Came across a couple of very interesting posts on the anti-terrorist steps India should take by Prof. R. Vaidyanathan of IIMB.
Given that a nuclear war is not at all beneficial to us, screwing the already MASSIVELY screwed economy of Pakistan seems reasonable. Have no money, feed no terrorist will happen.
Here are the links:
8 things India Inc must do.

12 steps to shock and awe the Pak economy.

On a very personal note, I felt like someone got into my own home when those bastards did what they did. I've grown up seeing the very spots they hit and I'm sure anyone who grew up in Mumbai feels the same. I spent a good amount of time thinking of innovative ways to torture the one bastard who got caught. Had a discussion with Aseem on whether terrorists have religion.
His take was that religious sentiments made them do what they did and hence terrorists have religion.
I am no believer, but religion is essentially a human thing, and I refuse to accept terrorists as humans. They should not have any human rights and the bodies of the dead terrorists must be disposed of in the most disrespectful way possible. Also, make a video of the same and pass it to Al Jazeera...that should scare them all right.
India needs a strong anti-terror law, it needs good anti-terror organization and most of all it needs a Guantanamo Bay where to keep the terrorists. Maybe its time to get the Cellular Jail back to its 'infamous' glory.
The message ought to be clear..."You don't attack my home and get away with it."

I spent seven biblically-lean years in the physics department.
One friend spent ten.We both got out alive.
Some didn't. It wasn't long before we had all heard the legend about
the graduate student who had shot his PhD advisor. Several years ago I
read a New York Times article about two graduate students who committed
suicide while studying in the Harvard laboratory of Nobel Prizewinner
Professor E. J. Corey. In a subsequent letter to the Sunday New
York Times magazine of December 20, 1998, Linda Logdberg of Upper
Nyack, New York, wrote in to comment on life as graduate student:

. . . Perhaps even more now than then, graduate education is an
extended adolescence during which highly intelligent young
people see their world shrink to fit the dimensions of their advisor's laboratory. . . . With their identities bound to the outcome
of the thesis project, graduate students are socialized to view
other options (teaching, industry, even changing to another type
of work altogether) with contempt.Wanting a decent wage and
meaningful work that occupies, say, only 50 hours per week are
considered signs of selling out.

From, 'My Life as a Quant' by Emanuel Derman, PhD (Physics, Columbia) who headed
Goldman Sachs' Quantitative Strategies group.


At IISc, I met a few of ppl who reacted almost violently to the idea of going on to do a mgmt degree and to
the idea of wanting to make more money. I thought I knew what they were thinking and this describes what I thought I saw perfectly.

I knew then, as I know now...

A year ago, my throat sore with a horrible infection, my head spinning and stomach hurting from all the coughing, I said "I know". How wrong I was!! I didn't know anything, how my life would change, the experiences of the last year (happy and sad), decisions made and unmade and remade...the disappointments and the exultation of achievement, one thing has remained unchanged...in fact grown stronger.
My answer though, remains "I know".
And that I belonged to a stage in human evolution thats a step or two behind the rest of the world :P (this is what you call an 'inside' joke being made public).

I wonder why...

Went to the library at IIMA today...to borrow books from which I need to revise for placements.
The only thing that is on anyone's mind these days...placements. maybe next week the short quizzes might take our minds off it once in a while.
Browsed books on probability and time series analysis...borrowed a couple of books.
Wondered what I was doing here...I loved these things so much. Reminded myself that this was what I wanted to do and that finance was probably my best chance of actually working on these things.
Blogging more frequently these days...maybe more on the current affairs soon.

A little break...

A 3-day break from WIMWI...a hurriedly arranged, tremendously anticipated visit to Bangalore.
Wanting to fill as much in every day as we could...to meet as many people as I could.
Thesis accepted pending small corrections for the award of the MSc degree.
Had really good coffee after almost 40 days, walked at Sankey, roamed Malleshwaram.

Then something unexpected, unwanted, horrific.
Somethings change your life, your outlook towards life.
Make what is REALLY IMPORTANT very clear. This was one of them.

The Tenth Anniversary

10 years ago a phenomenon was born. How I managed to be unaware of it for so long is an absolute mystery to me.
On 4th September 1998, Gunda was released. We at IIMA had a special screening of this cult movie.
Jab Gunda dikha rahe hon...toh dekhna hi padta haiii!

KFC...

My plight for the last 10 days reminds me of the comment that got our US envoy into trouble:
"Running around like a headless chicken".
Haven't had much good rest all these days as I stare at the daunting task of surviving PGP-1 at IIMA.
Finishing the report...getting it printed...getting the relieving memo.
the vaccinations and hurried meeting nearest-and-dearest ones.
Being scared and tired and hurting to leave the place I have known as Home
and the place that was getting there...finally I had begun to be at home in IISc.
Next post...probably CC at IIMA.

Leaving on a Jet (Kingfisher) Plane

Flew back to Mumbai from Bengalooru on a Kingfisher flight and this was the one song playing
in my mind all the way through:

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go
There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I'll tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back I'll wear your wedding ring
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go
Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, oh, let me kiss you
And close your eyes and I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times that I won't have to say ...
Oh, kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go
And I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

Writer's Block

Been thinking will blog about something for a while...but ideas flit in and out of mind.
Haven't been able to write much...unless you count a thesis with a number of changes.

New Beginnings

Started 2 new blogs:
Blogger

WordPress

Hit them!!

The Eternal Truth

Hundreds of years before Billy Shakespeare wrote :
" To B or not to B":
the Great Aristotle uttered the greatest truth in the world:
"A is A".

And Ahmedabad is 53 meters (171 ft) above C level.

Converted the IIM A waitlist to confirmed admit.
YAY!!!

Results!!

A: Waitlisted 13, Not much scope.
B: Reject
C: Reject
I: Admit
K: Admit
L: Reject.

:((

Don't know what went wrong . Can't figure anything out right now.

Reservations redux

The Supreme Court upholds the reservations for OBCs...the timing is very interesting.
Less than a month to go for the Karnataka assembly elections, many more assembly elections to come and then the General Elections next year (unless they are held this year...Chidambaram is prepared for that possibility).

South and Reservations (rediff.com)
Read what this guy called Reuben Raj has to say:

"I got into medical college through the backward class quota. There should be reservation in the premier institutes.

The forward classes are more talented than us. You will find a lot of them in the premier institutes already. Here they score much higher marks than us. By the time I read two pages, they can read ten more pages. Their capacity to learn and understand is better than mine."
And this is why we need RESERVATIONS?? So the forward caste people who are better than them are denied while these buggers get admissions.

Nothing, absolutely nothing should cause someone with lower marks to get admissions over someone with higher marks. Reminds me repeatedly of the situation in Atlas Shrugged (referred to it in some previous post as well).

Scary...Reuben might be treating me or my family in some hospital.
As Pink Floyd said, "...Run Like Hell".

More to come as I gather more info and find more crap.

Change, anyone?

Change apparently is the only constant in life.
I somehow disagree. Look at the basic question in my life.

1995-96: To B or not to B?

1997-98: To B or not to B?

2000-01: To B or not to B?

2001-02: To B or not to B?

2004-05: To B or not to B?

2005-06: To B or not to B?

In between it varied a little to : To B or to B?
or to : To BE or not to BE?

2006-07: To B or not to B?

2007-08: To B or not to B?

The B's change...the question still remains.

Breathe...

Run, rabbit, run
Dig that hole, forget the sun,
And when at last the work is done
Don't sit down, its time to dig another one
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race toward an early grave.

Why do these words scare me everytime I hear them?
Why does my life seem like these words were written to describe it?
When is Enough well and truly ENOUGH?

Love in the form of Venn Diagram...CATegory theory

By the way who or what is Vanilla ice?
Will this lead to a CATaclysmic CATastrophe?
Hope not.

Interesting link (nerd alert level 5): http://xkcd.com/

PI is not equal to 3.1415926535....

Your head is spinning,
your heart is beating so hard it makes your head rock,
the guy who went in to your panel first comes out disoriented,
they ask radioactivity and SIDBI and flipflops and the migration of Jews to India and
poetry and Fundamental rights,
.
.
.
you take deep breaths and curse yourself for not revising these things,
you remind yourself that this is not Life and Death,
... but then what the hell ,
THESE ARE THE IIM INTERVIEWS.
And the cycle begins again.

Home,home again...

"Let's go home" he said and she was confused. What would she tell all those people she was responsible to. "Lets go home" he told her again...and she agreed. Together they flew to the place he called home. It was the best time he had had on a flight...and he had taken many.

They roamed the streets, unaware of anything else, blissfully lost in the experience of being with each other.He showed her around though she had seen it all. He was never so proud of the place he belonged to as when he was showing it to her. He saw the smile on her face, that innocent, beautiful smile which showed how much she loved him and was loving being with him.

His home had never seemed so beautiful to him as when he saw her eyes being laid on it.
He was reminded of the beautiful last line of a long forgotten poem.
"... where your heart finds peace, call it home."