If I ever need advice

Ladies and gentlemen, the great Sudipta decided to end this year by a guest post on this blog. Many of you have wondered why some females want to murder me after some acquaintance. Well, one of them kindly decided to put her thoughts into words. So without further ado, let me present to you...

*Tra la la ra li re la*
*Drums rolling*
*Curtains rising*

-------------------



If ever I need advice...

…he is the first person I would turn to NOT. My English teacher always told me this one thing...be precise…if only I could (well she also told me to mind my splellings as well but we will leave that out, spell check hai na?). So for those who lack the time or the inclination to read a post by someone unknown, I think the next sentence would give away the crux of the post. I always believed in Gandhian stance on non violence...until I got to know Sudipto.

Having gotten my acceptance letter from UT Austin, I decided to set up a group to get to know folks I might be spending close to a year of my life with. One fine day, our friend here decided to join the group. My first conversation with him went on for a bit with me assuming him to be a girl *the reason why I typed his name as sudipto*. The first conversation reminds me, he still owes me ice cream for not shooing him out of the group, and am pretty sure he will say I owe HIM ice cream!

As first few conversations go, its mostly about getting to know the other person and people are still on their best behavior or as close to that as they can get. I could see that the boy had a good sense of humor, some wit, sarcasm etc. etc. that made for an interesting conversation. It was a little later I concluded that the very same qualities would get him murdered one day *yes, for those of you who read comments, am the one who wants to use the butcher knife on him*.

Why I have such tender feelings towards him you ask? Well spend a few days talking to him and you will realize that. Let me mention a few, am sure others existing near him will nod their head vigorously. First, he is the king of double meanings - you just can’t talk to the guy without him taking out double meaning in almost every other thing you say. Never expect any ‘tareef’ from him for anything. In fact be wary, be very very wary when he utters a single syllable in yr praise. There is always a catch involved and the moment you fall for the trap he springs at you with sarcasm and yells “gotcha!” *accompanied by lots of evil laughter am sure*

And whatever you do, don’t go to this guy for advice. Go ask Tommy next door, I assure you, you will be better off. Ask this guy for advice and you are bound to hear something totally unrelated to yr woes like “give a big puppy to a random guy” *and it’s not a puppy dog he is talking about*. There were more such gems uttered by him in the last few months but I was too busy imagining ways to pay him back that I forgot to save those.

That however does not mean that he has no good qualities. Am sure he has tons of them, I just haven’t found one in the last 8 months or so of knowing him *he he he*. But since am such a good friend I would say one thing in the end - he does write a nice blog most of the time. Happy Reading.

Sky

Tapping the tapper

I installed a bunch of little tools on this blog sometime back. You'll find all of them on the right column of this page, towards its very bottom. Yes, I know they are a bit narcissist in nature: displaying a map of the world to show where around the world the visitors came from, what they were referred to here by, etc. After all, no-one really is interested in knowing all that if they came to this blog. If you, as a reader last longer than reading through the latest post, you might stop by to comment. Perhaps the more interested people also read through the other comments before shooting one off on your own. But thats about it --- it doesn't really bother you to see that there is a blob of readers (or visits) even from Madagascar!

As the author of the blog, on the other hand, these little tools are more than just that for me. They are sort of little pieces of a huge puzzle that come as hints from everywhere. Let me put it this way: imagine how you would feel if you could suddenly be able to listen to all conversations in town that uttered your name. Imagine, for example, how interesting it would be to be able to know what your buddies discussed about you in the confines of their house over a cup of coffee: obviously assuming that you can't hear them. Frank, honest opinions, things that were perhaps best kept secret, discussing and comparing notes, behind the curtained walls of their privacy. But you have your ears everywhere... every time your name comes up, be it the guys praising you for taking a brilliant catch on the field or the two girls discussing how gruffly you behaved when you went past them and did not even hold open the door: you can hear it! And whats more, you can see the whole conversation. That, exactly, is what these little tools offer.

And add to that the beauty of IP address tracking and GNU IP/Country databases, Whois lookups, etc. I'll spare you the techno babble, but suffice it to say that if I have once known where you're from, or what you were referred to here by, I can almost always (if I want to) trace back the entire thread of your visit. I know what time you visited this blog, what you were doing here, which pages were of interest to you, and sometimes even how much time you spent here. And it is a whole lot of fun, believe me --- to the point that when people visit this blog from UseNet groups like "Dating and Love Consultancy", it is a great deal of fun. And that too, these are just tools that are hosted as JavaScript code snippets on a pre-determined template. If someone is publishing on a home-brewn template, then a lot (and I mean A LOT) more can be tracked and traced. And add to that the knowledge of a seasoned googler and some regular expression writing practice ... all it boils down to is a little smiley --- :)

I am not trying to scare you. Really, believe me: I am not telling you that I know your little secret or that I am a big brother watching your every move. The point is that while the internet may be a great anonymous medium, it is not as anonymous as you would like to think. Just like I can trace your visit to the blog, you can trace my whereabouts as neatly. Even if you are not one of those people who are into computers and networks so much, you don't need to worry. All I am trying to say is that it is a double-edged sword, a closed circiut. You plug into the mains and let the current flow: sure as hell you will be electrocuted together with me --- we're both the hunter and the hunted.

For me, at least, I don't hunt down people who came and left a malicious comment (and thankfully, there have really been a scarce few ever). But the fun is the pleasure of knowing that this blog is read by so many people from all around. That these words suddenly become relevant in so many different contexts, that people relate to them in their own personal situations --- that is the pleasure. What else can you feel when you come to know that someone googled for the words "I felt homesick" and found your post and then actually wrote a mail telling you how much he/she could relate to you? Or, for that matter, how would you feel to know that some people were actually inspired to start writing their own blog after they read yours and actually claimed that in one of their first posts? No I am not giving the links, but I am just trying to tell you something here. I hope you get the point.

I just smiled

She was a sweet little thing. In her flowery tresses and hippety-skippety-jumpy attitude, with a spring in her feet and a twinkle in her eye. The whole world seemed like a gift waiting to be unwrapped for her. Down the slope of the road she had come, her little fingers wrapped tightly around the firm hand of her father. Her five-year old self could barely contain the excitement of seeing so much happen together. It was festival time, and place was literally dazzling with colour and lights. The buzz of flashing electric bulbs, the humdrum of so many hawkers flashing their wares, of so many children doing their own merry-go-rounds and laughing and running about. It was all so lively! And she stared at everything with innocent wonder, flashing a puppy smile and trying to keep up with her father while she gaped at the myriad stalls on either side of the road.

The ice-cream vendor was doing average business --- fishing out strawberry candies and frozen choco-sticks for the bunch of giggling girls, occasionally haranguing with the boys from the high school who wanted 5 for the price of four. But this little angel who suddenly stood before his stall with one little hand clutching on to her father's palm stole his heart in a moment. His daughter was at home in his village: about the same age, she would probably be asking her mom right now why her father wasn't home for the festival yet. He couldn't go: he needed to earn money in these few days so that he could save up something and buy her a present for Diwali. But he couldn't help smiling at the angel as she turned and craned her neck to glimpse all the different colourful ice creams he was handing out. That little toothless smile that she threw back made his day immediately.

The father felt a little tug at his hand.
"Papa, can I have an ice cream please?", she asked: looking at the face of her father expectantly with those big dark eyes.
"Not now, dear... lets visit the murti* first. I'll buy you an ice cream when we come out, okay?"

She seemed satisfied at the offer. Off they came into the pandal** courtyard. The little one seemed a little upset that she could not look at the idols: there were so many tall adults walking around in front of her! So her father lifted her up on his shoulders, and her face lit up immediately. Following her father's example, she too joined her palms, struck them to her temple on her little face for some time, and squeezed her eyes shut. A little peek from an eye after a few moments told her that her father had still not opened his eyes: so she quickly shut her eyes close again and resumed the queer thing that she had found others doing: praying. Finally, her father seemed to stir, and a quick look told her that he was done with his prayers. She couldn't be happier --- finally for the ice cream, she thought. She too quickly did a rapidfire pronam roundup and looked around. The world seemed so much different from this height. One day she will enjoy this view for herself when she grew up, she told herself: there would be no need to complain that others weren't letting her see!

"Papa, who is this God, and why do we have to pray to him?"
The question had taken the father unawares. He was headed outside, the little girl still perched on his shoulders. And the question had come from above.
"We don't have to pray to him, beta", he said. "We pray to him because we love him, and we want him to take care of everyone we love and keep them happy".

The angel was lost in thought for a moment. "Okay, but who is he anyway?"

"Ah look: your ice cream!", the dad pointed out suddenly. The girl looked ahead across the crowd. "Yes yes... I want the pink one and the red one!!", she chirped. She was put down on the ground again: the drip from them could spoil the new shirt the father had worn that day. The dripping icy cold multi-flavoured colourful ice cream seemed so much more important to her than god right then. The vendor dug in really deep and brought out two good ice creams and handed them to her really carefully. She held one ice cream in each hand, and began licking them alternately, smudging her white cheeks and lips with the colour. The ice-cream vendor was happy: he saw the little one again. The girl was happy: she was too busy with the ice creams to think of anything else. The father was happy: he did not have to worry about his shirt or the weight and balance on his shoulders any more. I too was happy and smiling: funny how many things the ice creams can make us forget and how much happiness they can buy. I just smiled.

Rediscovering my hero

I did my secondary schooling in a Ramakrishna Mission school. Those four years of my life drilled a lot of good things into my character --- I'd say a large part of my present personality: whatever good is in there, is due to them. However, there is also a lot of crap and bullshit that got into me during that time. Part of the responsibility lies with the management and they way they interpreted and enforced the sayings of the wise; but far more significantly I have been responsible myself for learning and clenching on to some bullshit --- perhaps it was easier to just do what everyone said was good without evaluating it. I remember my parents trying to make me see sense: but I was too haughty to understand what they meant. Besides, my biases, prejudices, and insecurities made me build a firm and orthodox wall around myself; a wall of denial of the world and that good and bad co-existed everywhere. I buried my head behind the self-learnt pedagogies and pretended that nothing else existed!

But then, one cannot remain in his shell forever. Through high school, engineering college and workplace, chips were broken away gradually from that wall. I found, at many times, the futility of the idea that I believed in compared to what someone practically did and showed. My intellect told me that the person in front of me was indeed doing the right thing to survive in the world, but letting go of my own notions and believing that I was wrong proved to be the hard part. It began to appear to me that what I had been taught was wrong and completely useless beyond the textbooks and academic discussions. Something seemed terribly amiss --- it was a complete identity crisis!

I went back to reading the works and life of Swami Vivekananda --- to see if indeed he was wrong. This time, I was reading them not as a 'bhakt' but as a sceptic. And behold: I found him shining right through! All he had ever taught was very practical... only I had understood him wrong. I had mistook the zeal and fervour he wanted in a young man for dogmatism, I had mewed like a sheep where he wanted a lion to roar!! All this while it had been me who had not been following his teachings, the way he had shown --- and I had been squarely blaming him (or rather, those who interpreted him for me) for spoiling my life. The root of the mistake, I suppose, had been the fact that I was cowed into reading all his works as an unquestioning follower rather than a questioning sceptic. I just used to proclaim that the hero of my life is Swami Vivekananda: it drew appreciation from elders, a little bit of respect from some friends and it made me stand out sometimes in the crowd: I guess it was more of a cool thing to do.

But now, I no longer lay claim to anything like that. I'm reading some of his works again: this time as someone who questions every inch of the way. I quite like the way he drills in the truth, and never, I repeat: NEVER flinches from calling a spade a spade if need be. And there is indeed Truth in what he says and does. Even when Sri Ramakrishna was on his deathbed, Swami Vivekananda (then Narendranath Dutta) had questioned his divinity! It is this sceptic, this man who trusted nothing fully but once it had his trust he was prepared to lay down his life for it --- this is the man I revere. This has been a man who wasn't perfect, but a man who had the perfect attitude to life. He made mistakes, even after Sri Ramakrishna passed away: but he had the nerve to admit them and learn from them. This was a man who had supreme self-confidence, and yet someone who depended like a child on the Lord to see him through his difficulties. And that is what makes him my hero right now! He lived life like a lion --- he might have been recruited by The Paramahansa, but he still was the lion. The teachings did not make him a sheep, they just perfected his prowess.

Strangely, though, I don't think he ever answered the original question that he had gone to Sri Ramakrishna for: "Is there proof that there is a God? Can you see Him or feel Him?". Well, I don't really care about the answer yet --- I have my own personal opinion on the subject. Right now all I care about is to try and see if what that man had taught was indeed correct all the way. I don't know: from the initial signs he seems correct, but I'll give this a thousand thoughts before I commit to that camp again.

P.S. - For those interested, go to this link: The complete works of Swami Vivekananda.

You must speak up

I was in Class VIII then: in my hostel. One sunny afternoon in winter, our chief hostel warden and the warden summoned about 5-6 students to the dormitory roof, apparently for a little 'chat' with all of us. I was there on the list, and somehow the conversation drifted to which students were 'goody-goody' nincompoops who could only study and were otherwise butter-fingered monkeys, etc --- a pithy expression for whom in Bengali is 'Nadu Gopal'. There was some fun being thrown around: why someone does qualify and someone doesn't, who is a Nadu Gopal, and such. Suddenly, the Chief Warden asked, "So, who do you think among you here is the most suitable to be called 'Nadu-Gopal'?" There were some mealy-mouthed 'Yes', 'No'-s and then he asked me straight, "Sudipta, who do you think?". I took a look around, picked one fellow and pointed fingers at him and said, "That person: him!" Upon hearing my answer, the general silence that had engulfed us as soon as this question was asked disappeared into sudden mirth in the entire group. The said person didn't seem so happy about being pin-pointed, and the Warden was shaking his head in a silent grin. I thought it was funny, too, until at night the Warden summoned me to his room alone and told me, "You shouldn't answer questions like that".
"But YOU asked!!", was my reply.
"Yes, I know, we will ask such questions. But you must know what to answer and what not".

That moment, I'll say, redefined a lot of things for me. I used to inherently and implicitly trust all elders, used to respect their opinions and easily answer things to the best of my knowledge and belief. But somehow the fact that they too could trick you, lead you into false situations and have fun at your expense was a shock. Why, why couldn't life be straight? Why couldn't people speak directly what they meant? I don't think I'll ever understand that.

I guess this problem with me still persists. I really cannot feel what someone is missing or what he/she wants me to do: you have to tell me explicitly. Today I will never walk into a trap like that: there is some amount of cynicism that has crept into my psyche I guess. But I still am a person who asks once, and believes your answer. And I do give straight answers myself --- I love brutal honesty over implicit expectations that I cannot meet because I don't have a clue to what you really want. I remember when I came to this place about having a conversation on splitting the food budget with my room-mate: who pays for what, etc. He had told me that he had never had to have a conversation like that with his former room-mates: they sort of implicitly split it. I had to apologise, but I needed it straight. In fact, I think we get along well together now because we had had that conversation.

How good or bad this is I don't know. Sometimes I wish I had the power of intuition of my sister or my mother. But sometimes I think I am better off without it. I rarely guess about things --- and my guesses about what people are thinking usually turn out to be deadly accurate. But then: these moments of truth happen very rarely; I am very dumb most of the time regarding these things. I have to know what exactly you want, even if once, to interact easily with you. You must speak up.

Only human

What Matrix Persona Are You?

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You display a perfect fusion of heroism and compassion. Take this quiz! Quizilla Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Cause and effect, my dear?

Octagonally speaking

Alka tagged me, asking me to divulge eight things about myself and to forward this to six other people. Since the rules are not so well defined here, I'll go for a mixture of good and bad things, plus some third party opinion as well. So without much further ado, lets begin...

I dabble a lot before I can come to a decision about many things, but once I have decided upon it, I go all the way. So, I wavered a lot about whether I should try for the MBA or the GRE; but once I had decided, I put in my heart and soul into it.

When I have a fight with someone or if someone accuses me of something, I begin with the assumption that I am wrong and then try to see if there is something that may actually point to the fact that I may be right. This proves to be good in many cases, because this helps me build fool-proof arguments and convince the other person if I am actually right. At other times, if the other person can successfully feel sufficiently indignant or outraged that his/her point of view is THE correct thing and that I am being arrogant, myopic, etc. I tend to accept that opinion temporarily and go away cowardly. Never mind the after-hour shocks of realisation that I was actually right and was either blackmailed or that I really chickened out.

I believe in palmistry, and am an amateur palmist myself. The way I look at it is that the statistical correlation is very high, although the relation may not be directly or even indirectly causal in nature. So while it may be easy to interpret patterns and see empirical or historical evidence in what similar people have had in their lives, I don't say that it happens just because certain lines are present or are missing from their hands. I never tell a person that he/she is intelligent because the head line is of a certain type, but that the head line is strong and bold and long suggests to me that the person is intelligent.

I bond easily with the staff at any place: not the regular/official people for whom the place has been built, but those who keep it functioning! So at all hospitals, schools, hostels, departments etc that I have ever been associated with, I am always welcome back with open arms by the only people who form the almost permanent features of the place. And I am almost always at home with them... somehow I find my way into their good books :)

I am told that I am the dream customer someone would expect to call at call centers: especially the techno ones. So the other day I called up Dell support because the drivers they gave on the CD set were not complete, and the person at Manilla who answered the call was extremely happy that she did not need to explain to me how to check the device driver settings on advanced properties etc. and that I was extremely co-operative and polite. Sometimes these calls (even with phone companies, credit card call centers, etc.) leave me wondering about the kind of other people who call them up and how they behave so that politeness is actually judged to be a blessing!

Speaking of third-party opinions, most girls in my age group who I know personally have at some time or the other expressed their heart-felt desire to strangle me. Yeah I know that I take pranks and leg-pulling to a different level at times... but I just can't help it. Sometimes people are just so great subjects to pull a fast one on: and I am never short of devilish ideas. And the look on their faces or their reaction over the phone when you do these things... ahh, priceless!!

I am ticklish... not the under-your-armpit or over-your-belly tickling, but I have a knee-jerk reaction on almost all areas on my body to soft light touches --- the feather-touch tickling variety. So while a great deal of thunderous rubbing on my ribs will not do anything to me, you just need to run your finger lightly over the same area and I'll go quiet and tense up, etc. My sisters use this to their greatest advantage: especially to have their revenge on me for any of the pranks I play on them, mostly when I am about to fall asleep. Oh, talking of 'stupid' jerks and knees and their reactions to feather touches, a lot happens over a cup of coffee, you know! ;)

Finally, I love to fix and repair things: especially machines, electrical appliances, electronics and computers... almost anything! I just get the kicks out of trying to fix broken tape recorders, cassette players, even old coolers and other things people would normally classify as junk. Also, fixing software bugs, trying to link up databases and web servers, fixing bootup/performance problems on desktops and servers are extremely enticing to me. I guess I am really an engineer or a mechanic at heart: I love to tweak things around and explore other possibilities in them: to make them useful, somehow!

Whoa! That almost needed a full day of introspection to come up with. Well, as a dutiful blogger, I'll tag six people to carry on this meme and divlge stuff about themselves. So lets spill the beans for

• Grafxgurl
• Hari
• Life Lover
• Prerona
• Selma
• Thennavan

So, what do you think?