da vinci after all

Hey I read first 28 chapters in one sitting last nite and gave up only because my eyes were paining badly. So far quite an interesting novel but the way Brown has written it I wasn't sure what part was a fact and what part was a fiction. There is another book which claims most of it is fiction. Read davincihoax
anyway who cares. Also got swades(h) and what a wonderful music. Right now I am loving 'yu hun challa chal".

kuchh apne apne lagte ho

Came across this poem tum-mujhko-acchay-lagtay-ho on Shaffy's blog and somehow I am still smiling on this line 'kuchh apne apne lagte ho.'

anyway it's another three day weekend here in Bangalore due to 'kannada rajyotsava' and I'm again in the office madly finishing everything that might delay my home trip and it's really amazing how efficient I become at such times as things which otherwise might take days to solve, get done in hours.

heard 'yun hi challa chal mahi' from swadesh on MTV and now I have to have it. The instruments in this song remind of 'shabba shabba' from 'daud'

knock knock knock

Thanx to Tinu I got a chance to listen to the original 'knock knock knockin on heaven's door' by bob dylon. Out of the three versions (another two are by Guns and Roses and Avril Lavigne) I think Avril's is the best. May be coz female voice is best suited for the 'Sound of Appeal' (the funda originates from the great pt Pradeep whos 'e mere watan ke logon' sung by Lata is so popular.) and because she's done a good job.

pppassion

never take a break from guitar. I can't believe it that I played for lil more than an hour and my fingers almost started to bleed. and now I can't play for some time. it must have been more than 4 months since I last touched it...

anyway so I went to planetM (there is no better place on earth) and found aerosmith's cd with a mouth organ key-chain. how cool. and it plays too, both of them. I just can't get the key chain to open so that I can put it to a regular use as well.
Also got Rahman's all time hit tamil songs. Lovely collection. mukkala-muquabla and chinni chinni asai in tamil are superb.
They were palying 'mujhe tumse muhabbat hai' and it sounded so good that I had to pick 'tumsa nahi dekha'. Saw 'yuva' at the same place and was surprized to realize that I didn't have it so far (how dare!) so there I had my week's dose. I am really endulging myself these days.
Bangalore weather is great this sunday afternoon and biking is so much fun on otherwise so overcrowded roads. that's why I go to MG only on sunday afternoons. this time I also took a stroll on mg road and I was surprized to see all the footpath book vendors surrounded by people. all of them. book reading is catching up here it seems. pity though that people prefer to buy the pirated ones.(I prefer too)

dashahara

it's a long weekend and since I'm going home on Diwali I have to stay on here to finish things asap. meanwhile earlier I had decided to read the da vinci code but Suka's bad review of the book makes it less probable for now. Instead I am gonna guitar all this weekend. nok nok nokin on hvns door.

gud i gud by

yukk. either I am too complicated or too stupid or the world is too stupid or too complicated else how cud i goof up the same situation all three times while trying to do the right thing. whatever I'm giving up. Good By Mr Anderson.

code rain

Hey I'm going to read the da vinci code since so many ppl are talking about it. Got it from dutta. thanx dude.
and god is watching me, every move. I stepped into lift today after making sure there was no rain in sight and when I come out of the office building, lo, it's raining. So i'm back and blogging and leaving junk comments everywhere.

B&P

Saw Bride and Prejudice luckily almost at the same time as everyone else in the country since the seven week ban on non kannada movies have been lifted. Lovely movie and very entertaining specially if you have some cool friends to crack jokes ;)
The hindi songs in english and the english songs in hindi were way cool. But Ash all the time looked out of place. You could either watch her or the movie :)

Can't play Hitman-2.the CD's locked inside Mittaal's room. Damn you cypher.Instead went back to Diabolo-II and smashed all the creatures with Natash the sorceror!!!
tomorrow is Monday, lorry here I come.

call of duty

Wow. For the first time I finished a game without any help. Actually second time. forgetting diabolo-II. really cool game. you fight from running car and lorry, control a tank, clean up as sniper and normal maar-dhadi. graphics are amazing.
now I'll move on to hitman-2.

veer-zaara's music is super cool. The jagjeet-lata duet is wonderful and so is hussain brother's Quwwali. most other songs are great too.like 'hum to bhai jaise hain vaise rahenge' by Lata. Such an energetic song and after a long time Lata has tried some playback singing (it looked like Priety's) so her voice sounds even better.
but in general I am no more liking new hind film music. kind of looks like I've become gen-yester (thanx(?) snix for pointing this out) man I'm getting older. wait a minute. I liked tumsa nahi dekha. specially mujhe tumse mohabbat hai. though it belongs to my list of songs that could have been better. the second line 'e sanam mujhase poocho' should have been sung by a male lead all the time. and the 'oye oye' in the song is JUNK.

lover's story

just meet her once and you'll be able to decide.

it's not that simple. what if I realize that I don't like her..

well then you say bye bye and go on your way.simple.

no. I told you she once loved me..

yeah that's what you think.she never told you.

do you have to hear it to believe it?

ok,so what if she loved you once?

well now so much time has passed. after all this time she might have struggled hard to erase me from her memories, you know. Now I just can't walk in her life say hi and then when it has all come back to her, I say bye bye. No it'll be so cruel on her.

boy, you do care so much about her. you for sure love her.

you just don't get it. It's her memories that I love. For all you know she might be totally new person now. In your memories everything is rosy but not in life. it's serious.

hmmm. let's face it. you met A a long time ago. liked her a lot but then you were too busy to have anything to do with love. she thought you didn't like her. you went your way and she on hers.now you are all alone and she's moved to the same town. you want to decide if you should go and meet her to see if you like her but you are afraid to break her heart a second time.

that's what the situation is.

You are a joker. You are being over cautious. why don't you call her.

of course I did you dumbo. We chatted nicely and when I asked her what's her plan tomorrow she told me that she was going out with her friends.

what? You already asked her out.

Yeah, I kind of did. That's when I realized that she might not want to see me for the fear of the old love.

love and fear don't go together.'jab pyaar kiya to darna kya...'

that's only in movies. this is life and it's real and you suck as a friend.

whyeeeeeee?

you haven't given me any advice so far.

I'm helping you in considering all facts.

sorry...facts ko goli maro. what should I do? I just can't decide.

just meet her once and you'll be able to decide.

ZOO

there is a kitten in my kitchen. dunno where it came from. probably it's the birthplace. but last night I woke up with a start. There was so much light in my room. That's coz it was 6:30 AM. But I had thoght that I had just slept as I crashed at around 2 AM after fighting Germans, stealing their lorry and shooting their bombers, all in the wonderful game Call of Duty (Thanks Thakur for the amazing game..) So what caused me to leap out of the slumber was loud screams. real loud screams. but I didn't get off my bed as I couldn't. but the screams continued... I started to figure out who was screaming and then came to a conclusion that it's a cat. Then I started to wonder why should it be screaming and came to a conclusion that it must have gotten stuck somewhere and is asking for help. Then I started to think of the possible locations outside my room where one cat can get stuck and came to a conclusion that it must be the sink of my kitchen.(it's always full of utensils.. barrrh). Then came the toughest decisions of them all. TO getup and help (what help? I was rather scared.. it might bite me..) So I finally got up and searched around for a tool. What do you need to help a cat out of a stinky sink apart from a mask? If the cat is really intelligent then it won't need anything so it's not so I needed something that could hold on to it yet be far away from my body. Of course there was no such thing available in my room. Meanwhile the screams were driving me crazy so I took a cloth hanger (WHAT A CHOICE) and started on my adventure. The screams were coming from the kitchen but stopped as soon as I opened the gate of my room which has a characteristic sound and when I reached the kitchen I realised that all my preparations were useless as no cat was stuck in no sink. There was a big cat and a small cat (the kitten whom I saw for the first time) and the big cat was scaring the small one. I don't know who was making the sound. None of them moved when they saw me and I threw the hanger towards the bigger one in one very 'calvin-ian' shot. Then I made all sorts of sounds and danced all sorts of dances but none of them moved. That made me real thirsty and I went back to my room to get my water bottle and when I returned there was no sign of any of them. I picked the hanger put it back in it's place and went back to sleep.

I don't know if I was dreaming. but when I got up again ( or the first time) I saw a real colorful frog in the kitchen...

GOD

Came across this post thought-in-my-head

Interesting what all people think about god. There was once a very good article in BBC about god's existence. I searched for the link but can't find it. Luckily I have it as a mail and the arguments go like this

God or no god is the question.
from bbc.co.uk
==================================

The Argument from Design
This argument is very easy to follow:
The universe is such a beautiful and orderly thing
that it must have been designed.
Only God could have designed it.
Therefore since the universe exists, God must
exist.

But the atheist replies:
Actually the universe is not particularly beautiful
and orderly.
And even if it was, why should there be a designer?
And modern science shows that most of the natural
things we think of as designed are just the products
of processes like evolution.
So sorry, but I'm not convinced.

The "Ontological" Argument
Another argument that's easy to follow:
We think of God as a perfect being.
If God didn't exist he wouldn't be perfect.
God is perfect, therefore God exists.
But the Atheist replies:
Most atheists think this argument is so feeble they
don't bother dealing with it.
Professional philosophers usually reject it on the
grounds that existence is not a property of beings.

The First Cause Argument
Another argument that everyone can understand:
Everything that happens has a cause.
Therefore the universe must have had a cause.
That cause must have been God.
Therefore since the universe exists, God must exist
in order to have caused it to exist.
The atheist replies:
Then what caused God? (And what caused the cause of
God, and so on.)
And if God didn't need a cause, then maybe the
universe didn't need a cause either.
If God was already perfect before he created the
universe, why did he create it? How did it benefit
him? Why would he bother?
And if the universe was caused, perhaps something
other than God caused it?
Sorry, but I'm still not convinced.


The Argument from Evil
The existence of evil in the world is a problem for
those who believe that God is wholly good, and can do
anything, because the existence of evil seems inconsistent with the
existence of such a God.

The argument goes like this:
Most religions say that God is completely good,
knows everything, and is all-powerful.
But the world is full of wickedness and bad things
keep happening.
This can only happen if...
God is either unwilling to prevent evil, in
which case he is not good
or
God doesn't know about evil, in which case he
does not know everything
or
God can't prevent evil, in which case he is not
all powerful.
or
Some combination of the above
And so there is no being that is completely good,
knows everything, and is all powerful.
And so, there is no God.

Theologians and philosophers have provided various
answers to this argument. They all agree that it
should be taken very
seriously, and that responding to it gives useful
insights into the nature of God, evil, and belief.

Believers usually respond by saying that God has good
reasons for not preventing evil.

"God" is Meaningless
Some philosophers think that religious language
doesn't mean anything at all, and therefore that
there's no point in asking
whether God exists.

They would say that a sentence like "In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth" is neither true
or false, it's
meaningless; in the same way that "colourless green
ideas sleep furiously" is meaningless.

Logical Positivism, or Verificationism
Logical Positivists argued that a sentence was
meaningless if it wasn't either true or false, and
they said that a sentence would
only be true or false if

a.If it could be tested by an "experiment",

OR
b.If it was true by definition.

A more accurate version of this idea can be found
here

Since you couldn't verify the existence of God by any
sort of "sense experience", and it wasn't true by
definition (eg in the
way "a triangle has 3 sides" is true), the logical
positivists argued that it was pointless asking the
question since it could not be
answered true or false.

These particular philosophers didn't only say that
religious talk was meaningless, they thought that much
of
philosophical discussion, metaphysics for example,
was meaningless too.

This philosophical theory is no longer popular, and
attention has returned to the issues of what "God"
means and whether
"God" exists.



Note for philosophers

This is how one prominent philosopher put it:

"We say that a sentence is factually significant to
any given person, if and only if, he knows how to
verify the
proposition which it purports to express-that is,
if he knows what observations would lead him, under
certain
conditions, to accept the proposition as being
true, or reject is as being false." A. J. Ayer.

Ayer actually preferred a weaker version of the
theory, because since no empirical proof could be
totally conclusive , almost
every statement about the world would have to be
regarded as meaningless.

"A proposition is said to be verifiable, in the
strong sense of the term, if, and only if, its truth
could be conclusively
established in experience. But it is verifiable, in
the weak sense, if it is possible for experience to
render it probable."

And this led Ayer to dispose of the God question
rather brusquely:

"...There can be no way of proving that the
existence of a god...is even probable.

For if the existence of such a god were probable,
then the proposition that he existed would be an
empirical
hypothesis. And in that case it would be possible
to deduce from it, and other empirical hypotheses,
certain
experiential propositions which were not deducible
from those other hypotheses alone.
But in fact this is not possible...For to say that
"God Exists" is to make a metaphysical utterance which
cannot be
either true or false."



Psychological Explanations of Religon
Psychologists have long been fascinated by religion as
something that exists in all societies.
They ask whether "religion" is actually a name given
to various psychological drives, rather than a
response to the existence
of God or gods.
Such a belief is clearly atheistic.

Religion, to the common man, is a "system of
doctrines and promises which on the one hand explains
to him the
riddles of this world with enviable completeness,
and, on the other, assures him that a careful
Providence will watch
over his life and will compensate him in a future
existence for any frustrations he suffers here."
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents

Religion comes from Emotions
Human beings believe in God because they want:

A father figure to protect them from this
frightening world.

Someone who gives their lives meaning and purpose.

Something that stops death being "the end".

To believe that they are an important part of the
universe, and that some component of the universe
(God) cares for and
respects them.

These beliefs are strongly held because they enable
human beings to cope with some of their most basic
fears.

Even if this is true (which it probably is) this
doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, but merely that
we are psychologically
likely to believe in God whether or not he exists.

Atheists argue that since religion is just a
psychological fantasy, human beings should abandon it
so that they can grow to
respond appropriately to deal with the world as it is.

Freud
Sigmund Freud tackled religion in great detail and had
several ideas about it.

One of his theories was that religion stems from the
individual's experience of having being a helpless
baby totally dependent
on its parents. The infant sees its parents as
all-powerful beings who show it great love and satisfy
all its needs. This
experience is almost identical to the way human beings
portray their relationship with God.

Freud also suggested that childhood experiences caused
people to have very complex feelings about their
parents and
themselves, and religion and religious rituals provide
a respectable mechanism for working these out.

Freud also described religion as a mass-delusion that
reshaped reality to provide a certainty of happiness
and a protection
from suffering.

the week and the week end

why we love complications I often wonder. Sometimes answers are so simple that even though we know them we don't believe we have them. That's what happened to a problem I was debugging whole of yesterday but couldn't find a reason. Decided to give up, go home and crash. This morning when I relooked at the problem I realized what a silly mistake I was making and trying out wonderful solutions.... reminds me of LOTR where Gandalf was trying to open a passwd protected gate on which written was 'speak friend enter'. The passwd was friend but Gandalf tried out all sorts of things....

Call of Duty rocks! Quite a mixture of action,strategy and control. I loved the fight from a running car and lorry scenes, very original for a game...

Saw 'tumsa nahi dekha'. Lovely movie. Actually I wasn't expecting much from the movie but it turned out to be quite a funny one.

I finally shaved and oiled my hair and got rid of the gft look I've been wearing whole week.Why? I'm going home on Diwali after all. First time since I got a job that's more than two years now. ye ye aaiyesha... Had lil verbal fight with a chuuby old man who broke the queue for the plane tickets.. I hate it when ppl do it...
Then feeling rather happy (it's been ages since I got angry with anyone) I headed for planet-m to treat myself with some cool cds. Ended up buyin Dido (White Flag is such a lovely song. I had first heard it while in the US last year and all this time could never find it here.. finally got it.. one more to go though... still looking for 'miss independant' by kelly clarkson) and '37 #1s of all times'. Lots of cool songs in that one..Time to rok-n-rol.

gigs

we are gigs! every stinky s/w engineer is a gig according to the grand old lady of whitefield and she has a point. gigs can spend 25 bucks for a glass of pepsi. gigs can talk about what goes on in the streets of LA but won't know where is Magadi road and whether it is pronounced maagadi or magaadi. for them all the dances are the same (what? there are levels in BharatNatyam? Isn't it the one where you wear a mask?) I was bestowed this knightship when I visited A&P along with Pala who wanted to prove that life is not all that boring and lesser mortals are rather enjoying it. We went to whitefields where he's purchased a new land where construction is a far dream and development is a miraz. Only thing great about it was the serenity surrounding the place. I couldn't believe such place could exist in the deadly-madly-sadly blore. There was also a cool lake nearby. Then we went to see A&P (reminds me of AVP...) As usual the moment I saw P I knew I'd seen her somewhere and that I'd never be able to recall. (later Pala told me she indeed resembled one of our batchmates in pilani) Here was when we hit her majesty who when asked if A was home went and informed him that some obscure gigs have come to see you. Anyway I was instantly shocked to see such a cool house. Two dogs, one cat, two kittens, one dog house, tons of mud around, a very beautiful garden, two ancient motorbikes, one half constructed house with real old wooden gates of less than five feet height, tons of old teak wood lying around, one fully constructed house minus a door and what not. A showed as around explaining why there is no plastering required and why there is hole in the walls and how the windows will work without any frame and why the house will stay put inspite of missing pillars and a hole in the roof. I had very serious doubts about the whole scheme but as it was my first visit I decided to not criticize resulting in me appearing a non speaking entity and A&P trusting me to be a shy guy and hoping that next time I'll speak a lot (poor devils) All in all quite an experience knowing how people gather stuff around to keep themselves busy.
Well after all this gyana (why in the world is it spelt gnana?) we went to see 'king of bollywood' in the multiplex. Good time pass and great waste of money.

gone for a toss hair

what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you wakeup at 12:30 hrs on a sunday afternoon? normally it's food for me but today I was thinking about my hair. AD on lunch on friday enlightned me about this pressing business though his reason was rather social services. He thinks we should get our hair done every fortnight to help the poor barbers!!! either case I had to get it done today so headed for the nearest barber instead of to the one I usually go which is a bit farther. This nearer one is aptly named 'men's beauty saloon' . Once I landed there the first available barber (really I rather find it awkward often to decide among many whom to talk to, they all seem equally busy and uninterested...) handed me a piece of paper on which written was 7. I liked the number but not the waiting time which was to be 45 minutes. Knowing the fact that I could make it to the usual one in another 10 mins I decided to leave immediate. Once there, the fat, one rather amused at my state, told me to wait for some 10 mins. There I found an old edition of cosmop. Now to think of it, it might have been a recent edition. I never looked at the date but felt assured it was old as it was torn, silly really. One interesting article was how to save money on your wedding! Giving excerpts from it might be breach of copyright (just kidding..) but the sharp (moustache) one called me when I had rather started to seriously ponder over some of the ideas (get your friend who are good cooks to cook! get ur designer dress done by budding designers who are negotiable..) that it might be good to befriend some of designers or cooks!!!
The barber was rather happy to see my long hair. He asked me what I wanted and I told him what I wanted. I never care for a hair style. But this guy was probably waiting for a free sample. He told me he could give me a John Abraham hair style and I said I can't spend time to care for it. Then he said yesterday was Gandhi's B'day and I said thanks but just short will do. At the precise moment someone said gone for a toss! I quite liked the word for my hair style! the gone for a toss hair style... the funda is this particular barber's idea of short is quite short...
so here I am with my gone for a toss hairstyle.

gandhi

hey it's Mahatma Gandhi's B'Day today. People worship him. People hate him. That's why I like him.
In my younger days I too used to hate him. Accusing him of murder of all those who died in the many movements organized by him. I thought we could win our freedom by an armed rebellion like Americans. Now though I think we won it in the best way possible. Satyagrah appealed to people like no other philosophy could. Without mass involvement gaining freedom would have remained a dream. It was simply not feasible to arm everyone and put up a fight against the mighty British Empire. The only person who could partially succeed in it was of course Subhash Chandra Bose. A great leader. But he was simply allied to the wrong poeple. Sometimes I imagine if Japan/Germany had imerged as winners in WWII. We'd've thrown Britons out and Japs in. We'd be fighting another freedom struggle.
SO all in all putting up an armed fight against UK was not possible without any external help and as I said it'd have been like getting one dictator in place of another. Therefore we were lucky to have found a leader like Gandhi to show us the right way at the right time.

songs you should have heard and loved

There are some great songs which are not very popular. Here are a few I like

1. Deewana dil deewana : from Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na starring SRK (and Deepak Tizori) 
2. Pyar Gazab Ki Cheej Hai Jise Ho Jaye Bus Ho Jaye : Amazing song from Ek Hi Raasta, featuring Ajay Devgan. Really good lyrics. I'll publish them in a separate post.
3. Hulla Gulla : From Bombay. Not as popular as humma-humma and other songs from this movie. ARR made some good experiments like using a child's cry as an instrument. Great rhythem.
4. Premika ne pyar se : From Hum Se Hai Muquabla. The tamil version is much better as the lyrics fit prefectly to the tune. Hindi lyrics are lame. But the music is great. Specially one tune in this song which is played on I don't know what instrument but it sounds straight from heaven. You will know what I am talking about once ou listen to this song.
5. Only you : Another ARR classic. It's from the mega hit Vandemaataram Album. ARR sang this one on Rendezvous with Simi Garewal.I loved it anyway.(I wonder why I am ending up listing down ARR songs)
6. Aa gaya hun paas tere : How many songs you remember after hearing them just once? This is one of them. There was once a serial played on DD called 'stone boy'. This song featured in that. I don't know why but I could never forget this song after that...