The Times They Are A-Changing

We have all done our bit of monkeying around in school and though I was the kinds that other kids made fun of because I didn't monkey around much, I still did get my bit of scolding and even a slap from a teacher (I know!) for fooling around. I remember once we irritated our teacher so much that she said she wont take a class for us again. It took a lot of persuading and cajoling to get her in our class again.

In my second year at IIT, we had a rather young and cute looking English teacher who was very aware of the fact that she was young and cute looking :). So one evening when she was taking a class she suddenly looks up and says "Who was it?", we are all stunned, we all look at each other clueless as to what it was that had made her rosy cheeks redder with embarrassment or anger. There was silence for a while, pin-drop and awkward silence, suddenly we knew who did what and we broke into a peel of laughter. It happened again, "it" was a tweet (of a bird. Boy! These days you got to clarify) which the teacher mistook for a boy whistling at her. For a couple of classes we could all notice her a little embarrassed and red cheeked at the incident.

Time passes, we grow with the bittersweet memories of the past, laughing at our mistakes. Sometimes we learn from them and many a times we can't fix what we broke. And sometimes, tables turn, the pestering kid of yesterday will be pestered by his own kids tomorrow. As for me, I get to teach a bunch of imps.

I am a part of an NGO which aims to bring awareness to the society by teaching the younger generation about their rights and responsibilities. The course is wonderfully designed for 8th class students as a no credit course with a year end project. The project itself involves creating real solutions to real life problems like Garbage disposals, mismanaged road network etc. Now it all sounds fun, at least to me it does but only till I enter the class, for once I do, the ruckus that those small devils create bring back those fleeting memories of the teachers we so cruelly tormented and Bob Dylan's old song...

The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

IIT & Rickshawala

This was an interesting mail forward I got. Not very sure of the authenticity, but definitely fun and worth a read.

There were two rickshaw-walas vying for our business, when we wanted to go to Sankat-Mochan temple in Benaras. I agreed to go with the one, who was about 20 years of age, seemed like a regular young rickshaw-wala, but I found something interesting about him. I was not proved wrong.

He wanted Rs 50, we said Rs 30. We settled for Rs 40.

Here are the highlights of the conversation that ensued, while we rode the rickshaw:

"Aap kahan se aaye hain?"

"Delhi."

"Bijness, ya kaam karte hain?"

"Naukri karte hain."

"Kismein?"

"Internet mein."

"Humara bhi kuch wahin kaam lagwa dijiye."

I just chuckled.

"Main try kar raha hoon engineering padhne kee. Achchi naukri lag jaayegi tab."

"Achcha?" I asked a little interested.

"Haan, delhi mein Guru Gobind Singh Indraprashta University mein engineering ke liye apply kiya hai. Achchi hai woh university."

"Haan, achchi hai", I agreed.

"Haan, kal hee maine JEE bhi diya."

"JEE matlab, IIT ka?"

"Haan, Joint Entrance Examination" he pronounced it perfectly.Just to make it clear to me what JEE stood for. "Mushkil hota hai exam."

"Haan, 2 saal toh log padhte hee hain uske liye, asaan nahin hai."

"Delhi mein Akaash coaching institute hain na?"

"Haan, hai."

"Aapne kya padhai kee?"

"Main engineer hoon, aur phir MBA bhi kiya."

"Kahan se engineer?"

"IIT Delhi se."

He swung back, surprised, a little delighted, and smiled. "Ok, aapke liye Rs 30."

Swati and I laughed.

Swati asked "Padhai kab karte they IIT ke liye?"

"Bas, rickshaw chalaane ke baad raat mein". Then he added

"Kismein engineering kee aapne?"

"Chemical."

"Toh aapki Chemistry toh badi strong hogi."

"Nahin, aisa nahin hai."

He continued "Yeh bataiye....jab Mendeleev ne Periodic Table banaya tha tab kitne elements they usmein?"

Now it was my turn to get surprised. He was quizzing me. I said "Shayad 70-80."

"No, 63" he said sharply. "Kaunse element kee electronegativity highest hai?"

Swati was laughing, and I didnt try too hard and said "Pata nahin."

"Flourine", he said confidently. Without a break he asked,"Kaunse element kee electron affinity highest hoti hai?"

Now I was laughing too and said "Nahin pata"

"Chlorine. toh aapka kaunsa subject strong tha?" clearly having proven that my chemistry wasn't a strong point.

"Physics", I said.

"Achha, Newton's second law of motion kya hai?"

I thought I knew this one. "F=ma", I said.

"Physics is not about formula, it is understanding concept!", he reprimanded me in near perfect English. "Tell me in statement"

I was shocked. Swati continued to laugh.

I said "ok, Newtons second law, er....was...."

" 'Was' nahin, 'is'!Second law abhi bhi hai!" he snapped at my use of 'was'.

Surely, my physics wasn't impressing him either. "Yaad nahin, I said"

"Force on an object is directly proportional to the mass of the object and the acceleration of the object", he said it in near perfect English. "Aapne M.Tech nahin kiya?"

"Nahin, MBA kiya"

"MBA waale toh sirf paisa kamana chahte hain, kaam nahin karte."

"Nahin, aisa nahin hai, paisa kamaane ke liye kaam karna padta hai." Didn't think too highly of me apparently anymore.

In a minute we reached our destination. We got off and I told him that he must and should definitely study more, and that I thought he was sharp as hell. He took only Rs 30, smiled and began to leave. I got my camera out and said "Raju, ek photo leta hoon tumhari". He waved me off, dismissed the idea and rode off before I could say anything more....leaving me feeling high and dry like a spurned lover.

Damn, what a ride that was! India is changing, and changing fast.

Cause and effect

I love economics, that does not go on to say or even hint that I understand economics or the complex and lengthy policies that FED/RBI comes up with every now and then. But I do find it absolutely interesting to see the cause and effect of seemingly unrelated things. How we react to changes around us. How a seemingly simple .01% hike in interest rates change our long term and short term goals. And more interestingly how the basics of economics apply to our everyday decisions.

There is this very famous principle of return on investment, you give an orange to a guy, he will eat it with a relish; give him two, he will love it more but give him three, he probably wont eat the third one so happily and the fourth one he will probably leave. Basically it says that you cant keep giving the same incentive/reward and expect more and more output from it. There is another one which I like, this one talks about the counter-intuitive greedy approach, where a group of people all competing for something try to get the best for themselves, but as a group they lose as they don't see that the equilibrium though slower than the optimal is best for everyone. Simple example, there is a narrow lane, all want to get to the other side, the best is that they form a queue and all can go smoothly if one of them decides to be greedy and jump the line, they will all get stuck in a jam that could take them much much longer than being in the equilibrium state where they take more time than the best(jumping the queue - 0 time).

Anyway, I was reminded of this because of a study I came across today, it basically talks about food price index and the riots around the world. Found it pretty interesting, knowing that a behaviour as abstract as rioting is related to something measurable and controllable as Food price index gives me hope that we can create a world with lesser riots and more peace.

The most stunnning illusion EVER

I am sure we have all seen numerous illusions but this one so darn stunning that I literally let out a shriek seeing this one.

Look at squares A and B. They are the same shade of gray. I am sure you wont believe this, I didn't, well take a printout, cut it into 4 pieces, take the squares A & B side by side and see for yourself. Lazier ones can use mspaint/gimp to see the magic.

Brightness and color can have powerful effects on perception. In this illusion created by vision scientist Edward H. Adelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our brain does not perceive the true brightness and color of each square but instead determines the brightness and color of A and B by comparison with the squares surrounding them

Edward de Bono and String Theory

Every now and then I am sure we hear of analogies that seem to make absolutely no co-relation to the topic of discussion to anyone other than the analogizer [;)]. I once had a friend, lets call her XXX who used to boil down allllllll things known to mankind to a sambar wada problem [XXX if you are reading this, I am not talking about you, its about some other friend who has that sameproblem interesting habit ;)]. We have a long interview process for a candidate and we sit together to decide if the candidate is the right choice. She goes - "He is an idliwala and we want to make samosas!". We have a week long sales meeting trying to see if a product makes sense for India market, she says: "We are trying to sell idli in Chandni Chowk" [which in all probabilities meant that its not going to sell ;)]. I could go and on with how everything from string theory to making tea can all boil down to idli sambhar problem but then it wont leave anything for your imaginations :). It sometimes gets entertaining to watch an analogizer stretch his analogy thin to demonstrate that indeed it does make sense.

The other day in a casual office chat AR says "Retail business is like doctors". No worries... I didn't make head or tail of it either [however if you did, read on to make sure that you got it right and if you DID get it right, Hats off to you for the lateral thoughts (as an aside, the same AR just helped me remember the phrase "lateral thinking" by asking me to google Edward de Bono!)]. Anyways, what he meant to say was that professionally unless you are well known as a Doctor or a Retailer, you dont make a lot of money. He went on to explain the analogy; A small retailer cannot make a lot of profit unless people know him, at which point he can go on to charge a premium for the stuff he has, a smaller retailer needs to offer the stuff at the lowest price he can afford to attract customers. NOW do you see the analogy? Well.. honestly I dont :) :)

On the brighter side however, these analogies truly show how wonderfully human mind works. Relating two seemingly very different things to better understand the problem at hand, to see a pattern in the chaos is a quality of a beautiful mind.

PS: If you are thinking how the image of the brain relates to the post. Well.. Its not about relativity.. is it?

An ode to friendship

It was Eid-Ul-Zuha yesterday, and though there is an Eid every year, this Eid was special for me. Ever since I have moved out of home for college, I have been away from home in Eid only a couple of times. Once in college and once a few years back on job. Now college is always fun, there are way too many friends around, it is almost like a home away from home. But the time I was at job, it really sucked. I had really missed home and I think I had never felt so homesick and desolate before that.

Footage from last year: My Birthday

This time I was again away from home for Eid, but now I am a family man [Cheesy.. I know ;)], and I live in a home and this was the first big festival we are alone (my wife and I).. It was wonderful, though I missed home a lot, but it was fun. We went to a friend's place in the morning and had friends at my place in the evening and at night. We did nothing much, just ate, talked junk [me doing most of the talking, to which I got a feedback that lately I am talking a lot;) ], called home, called friends and talked more. It was fun, the day reminded me of the importance of friends in life. Family is obviously important and cannot be replaced with anything else, but friends have their special place that cannot be filled with something else. I am grateful to have made a few very good friends for making me feel special.

दिये जलते हैं,
फूल खिलते हैं,
बड़ी मुश्किल से मगर,
दुनिया में दोस्त मिलते हैं!

Wheels of change

After a long pause, here I am, back to the random bakar. The thing about long pauses is that there is so much of an inertia to start again, you keep looking for the big bang to come back with (damn Newton!). Well, but then, mea culpa [One of early comments in code by one of my seniors who opened the doors for me, to the world of absurd comments].

Anyways, I am sure that no one would be interested to know what was keeping me busy; but just in case someone was wondering, well, I got married, switched jobs [after four wonderful years at my last company] and moved to a new place. New job came with new responsibilities, new team and a brand new product that we have to develop. In smaller setups this would typically boil down to ad-hoc meetings, filling every corner of the whiteboard which cannot be erased as no-one keeps meeting notes other than the faithful whiteboard, team huddling up every now and then around every other cubicle and every possible nook and corner for lack of enough meeting rooms (I remember we once huddled up in a restaurant where we had gone for a team outing but ended up talking about work). But in a larger organization where the meeting rooms are a-plenty, you got to "book" a meeting rooom in the outlook organizer for setting up a meeting. You got to send meeting "invitations" to all concerned parties and once the meeting has started, you got to send a "gentle reminder" to everyone to say that everyone should assemble (compared to the smaller setup where all you do is shout out loud, call people and start the "huddle"). One then shares his screen and someone else would take meeting notes and in an hour you would loose the meeting room to someone else who has booked it for the next slot and you walk out satisfied with the heated debate or with the joy of having scheduled a follow-up-meeting to discuss what was left incomplete :).

But that was about what was keeping me busy, the blog was about this new.. mmm... maybe I should call it a hobby... that I have developed of drawing cartoons whenever I have some free time. Hope you like it... :)

Again I am sure no one would be interested in knowing when I get free time to do all this junk, but in case you are wondering... in those long meetings when I dont find anything better to do and I have my notebook and a pen handy :)

Age of Empires

I am sure most of us would have played or at least would know what Age of Empires is. For the un-initiated, its a game where different players represent kingdoms. It is a game based on the simple paradigm, "Survival of the fittest". The fittest is the one with most resources, most land or most advanced. Countries start from some Age [Industrial Age for instance] and advance to Nuclear Age etc.

Well, I am not here to talk about the game. I came across this article about China building one of the most efficient power plants in the world. "China’s ability to generate its electricity more efficiently could be critical as the sector expands". It is doing everything it can to win this game. From Olympics to Technology and Infrastructure it is racing against the world's super powers, but India seems to be slowly panting along bogged with its baggage of greedy politicians and lazy beaurocrats, with us who dont seem to care a lot about where India goes. The infrastructure for common-wealth is nowhere near the target deadlines, it is apalling to see the "Sheru On Track" hoardings in Delhi, sometimes I wonder if Sheru knows that there is no track ahead.
I dont believe in cribbing and ranting. But it was really a helpless feeling to see this article. Maybe I should have stuck to Electrical Engineering and worked for Power Industry, maybe someone else did and I hope someone is working hard to put Indian Power India on the globe.

What an idea sirji!

Pursuing our dreams

Movies as a means for mass communication, I think, was never as strong or more impactful as it is these days. Am just back from the last show of 3 Idiots, it is a simple movie with a simple very predictable story, right to the end with no surprises. Yet, it makes a strong point and drives it strongly, it almost rubs it in; it talks about how Indian families stress on taking a main stream course like an Engineer or a Doctor and ignores the likes and dislikes of an individual. How our education system stresses on getting the highest marks, on running a race and not on the importance of learning nor on pursuing our dreams.

I am guilty of this same sin, and somewhere most of us are, but we need to wake up and realize our dreams and enable the dreams of others who we can help. I dont know how one finds the true love or how does one help someone else to find his or her true love. I dont know how a parent will find what the kid truly wants to do. But I am sure that I wont ask someone else to fulfill my dreams. I dont think anyone should.

Letting go of the burden

Sometime back I was talking with CK about how carrying a burden stops us from seeing the beauty of life. We all do things that we don't want to do, we aren't proud of doing and we feel bad about them. Sometimes we just don't forgive ourselves, I remembered this very good story about an old monk and a young monk. They were walking through a forest when they came to a river bank and saw a beautiful young woman standing at the edge of the bank and was afraid to cross the river.

The old monk, seeing that she needed help offered to help by carrying her across the river on his back. She accepted the offer and thanked him for helping her cross the river.

The 2 monks continued on their journey, but the young monk was shocked and disturbed at having seen his older companion break his vow of not touching a female so nonchalantly. Finally, after 3 hours of walking and thinking, he could contain himself no longer and he burst out in anger, "Why did you break your vow? Why did you let her beauty tempt you?"

The older monk remained silent for several steps and then said, "It is you who should tell me what it is like to carry such a beautiful young woman. You see I put her down 3 hours ago at the river, but you are still carrying her."

It is a simple story, but sometimes we forget simple things and we carry too much load on our back. Let go off the load and we will be a happier person

Mail Notification

One of the problems of using Unix based OS is that it becomes damn difficult to check office mails. Outlook still doesnt have an equivalent on Linux. Neither Thunderbird nor Evolution support Exchange 2007. I am left with using Outlook Webaccess that sucks. I have been living with this for almost a year now hoping that Thunderbird or Evolution will support Exchange 2007 sooner than later but to no avail.

So, this weekend I wrote this small Mail notifier that checks my Outlook & GMail account and pops up a notifier when there is a new mail. I find it extremely useful. Hope you find it too.

http://code.google.com/p/newmail-notify/

Socialism for Dummies!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor
and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on
socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same
grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had
studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that
socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the
effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Perspectives

Recently I read a post from a dear one, which talked about how he was ill-treated by life and how he learnt a few of his most important lessons the hard way. We all learn our lessons, life is a tough teacher, every baby falls and hurts itself only to learn how to run (a marathon!). We are betrayed by our trusted friends to learn how to judge a person a better and not to learn never to trust again. Love fails, we loose the most precious, and learn how to value them before they are lost, for loss is inevitable.

Sometime back I was talking to a friend, and we happened to talk about the movie Crash. I rate it amongst the top 5 movies I have seen; this friend says, "Yes, this is the movie where everyone is screwed by each other"; I was amazed, this very same movie, I remember as the movie where everyone in the end attains salvation, where justice is meted out to everyone. There is realization and forgiveness. There is this particular mini story where, to console his daughter when she was scared, he wraps her with an invisible scarf that has protected him from all the dangers and which his mom gave him and she should hand over to her daughter when she is five. Few days later, this guy is at gunpoint outside his house, by someone who wants to take revenge. The girl comes running to protect her dad - the man shoots - the girl clings on to her dad - the man who had shot realizes his mistake - the girl holds tight, says, "Daddy, my scarf will protect you!" - nobody dies, but in that moment everybody realize their mistakes. Everybody, somewhere in some crude way sees justice and salvation.

Judge not a book by its cover

I came across this today and I was stunned, touched, shocked and humbled. This is sheer talent that does not always show from the outside. This lady seemed to be one of those who come to the stage for some sadistic pleasure. I couldnt really make a lot of sense of the lyrics, amidst all the shouting, but what I could make was... "I dream a dream"... And yes.. It takes a lot of conviction to stand up for the dream you dream of.

Kudos to BGT for letting such people present before a wide audience.

Conquer Your Weakness

This is a story of one 10-year-old boy who decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident.

The boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn't understand why, after three months of training, the master had taught him only one move.

"Sensei," the boy finally said, "Shouldn't I be learning more moves?"

"This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you'll ever need to know," the Sensei replied. Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training.

Several months later, the Sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals.

This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the Sensei intervened. "No," the Sensei insisted, "Let him continue."

Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament. He was the champion.

On the way home, the boy and Sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind. "Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?"

"You won for two reasons," the Sensei answered. "First, you've almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second, the only known defence for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm."

The boy's greatest weakness had become his greatest strength.

Life in a Metro

Anshul, Kishmish & I sweating in the Mumbai local

Few weeks back I was in Mumbai, the second most populous city in the world; I have been to big shining cities, but Mumbai has a charm, its diversity stands out. Much to KM's discord, we travelled in the local train. It was amazing to see the crowd, local workers, students, office goers, they were all there, in an almost figurative harmony, moving towards a common destination. It was pretty hot and by the time we got off at Marine drive, we were all sweaty but the experience was worth the sweat :)

Marine Drive

We walked along the Marine drive in the scorching heat by the Arabian Sea; it was contrast contrasted, the wonderful skyline, spic roads and suddenly a lunch of Pav Bhaaji on a chatai by the beach under a tree at Chaupathi.
It was amusing to see the many many dabbawalaas making their way through the crowds. The fact that they still make their deliveries with a six sigma accuracy (correctness 99.9999% of the time) really sounds like a myth.

We reached The Taj and I was amazed (as usual) to know that I let out a sorrowful moan at the sight of the beautiful Taj being marred by the Terrorist attacks last November.

The city of Mumbai is really full of life and full of contrasts, of intertwined fates of people traveling together in the Mumbai locals. I really fell in love with the city and as we moved back towards the hotel in the evening, I was huming the old tune...

Zaraa haske.. Zaraa bachke... Ye hai mumbai meri jaan...

Of good, bad and technology

We hear the oft repeated cliched, "Everything happens for a good reason" over and over; and sometimes we wonder what good can come out of bad things, what good can come out of killings and misery, most of the time we are left without an answer, but today I came across this EXTREMELY interesting use of almost a massacre for something that might have a ground breaking impact on way things are today.

Ratan Bhardwaj and his colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, used radiocarbon dating, which is normally employed to establish the age of archaeological or geological remains, to work out the age of heart cells compared to the chronological age of the person from which they were isolated. To do this, the team took advantage of nuclear tests done during the 1950s and 1960s, which led to a sharp increase of radioactive Carbon 14 in the atmosphere. The radioactive material was captured by plants as CO2 and then worked its way up the food chain and into the DNA of the human body. Soon after the tests were stopped, atmospheric C14 levels declined again, leading to a corresponding drop in the C14 concentration in human DNA.

The team measured C14 levels in the heart tissue of twelve deceased patients aged between 19 and 73 at the time of death and found elevated C14 even in those subjects who had been born two decades before the nuclear tests started, indicating that the radioactive carbon must have been incorporated into heart muscle cells long after birth. Similarly, the C14 levels in the hearts of younger patients did not match the year of their birth but rather indicated a younger birthday for the cells.

- MIT Technology Review

It totally amazed me, on multiple counts, foremost, using radioactive dating to find cellular regenaration rate itself sounds absolutely fabulous a concept. But to put to a good use, a nuclear catastrophe, is what amazed me. Hats off to the team and the weirdly fabulous ways that we think.

Next time I hear someone say that everything happens for good, I would surely think twice before neglecting that as a cliche.

A watery weekend

Last weekend AS4 was all enthu to go somewhere, away from work; after a load of confusion on who is going and who is not, MB & I backing out at the last moment, trip was almost cancelled once, when we finally decided to leave Noida and leave for Rishikesh for a white water rafting "expedition" at 3 o clock in the morning.

Six of us, AS4, AS2, RM, T, MB & I started the trip with a late night movie (Excorcism of Emily Rose) at MB's place. With two cars, four drivers and two walky-talkies [MB has these really fancy toys that he plays with >:)] that we used to call each other names from one car to the other. The first stop was at Roorkee, I stopped over at IMG Lab and had a tea at VK sir's home. As was typical of VK sir, he offered us to arrange the insti guest house to stay and take bath.

After a brunch at Rishikesh, we started the white water rafting at 2:30 (delayed by MB's shopping for a capri and a "rafting" shoe!!!). Reaching the spot we realized we had left the camera down-stream and decided to request a friendly looking group of people (Chirag & Group) to take our group snap which they could send us later.

The rafting was wonderful, apart from the "adventurous" cliff jumping which RM & I took turns to scare each other for over 15 mins before we finally took the plunge, I "saved" an Ankita from drowning [yes.. that's me! OK... I just taught her how to float, and I guess it worked.. :)]..
We headed back for Delhi at noon the next day. The idea was to stop for a poori-halwa lunch at Har-ki-paudi, Haridwar. It was a like a total recall for me, from the campus days. We spent almost three hours in the water: floating, swimming and shouting till time would not permit us to linger on longer.
The next stop was @ Dominoes & Nirula's for a dinner in Meerut (where MB lost his cap again.. second time in 8 hours... ), we reached back in Noida at around 12.
We slept at 1 in the morning, five of us huddled in my room,bringing an end to the fabulous weekend, very well spent.

Three cheers to the trip.

How fleet is a glance of mind

How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.

It is amazing how easily the mind can shut off all the external voices and how easily it can be transported and carried away to a different world.

It was past midnight as I sat in my room infront of my laptop working on some document, I got up to get some water and I realized that the folks next door were playing loud music to celebrate something. As I drank the water I notice that the songs they were playing were the old dance numbers that were ever so hit on the campus - Summer of 69, Saturday Night, Its my life... In a moment I was back in that Thomso night, dancing like there's not a worry in the world, shouting, running from NesT to Hanger... Incredible.. A fleeting memory of the EE gang, IMG gang, those friends KU, GB, PG.. Those were really the best days of my life.. I call KU to know he is working late in the office.. PG to know she is M***I** [Top secret ;)]

Load shedding... Zoom in to present... MS saying that "woh bhi din the... aur aaj bhi din hein" (those were the days... and these are days too [not exactly... but hope u got the sense if u didnt get the original])... and in that moment my mind takes another flight; to the Kungfu master Tortoise Oogway from Kungfu Panda (Must watch if you like animations or action movies)

Oogway: You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

And yes, today is a present.. to be remembered in the time to come.