Driving Lesson 2

No Progress made except that my instructor told me to shift to 3rd gear on an empty stretch of road. He keeps trying to control the steering although I am confident of doing it myself. Still forgetting to press clutch while changing gears. But drove with more confidence today. Hopefully next day I will learn something new

Akrwiti

Priya bole,

"Mone aj dukhho baro
Rajyer jato chinta jaro

Hajar protyashar chape
Monta amar shudhui hape....

Bhenge ei rudhho kopat
Ebar hote chai je lopat"

Ei shune mor mone byatha......
Boli..."Priya tumi jabe kotha?"

Kahe Priya

"Jetha more keu chene na
Sekhanei mor thikana

Korbe na keu konoi asha
gorbo sethay sukher basha

Anyo kono groher ami
Kano hethay bhule nami

Bujhbe na keu tomra more
Tai to jete chaichi sore

Achha ebar choli tobe....
Abar pore dekha hobe"

Priya amar Priya holeo, ami to Priyar Priyo noi.....
Tomay ami bujhbo bhabi ...kintu bujhte parchi koi.....
Chesta koreo bhulte nari bhalolagar ei smriti
Moner kone bose ache tomar mukher akrwiti

World Cup and Me

World cups come around every 4 years and thats what makes them special. Its good that FIFA hasn't done it to death as has ICC with either a T20 or ODI World Cup(WC) every year. Cricket has lots its charm with that. Football is run by saner people though. Looking back each World Cup looks like a marker in my life, a milestone every four years.

Italia 1990:

My first WC. I had moved to Kolkata only a year back. We had this brand new Sonodyne TV. My brother was too young to be interested. But I remember the fervour with which I collected Maradona, Linekar and Schillachhi posters given with Cadbury's Dairy Milk. The sight of Maradona weaving past a stunned defender adorned my walls and dreams for many years until I lost the poster when our house was repainted. On the field action remains a blurred memory to me. I only remember, and my parents recall too, that I stayed up late at night to watch the semi-final and final of the World cup and was bitterly annoyed with the referee when Germany was awarded a Penatly kick. It all seemed a conspiracy then.

USA 1994:

Those were the days. I was a class 4 student. I woke up early. Went to sleep early. Sundays then were for cartoons, for games. Going to school was a joy. We had a great Principal then. And here was football and I was all geared up. I remember Maradona. His last appearance. Of the delectable touches . But more for the shame that followed. It broke my heart and Argentina's back. But there was Brasil too. Yes Brassssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllll !!!!
The Samba rocked and Romario and Bebeto danced. I distinctly remember the famous baby-rocking dance of Bebeto, the new father. And there were other stars too. Thomas Brolin(Sweeden) and Histo Stoichkov being among them. These 2 I remember distinctly, Brolin because there was an almost identical looking boy in my brother's class and Stoichkov because I simply loved him when he lost his temper, he looked so funny. Also etched in my memory is Roberto Baggio's brilliant display against Ireland.
This was the World Cup which made me learn the finer nuances of the game. I finally understood what is an off-side(of course partially....I still dont understand the rules completely), what is marking and what the various terms like sweeper, winger etc. meant.

France 1998:
I was in class 8. I was doing good in school. Addicted to Cartoon Network. The Metro Railways had taken over the nearby park and used it as a dumping ground, so my playing days were gone.
I was yet to have my first crush. Sachin was God(since 1996). And the country was still grappling with rickety coalitions.
Brasil was the favourite once again. Ronaldo was the star to watch out for. Roberto Carlos and Denilson I remember too. But 2 lesser stars who remain my favourites to this day are Ivan Zamorano and Marcelo Salas of Chile. The way they played really made an impression upon me. then there were the brilliant Laudrop brothers of Denmark, the promising Patrick Kluivert, the skillful but frustrating Ariel Ortega, the lightning quick Owen. And Zizou. He broke my heart when headed in 2 goals in the final. Ronaldo looked so so forlorn and wreteched that I wished he hadnt played. And in that final the Brazillian in me died a thousand deaths, not for the loss but for the manner in which they played.

South Korea 2002
Life had changed drastically. I was under pressure. Higher Secondary Board Exams loomed ahead, and cast a menacing shadow on me. I no longer though that cooperating during exams is a sin. Hostel life had thoroughly versed me what each expletive meant and slowly my reservations in using the occasional expletive at the opportune circumstance had started to fade. Personally I was not coping too well with hostel life. My habits did not match my institutions regulations. My freedom was totally curtailed under the name of discipline. I felt like a square peg in a round hole. Imagine the plight of having to change your bengali handwriting totally so as to write fast enough to fill sufficient number of pages with crap. I was having a horrid time.
But Brazil brought joy. The Samba was back again. In all its flair and glory. Ronaldo Rivaldo Ronaldinho Roberto Carlos. The game I remember the most was Brazil versus England. Super hyped England put in a goal before Ronaldinho unleashed his magic. On the other side Germany was almost single-handedly pulled to the final by Oliver Kahn. But he couldnt do enough to deny Brazil their 5th title.
This World Cup is etched in my memory because it came at a very crucial time in my life. Mainly because till this World Cup I saw life in a certain way....and by the time the next WC had come I was a different man.

Germany 2006
I was in 3rd year in college. I could hardly relate to the "me" that was 4 years back. My thinking had changed. My body language had changed. My confidence had increased. I talked much more now. Bunked classes , went to movies with friends. I had got over my first crush and was about to fall into my second. Engineering was no longer a stepping stone to an IT major, I dreamt of more. I had discovered that I absolutely hated fagging and but had a curiosity about drinking. My concentration levels had fallen. I could no longer study for long periods, or mug large pieces, and my college afforded me that luxury. Life was easy, exams were a collaborative affair at best and vivas were more a test of my smartness than my technical ability. I had grown fat, the progression from my first to third year was slow but steady. And college fests were a dreamy affair. Foggy memories, loud music, pulsating dances, maniacal shouting, adrenalin-shooting interactions. I still did not realise that I was not making the most out of opportunities. I was happy with my mediocrity.
I wont say much about the world cup though. It was so very disappointing. Both Argentina and Brasil lost so quickly. Perhaps the best game of the tournament was the semi-final between Italy and Germany. The final was dramatic but not for the right reasons. All in all a forgettable world cup for me

P.S. : The 2014 WC is scheduled to be in Brasil , And I am supposed to be in USA at that time. Is a visit to a WC match possible? If not a match then just the ambience would do. Lets see if I can make it there.

Driving 101

What I learnt today:

1. Left to right: Clutch Brake Accelarator
2. While starting: Always start from neutral gear
3. While changing gear: Press Clutch and then change gear
4. Braking: Press clutch and then brake
5. While accelarating: Press clutch, press accelarator,then release clutch
6. While turning: See rear vehicles, give hand signal, turn.(In that ORDER)

An Interesting Experiment

We have all studied resonance at some stage or the other. This interesting phenomenon has loads of practical examples. I wish to list one such fun way of demonstrating resonance which I accidentally discovered.

Now it so happens that everyone in my family has a mobile connection which enables us to talk free of cost to one another. This ill-conceived scheme was perpetrated by some stupid telephone company guy(who is surely out of job now) without the proper awareness of the abuse it can be put to. Needless to say, we have exploited this offer to the hilt and logged millions of hours of telephone calls between the four of us in the family.

So it happens that I was playing with my phone and my brother's one when I noticed the following phenomenon. Try this:
Take 2 cell phones with loudspeaker facility. Make a call from one to the other. Receive the call and turn the loudspeaker on in both or at least one). Bring them together(with the keypads facing each other) and then flip one of them so that the hearing apparatus of one may be adjacent to the speaker of the other and vice-versa(Its 69........for those who know what I mean.. ;)).
If you are done you will notice a ringing phoneomenon in the loudspeaker. The sound will start off as basically noise but gradually shape into sound of a much smaller spectral bandwidth with oscillating amplitude(and hence the ringing). Sometimes it does happen that you will not hear a sound. In that case make some sound near the pair of phones and this should start-up the phoneomenon.

My Explanation( which may not be right)

The cell phones act as amplifiers here. Flipping one and placing them close is like cross coupling 2 amplifiers akin to many of the oscillators we study in standard text books. The communication channel serves as a frequency selective attenuating filter here. By communication channel I mean the wireless media,repeaters etc which are part of the mobile service provider's setup. Thus when there is certain amount of noise introduced in this system the noise travels in a loop infinitely .....each time being attenuated by the channel and amplified by the cell phone. In the long run only those frequencies which are passed by the channel remain and hence the final oscillation (in steady state) comprises of them.

P.S. : for those who did understand what I meant kindly point out if I am mistaken. For those who didnt just try the experiment and have fun.

SOBUJ(Green)

Ghorita nishhobde tik-tik kore othe baro ghonta antor.....
amar sarata din....ekla ghore.....bisramer chayay.....alsemite
Sokaler ujjwalota ta kakhon dupurer agune porinato hoy
seta bole day amar khidey ta
Tar por bikeler jhor......bhije kak....ami na amar mon?
Ekghye ....kichuta.....tobu bhalo lage......
Nijeke nijer modhye gutie rakhte.....bhabna ektu guchie nite......
Sujog.... ar beshi nei.....abar jhapate hobe oi judhher bhir e.......
Bhabte chai na tao.....snayugulo armora bhenge uthche.......
oder kan eo gache damama r dhwani......
Amar mostishker kache tai ei muhurto gulo.....
jano aro SOBUJ

Looking back

I was back again at IIT Kharagpur. This time to pack up and leave. My friends had left already. Most of them were already in pursuit of their dreams in distant cities in glass palaces of commerce. My fate still hung in the balance.....more or less certain, but with the correct amount of uncertainty which spices up things. It is in this scenario that I stepped into VS Hall,my IIT-ian abode for the last 2 years. However the first thing I noticed was that things were eerily different.
Let me clarify. VS Hall to me was far from the perfect hostel(btw no hostel is perfect). Yet there was a "zing" to it for the last 2 years. I mean there were bad times and there were good times. But there wasn't a time when VS Hall was a dull place. For me it were the people in the hall, my friends, who made this a rocking place. And of course there was this omnipotent,omniscient LAN(better known as DC++). But this time things were eerily quiet. The dominating sound of the summer evening was made by crickets hidden in the vegetation rather than by boisterous groups making merry in their rooms or by friends raising storms in tea cups. The motley "junta" which laughed, "couch-potato"ed,fought, mugged, "porn"-ed, took loads of tension before exams, played enitre days of computer games after exams and huffed and puffed billions of tobacco whiffs had disappeared. All around there was this sense of vacuum. Perhaps the only semblance to "my days" that still prevailed was the crowd around the TV, but they too were subdued in their leisure. Too quiet to be normal. The Hall itself mourned, the lights of vacant rooms remained switched off, indicating that an era had passed and another one was approaching. An era I would not be part of, and perhaps rightly so.
So this finally led me to ponder on what made life so special in the last 2 years. Or perhaps more appropriately in the last 1 year, which is actually the time when I had some chance to get myself out of study pressure and look around and have fun. I realise that a number of factors weighed in. The excellent facilities, the great administration and superb faculty(ok not all of them were superb......) all added up to the experience. Augment that with the promise of great careers ahead and the adulation that you immediately command(to people who do not know better) as an IIT-ian definitely gives you a high. But the most defining experience of my stay in IIT was the hostel life with friends. The faces, sometimes moist with perspiration, sometimes stone like with tension and sometimes beaming with elation is the very thing that made life so special. The friendly "Hi" on the road, the smile, the sharing of xeroxes ,the reassuring "dont worry yaar", frequent tea breaks and midnight maggi stands, the exam fever, the seminars, the TT matches, the expletives exchanged (in good jest),dinner at LS,visits to the life-saving tech market,trips to big bazaar, excursions in IIT and the occassional tiffs all blend into a happy and fuzzy feeling. Its what I will miss the most. I must also concede that not all memories are positive but that does not sully the overall happiness I felt in this place.

To the many countless generation of IIT-ians to follow I wish them best of luck and I hope they have a blast at IIT.

P.S. : May I add that IIT life brought in my life a number of firsts too........learnt to ride a cycle(My home locale never necessitated I ride one.....so was ignorant of the trick), do night outs(that I could give the Low Power Circuits Exam next day is a miracle....I nearly fell asleep during exam) , made a movie freak out of myself(I MISS DC++), found the perfect girl , talked to her(YES dude....I finally managed to talk to a girl i like) and then somehow lost her too(Shit!!!....just me and my luck) and ultimately got into both my dream company and research insti for PhD. From my perspective the last one year has been the watershed year.

I

I feel.....I cry........I smile.....I fly
I dance.....I sing.....I hurl.....I fling......
I fight ......I peace......I hate......I kiss....
I rise....I fall....I snap.....I brawl........
I love.....I fail.....I slip.,.....I scale.......

I build ....I break......I drown....I sail.....
I WAS ..... I AM......I SHALL ....PREVAIL

On crushes

From the clouds on heaven 7
To the abyss of Hades

Its one roller coaster ride better you dont take
Its an inevitability...not a decision you make....

You stare at pages without reading a word.....for hours at a stretch
At the end of it all , you turn up a stupid wretch