Sudipta's Life

Sanjay from the Dwarka Parichay blog invited me for a guest post. It is published there now with the same title: http://dwarkaparichay.blogspot.com/2009/07/matter-of-faith.html Economists are always baffled by the apparent stupidity of humans. They seem to make some decisions which are completely irrational, and go completely against any form of rational logic.Take, for example, the fact that people go ahead and buy lottery tickets. As any statistician can tell you, the probability that you will win a 10 crore rupee prize after buying a one rupee lottery ticket is about the same as that of you getting the money after you flush the one rupee note down the toilet. And yet, people do it. What perhaps the academicians forget is that that one rupee also buys them some hope, a promise of untold riches and even for one moment, buys them a smile on the face. Perhaps you've already guessed where this is going; our favourite topic - God. Does it not occur to you at times that you are tal...

My room-mate, Anirban, recently attended the "North American Bengali Conference" which happened over the July 4th weekend. In a way, he was "invited" to this august assembly: he was roped in as a volunteer (He insists it was he who had offered his services voluntarily). He has started chronicling his experiences from the conference on his new blog, called " Anirban Ubacho: অনির্বাণ উবাচ ". If you are a Bengali, please pause reading this post right now, and head over to that one. For those of you not familiar with the nuances and innuendos that one can slyly put across through my mother tongue, here is a rough attempt to translate the first post into English. And believe me, as I even approach this task, I sometimes wish I could just plug in that little Bengali word here or quote that little idiom there to express myself. Note that this is not a translation by the letter: I've taken certain creative liberties myself. However, if you feel offended by any...

Thank you everybody for all those comments on the last post - yeah it made me feel a lot better :). Actually, I was curious about who are the 181 readers who show up on FeedBurner but I don't get to see them ever on comments, etc. But now I know - cheers! :) About this post - the editor of a magazine from Bangalore had asked me to write a chatty gossip column (you know he found the right person, didn't you? :P). However, it has been three weeks since I have sent the article and he hasn't replied to my emails or my phone call. So I'm publishing this article here. If he contacts me, I'll write another article for the magazine again. Enjoy :) --------------- 7:00 am – I woke up. No new Orkut scraps – life is boring. Nope, my cute hubby is still asleep. His drooling mouth looks so cute. Nudged him – leaving bed now. 8:00 am - Hubby still in bed. This has become a daily routine. You try to wake him up, kiss him, and he wants to drag you into bed. Then a littl...

Hi fellas,   I need an ego boost, seriously. So if you are reading this, please drop a comment. Even if to say "hi" or "never commented - like your blog", etc. Other things like what you like in the posts, what more you wish to see here, and what can be done better around here: please, anything... even if you are one of those hunting for a link back at any cost. Just say "aye".  Cheer me up, and I promise I have some cool ideas waiting to be converted into posts! :)

Well, if you make it an hour, then its not just building Rome. Defending it, destroying it and then having a discussion worth a dozen PhDs and at least three history books about the causes behind the fall of Rome. Yes sir, all three bags full, within the span of an hour or so. Welcome to Age of Empires! :) You see, there is always a good intention behind a lot of ideas people come up with to help 'education'. Someone had come up with an innovative concept called the Preparatory Leave or PL in engineering colleges, to allow people to 'prepare' well for the exams. Basically, this was a period of about seven to ten days after the classes ended and the exams began. Somehow, this ensured that most people considered attending classes during the rest of the semester futile and the PL was deemed sufficient to cover the entire syllabus. It became a bragging point that you had finished reading through three whole chapters of a book overnight and answered questions from the whol...

During a trip, it might be a little disconcerting to come across the antics of different kinds of tourists at some popular destinations. At least here in the Bay area, I'd say at least 50% of the tourists are Indian whichever ride/spot/drive you might be at. To make your tour experience a little more enjoyable and a little less scary, here is the guide to your fellow brethren at said locations: The newly-weds: By far the most obvious type. Draped all over one another with a coy smile on the girl's lips, they somehow tend to be lost beyond the instructions of the tour guide or the park ranger. You might happen to catch the dude giving a beleaguered stare at his bride after watching the young punk rock American teenagers make out like there's no tomorrow. If so, don't forget to catch the bride in turn returning a cold big-eyed admonishing stare that could make little children wail for no apparent reason. The stag party: Usually a bunch of recent graduates or interns from ...

The Oscars this year disappointed me. I have nothing against Slumdog Millionaire, and perhaps it was the best candidate for all the awards it got. But not best director and best screenplay. To me, if "The Dark Knight" did not get these awards, then yes the Oscars are an annual semi-farce. I have heard this 'allegation' from many people at many different times. But this is the first time in my life that I've seen some of the movies that were nominated for the Oscars, and actually had an opinion about the movies which I came up with entirely by myself. :) But I don't wish to speak about biased Oscars, nor about selling India's poverty in the Slumdog Millionaire. And neither do I want to go on at length about a review of the Dark Knight or how Heath Ledger got the Oscar only because he is dead. Instead, I wish to talk about the Joker. I would rank the insights I've gained from the Joker's character as being close to the kind of pondering I had slipp...