Thursday, December 5

Complete Guide to Cheer Up a Little When Your Laptop is Infested by Ants.

I woke up this morning only to get a miny heart attack when I saw tiny ants crawling out of my keyboard. Like most of us, my laptop is my most precious asset and I am not going to let any critter call it as its home. Damnit, its not my hostel room, in which till recently we were amicably in agreement with the spiders about their property and ours. They mind their business and we mind ours. Such peace. I am sure foreign diplomats could learn from us. But that changed a few days back. More about it later.

So yes, you don't mess with my Laptop. I was pretty pissed. So started firing away Google searches on 'Ants crawling out of my laptop' and that kind. To my surprise I came across some pretty funny answers, a creepy BBC documentary which talks about why ants love electronics but bees hate electronics and an ingenious solution to the problem!

Instead of being panicky, why not cheer up a little?


Thursday, November 28

What do you get when you mix The IT Crowd and some good Web Design advice?


What do you get when you mix Moss from IT Crowd and some really strong web design advice?

A mother flipping laugh and some good learning! I laughed a lot in my head, I am sure you will too.

If you do front end development, you have to read this advice! Don't miss it. Especially if you've just started, this will help you from taking the wrong path ahead.


Saturday, November 9

Diwali Break in Retrospection and Rants about the 'Rich' and the 'Founders'

How my Diwali bucket list failed miserably and rants about the Pot Bellied Rich and for-the-heck-of-it Startup Founders.
So I had planned to do so many things in the 10 day break I had.



Well this is the 8th day and I am going to look back on how much I have accomplished.

First, the grandiose plans that were made:

  1. Complete these three books:
    • The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar (Read!)
    • Dear Life by Alex Munroe
    • Think Everest: Scaling Mountains with the Mind
  2. Resume writing about the trip to Ladakh
  3. Start studying for the end semesters, because c'mon I don't even precisely remember the last time I went to the LT.
  4. Work on the GCDC project.
  5. Finish the dbms submission(Yeah right!)

So much right? The things we think we'll do and the things we actually do. The difference is wider than the gaping expression you had after the Red Wedding episode in GoT.

The percentage I completed?
26.6%
Wait the percentage does sound high. Misleading.

I worked on the GCDC project and completed one of the books. Yay me!

-About the book:
How is the book, The Monk and the Riddle?

I really enjoyed reading it. It starts a little slow but by the end it is really gripping. You can call it as an self help book for people who want to find their calling in life. But it really concentrates on start-ups and gives the inside story of the Silicon Valley culture. It's not about how you should manage a business or write a business plan or anything. Please. It's not that. It's more about asking yourself why you want to do it? It talks about how we keep postponing what we really want to do in life and instead do things which we think are the responsible things to do. It's about the deferred life plan. The one which you follow instead of the whole life plan. The writer is really passionate about the topic and speaks his heart out. I really recommend this book, check it out.






<rant>

Common Start Up Stupidity
I find a lot of people caught with the start up craze. I am sure you have too, especially if you are in an engineering college. I am not saying it is bad. It is bad when you are doing it just for the heck of it. With no originality what so ever. Doing something which is already being done. Nothing new. Bleh. But that is my personal opinion. Shouldn't getting something new to people, adding some really cool features to an existing concept, filling the gaps or changing lives be your aim? By doing something already being done with no substantial change whatsoever you are not really adding value to anyones life. Is it a new better way of doing something which is already being done? Foremost, do you really feel for the idea? I am not blaming you if making money is your only aim, but I hope you don't. If you are one of these people, please read The Monk and the Riddle. Please? Don't get me wrong, I am totally in for the independence and all the entrepreneurial spirit and all that but not for soulless-cash-making-oh-I-am-so-cool-founder shit. If you are not passionate about it you are going to lose your interest as quickly as you finished making the facebook page of your startup.
</rant>


Oh I have a few more rants.
<rant>
Super Rich Pot Bellied People
Diwali means meeting a lot of people and going to parties and community gatherings. Well most of them are infected with people that I have had the opportunity to inspect closely while sitting quietly in the corner eating the buffet dinners. Not that its hard to spot them, unless you are them. Super rich pot bellied people. Super rich people who wear shiny clothes, spit out of cars, buy expensive phones and flaunt them by clicking pictures of people they usually don't talk to, also take centuries to click that photo.
 The moment they open their mouth, all that they've earned drops out like coins from slot machines with the displeasing metallic clanking sound matching their ill worded mouths tone.
</rant>

Disclaimer: I could have thought more critically about this subject, but heck I just want to write whatever comes to my mind. Blog v2.00 remember?

Hmm, I shall limit my randomness.



I will finish the other two books by the end of this semester, which means 20 days. I will completely ignore the fact that it took my a month to complete Lolita with my 2 pages per day before bedtime routine. Also that I have my end semester exams starting soon and its only 12 days to my GCDC submission.

A place to note down and over optimism, the two prerequisites of making bucket lists.

Anyway, the second thing.

-Resume writing about Ladakh. 

Well that couldn't happen but I am planning to dedicate entire tomorrow to this. It's all about getting into the zone. Once I am in the zone with the right amount of nostalgia, enough to make me excited but not that much that'll render me dreamy and leave me feeling frustrated about not being able to go back in the near future.

-Start studying for end semesters? . . . .
Bleh.




-Work on the GCDC project?
Oh btw, GCDC is Google Cloud Developer Challenge.
It is going really well. More about it in a different post. But it is almost done. We just need to plug the backend and then frontend together and work on the interface. All major backend problems have been solved.

-Finish the DBMS lab submission.
Well it is almost done. We were asked to make a dbms for a project management software. Completely from scratch. From the SRS (Software Requirement Specs) to the implementation in PostgreSQL.

Well I was recently working on populating the database with fictional data using a Python script. It really was a no-brainer but it was fun randomizing the data and making sure the foreign keys weren't violated.

Well, that is it.

Happy New Year and Happy Diwali :)

Comment about your Diwali break bucket lists and what all you did :)

Tuesday, October 22

Off to Oasis ' 13 : The songs we are performing in BITS-Pilani


I am just dropping in for a quick post because that is what I promised in an earlier post. All my enthusiasm to post about every single thing turned out to be ephemeral like almost every other ambition I have these days. Ephemeral. Ahh, this word wiil never leave me. The irony.



I am leaving for BITS-Pilani's cultural fest tomorrow. We were supposed to go to IIT-Kanpur's fest but things got messy and our college's music club didn't get accommodation there.

Well I am not really excited about the Pro night because it is going to be Farhan Akhtar. I am mainly excited about the Suicide at Midnight event. You are supposedly taken to a dark room at midnight duh with candles etc and made to write your own suicide note. This time they are also going to make us write a will. Other than that I've heard that they have 3 v 3 football on a field watered with soap. Well I really really really hope it is true.

Well the primary motive behind going to Oasis is for participating in the western band competition. We are performing a total of 4 songs. Others are also participating in Indian classical and other solo categories.

Even the Dance troupe of our college, Dance Coders , are coming to Pilani. The drama group is going to Kanpur. Everybody is split up. Ah, the commotion and drama.

Anyway, you should check all 4 of the songs we are performing.

Jeremy by Pearl Jam. It is about a guy named Jeremy who faces bullying. It is really a masterpiece. It is based on a real life incident. Jeremy was bullied a lot and was suppressed, and he finally speaks in front of the class by committing suicide in front of everyone. You really need to watch the video. Eddie Vedder was inspired to write this song when he read a small article about Jeremy in the local newspaper.

There is a sudden surge of Pearl Jam songs being covered in my college. What more could you want? I think every Friday Night Live has one Eddie Vedder being performed. I am really proud of DAIICT's music scene. I think I will write one post about it when I return.


Who did that to you by John Legend. This song reminds me of Jack White's cover of Love is Blindness. Ah, I just love this song. Well this song is in Django Unchained's OST.





Under the bridge by RHCP. I am sure everyone of you has heard this song.



By the sword by Slash. Well we are covering this in acoustic. More like the Myles Kennedy one and not the Stockdale one.




Saturday, October 12

Band Introduction : Bastille and the story behind some of their songs

Introduction to the band Bastille, and also how it got its name. Also discusses the story behind the songs Flaws, Icarus and What would you do?


It's a band from London, first formed in 2010. It started out as a solo project by Dan Smith, who later decided to form a band. It has 4 members.



Why is the band named as Bastille?

Well, because Dan Smith's birthday comes on July 15th 14th which is the French National Day also know as the Bastille day. French revolution?

I had stumbled upon one of their songs before, but never really gave them much attention then until, I heard Flaws.

Flaws is a very beautiful synthesized song. It just has such a good feel. The voice is such emotive and innocent. And obviously the British accent always is an argument winner.

I love the tiny synthesized fillers in the song, they remind me of the music in  Mario. This song is just too innocent and peppy.

What is the story behind the song Flaws by Bastille?

Well here is an intercept from an interview, It tells what the protagonist in the song feels.

"perplexed by, and probably a bit jealous of, some people who seem so completely confident and comfortable in their own skin"
Which does make sense too. But for me and for many other Youtubers who commented on the song, the song is more about two people in a relationship. It's about how this guy is completely amazed by his girl's way of being carefree and wearing her flaws on her sleeves. He wants to be like that and learn that. It's like two opposite people completely compatible in a relationship, both on the opposite side of the spectrum and still ending up being in the middle of the rainbow. (Oh my god, that was cheesy. Pardon me.)

Anyway, the band denies any such intention in the song. Isn't it funny how songs can be interpreted so differently by different people?

" I don’t see Flaws as a relationship song at all, but pretty much everyone who has spoken to me about it has heard it that way"


Check it out on Itunes!

Another good song by the band is Icarus. Icarus from the Greek Mythology.

What does the song Icarus by Bastille mean?


Here is what the band has to say about the song,

"Icarus’ makes it difficult to believe the band are exclusively singing about a Greek Myth: “Icarus comes from things I feel about myself and other people that I know, I generally try not to write songs that seem too personal and sometimes use characters or stories to try and move the focus away from myself and from more obvious topics."

Before you listen to the song, what exactly is the Icarus reference in the song?

Well for those who have forgotten or don't know. Icarus comes from the Greek Mythology. Icarus was the son of Daedalus the architect behind the Labyrinth. Daedalus and his son both were imprisoned by the king Minos of Crete.

To escape, Daedalus comes up with idea of making fake wings attached to his arms using wax and feathers. He and his son both get these contraptions. Daedalus warns Icarus not to go too close to the sun because it would melt the wax away and result in a tragedy. But when they begin flying Icarus gets really excited and giddy about the fact and ends up flying too close to the sun. His wax melts away and he probably ends up frantically flapping his arms for a moment or two before falling down ( Unreliable cartoon source). Anyway, he ends up falling and dying and this becomes an classic example of failed ambitions also known as Hubris which also comes from the Greek Mythology .

"Hubris means extreme pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power. Hubris is usually associated with the "simple-minded"."


Source: Wikipedia.

Anyway, here is the song, it will make way more sense now. I just love the way he says the word Icarus.
Check it out on Itunes!


Another song which I really liked by them is "What would you do". 

It is a cover of a pretty famous rap by City High. It has some really nice lyrics. I don't want to spoil it but it is about this girl who ends up being a stripper because she thinks that the only thing she can do to feed her baby. She tells her story and then this guy tells her to leave the job and says there are other respectable options to earn some buck. That she is not the only one with problems. I cannot decide which side to take. What would you do?

I like the cover better than the original because its more musical in a sense and I just love the reverb in the song.

Check it out on Itunes!


Another song which you should check out is, Pompeii. 
Check it out on Itunes!




Anyway, comment what you think about the songs? Which side would you take?

Check Bastille out on Itunes!

Share this, share some good music.

Click here to Subscribe!

Sunday, October 6

Why I Keep Getting the Writer's Block and What I am Going to Do About It Now.


Also Kitchen Utensils.

I was thinking why I have not been writing or blogging lately. Well, I had been looking at my blog completely wrong. Sorry blog :( This blog is meant to be a blog. I was treating it as my own magazine with all the longer articles, quality and themes. All the expectations of getting a really good 'article'  killed my enthusiasm and I developed a lot of inertia. I have so many partially written articles which are rotting as drafts waiting to be published into the real world but will never end up being mouthed by other lips just because I don't think they are good enough.



Expectations are stupid stupid stupid. 

 If I look back, most of the times I have stopped writing is because of this reason. Expectations from writing in the longer form. I used to have so many ideas which could have been penned but I ended up tweeting about them (shorter form with minuscule expectations) . Tweeting them gave me the false idea that I have been 'writing' and giving justice to all the ideas in my head which wanted to be penned but were cheated ultimately. False advertisement.

"Don't tweet about your next article's idea. Ever."

Blog V2. Macro Micro Blogging. 


Anyway, I have decided to treat this blog differently now. I am going to treat it like twitter just in the longer form. Macro-micro blogging. Which is um just blogging. So smart. Haha. Devolution.

So I am just going to blog anything that comes to my mind. Anything that happens in my day. Just about anything. No expectations. Just writing whatever catches my mind's fancy. Anything random. There is an ant walking over the banana resting on my desk. Probably feeling very proud.

So, yes.
I won't give a fuck about expectations. The length can be any. I will just write anything. Not falling for this trap again. Hopefully. No expectations, no disappointments. I just want to keep writing, it makes me happy. I don't want any kinds of inertia. Just free flowing writing.

The power of one-click publish on the internet gets demeaned if it takes so much courage to do it. It's supposed to give me a voice and I am reclaiming it :)


Wednesday, October 2

Stop being an idiot before your exams!


How all of us behave like complete idiots before our exams.

Pre-Examination Rant:

Second in-semester exams start day after tomorrow. We've got Algorithms and Database Managements systems on the first day. I can count the number of lectures of DBMS I have attended on the fingers of my hands, one hand, even if I were suffering from Oligodactyly . I really find it uninspiring and have sympathies for the person who has to handle databases when he graduates. I don't want to be that person.

Its too much theory and blah blah. I am probably wrong and am sure DBMS is a very important subject, but I just don't get inspired by it. I have to start studying it. Probably after this post.


I had a lot of tiny epiphanies today, Um usual pre-examination behavior. Even the beginning of this blog was through one of these mini epiphanies.

Anyway,
I hate something about examinations a lot. No, not about the system or anything. It's about how most of us behave in the few days before exams.

We dedicate few days before examination to studying. Just studying. It may be ten days for few or a maybe a week. These days suck. It's like the only thing that you think you are supposed to do in these few days is to study. And if you are not studying you better be sleeping or eating.

If I look at my complete day in which I was supposedly studying and denying myself of any recreation, I hardly studied. Then what did I do? Nada. Void. Nothing. Neither is my studying proportional to the time I invest in it nor do I permit myself in doing anything else. If I want to take a break, I take a nap. Wake up in cold sweat and rush back to my desk to make up for the extended sleep.

This is completely stupid. Stupid Stupid Stupid.

Shouldn't I just study properly for some part of the day and do something else in the remaining. No. Rather take the small amount of learning and distribute it throughout the day so in the end half of it doesn't make sense and there is hardly any retention. Argh. Who are you trying to fool?! You are just being stupid! You keep checking your Facebook, Twitter, Webmail and Gmail. You keep cycling through them. You read random articles. You strike up a conversation with friends you've not talked to in a long time.

Hey!
Long time!? How have you been?!



And then you don't even look for a reply. You don't give a fuck. You are busy reading comments on Feline videos on Youtube. You think how can everyone be so easily distracted? Oh and in between all this you read a line or two. Pretend you are studying. You are just killing time and waiting for the day to end. Waiting for the exams to end.

Dude, I spent the whole day studying! The course is just too large!

Can we just be a little smart and not waste 10 or 7 days before every exam pretending?! We anyway pretend a lot in our lives. Leave this out please. Don't pretend to study just because everybody is studying the whole day! It is not sacrilegious to do something else than studying before exams. There is no police.

Don't be a sheep!




But it is really funny, how I am so touchy and feeling so much about productivity just right before my examinations. Because after it ends, I'll turn a deaf ear to all such pleas in my stupid head. I'll be completely vella. I'll be in the state of doing nothing at all and wasting time till the dates for the next examination are announced.

"Vellapanti is a series of endless actions having the sole aim to kill time and doing chutiyapa at the same time"
Source: UrbanDictionary


True. We miss something when it's denied.

On an unrelated note. Only know you love her when you Let Her Go. Awesome song. Check it out. One of my favorite voices! The band is called Passenger.


 


PS. I have been tampering with the blog layout throughout the day and finally decided upon the sidebar thingy, which you see on the side. Duh. Tell me what you think of it? Please? I just can't decide.

Also please subscribe and comment :) Hover to the right of the screen. 

Everybody is not subscribing. Don't be a sheep.

Monday, September 2

How college students took group study to a whole new level !

Students of Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT) took group study to an entire new level during one of their recent in semester examinations.

Students were given a random set of questions by the professor and were supposed to find their answers and treat them as the syllabus of the upcoming examination. Everyone was completely clueless. It was all messed up and last minute panic had already kicked in for those who gave a damn.

But necessity is the mother of Jugaad. 

One of the students made a document on Google Doc and make it public and editable by everyone. He put all the questions on it and wrote a tiny foreword telling people to fill in answers and links. All questions which were in more probability of being asked in the examination were asked to be +1'ed.



Initially the doc wasn't filled up completely but as the night before the exam began, the doc was being viewed by as many as 70 people and most of them were editing and adding answers.

It was really wonderful seeing such massive collaboration. The document was the single source of information for many of the clueless students.

There were at times when 50 people were editing at the same time and Google didn't allow any further editors on the document. But all of us could read it anyway.

But it was not that smooth and simple. There were many cases of people writing complete bull shit and going completely off topic taking advantage of their anonymity. But any crap written was removed very quickly by other more serious editors. A sense of community.

There were also instances in which people selected the whole text and deleted it and thereby sending many students in panic and giving them tiny heart attacks. These instances increased as soon dawn was breaking, and so were people's hopes about the exam. But thank god for revision history, peace was instilled quickly.

In all, its an wonderful example of who technology can be used for mass collaboration.
Everyone has the same technology, its just about how you use it and make the most of it.

A video about massive collaboration which really amused me in my freshmen year. Its an must watch for everybody. Creativity is endless.





Tuesday, August 6

Madonna's 4 minutes and Arduino Board.

Note: Non senti post. Just a bit technical. Yes, I am not crying and brooding all the time.

An assembled serial Arduino. (Photo by Nicholas Zambetti)

“Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
Yeah, uh huh
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
I only got 4 minutes to save the world




Don’t judge me. Don't go away. This post is not about that song. Play it for added effect while reading.
World ends in 4 minutes 15 seconds.
Yes, it is the end. Everything gets over. Reset. You have to start from scratch every 4 minutes 15 seconds.
At least in Arduino world. This happened in the EHD ( Embedded Hardware Design ) lab. We were supposed to work on Arduino boards and implement a clock which displays the time. We also had to add an alarm.

The method we followed was to have a variable called seconds, which stores duh seconds. We added a delay of 1 seconds before incrementing it.

seconds = 0
delay(1000)
seconds = seconds + 1
We had to write the time every time into EEPROM so that the clock can continue even after a reset.
EEPROM.write(address, seconds)
In the start of each loop we read the seconds from the EEPROM, displayed it, added a delay, incremented, wrote in the EEPROM and continued the same cycle all over again.

The clock was working was properly our at least it seemed to. But stumbled upon something really weird though.

When the clock was running,
4 : 11
4 : 12
4 : 13
4 : 14
4 : 15
0 :  0
0 :  1
0 :  2

WHAT?! The world came crashing. Nothing made sense. Well, okay. Nothing that melodramatic.
But me and Zubin ( lab partner) were confused. There was nothing in the code that could reset the seconds to zero. Why only after 4:15? The code was simple enough to have any such hidden errors.
We tried again, and the same thing happened. We were reset to the beginning of time as soon as we hit 4:15.
But we were a little confused and then it finally hit us.

Each address on the EEPROM is byte sized and hence can only save numbers from 0 to 255. As our design solely relied on one variable (seconds) we were facing the problem.

4 : 15 means 4* 60 + 15 seconds, ie 255.

As soon as the time reached 4 : 16, it meant 256 seconds. But we couldn’t write 256 into the EEPROM, hence 0 was getting written.  Which meant the next read only fetched 0 seconds.
It was such an eureka moment for us. We were literally excited and beaming. 

We engineers, little byte sized things make us so happy.









Ps. Subscribe if you like :)
Twitter: @NisarHogaya

Saturday, May 18

I am scared.


I am scared. 

Recently I decided to do something. It is a grand plan. Everything about the plan is appealing. So yes, planning part is done. Finally the confirmation came from the other side and the plan started materializing.

I'll tell you what the plan is soon, even though many people already know it. I think I can tell you soon because I can finally see it as happening.
Keep your goals to yourself. This is one the best things I have learned. Check this TED talk without fail.

It started becoming real. And I got scared. I am really scared. But no one really gets it. I shared my feelings with few, but all they have is how wonderful it would be when I do it. How amazing it would be, and how everything will be okay in the end.I really appreciate it. But it really doesn't work that way. I know they are trying to help, and I do look for comforting words at times, but the ones I get are not the ones I want. Maybe words won't help. Maybe someone should just sit besides me and accept the fact that the plan is scary. No overly optimistic words. Someone who just accepts it that i am scared and sits in silent solidarity with me for some while. At least we would be on the same page. Then 'we' will know it'll be alright.

 There is this constant pain in the back of my head. I am tensed. There are even moments when I think of giving up. Letting go of the plan. Telling myself that thinking of the plan was good enough, I don't really need to do it. 

This is not the first time that this has happened. It happens many times. Whenever I plan to do something which will be really great. Something which is not ordinary I get scared and the prospect of going by everyday routine is appealing and somehow warm. 
I get this feeling before playing important football matches. I clearly remember this before the semi-final against PDPU during Concours'12. I was scared. But it wasn't the fear of losing. It was something different. 

It was then that this quote by Marianne Williamson (paraphrased in Coach Carter) finally made sense to me. Every word of it. 
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others"

Please check the Zen Pencil version of it.

I guess i have a similar fear right now. Actually, exactly this. 

That football match was the best game I had ever played till now. That feeling was amazing. We went ahead and won the finals too.


Our comfort zones, are damn too comforting. The fear of unknown is really getting at me. But I think this trip is all about getting over it. And once I am done with it, the feeling would be something similar.


Thursday, May 16

Opening old wounds.

This is the last senti note I am posting for a long time now.

Again it is something I had written long back. And I am not editing it before posting. Long back. Please don't try to connect the dots because they won't.



Opening up old wounds .

When something bad happens between you and someone you love, what follows is untameable anger and hatred. But as time passes by you fall into a stage where you just stop remembering the person. As if something never happened between you both. You are completely oblivious to the past event. Then comes the part, where small things trigger nostalgia. Your jacket, some particular song, some smell, or your accidental reading of old diaries. This phase is strange. You finally start thinking about your past more clearly. You still hate the person for what he or she did to you, but at the same time you cherish the sweet memories you shared with that person. You are suddenly calmer, but there is this urge building up in you that wants you to be at peace with your past. What is one to do then? Does one let go of old prejudices and ego and reach out to him or her. Or one should learn to let go and accept the fact that things always happen for a reason? Are some chapters permanently closed in our lives? What stops us from opening them? Is it the fear of facing the similar old fate? Is it fear of confrontation? Or is it just plain ego? Don't people who were once so special to you deserve another chance? It’s like, opening up old wounds and letting the blood flow but at the same time enjoying the pain and the rush it gave the first time. Well, it’s time to mend the wounds.


Present note:
Funny thing, because I can now tell you how it went. Though most of the questions are still unsolved. 

However many times I have tried opening old wounds, it has been a temporary affair. It lasts a very little time. There is something so fascinating about the past. That is why I always end up opening old wounds. It gives me a high, everything seems to fall in place. There is something so fascinating about discussing what ifs. And everything feels alright. But it doesn't last. Sooner or later you realize why it didn't work. And poof! you are back to your old life. Your trip ends. Its good that you are at peace with it at least, but   expecting everything to be the same is too much to ask for and I have stopped hoping for it. Some people are meant to be in your life for a certain time and in retrospect you'll realize their role. Asking them to overstay, demeans the role they played. 




Wednesday, May 15

Your absence is what I love


This is something I wrote long back. I am letting it out. It is kind of liberating, even though it doesn't mean anything.


You Absence is what I love. 


This is really strange. The time after we fight, the time when we don’t talk, that’s the time I love you the most.  Its when we don't talk, its when I miss you the most. It’s the time I only remember the good memories from before.  It’s the time when I am calm, I am forgiving, I am waiting for you. I know everything will be good.

But then we are back together, we become rude, we became miserable and pathetic.
It's like we think we are through the hard part, and we can behave however we want.

Its funny. We are so strange. We fight with each other because we don’t get to spend time with each other, and end up spending even less time with each other. How is hate inspired by the need of love different? We respect each other, we long for each other when we are not talking, we acknowledge each other’s absence and the loss, we hope for a better time ahead, but when we have each other again, we screw it all up.

Trust me, I am happier when we don’t talk.  I am calmer then. There is this feeling that whatever would come now would be better as we just passed through the worst. Lately, I long for that feeling rather than actually being with you and seeing whether what we hoped for is true or not.  





Tuesday, May 14

On letters and memories.

Hello :)

The only thing I've done today is watched two episodes of Seinfeld and sleep. Seriously, nothing else.


But I like how I have this urgency to write something before midnight, and I have only 2 hours. The motive behind starting the blog is working very well.


On letters and memories,

Or cheating your way to being remembered. Haha.

Letters.
I have always been fascinated by hand written letters. Always. Though i never got many. I've told this to people who are close to me before. I am in general very passionate about the written word. How everything written is permanent and stays. How anyone could write, and how everyone is a writer. You just have to write what you think, how difficult can it be? It's probably those pseudo-intellectual writers who keep using fancy words and metaphors which are really not needed, that scare away people from writing. 

You just have to write what you think. Its like listening to your mind, and just jotting it down. I will save this for another post, on why i love writing so much and why everyone should write. 

Today it is about letters.
 Recently, i have received and written a lot of notes and letters. But most of them are farewell notes and goodbye letters. They are neatly stacked in my drawer of little things i have saved up from the starting of college. Little things, from clips to an Orange from first semester which has now solidified to an extent that it can be used as a ball. It leaves a tangy smell on you after you've played with it for a while. I love collecting such pieces which will trigger back memories many years down the line. Yes, in a way i love staying in the past. In a romantic sort of way. I am always looking for souvenirs of moments and nights. I even remember saving my first parchi when i was caught by the traffic policeman for driving late night. To think of it now, it makes me remember everything about the day and the pillion.   

I remember reading, "Don't have time to think?" . It is a collection of letters exchanged between Richard Feynman and the people around him. I was really fascinated. You actually get an insight into how these people think. With so much clarity and rationality. The conversations are so pure with real emotions, with words that do justice to the emotions. Unlike conversations nowadays, conversations are short, of not much importance. They don't leave a mark on you. Years down the line, i don't think I am going to remember many conversations i had with people which are close to me. Conversations online are sick and invaded by cute looking parasites like :P's . Their population in each conversation is alarming. Yellow everywhere. I even use them instead of full-stops. Our vocab is binary, with 'faad', 'rad' or 'epic' used for anything good and 'sad' used for anything bad. Seriously. We've oversimplified the beauty of emotions so cheaply.

I really wish i end up gathering a lot more letters by the end of my college life. But i just cannot wish for them and wait. I've decided to write letters, at least one, to people whom i think i was unjust with, people who i think deserved better and people who mean so much to me but don't know about it. Hand written and to be posted by mail. Its a forceful way of making sure you are remembered down the line. 

Well, i came across this interesting Ted back which inspired me to write today's blog post.
They explain it in a better way. Please watch both of them.



She has an interesting point. When she says that she holds the letter which once his father touched. It was sort of a connection. As i said, letters are ways of explicitly making sure that you will be remembered by the person who means a lot to you. You'll always know, whatever ups and downs you had with them, this letter and everything said in it , will always stay.


This one particularly being my favorite. 


I just love what she is doing. Imagine waking up one day with a bunch of letters about you from people you had no idea existed. She operates a site. So if you sign up , they tell you the next time they are writing letters for someone, and you can join in and write something as well. Imagine, making somebody's day special somewhere across the world.

Here is the link to it.

Do check the website out. She has written some amazing letters.
For example this, i guess everyone in college should read.

So I have added two things to my bucketlist today,
  • Write a love letter to  a stranger
  • Write a letter to someone I know

Sorry for the hurried up post, I just made it on time. I haven't even proofread. Only 5 minutes to go. 

Dear reader,

Please subscribe and comment or better, 
write me a letter and i'll write back :)

B - 213,

hall of residence men DA-IICT, near indroda circle Gandhinagar, 
Gujarat 382007

(I am not sure if this is creepy, But what the hell?)

Yours,
Nisar.

Ps. I could have written a lot more. But can't break the rules. Maybe a follow up post.

Monday, May 13

The Great Gatsby. On music and different perspectives.


So I finished reading The Great Gatsby. I am sure you’ve heard about it somewhere or the other. It’s written by the Scott Fitzgerald. If you haven’t, a movie based on the book is releasing on 17th
So I took up the book because a friend suggested it to me, and I had almost given up on the book after a few pages, but then I saw the trailer of the movie and I saw the book differently. I was almost subconsciously humming the song that plays in the trailer while reading the book. I am hooked to that song.

There are books, which leave you in the state of incompleteness. Yearning. You end up longing for being a character in that book. A mute character who is watching by the sidelines. You are always there in the scene, looking at everything that is going around, feeling important as if you have a say, but nobody ever really asks. But you are there.
There is more to the incompleteness I feel, it is the lack of a muse. Especially after reading ‘The rule of four’ . But that deserves a whole post in itself.


This will not be a book review, and I will not write about the theme of the book because I don’t want to spoil it for you. I’ll keep it pending till I watch the movie.

This post is about 2 songs which I found in the trailer of The Great Gatsby. And mostly about perspectives. How a piece of lyric can be interpreted so differently leading to different songs. Even the same   interpretations can lead to different interpretations by the listeners. It is also about the circumstance in which you hear the song.

 Foremost, Love is blindness by Jack White. He is the guy from White Stripes (no longer). No? Seven Nation Army? The Bayern Munich song? GIJOE trailer song? No? Die.
So it is a cover of the song by the same name from U2. It is a brilliant song. 

Okay lets do something first. I'll just post the lyrics. While reading them, try to form a tune. Try to sing them. Imagine it is your song. Just read it in a tune. Please do it. This post is all about perspectives.


"Love is blindness, 
I don't wanna see
Won't you wrap the night 
Around me
Oh, my heart
Love is blindness.

I'm in a parked car
On a crowded street,
And I see my love
Made complete.
The thread is ripping
The knot is slipping.
Love is blindness.

Love is clockworks,
And it's cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel
Squeeze the handle
Blow out the candle
Blindness"



Here is the original video. I am not a vevo fan, but this video deserves to be seen.

Here is what i found on wikipedia about the song, 
"Author Atara Stein wrote that the song "suggests that love can operate only through a willful self-deception, a voluntary surrender to what one knows is an illusion. The singer begs his lover to 'wrap the night' around him because, as he proclaims, 'I don't want to see.' The singer knows that the image he creates of his loved one is false, but it is the only image that can satisfy him. He must perceive his beloved in idealized terms, so she can reflect back to him the image of himself that he desires to see" 

Now listen to Jack White's version. The difference is worth noting. I am in love with this song. The energy and madness is overwhelming. Especially during the end, when the guitar when the guitar starts screeching. This song is one of the reasons i am waiting so eagerly to watch the movie, and why i didn't give up on the book. Every book should come with OST's. 



Both the songs are so different in a way. The U2 original is more in surrender. More like accepting something and letting it go. While the Jack White version breathes anger. It paints an image of anger and frustration. You know you've screwed and you are reveling in pain.

Its really fascinating. How a piece of lyric, for which initially you can't think of any music, has two or many more such beautiful interpretations.

Similarly, another song from the trailer is "Happy Together" , originally by the Turtles. 

Here is some of the lyric. Do the same above. Just try to read them with a tune in your mind. Make something up.
Happy Together by The Turtles

"Imagine me and you, I do
I think about you day and night, it's only right
To think about the girl you love and hold her tight
So happy together

If I should call you up, invest a dime
And you say you belong to me and ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be, so very fine
So happy together

I can't see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me, baby the skies'll be blue
For all my life"

Now listen to this, i am going to skip the original, and rather show you 2 different covers.
The Simple Plan one. This was not on the trailer.


And this is the one from the trailer.
It is by a band called Filter.



This version is so powerful and different than the Simple Plan one. More serious. It paints such a strong image. When i was in school, i was hooked on to Simple Plan's version. I used to find it really catchy. But this one is so powerful. Maybe it is the circumstance in which you listen to a song for the first time that defines your relationship with the song. For me this song totally goes with the Gatsby trailer. Whoever decided all the OST's needs to be given a pat on the back.

And finally, the trailer. Don't check the other trailers of this movie. Because they have spoilers in them.


I know there are many other songs with very different covers, if you know any please comment. Please. 

Also, could you please subscribe (hover your mouse to the top right of the screen), so that i don't have to post about this on facebook everyday. Please, old sport? :)