tumne kya diya iss ghar ko.. chaar chaar betiyan

"tumne kya diya iss ghar ko.. chaar chaar betiyan"
Translation: 'what have you given this house except four daughters'

This stunner of a statement is from a serial called 'Ghar ki lakshmi: Betiyan' (Translation: 'The Goddess of a Home: Its daughters').

I wonder do people still speak like that?
What kind of people still believe/think such things?
Do people really ENJOY watching such things? Or maybe they just enjoy watching the people who have such thoughts being defeated by the hero/heroines in the serial?

The triumph of good over evil?

Man, when will we have some intelligent programmes on TV... that's what people complain!
I am all for such serials 'desi saas bahu' serials. They require much less brain power to watch. Something you can relax with. ;)

Personal Quotes..

Yesterday I was going through my old diaries and I came across some things which I had written way back in 2002. I am quoting them here...

If you are wise and you know what you are searching for, you will find 'it'... eventually.
If you are not wise and do not understand what you are searching for, then 'it' will find you.
-30th October 2002

If you are not serious no one takes you seriously.
-4th November 2002

Too much death spoils your appetite for life
-20th November 2002

Being an intelligent man in a stupid world is the same as being a stupid man in an intelligent world, useless.
-23rd December 2002

Sometimes you need darkness to see the light, thus never be afraid of the dark.
-8th January 2003

14-6th under surveillance

Me with the police car in the background (taken outside our house!)


Police car in front of our house.. it stayed there all night long and is still there (Sunday 26th Nov. 10 AM).


Police car behind our house.. it stayed there all night long and is still there (Sunday 26th Nov. 10 AM). You can't see it clearly but you can just make out the fluorescent green paint and the tail light thru the fence.


Our house has been under surveillance by the Police since yesterday night.

Why? Well I am not at the liberty to say.

This is my fourth encounter with the police, in UK, since I moved into 14-6th. Each time I have been impressed at the efficiency and professionalism of the local police.
They will come to your house for anything that they might need (such as a statement or a fingerprint). They are well spoken and polite. All in all very impressive.

Back in India everything good and bad about the police is well known by the local people. The local people know the whole 'system' and how to make it work for them.

Here it is the opposite. Nothing is revealed and no one actually knows what's happening in the police system. I am sure they must be having similar problems here as well, especially related to corruption and rascism (which is quite well documented actually!). But somehow it doesn't translate into their dealings with common, honest people.

Unfortunately its not the same back home. Where the police I think takes more pleasure in troubling honest folk than catching criminals.

Dhoom 2: The movie without a story

Dhoom 2

On my Heart Attack <---> Coma review scale (Heart Attack = 10 and Coma = 0) I would rate Dhoom 2 as a: Faint (3 out of 10).

Once again, just like in Don, this movie proves that Bollywood has learnt (though not mastered) the art of special effects and stunt sequences (or atleast learnt to hire the right people from outside India!).
This movie ALSO proves another important point: special effects alone do not make a movie a pleasure to watch. If in Don they copied the story, in Dhoom 2 they thought let s pick up scraps of a story from any Hollywood movie (in this case Entrapment) and stitch them together to fool the public into believing that this movie HAS a story! Come on guys we KNOW you can do good special effects... now just prove to us that you can come up with a story to support it too! Stunt sequences without a story to back them up feels like your watching basketball being played with a football!

Dhoom2 for me was a combination of:
1) A hip-hop video
2) Some glitzy special effects
3) Some cool desi-comedy sequences

The Good stuff:
Locations are as usual excellent and Uday Chopra played his role well.
The special effects are good.
Bipasha as Shonali.
Hritik Roshan's dancing and overall screen presence.
The choreography is good (especially in 'Crazy kia re'.
The extra babes are SEXY especially the ones wanting their beachball back ;)

The Bad stuff:
Aishwarya as a 'cool and normal girl'. She just is not able to pull it off! Even her accent is weird! Bad casting or bad role I am yet to decide.
Bipasha as Monali, a weird weird role!
The story (just doesn't add up!).
The music is just not as good as Dhoom. All the songs seem similar.
Hritik Roshan trying to give the 'Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean' look.

In closing I will just say this... Dhoom 2 is the ONLY movie till date where after watching the first 15 minutes, I was READY to switch screens (we had gone to a multi-plex). Just that the movie (Borat) I wanted to switch to with my friend had already started!

Love and Submarine Warfare...

Often Love can be like Submarine Warfare in the old days.

In the old days when the submarines had diesel engines and technology was not as 'hi-tech' as what we have now, submarine warfare was a combination of skill and patience.
During World War II the German submarines used to stalk their targets, often in groups, like wolves before dealing that killing blow. That is why they are were called 'The Wolf Pack'.
But there was no guarantee of success. The submarines while having surprise on their side, had several disadvantages. Therefore often a submarine captain just got one chance to strike effectively. Once detected the submarine was always under threat from several sources such as bombers (armed with torpedos) and destroyers (armed with depth charges).
The standard procedure used to be to identify and track the target, get the 'firing solution' for the torpedo and finally to launch the torpedo and wait to see if it hits the target or not. Launched torpedoes are refered to as 'fish' and to indicate torpedo launch the phrase 'fish are in the water' is used.

Love is like this. Especially when you are trying to woo a girl, at the same time you don't want to tell her plainly that 'I love you' (whatever the reason for that may be). So basically you are the submarine, you have identified the target and now you are tracking it.

While you are tracking it you have a finite window (with respect to time) to launch the attack before the target either obtains friendly air/naval cover or reaches its destination (in other words till the girl finds someone else or it is no longer possible for you to woo her).

How do you tell her you are interested? Well there are 101 ways of expressing your interest. To choose the right way is like obtaining the firing solution on the target and therefore the actual attempt is like launching a torpedo.

Once you make the attempt, all you can do is wait and watch. Once the fish are in the water they will either miss or hit.
If it hits then your problems are solved.
If it misses then too there can be three possible outcomes:
a) you remain un-detected (i.e. girl doesn't understand your attempt and remains un-aware of your feelings)

b) you are detected but no action is taken (i.e. girl is still undecided).

c) you are detected and blown out of the water (i.e. girl REJECTS you).


In case of (a) you might get a few more attempts to re-calculate the firing solution (plan a different method of expressing) and launching a second or third torpedo (i.e. you may get a second or third chance to express yourself).

In case of (b) you need to find out why no action was taken. Maybe you have been tracking the wrong target or something wrong with your attempt. Thus you need to analyse the situation, re-calculate the firing solution (plan a different method of expressing) and then re-fire!

In case of (c) blow main ballast tanks and perform an emergency surfacing manouver and once surfaced perform repairs(in other words bail out, retreat and go lick your wounds). If you are not able to surface (i.e. you become a Romeo without a Juliet) then pray to God that you are bit luckier in your next lifetime!

:)
A.

Why do I drink?

Conversation with a friend...

TK: i've heard some ppl say that the reason they smoke or drink is to forget some things... but when one comes back to ones senses the problem also returns
only way to solve a problem is to solve it... not forget it

Kyuzo: who says i drink to forget problems
i stay sober to forget them

TK: then why do u have to drink?

Kyuzo: to achieve clarity

AN ANONYMOUS COMMENT

i totally agree with ur friend TK. :p
and ur dialogue about clarity is not at all clear to me. it was just OHT. :D

I think the above comment was posted BY MY FRIEND TK in support of her confusion :D

Anyway what I meant was... sometimes when you drink you relax enough to reduce the confusion which allows the emotions to flow freely. You allow your emotions a free access. This free access, you may say, 'clears the air'... thus bringing clarity.

What the hell is that!

Can anyone tell me what this is?

007 is back! But without the bang...

Saw the new 007 movie (Casino Royale) today.

1) Eva Green is looking amazing... blue-green eyes and red lips. Amazing.
2) The chase sequence in the beginning (when 007 is chasing the bomb maker) is superb. Something unique in Bond movies.
3) Movie becomes like a romantic movie once Bond wins the game for a bit. This unecessarily lengthens the movie and reduces the pace of the story.
4) The title song (always something to watch out for in a Bond movie) disappoints and the opening sequence looks like something from a cartoon (bright colours, cartoon characters and no girls) rather than from a Bond movie (sexy colours, girls, smooth feel).
5) The famous Bond gadgets are missing! Nothing impressive with respect to technology.

ATTENTION NRIs! Part 2

Another SUPERB AD by the people at www.BharatMatrimony.com

Sounds like my kind of a girl..

Line 1: She's got a PhD.
A woman PhD... a BEAUTIFUL FEMALE with a PhD... like finding the Kohinoor Diamond in your morning cup of coffee.

Line 2: She collects Ganeshas.
Well... our house will be like one big huge Ganesh Temple... I'm cool with that!

Line 3: She's writing a Cookbook.
Excellent... hope she likes to COOK as well... with me being an excellent cook as well we could make beautiful dinners together! ;)

Line 4: She hates Mondays.
Poor Monday.

Line 5: And yes, she'd love a pet turtle.
Man what is with the girls at BharatMatrimony and their pet fetish!

Funny Pics!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH - I came...


Days of Alcoholic Depression...

ATTENTION NRIs!

Today while checking my Yahoo Email account I came across this classic piece of advertising.
The ad as you can see is for a matrimonial site (www.bharatmatrimony.com). It screams out for the ATTENTION of NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) and their immediate family like a vendor in a fish market trying to attract customers to his stall.
They use a set of lines to describe (I think) some of the qualities of the females you'd find on the site.
Let me reproduce those lines here:

Line 1: She loves her steaks rare.
- Lady I sure do hope those are rare non-beef stakes.. because most Hindu guys and girls (even outside India) do not eat beef especially not RARE beef.

Line 2: She dances a mean tango.
- Kind of like J-Lo or Vanessa Williams I hope?

Line 3: She has a mutt called Bob.
- Er.. then you are all set for all kinds of kinky bedroom games ;).

Line 4: She's watched DDLJ sixteen times.
- obsessive compulsive? Or just doesn't have any money to rent new movies? Whatever the reason.. she must surely be occupying a padded cell in some asylum after watching DDLJ sixteen times!

Line 5: And she paints rocks!
- what can I say.. she paints rocks too!

Meet your match today! (this sounds like an invitation for a wrestling match)

Anyway... was really surprised to see these kinds of ads being thrown at NRIs (who are basically first generation Indians settled abroad). I could understand second generation Indians (people of Indian origin born and bought up outside India) finding this to their liking. But NRIs? It defies logic.

This shows that they have not done their research properly before taking out an ad like this.
Most NRIs (which includes a large number of students) are surprisingly conservative when it comes to marriage. While they may have multiple girlfriends (age/skin colour no bar!) marriage is always seen as something you do with your head rather than you know what. Consent of elders is, even if in many cases a mere formality, important.

Also I had thought NRIs were now being recognized for what they really are.
Earlier NRIs were thought to be like stars at night, living in their own nice world and coming down to Earth now and then for a quick visit. People who were the fortunate representatives, on a foreign shore, of a billion strong nation.

In reality an NRI is in the worst possible position. He is more like the soldier sitting in the trench at the frontline, hoping that his sacrifice will make things easier for people back home. People will say life outside India is easy. I agree 100% but at what cost do we get this 'easy life'. This is a very debatable topic.

This kind of targeting of specific groups (especially NRIs) is quite widespread. From Banks to Matrimony sites. While these sites do provide some good services, yet they do harm the cause of NRIs in the long run. When you consider a group of people to be separate, then you also attach certain assumptions to them. The same way all people belonging to SC/ST are not poor, all NRIs are not as successful as they seem.

Allow NRIs to show you their failures too. Do not burden them with the responsibility to perform every time. It has lead to the spoiling of one too many a life.

Theoretical Models of Love

There are various ways in which two people fall in love with each other.
My research into this allowed me to develop two models for how a girl and boy fall for each other. There may be many others but this is what I came up with....

MODEL ONE: SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE

MODEL TWO: STRIKE THE IRON WHILE IT'S HOT


SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE (Figure 1)
This is more common that is why I call it MODEL ONE. In Figure 1 we can see that the Girl and Boy start out as strangers and over time they become friends and converge towards Intimacy. Maybe the Boy and Girl were childhood friends or met in college or even at a marriage! The convergence rate is usually slower and many factors can destroy the relation or stop it at a certain level of closeness.
But if this relation continues it will enter a period (blue region) where a long term permanent relation can be formed which may or may not end in marriage.
This period doesn't last forever though. Once it ends the relations usually diverge a bit and come to rest at a lower level of friendship.


STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT (Figure 2)
This kind of opportunity is based a bit on the luck of the Boy and the Girl. Usually the two are not that close but an EVENT (light green line) brings them closer, that too pretty rapidly. The closeness is much more intense in this case. Many things can trigger this kind of a situation but usually the triggering event is something quite drastic.
The response time is very very short and usually both the sides have to capitalize on the opportunity. The response time in this case is usually much less as compared to MODEL ONE. Also once the good time (blue shaded area) is over the relations diverge pretty rapidly.

Both the models are of course not the final word. The actual model of interaction can be a combination of either of the two models. For example the starting could be like MODEL ONE and the ending could be like MODEL TWO.


There are two other factors which can influence the shape of the 'Love Curves'.
The first one is, how keen (or desperate) the Boy and Girl are to fall in love (the Acceptance Factor). The second one is the Rate of Convergence (the slope) for the two curves. If the Rate of Convergence for Girl's curve (Cg) is different from the Rate of Convergence (Cb) for Boy's curve, it can lead to major issues.

If Cg == Cb
- Perfect situation both converge to same state almost at same time.

If Cg > Cb
- Girl will enter the blue zone quickly but the boy wont be ready... can lead to frustration on girls part.

If Cg < Cb
- Boy will enter the blue zone quickly but the girl wont be ready... this will of course lead to frustration on boys part.


:)
A.

Purpose of Life

A conversation with Miss S. Still waters run deep.

XYZ says:
not everything has to have a purpose

The First Light of Dawn says:
yet everything does....
things without purpose... die

XYZ says:
if you wanna look at it that way
it's just a point of view

The First Light of Dawn says:
or become invisible
what doesnt have an use.. tell me

XYZ says:
well, it's just a point of view
i could name you a million things, and you could say that all of them have purposes

The First Light of Dawn says:
ok name me one

XYZ says:
but it might not be what i think
umm.. i dunno..

The First Light of Dawn says:
i wont say whether it has a purpose or not

XYZ says:
well, i don't know. life?
yes, life
life might not even have a purpose

The First Light of Dawn says:
well.... i would disagree....
but then again
like u said
depends on point of view

XYZ says:
yup
exactly
i'm not sure if it has a meaning or not anyway

The First Light of Dawn says:
hmm if it doesnt then why do u exist...

XYZ says:
i dunno
to be here
why do i exist?
i'm not sure

The First Light of Dawn says:
well if u find the answer to that question u will know the purpose of life

What is the purpose of life?

Shakespeare said some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Maybe its the same case with purpose.
Some are born with a purpose in life, some discover it and some have it imposed upon them by life.

Diwali 2006 Fire-crackers and Fun!

Pics of Diwali 2006 Firecrackers taken in my backyard. All friends having fun...
The pics taken by me using Canon S2-IS and long exposure...

Weep, for tonight winter begins....

 It is the last day of summer.

The clocks will change over from British Summer Time (BST) to GMT tonight. UK will become one hour further away from India as the time difference between the two countries increases to five and a half hours.

The clocks will switch over from 28th October 2006 11:59PM to 28th October 2006 11:00PM.

I will gain an extra hour in my life.

I am still not sure why they have the concept of Summer Time (Daylight Saving Time in the US). Just because the sun rises at 4am and sets at 11pm does it mean one keeps changing the clocks?

I wonder how much money they would end up saving if BST was removed.

What is one hour in the new world where the business process has become a continuous link that stretches all around the globe.

In my humble opinion BST should be removed even though it does bring me one hour closer to home.

:)

An Evening with the 'Don' (a.k.a. review of Don)

Well after sitting through the first 10 mins of the film I just had one thought in my mind... when would I come to Cineworld for a GOOD movie? My previous movie at Cineworld was Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and since Cineworld is quite far away from my place I don't go there often.

I knew that the movie would be crap and it would mean £8 down the drain (ticket + popcorn), still I went to see it. I needed some amusement at the end of a rainy Sunday and a whole bunch of my friends were going.

BUT the main reason I went to see this film was: Isha Koppikar.     She is one sexy Marathi Mulgi

 

For anyone going to see this movie... DO NOT watch the old Don before going to see this one. Just DO NOT compare the new with the old. Otherwise you will spend the entire movie thinking just two things..

how crappy the new one is and why didnt you just go to be early tonight instead of coming to the cinema.

 

The GOOD THINGS:

Excellent special effects for a Bollywood movie... now they just need a good story and better actors.

Music and dance is good... Especially the song 'Main hoon Don' and the number where both Priyanka and Isha dance together for Singhania.

Seeing Isha dance... in two songs meant my £8 were paid back with interest. It is fasinating to see the flowing symmetry of the female body!

Shooting locations are excellent... I love the last scene on the mountain top. I wonder what place that was.

 

The BAD THINGS:

Crap storyline... even though it was copied from the original Don, had the story been original I am sure the movie would have come out much better. You just cannot fit a square peg in a round hole.

Kareena... Firstly why was she in the movie... ok no probs you keep her in the movie.. but then WHY make her dance! She could have been given the role of 'bystander no.2' or 'policewoman no.1'. Also it is unfair that they gave her Helens role. Helen was an excellent dancer where as Kareena looks like she is trying to break her spine or dislocate her hip.

REAL weak story... someone should have told the director that when you fire a fake bullet thru a glass, the glass DOES NOT shatter since there is no projectile in a fake bullet. This is with reference to the scene where Priyanka enters the car of Don's henchmen with the fake Police behind her. Then she proceeds to shoot the Policemen by firing THRU the glass window of the car. In a later scene we see Priyanka handing over cash to the fake Policemen and  threatening them that if they talk to anyone about this, next time the bullets will be real.

Business class prisoner transport plane... when they were designing a prisoner transport plane the least they could have done was watched Con-Air. But no... they couldn't take even that much effort. In the new Don, the prison plane seats are almost as good (if not better) than business class seats on a passenger plane. All prisoners are FREE TO MOVE ABOUT and there is just a set of bars between the guards and the prisoners. Also all the prisoners still have their personal belonging with them and are wearing their own clothes. The ONLY thing missing from the 'best special effects scene in the movie' was a personal entertainment system in the 'business class' seat of the passengers.

The Parachute Scene '..the best scene..'... copied from Arnie's Eraser right down to the two children playing in the area where the parachutist lands. Of course the scene from Eraser (movie made in 1996) was much better. Guess they couldn't think up any new variations in 10 years time.

 

 

<START OF SPOILER>--------------------------------------------------------

The story is pretty straight forward with a MAJOR twist in the last scene. Everything is set for Don II since the original Don still lives.

<END OF SPOILER>-----------------------------------------------------------

When HSBC came calling...

About a week ago I posted a blog entry about how my HSBC InvestDirect account suddenly showed a balance of £66,000 (approx).
Well yesterday (11th October 2006) HSBC came calling to my humble blog. Not just once or twice but more than six times! In fact not only HSBC but also some bank from New York came to have a look at my blog.
The first hit came from HSBC Banking and Financial Services in Pune, India. Rest of the hits were from HSBC Plc, London, England.

The MAIN thing was all the hits, as you can see below, were directly on the post about the £66,000!

The Details of the Visit:

The First Hit


Details of the other Hits






I wonder what they are up to! :D

Marriage is a Multi-objective Problem

Bit of Theory
A multi-objective problem (MOP) is a problem which can be de-composed into multiple objectives that have to be satisfied to solve it. Often all the objectives cannot be met with the same degree of success since they may oppose each other. Therefore there exists a 'trade-off' between these objectives.

A classic trade-off situation is when you are packing for a trip. Assuming you don't want to pay through your nose for extra allowance (and you don't have an army of pack mules to carry your luggage) you will have finite space in which to put everything.
So the trade-off comes with respect to what you put into that finite space. Do you put in more night-clothes or more casual wear? Since the space is finite if you put
in more night-clothes you will have less space for casuals.

There is usually no single solution to a MOP. Instead the problem solver usually takes a look at a set of solutions (i.e. possible trade-offs) and based on their expert knowledge, desires and preferences a single solution is picked out from the set of solutions.

Looking at MARRIAGE from a multi-objective point of view we can figure out what kind of boys/girls would be preferred. I simplified the problem by taking just three main factors which are most commonly looked at while finding a mate (in India atleast).
These factors are:
- Money (income of the boy/girl or family wealth)
- Family (the background of the family)
- Looks (of the boy/girl)

The trade-off between each of these factors is highly dynamic (for example good looks might not always come from a good family and so on). Therefore we cannot do a clear analysis of the situation. But we can show the various options available and how each type of solution can be put into a class (of boys/girls).

Green dots
represent the best solutions within the normal class of boys and girls.
Fairly NORMAL demand for this type.

Grey dots
represent the non-mainstream class.
Demand for this type cannot be defined.

Red dots are LOSERS!
LOW demand for this type.

Blue dots are GODS/GODESSES (the Ideal class)
EVERYONE wants to marry one of these!



Note: Charts shown above were made by me and not copied from anywhere.

So WHICH CLASS do you belong to? :D

OOO and OOAD

OOO = Object Oriented Organization (of code).
OOAD = Object Oriented Analysis and Design (of a system).

Code rushes through my head when I hear people talking about various software projects.. that is the wrong way to think.. if you can think DESIGN before you think CODE that means you are a top class computer engineer (or programmer).

But professional design is a tediuous and often time consuming activity which is as important as it is difficult to do well!

Most small projects or dedicated systems, in my experience, are designed on the basis of 'object oriented organization' rather than full blown OOAD (which involves higher level elements such as Design Patterns).
The system is just represented as a set of interacting classes or objects.
This can be very effective, reducing design times as well as making sure most of the good design features are present in the result. But this requires an implicit understanding of what is good OO and what is bad OO!

If you find yourself stringing together classes like a garland one after the other then you are surely doing something mad.. and trust me.. pretty soon that garland is going to start stinking!

The basis of good OO design is how to keep the interfaces of the classes clean and less prone to change and the number of classes themselves to as few (and thus efficient use of code) as possible. Thus it becomes VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT to understand and keep in your mind AT ALL TIMES the concepts of cohesion and coupling whether you are doing OOO (Object Oriented Organization of your code) or full fledged OOAD.

For those who don't know about Cohesion (Coh.) and Coupling (Cup.):
Coh. means how well organised the code is within a class... how well the code of the class works together to fulfill the functionality of the class. If a class is really bulky and requires access to external code then we say that Coh. is low.

Cup. means the number of connections a class has with other classes.

Usually the best design practice is to INCREASE COHESION and DECREASE COUPLING. This ensures classes remain as stand-alone and re-usable as possible as well as decreasing the 'stringing' effect of dealing with a highly connected set of classes.

The common trick for reducing Coupling is, if you find that two classes have a lot of connections between them, try and merge the two classes together or try and shift the functionality from one class to the other (you can even try merging the functionality from both classes into a third class!).
To reduce cohesion you need to concentrate on the first level analysis of the problem (high level requirements). Often a re-analysis of the problem can lead to a more efficient Class/Object based Design.

MY PhD!

Talking about my PhD with my cousin sis...

XYZ: accha which topics come under ur research......
Kyuzo: earth/sky/water/wind/love/girls/electronics/computers/AI
XYZ: wt is AI....???
XYZ: yaa i knw......
XYZ: ok artificial intelligence'.............???
Kyuzo: wow u smart
XYZ: hmm dont u have ur original intelligence......????
Kyuzo: nope woh i gave to charity