I once almost lost my cell phone. It was one of those days when I was having a good time when my cell phone probably fell out of my jacket during transit in a taxi. But a gentleman passenger, made sure I got the phone back. Kudos to him. But the horrors that went through my mind before I got a call from him were bad. Why you ask ? I have a lot of information apart from just contacts on my phone. And you could probably access all my mails, my twitter, facebook and what not from that mobile. What makes you stronger also makes you vulnerable. And that I found ironic.

But there was a recent event, that has completely made me depressed and lifeless, which you could compare against the above in terms of the anxiety. I (my house) got robbed over the weekend. They took my laptop, an external drive and some other random things. They left the TV. I would whole-heartedly exchange my TV, my bike, my books, my microwave and a few other things just to get my laptop back. Not for the laptop itself but for what it contains. It was my companion on so many days/nights, it helped me through some tough times at work, and it holds the key to most of what I’ve done in the past two years. It is heart breaking to know that it is all gone and the horrors return.

It would have been a consolation to at least have the external disk around, which contains all the back-ups of my work. But that is gone too. When you can’t even save anything in your own home for safe keeping, what can you depend on ? And being as attached to the work as I am, it only intensifies the pain. I am 3 months away from renewing my position and now I am behind on my schedule to finish 2 more papers. This might not have a happy ending.

At the end of the day, losing a laptop just hurts so much more than losing a phone. And that is relativity for the un-initiated. The beauty of physics is that the most purest of the theories are great philosophies too. And there I shall end this post. Still moping…

It’s only on the brink that people find the will to change; only on the precipice that we evolve. This is our moment – don’t take it from us.
— The day the earth stood still

Another one of those things that is so right on the point. Its cliched to say ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ but putting it in different words as above lends new meaning and purpose.

I’ve learnt that all best thoughts have already been said before. And that’s why I am proud to do my re-search. And it is why I thrive on great quotes. Kudos to the great minds before and after me.

Without that final edge, how mundanely bleak an occurrence this would be. And with or without an external change, it really is about time to rethink the possibilities…

Again, Aronofsky, that insane mind of his came up with the right edge to cut through the crass in my mind. It is a beautiful movie. On the surface, it is a story about a washed out wrestler, at his nadir, hoping to redeem himself of his past mistakes. But time heals, hardens and keels the right and wrong decisions of one’s life. When Randy the ‘Ram’ realizes that he is alone, as all of us are at the end of the day in facing facts of life, he turns to the one thing he is passionate about, even if eventuality dictates his death.

And that is breath-taking. Not just because it portrays every other man’s life in essence, but it proves the validity of one my favorite sayings:

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
— Thomas Carlyle

No matter how much I try to divert myself in other activities, it always comes back to yielding satisfaction from my work. It is trivial in the bigger picture, I understand, but without something as pure, what could appease a mind in chaos ? It cannot be money, or power, or a woman or even heaven. They seem like a burden even and portray a muddled picture.

And such is the power of a good movie. It provides the reason to introspect without which, humans would still be apes. Imagination IS more important than knowledge. Thanks AL.

I have been training quite hard the past few months, on my quest to push myself beyond the limitations I had for myself. Believe me, I don’t set my limits that easily and the past 6 races have pushed them recursively, as I thought would the next two. Unfortunately, my pickup soccer routine has gotten in the way of reaching there.

Last Wednesday, while playing a friendly, I fucked up my knee. Needless to say, I am very disappointed. Unfortunate, true. Inevitable, probably yes. Considering the amount of things I was trying to do simultaneously, I am happy it took this long to bring me down.

Now, my knee is swollen up the size of a football, I cant run my Austin marathon and can’t play soccer for at least 2 more months. Adding this on top of losing all my past data (6 years worth of research), it just makes this new year as one to be remembered. OR one to be despised… Let’s just hope that the rest of the year will make up for all this bad spin on the year…

When I started this blog/site, I intended it to be a lot more than just personal updates. Of course, constraints on time have reduced me to doing just the opposite. And so to keep myself and my infrequent readers in the same page, I give you yet another personal update and a rant. I promise you that this will be the last in a series that have been unavoidable.

The last few weeks have gone by so fast and thinking back, I can see why. Lot of good things have happened the past month. I have officially graduated, have made progress on at least 2 journal and a conference paper and also successfully moved to Chicago without any major glitches. And that is leaving out all the juicy gory details leading to it. Time has lost its sense these days and I seem to be dreaming while I’m awake and sleeping when I’m not supposed to. Few more days of such revelry left before I start my job officially. And the impending urgency to get a car and the necessary paper work that goes with it only hastens the need for a damn license.

Enough thoughts forebearing, future unseen
Sneaks up and binds unsuspected.
In plain view the answer to my riddles,
Wilfully I keep searching incessantly.
And a simplical surd evolves. Just like that.

Amongst many weaknesses in my short life, my obsession in music is still unsurpassed. I’d give up everything in my mind except the music because that is the only good thing that keeps me sane during the oddities and the twists that life throws at me. Good music elates, excites and brings out the best of moods in me. And I unwittingly do fall in love with the musician responsible for the beautiful feeling. The infactuation is even more appealing when the creator is pretty too.

That is just intense and heavenly. Makes me want to learn piano more than ever. Comes very close to my love for guitar and Satriani. May be, when I start working in Chicago, I’ll have enough time and resource to learn both properly… And again, time decides. What an endless cycle …

Yes. I am candid. And I feel obligated to post so that whoever feels desperate to know me, can understand. I figure, someone should…

Anyway, life has thrown me quite a few bumps along the past years but finally, its about time I reached my final destination. And a PhD just about defines it. Numerous has been the toil and endless the all-nighters but the prize, the reward is fulfilling. And its within a month’s grasp. On August 13th, I shall graduate officially with a PhD in Nuclear engineering with a job offer in hand. More on that later though.

I spent close to 3 months at home and it is hard to imagine a more appropriate time for that break. Am pretty sure that it will be hard to come by once I start my professional career but travel I hope will still drive me to take my mind off the beauty of math.

Lots more to say but it’ll just be wasted space… Maybe when I’m old enough, and can remember the good things, I might jot them down…

Tired and in bad need of more sleep, I was looking for quotes on numerical analysis and mathematical modeling for one of the main chapters in my Dissertation. Of course, everything I came across did not sound anywhere near perfect and so my search continues…

But, along the way, I stumbled upon another Dilbert gem. It’s on lateral thinking. I guess I’m so programmed these days to solving mathematical problems that as soon as I read the second cartoon, without even a forced thought, I’d already solved the puzzle in my mind. Then I read the next one and could not stop smirking for 10 mins. Literally.

I guess, I do need to loosen up a little. Even my marathons had some slow paced intervals. Only another week to go to D-day. And I’m not sure what will drive me this intensely, next …

I was watching Colbert Report yesterday and he nailed the ‘Word of the day’ segment, targeting on the recent Christmas day bombing attack in Detroit. Here’s the video.

Colbert Report – January 5, 2010

If you are interested in getting to what I’ve got to say here, just move to 3.0 mins in to the video for “Night of terror: The crapification of American pant-scape”. Five minutes of that segment parodies on the recent reactions to the terror attack and what newscasters suggest we do to prevent further attacks.

Given that everyone here is scared even more because of the recent incident, the outcome of it in the news is just plainly retarded. I’ve watched enough segments lately about it but ‘Racial profiling’, ‘Religious targeting’ and plain disregard for rights in a country that hails itself as the greatest democratic nation seems much, to achieve what is necessary. My comments primarily stems from the fact that for 9 years since 9/11, Americans have been able to suppress any attack from bearing fruition and if anything, the recent incident is just a reminder that it took the terrorists this long to come back with a decent plan to break through the defenses.

The job is always easier for the attacker, whatever the cause, immaterial of the perspective since there is only one motive he needs to achieve. The preparation and tactics necessary to stop them is immense and it is important to keep the focus on what’s relevant and not to start waging wars on random nations again. Starting wars only makes America more of a pariah even if they can come up with thousand reasons to back it up. I abhor Gandhi’s non-violence movement and would have really liked to have given the British what they deserved for terrorizing the Indians with hundreds of years of oppression but my vision is clouded and for reasons I cannot understand, Ahimsa did work. May be a different approach might serve this nation better in the future. Of course, no one gives a shit about my opinion but this is just one man’s thought on a world in chaos.

I think it is apt to end my thought with a quote:

“Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you.”
– Paul Wilkinson

This is a pure rant and thoughts that came across based on a mundane incident.

Today I met a guy at a grocery store and passed “hello” casually while buying the milk I had in my hand. I noticed the guy talking to his friend on his phone and realized he was talking Bengali. Even if he looked a little middle-eastern/Indian, I wasn’t sure initially about his origin but after hearing him speak, it was clear that he was from India. And so while I was paying my bill, I casually asked the guy if he was from Bengal and saw a grin in his face. His answer was “Are you from India ?” and so I happily said “Tamilnadu”. He replied again “I’m from Bangladesh” with a serious stare, without blinking, his grin vanishing and still cold. All I could muster was “OK” and walked away. Looking back, an incidental encounter like that should not affect me but it was still disturbing.

Why ? I ponder. Did he have to break off the conversation because I was from India ? May be he suffered in the hands of some random Indians, amongst the billion of us. Or he just hates Indians. And more specifically south Indians. Either way, I do not care. But it pains me to think how all of us, humans in general, hate each other so much and create segregations based on race, religion, land, ethnicity, faith and even ideas that we often forget the beauty of the divine unity.

Sometimes I think, the only way to bring people together is to create this all powerful ‘Alien’, a devil, that oppresses every human, immaterial of the origin or belief, all the same. Then, the hatred can be channeled on this one source and unite us as the earth race. And that is the first step to reaching universal singularity. I hope that will happen eventually because this attitude we carry is self destructive and cannot last long and will not let us live in peace. It is probably the nature of our species and a higher evolution might change the perspective. Or so I hope.

I diverged from couple of steps to light years on this post but my thoughts, hopefully come across clear. May be it is time for me to get a smart phone to type this up as when I get the thoughts rather than remembering what I came across couple of hours before.