Musings

Its been aeons since I sat down and wrote something into my blog, reasons are plenty, was not in town, was too upset after my break up etc. I guess its time I got down to writing, its always an indication that I am on the read to mental recovery. Its fitting that I spend time recapturing the moments elapsed during the past few months. After a rather bleak performance in the exams(fingers crossed, just want to pass), I spent a few days mulling over the fact, consulting all sorts of astrological(is there such a word?????)charts to check out whether there was an indication of pending disaster in the near future. Supersitious, I most definitely am. After that it was a sabbatical in ooty, where unfortunately I succumbed to a cold and was laid low for sometime, during which I was subjected to my dad's cooking(shudder), I certainly appreciated the gesture but after mom's appetizing meals, I somehow didn't relish burnt stuff. Fortunately for my digestive system,my recovery was swift(spurred on by dad's experiments in the kitchen). And after that it was sight seeing, ooty is certainly beautiful and having lots of friends among the forest officials ensured that I got to venture into restricted area. One of the most memorable of these was a panther leaping across while we drove through the forest. And I certainly loved spending time in the pine forests or sitting beside a lake just dreaming away, all alone as it was not yet tourist time. The only fly in the ointment was my ignorance of the local language. The only thing I was able to do was nod my head when anyone said something to me, and boy was it a disaster. I ended up buying an umbrella, taking a photo with a stuffed tiger and various other things which I didn't intend to do. Having a celebrity as a neighbor was also a change, which lead to me committing another solecism. Having failed to recognize the famous actor cum politician( my excuse is I never watch regional movies) I didn't show any special deference to the man, which most certainly irked him, and once having the audacity to overtake his car(his words according to the translation of my Bengali watchman who turned out to be a very good linguist) I was subjected to a stream of violent words by his body guard, I guess my sheepish grin did nothing more than anger that person more. Ideas of being put into prison for breaking the security convoy chased through my mind and was resolutely put off. Indicating my plight through a series of gestures and grimaces which further enraged authority,I managed to escape retribution. I guess they thought I was too crazy to be charged with any criminal offence. After my brush with the law I was content to wander about on my foot. And back I was in bangalore after 20 days and I sure did miss it and my friends. College started again with no noticeable change except that the subjects have got more boring. And on this note I end this rather boring monologue about me.

The pumping lemma

Let L be a regular language. Then there exists a constant n such that for every string w in L such that w>=n, we can break w into three strings w=xyz such that
i. y not equal to epsilon
ii. xy<=n
iii. for all k>=0, the string xy to the power k,z is also in L

The famed pumping lemma theoran which is driving me nuts, welcome to the world of vtu, where nothing makes sense and the only thing which helps u is your memory. The biggest question mark ever comes to mind when I read through this

words at wedding

My cousin got married recently and since it was a rather small gathering I got to listen to quite a few comments about the wedding from the fellow guests. Other than a few older guests nobody seemed to be interested in the ceremony, which is generally the case in our weddings cause the rituals are so tedious and most of us cannot understand what is being said. The centre of attraction is for sure the bride, every one was taking in every tiny detail of her ensemble and the comments ranged from disparaging to complimentary. "My, goodness isn't she looking so jaded, and the colur doesn't suit her at all, after all she is so old and I am sure the groom is two or three years younger than her" said a heavily adorned woman with a conciliatory air. " Look who's talking" whispered my aunt," she married a man 10 years younger than her after they bribed him with money, lands and a house and he was just an employee in her father's office, and he was already married." I guess a wedding is a nice place to rake up scandals. Another reason why people come to weddings is to hunt for prospective grooms and brides. Anyone without a husband on her arm is fair bait. "mmm, what about that girl, the one with the long hair and the lovely ruby pendant","oh I wouldn't, I heard that the mother goes to the gym in shorts, u don't want to be in-laws with such people do u?". "How about the one in the green silk saree"," her mother falls ill a lot, do u want your grandchildren to be weaklings". "I am sorry for this tall girl in front of me, they will never find a boy who's taller than her and she might never marry." This last shot being directed at me, made me bubble over with mirth at the same time trying to calm both my aunt and mother who were shooting poisonous looks at the author of this outrage. Who says weddings are boring? Not me anymore for sure.

random mumblings

I am too bored and brain dead after poring through my engineering books, not going to leave anything interesting, just to tell my blog that I am alive(barely).

The thorn bird

Long Ago, there was a bird who sang just once in its life.From the moment it left its nest, it searched for a thorn tree.And it never rested until it found one.Then it began to sing more sweetlythan any other creature on the face of the earth.And singing, it impaled its breast on the longest, sharpest thorn.But as it was dying, it rose above its own agony, to out-sing the lark and the nightingale.The thornbird pays its life for that one song, and the whole world stills to listen. And God, in His heaven~smiles.As its best was bought only at the cost of great pain.Driven to the thorn, with no knowledge of the dying to come.But when we press the thorn to our breast,We know........We understand.....And still......we do it.

I just loved whats written above and had to put it in my blog. There's so much beauty hidden in those lines.

best friends forever

Divya and I met when we were three years old in the school auto that used to take us to and fro from school. It was rather an odd friendship cause i was a rather quiet and withdrawn girl and divya was brimming over with confidence. Her exuberance in the earlier days used to scare me but friends we did become, and what a friendship it was, there were regular fights with each of us having a go at each other's hair, biting and screaming our heads off. Everyone thought this friendship would never last but last it did. Despite our habit of not letting the other bully us we were very close and shared all our secrets. Divya was a very loyal friend, she would never hear a single word against me and she was very possessive about me when we were younger which I didn't quite like at that time. She was responsible for making me a more outgoing person, gave me confidence in myself and taught me to like myself.She has an amazing sense of humor and we share a mutual love for reading. We share a strong bond between us that enable us to understand what the other is thinking. There were lot of times when we drifted apart and were not as close as we used to be, but we always knew that we would always be there for each other. Now she's grown up to be a really pretty girl with men swooning all over her, but still she remains a girl with so much simplicity and modesty in her, something which she learned the hard way but has now made her more beautiful from the inside. Its been 17 years since we became best friends and we still are. Even if I have no other friends in the world but her I know I was blessed cause she's what every person dreams of, a true friend.

the courting season

The summer heat and the incessant study really got to me so I just tossed aside my books and went into my garden to breathe in some fresh air and I was rewarded by the courting rituals of two colourful birds. I must confess that I have no idea what kind of birds they were but they were definitely beautiful to behold. They were perched up high in the jasmine tree and the male bird(I assume it was the male due to his colourful plummage) was puffing out his chest and strutting in front of his disdainful lady, who was giving him the cold shoulder and made sure he knew about it. Not one to be rebuffed so easily he flew around her chirping and trying to rub his feathers against her. He was rewarded with a sharp peck and the object of his attention flew down into the lotus pond and proceedes to take a bath. He hopped onto the nearest plant and proceeded to serenade her with a lilting song. His song seemed to have soothed the lady bird's anger cause she too hopped onto the plant and added her voice to his efforts. My last sight of them were two claws locked together and their feathery bodies pressed together belting out beautiful melodies.

The Afgan girl

The above photo taken by Steve McCurry of an Afghan girl has been voted as the 100 best pictures of national geographic. She appeared on the cover of national geographic in the year 1985. Her face became world famous yet nobody knew who she was. According to the photographer her face "had seized the imagination of so many people around the world because her face, particularly her eyes, expressed pain and resilience as well as strength and beauty."
The hunt for the afghan girl was launched nearly two decades later and she was found living in a remote village of afganistan in primitive conditions. Her name was Sharbat Gul and she was the mother of three daughters and the wife of a baker. She lives in obscurity according to the customs of her land and the woman who's face became world famous is unknown among her own countrymen. She depicts the trouble faced by her people during the years.

Friends from a different dimension

Today I was playing hide and seek with my six year old cousin and his imaginary friend "yaya". Needless to say I never managed to catch "yaya" and ended up playing "it" all through.It was quite amusing to see my little cousin chatting with his friend. In my family our tryst with fairyland and imaginary things were always encouraged, having a mother and aunt who thrived on anne books and other classics we were all encouraged to imagine and our fancies were never laughed at, nor were we admonished for telling lies as some people were.
Growing up as an only child in a neighbourhood filled with old people and no youngsters, most of my time was spent playing in the garden with all my imaginary friends. There was a green elf by the name of elvin who used to tell me stories about caterpillares and butterflies, my friendly sparrow Chirp from whom I learnt to find the best worms and who also taught me the early bird poem, and the milk lady who used to drink up all my unwanted milk. My mother never bought that story when she caught me spilling the milk out of the window. Many a spanking did I get for that.
Ours was not the only family who had such friends, my friend had an imaginary friend of her own who she christened 2-Papa, which was a miniature version of herself with supernatural powers. She had the ability to fly, disappear and had as ready a tongue as my friend. As I grew older I forgot about my imaginary friends and now they are just a pleasant memory. But they were my very first experience of friendship and showed me how important friends are and how necessary it is to make friends with different people so that you become more broad minded

gimme a break!

When is the last time a product was bought on the basis of its advertisement? I can only remember not buying something cause it came coupled with an inane slogan which made me reach the conclusion that I never want to buy anything from a person who is so hare brained as to approve of such a ridiculous strategy to promote his product.
One of the most regressive ads on air today has to be the fair and lovely ad, which is propagating the notion that fair is beautiful and that people with dusky skins are not entitled to that adjective. Not only are they instilling the nonsensical idea in people that they have to do their best to become fair they are also insulting all those people who are beautiful and have dark skin tones, these people too are also a major part of the modeling fraternity, in fact they out number the ones with fair skin. And not content with targeting women this ridiculous brand has also launched a product for men!!!!!! Talk about cheek!!!!
Another one which makes me grind my teeth in anger are those soft drink ads, they choose the most gorgeous stars, shot them in various different oh soo "cool" situations sipping their vile product. A drink which is capable of removing all the rust from a nail is being propogated as the key to being popular and "happening", and no doubt all the stars who endorse it have never taken even a sip from it, otherwise its hard to imagine how they manage to preserve their svelte figures and glowing complexions.
Its really annoying to know that these people are conning the masses into buying their products, I wonder if a thing like an ad police could ever happen.