I don't know how, but instinctively, I just opened up a cupboard where I used to keep all of my music-manuscripts and stuff. I took out some old manuscripts, some of the time when I had started to learn violin.Some subsequent in the process. And then, I instinctively picked up my Grade-2 manuscript book.I have very fond memories of this particular book.Firstly, due to the fact that all the pieces it contains, are liked by me.Secondly, it's the book which, while being taught to me, circumstantially led to me being deprived of my Teacher.My First Teacher.My real teacher. His name is Mr. Syavoush Bairaghi.And I just cannot find words defined in the English language, which would be enough to describe my feelings for him.He was the greatest teacher I ever had.And I can almost be sure of saying that I was one of his favourite students too![though I know a teacher has no favourites, but still there are some which can be called just that]. I can almost give the world right now if by some circumstantial evidence, I could talk to him now or meet him. What happenned was that he was an Iranian.Who had settled in India and married to an Assamese.But, as far as I can accurately remember, his father was having some health problems, and, from what I was told by the music-school-authorities, he had wanted him to come back to Iran and maybe continue with a music school over there or something. He was the most awesome teacher I have ever seen.His passion for music, and for passing it on to his pupils, reflected in him in every way:from his eyes, from his movements, from his face, from his actions.Everything.He was very very patient.And he was the sort of teacher who could do anything for a good student. People have always remarked that I flew past my initial grade-manuscripts[after which my mom forced me to quit the school], extraordinarily fast.But I cannot imagine ever being able to do that is Syavoush Bairaghi Sir hadn't been with me.

Sir, if by some stroke of miracle, you happen to read this, I just want you to know that You're the best!And you really mean a LOT to me! And I hope you have a brilliant life, and achieve whatever you desire to!Because I'm sure that's what you would have wished me too, if ever we would have had a last Good-Bye! Thank you Sir, for everything!

So very often, we find our lives stuck in a sort-of a thin tube...where its hard to wriggle out at a comfortable pace.We try as much as we can, but find ourselves stuck over there. And unlike the feasibility of thermal expansion intervining in the case of an actual tube, not alot can be hoped for as a contingency rescue plan. Maybe you're already confused about the relations of a very-tennis heading and a very non-tennis first parah.Believe me: so am i.But i will try to relate the two things as i go along. A couple of years back, when I was on the verge of graduating from school, I had some sort of ideas as to my to-be college life.Quite normally so, as everyone has such ideas and thoughts and images, trying to prophecize their own future and the yada yada. But things very rarely ever turn out the way you had imagined them to be, most fundamentally because our imagination is a very decieving tool: it shows you things that you want to see, and in the process of doing so, it leaves and carelessly ommits vital influencing factors, which are, mostly, the major reasons of things not being that way! Anyway, before I seem to start and digress from my point, in short, I had expected college to be much more free and much more comfortable, and much more thought-inducing, constructive, productive, and ... . And even though 1 semester has already waved goodbye, it's still very hard to cope up with the speed.I say hard.But when I say hard, I don't mean it hard as in un-doable-hard.I say it hard in the sense that we can't take it easy.we can't enjoy the sun.take a second off and ponder.we can't relax.we can't think.all we have to do is slog^slog_slog. With most hours within the premises of the college fly past un-noticably due the humongous continuation of lectures and labs and tutorials and what not, the remaining small amount of time left gets partitioned into travelling to-and-fro, and trying to come to terms with whatever has been taught. But that's not what I am complaining about. It's the fact that that further leads to zilch amount of time being devoted to any kinds of physical exercise, any kind of physical-rejuvination, or mental rejuvination, or any kind of hobby, or any kind of light reading, or maybe even of blogging, or having some time to burn down. And that makes you sad.Correction.That makes me sad.I don't know about you.and even if I did, I frankly and openly doubt you would feel sad for me._{come on, it's a selfish world!}. And then we get graciously bestowed by national holidays in between, like the Republic Day of India tomorrow.Those who know me know quite well that I don't believe in all this jingoism.But that doesn't mean that I don't like it being a holiday! But what further leads to more mental confusion is the fact that I have an oppurtunity[more like a nasty choice!] to either go to a family party[more like an outing], or stay at home, cope up with work, and just take the day off.[if any remains to be taken off, i.e,!]. I have been wanting to finish a hell-lot of books lately, but, as I said above, I have absolutely zilch time to do so.Some of which include Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse ; Coastliners by Joanne Harris ; Grantchester Grind by Tom Sharpe, etc. And, I have been wanting to play tennis also for a very very long time.I haven't played it ever since I returned from Kerala.:-( Though, such is life.

"It's God's responsibility to forgive the terrorists,
But it's Bush's responsibility to fix an appointment with them and God!"

There it is. Life goes on at 11 West Avenue, but when early on a sunday morning, you witness a massive upset at the Austrailian Open, when the expected-champion Andy Roddick loses in 4 sets, then that sunday is something different. It would be wrong to attach an explicit adjective to this difference, because quite simply, it is the only single day in the week I have off, and attaching to it a negative adjective is not fair.So I'll let Andy Roddick struggle in his own emotions.

Though the first semester of my college finished off unexpectedly quickly, without us realizing, I had thought that the second would definitely seem lengthier.But it seems that I may be proven wrong, because Humanity's worst enemy [a.k.a time] has taken a leaf out of Schumacher's book. One obvious and drastically visible consequence of this fast pace of life is in front of you people: lesser blog posts, and deteriorated quality of 'em.[or atleast that's what I feel!]. It has many other consequences as well: Before the starting of the semester, I had almost resolved that I would try to find more time for book-reading, violin-playing, and also physics.Forget the former two, even the latter, though it is a core subject, is also struggling for time.After an average 9-5 day, traversing 26 odd kilometers, by the time I get home, I'm not in much mood to do much. But one thing that I just cannot wait for, is for the Formula 1 season to start! Though the year 2005 was terrible [to say the very least], for the Ferrari F1 Team, I still can't wait to see Schumacher on the track all over again!

This is a very very beautiful and one of the stronger sonnets of Shakespeare. I have always loved this one, so much so that it's hardly possible for me to ever forget it.I hope you like it:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, but sad mortality, o'ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold its plea, whose action is no stronger than a flower? O!How shall summer's honey-breath hold out, Against the wreckful seige of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, nor gates of steel so strong but time decays? O fearful meditation! Where, alack, Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold its swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O! None, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink, my love may still shine bright!

After returning home today from a very confusing day at college, firstly I shifted the computer back to the premises of my own room, after a lot of time.Though my Dad was trying his level best by continously stressing his point that it will be a distraction if the computer stays on my table but I decided not to have any of that. I don't see how it can be a distraction when I know myself that I have to study when I have to study! But what followed in the aftermath of the re-habilitation of my PC, was something somewhat unexpected. My Dad has been wanting to make the house wireless, for his own ease of accessing the net on his laptop.But I never bargained for an incident like this, when he actually had called some one to install a wireless router so soon.I mean, normally, my Dad is so busy that to get any such work done, a lot of weeks normally pass. So the majority of the remenant of the evening went in Wi-Fi-ing the house, which is now officially confirmed to be wireless!Yay!.Not that it makes any difference to me, because I don't have/use a laptop. And you dirty-minded people there, don't think it's a free-for-all wireleess.It's very much encrypted, and you cannot access it freely!. As far as college is concerned, not much happenned today, except the announcement of my Math grade, which I don't find it suitable or necessary to announce here.

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FOR THOS WHO HAVE NOT READ HARRY-POTTER-AND-THE-HALF-BLOOD-PRINCE, DONOT READ ANY FURTHER

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I don't know how many of you have noticed it for yourselves, but a friend of mine in college brought to my notice that the Order of the Phoenix actually has a vital mention, some sort of a clue, as to the presence of the stolen-locket-horicrux.Though it is just a speculation, but its explicit mention, along with the mention of the fact that none of them were able to open it, points to something which could mighty well be connected to the stolen horicrux.And as for the existentialism of Mr. R.A.B, it could be, Regallus Black.Though I am not ighly of that opinion myself. But seriously, now that Dumbledore has found is heavenly abode, I cant even begin to imagine how it is that Rowling plans to make Harry actually find and destroy the remenant horicruxes. Enough of speculations for today.Have to get up early tomorrow for another mundane day at JIIT.Hmmm.Sounds almost like Jealous-of-IIT.Whatever.

PART I Firstly, to all regular readers of this blog, (if at all there are any), I deeply and truly apologize for not posting for almost over a week.But I think you would understand that this week had been very hectic for me. Firstly, last Saturday was a re-examination of my Math Major, since I had been medically absent during its original occurance.That same day also happenned to be the registeration day for the 2nd semester of Computer Science Engineering, a step I have taken, and taken so deeply, that it's almost impossible to retract. So my second semester started on Monday, 9th of January, 2006.I have a total of 26 credits, summed up by 8 subjects[yes, I have not written 8 by mistake.8 subjects], which, if you are interested, happen to be the following:

• Unix and Shell Programming [WL]
• 2D Graphics Workshop [WL}
• Programming Workshop [WL}
• Discrete Mathematics
• Electrical Sciences [WL]
• Digital Electronics and Logic Specification [WL]
• Group and Co-operative Processes [WL]
• Physics [WL}

WL-->WITH LAB

. And since then, it has been the usual very-hectic 9-5 schedule, in addition with the daily up-down time taken for traversing the 26 odd kilometers!So, I am justified somewhat for not having updated! And even with that, I crashed my Windows.Umm.Actually I didn't.I crashed the GRUB pre-loader, by erasing my linux's partition, and hence was unable to access my Windows.Call it luck or purely expert handling, but my Windows XP has never crashed even once! Anyhow, I had to re-format my whole computer, re-install Fedora Core v4.0, and I spent the last 6 odd hours just to try to install my DSL drivers in Fedora Core, but to no avail whatsoever. Another incident worth recording, now that I am using this post as a diary-ish_entry, is last night's lavish Lohri Party we had yesterday, from which we returned so late that i barely got any sleep before today's college, and right now my eyes sre forcing their way open.Normally we donot celebrate Lohri per se: we just light up the bon-fire and sit near it for some time. But yesterday was Deepak bhaiyya and Gayatri bhabhi 's first Lohri after their marriage, and hence my Taya-Ji [or my Bade Papa], threw a nice little party yesterday, which was quite fun.

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PART II As I have hinted here and there previously, with small tit-bits of information, that my college doesn't have the best breed of students one may desire.Most of them are un-interested lunatics, who have a curtain over their face, and refuse to realize the importance of these four years, and the worth of a good Cumulative-Grade-Point-Average, or the CGPA.Not only that [quite frankly, I don't give a damn about the CGPA of arbid people I don't even know personally] , they are mixed with the most detestable breed of the abusers, who cannot open their mouth without overflowing the surrounding environment with sick abuses.Sick ones.They do it more out of habit that intention, but ut's nonetheless quite sick.One such person is the 3rd person comprising of the car-pool I am a part of, and hence the journey from home to college has increasingly become detestful and something I really don't look forward to.Infact, I am really looking forward to the day I get my permanent license[right now I have a learners'], and become able to take my own car to college. And then there are those people who have no guts to confront you directly, and back-bitch all the time.And they have over-active imaginations, whose figments contribute to nice little non-sensical stories, which they keep spreading as rumours. One such weird one, [which is actually quite hillarious, because it displays as an epitome, the childishness and immaturity of these stupid people], was something like this: I had started to clip my PDA to my belt for a day, and, as if they haven't seen any PDA or an electronic gadget in their lives before, one moron called it a vibrator, and decided to stick with the term.From then on, that term has been regularly joined with my name, though now except those 2/3 people, we all know who will have the last laugh! Aaah Well.I need some sleep desperately now.

This world is populated with almost uncountable number of people.You walk along in life's path, and come across millions of people: you hate some, you like some, you become friends with some, and very deep friends with a few. If anyone has heard Frank Sinatra's "All the way", you wouldn't have a lot of trouble recalling these lines in it:

"When somebody loves you,
it's no good, unless she loves you ALL THE WAY"

I think that line is too true for our life even beyond the she-love aspect.I think even for friends, if some body is your friend, it's no real good unless you can count on them for being your friend all the way.Unless you can take liberties with them, be free with them, don't hesitate about sharing your innermost feelings and your true self.Unless you feel free to talk to them even in the midst of a 4-a.m slumber. Where ever you work, where ever you live, where ever you study, you make a lot of friends and comrades.But you would realize yourself what I'm saying: Amongst all of those "friends" you make, there will be only a few handfull with whom you will be really free, the types you call the best friends or the 4-am friends. And in life, it is such friends which actually count, and which actually matter. The journey of life is a long one, an arduos one, and an almost never-ending one.Recalling another part of another beautiful song: Mariah Carey's "Hero" :

"It's a long road,
and you face the world alone.
No one reaches out a hand,
for you to hold..."

And in such a journey, there are plenty of times when you need someone to fall back upon, some one who will hold your hand and actually help you and stand for you. And it is these friends who actually matter then. But it's easier said than done, ofcourse, like everything else.You can't just easily get up one morning and say to yourself: "Aaah.Today's a nice day, let me go out and make some 4-am friends".Because that's not how it works, sadly. Such friends are really, literally as well as figuratively, like Diamonds.Found purely by chance, and treasured for a lifetime.And the bond is also as hard as a diamond, withstanding all the frictions caused. So here's wishing everyone a lot of good luck for finding some such worthy friends.

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Deviating massively from the topic for an instant, I just drove for the first time outside the IIT Campus.It's a harsh world out there, I tell you.You would know so yourself if you've driven on Indian Roads.But over all it was a very nice experience.Now the day is not very far when I start taking my own car to college!

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I am so very excited right now.Today, after my 3rd attempt at it, I've finally got my learner's license made! WoooHoo!Now I can drive!(legally, i.e.!).[coz I've been driving for some time anyway]. Take my word for it: If you are an India, odds are that you already know what I'm talking about, but if you aren't one, just understand this much is that getting any kind of work done from any government office, regarding anything, without having to pay a bribe, and with tolerating all of their idiotic harassment, is no less than a small victory and deserves some kind of a celebration! Ofcourse, here and there, there are some lucky people who actually escape that harassment, but believe me, they are REALLY lucky indeed! Corruptness has sunk in so deeply, and has engulfed 90% of the working population in India, irrespective of their occupation or strata.From the slightest of clerks, to the highest of offcials, money is the only universal language that people here are starting to adopt. But who cares?I've got my license today!!!!!

It's hard to believe that an exploding vegetable is one of the favorite snacks in the United States. But it is, and Americans swallow about 17 billion quarts of supersize corn kernels each year. Thousands of years before popcorn appeared in multiplexes, people in North and Central America were both eating it and wearing it, as puffy necklaces. Food chemists say the first wild corn was popcorn, which probably initially revealed its inflated goodness when tossed into a fire. Corn poppers, made out of fired clay, came next. Why does heat make popcorn pop? An American Indian folk tale explained it this way: Each kernel was home to a spirit, and as the popcorn was roasted, the spirits got madder and madder. They would shake their houses, and finally burst out in puffs of angry steam. Of the five basic kinds of corn, only one pops. Popcorn has an especially hard hull, or shell ("pericarp"). This shell allows a great deal of pressure to build up inside before it breaks. It's also perfect for keeping moisture in the kernel. About 14 percent of a popcorn kernel is water trapped in the endosperm - the starch inside. Unlike ordinary corn, popcorn contains more of a kind of translucent starch that expands smoothly. When the kernel is heated to 212 degrees, some of the water in the kernel turns to steam. The hard hull acts like the lid on a pressure cooker, forcing the steam into the grains of starch. This changes the starch into superhot, gel-like globs. The pressure-cooker effect allows the temperature in the kernel to soar well above the boiling point, to about 347 degrees. According to chemists, the pressure inside the kernel is about nine times that of Earth's atmosphere when the hull finally explodes, forced outward by steam and superheated water. Freed to expand in the lower-pressure room air, the steam and hot water carry the inner white starch outside, turning the kernel inside out and swelling it to 40 to 50 times its original size. The peculiar shape of the popped kernel, scientists say, comes from the starch granules, which expand like bubbles when the hull bursts open. As we all know, not every kernel pops. Why? A cracked hull makes for an unpopped kernel, because steam escapes before it can build up enough pressure. And the water content must be near 13.5 percent - just right - for popcorn to explode. Too dry, and there won't be enough steam to break through the hull. Too soggy, and the corn will pop into a small, heavy dud. Scientists who study popcorn have recently discovered what makes some popcorn kernels pop better than others. The poppiest kernels, they say, have an extremely tough hull, with a very orderly arrangement of cellulose molecules. The strong crystalline structure that forms when the kernel is heated holds moisture in better, so that each kernel explodes with full force.

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Enjoy the Corn!

It's a well known fact that I have desired, almost ferociously, an iPod for quite a frustratingly long time.But with my own personal funds, it is just beyond a thick highly impenetrable line. But till I do actually get one, I now have atleast something on the same lines to stay content with.Though nowhere near the looks of an iPod nano, and a mere 256 MB of storage space, this mp3 player I now have, has outstanding sound quality. It's an NTG [for those illiterate souls, thats a short for napster-to-go ] mp3 player.And it's quite sleek and has pretty decent finishing touches to it. Though ofcourse, the major, and one of its very few drawbacks, has already been highlighted: ONLY 256 MB!. I mean we are talking of a mere 50-55 songs!That is not even close to my minimum requirements! But, atleast till I own an iPod, it's a good-enough deal.

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Oh, and by the way, for those who haven't heard her yet, I would reccomend the latest album by Carrie Underwood: the 2005 American Idol. Boy!AI can't wait for the 2006 season to begin!That show used to give a few good laughs, the way the participants were insulted!!

Just before I start, once again, a very happy, prosperous, healthy and successful new year to everyone reading this blog! Just at the end of last year...ummm...that makes it sound long long ago, huh?[rephrase]-just a few days ago, I returned from my small holiday to kerala, one of the southernmost states in India(on the western coast). Kerala, is popularly known by its slogan, GOD'S OWN COUNTRY.And after my few days there, I have no reason[read NONE whatsoever], to argue with that slogan. It's one of the most beautiful places I have been for a long long time.I mean, I'm not trying to compare it to Switzerland myself, but most people tend to call it the Switzerland of India. The state is the epitome of Biodiversity, atleast of all places I've seen in my small life.There is such a rich and wide and diverse flora oozing from the place, which, being in a tropical place quite near to the equator, is vastly and enormously difference from the Himalayn mountains and the Himalyan flora, the latter being the more visited place by me.Therefore it was a very unique and a different experience from our usual holidays. Now, Kerala is the most literate and educated state in India.Hold your breath if you don't know this fact, because it may come as a massive jolt to some: it has a literacy rate of 99.9%[read completely educated people].Ofcourse, the people are very different from the North Indians too, and not just due to their complexion.They have a completely different way of life, part of which can also be credited to it being a coastal area.The people are tremendously knowledgable, and highly intelligent, and yet lead a very simple and a modest lifestyle. Most engage themselves in very simple country life, and others range in many things. So after a Delhi-Mumbai-Cochin[read Kochi] flight, we landed at Kochi International Airport in Kerala on the 26th of December.From there we directly took a 4.5-5 hour journey to Munnar, a very famnous hill station in Kerala. Munnar, is a composition of two malayalam(language of kerala) words- "Munn" meaning "three" and "ar" meaning "river".So, as the name evidently suggests, it is a "land of three rivers". Munnar is one of the most popular hill stations in Southern India, and is vastly covered with gazillions of acres of tea plantaions.We stayed for the remenant of that and the whole of the next day at Munnar, and left from there on the morning of the 28th to Kumarakom, slightly north of Kottayam.This was a drastic and a sudden turn around, going from a hill station to the backwaters of the sea[read backwaters-cum-lake, w/o beach]. The journey, both initially, from Kochi to Munnar and back from Munnar to Kumarakom, was astoundingly beautiful, with a smooth gradient of everchanging and a massively diverse variety of flora. There is hardly a thing which does not grow in Kerela, from all sorts of spices[cardamom, black pepper, javitri, Cinnamon, etc. etc.}, to exotic plants like Vanilla, to Coffee and ofcourse all sorts of Palms.Rice.Pineapples and Couconuts.And not to mention fourteen different varieties of Bananas itself.It ranges on and on, and in short, it would be quite apt to say that "on almost every inch of the non-constructed land, something or the other of great significance grows". So from Munnar, we came to Kumarakom, which is situated near a Lake Vembanand.Now this lake has a very unique and a special property(due to it being connected with the sea too): half of the year it is a fresh water lake[fed in by the rivers from the mountains], and the remaining half of the year, it is the backwaters of the sea.It works in something like this:when the rivers bring down their voume (during the monsoon season specially), it is a fresh-water lake.But the remaining part of the year, when the rivers do not contribute much to the proportions, the saline water from the sea enters the lake, and it becomes the backwaters of the sea! So we reached Kumarakom on the evening of 28th(which was again a long car ride), and stayed there for the remenant of that and thw hole of the next day too. As I've already mentioned, it was an interesting sudden transformation from the Mountains to the Sea, but it was completely worth it.Kumarakom is a really beautiful place too, and that lake is simply fantabulously beautiful and magnificent. And that was basically that, as we departed from Kumarakom on 30th morning, back to the Kochi Airport, back to Indian Airlines IC-166 to Delhi via Mumbai, and back home, just in time to welome 2006! Ofcourse, in this span some 384 odd photos were taken, most of which have been uploaded OVER HERE FOLLOW LINK. Here's a small sneek-peak too:
P.S.:This is just a sneek-peak.For all the photos and FULL SIZES, click on the link above!

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An interesting event that happenned, which is worth a seperate mention[such as this], is while going by the Delhi-Mumbai-Kocji flight, I fell in love with an air hostess.She was [and remains] the most beautiful woman that I've ever seen in my life.There was just something about her that I've not been able to forget about her even till now, even while I know very well that the probability of ever seeing her again is maybe less than 1 in a million! Sad, isn't it? But anyway, once again, a Happy New Year to all!

Here's wishing everyone out there, a great, warm, joyous, healthy, beautiful, and a prosperous new year and all the year ahead! May the dreams of everyone, which deserve so, come true! I hope that this year brings a new and a glorious start to all of our lives, may we make millions of good friends, and forgive and forget about all of our existing enmities. May we love all and hate none! I hope we set for ourselves high targets to achieve, and go on to achieve them!