Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Sneaky Tales: The Storm


The wind was gravely chilling. I felt like moving no more. Wrecked at my knees, short of air in my lungs, I was drawing myself into state of Hypothermia. I remember the stress I exerted to bow down and sit, rest for a while under an icy shed. The storm had wiped out everything from my vision. Sands were overrated. Just like tiny little rocks. It was only here where I built our castle. Sands were smooth then, and lighter. In the blurred vision, only one figure was precise; a lonely girl in orange. Her bare feet had trailed a name. Shipra!


Her first glimpse asserted I could meet someone; someone who would be like me. I had always guessed chances of that happening were diminished. And so were they. The storm was needed to uncover the true face. And I was struck in middle of that storm. How long the icy shed will sustain standing, I will calculate with number of days left in my life, or may be hours. My skin which was ripped out weren't bleeding. A part of storm had entered inside me. Everything was freezing; outside me, and inside me.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

On An Ode to Pinnacle

The birthday calls for a day when you feel as if the entire day has been blessed and bears every entity, every chunk of moments defined in it, just for yourself. ‘Aaj mera din hai’, is what I hear most of the times from the birthday buddy. A certain day, when you were born, and arrival of your birthday reinvents that thrill and you cherish the pleasure of having stepped into this world. This world is heaven. And I am happy to be a part of it. I think everybody should feel the same way. And this is what it is meant to be felt. Why we celebrate our birthday, one of the reasons could be this.

The way we celebrate birthday here in our engineering college is quite amazing, but not out of this world I should say. Crush! And beat the birthday man until he can sustain it no more, is the culture here. And you can’t escape from this custom. I am happy. I haven’t celebrated my birthday yet at college. I am always an exception to customs.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Monday, September 17, 2012

Cinema: Luna! Mon Amour



Are you also an admirer of art in movies like I am? I am here talking about mainstream movies, not documentaries which despite of being powerful at its composition lie unreached from its audience, most of the times. I have no genre specified for movies. I prefer each one at times, depending on what mood permits. But yes, I have set a criterion, and I never watch a movie with IMDB rating less than 6.5.

Day before yesterday, I watched ‘La Teta y la Luna’. It’s a Spanish movie directed by Bigas Luna. Though, the story you might find too much provocative and explicit, but the tenderness that the director has weaved through his stitches in the story is out of this world. A child’s perspective to what adults will consider agitated thoughts of obscenity has been painted on the moving canvas with enormous care. It’s never the topic of adultery that makes a movie worth for adults only but the disgraceful indulgence into one’s fantasies that might disturb the norms we have set in our society. Can you imagine if one of such fantasy can appear intensely innocent, so pure to you ever?  I have come across it through this movie. I was just speechless till the end.
The start of the movie, which unpacks Mathilda May, the actress in the lead role out of a gift box, is center of attraction throughout the movie. The story revolves around her, and a cute little boy, Tete, whose molars are yet to come out. Tete is unhappy with his newly born brother, and considers him to be as ugly as a demon is. You will need to watch the movie at your own risk to know why that was so… :D

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Ebook Library



Books are the major source of knowledge. Whatever your course may be, how big, how small, it doesn’t matter at all. What matters is the knowledge that we need to acquire in order to get ourselves going in it. I am an Engineering student; my field of study is Computer Science. Being a geeky chit-chatter on web, and as a mindful student of technology, I keep myself attached with upcoming technologies. Not a single day passes when I don’t get to know something new on the web. Newsletters from various sites that I have subscribed to, keep gathering in my inbox. Thanks to almost never ending space that Gmail has been providing us with. Sometimes I overlook some messages; however I try not to miss any of them. Delay may be, but I try to make out some time to go through them. Interest of such a kind, and a thirst to conquer excellence, keeps me awake. Surrounded with books that I wish to read some day, expecting that day to near soon, I keep thinking; innovating. These days, YouTube video tutorials have been of great help to me. I would like to thank few of my online gurus, like EliTheComputerGuy and Bucky at thenewboston. Their youtube channels taught me a lot.

“Mam! I was wondering if I could get that HTML 5 book, by Oreilly, GooglePress”.
“Really? Do we have that book in library”, our librarian asked.
“Yes mam! We do have. I just saw its reading copy above. Please do help me by issuing me that book”, I requested her.
“Let me see. Ok you do one thing, come next week, I will keep a copy ready for you to be issued”, she asserted throwing a smile at me.
I am no miser at throwing smiles as well. “Thanks mam! I will be here next week”.

Actually ebooks are like blessings for IT guys like us. We can’t manage to purchase every book, even though they are important. Downloading them through net and turning pages electronically is also turning a habit now. I wish the habit to get permanent soon. It would be a boon for me. But still, contemporary reading style and ease drives us towards paper editions of books. And this very thought stepped my foots towards library that I rarely visit.


“Mam! As you said, I am here after one week. Would you please issue me HTML 5 book, the one that I had asked you for?”
“HTML? Here is one book, it’s on HTML as well”, she replied.
“But Mam, I want HTML 5. Its older version of HTML, version 4, the one that I studied when I was in class Xth. I am in 3rd year of Btech at present”, I replied politely.
“Arrey! Version 4, version 5 sab ek hi hai, grab this one otherwise someone else would get it issued”, she asserted as if she knows everything about that book.
“Thank you very much mam! I think I won’t issue that book. Thanks again.”

Lack of resources in your engineering college will pinch you throughout your stay at the college. If you get placed in campus placement drive, these feeling will mold them in certain different dimension. And if you are in some private college like I am in, lack of resources actually turns depressive. At least books should be provided adequate in number and of sufficient variety. Just putting a reading copy for the reading room is of no gain. Neither can I clarify my needs; neither can they impress me on what they have.
Ebooks are the only choice that I am left with. Dark spots around my eyes may be consequent effect, but I have no other choice. I have built a virtual library on my laptop. It bears massive collections of ebooks and total size occupied is about 21.8 gb; still increasing. :D

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Detest

/* This post conveys feelings of a boy who spent lonesome days and nights... He was stranger to his own assets until the time a girl comes into his life, and makes him realize of what he was blessed with. Boy believed her words to be true, and her support pushed him towards wonderland.
But at the end he finds how she cheated upon him, hollowed him on every instance. She explains her reasons and asks for forgiveness... But how can the boy forgive? */



I ambled solely, none I accompanied, my shadow tailed behind. With Angel Falls’ beauty, you stepped across me. Without a hint, your shadow eclipsed mine and mingled. Our footsteps trailed where I led them to.
With arrival of the darkest hour, your footsteps diverged from mine, like the way your shadow vanished. You blamed the darkness.
Can I forgive? How Can I?

As trees swung, few notes I mumbled. Birds affirmed me and sky adorned with sprinkles. You clarified my mumbles to be my poetry, and perseverance you embellished around me. The harp tuned aloud, and tattered notes conjoined into a song.
When thunder arrived, birds ascertained it’s my song that called it. But I waited for your reaction. You were deaf you said.
Can I forgive? How can I?

I hopped around, rumbled and jumbled. In my clothes soiled, I was clumsy with dust and carried limited attributes of tastes. You were different as you presumed, that I am covered with musk, with tastes of delectable pulps.
But the next spring seized you far away. It’s the extent of beauty in the other garden you said.
Can I forgive? How can I?

In the empty space inside me, on my left, you found home for yourself. Giggling and twittering, kept me perked up. But with every happiest moment I saw, your mitts swept away all that was mine. You weaponized Love against me, hollowed the shell, and broke its sculptured torso.
You have established your new suite at someplace.
And you want me to forgive. But how can I?




Friday, August 31, 2012

Footmarks



Strolling down the streets has turned a habit. New faces carrying distinct story behind them swivels across me. I tend to escape, I tend not to allude.  I wander to fetch something that I lost long way back. Last road bend and the diversion had already behaved strangely. It deluded me to a secluded traversal path that even the demon didn’t bother to sculpture on anyone's fortuned engravings.

I am searching if my story intersects somewhere with someone’s. Someone’s strange might mingle with stranger mine and we would wander together, in the lonesome streets; sometimes greener and sometimes derelict. Footprints and scribbling on the rocks give me power to move on. For I know through them, that someone made their way through it. Did they succeed? I shall walk till the finals to know if their exists scribbling on some rocks there too.

I will throw some initials. I will leave impressions on trunks to make the path easy for the followers. My footprints will be large and clearer.  I look back to confirm, no one I see. May be they will be lost somewhere. If their story intersects with mine, my left impressions will simplify the puzzle. 

Time has been ticking….each drop falling swiftly, trailing down the cheeks. Purest form, but insanity along and my footmarks are moving towards the finals.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

People (A Techie's Insights)


May be then he was different. He doesn’t seem to me the same what I earlier used to percept. But still dominated by his sick habits, he is antagonistic to me. These factors twisted me, and carried me away finally…

I used to be a loner then. Probably he is now. I am always surrounded with people nowadays. I am successful in keeping myself willingly busy in my routines and subroutines. 

Being a computer science student, my daily plans tend to get affected by sub routines. A halt to current process and acknowledgement for some current subroutine invocation rearrange my entire day. I am not a CPU literally where ALU and CU circuited to build the best performance. However I fight to beat the best, no matter what the end result turn out to be. Machines are what we program them to do; they abide and revolt quite a few times; rarely. We are turning into a machine itself this way, always wishing for the result that we seem to have programmed for ourselves. The real times existence and realization of true conditions are still well perceived and interpreted by humans only; and not by the puppet replica that we designed to work for us. The stroke of disappointment and clutches of anxiety never lose their tie ups with us. Probably this has turned out as a result of machinery instincts that we have habituated in ourselves. We need perfection and accuracy. I say we need success each time. Deviation from it brings unwanted clouds.

No doubt, I have turned into a machine myself too, but I am an exception here. I seek internet connection before Clouds can play with my life. I will be much happier with my tiny flash drive than to enroll myself in despaired clouds.

Well he is really not just the same. May be my traversal away to a distant far land had brought this change. I recall how MAC killed DOS. How traversal of Ubuntu and other FOSS closer towards us has been pushing Windows out from the scene. The same way he seems to have gone affected too. My program counter keeps ticking and I have been noticing his steps around. Dulcet face, no lit in eyes and a horrible smile to please me.
 
Sometimes updating the extensibility of your software rescues you, but other times a completely different platform may solve your issues. I have complied with the latter. And I can see the effects on my previous roommate. :D 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Faces of India


Mr. AP Sharma didn’t let his voice go low ever, even when his hands were busy in labeling the plant cell organelle. He was discussing the functioning of each component of cell in his biology class.

“Students! Studies about cells enriched gradually, with every upcoming small development. And those developments resulted due to talented foreign scientists”, the teacher went on.

“1665, Robert Hooke, first discovered the cell. 1676, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, provided further evidence of cells. 1838, the German biologists Schleiden and Schwann advanced the idea that all organisms are made of cells. 1859, German physician and biologist Rudolph Vichow stated that all cells divide and that is how new cells are made.”

“How boring the class is. And how arrogant Sharma sir have become; he never remarked the ‘most’ important contribution ever made, which an ‘Indian’ had given”; a student in the class conversed in his mind, stressing on several words. Ankush, his name was. He posited in his mind, “Jagadish Chandra Bose, an Indian scientist said that plants have life; and this was the most important contribution. And what about Aryabhatta? He gave us the zero; and using that only you calculated the cell division rate”.

“I feel pity for you Sharma sir; you have lost love for your nation”.