ExhilArAtion

"On my Forte"

almoraaditya — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:19:00 +0000

I see myself at the top of an old fort built on the rugged, rocky hill. The vastness of the scenery calls at me into the green-brown landscape with the criss-crossing rocky roads. I feel the height and the intensity of the winds fluttering against me at this height. I sense the laziness of the setting sun from the top and an old rock stands sulking besides me probably ruing the lost decoration of the gone days even as the roots of a mountain shrubs threatens to tear it apart in the present.

An audacious little bird flies in and I can hear it mocking me. I can hear it say there are things higher and over this windy blister. I tell consoling myself the blister is a harsh metamorphism, the wind I ascertained is hard enough and seemingly tests me. I stand for minutes gazing at the resting songbird, uncertain whether it is tired or if it wishes not to fly all alone, I can not appreciate why the thoughts have decided to confluence themselves on this tweeting thing that occupies so little space.

The bird I am certain talks to me again, it calls at me, wittingly challenging me, inducing me into swimming through the waves of winds. I tell her “Why do you ask for this to me, I am not the one with hollow bones, weak body and tender, meek fur” the floating is not meant for me. I stand strong and powerful facing the wind, the bird with its pupil glittering appeared to be smiling. Smiling I have learned is a lip business and felt said for the still waiting little bird without lips thinking “How does it smile anyway?”

A sudden gush of cold wind and I shiver the bird leaves the branch of the shrub that tears the rock, it rises and flutters around the rock, not inducing but seducing me into the grace of its flapping wings, into the music of wind, into open air and into the open sky, the little birds exhorts me into swinging my wings. I flap and flap and here I am flying against the winds, rising above the blister, past the past into the roads which I know I shall direct. The bird is no more there but I can hear it tweet and sing and I can feel it smile. Now as I land on the green pastures, the fort is high and over it I see an eagle powerful and large dominating the heights.

The Night that was…

almoraaditya — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:14:00 +0000

Live from CCF Pantnagar, TCS recruiting, I am bored and waiting

I have a shoe that doesn’t fit good, a pant with size too small for the waist, I am placed on the revolving chair with sounds filling the eardrum, the Ts and the the Ss are too prominent. The vowels don’t sound like music, yet I am determined to avoid calling it noise. The slithering Cs form the middle and those who were on there feet about an hour back are anticipating and seated.

The fingers dance with the synchrony of logic, the tongues wraggle as the overflowing, unaccomodated BITS decide theres no silicon stone further to keep afloat, the assidiously painted logic architectures threaten to go down like the cards,even as the transperent glass cabin insulate the sounds, the heat on a cold night threatens A’mangalam’.

The HR did call it a restless night and so it is turning into.

All Izz Well?? No way Idiots!!

almoraaditya — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:32:00 +0000

Why is it so, that a nation so obsessed with a handful of institutes that provide acceptable higher education has been so forthcoming in appreciating a movie that claims to place a question mark before the education system? How can it so happen that students and parents who so willingly undergo what is often referred to a five year ordeal (inspired by the now infamous five year plans) so heartily appreciate the epigram that “success follows excellence”? Does the success of the “Three Idiots” means that many in the nation believe that a rat race exist in our system? More importantly does the nation consider this Rat race as a crisis? Let us here evoke the US president’s envy for our students.

The Higher education as the idiots or for the sake of originality Ryan would put is certainly screwed, but does it matter to many, or do many in the country actually understand what the real trouble with the education in the nation is? A first look on the movie, and it desperately fails in throwing any thoughtful insight into the education system, a long way away from the uninviting realities, and one of the reasons that it attracted the country which shelters itself behind the cut throat competition of the school days, when it comes to the quality of higher education.

With the movie, the intention was not misplaced, the idea pretty appealing but with the concept Hirani could have gone places and he chose not to, either for negligence or for commercial reasons . The crisis of higher education institutes is tangentially different from the heavy bags of school days. Reducing the labyrinth that exists in our education system to an anti-common sense tale was layman’s idea. A film maker is expected to do and produce some exploration even when he creates a pure entertainer in which the director of an ace institute is reduced to a mocked upon, research paper producing archaic contraption. The situation becomes acute when you wish people to draw message out of your uncannily unapprised flick.

The movie is dangerous in the message it propagates. We can only hope that it was not the intention of the moviemakers to undermine the importance of books and theories that encapsulates common sense yet go farther over the simplified generic learning, we can only pray that the movie has not cashed upon the retained ire upon the education system that has made books and blackboard so much as villains. A graduation study brings with it many revelations, it is a joy going through historic revolutions in the field that you start considering so much yours, and the vastness of the subject, the depth of the hardback before you is an invitation. It is frustrating and teasing how in one stroke of commercial film making all this is nullified and how the nullification is glorified. It’s dangerous that none is talking about it.

The other disappointment is a more generic one, the storyline produced an opportunity to redefine the purpose of education and the definition of success but it was badly destroyed, the protagonist at a school in Laddakh was one of the stand out idea of the movie but it was all ruined when the school took a backseat and what shone bright was 400 patents in 10 years. So humbling it was for each of us who tend to take wings at time that even a superhuman, as the protagonist Rancho was, requires papers and patents to be called a success. Such a pity, and such a fall for what could have been the idea of the movie.

The movie aside and the response it generated, should the response be a worry? Certainly. The nation and its youth are tiring early, we do not wish to study further and at the slightest hint of such an opportunity we display the desire. The secondary education is a trial for the institute and course of choice (not debating whose choice), the higher education on many occasions mocks to be an extension of school, fortunately a lot of the action happens outside class and keeps many interested but the shelf life comes to play a role in most cases, the higher education should be path towards successes of life but it has reduced into a tool at the hands of credulous mechanic. The constant run and incessant lack of joy is one the many problems haunting the higher education, and this need to be fixed. Education is meant to produce bliss, it’s meant to contribute to joys of each day. This miserably lacks in our classrooms where the next term exam is more ominous and imposing than the beauty that decorates the class in black and white, the blackboard and chalk need to reaffirm themselves to salvage the joy of rising over common sense.

The New year Blog

almoraaditya — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:12:00 +0000

This one is short and in the spirit of new year. A time when you tend to understand the wonder and content of enjoying the change of celebrating the transitions, as small as the last column of the date turning from 09 to 10.

Happy New Year

Noisy and sleepy

almoraaditya — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:20:00 +0000

This is something that I have been thinking about for the last few months. Intrigued by the hum like sounds, of the noisy air conditioners, even fans at times. I have revolved and thought a bit around them. physicist and spectrum engineers call them noise or specifically white noise, though we are not going into the mathematics or even an introductory analysis of the sinusoids (why so rarely cosinusoid?) of the random signals uncannily surrounding us and troubling the so assiduous communication engineer yet there remains so much to share.

The idea that multiple frequency components, infinite here, that many philosophically talk of effecting life and energy flow cohere together to make those mathematical prodigies so much more comprehensible, is attractive and thoroughly lovable to any one who enjoys the game of generation through mathematics.The complete unification, the unmistakable utopia it is.Imagine the shouts of the rag-picker, the beating of the washerwoman’s club on the cloth, the grand BMW rolling over, the radiating supercomputers all coming together to form one of the most talked about phenomenon in the science domain.

As I continue reading about the captivating hum, I am told it helps you sleep, it helps meditate, and it relieves stress, it helps reduce the uncomfortable din around you, and it can even insulate you from the constant bickering of your neighbor. Strange that its called noise, but than it is exactly so, a sum total of all imaginable disturbances, of all the competing sounds. Seems like the sounds that otherwise compete here come together in mutual understanding and see a face change, or whatever, but Amazon.com is selling the white noise for 3.99$.

“Today happens to be a beautiful day”

almoraaditya — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:56:00 +0000

“Today Happens to be a beautiful day” from the T-shirt of an unsuspecting young girl still in higher school; via the blog of one of her friends to me; this phrase has already made a few ponder and contemplate.

A nice day it is when the sun is bright, the sky royal and blue, when the green trees on the adjoining hill sparkle and when the dots of glorious, expensive white clouds decorate the scenery. What than is a day when the clouds dark as they are, rush in from the south west, to bring the resurrecting drops as desired as the elixir? who undermines the beauty of the morning fog or the glare of the cold rime over the shivering grass?and, the sun shining over the rime destroying, purging it is equally fascinating.

The sun is grand in the morning, red, orange and yellow it travels through the day ripening the wheat and barley turning the green to gold it sets down glowing red, not furious but exuberant and promising. The dark clouds on the other day make the green darker; the pines and deodar are quick to change shades as the drops defy gravity on the sharp needle point

Beauty probably is always this way, you keep overlooking its exquisite nature for long, the incessant beauty obviously can not cause flashes and is often corner shouldered. Every day that reaches me, brings the sun, moon, rain and snow. Every day nature whispers to me in the undertones, so delicately it adorns me with those commandments.

Wandering thoughts

almoraaditya — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:16:00 +0000

A miillion little things transpire around me, just as an innocuous microscopic green fly decides to relax, a spider prepares for an atrocious assault, the wall lizard savors the thought of an appetizing meal. And by now I had an illusion “so much work, so much attention”. It’s easy life, comfortable survival.

The single most important achievement of man is his ability to stand for what he has earned.

She is already into her twenties, a year older to me. I saw her playing with the pen knife, opening it and closing it. I didn’t stop her, nor did I draw anybody’s attention. Somehow the careless, unthought-of involuntary motion convinced me it was harmless. She left the toy placed it aside and I could see her hands repeating that motion over and again for the next few minutes.

Where do we point? Why miss the point?

almoraaditya — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:49:00 +0000

The Newspaper somewhat disquiets at occasions, I went through a project on one of the terminus of the New Delhi airport, a huge structure one of the most distinguished in the world, will be a symbol of modern India in the coming days and no more will we listen to jarring painful jokes about the capital’s International airport. The growth figures for the last quarter were released yesterday and they were startling and good, the nation seems to be developing and developing real well.

Yet I sat down this time to argue and question the country’s projection. The urban middle class is buoyed by the gush in prosperity and the media inspired by the glistening malls that surround there offices in some metropolis. The young educated youth sees opportunities and money floating around him. The nation senses optimism, a country that not so long back was sullen and cash ridden, where babudome dictated who could by a car is unhindered, and is relishing the new found profligacy. Listen to those voices acknowledging this turn around in unison.

The days of our soviet infatuation, when socialist dreams took eerie directions are safely distant. The irony is that not many seem to be ready to leave them behind. Unless we do so the prognosis is gloomy, with our inkling to take cues from pre 1990’s India we have rushed into consumerism and open markets, we are blinding our way from being a predominantly restricted economy to what may be a far too liberated market for a principally poor nation. The ghosts of the soviet ally India though a fleshless, impotent visage is forcing a brakeless drive towards unrestricted capitalism.

The nation has seen tremendous progress since the Manmohan dream budget, but what must not be lost sight of is the fact that this country is a welfare state in which many still vie for some fundamental services. The government as it has to cater to the people and go back to them every term end has kept a strict eye upon this aspect or at least it has pretended to do so. But the so active, the so noisy and often unrelenting watchdogs that work ceaselessly and unrestricted in the minutest scandal in metros are nowhere to monitor these efforts even within 100 miles from the capital. It was left for a Rahul Gandhi to bring the plight of Bundelkhand to the national media.The entire focus of our newspapers, of those thinking beings in the newspapers and the television media is restricted to number juggling, the national development in the psyche of many has been reduced to development around a few centers. The IPL is a measure of our progress for some, for some it’s the cold Mittal, some dare step down to mention airport terminals and others sporadically speak of the metro train. Talking of things below these strata is already out of fashion.

Our concept of economic development for the going decade remained anomalous.

Now that may sound a lot like the leftist craving on capitalism and inequity, it may seem like the articulation of all that’s not good in a world dominated by the United States. But then contemplating, reading, weighing and justifying over and again, I am here venting all that ire upon the blog. If it jingles like music for the likes of Karats and Yechuries, its unintended and no praises desired from that band either. More on that…

Of Joy & Sorrow

almoraaditya — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:12:00 +0000

In the marketplace I stand amongst the hurrying, teaming crowd. Unsteady and distracted I look on, peering into the eyes, peeping through the occasionally audible syllable. I can decipher much sorrow, an eight year old with bruises and cuts, a father of two with his fractured arm walks by, the mother unable to maintain the family budget during the festive season has obvious concerns marked all over the countenance, the incessant demanding shoppers drain the salesman on the counter of his patience, the man with the sweeper’s broom swears and swears hard.

I know I am willingly overlooking the joy of child as his mother aids his cuts, the fathers ecstasy at his kids assisting him, I turn my eyes against the shopping mothers fulfillment, I recognize I am artfully deceiving myself into perceiving the alacrity of the salesman as his impatience.

For once I am forced to contemplate is that hard swearing a loud, unapologetic expression of joy?

smiles: Of Joy & Sorrow

almoraaditya — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:12:00 +0000

smiles: Of Joy & Sorrow