Skip to main content

Three threes are thirty-three

I was tagged twice --- with the same tag. First, it was Life Lover who confessed that she wanted to learn belly-dancing and then passed the baton to me. Supremus, on the other hand, finds Lata Mangeshkar's voice amusing amidst his musings about why he is single yet, and asks "Why not?". So instead of waiting for someone to complete the triplet of tagging me and recieve brickbats from all these people till that time, let me go ahead and finish this tag.

Three things that scare me:
  1. Computers conking off when an unsaved program is just beginning to do what it is supposed to do after 10 hours of debugging! You'll know this only if you've ever faced it.
  2. Friends who rightfully get angry at my follies --- I completely give in to them and would do anything to see them smile again!
  3. Landing up in helpless situations: when the only way out, the only rational logical way to behave and do things is to let the events mould themselves out. I am talking of situations where your doing something can only screw things up --- I really hate them and am scared of landing in them!
Three people who make me laugh:
  1. My own self and my own old PJs --- I swear they are mindblowing! But well, I know you don't have the sense of humour so you will never appreciate :-\
  2. Russell Peters --- I can spend hours listening to his antics.
  3. Captain Haddock --- his sense of timing (or of Herge, actually) is what classical textbooks on humour should be written about.
Three things I love:
  1. Being loved and cherished, and reciprocating back.
  2. Good discussions: things that stimulate your brain. Anything right from quantum physics to human neuro-cognition is welcome. I feel so happy from within even if I just sit there and listen to the exchange of ideas.
  3. Eating --- there is a certain satisfaction in slowly munching through warm and deliciously minced meat or licking tantalizingly cold and sweet dessert. I don't worry about my weight or figure when I eat: there are 23 more hours in the day to do that! :)
Three things I hate:
  1. Getting up in the morning --- I can happily stay awake till 4:00 in the night, but if I have to wake at any time of the day before 10:00, I REALLY hate it!
  2. I hate dishonesty in people --- those who don't speak openly and are not morally upright. I really shun their company.
  3. Cooking: I am more than happy to wash dishes, but someone please cook for me! A post coming up on this soon!
Three things I don’t understand:
  1. God, or the whole concept of His being there. Sometimes it is so self-evident, and at other times I am the fanatic atheist.
  2. Most research papers I read, or even my subject area of interest. I wish I could really feel/know what and how the human brain works and what artificial intelligence truly is.
  3. The vastness of outer space; the truth, beauty and darkness of quantum physics and such concepts --- I would really love to sit down and discuss them with someone some day!
Three things on my desk:
  1. The book: Speech and Language Processing by Jurafsky and Martin
  2. Another book: Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions
  3. This laptop I'm typing in.
Three things I am doing right now:
  1. Wondering why I get these inspirational ideas to type in my blog at the dead of the night past 1:30 a.m.
  2. Shaking my legs, typing this and thinking at the same time that this entry is actually cheating --- it shouldn't qualify. [But guess what, it just did! :)]
  3. Hunting around for research internships in parallel with the blog posting --- I want to do something useful for the summer.
Three things I want to do before I die:
  1. Get a PhD --- it may not be the end of the road without one, but it surely is one of my top priorities in life right now.
  2. Make difference to the lives of people through my life and work: I am not sure how, but I am sure that given the opportunity, I will succeed!
  3. Learn to play the Tabla --- if not now, then maybe in some off time some day. I truly believe that its beats form the soul of any song. Try listening to the same song without drum/tabla beats and then again with them --- you'll know what I mean.
Three things I can do:
  1. Sleep --- uninterrupted and unlimited. My record is 23 hours straight: I am sorry but I just had to move myself out of bed after that!
  2. Listen to others, put them at ease and cheer them up, etc. As per one of my friends (who said this in Hindi), "You can actually cheer up a corpse!"; although I don't really relish the prospect of having to do that :)
  3. Write code: lots and lots of it, and smart ones at that.
Three things you should listen to:
  1. My rants and gyaan --- you really SHOULD listen to them because you are my friend :)
  2. The sound of a mother's heart blessing her child: when you hug her tightly and forget all fears, inhibitions and worries and lose yourself in her bosom --- that is the sound of celestial bliss for me.
  3. On a linux box, cat /boot/vmlinuz > /dev/audio to listen to the voice of God
Three things you should never listen to:
  1. My rants and gyaan --- this I tell you as your friend. The Lord have sympathy on the poor chap who happens to catch me on my Gyaan-daata day!
  2. People who tell you that you are worthless, that you cannot do something. Don't trust them --- shun their company whoever they are!
  3. The clawing of someone's nails on a blackboard: slow, deliberate and rough going kssk-kssssshhhk! Boy I'm having jitters just imagining it!
Three things I would like to learn:
  1. How and why exactly one should fill a hospital form when he is about to die. It may remind you of Munnabhai MBBS, but believe me it is not so funny when you see it happen for real.
  2. How to play the tabla, as I said earlier.
  3. These I would some day want to have by heart --- some of my favourite poems including those by Rabindranath Tagore, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, etc.
Three favorite foods:
  1. Chicken-X, where X may be substituted by any arbitrary string/dish you can think of.
  2. Laal mishti doi --- I'm sorry but even translating this into English feels like blasphemy! Well, anyway... it is a sort of reddish sweet yoghurt you get only in Bengal.
  3. Kolai-er daal aar alu-bhaate bhaat: perhaps the simplest of all Bengali meals, but trust me this lentil soup with mashed potatoes and rice is what people must have had in mind when they coined the term, ambrosia.
Three beverages I drink regularly:
  1. Paani --- plain good old water. Oh, let me get a gulp!
  2. This you may never notice, but you also drink a lot of your own saliva. Now, please don't go ewww --- without it you will actually never be able to digest most foods.
  3. Milk --- doodh doodh doodh doodh... :)
Three TV shows/Books I watched/read as a kid:
  1. Charlie Chaplin: I can watch this anytime/anyday again!
  2. The World This Week: although I was regular at this, Prannoy Roy's show never really made too much sense, and for the longest time I wondered why the last section they showed in the end spoke of NEW-SMAKERS and who the Smakers really were to feature every week on the show! :)
  3. Paagla Daashu --- a classic by Sukumar Roy which never failed to make me laugh. Ahh I feel like reading it again right now!
Three people I tag:
  1. Twilight Fairy: because she needs proof that she indeed belongs to the galaxy :)
  2. Phatichar: long long time writing his detective novel. I believe this might be welcome relief.
  3. Grafxgurl: welcome to America!
Whew that was long! Thirty-three three times over...

Comments

  1. You made me nostalgic with ur alu-bhate and lal mishti doi....Good post...Loved it

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG!!! this is humungous .. and I didn't need proof of being in the galaxy! I had that already :p.

    I usually dont do tags..jab tak bahut log same tag se tag na kar dein :p.. but I'll try doing it surely :).

    ReplyDelete
  3. i LOVED it when Russel Peters narrated a story of this father who yelled at his son " GO TO YOUR ROOM AND DONT COME OUT UNTIL YOURE NOT OF THE GAY!!"


    sigh. i miss good old bangal khaabaar now!!!! and thanks for the welcome!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmm... good post and interesting to read.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "# Computers conking off when an unsaved program is just beginning to do what it is supposed to do after 10 hours of debugging! You'll know this only if you've ever faced it."

    -- ROFL!! Sigh, can so identify with it!!

    And 23 hours sleep eh? just another hour and u did have missed a day :P

    S

    ReplyDelete
  6. Indranil, thank you! And welcome to this blog! :)

    Twilight fairy, arre ye to hadh ho gayi sharafat ki! Ab to tag aapko likhna hi padega... warna :D

    Grafxgurl, yeah that was awesome! Me too missing good old food... maybe you can help :)

    Hari, thanks :)

    Supremus, yeah --- I told you so! Only those that have been bitten by this snake will know. And I really really couldn't lie on the bed any longer... even I wanted to make it 24 :\

    ReplyDelete
  7. Somebody's gonna get a hurt real bad :D

    love Russell ;p

    ReplyDelete
  8. I can relate to computers conking off and.... getting up in the morning?? Even that has to be really tried to be understood. Funny that some people prefer getting up at 4 in the morning. How can they ever manage that? Anyways, a really interesting tag! :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sky, oh yeah? I'll call the child care! :D

    Alpine Path, yeah -- I have the biggest respect for people who are able to wake up in the morning, really!

    Yeah an interesting tag, but a damn lengthy one if you ask me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well written... loved this post. I don't want to suggest things, but knowing you, and taking into consideration that you might -just might- have forgotten some TV shows, did you consider Chhuti Chhuti and Street Hawk?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Good interesting set of 3s..:). Yeah getting up early is something I hated too.

    ReplyDelete
  12. So ...all this info comes under " everything in between" right !!
    Very interesting...
    I score + on one point...I slept round the clock..lol....

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wonderful person, like I said, it is too difficult to associate anecdotes with street hawk and knight rider, etc.

    Pallavi, you 'hated' gettgin up early... do I see a past tense here? :)

    R, you managed round the clock sleeping!! :( Ab to sona hi padega! And thanks -- I suppose this does come under 'everything in between' :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yes "hated" till I got sucked into the work world..:(..:)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Pallavi, all I can do is, HEHEHHEHEEHEE .... *sinister evil laughter* :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. "cat /boot/vmlinuz > /dev/audio" made my day .. err night... and i used to think i am a unix jock

    ReplyDelete
  17. yay! finally you did my tag...which kinda makes me feel guilty of the one that i haven't completed :) very very interesting, actually got to learn a lot more about you through this post....that's what i like about this tag, its seemingly innocent until you start typing and realize oh oh you have said a lottttt about yourself already!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Praveen, thank you! You can actually make Linux pronounce that God does not exist :)

    Life lover, 100% You MUST do the tag! And yes I agree that tags are perhaps meant to reveal more of the personality of a person. Please check your email

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maa khuh chihal a panjam hastam

The hit counter on my blog reached 20074 today. Why you may ask, is that news, and why hadn't I cheered myself up when it was at 20,000 for example? Well, it is news because 20074 has been a very special number for me during my entire college life: it was my admission number, and my system-wide unique identity. It is strange, and surprising, how these numbers become a part of our identity. The social security number, the passport number, the id number in the college, or even your roll number somehow becomes an almost innate part of the day-to-day life. As soon as I see the same number somewhere else: maybe on a telephone, on a hitcounter, maybe somewhere else... a thousand memories are triggered. As my eyes struck the hitcounter showing 20074 right now, I was thrown back to memories of filling up exam answer sheets, hostel admission forms, library recall requests, and so much more! I believe that number was present on almost every official form which I filled in college: even when

Swami Vivekananda and the Indian Renaissance

The following is an article I sent to my mother based on which she presented at one of her conferences. Do read. =======================================  The common perception of Swami Vivekananda as the religious leader who preached Hinduism to the West and established the Ramakrishna Mission in India is a very limited definition of the impact he had on the collective psyche of the common Indian. Besides his direct impact in adding steam to the Indian Renaissance, a large part of his thoughts and writings also affected the other stalwarts of the movement. While fathoming the entirety of his impact on the Indian Renaissance would be impossible, we will briefly explore some aspects of his influence in the following pages. Raja Ram Mohan Roy is generally credited with ushering in the revolution. His numerous ventures that contradicted the prevailing religious opinion of right and wrong broke the stranglehold of the prevalent quasi-religion, the norms of society and its sole autocrati

Tips and tricks for the GRE

Hello everybody, First of all, I thank all of you for the good wishes and congratulations that you have sent... either as mails, PMs, or anyhow. I have also been getting a lot of mails from people asking for tips and tricks and how I made it to the 800 in quants and 700 on the verbal. So if you are prepared for a lot of gyaan (which I love shelling out), here you go: 1. How long does it take to prepare? A: There is no definite time frame. But about 2-3 dedicated hours a day, for about two-and-a-half months is enough. Then, again, it is dependent on your level. To find that out, I'd suggest that you should take one paper-based test that is there in the front of the book (Barron's, Kaplan, anything... or even the Big Book). If you score about 750 on the quants, and about 500 on the verbal (no cheatings, etc) then the time frame I've said should be enough. If you scored more, great... you should try to get to around 1550!! But if less... well, spruce up depending on how