Overdose

Been going through an overdose of nostalgia these days. What do you do when a stage comes in your life when the memories weigh you down. I've always been someone who tried to find inspiration out of my good memories. At the same time remembering them gives you a feeling of loss, the harder you try to grasp. Life moves on. The nostalgia catches up with you as and when you slow down to stop and think by yourself. It's addictive in a way.

At last, there are two options before you with all the memories you have. One is to relive and refresh them in some way. Second is to let them go. It's harder when you are forced to do the second in some cases. The two songs I'm hearing aren't helping either. Here's to all the memories I've got to let go:
Owl City - Vanilla Twilight
As many times as I blink I'll think of you... tonight.
I'll think of you tonight.

Manichithrathazhu - Varuvanillarumee
വരുമെന്ന് ചൊല്ലി പിരിഞ്ഞു പോയില്ലാരും
അറിയാം അതെന്നാലുമെന്നും
പതിവായി  ഞാനെന്‍റെ പടിവാതിലെന്തിനോ
പകുതിയേ  ചാരാരുള്ലെല്ലോ
പ്രിയമുല്ലോരാളാരോ വരുമെന്ന് ഞാനെന്നും
വെറുതെ  മോഹിക്കുമെല്ലോ

The Bell Jar - A short note

I've started off with 3 different sentences for this post and am still not able to begin. Maybe it's the writer's block or the sheer absurdity of writing about the book. Let me start off with some history.
Back in Std 10, we had to study a poem called Tulips. It is my favourite in the collection of poems. I've never been a huge fan of poems, but this particular one appealed to the 'little spark of madness' (quoting Robin Williams) given to me. Never knew that would influence me to buy her only novel, The Bell Jar.

A bell jar is a piece of laboratory equipment similar in shape to a bell. It can be manufactured out of a variety of materials, ranging from glass to different types of metals. A bell jar is placed on a base which is vented to a hose fitting, which can be connected via a hose to a vacuum pump. By pumping the air out of the bell jar, a vacuum is formed. (source Wiki).

The name is a very apt one for narrating the story of Esther who's trapped in the Bell Jar of life and every gulp of air is being sucked out. You cannot use beautifully written,  interesting plot, thrilling or any of the normal adjectives given to a good book for this one. The biggest word of praise would be she's crazy and I believe that is exactly what Sylvia Plath wanted people to say. She's not asking anyone to think like her, she's just saying to the world how she sees it. No one can deny that it's not her autobiography because she actually went ahead and committed suicide few weeks after publishing it. The novel could have been her last try at saying to the world she and her mind doesn't belong here. The book left me one unanswered question - Madness, is it a disease or just a way the world says 'You're different'?

Couldn't resist posting the poem Tulips:

Sylvia Plath - Tulips

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.


They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.


My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage ----
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.


I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.


I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free ----
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.


The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their colour,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.


Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I hve no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.


Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.


The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.

World Cup through my ages

"Mone nokku Maradona", said an elder (Look son, Maradona)
"Hee he.. dona dona maradona.. dona dona maradona", I danced around in my er..
Yeah I guess that counts as being a 2 year old Argentine supporter at the 1990 World Cup. The earliest name I heard in the footballing world was that of Maradona, even before I knew it's rules. Argentina went on to make the final that year, losing to Germany (erstwhile West Germany). It was the beginning of the fall of Maradona too.

I was supporting Spain in 1994. Why Spain? No idea. I even didn't know a bit about how the Spanish played. But Spain was my favourite country then. I still don't have a clue why. One day I looked up on the globe and said Me encanta España! Those days I had even made a personal record sleeping just 3 hours to wake up and watch a match. I slept off 10-20 mins into the match though, leaving Dad to watch the rest. Spain did make it to the quarter-finals but ended up losing to Italy. The final was a tight one. I still have vague memories of that spectacular moment when Roberto Baggio missing the final penalty, thus losing the match and Cup to Brazil.

I've always had this love-hate relationship with Brazil. In 1998, they were the best team around. Ronaldo was at his peak and I couldn't resist the temptation supporting a team that I believed would go all the way. They did reach the final in a breeze and looked unbeatable. Then there was controversy before the match as Ronaldo was said to be unwell.  And that's when Zizu zoomed into the picture to spoil my party. Brazil ended up losing 3-0.

World cup was being hosted by Asian countries for the first time. EPL frenzy had caught up in school and the English superstars were a hot commodity. With Beckham as captain we all believed in our hearts that this could be the year for England. I joined the big fan club. I remember delivering a speech about the World Cup in our school assembly just before it began. The English team didn't looked as good as the hype, but got till the quarter-final when Ronaldinho exposed their weakness. A long shot left the goalkeeper wishing he was a real sea-man. Fast forwarding to the final, I was willing to support any team other than Brazil. Ze Germans couldn't do much about the mighty Brazilians who won the match 2-0, both scored by Ronaldo.

I was back to my first love this time. Argentina played great football through the group stage scoring lots of goals, most of them beautifully. Germany was the spoilsport this time in quarter-finals. It was heartbreaking to see them going out in penalties. Devastated, I looked around for any other team to support. Someone was playing the best football of his life in French shirt. Zizu, who missed out on 2002 WC was at his best for his country at the age of 34. He single-handedly dragged the French team into the final against Italy. He was spectacular in the final, until the sad headbutting incident. I was almost in tears. Often wondered whether France would've won it otherwise. Zidane in WC2006 is the best I've seen any player in a World Cup. Truly one of the greats.

Now to the present. This time it was a toss up between Argentina and Spain. One was being coached by my first football hero and the other perennial underachievers were finally finding their feet winning the Euro 2008. I went with Argentina and the group stages didn't disappoint me, full points. Again the quarter-final and again Germans. The Germans outplayed the Albicelestes, end of story. Spain on the other hand defeated the Germans (who are a very impressive team) in semi. So the final awaits. Some work of fate has it that the country I support in the final has never won. Fingers crossed.. Will my favourite country (still?!) bring home the Cup of Joy?

PS. Logos courtesy Wikipedia.

Update from Home

Almost a week home now. These days I'm not getting anything to write about. Most of the days were spend doing nothing. After the first few days you find out how boring internet could be if you get to sit in front of it for more than 4-5 hours a day. The great world of television has never quite caught up with me. Don't find anything interesting there other than the occasional Star World. (Btw iceman, the tour de france has started. Contador's the best bet.)

Moved on to movies and TV-series. Reached 3rd season of "How I met your mother". Not as entertaining as "Friends" or "Scrubs". Still it's pretty entertaining and good time pass. In movies over the past few weeks,

Rebecca - 7.5/10. ya I'm watching the Hitchcock classic only now. Good movie. Very good buildup.

Remember Me - 8/10. A touching story, I felt the characters were potrayed in an intense way. RobPat shows he's much more than a romancing vampire.

The spy next door - 7/10. Entertaining and funny. For Jackie Chan fans.

Shutter Island - 8.5/10. Psycho.. real psycho. No more words.

Vinodayatra - 7/10. Feel good movie. Could've cut down on the preaching though.

Agnisakshi - 9/10. Watched it the second time after about 10 years. Timeless story, brilliantly taken.

Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya - 8/10. Lots of mixed reviews on this one but I personally liked it. The feel of this one stays with you for long. Very beautifully taken especially Trisha.

Raavanan - 7/10. Though I missed out on majority of the dialogues due to language problem, I felt the plot was ok to good. The camera work is one of the best I've seen in Indian movies. But disappointing as a Mani Ratnam movie. Could've been better.

Kites - 5.5/10. There wasn't much right about this. Didn't expect much. Ended up laughing through some of the supposedly serious scenes. :-D

Disaster Movie - 0/10. Truly disastrous. Horribly Boring. Left me wondering what happened to the Scary Movies era when movie spoofs were as good as original.

On to other stuff, I've started reading the classic "Little Women". I'm not finding it much entertaining. Am still ruing the fact that I forgot to take the book I was reading (The Chamber) from IISc. I was seriously drugged (taking medicine for fever) while packing. Other than those, the list of things not packed included my iPod, toothbrush, shaving set etc.

Firefox 4 beta is out. Cool look.

Main project work hasn't started in proper sense yet. We've been attending some presentations and so on, but Self-Driving Car still seems a distant dream. Bach is having better luck with his one I believe.

Till anything interesting happens.. Signing off..

My Train Journey

Travelling alone was going to be boring. I had packed some books along, but was too loath to open them and get myself to read. The job on other side of the journey wasn't any different. But there I had atleast someone to talk to. 3 years in the company gave me some friends, though at the price of wasting some of the prime years. So there I was sitting idle looking out at the green kerala tapestry when someone walked in.

She wasn't much of a beauty but I didn't care. It was not going to be a someone I'd be least interested sitting opposite me on this trip. Getting the side seat on train has it's advantages (though not much weighing the disadvantage of being cramped for sleeping space with my height). Once in a while you get someone interesting to chat up and side seats feels more like a personal area than the 6-seater berths. Back to her, it wasn't her look that made me notice her. There was this aura of ethereal swarming around her which made her look out of this world.  She seemed to be floating around on her tiptoes which carried her as fate would right opposite to me. "Should try to talk to her", I made a mental note.

An hour or two passed and she took out her dinner packet. I'd bought one one the way and took the cue that it's dinner time. Being the careless guy, I forgot to buy water. She kept her bottle on the table. Observing me eyeing it for some time, she offered the water. "Thanks", I said, putting out my hand to get the bottle and asked where she was going.
She replied "I'd been to Trivandrum for some work. Now I'm returning back to Bangalore. What about you?"
"I work in Bangalore too. I'm coming back from seeing my parents." and so the conversation began.

She, after completing her MBA is working as senior consultant in some "enterpreneurship promotion" department in her father's company. Couldn't make much out of it but it was something related with encouraging people setting up their own companies. Her father is a self made man, who now is the CEO of the million dollar company that he built up. She as a person was very warm and fun to talk with. In comparison to my pretty boring work, she scored a perfect ten. I caught her name in between the conversation - Claire Roy Tresa. People called her 'CRT', she joked. She wasn't an LCD flatscreen anyway. The two hours spent chatting fled by and it was time to sleep. As I tucked in, I couldn't resist taking a small peek down to her berth. She smiled back saying "Goodnight".

I overslept as usual. Anyway the train wasn't going to reach Bangalore till about noon. Then I noticed her berth was empty. Even the sheets had gone. At first I thought she may have gone somewhere, but as time passed I realised she must've got down at some place while I was sleeping. Felt kinda bad that I didn't get to say goodbye. I had to let it go. Anyway I'd to worry about getting to office in time so that I don't have to take full day leave.

Now I'm back in office the next day. Can't get Claire's image out of my mind. Maybe I could google and catch her on some social network. "Claire Roy Tresa", I typed and pressed the 'I'm feeling lucky' button. What appeared on the screen shocked me. It was a news article:

Claire Roy Tresa (26), daughter of Roy Cherian passed away in a train accident yesterday. She was returning from Trivandrum, where she went on a business trip. ...

The report continued. Then I noticed something: Published on 20th June, 2009!

Two much?

I've been wanting to write about the second semester in IISc for some weeks. I'm back home now and feel like writing about the city more than IISc. You always inherit something from your hometown. For me, Trivandrum has given the trait not to be in a hurry for doing anything in life. Like the slow calm pace of the city, I try to give everything it's own time. Sooner or later everything's bound to fall back in place. Now let me get back to the work at hand and hope I'll be able to jot down something about the second semster in IISc.

We'd feared the second semester more than the first. It was supposed to be the most strenuous times in our lives, with possibility of 4 or more mini-projects. Fearing this, none but the bravest dared to take more than 5 courses. Since I didn't have any hurry, I took 5 like most of my friends. Into the first month, we were surprised by the amount of free time we got. We even started doubting whether the seniors were joking.

It was cold in Bangalore. That was the first time I  got to spend a proper winter season. Back in Kerala we never have winter. It's either summer or rainy season. I liked waking around in warm clothes. Those leisure time never went to waste though. Our gang, Bach, Ak, Navy & Me spent many of our nights at Tea board, chatting about everything under the sun/moon. It was fun, something like all the museum sessions during B.Tech. The Tea board sessions continued throughout the sem, though in varying frequency depending on our workload. Navy discontinued the membership at Tea board as our return time started to extend past 2 am :-). Moving on to less fun and more work...

It was towards the end of February that we got the scent of what's coming up. Assigments started taking up more and more of our time in March. Come April we were deep into mini projects work. AVLSI mini project got over first. The project involved lots of sweeping and balancing acts (tech terms coined during those times). Lost interest in it towards the end, resulting in a sub-standard report after all the work we put in. Thankfully it got over much before the exams which started in mid April. The exams felt more like a disturbance than any tension. Most of us wanted it to get over as soon as possible so that we could get back to work on the mini-projects.

Working on mini-projects were exciting and exhausting at the same time. Working with Ak on ID-project was most fun due to it's nature and electronics hardware work involved. Processor Design project ate away half of my head, but felt satisfied once it was over. I left the work on Embedded Shell assignment halfway and made a short visit to homeland. Got back, the whole team worked overtime and the assignment somehow turned out fine eventually. We spent the whole night before submission in lab. Slept after having lunch the next day (At this point let me say that this must've been the 5th or 6th night-out to do assignment that month). So finally everything got over and we were officially free!

Short note on Mini project allocation without going into the details of what happened before that. Ak and Me are doing 'Self Driving Car'. Our project guide envisions a car driving by itself through IISc road. Somehow my eyesight's gone a little blurry there. Bach and Navy would be working on 'A non-802.11 wireless mesh network'. Lots of networking work there, I hope they don't get caught in it.

Homecoming

Reached home sweet home yesterday. Though it is not much of a homecoming for me because none of the usual residents are here. Miss ya.. mom and dad.. :-) Then there are some other things too that you realise you miss very much once you reach home. One such thing is the sound of ma Creative SBS.. Reminds me of all those days when I used to close the door, put it at full volume and simply enjoy the music. Next is the food. I'm not someone who gets high on culinary stuff. But lack of good food, or at many times the lack of any food gets me into a paranoia which can end only if i get some home made food on a proper dining table. Back here, that wish is granted too. Had been wishing to blog about this semester at IISc for so long.. Hoping to do something about it in next blog.