems you have copied the readings. These do not match with the experiments we did in the lab .

Classic PD …what should the others do, keep shut and let hope float or bring down the house

E 1 : No sir, these are the same readings……..all others nod ( Huraay!! They have cooperated, I knew I could trust you guys )

Suddenly T1 (topper no 1 aka the Ghissoo, insatiable grade earner and GPA hungry, ready to exploit the system to screw his peers…classic PD again )

T 1: no sir, we have copied the readings from the senior’s journal.

All: ( Wtf!! I think we need to talk …and this one is going to be unpleasant. Hostel main mil…. Saari sincerity aur honesty nikaal denge..It seems he had an overdose of morality and ethics . )

P: I thought so. But at least you could have been honest with me. See T 1 had the courage to at least tell the truth. you $^%)%@)(!_&^@%

All : Its all over, CC pakka, now we shall re enroll in the elite 6 pointers club we have been so proud of, a heritage that will die only in our placement and B school interviews, inspired by 300, we decide to fight back )

P: anyways, what is the significance of the Nusselt number (don’t bother, neither did I)

T 1: starts off as if he has very few moments to live on this earth and he feels that he must share his pearls of wisdom with the ignorant, early man-ish, unintelligible, gibberish crowd giving him company at the teachers cabin. He follows his divine duty of enlightening us with ideas even nusslet hadn’t thought of, ensuring that his knowledge has a bearing on the generations to come

Prof is beaming, we are feeling like possessed men with blood shot eyes ready for the kill, only to be killed soon by the prof .

The rest is the question and question session between prof and students (physically available, mentally retarded) which might look very familiar to you, so I am not taking the pains to put you through all that

So basically each time the topper defects and the poor others end up screwing their GPA, their life and never the topper. Classic PD isn’t it?

P.S The prisoner's dilemma can be applied in economics, politics and sociology, as well as to the biological sciences such as ethnology and evolutionary biology. And I sincerely hope that coming this far and after being through 1953 words which make some sense, you don’t expect me to know all the above mentioned stuff.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:36:00 +0000

The verdict is in. I’m out. The last nail in the coffin stuck deep down my dreams. On the 22^nd morning the omniscient omnipotent omnipresent almighty guided me towards the computer centre and I logged in. He has his own strange ways of doing things. It always happens that whenever I get a reject, he would empower the website servers to work full throttle and ensure that the skies fall upon me at the anointed moment. He will also ensure that the more confident I am of getting somewhere, the faster he will bring me down. When people around me expect more from me, he ensures that I will let them down in some way or the other. And when I succeed its hardly noticeable, it’s like the bird causing a blip on the radar, highly inconsequential yet disturbing. I have been a person who had a lot of confused dreams, half baked aspirations, ill conceived notions and loads of things happening around. But the last two years have been so weird that I can hardly put all my experiences in words. I have seen peaks of ecstasy and have touched the nadir, been overwhelmed by events around me and been crushed, rejoiced for days altogether and felt completely lost again, found new avenues, explored new horizons and then was down in the dumps, I been admired and been despised, I have triumphed and I have tottered, been victorious and have been victimized and vindicated, did things I never would have done, missed things I would’ve died for, accepted some things at face value, worked hard and got nowhere, lost something on the way and treaded the boulevard of broken dreams. This follows the main character from Green Day's song "Jesus of Suburbia." He leaves town, has one crazy first night and now it's kind of like the hangover. He's just walking, thinking about whether it was the right decision leaving where he used to live.

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" – Green Day

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

I feel similarly about my dreams. Dreams that were never meant to be, dreams that shouldn’t have been seen. I was probably happy, but then I left the safest shores and ventured out into the unknown, took my aspirations to a new level , strived for it, worked for it and then everything came crashing down. I suddenly feel everything going wrong and getting messed up. But looking back at 20 years of my life, I have just this to say

There will be times when you would despair

There would be times when you feel defeated

There will be times when you feel rejected

Hold your thoughts and ponder

Wait a while and remember

Don’t judge yourself from a day’s experience

For what you are today, was not made in a day

A failure is a way, I believe

To see yourself in a different light

In a different perspective, through your own inner eyes

You rejoice in success

You analyze in failure

For failure is a queer teacher, it will teach you things the hard way

It won’t facilitate, it won’t accentuate,

It will hit you hard in your face

But if you get bogged down, give up or simply stop

Do it at your own risk, kill yourself, albeit in parts

They can take away an opportunity, they can take away a chance

They may take away the world from you, and make you penniless

And you are down and out unless

You see with your inner eyes

The potential, the passion, the talent, the energy, the enthusiasm

The spirit, the will and most importantly the faith.

You will see yourself

In a totally different light

For these are the things

No one can take away, no one can change

No one can tamper, no one can suppress

Because this is all what you are about.

No matter how many times I fall, I will get up and work. I will push myself harder, and will ensure that I will follow the 3 golden words to success. Citius , Altius and Fortius. You are not a failure until you think you are. And as Andy Dufferene always said “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. “

I dedicate this post to all those who have supported me, prayed for me, and been there for me, I needn’t post their names, because those will be the ones reading this post. Its because of people like you that I can see myself as I am.

Experiences@MICA

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 19:42:00 +0000

The day started early with me reaching the Mecca of all B Schools -- IIM Ahmedabad. The sight of this red brick structure never fails to instill in me a sense of belief in oneself. I have been to IIM a number of times in the past but each time I experience something new, something changed within myself. It seemed as i am undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts, an evolution that seems so ephemeral that it hardly lasts but the impression it creates in me is something inexplicable. One has to be there to experience it, the dorms, the buildings, the crowd, the girls (he he ..Well Murphy isn't always right ... beauty X brains is not always a constant), the whole aura that surrounds the institute is actually very enchanting. It seems I am already in my wandering mode. Coming back to MICA... they had arranged a bus for us and we started off towards our destination. It was a nice sight, two buses full of aspirants in all shapes and sizes, diverse backgrounds, far more diverse interests. This is what i really appreciate about MICA, the kind of diversity we see there makes it not only the very best in the communications field (probably even better than IIM’s), but also probably the most weird and enigmatic people from across the country can be found on campus. Diversity is the most important factor when it comes to actual learning because I sincerely believe that knowledge is what remains when what has been learnt is forgotten. My 4 years at NIT Surat have taught me the same, a days experience is worth a thousand books. We can learn immensely from people around us,all we need is a roving eye and an attitude to learn. Err... arey back in philosophical mode. Fast forward ... 8.00 am. We reached the hallowed portals of MICA and the beauty of the campus was amazing. Red brick structures ( i am fascinated by them ) , well maintained lawns, so much greenery around ( you perverts, I was talking in the botanical sense) , it seemed to gel in so well with the image of MICA I had in my mind. We moved towards the registration rooms and saw familiar faces and got chatting. In the process i realised that I had actually been late for registration with me being amongst the last ones. Anyways we were directed towards our MICAT centers for the test. For the uninitiated, it is the test that MICA conducts to test creativity and divergent/lateral thinking.

The MICAT

The test was 90 minutes in duration and consisted of five sections being word associations, RC and English usage, psychometric test, Maths and DI and finally the Essays. We were advised to stick to the time limits allotted to us, although they were not binding on us. I decided to sincerely follow the instructions and the test went well. The only thing i could not understand was the fact that how were they testing creativity ( other than the Archie- Jughead cartoon strip which we were supposed to fill ) in essays titled " What steps should be taken by the Indian industry to become technological leaders on the global stage " and the feasibility of the manned moon mission of ISRO . I was able to complete the test just in time and I must say was pretty satisfied.

The Group Exercise

Post MICAT went to check out my group, was having a pre lunch slot with 7 members in all. Now the tamasha begins, out of the 6 members, i knew 4 of them very well, ramya from college and the others three from IMS centre. So the GD turned out to be a discussion amongst friends. Among the other two, the girl did well and was very cultured but the other guy some Siddharth was your GD nightmare. The topic given to us was about violent and sexually explicit programmes harming children and steps that should be taken to prevent this. We were given 9 parameters to rate individually first and collectively, post discussion. The discussion started and was going on smoothly until Mr sid felt that he had deprived us of his views and knowledge. He started off with points that were nowhere near rationality. He seemed to me as a megalomaniac who had grand designs on being the leader of the GD but failed miserably. He was the only one who had problems accepting others point of view, forget it.. i am being tooo polished, he was not ready to listen to anyone. At the end of 20 minutes we had boiled down to top 2 choices but sid's participation ensured that we didn’t get down to the third one. I spoke well and would rate myself 8/10 and the 3rd best in the group.

The PI

I was the fifth to be interviewed. I had the same people in the interview panel as i had in my GE. One was tall French bearded guy( industry professional) and other was sari clad fair lady ( Anita.. MICA faculty). Let’s call the FB and FL ... M will be yours truly

I entered the room, exchanged niceties and sat down

FB: So utsav, where other then The Times of India do you write?
M: Sir i keep a blog.

FL: So what was your last post about?
M: It’s about the various interpretations of the song “Hotel California". I like to look at things from different perspectives. Other than the dangers of materialism, it also talks about drug addiction, satanic cults etc (refer previous post for the details)

FL: ok that's interesting, tell me more about it
M: bakar bakar

Now comes the scary part. If you have been to interviews, you know what the following question means. And I don’t think this was asked to throw me off balance.

FB: So, do you want to ask us anything?
M: (WTF, are you insane .arrey bhai inhe koi le jaao, 2 minute ka interview, itni jaldi khatam kar rahe ho..kyun ?? meri shakal itni buri bhi nahi hai.. mera gunaah kya hai .. agle saal phir aana padega) Sir i wanted to know more about MICAvaani.

FL: bakar bakar and thank god she says lets move on .
M: (sigh of relief, felt like a moor, thought would have the last sigh, he he showing my batisisi all around)

FL: So, you are a mechanical engineer...
M: ( arey madam, aap to getting personal ..You seem like nice lady..chodiye naa purani baatein..kahan acads vacads.. sab moh maya hai .. main to yun hi mazzaking..err) yes madam

FL: tell me something about quantum mechanics
M: ( kya.... einstein ki aulaad nahi hoon ..frankly speaking i felt just one thing .. either she knows everything about mechanical engineering and i am a moron or she is just trying her luck ...thankfully the latter was true. So I go on with full confidence) Madam i do not recall anything.
( one thing engg will teach you.. to say no with confidence .... full confidence and zero knowledge )

FL: (seemed genuinely surprised) isn’t it one of your core subjects at mechanical engg?
M: no ma’am, it’s not even a part of my syllabus, we studied this in 12th (which is true)

FL: ok, so tell me about any subject in mechanical engg.
M: ( yahoo!!.. i love open ended questions .... thankooo ma'am ... i realise that you don't know anything about mech engg.... me showing full batisi...pata nahi kucch zyada hi hasn raha tha..shayad wisdom tooth bhi dikh raha hoga) full steamed bakar on computational fluid dynamics

FL & FB : seemed convinced... smiling

now FB going through my form , sees column of parents education

FB: your Mother holds a PhD ?
M: yes sir

FB: which subject?
M: HINDI

FB: he looked so dazed and shocked, as if i had said the most ridiculous thing in the world, as if she had done her doctorate on the marriage customs of the zulu tribes of Africa!! He seemed to be in a trance for a while...i thought..Must be bad at hindi in school ..memories must have started to haunt him ..all those matra and spelling mistakes

FL:( seemed ok with the idea, but decided not to probe further)

FB: so you write for the response feature. have you wriiten anything for the editorial
M: ( arrey bhai ...logon ke baal safed ho jaate hain editorial tak pahunchte pahunchte.. aur main koi shakespere ki aulaad to nahi hoon naa) no sir

Then lots of bakar about what i did at Times of India etc .not posting as all that was serious talk and morover not very relavent to you

FB: so what will you do if you do not get through here
M: Sir i come from a reputed college and have an offer for a job. I will take that up and try again next year at MICA ( this is what i spoke ..and being honest i am pretty serious about going to MICA)

FB: so what do you plan to do after studying 2 years here
M: bakar about my interest in media but wanting to explore the other fields futher..spoke well

FB & FL: ok thank you utsav
M: thank you sir , thank you ma'am

And I came out, pretty satisfied 15 minutes+ interview they seemed happy and content by my answers. I felt they categorize you mentally before they call you in and the interview goes in that direction. They didn’t ask me anything about Why MBA, why a shift from engg to communications, strengths and weaknesses etc. I tried to move my interview towards reading and other extra curriculars but either they were too seasoned or had other things on their minds

Overall I felt good after the whole process and would rate myself 7.5/10 .... Please post your analysis of the interview... and pray!!!!!

P.S that sid guy from Group exercise got screwed badly in his interview for his behavior ...peace at last.

Hotel California- One song, many interpretations

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:01:00 +0000

The song has been known and enjoyed all along but there are many interpretations to the lyrics of the song. This is what I have compiled from the very concrete theories to some very wild ones and some ideas of mine thrown into the understanding of the song. People have been imaginative enough to say that when played backwards the song has references to Satan. No matter what interpretation you consider appropriate, I feel that the following words is the jist of the song.

Whatever the song is about, I think it has some commonality with all of them. It is about being in darkness, drawn to a promise, immersed in a way of life that provides no escape, yearning for escape, and realizing that there is no returning to the lost innocence of the darkness and the desert when we could have continued on a different path. This scenario can be applied to many things in life, and many of us have had personal experiences for which these lyrics ring true. For me, the line "we are all just prisoners here of our own device" reminds me that we control our own destiny, but often imprison ourselves in a way of life from which we can't see an escape. We are often trapped by the decisions we take in our lives and sometimes we go too far ahead to return back. The last line symbolizes the point of no return. Temporary respites are all we can muster but the pleasures derived from these are ephemeral and so is the joy derived from these mirages of promise we are yearning for. The song ridicules the state of the human mind for being foolish and getting trapped in its own ideas and thoughts. It probably also says that man is naturally drawn to things that are grand and evil in their design only to repent it later. Maybe I am reading too much into it or may be I missed the bus treading into the lyrics superficially. The first interpretation is in line with the composers idea about the song

Requests, if you haven’t heard the song, first listen to it. Not for the interpretation, but for it sheer beauty and the guitar pieces at the beginning and the end.

I have given the lyrics of the song in the first meaning. For the lack of space and to prevent the post from being excessively long, in other areas only the interpretations are written.

Materialism

This song is about the temptation and danger of materialism. We are bombarded by societal messages to accumulate material goods, be it fancy cars, or expensive jewelry. We feel drawn to these status symbols, but they also can cause us great unhappiness.

> On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair

> Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

The singer is free and liberated at the start of the song. Highway, isolated desert, wind blowing through his hair: all symbols of freedom. Colitas is marijuana, which of course also symbolizes a liberated mental state.

> Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light

> My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim

> I had to stop for the night

The shimmering light is the materialism. It shimmers and glows like gold. The singer feels intoxicated by it. It casts a spell on him.

> There she stood in the doorway;

> I heard the mission bell

> And I was thinking to myself,

> 'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'

The doorway is the transition into this new life, of materialism and greed and away from freedom. "She" is his way into this life, whether it be newfound wealth or sudden status. He sees that the world of materialism and flashy possessions could be glamorous (heaven), or it could be torturous.

> Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way

> There were voices down the corridor,

> I thought I heard them say...

> Welcome to the Hotel California

> Such a lovely place

> Such a lovely face

> Plenty of room at the Hotel California

> Any time of year, you can find it here

California represents materialism in many ways. It is the place of the gold rush (lovely place). It has Hollywood (lovely face). People come out to California to try to strike it rich.

Tiffany's for expensive jewelry, Mercedes for expensive car. Both are status symbols. People's perspectives get distorted by these things, which explain the words "twisted" and "bends". The pretty boys line also talks about high society.

> How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.

> Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

All these people are bought into the materialism, the "dance" of pursuing possessions. Some do it to remember back to their childhood or earlier in their life when they had more money. Some go after money to forget about something else more painful in their life.

> So I called up the Captain,

> 'Please bring me my wine'

> He said, 'we haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'

1969 is Woodstock. The spirit means "free spirit", i.e. creativity and freedom, unshackled by money. Christian interpretation. Wine is Jesus's blood. He is in an old Christian church that turned Satanic in 1969

> And still those voices are calling from far away,

> Wake you up in the middle of the night

> Just to hear them say...

> [chorus]

> Mirrors on the ceiling,

> The pink champagne on ice

> And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'

Pink champagne is another symbol of luxury. The last line is saying that we are trapped in the pursuit of wealth, but we did it to ourselves by buying into the idea.

> And in the master's chambers,

> They gathered for the feast

> They stab it with their steely knives,

> But they just can't kill the beast

The beast is the primal desire within us to go back to freedom, away from the trappings of society. These people who have been suckered in want to kill that part of themselves which still longs for the liberated days, but they can't defeat it.

> Last thing I remember, I was

> Running for the door

> I had to find the passage back

> To the place I was before

The singer wants to get back to his former, free lifestyle.

> 'Relax,' said the night man,

> We are programmed to receive.

> You can checkout any time you like,

> But you can never leave!

We are brought up and conditioned by society to be receptive to its messages about status and wealth. We can mentally "check out" and decide to resist those messages, but we can never really get away from them or their strong pull.

Hell

It is a song about hell (Hotel California). The first part - until the first chorus - is the guy dead and "choosing" whether he should go to hell or to heaven. The "desert highway" would be the after-life highway to heaven, the "mission bell" would be the door to heaven, but somehow his attention is drawn to a different place - Hotel California. Devil is pulling his game. The second part is after his choice for hell, when everything is just fine. The man sees good-looking ladies, people dancing and pretty boys as friends. The voices down the corridor would be the guy's own conscience, remembering of the bad choice he has made (The praise of the Hotel in the chorus is a little bit sarcastic). In the third and last part is when the true face of hell is shown, the seduction is over and now the Devil (the nightman) is going to collect its debts. The fancy girl turns out to be a "prisoner" (not physically, but her soul is doomed). The master's chambers is another reference to hell. The steely knife stabbing can be interpreted in two ways: one could be a ritual of black magic and the other would be the rage of the main character after he realized he was deceived by the Devil. He could stab the Devil as long as he wanted to, but it would never die. And the final verse is the guy trying to escape, maybe back to the desert highway, but the Devil closes the Devil and states that great last sentence, meaning that the guy was doomed for eternity.

Satanic cults

If we take time and dissect the song using a bit of our brains, its not hard to see that the band is subtlety hinting about satanic cult, though it is not in anyway saying that it is associated with the cult. We shall look at the lines in greater details. The protagonist was walking, seemingly dosed with drugs (colitas). He then sees the church light, and since the side effects of the drug was kicking in, he had no choice but to stay over. "There she stood in the doorway I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to myself, This could be Heaven or this could be Hell" ~ A woman welcomed his visit. However, despite being a church (heaven), it was a satanic one (hell) and thus he had his reservations. He was ushered into the church and there seemed to be a ritual going on with all the voices around. He was welcomed by cultists. "Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends"~ he saw a rich girl who was shapely. " She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget"~ Subtlety, it hints of the fact that an orgy is taking place. “So I called up the Captain, Please bring me my wine He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine"~ 1969 was the year the first satanic church was set up, and the spirit here literally meant that the holy spirit no more resides here " More emphasis is on the latter part when the woman said that people chose to practise this(satanic cult) on their own accord. "And in the master's chambers, They gathered for the feast They stab it with their steely knives, But they just can't kill the beast "~ it isnt a real feast we are talking about; it is a human sacrifice! They were using razor sharp knives to stab the sacrificial, yet they could never get rid of the demons that were residing in their hearts. Seeing all the events, the protagonist got scared and he had to leave the place. "Relax," said the night man, we are programmed to receive. You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave". He saw a guy who let him leave. The guy commented that anyone was welcomed to the cult but once you joined the cult, there would be no turning back.

Another concise interpretation of the satanic version

The man has embarked upon the highway to the dark side (the initiation)

Warm smell of peculiar things burnt in ritualistic offerings (as in Bohemian Grove)

The new arrival gets a heady dizziness from the superb brightness of the place as it is being approached and all senses that can caution grow numb and the decision to stay for a little while is made

The usher herself is the embodiment of the all the lucrativeness of that world

Cautioned by the mission bell, the new arrival is fully cognizant of the dangers now

The new arrival is lead through a darkened corridor (clearly tells about the physical aspect of the building that was converted into "the place") where faint/mocking/encouraging voices extend the suspicious welcome

The wild orgies/celebration/decadence abound in the place and people are gathered for different reasons, and some have been selected as sacrifices (real or mock ritualistic)

The new arrival is denied any chance to go back because as of 1969 the place had become Satanic with the Holy Spirit removed.

At the height of the ritual, the dissidents try for a desperate escape by stabbing the high priest of the chamber instead of the sacrifice, but the high priest can't be killed

The situation getting more desperate and the new arrival tries to run away, but once somebody has made a pact with the devil He holds them to it . You are given all materialism and riches but the soul is for His to keep.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

I believe the song is an allusion to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Summary of the Allegory of the Cave: People have been chained down in a dark cave for their whole lives. All they can see, all they have ever seen, are shadows of the rest of the world on the wall in front of them. Because they don't know any better, they assume that these shadows are real. One day, a prisoner is released from his chains. He goes outside of the cave, into the light, burning his eyes, but becoming enlightened. He decides to go back into the cave to tell everyone what he saw, but they don't believe him. In the Allegory, the darkness of the cave represents ignorance, the light represents knowledge, and the chains represent our perception of the world. How Hotel California connects to The Allegory of the Cave Instead of a dark cave we have a "dark desert highway" that, to the prisoners, seems like a nice place. The shimmering light alludes to the "light" or knowledge that the man who broke free of his chains gained. Like the man, the narrator of the song hurt his eyes because of it. "She" could mean knowledge; because the narrator has been in the dark for so long, he is still uncertain if he believes that the knowledge he's learning is real. The narrator is still learning. The other people who broke free of their chains tell him that the light is much better then ignorance in the dark and it was here all along. All he had to do was think. Again, "her" means knowledge. The narrator is saying that she seems to have and know everything. Everyone else who broke their chains are trying to gain as much knowledge as they can("she's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys"). By calling the knowledgable people pretty, the narrator is starting to show that he believes that the knowledge he's gaining is real and the "shadows" are an illusion. Some (remember, the "they" in the lyrics above refers to the people who have broken their chains.)dance to remember that the knowledge they gained in the light is not an illusion. Some dance to forget the shadows in the dark cave. By requesting wine, the narrator is showing that he wants to forget the knowledge he gained. The Captain is surprised by this. Most people who come into the light never want to go back except for a case in 1969. The enlightened people still keep insisting that the light is better then the dark. Alibies will be needed for the individuals still in the dark; not everyone is ready to learn about the light. No one can be forced to stay in either the darkness or light; anything that keeps you in a place you don't want to be is due to your "own device." Don't forget, this is still from the narrator's point of view. He sees what the enlightened people believe and the events they take part in, but it all sees so weird to him, a person who has known nothing but shadows for his whole life. The nightman tells him that he can go back to the cave, but it won't be the same; he'll never forget the knowledge he learned in the light of the Hotel California

Addiction

This refers to a dark time in life, one that you are trying to escape. This could be a possible escape from the darkness. You find a way out, and it seems pleasing to begin with. He stops for the night because there is a chance that he can get out of it. And he sees the temptation (Women always represent temptation.) He thinks to himself, as he gets his first taste, "This could be Heaven or Hell" in regards to the mixed feelings that he is having. “Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way there were voices down the corridor, “This "temptation" draws him in the Hotel, which represents addiction. The voices of the other addicts welcome him to this beautiful prison. The chorus for the first time says he is trapped and is put here because he has just been drawn in and now, even if he does not realize it, he will not be coming back out. It is such a lovely place with so much beauty, because everything is more beautiful in the 'Hotel' as long as you play along. It also says that it does not matter when you want it, because you know you can always have it. California is always beautiful... as long as you see it that way. "Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends ", He says that she is a very twisted, but very beautful girl. This is the first time he speaks of anything negative about the 'Hotel'. This could be the end of a high. He also comments that she has many pretty boys, saying that temptation has captured so many other people as well. Some people dance to feel how they used to, to feel good again, and some do the 'dance' to forget the pain, to make their problems go away. He tries to lay his hands on some wine but he does not get it. "And still those voices are calling from far away, Wake you up in the middle of the night Just to hear them say... " Even though he talks to them, even though he is in the Hotel now, he can still hear them calling for him, deeper and deeper within the 'Hotel' He wakes up, probably in cold sweats... remembering what a lovely place it is... what a great feeling it was, and it calls to him. "And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"", no matter who they are, they are all here because they did it to themselves. They are trapped in the Hotel because they made this decision. "The stab it with their steely knives, But they just can't kill the beast ", This seems to refer to feeding the addiction. (Steely knives - needles) That every addict wants to quit... after this one. and they think if they do it this last time, then that will be it. "Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the passage back To the place I was before ", He is trying to find his way back, now he realizes what he has gotten himself into. He is trying to go back through time, take back his mistake. In the end the nightman says that why worry, you are here anyway, just enjoy it.”You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!". You can say you are going to stop at any time, but you are never going to escape it. Once you are in the Hotel, there is no way out.

Broken Marriage

The lyrics are a commentary on the state of Marriage, in California, where so many relationships seem to go well at first, and then fall apart badly. Of course, few people at that time would knock such a strong social institution as Marriage- at least not directly. It was supposed to be the best that a relationship could be, and what we might all aspire to, one day yet so many of them had been going obviously wrong. Read the lyrics and see if you find the same meaning or at least a few things to think about along the way. After all, the seventies were an age of veiled lyrical meanings, and creativity.

Perhaps colitas referred to a certain feature of the female anatomy. However there is a dual meaning here, since colitis can also pertain to the little buds of marijuana, with a warm sweet smell. ( both somewhat intoxicating, and affecting judgment )At any rate our singer starts out a single man- riding carefree down the highway, thinking of his girl, who may even have been riding in the seat beside him. With the influence of the girl, our author stops (perhaps at a hotel) for the night. BUT more importantly, his sight/reasoning grows dim, because he decides to settle for a girl that wasn’t quite right for him and thereby enters the "Hotel California", of relationships.

What the song doesn’t directly say is: It is the doorway to a CHURCH. We've advanced a few months, and are about to be married, which is why you hear the mission bell. And as he looks at his bride, somewhat uncertain, he was thinking that this (the marriage) could be heaven, or could be hell.

Candles and romance, for at least a honeymoon's worth, yet something is not quite right - a little voice in the distance bothers him: is this really going to work? He tries to convince himself he is done the right thing. Welcome to the married life it's supposed to be good. Of course it is: look at her, she's lovely. Plenty of room at the hotel California more people getting married all the time, and inviting everybody else to do the same - just like you did. Any time of year you can find a time & place to get married. Yet the voices in his head are still there.

It turns out, that his wife is definitely high maintenance, with expensive tastes and more interested in his money than him. After the initial passion is over, she's got several other boy-toys on the side. When he's out with his wife, he starts noticing other couples and depending on whether things are going well or not some dance to remember happy days, some dance to forget troubled ones. The "spirit" here isn't alcohol, but the spirit & emotion of the marriage he’s looking for. Unfortunately that’s long gone, and we haven’t seen it for a while. Yet the voices are still there and the doubts grow stronger, leaving him awake in the middle of the night, thinking. Welcome to the Hotel more voices, Other people think the marriage is going great - they're living it up- But it's not quite what you'd hoped (what a nice surprise)Excuses are made, accusations too, alibis are in order. They try to rekindle the romance - get a little kinky - pour a few more drinks. We are all just prisoners here, of our own device: We're the ones who decided to get married - we did it to ourselves, but now we just feel trapped. Sooner or later (in California style) the marriage is over. In the master's chambers (Judges chambers, during the divorce)They gather for the feast. The lawyers and his wife are all going to benefit and a gruesome, ugly, “feast where they all take whatever they can get from the husband. As for the Marriage: the bitter words, sharp tongues lash, but they can’t quite destroy the lingering shreds of marriage, or the husband portrayed as a "beast".

By the time the divorce was finished, he just wanted to be OUT. With the marriage fully over, he tries to put his life back to how it had been, before he was ever married. But it's not easy. The voice in his head reminds him, that it's never really over once you've been married, there's always going to be some part of you that isn't the same. For better or for worse, he realizes that even after getting divorced, and checking out of the "Hotel California," you can't just leave it all behind. We (society, biology or emotion) are programmed to receive. It's easier to get IN to marriage than out

Alien abduction

A man driving alone in the middle of nowhere sees a "shimmering light" ahead of him and feels drowsy. He pulls over and drifts to sleep. When the man awakens, he finds himself in a strange place that "could be Heaven or...could be Hell". As she leads him down a corridor, he hears voices and in trying to understand them, he thinks he hears them say "Welcome to the Hotel California. The woman, whose sanity he questions, shows the man the various artifacts brought onboard with the other abductees, how live in a daze unable to remember much of their lives before the abduction and unable to forget that they are abductee. The woman in the song represents the lull of drugs and prostitution to the men, who were captured in the hotel and cannot leave. The man, falling into the lull effecting the other abductees, addresses the Captain of the ship. His experiences last so long onboard that he sees the pattern emerge of the strange sounds emminating from the ship at the same intervals each night, and each time he thinks the voices are saying "Welcome to the Hotel California". The quarters each abductee is given has metallic mirrored walls and ceiling, with luxuries available to placate the prisoners and to entice them to stay. The abductees, in either an experiment or a meal, are presented with a living creature which they have to kill in order and consume. Try as they might, they just can't kill the beast. The narrator, seeing the failed experiment for what it is makes good on his escape attempt, fleeing down passageways on the ship to escape and get back to the desert and his car. He struggles with a guard who tries to subdue the narrator but fails. As the man gets out of the ship, he knows he'll be traumatized by the experience and never really forget the horror he experienced.

Brothels

The song starts off, he is driving down the highway, smoking some weed, just hanging out. He gets tired and sees an old church. However, it seems that the church is no longer a church, but a brothel. This could be heaven or this could be hell refers to the fact that you get pleasure here, but at the same time it’s a dirty guilty pleasure, one that feels almost definitely like a sin. The woman who greets him is all dolled up and dressed up. Her friends are the other clients who come to see her. Dancing is an allusion to sex. People come there for many reasons, remembering a lost girl, or even to forget a girl who broke your heart. The chorus is just the sentiment of the people who come there .Alibis refers to not letting your wives know where you went. Prisoners of our own device refer to the fact that everyone succumbs to their most innate desires of lust. The feast is the sex, they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast. They screw to quench their thirst for lust, but in the end all it does is make them want more. Here is basically after he’s done and he has that feeling of what have I done? He runs out but before he does, a guy basically tells him, you can leave this place, but this place will never leave you.

Murder

This is the one about which I have absolutely no clue.

This song is about Charles Manson, the Manson member and the Tate-LiBianca murders in Bel Air in 1969. The hotel on the cover is the Beverly Hills Hotel which is located right next door to Hell, Bel Air, where the murders took place. The Hotel itself, in the song Hotel California is not a real one. The California in Hotel California is the street the Church of Satan is located on in San Francisco. Read the lyrics very carefully and you will see the references to Manson, the year, being programmed, stabbing, lighting candles, as they had no electricity at Barkers ranch, and how you could check into the family but you could never leave. Dark desert highway up to Barkers Ranch. The song speaks of the last thing I remember I was running for the door, after the stabbing, finding a passage back to the place I was before, getting back to Spnahn ranch. Warm smell of colitas, Sharon's body after the stabbing. Her mind is tiffany twisted; Tiffany's is the best stuff, and Susan Atkins warm in Charles mind and most twisted. She's got Mercedes 'Bends'. The bends is not a misprint. They are referring to a curvy female body and not a car. Susan Atkins was a shapely woman in 1969. Susan also danced at Anton Lavey Church of Satan on California Street in San Francisco.

Well I am actually not through with the interpretations. I also found some really absurd ones like cancer and car crashes and people went to the extent of saying that the song is about Vietnam War!!!!

Well all I can say is “Different people, different interpretations”. Please leave your comments about the song and what it means to you and also your comments about the post.

Justice for Jessica

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:06:00 +0000

Maybe we still live !!!!

Dr Albert Einstein once said:

" Everything that can be counted doesn't count
Everything that counts cannot be counted"

The day shall go down in the history of Indian judiciary and the Indian psyche as the day when justice was finally been given. Obviously this has been a major victory for her parents and sister fighting the case and also has laid down a precedent for future rulings. But some major victories have been won here:

1. This has meant that the Priyadarsini Matoo case was not the only ruling that had come in the victims favour and justice delayed may not after all be justice denied .

2. It has reinforced our faith in our judiciary and one can feel that a free and fair trial can be expected .

3. The reopening of the case has been due to the conscious effort of the media which had come under the roving public eye and drew some flak from all quarters. The media it seems has lived up to its reputation of being a watchdog of the nations activities and has shown moral integrity by not buckling under political pressure

4 But it is the common man who has come on top after the conviction proving that even without the ballot the Aam aadmi is powerful and democracy in India is not dead. As every Indian goes to bed tonight, he will be more happy and content for he feels that victory for Jessica is a sort of victory for him as he can identify himself with her plight and feels that he is not powerless. It reinforces his faith that democracy is still the best form of governance and is not dead, Our conscience as a nation is alive and very much kicking. we are now increasingly being aware of our duties as citizens and care for the nation .... maybe i am reading too much into this verdict ... maybe i am not .. tell me.. cant help it i am an optimist to the core

BUT ALL's NOT WELL

In this moment of triumph we must not forget our shortcomings, we must not overlook the problems facing us

1. Why has it taken so long??? A Cliched question but nevertheless needs to be asked because the most obvious things are the ones that are often missed .. 7 years how much can a person or his family take .. for some the only goal of life becomes to get justice for their loved ones which drains them out physically, economically and emotionally. What for us is a newspaper headline is an eternal quest for justice for them. Why is it that the rich and powerful get away so easily ??? Many questions few answers.

2. How many more Jessicas are already dead no one really knows.It was the case of a famous person doing a crime and trying to get away with it . What about the countless less fortunate others whose cases are nothing but mere files and statistics .I believe that their only fault was that they got killed/raped/abused by common people. Where is the justice we are talking about.

3. What images do people like Ram Jethmalani, Bina Ramani and Shayan Munshi, all personalities in the eyes of the media project, aren't they guilty too? One must, i believe, listen to ones' conscience more often.

well at the end of the day, we hope that in the future such convictions come in more often and we live up to the call of satyamev jayate

P.S India won a historic win against South Africa, their first one in the Protean soil. Thankfully it was just given the necessary coverage. Kudos to the media for giving a cricket obsessed nation something more important to think about .

Accentured !!

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:47:00 +0000

Accenture

Well as i said life is like a sine wave for an engineer..and it seemed my time had come
Accenture was on Campus on the 16th of May . By that time the Tiger Woods campaign had not started and many people didnt know about it. i had always been fascinated by the company for no reason whatsoever and anyways getting a decent job was all that was on my mind . well i attended the pre placement talk . this was the best ppt i had evr seen and was actually very impressed( though the cogni ppt still seemed better ) . The females who had come from the HR were really smart and the ppt was very interactive not. we ( all the guys) were falling head over heals for one of them and anyone who had been there would have known who it was .. she was a stunner to the core and i suppose that some guys who were not earlier considering accenture sat because of her( he he guys will be guys!!) towards the end of the ppt they were showing those Tiger Woods ads and everyone was so glued to those ads that we actually mentally missed some part of the ppt. well towards the end there was a quiz in which i won a cool zipper whose coordinates now are unknown courtsey ideal man a.k.a baba a.k.a humanity himself a.k.a sanskar a.k.a modi the great... well after the pt i decided that i was going to sit for the company ( no the hr females did not influence me).

Then we sat for the test and i was confident as i hadnt flunked any till now and the test was a sitter.
I seriously sometimes think that how desperate these software companies are to recruit people that the tests they take are like a walk in the park . The test was outsourced to a company called Meritrac . Since most of us had already taken cogni and IBM tests which were by the same company, so there werent any surprises. the results were out soon and an overwhelming no of people were selected .. The list was out and i had been placed in the last gd group. Had to report at 6 pm so had a lot of time in hand . Reached the guest house in time . The moment i reached there i was mobbed and it took me a while to understand why. For those of you who dont know me, i am one of the biggest BAKAR in my batch( bakar- the art of incessant talking) and people were trying to convince me that i shouldnt speak much as i would ruin their chances .Most failed to understand that if you speak more in a GD you have a higher chance of getting eliminated. I decided that my bakaer instincts shouldnt get the better of me and the GD began . as she was writing down our names i said " Utsav Mamoria"following is the conversation between me and the HR

HR: you know when we studied we had a book by mamoria
me: what was the name of the book ?
HR: i dont recall
me : was it personnel management?
HR : yes
me: maam he is my father
HR: oh thats great .. tell him that we passed exams because of him

clearly she was impresed and that set the tone of the day
we were asked to choose our GD topic and we had got the news outside that some groups were asked to choose their own topics
we had chosen " should non comp science engineers be in software " we had a mock GD outside and when the real time came we chose the same topic and the GD was n action replay of the one outside.. result 10 out of 13 shortlisted.

Then came the agonising wait for the interview. Somehow , i think god wills it , i have to wait hours before i get a chance
but the accenture one had a twist in it.. i waited and waited and waited..
a wait which the longest i ever waited and at about 2.00 am in the night we were informed that 17 of us would have our interviews at 8.00 am in the morning
i was like @!$!#@$ uff i went back to my room ( hostel 4 is so far:(( )
we were all apprehensive wether they would screw us as they had to take only 17 interviews and they were fresh after a nights sleep. But lady luck was on our side
The next day i reached there and again the wait started .. first was the HR and it was smooth i am a good fundebaaz and thus cleared it easily.MINDBEND again came to my rescue and i gave her reasons why i should be chosen right from team worker to crisis manager. Next to come was the technical interview, my bete noire..as i eneterd i was asked to sit and he opened my folder and started scaning it . He asked me to introduce my self and i told him that i write for the Times of India and he started redaing my article. he read it throuhly and was impressed. He asked me some puzzles and i solved them. He then told " when you come you should be through with C/C++ .net java sql ... " i didnt understand what he meant and then suddenly it hit me that i have been selected and which meant there were no technical questions yahoooooooo!!!!!
He said " You know i am a mechanical engineer myself and i regret that i came into this field so late. you get through with the languages and let us give the comp guys a run for their money"
I was elated and said yes!
I came out satisfied and within an hour the results were out. A whopping 74 selections , history in our college had been created. This was the largest number any company had taken from the insti in a given year
We were given offer letters and a great black t shirt with acccenture written on it. finally i had a great job and my dream of getting a job on campus was fulfilled.
Proud to be an Accenturite!

Testing times

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 06:29:00 +0000

Placements

the only actually testing time for any engineer ....cause once u get into engineering exams are not testing any more as you manage to get past them
campus placements bring out mixed feelings ...of nervousness, of apprehension and of course expectation
with a great session of mock placements from the final yearites..we were all raring to have a go at the companies
each of us battling our own problems ..each of us having a core competency and core deficiency :)
mine was definitely the terror of the TECHNICAL interview ..being a mechanical engineer and wanting to switch to software i asnt expected to be great at technical knowldge

I skipped TCS but the feedback from the others was an eyeopener .... all candidates had an hour long technical interview intheir respective fields which was too much by software compny standards ..so out of the fear of me flunking badly at interviwes i started brushing up my technical knowledge
which proved out to be a herculean task

then happened the cogni disaster ..which will come later
then the more personal IBM disaster
which had all the elements of a hindi masala movie
..uff if i could get hold of the HR/tech guy i would shoot him .reaching to the IBM interview was a surprise in itself a sthe company had strictly put a cutoff of 7.0 cgpa so initilly i was not eligible .but then the cutoff was dropped down to 6 and we were all elated and praising IBM .i sat at the test and the results were surprising ..i got through(ok that was not the surprising part ) but most fundoo janta of the college didnt .the screeinig process was hapazard and i doubt wether the papers had been evaluated at all.it seemed that people were randomly shortlisted

whatever that was.. i reached the interview and the wait began
finally i got the call and went in and what happened then was a complete disaster
he began asking me the general stuff and he asked me why i wanted to go in software ..i gave him the standard answers.but then suddenly he asked about the computer magazines i read ..to which i politely replied no .and then on hearing that he started talking like a man who had been possesed .he insited that i must go for a core job being a mechanical enginer despite the fact i making it clear at the start i was interseted in software..he didnt ask me any C questions and kept on stressing that i am not fit for software ..i came out with mixed feelings and the result was expected .i got kicked out
it was a very low point but like any engineer would tell you
life is a sine wave!!!

always happening

noreply@blogger.com (Utsav Mamoria) — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 06:03:00 +0000

always happening

speed of time

the last 6 months have gone too fast ..blitzkreig... it all started in december with MINDBEND ..which became the sole purpose of my exsistence in the coming months..the agonizing procedure of collecting funds , dealing with the corporates ..those &^%#^%($ HR people glib talkers all ..and the relentless grind of doing rounds to their offices made me go mad.coupled with living almost alone in a huge campus of ours was the last thing i asked for ..so much to do so little time.. too cliched i know but thats the way life is ..isnt life too cliched ?? well it seems to all have paid off now
infighting in faculty .. all administrative hassles ..endless meetings having no sense ..it seemd that it was all a part of HIS divine plan .it has taught me so much ..being the convener of the most successful MINDBEND gives you immense satisfaction it has deevloped some qualities in me and has made me much more of a organised human being

the biggest teaching has been proffesionalism ..the art of working with people whom you arent comfortable with ..will help me immensly in life
seems i have to stop here ..i can writre about mindbend forever

more in the next one