A dog's life

A dog is a man's best friend, might be cliched, but yet i realized it all over again today. For those who have their doubts about it, see this movie, "Marley and me". It is about the life of a dog raised by a couple. The final scene of the movie sums it up quite well. The couple have just buried the dog and are walking back quietly when the narrator says this:

"A dog doesn't need a car, a house or other materialistic things,
He doesn't care if you are rich or poor,black or white, male or female.
All you have to do is give him your heart and he will give you his.
Now, about how many other people can you say the same thing?"

Right isn't it?

My state of mind!

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics
Life's like that!

This is the news.

Its everywhere. Yes oil is soaring.
The irony of it all is the fact the government of India is still "pondering" on how to diffuse the crisis without impacting the "aam aadmi more than necessary". HELLO! The aam aadmi cant wait to pay Rs 17 odd extra for every litre of petrol. At least, this will make sure that there is petrol available to be bought! The current situation is so bad, that in the very likely event that prices are not raised, IOC, the largest marketer of petro products, will run out of supplies by September, as they cant afford to import any more.
Demand and supply are forces meant to balance each other. In the case of oil, due to gestation period involved in supply, and regular intervening of the governments, this cycle is distorted and takes years before turning around. somebody needs to see that.
It is a shame to see simple economics being defeated with politics time and time again. It is all in the best interest of the nation that prices are allowed to rise and pinch the pockets. It is then that other alternatives will be explored and worked upon to be made feasible. We have pushed it to the point where a crisis is inevitable. Its been like a pressure cooker where the pressure has been allowed to build continuously without any let off and its only waiting to explode. The sooner the heat is taken off the Oil majors, the lesser the impact the aam aadmi will have to face. Mr prime minister, are you listening?

Piano Man

All those long hours in front of the computers takes it toll on you. Your Winamp playlist starts to bore you and you know its been a while. sleep is a formality you don't feel like completing. It is then that songs such as this, tend to drain away your enervated thoughts and revive your spirits.


Its nine oclock on a saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
Theres an old man sitting next to me
Makin love to his tonic and gin

He says, son, can you play me a memory?
Im not really sure how it goes
But its sad and its sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger mans clothes

La la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Chorus:
Sing us a song, youre the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, were all in the mood for a melody
And youve got us feelin alright

Now john at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And hes quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But theres someplace that hed rather be
He says, bill, I believe this is killing me.
As the smile ran away from his face
Well Im sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place

Oh, la la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Now paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And hes talkin with davy whos still in the navy
And probably will be for life

And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, theyre sharing a drink they call loneliness
But its better than drinkin alone

Chorus

Its a pretty good crowd for a saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
cause he knows that its me theyve been comin to see
To forget about life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, man, what are you doin here?

Oh, la la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

Chorus

Colours of Life

6:00 am :
It's a gloomy saturday morning. I am up early, because my mosquito friends just didn't let me reach sound state of sleep.

Fast Forward 2 hours
8:00 AM
A group of us are having breakfast at a nearby restaurant contemplating the plan of the day. After hectic discussions we finally decide to aimlessly wander to the nearest MRTS station and catch the first train.
However, on reaching the station we find a bus headed to pondicherry halted outside. There is a sudden change of plans and now we are headed to pondy!
Midway through the journey, the travelling in the bus gets to us and we decide to get off midway at Mahabalipuram. What followed was 4 hours of fun at extremely rough beach near the shore temple, leaving all of us drenched and filled with sand in their pockets!

But this wasn't enough for us, so we decided to get back to chennai, and hop onto the train to catch a movie at the INOX. Oh I completely forgot about lunch! We came back to the city and hogged a full meal at Sangeetha to keep us going for the next few hours. We get to INOX only to realize that there is not a movie worth watching and so we go book hunting at Landmark, and end up spending nearly 2 hours browsing through the entire collection available.

So I am back to room after spending nearly 11 hours outside, in the rain (Oh did i forget to mention that?). I restart my comp and check Gmail.. and Lo and behold! yet another of those emails lies in wait, which sends a sinking feeling down to your gut. Wow! what a perfect day!
And Yes happy Holi to you.

Stumbled on this!

I stumbled upon this site http://www.breathingearth.net which displays a simulation of CO2 emissions of each country along with birth rates and death rates.
Here is what I found interesting:
USA
1 person dies here every 5.4 seconds
1 person born here every 12.8 seconds

India
1 person dies here every 25.8 seconds
1 person born here every 3.5 seconds

Gabon ( A possible future destination for me!)
1 person dies here every 2.5 hours
1 person born here every 31.5 minutes

Suprised? And to think that people visualize poverty,squalor, and violence on the mention of Africa... Anyone care to explain this "anomalous" observation?

Bloody Coffee!

The code is not converging to desired results. Its 125 am on a friday night (or sat morning) and I have just had a hot cup of coffee. The caffeine is making all very fidgety and I need to sit down and streamline my thoughts... and so Here I am on my tiny little virtual acre of space.
Its been a rollercoaster ride for the past couple of months. First there are those applications whose results I am awaiting, some of which have not been the most satisfactory. Then, there is this sentiment of saturation with this place called IIT. There is no other way to say this. I am so full of life here. I need to move out and it better be sooner rather than later. The first year, its all exciting, then you learn to be a part of it, and it reaches a peak after which you find things just plain damn boring!
Nowadays, the day begins by switching on my computer and logging on gmail with anticipations for some news! After that the day just seems to drift, with breakfast, lunch, evening guru snack and dinner somewhere other than the mess being the major highlights.
Hey, but I am not cribbing, life is good in the slow lane. I am just waiting to be out of the pit lane and back in the rat race of life.

The Road ahead

The automobile industry in India has exploded over the past couple of years. The latest buzz doing the rounds is with regard to rolling out the “much awaited” 1 Lakh Car to serve the needs of the thirsty Indian middle class. The Tata group has promised to deliver on this project within the next year or two. Other major groups like Bajaj are collaborating with Renault to try taking a byte into this rapidly expanding segment. But where is the space for so many cars????

Most of the major cities in the country do not have the road infrastructure to cope with this sudden burgeoning of traffic. Jams are commonplace wherever you go. No city is spared. Statistically it has been found that it takes a person more than two hours to traverse the 20km stretch in the heart of Mumbai!

Economics tells us about the production possibility frontier which represents the manner in which resources are allocated towards production of various goods in an economy given the constraints of technology. Currently, with the present scenario of traffic in our megacities, the government is forced to spend on improving road infrastructure. This lopsided spending is hurting not only the cause of public transport development but also other vital infrastructure projects . Mumbai’s much awaited metro system whose foundation stone was laid by the prime minister a year back, is yet to kick off due to pending settlements which have to be made.

A society allocates its resources in a manner to maximize social benefit. But is it actually happening? Congestion on roads is definitely not desirable by anybody. Maybe a car is. The Car in an Indian context is a status symbol in society. People fresh into jobs purchase cars on loans lasting for 15-20 years. The city of Mumbai alone adds 500 cars to its roads daily. They can’t be blamed, since the public transport in most of our cities is so overburdened, that using it is a struggle most people are not willing to go through. Even in Mumbai, a city whose suburban train system is its lifeline, can’t claim to have a world class standard system. It is designed to handle 1700 commuters at any point of time, but it handles 5000 people!

On their part, the companies are also working on the principle of making profits based on low margins but high volumes. Somewhere, all this overemphasis on making the four- wheeler affordable is going hit a roadblock.

So what is the road ahead if it all there is one?

I am certain it is not the coming of the 1 lakh car!